Sir Edmund Hillary

Jan 14 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

HE WAS perhaps the first-living man to have touched Heaven, this beekeeper’s son with the broad smile and strong shoulders, who exemplified the qualities then expected of our heroes.

With his friend and Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, Edmund Hillary had reached the summit of Everest, viewing the world from frosted goggles at 29,029ft.

But, even as Norgay buried some biscuits and sweets in the snow as an offering to the gods, Hillary wondered about the pair who had trod the same way 19 years before them – George Mallory, the experienced climber, and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, 22, the comparative novice from Birkenhead.

Some believe that Mallory and Irvine had reached the summit and died in appalling weather on the descent. In 1999, an expedition found the well-preserved body of Mallory. But Hillary, a shy New Zealander and old boy of Auckland Grammar School, had found no trace of Mallory or Irvine.

News of the triumph, led by the Briton John Hunt, was broken in The Times of London on June 2, 1953, the morning of our Queen’s coronation.

The happy coincidence of the two events turned Hillary, whose family were of Yorkshire stock, into the man of the moment. He was knighted later in the year.

New Zealand was a cherished member of the British Commonwealth, which had developed from the old Empire. So he was seen very much as our own hero, whose exploits had brought new cheer to a land still gripped by the austerity of post-war rationing.

After the loss of colonies and our reduced status, as the USSR and the USA dominated the world, Britain was great again.

Hillary – “Ed” to his family and friends – was the son of the newspaperman, Percival Hillary, a rigid disciplinarian with high expectations of his son.

After leaving newspapers, Percival became a beekeeper, an occupation, which not only fascinated Ed, but enabled him to harden his muscles lugging about 90lb boxes of honeycombs.

Although it would be impossible to match his early triumph, Sir Edmund remained a great Arctic explorer and climber, as well as being a fine writer.

He was, however, dismayed in later life that Everest, whose pinnacle had taken him close to heaven, had almost become a tourist attraction.

A father of four, he was widowed in 1975, remarrying 14 years later.

Sir Edmund Hillary, climber; born July 20, 1919, died January 11, 2008.