March 10: On This Day in World History … briefly
Major Lindsay was killed, aged 34, in a skiing accident after being caught up in an avalanche on Gotschnagrat Mountain while accompanying Charles, Prince of Wales on a holiday in Klosters in Switzerland. His wife was heavily pregnant at the time and she subsequently gave birth to a daughter, Alice Rose Lyttelton Lindsay.
1988: Prince Charlie narrowly escapes killer avalanche
Prince Charles manages to avoid disaster on a skiing holiday in the Swiss Alps, when a freak avalanche swept off two members of his royal party – killing one of them. The dead man was Major Hugh Lindsay – a member of the royal household. Mrs Palmer-Tomkinson, a close friend of the heir to the British throne, was injured.
The prince had been enjoying skiing off-piste (‘Piste’ is the French word for groomed trail or slope. It has been adopted by North American skiers, and skiers in general, and most often combined with the word ‘off’ – as in ‘off-piste’ – to describe backcountry skiing, or skiing on ungroomed, unmarked terrain.) in an area where rescue teams would have had difficulty accessing. The prince was badly shaken after this close call.
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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