Sir Edmund Hillary Dies At 88

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.'