Sir Edmund Hillary
Cover
‘I do like to sort of succeed’
by Maggie Barry
In declining health, yet passionate and insistent on being treated as a man – not an icon. This was Sir Edmund Hillary in late bloom.
On the slopes of Auckland’s affluent Remuera, a steep driveway leads to the unpretentious home where Sir Ed and Lady June Hillary created the welcoming and comfortable base camp where Sir Ed spent much of the past few years.
There, despite having just returned from what was to be his last trip to Nepal last year, and being laid low by the effects of altitude of the mountains he once scaled so effortlessly, Sir Ed put many thoughts on record in a five-hour conversation over two days.
He was much harder of hearing this time than when I’d last interviewed him. Then, talking about gardens, he’d been polite about the alpine blue poppies and rhododendrons, but they were a bit too far below the snow line to really excite his interest. Sir Ed saved his genuine enthusiasm for the “magnificent trees” that stood strong against an unrelenting climate. At his home, the overhanging presence of a mature cedar, reminiscent of the Himalayan ones, frames the view from his leather armchair by the fire, and the distant outline of Rangitoto is the closest to a mountain outlook.
Sporting his craggy smile and wearing his best jacket and tie for the occasion, Sir Ed relished the discussion of his adventures and achievements and was keen to talk “for the record”. That included who got to the summit of Everest first, and why he’d stayed silent about it for so long.
Although happy to talk about his work for the young of Nepal – he lit up when pointing out the framed picture on the living-room wall of a group of Nepalese children, now grandparents, who attended one of the schools he built there – Sir Ed was reluctant to speak about his own childhood. He long ago acknowledged that he was afraid of his father, and he talked in vivid detail of an incident one Christmas Day when he and his brother Rex were each given a second-hand tennis racquet. Their father, Percival, became enraged at what he believed was the boys’ “cavalier” playing and he smashed both racquets on the fence. He then took Edmund out to the woolshed for a thrashing. Even after 75 years, Ed was still strongly affected recounting such episodes. He asked that we not include much about his childhood. “My life,” he said, “really only began when I was 16.”
When he told me stories of the young, scrawny Ed being bullied (by teachers, pupils, train guards), his old jaw-jutting determination was there and it was evident that while some are broken by experiences of brutality, the young Edmund Hillary emerged stronger; childhood humiliations fuelling his determination to be the best.
He resolutely resisted the labels we’ve given him, of being an iconic, quintessential Kiwi, the greatest of his generation. He was the man who put New Zealand on the top of the world. But, until the last, Sir Ed’s focus was where it’s been for the past 55 years, fundraising for his beloved Nepal projects and the Antarctic huts, the legacies he wanted to be remembered for most.
In the annual Reader’s Digest poll, you topped the list of those whom New Zealanders most trust. What does it mean to you to have that sort of response?
I think it’s a lot of rubbish. The public attitude, although it’s very nice, isn’t very true. I mean, I’m a very, very modest person and with limited abilities. I do have the wish to succeed in anything I undertake, and that does help out, but, in general, there are so many other people who are skilled in their field that I feel very ordinary.
But you’re very skilled in your field. What are the strengths that you have as a New Zealander, as a mountaineer? What are the things that you pride yourself on having?
I think my strengths perhaps are that I’m determined. I may not be the best climber in the world, but I do like to sort of succeed and so that tends to drive me on, as it were, and I don’t give up too easily.
How was that determination forged in you? When I go back and read about your childhood, with your father and the upbringing you had, I wonder whether that was when you became the determined person you are today.
Well, he was very determined, my father. He had very strong views. He wasn’t actually an easy person to live with – but somehow we got along. You know I always refused to give in if there was some argument with my father. Whether it was true or not, I refused to admit it and so often I would – well, tell lies, perhaps. I would either do that or change the story. Particularly if I felt that my father was being unjust, then I was very strongly motivated to not accept his ruling.
In those days we were punished very frequently and I felt that it was often unjust, and so I would resist the desire to agree with many, many things. So I used to get beaten quite frequently and I more or less accepted it as part of life. Now in those days – this is a long time ago now – we were accustomed to being punished. I personally don’t think it’s a particularly good thing but –
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