New Youngest Brit' Up Everest

Like us you're probably vaguely aware that the youngest Brit to have climbed Everest was the curiously named Bear Grylls - which we always thought sounded like a takeaway for grizzlies - but not any more.

This May, one Oliver Burr snatched Bear's record by summiting the world's highest mountain at the age of 22, a year younger than Grylls when he set the record in 1998. In the process Burr, who was climbing with his father and another climbing partner, also set a record for the highest altitude reached by a British father and son partnership at 8500 metres, although the pair didn't summit together.

Even more remarkably, he somehow managed to climb the mountain as part of a 'work placement' while at university...

Oliver and Victor on the summit of Everest complete with their Ronald McDonald Children's Chairty Banner.

For Oliver it was a longheld ambition to climb the mountain. He started climbing while young in the Lakes, knocked off the Matterhorn as his first major alpine summit at the age of 13, summited Mont Blanc from the Italian side a year later and went on to climb in Kazakhstan - attempting 7010-metre 7010 m as part of a trip led by Simon Yates - he also climbed in Pakistan as part of a school expedition.

It was after the last trip that he went down with ME, which stopped him climbing and playing rugby for three years, though with specialist treatment and support he gradually beat the condition. Then, it says here, 'during his second year at university, after speaking to one of his course tutors, Oliver was told that, if he could come up with a business plan, he could turn his third year work placement year into an Everest expedition'.

To raise the £46,000 needed to get himself, his father and partner / guide Victor to Everest, he wrote to dozens of companies and eventually got support from McDonalds in exchange for publicising their charity RMCC (Ronald Mc Donalds Childrens Charity), which builds accommodation next to hospitals so that parents can live near to their sick/terminally-ill children.

A warm-up trip to Cho Oyu convinced the trio they could climb Everest after they turned back just short of the summit after acclimatising well and going strongly despite the ME lay off. The Everest attempt was complicated by bad weather and it was on his second summit try that Oliver and Victor finally reached the top. Oliver's dad had to turn back to Camp 2 due to exhaustion.

'He recalls that reaching the summit was a highly emotional experience. He and Victor held hands at the top, cried and proudly stuck their flag into the snow. Then Oliver radioed his dad, who was waiting at Camp 2 (6,400m). Oliver, who had recently lost his granddad, thought he could almost feel his presence next to him as he stood there proudly on the roof of the world.'

Oliver's next plans's are to gain a business studies degree, take up rock climbing, climb in Greenland and attempt the North Face of the Eiger.