I publish this piece as a tribute to all of the modest men and women who reach their own summit ... that of surmounting the challenge to raise a family, survive the avalanche of MSM and governmental indoctrination and rise triumphant at the sunset hours and say, as Sir Edmund Hillary said " What a fortunate man I have been. "
To be able to say, as he said, " I have had much good fortune, a fair amount of success and a share of sorrow, too. Ever since I reached the summit of Everest … the media have classified me as a hero, but I have always recognised myself as being a person of modest abilities. My achievements have resulted from a goodly share of imagination and plenty of energy."
In many respects, to live a life well and know that we have scaled metaphoric mountains to arrive at the pinnacle of our personal mountain, is no small feat. Many have survived war. Too many have survived hardship. Hunger. Homelessness and or helplessness.
And you know what? We can all stand tall and know that a life worth living is a life worth having lived well.
He took Everest by foot; the world by storm; the South Pole by Massey Ferguson’, proclaimed banners advertising a 2002–03 museum exhibition on the life of Sir Edmund Hillary (1919–2008). The legendary mountaineer, adventurer and philanthropist – whose familiar, craggy face beams out from the $5 note – is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived.
His 1953 ascent of Mt Everest, the planet’s highest peak, with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay brought him worldwide fame – literally overnight. Dozens of daring adventures followed, including the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1957–58 and a 1977 jet-boat journey up the Ganges River. International lecture tours, books and television documentaries cemented Hillary’s status as a global celebrity.
Of greater significance, perhaps, was his humanitarian contribution to the Sherpa people of the Himalayas. For decades from the 1960s Hillary and supporters raised funds and built schools, hospitals and other facilities in the mountains. He also enjoyed a successful spell as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to India in the 1980s. Despite his remarkable achievements, and moments of personal tragedy, Ed Hillary is also remembered for his humility and generosity. The quiet Auckland bee-keeper who had stood on ‘the roof of the world’, as well as the North and South poles, seemed to be the quintessential down-to-earth Kiwi.
Sir Edmund Hillary died in Auckland on 11 January 2008, aged 88. He was farewelled at a state funeral and on 2 April Queen Elizabeth II hosted a special memorial service for Hillary at Windsor Castle, near London.
Edmund Percival Hillary was born in Auckland on 20 July 1919, the son of Percival and Gertrude Hillary. His mother was a teacher; his father published a Dargaville newspaper, the North Auckland Times. Ed had an older sister, June, and a younger brother, Rex. The family moved to South Auckland in 1920 when Percy, who had served at Gallipoli during the First World War, was allocated land near Tuakau. Percy used returned servicemen’s assistance to train as a beekeeper, and he also established a weekly newspaper, the Tuakau District News.
Ed was soon reading the ripping yarns of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rider Haggard and Zane Grey, and enjoying Saturday Westerns at the war memorial hall. He attended Tuakau Primary School and then Auckland Grammar, to which he commuted by daily train for more than three years. Ed was small and shy but gained confidence once boxing lessons enabled him to hold his own at school. Aged 16, he got his first taste of snow on a school trip to Mt Ruapehu. The same year the family moved to Auckland, and Percy founded a monthly magazine for bee-keepers, New Zealand Honeybee.
Ed studied mathematics and science at Auckland University College. He loved tramping much more than studying, and after two years he joined his brother Rex to help his father with bee-keeping. In 1939 he climbed his first peak, Mt Ollivier, near Mt Cook. The family became followers of Herbert Sutcliffe, the founder of a liberal Christian philosophy of physical, psychological and spiritual health, Radiant Living. Though he eventually lost interest, his involvement with Radiant Living gave young Ed confidence in public speaking and widened his intellectual horizons.
Pacifism was one of Sutcliffe’s key teachings. When the Second World War broke out Ed initially gained exemption from conscription because bee-keeping was a reserved occupation, but Rex spent four years in a detention camp as a conscientious objector. Ed eventually persuaded his father that he should be released for war service, and in 1944 he was called up for the Royal New Zealand Air Force.
Edmund Hillary, photographed at Delta Camp, near Blenheim, during his Second World War service with the Royal New Zealand Air Force
Training in Marlborough brought more challenging climbing opportunities. His posting to Fiji and the Solomon Islands as a flying boat navigator ended abruptly when he was severely burnt in a motor boat accident. He convalesced in the Southern Alps, finding a mentor in Harry Ayres, New Zealand’s outstanding climber of the period.
In 1948 Hillary made his first ascent of Mt Cook. Soon afterwards he took part in an epic five-day journey across the main divide, helping carry an injured climber to safety on the West Coast. In 1949 he accompanied his parents to England to attend his sister June’s wedding, and he found time to climb the 4158-metre-high Jungfrau in the Swiss Alps. In 1951 he took part in a New Zealand expedition to the Garhwal Himalaya, which climbed five peaks over 6000 metres high. The reward was two places in Eric Shipton’s British Everest Reconnaissance Expedition. When Ed and Earle Riddiford proved their worth, they were joined by George Lowe on the 1952 British Cho Oyu Expedition.
Hillary and Lowe were then invited to join John Hunt’s 1953 British Everest Expedition. On 29 May – four days before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II – the final pair, Hillary and the experienced Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, reached the summit of Mt Everest via the south face. They were the first men to stand on the ‘roof of the world’.
From the moment Hillary told Lowe that they had ‘knocked the bastard off’, his life was public property. Hillary was created KBE and fêted around the world. He married Louise Rose, a talented viola player, in Auckland on 3 September 1953, the bride’s 23rd birthday. They were to have three children: Peter (born 1954), Sarah (1956) and Belinda (1959).
Hillary led the New Zealand component of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1957–58, which was under the overall command of the British explorer Vivian Fuchs. The New Zealanders first set up Scott Base on the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. In October 1957, driving modified Ferguson farm tractors, they headed south to establish food and fuel depots for the British crossing party.
Then, against the instructions of the British Ross Sea Committee, they went 'hell-bent for the Pole – God willing and crevasses permitting'. On 4 January 1958, Hillary’s party became the first to reach the South Pole overland since Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated journey in 1912. Despite this success, he faced some criticism for allegedly putting adventure ahead of the expedition's scientific aims.
In the decade after his Everest ascent, Hillary published several best-selling accounts of his exploits, including High adventure (1955), East of Everest (with George Lowe, 1956), The crossing of Antarctica (with Vivian Fuchs, 1958) and No latitude for error (1961).
In 1960–61 Hillary led the Himalayan Scientific and Mountaineering Expedition, the main purpose of which was to study the effects of high altitude on the human body. An attempt to climb the 8340-metre-high Makalu without oxygen almost ended in disaster, and the expedition searched in vain for the fabled yeti, the abominable snowman.
More fruitfully, he helped build a school at Khumjung in the shadow of Everest. The work of the Himalayan Trust, established in 1964, became Hillary's greatest contribution to the region he loved. Over the next 30 years, with the help of hundreds of enthusiastic volunteers from New Zealand and other countries, the Trust built more than a dozen schools, two airfields, two hospitals and several medical clinics, as well as repairing monasteries, replacing bridges, installing water pipelines and undertaking numerous other projects. These efforts helped earn Hillary the title ‘Burra Sahib’ (big in heart) among the Sherpa people.
Through the 1960s and 1970s Ed Hillary’s life followed a familiar pattern of international travel, lecture tours and fund-raising for Sherpa projects, interspersed with expeditions in the Himalayas, Pacific, Antarctica and New Zealand. Sadly, there was also wrenching personal loss. On 31 March 1975, his wife, Louise, and youngest daughter, Belinda, were en route to Phaphlu, where Ed was helping build a hospital, when their small plane crashed on take-off at Kathmandu. Their deaths were a shattering blow.
In 1977, emerging from several years of despair, Hillary led Ocean to the Sky, an expedition to the source of India’s sacred Ganges River. Ed, his son, Peter, Graeme Dingle and others used New Zealand-made Hamilton jet boats to travel from the mouth of the river high up into the Himalayas through deep gorges and thunderous rapids.
And don't worry, Bruce - there is an article coming up about the marvellous jet boat.
The party’s subsequent climb to an unnamed peak, which they called Akash Parbat (Sky Peak), was achieved without Ed, who succumbed to altitude sickness and was evacuated with great difficulty.
Another bout of altitude sickness in 1981, during an attempt on the then unclimbed east face of Everest, forced Ed to accept that his ‘big mountain days were over’. His son, Peter, meanwhile, became an accomplished climber in his own right, taking part in numerous alpine and Antarctic expeditions; in 1990 (and again in 2003) he followed in his father’s footsteps by reaching the summit of Everest.
Tragedy struck again in 1979, when Hillary’s close friend Peter Mulgrew – a member of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1957–58 – was killed in the Erebus disaster. Both men had provided in-flight commentary on Air New Zealand’s popular sightseeing flights to Antarctica, which began in 1977. On 28 November 1979 Mulgrew was making his fourth flight over the ice when TE901 crashed into Mt Erebus, killing all 257 passengers and crew.
In the mid-1980s Hillary’s long association with the Indian subcontinent led to a new adventure. When the newly elected Labour government decided to reopen New Zealand’s High Commission in India, Prime Minister David Lange convinced Hillary to become High Commissioner (and Ambassador to Nepal). He arrived in New Delhi in February 1985, accompanied by June Mulgrew (Peter’s widow), with whom he had grown close. A household name in India, Hillary was an inspired choice. Despite his diplomatic duties, he still found time for the odd adventure, including a 1985 ski-plane trip to the North Pole with the former United States astronaut Neil Armstrong. He also attended Tenzing Norgay's funeral in 1986.
Following their return to New Zealand in July 1989, Ed and June married in Auckland on 30 November.
In 1987 Ed Hillary was among the first 20 people selected as members of the Order of New Zealand (ONZ), this country’s highest honour. In 1995 he was appointed to Britain’s oldest and highest order of chivalry, being made Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (KG). This order, founded in 1348, is limited to 26 living people (including the Queen and the Prince of Wales). Hillary's appointment was unique as he was the first non-Briton to be appointed KG for other than viceregal or political achievements.
In 1990 Hillary was one of four New Zealanders – and the only living person – selected to appear on the nation’s new banknotes. His weather-beaten smiling face is instantly recognisable on the $5 note, alongside images of Aoraki/Mt Cook and a Ferguson tractor.
He has also been commemorated in the names of various schools and organisations, including Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate (Otara), the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre (Tongariro National Park) and the Hillary Commission (now SPARC). The street outside the New Zealand High Commission in New Delhi was named in his honour. Other awards ranged from a medal produced by the Kathmandu Taxi Drivers’ Association to the Hubbard Medal of the United States National Geographical Society and the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.
The 50th anniversary of the Everest climb in 2003 brought further recognition, including honorary citizenship of Nepal, conferred at a special ceremony in Kathmandu, and the unveiling of a bronze statue outside The Hermitage, Mt Cook. More than 50,000 people in Auckland and 80,000 in America viewed a museum exhibition on Hillary’s life.
Hillary visited Scott Base, Antarctica, in 2004 and again in January 2007. On the latter occasion, despite frail health, he travelled with a delegation to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the base.
In 2008 New Zealand Post issued a Sir Edmund Hillary commemorative five-stamp series to honour his 'status and achievements as a New Zealand hero'.
Despite his remarkable achievements as a mountaineer, adventurer, diplomat and philanthropist, Ed Hillary is perhaps best remembered for his humility and generosity. His own assessment of his life on his 85th birthday was typically modest:
‘What a fortunate person I have been!’
With thanks to
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/edmund-hillary
https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/6h1/hillary-edmund-percival
Most of the words in this article are from these articles. The insertion and edits are mine.
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