Conquering the goddess of the sky

Seventy years ago, on the eve of the Queen’s coronation, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest. Octavia Pollock considers the legacy of their achievement and what it meant for British mountaineering

- Octavia Pollock

IN spring 1953, as the young Princess Elizabeth was preparing to receive the Crown of England, a British-backed team of mountaineers was reaching the crown of the world. The announcement that New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay had made the first successful recorded assault on Mount Everest arrived in Britain on the very morning of the coronation. The news rang out, cheering the spirits of the assembled crowds as the rain fell. Back on the mountain, the climbers tuned their radio to the events in London as they rested in their ice-bound tent.

Mountaineers had sought to reach the top of the world ever since it was identified by Indian mathematician Radhanath Sikdar in 1852, trigonometry producing a result only 27ft out: 29,0002ft (the 1955 survey placed it at 29,029ft). The peak was named Everest after the surveyor-general of India, Sir George Everest, albeit forever mispronounced—it should be Eee-ver-est. In Nepalese, it is Sagarmatha (Goddess of the Sky); in Tibetan, Chomolungma (Goddess Mother of the World). For those who lived in the mountain’s shadow, it inspired a mixture of respect and fear. Indeed, Norgay was unusual among his people for wanting to climb it at all. An ambitious young man with an infectious smile, he felt a magnetic pull to the slopes.

Fortunately for Norgay, the leader of the expedition in 1953 was Col John Hunt, an honest, fair officer felt it only right he should be given a chance to climb high, considering the help the Sherpas had given. He wrote in his The Ascent of Everest: ‘The story... is one of teamwork. If there is a deeper and more lasting message… I believe this to be the value of comradeship… regardless of race or creed.’