Alison Hargreaves
Mountaineer’s parents grieve for children’s loss
The Independent
Katie Ballard – Alison Hargreaves’s four-year-old daughter – still does not know that her mother died climbing K2, the world’s most dangerous mountain, her grieving grandparents said yesterday.
Joyce and John Hargreaves broke down in tears at the news conference organised by their son-in-law, Jim Ballard, at a ski centre 700 metres up Aonach Mr in the shadow of Ben Nevis in the Highlands yesterday.
The couple who travelled from Derbyshire to be with their grandchildren were told that their 33-year-old daughter had finally been confirmed dead this weekend. “Katie just thinks she is lost, she doesn’t know her mummy is dead,” Mr Hargreaves said. The grandparents admitted that they do not wish Katie and Tom, six, to travel to see the peak where their mother died.