The eruption of Mount Asama, Japan, 1930

One of Ernest Pickering’s most evocative newspaper articles was ‘Sunrise and an Eruption: An Adventure in Japan’, which was published in the Manchester Guardian on 19 September 1930 as ‘From a correspondent’. The piece recounts how the author and his son Denis, on holiday in the resort of Karuizawa, set out to climb the active, but generally dormant, volcano Mount Asama, in order to witness the sunrise. All went well until they were briefly caught in an unexpected eruption as they were about to make the final ascent. I have added a few footnotes to explain quotations.