Sir Edmund Hillary, along with Tenzing Norgay, the first
man to climb Mount Everest has died in New Zealand at the age of
88.
We're not going to give a potted history of his life, there's
plenty of that out there already, but that in itself tells you all
you need to know. Millions of people with no interest in
mountaineering know who he was and what he achieved.
The great thing about Hillary, a straightforward bee keeper from
New Zealand, was that he used the fame generated by his ascent of the
world's highest mountain for the greater good. In particular he
worked consistently to improve the lot of the Sherpas with a
particular emphasis on building schools and hospitals in the Khumbu
region.
He also consistently queried the direction of modern
mountaineering ethics and in particular the commercialisation of the
mountain which made him famouse.
In his obituary
in today's Guardian newspaper, Jim Perrin sums him up like this:
'Ed Hillary will certainly not be remembered as having been among
the front rank of technical innovators in the sport of
mountaineering. His was more nearly a case of the right man being in
the right place at the right time.
'But the vigour and boldness with which he seized that
opportunity, and the altruistic use to which he put his subsequent
celebrity are worthy of the highest respect. He could be brusque,
tendentious and dismissive, but he was also kindly, direct, and both
decent and incorruptible to a degree seldom found among those of
great fame.'
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Craig Porter
