Geoff Pitchford

Although born in India, Geoff Pitchford was brought up in Tunbridge Wells and was the son of a modern-languages teacher at the town’s Skinners’ School. Pitchford was educated in Switzerland where he rowed competitively in the summer and skied, and played ice hockey, in the winter months. When the Suez Canal Crisis flared up in 1956, Pritchard joined the British Army Intelligence Unit, and when it was discovered he was a talented skier he was chosen to represent the Intelligence Corps in Military Ski Races.

Like his father, Pitchford also became a schoolmaster. He was also a top-class alpine skier and joined the British ski team in December 1959 before going to the 1960 Squaw Valley Winter Olympics, where he finished 40th, out of 63 starters, in the downhill event. After the Olympics, Pitchford emigrated to the United States before obtaining US Naturalisation. He died in his adopted home, in New Hampshire, in 2021 at the age of 85.