After Everest

by Paul Little

  Ed might not have been in control of his lungs at high altitude, but he still decided who told his stories and how. For the 40th anniversary of the ascent, Pat Booth was approached by a publisher to write a biography of Ed. Booth, of course, had been there at the start, although this was news to the publishers when he told them. In fact, in the interim Ed had invited Booth to go along on the Makalu attempt, but the Press Association had decided it was too expensive. He described it as ‘the best story I never wrote’.

  Booth’s biggest challenge with the new project was Ed himself, who ‘proved more difficult than one could imagine’. Booth rang Ed and explained he had been commissioned to do a book.

  ‘I can’t see much point in it,’ said Ed. ‘I write my own books.’

  ‘Well, can I come and have a talk to you, anyway?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Whenever suits you?’

  ‘How about 3 o’clock tomorrow?’

  The next day, at the appointed hour, Booth knocked on the front door and found himself being regarded with as much enthusiasm as a Jehovah’s Witness.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Pat Booth.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The book.’

  ‘Oh, oh. Well, you’d better come in.’

  Ed was intransigent in his unwillingness to cooperate.

  ‘Would you be prepared to look at the manuscript after I’ve finished?’

  ‘No. Don’t want anything to do with it.’

  With Ed out of the picture, there was no question of June being involved, and Peter and Sarah said no. Fortunately many friends, acquaintances and other family members made themselves available and Booth produced a sterling tome, Edmund Hillary: The Life of a Legend.

  One of his sources was George Lowe, who provided some colourful memories. Booth says he later heard that Ed had challenged Lowe over some of the statements he made in the book, but Lowe reportedly rejected Ed’s claim, saying: ‘I never saw him. I never met him in my life.’

  Ed did form close relationships with two biographers. The first was Tom Scott—cartoonist, writer and (some 20 years before he and Ed met) a fellow bête noire of PM Rob Muldoon. This could well have predisposed Ed to like Scott. Scott lists some other factors that may have helped the bond: ‘No garbage. Hadn’t climbed with him. Hadn’t seen his aggression or ambition, or seen him grief-stricken. Sainsbury and I were clean and a lot younger and good humoured.’

  The two first met when Ed was addressing a dinner in Canberra. Scott was brought on to introduce him and was inspired to make one of his better speeches, which in turn brought out something in Ed. ‘When I sat down,’ says Scott, ‘his eyes sparkled and he said, “I’ll have to lift my game. That was pretty good.” I thought, “Oh, you are competitive.” But he did give one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard him give.’

  The two shared a few whiskies and lunch the next day.

  ‘How come no one’s made a movie of your life?’ Scott asked.

  ‘Oh, the right person hasn’t asked.’

  ‘I’d love to write it,’ said Scott.

  ‘You are the right person,’ said Ed.

  ‘Think about that. You’ve drunk a lot of whisky. I’ll give you a call in January.’

  But it was Ed who rang Scott, inviting him to Nepal on the trip that Sainsbury covered. Scott ultimately produced the four-part documentary on Ed’s life, Hillary: A View from the Top.

  The body charged with providing funds to bring New Zealanders’ own stories to air—NZ On Air—had its doubts about the documentary; they wondered if Ed Hillary’s life was interesting enough. So Ed, Scott and a representative of the TV network fronted to answer this simple question. ‘I think it’s been reasonably interesting,’ said Ed. ‘Tom would know more about that.’ Somehow the writer talked up his project enough to get funding; and there turned out to be more than enough content.

  Unusually for someone so jealous of his own story, Ed gave Scott complete freedom and access when making the documentary, even declining the opportunity for a preview. ‘No, I’ll watch it like everyone else.’

  The documentary was finished in 1997. Scott had worked on it over six years and four visits to Nepal. ‘Just after finishing the documentary Ed said, “I want you to write my biography. You know more about me than I know about myself.” ’

  Scott suggested they write the book together. Ed’s memory had undergone the normal wear and tear over the years; while an update to his 1975 memoir, Nothing Venture, Nothing Win, was long overdue, now almost 25 years later, this time he would need some help.

  ‘I’ve just finished the documentary, Ed. I’m buggered.’

  ‘If I can do it at 78,’ said Ed, ‘I think you can do it.’

  Scott had no option. ‘Suddenly I had Ed the taskmaster. He was writing chapters and sending them to me and he left all sorts of stuff out. I’d read his first book and all the National Geographic interviews at the time [of Everest]. What he said in interviews sometimes was much more expressive than when he was writing.’ Scott pointed out some omissions to Ed, who replied: ‘Oh well—you have a go at those and put it back in.’

  Scott wrote up a few chapters, sent them off and hadn’t had a response by the time he and Ed appeared on a radio program together—each in a different city—to promote the documentary.

  ‘Ed’s still on the line,’ said the producer when the interview was over. ‘He wants a word with you.’

  ‘Gidday, Ed.’

  ‘I’m not sure about this. I’ve read your stuff.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘It’s too good.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks, Ed.’

  ‘No. It’s too good.’

  ‘What’s the . . .’

  ‘You’re a better writer than me. I don’t write like that. It doesn’t sound like me. I don’t want you to write any more. Just supply me with the stuff I’ve forgotten and I’ll put it in my own words.’

  The result, View from the Summit, shows signs of different hands at work, with much of Scott’s early chapters intact, and many of his reminders incorporated into the text as he had supplied them. As well as the updated material, some of Nothing Venture, Nothing Win has been rewritten, while there are whole sections from the earlier book carried across.

  From Scott’s point of view, Ed’s decision ‘meant the book I would have written myself has now been done. I can’t ever write a book about the climb, because I’ve written it already. I thought, “shit—he’s still competitive.” ’

  Yet another anniversary piqued media interest as 2003 approached—it would be half a century since Ed and Tenzing Norgay got to the top. Among those to whom Ed gave interviews was John Martin Meek, a US writer and mountaineering enthusiast who flew to Auckland to record a video interview for the American Alpine Club. His interview showed that, despite the passage of half a century, Ed in some ways had got no further than when he started.

  ‘Sir Edward,’ Meek began.

  ‘It’s Edmund,’ the great man corrected.

  Meek recalls: ‘I told him if he could please excuse me—I of course knew his name and blamed it on jetlag.’ As if he hadn’t done enough to risk offending Ed, Meek then asked: ‘Sir Edmund . . . Has anyone ever questioned you about proof you were the first on Everest? Because I have done a lot of research, and so far as I can find there is no photograph of you up there.’

  Ed—and June, who made lunch—were patient and polite. Finally, the interview complete, the Hillarys showed Meek how things were done in New Zealand. When he asked if June could call him a cab, she insisted on driving him back to the B&B where he was staying. Meek was so stunned he took a photo of June in the car, as if he might need proof such a thing had happened.

  The last volume of biography with which Ed was personally connected was Sir Edmund Hillary: An Extraordinary Life, by Alexa Johnston. Billed as ‘the authorised biography’ and providing a thorough, careful recording, this could claim to be definitive, so far as describing Ed’s achievements was concerned.
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br />   Johnston had come to know Ed as the ultimate ordinary bloke. A colleague of Sarah’s at the Auckland City Art Gallery (as it then was), she met him in the most Kiwi of ways—borrowing a piece of garden equipment, a roller she needed to flatten some lawn. In 2003 she curated the wildly successful exhibition, Sir Edmund Hillary: Everest and Beyond, showcasing Ed’s entire career. It included photographs, relics such as the Everest ice axe, one of the South Pole Massey Fergusons, replica Sherpa buildings, Ed’s Order of the Garter and a plethora of other material. The exhibition toured to the US, Australia and Japan.

  ‘I’d never been skiing,’ says Johnston, of her qualifications for organising a show about Ed; but Peter and Sarah wanted the show to be put together by someone they knew and could talk to about it. She spent a lot of time at the Hillary home, trawling through the mountain of material that Ed had amassed and uncovering numerous forgotten items that rounded out the exhibition.

  Johnston knew Ed was given to real slumps throughout his life, but found the elderly version anything but cantankerous or moody. ‘It was endearing for an octogenarian to be still enjoying things.’

  In the wake of the exhibition, a colleague asked Johnston when she was going to do the book. ‘The thing that decided me to do it,’ says Johnston, ‘was the visitors book from the exhibition . . . there were all these unbelievable comments. People saying things like, “This makes me proud to be a New Zealander”; “It’s incredible”; “I’m off to buy his autobiography”. There was no catalogue—we hadn’t had time. So I thought I’d try to do a book of the exhibition and went to see him.’

  ‘Ed, I thought I’d like to do an illustrated book,’ Johnston told him.

  ‘I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have write a book about me,’ said Ed.

  Only later, long after she had sent her proposal to various publishers, did Johnston learn that Ed had turned down such eminences as professional biographer and historian Michael King.

  ‘I think I got though the back door by doing the exhibition,’ says Johnston. ‘It was going through all that material, looking at all the slides and finding so many he had forgotten about and, in a sense, bringing his life back to him again. He said, “I want to thank you for the way you’ve dealt in the book with June and Louise,” because this is the thing he was constantly struggling with.’

  CHAPTER 16

  A VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT

  As a consequence of living so long, Ed gave more than the usual number of retrospective, valedictory interviews and was subjected to more than the usual number of tributes. Having achieved so much in his early thirties meant that 50-year anniversaries rolled around regularly when he was in his eighties.

  If anything could trigger one of his despondent periods, it was a bout of bad health. His health was erratic at best, and dismal when he spent time at high altitudes—something he persisted in doing far past the stage where it was comfortable. But given the problems he had had over the years—the stroke, the altitude sickness, malaria, to name a few—he kept in remarkably good health until not long before his death. He got tired. He forgot things. He had the problems anyone in their eighties is likely to have; but, because he was Ed, people found these everyday things to be noteworthy.

  ‘Dad was in his seventies and although he was reasonably fit he actually went downhill pretty rapidly after that as a lot of people in their seventies do,’ says Peter. ‘He became isolated; he wasn’t doing all the big stuff anymore. There was still a lot of interest in him because he was this huge personality who had this huge life, and they travelled extensively. But it wasn’t doing the big expeditions and it wasn’t doing the actual buildings—it was like social engagements.’

  Ed said he never stopped dreaming of adventures. ‘I’m past carrying out some of the wishes that I would have wanted to do before,’ he told the Listener, ‘but I still dream about what I would like to do if I was able to do so. You know, I’m nearly 88 and so obviously I’m a little bit on the limited side as far as carrying out exciting moments. But I still dream about them; I still spend quite a lot of time thinking about how I would like to do this or that.’

  ‘He had a punishing schedule,’ says Sarah. ‘Tom Scott went on one of his tours and he couldn’t believe the pace of the interviews, the lectures—it was pretty gruelling.’

  Scott became friendly with Ed late in Ed’s life, and he joked that, if they had met any earlier, they wouldn’t have got to know each other at all because Scott wouldn’t have been able to keep up with Ed.

  Even the social engagements were planned like mini missions. ‘He just had his systems,’ says Peter. ‘Even after the interviews and the dinners and he’d given the speech, he’d sign a few things, he’d say “hello” to a few people and then bang—he’d be gone. At 9.30 he’d be gone. Everyone would carry on, but he’d go to bed and the next day is another day. The systems enabled him to deal with quite a gruelling schedule.’

  Nothing happened to improve relations between the various branches of the family. Hilary Carlisle says Ed was aware of the problem, but wouldn’t deal with it.

  ‘June is a different sort of person to what I would normally mix with,’ says Peter. ‘So, as so many families around this country would testify, you are there because of the relationship you have with him—not with them but with him. So you know everyone does their best, but sometimes there were good times and sometimes it was more stressful. I think it is not dissimilar to a lot of families. Unfortunately, if anything happened, it would be on the front page.’

  It was never a chore for Ed to visit one of the Poles. In 1985 he was invited to the North Pole on a two-week visit in the company of Neil Armstrong, with whom he was often compared. As Peter tells the story, he and his father were having a cup of tea at the Remuera house when Ed said, ‘Would you like to go to the North Pole?’ Yes, he would.

  The trip was an extraordinary gathering that also included the balloonist and adventurer Steve Fossett. Peter, who was in some awe at being in Armstrong’s presence, and all too aware of what his father had endured over the years, fought the temptation to ask, ‘What was it like on the moon?’

  Peter told ABC Radio his father and the astronaut had amazing conversations, and eventually Armstrong began to talk about the lunar expedition, including the last-minute recalculations that had to be made to ensure a successful landing.

  Armstrong, like Ed, had often said he was just in the right place at the right time—next on the list. Ruthless ambition had nothing to do with it. Having seen them up close, Peter concluded that both had made sure they were in the right place at the right time.

  Both, of course, also uttered lines that went down in history. Ed himself practised a mild form of revisionism in later life when he supplemented the ‘bastard’ quip by saying to interviewers that he liked to think, not that he had conquered Everest, but that Everest had ‘relented’. It was a much more carefully crafted, statesman-like and sententious response than the words he uttered at the time.

  Ed continued his regular trips to Nepal, including the 1991 visit when he developed a severe case of altitude sickness. As Mark Sainsbury observed, Ed knew the score. Travelling at high altitudes was a calculated risk—or, more accurately, a miscalculated risk; but in 1991 he made a rapid recovery and gave the only explanation an adventurer could be expected to give: ‘I have the alternative of lolling on a sun-drenched beach—something I find exceptionally boring—or going off to the Himalayas and meeting friends I’ve known for years and doing something which may have a slight risk, but which for me is very exciting.’

  The older you get, the more funerals you go to. Ed attended the obsequies for his old opponent Rob Muldoon when he died in 1992, and even shed a few tears. ‘I cry easily,’ he told an interviewer. ‘I wasn’t one of Sir Robert’s greatest supporters by any means, but there was something about him I had to admire all the same.’

  Ed’s admiration for David Lange was never in doubt, and when Lange died, Naomi Lange remembers Ed as a conspic
uous figure among many notable New Zealanders at the memorial service: ‘I was talking to Sir Ed while we waited for the service to start. [. . .] I think he was always the same with people—although of immense stature, he was able to put people at their ease by the way he spoke.’

  In 1993 Ed travelled to Everest to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the expedition with the surviving team members. Tom Scott was there too. ‘They were all up on stage,’ says Scott. ‘It was a bit like a Last Supper. All these old wizened men and one fairly erect and silver-haired—this Colin Meads figure towering over them all. He looked indefatigable and like, with a bit of training, he could do it again. They had their reunion photos and the Poms all had their Everest-issue jackets, which they had kept because they were historic. But Ed—and this is proof of his lack of historical vanity—had long since lost his. He had worn it beekeeping and it had disintegrated years ago.’ The other team members’ jackets looked as though they had been stored in archival conditions. Ed had to borrow one to wear for a staged photo with John Hunt.

  The old imperial/colonial divisions could still be seen. ‘The Poms had regulation army camps, with tents perfectly aligned and structured with their hierarchy,’ says Sainsbury. ‘The Kiwis were off to one side, a bit more ramshackle. The Poms had a mess tent and would dress up. Each side was totally different.’

  Old political faux pas dogged Ed into his eighth decade. Tom Scott suggested to National Party Prime Minister Jim Bolger that a 40th anniversary dinner should be held in New Zealand as well. Bolger, citing Ed’s Citizens for Rowling involvement, turned him down. However, Deputy Prime Minister Don McKinnon was more amenable to the suggestion and a dinner adequate to the occasion was held. Ken Richardson, who had shepherded Ed into his appearance on This is Your Life, was a frequent visitor to the house. Sometimes he would visit with Cath Tizard; other times on his own.

  ‘People knew I had befriended Ed,’ says Richardson, ‘so they asked me to take books to be signed and I took one myself, which he would happily sign. On another occasion I had another book and I told June I would leave it in the letterbox. She phoned me and said “We are going to London for the Garter ceremony.” I said “Okay.” She said “I will leave it in the letterbox and if you are coming past you can collect it.” So I did. There was another inscription and two of the five-dollar notes that have his face on, which he’d signed for me. That was quite moving for me.’