“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”

As a New Zealander, I feel quiet pride in the achievements of Sir Edmund Hillary, who along with Sherpa Tensing, conquered Mt Everest for the first time in history 29 may1953. When Sir Ed died in Jan 2008, by coincidence our family was holidaying at Waihi Beach in the Bay of Plenty of New Zealand, where Sir Ed kept a holiday home right on the beach. We went down to see where we might have met the Great Man in days gone by, and were touched by the sight of flowers placed on an old bench seat which he undoubtedly would have sat upon, at the edge of the unfenced lawn giving straight on to the beautiful ocean beach.

As I watched my two youngest daughters play happily on the beach, blissfully unaware of a real feeling of mourning gripping New Zealanders, my mind went back to two personal memories of meeting Sir Ed in the flesh. Even in a relatively small nation such as New Zealand, Joe Kiwi rarely bumps into a World Famous Person such as Sir Ed. The fact that he owned a bach (crib) near to my father’s small home town of Waihi, was a talking point in itself :o)

 I have always remembered the first sighting of  the Great Man (6ft5in) when I was boy. He must have been touring the country after the Everest expedition, and my father took me and my little brother Conal (good Irish name) to a tree planting in our local parish of Ranui. We came home with a photograph, and an autograph on a piece of paper, which survived for many years.

Fast forward to about 2005. Sir Edmund had lived an adventurous life, first man to the South Pole since Scott, Himalayan and Ganges-to-Sky expeditions, Himalayan Trust for building schools and hospitals in Nepal, family tragedy, missing the Erebus Crash, High Commissioner to India. I was on a plane to Dunedin to attend a Veterinary Conference, when I noticed the rear view of a distinctive head of bouffant grey hair a few seats up the aisle. I have a memory that never forgets a face, and in this case a hair-do ) I just knew it was Sir Ed. He was now well into his eighties, travelling economy on a small commercial flight, and when I saw him leaving the terminal, frail and slow with his wife at his side, my urge to say hello, and perhaps ask for another autograph, gave way to a feeling of respect for his privacy. It was enough to have seen him in the flesh, and remember the occasion to retell my children. 

Of course Sir Ed was always a humble hero, and called himself an ordinary man who had an extra-ordinary life – “You don’t have to be a fantastic hero to do certain things – to compete. You can be just an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated.       Sir Ed also alluded to the fact that as a youth he was told that he would never be any good at sport because of his build :o) - that was his motivation !!