Reputations - Hillary and Tenzing: Everest and After (1997)

[Music] this is london calling the british mount everest expedition here is the latest weather bulletin western disturbance apparently moving eastwards across nepal mount everest at 29 028 feet the highest point on earth 1953 it was thought to be an unassailable peak it wasn't just the gravity-defying climb of more than five miles straight up the daunted it was the barren deathly solitude of the place air too thin to breathe winds over 100 miles an hour temperatures plunging 60 degrees below zero and an approach pitted with avalanches crevasses and shifting glaciers while the world's other remote and uncharted regions were claimed by explorers everest alone remained in violet the final frontier of man's terrestrial adventures the germans used to call it the third pole like the north pole south pole and on the top of the world and that obviously held a magnetic attraction for all mountaineers many had tried to conquer everest none had succeeded until the day in may 1953 when a british expedition reached the summit against all odds to me it was the last great amateur sporting event in the world almost no one had industrial logos on all their clothing you hadn't got mega bucks running the thing uh it really was remarkably a beekeeper and a sherpa it couldn't have been better cast by hollywood or anyone else the beekeeper was a new zealander edmund hillary and the sherpa was tensing norgay on the face of it theirs was an untarnished triumph but beyond the himalayas hillary and tensing would encounter hazards every bit as treacherous as their journey up the slopes of everest for at the bottom of the mountain amidst the rejoicing controversy and discord lurked hillary and tensing would be changed forever and all because they climbed a mountain [Music] [Music] mount everest stands in the himalayan mountain range to the north of india between nepal and tibet a region dominated by the british in the days of empire everest was traditionally considered british property its very name came from a british surveyor george everest who first measured the world's highest mountain the british had had you might say almost cell rights to the mountain from the days of british india and uh some dozen expeditions had tried and unfailed british mountaineering had been important symbol of british manliness and british power since the mid 19th century at least it was the symbol of how these men could conquer a mount put their feet on the top and claim it as their own absolute crest the pinnacle of the world and we know no more about it than we do at the moment the last mystery blacker inevitable are you on for a really first-class show the ambition of conquest which drove the british was not shared by those who lived at the foot of the mountain the sherpa people were the indigenous inhabitants of the himalayas british expeditions recruited the sherpas to guide them through the perilous journey to everest and to carry heavy loads the sherpas called the mountain chomulongma the goddess mother of the earth to them it was a sacred place held in reverence and all [Music] i restock but in the 1930s a sherpa emerged who was different from the others tenzing norgay was born in nepal in the shadow of the himalayas as a young man he ran away from home and arrived in darjeeling in northeast india this was the place where the british recruited their porters for expeditions many sherpas had gone there to make a living from portering tenzing went there with another ambition to get to the summit himself in 1935 tensing with one of the porters recruited in our dealing to accompany the expedition and he was then our youngest sherpa just 21. and he acted as my personal servant um on all three expeditions in the 30s in the end i think tensing became very keen to get to top of everest he wanted to be like his sibes but tensing's climbing opportunities with the british were limited in the 1930s the sherpas were porters and servants the serious climbing and the attempts on the summit itself were strictly for the sahebs people who were porters sherpas were in a sense coolies they were a rather high class coulee and they didn't expect themselves to have any better treatment than an ordinary indian servant would have for tensing the opportunity to be taken seriously as a climber would come as a result of the sweeping political changes in the himalayan region after world war ii in 1947 the british pulled out of india ending their dominance of the area three years later tibet the traditional route to mount everest was invaded by communist china and its borders sealed the only other way to reach everest was through nepal its borders had been closed to foreigners for hundreds of years but in 1950 nepal opened its frontiers for the first time foreign in 1952 raymond lombard led a swiss expedition to everest they were the first non-british climbers to attempt the mountain they were also the first to give a climbing opportunity to one of their sherpas the swiss broke a big barrier by making tenzing an official member of the expedition and then a wonderful relationship developed between raymond lambert and and tensing [Music] la di ferros [Music] to the swiss attempt was the making of tenzing's reputation as a climber together with lambert tenzing made an assault on the summit itself [Music] just 800 feet from the top they were forced back by a snowstorm no one had ever got closer in britain the news of lambert and tensing's heroic attempt was received with some concern the mountain the british regarded as their property had almost been conquered by another country worse still the french would be mounting an expedition in 1954 but the british had booked the mountain for 1953 convinced this would be their last chance to conquer everest britain's two major climbing organizations the royal geographical society and the alpine club joined forces to organize an expedition colonel john hunt a serving army officer was chosen to lead the competition aspect was giving grave concern so i i went at the problem if you like from a military background quite certain that the one rather simple objective was to get to the top john hunt's plan was to break everest down in stages a series of support camps would be built along the face of the mountain forming a massive pyramid of human effort which would the british hoped hoist one pair of climbers onto the summit itself no effort was spared the most advanced british technology was employed nothing was left to chance in february of 1953 the british expedition set sail for everest full of confidence there was major charles wiley a gurkha officer george band a cambridge student mike westmacott an oxford student michael ward the team doctor griffith pugh the physiologist wilfred noyce a school master tom bordillon a research scientist charles evans a surgeon and elf gregory a blackpool travel agent in india the nine british climbers met up with two new zealanders george lowe a teacher and edmund hillary immediately distinguished by his choice of headwear they'd wanted a good sun hat when he went to everest and they weren't available in the shops and we didn't have the money to go and buy uh these sort of things anyhow and so my wife at the time made him a hat out of my pajama material he was very tough bit of a rough diamond he'd been to university i think for about a year but uh felt that a year was enough probably and he had an unusual business with his brother uh keeping bees professionally developing you know 15 20 tons of honey a year and luckily the season of the year when the bees go to sleep coincided with the new zealand and the himalayan climbing season at that stage of his life there are only two things that understood him and that was beekeeping and climbing it would be the challenge of climbing the dad loved i think he loved the solitude he loved the mountains he tended to be in a way a bit of a loner hillary had become well known in british climbing circles accompanying several british expeditions to the himalayas in the 1940s and 50s he had earned a reputation as an athletic climber but more importantly a determined one the word ruthless has been used to me by several people sometimes unquotably but yes i think he's certainly single-minded and i think when he sets his mind on things it achieves them i think he'd had a touch of ruthlessness in them he knew very well that if he got the chance he was going to have a jolly good go at that peak he's very strong on um on his desire to get to everest the final climber to join the team was tenzing norgay the british felt they needed tensing because of his accomplishments with the swiss the previous year he'd now been on everest more times than any other climber in the world but tensing himself had some doubts about joining the british is [Music] once he had decided to return to everest with the british tenzing resolved that this time he would reach the summit whatever the cost [Music] before going he wanted an assurance from me this time if i go to everest i will either do it or die i will never come back unsuccessful but in case of my death will look after my family so i gave them this solemn assurance the changing if i get a morsel of food to eat your family would go uns starved i will look to your family so if these assyrians left darjeeling [Music] tenzing traveled to kathmandu ahead of the british team when he reported to the british embassy his initial reservations were immediately borne out when tensing first arrived with some of the sherpas he was sent by the embassy british embassy staff to occupy one of the ordinary rooms in what was known as the lines where the porters and other people would sleep by that time tensing had a status which was rather higher than that would imply and he was offended by that but of course that was not the doing of the expedition which hadn't arrived it was the doing of the embassy staff who quite frankly couldn't be expected to know any better at that point but that was something he might have resented and i think probably did resent but there was no outward sign of resentment when tensing greeted the rest of the team in kathmandu and colonel hunt quickly made it clear that tensing was to be nothing less than a full member of the climbing team i put him in a different category from the very moment we met i asked him to join the climbing team knowing his background we were very lucky just to have this one man he was ambitious no question about that as a mountaineer we knew that of all the members of the expedition he had been higher on everest than anybody else in fact he really held the altitude record in the world and so he had a great standing with us i think we all had an extremely high regard for him he hadn't had any conventional education um spoke a little bit of english in those days but he was very much a sort of nature's gentleman and uh and and a wonderful smile and uh you know very nice person all together however despite full recognition as a climber tenzing was also appointed serdar the chief of the sherpa porters tenzing had been a serdar before but now that he was a climber his dual role brought problems [Music] his his role was a difficult one because he was the mediator between the british and the sherpas there were disputes over equipment over levels of pay he says in his autobiography that both the british and his fellow sherpas thought that he was working on behalf of the other side i felt like the middle of a sandwich pressed between two slabs of bread and the sherpas seemed to think i was being paid big money by the british to argue against them while the sherpas saw him as a lackey of the british the british sometimes doubted his ability to maintain discipline over their employees tensing was a good side though they're not not a politically strong one people did accuse him of being too kind to his fellow porters sometimes i think my own personal relations with the british were quite satisfactory colonel hunt was a fine man and all the others were pleasant and concentrate to me but there was not the informal easy comradeship there had been with the swiss i did not share a tent with one of them as i had with lombard and there was not much joking and horseplay between us it's perfectly true that um this was new to the indian and himalayan scene i think they they didn't have this background of empire and the sherpas were treated much more whether they were carrying loads or climbing with them were treated on a more friendly equal basis than perhaps we did and i trade this as a product of our the indian raj [Music] it took 16 days to climb up the foothills of the himalayas and reach the foot of everest there base camp was established now began the arduous task of setting up a series of smaller camps that would take them step by step towards the summit but the going was tough technology and planning alone wouldn't get them to the top ultimately everything rested on human endeavor it was now the tensing standing with his fellow sherpas was to be tested by a major crisis [Music] there were grave anxieties as we got nearer to the top we were having great trouble in preparing a route making a way up the big four thousand foot uh steep ice slope known as the let's say face and i sent two groups of sherpas up to the halfway point where we had a camp [Music] [Music] [Music] here they were unable to go any further they couldn't be persuaded to do the fast the last 2000 feet to the south car and at that point i really felt we must do something drastic and so i asked ed hillary and tensing if they'd go up and in particular tensing persuade the sherpas to go on and do the last lap and carry those vital 900 pounds of stores onto the south car and the next morning the relief when we saw the whole 17 sherpas i think it was getting very very slowly to honor to climb the upper slopes and reach the south car and that was entirely because of attending leadership and tensing persuasive power on his own people they respected him enormously with the expedition now within striking distance of the summit itself colonel hunt had to choose the two men who would make the final assault he opted for hillary and tensing there was very little doubt among the party that those two men ed hillary and tensing were the two with the greatest chance of making it the two strongest so i don't think there was much quarrel with john's selection even though everybody else would have liked to have a chance hunt's concern was to choose the two men best qualified for the task but he was also motivated by a broader vision for the expedition as something more than just a british triumph i wasn't the slightest bit concerned about which representatives of which nationality got to the top as between new zealanders and british and so on but i i had a great desire to see a nepali in sherpa on the summit given the enormous contribution that the serpent people have made to all the expeditions since the attempt on every started hillary and tensing and a support party which included hillary's friend george lowe established a camp 1100 feet from the summit for the final assault hillary and tensing would be on their own on the morning of the 29th of may tensing's 39th birthday they set off for the top i remember the day very vividly they left early in the morning and i knew they're on their way and i saw them go over the south summit and then they were out of my sight it would be ten long hours before george lowe saw them again among the snowy hums i kept wondering is the next the last one finally we reached the place where we could see past the hums we could see the sun we stepped up we were there the dream had come true i was too tired and too conscious of the long way down to safety really to feel any great elation i turned and looked at tensing i held out my hand and in silence we shook in good anglo-saxon fashion but this was not enough for tensing i vade my arms in the air and then threw them around hillary at that moment for which i had waited all my life my mountain did not seem to me a lifeless thing of ice and rock but warm and friendly and living i gave my thanks i am grateful it was now that a picture was taken that would come to define the conquest of everest tensing on the summit but there was to be no picture of hillary i didn't worry about getting tensing to take a photograph of me as far as i knew he had never taken a photograph before and the summit of everest was hardly the place to show him how after just 10 minutes on the roof of the world the two began their journey down but before leaving hillary had an urgent call of nature to attend to coming down has as much stress quality and problems is going up you've also got a problem with getting rid of a lot of moisture and to actually relieve himself and actually pee on the summit and was a good point as far as he was concerned when they reappeared on the south summit early in the afternoon i felt certain that that made it and i met them about 200 yards away from the tents and i went down on my knee and was filling the thermos flask of edd a drink which they were very clean keen to have and it made his famous remark well we knocked the bastard off and that was you know said in a sort of amazement you know me and hillary we've got there hillary and tensing each expressed very different sentiments about reaching the summit tensing at the top made an offering and said a prayer i am grateful chomulung hillary returned and told his friend lo that we knocked the bastard off what's remarkable is not that these two views were different the world is full of such differences opinion what's truly remarkable is that they each felt this way about the same mountain and managed to climb it together meanwhile hunt and the rest of the expedition waited anxiously further down the mountain the morning of the 30th of may we were waiting for news and they appeared over the crest of the car ed hillary did practically all the talking tensing seemed to me to be much more quietly happy about it than ed uh one rather touching thing was when tensing was received by the other sherpas who um almost bowed their heads to him and they welcomed him in a very quiet way and they're obviously proud of him only [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] the news reached britain on the eve of coronation day described by the press as a coronation gift to her majesty the conquest of everest was perceived as another great british achievement the genealogy if you like of the incentive responsible 90 british i suppose though when i say british it's not basically domestic english when you think of a new zealand beekeeper and a sherpa but i think that's a nice picture of what the empire and its uh victorian heyday was about it was about bp beekeepers and sherpas it was not redcoats marching over battlefields really far more sympathetic than that much nicer picture i liked it meanwhile back in nepal the weary party made their way down the mountain they had no idea of the excitement their achievement had generated the first taste of what was in store came with news brought by a runner that edmund hillary was to receive a knighthood [Music] we were walking out from everest when we received the letter i'm saying mr edmund hillary kbe knight of the british empire and he said someone's having an ugly joke aren't they he really did not believe it he almost thought that in the early stages i've been refusing it but i suppose by the time he had got out of nepal and that took some weeks to walk out and through india i suppose he got a bit used to the idea but hillary's knighthood would be quickly overshadowed the spotlight of worldwide interest is focused for the moment on kathmandu the capital of nepal kathmandu awaits the conquerors of everest when they got to kathmandu the climbers would be amazed by the public reaction which awaited them [Music] [Applause] we were greeted in the outskirts of the capital kathmandu by the royal coach and four horses tenzing and i and hillary were stowed into the coach and as we went along we were shared with flowers until we were inundated we were invisible except for tensing standing receiving the greetings he had a seat of honour at the top they were shouting tenzing sindaba tenzing zindaba long live tensing it was extraordinary it was quickly becoming clear that the nepalese had seized on one man alone as the conqueror of everest tensing we sent a wave of you know spontaneous jubilation the whole atmosphere was charged with enthusiasm that of course well we did not know what is mountain getting we did not know what it was actually but everywhere there was singing and dancing to worship a door to just welcome the hero of the everest [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] over our heads were triumphal arches uh with legends you know conquering carers and pictures of tensing on the summit hauling up an apparently unconscious hillary kathmandu was now full of images of tensing at the top of the mountain bolstered by the evidence of the famous summit photo the assumption had taken hold that tensing got there first the times special correspondent in kathmandu expressed outrage [Music] many are now implying that this final victory was tensing's alone that he cut a route blazed the trail and finally hauled hillary to the summit on a rope nothing could be further from the truth tensing was employed by the expedition as a serdar it was hillary who led the rope to the summit only two people really knew who got there first and they were keeping silent on the issue a decision endorsed by the whole team we had agreed amongst ourselves that we would never say who reached the summit first it was climbed together and you cannot climb it without combining and having a teamwork to get together we never asked him either of them who did get to the top first we didn't know and didn't want to know because mountaineers see the arriving on the summit of a mountain is a joint effort you're on a rope and who's in front and who isn't doesn't matter it was totally against john hunt's concept of togetherness the idea of one of the east and one of the west would help to cement and people were immediately trying to destroy that cement that was an ugly part and we were all upset by that the expedition member with most reason to be upset was edmund hillary i remember him telling me at the time of you know driving through with these great banners up welcoming uh tensing the first man to climb everest and with drawings of them of tensing at the top and him dangling off a rope somewhere down the slope would be very difficult to take and of one huge function in which tenzin got an uproarious reception as the first man to climb everest and then as an afterthought it was introduced perhaps we'd also like to hear from the second man to climb the mountain and um he says how he could he actually hear his footsteps as he walked across to the microphone dead silence well that must have been very hard to take as tensing fever mounted the expedition's refusal to say who got to the top first inflamed the controversy convinced that the british were hiding the truth and denying tensing his due the nepalese press were now primed to pounce john hunt gave a press conference and he was asked whether he considered tensing a great mountaineer and john very honest chap said yes he's a great mountaineer but of course you can't compare him with the with the great alpinists very technical climbing and of course the press rushed across to tenzing and said john hunt says you're not a good mountaineer and poor tenzing sort of was bewildered by this he said well has anybody else been on everest seven times which is true as you can imagine i was very disappointed that it turned out that way but at the time we had to contend with that on top of our great weariness and all the glorification and um on us that were being just bestowed upon us it was a very difficult and exhausting time [Applause] [Music] at the center of the whirlwind was tensing norgay illiterate and unused to any sort of publicity tensing now found himself the focus of the most intense national pride he even received death threats from nepalese angered by his refusal to say that he got to the top first others favored more devious tactics a group of newsman from india got a a piece of paper to tensing which asked him for his signature and on the piece of paper when he got the set piece of paper and they got his signature they shouted excitement we've got it we've got it and it said i reached the summit first tensing and then they went off with that now he went into tears about that he came and he said to charles wiley who was really interpreting and staying with him he said i i there are many bad men in the world and i just do not know it's not you know i am very upset by this and he said i wished i'd never climbed everest john hunt now decided enough was enough he called a press conference at which a carefully worded statement was issued jointly signed by hillary and tensing it read as we climbed to the summit first one then the other would take a turn at leading we reached the summit almost together the phrasing which formally gave tensing a status equal to hillary defuse the situation for the moment the statement made that the two step there simultaneously that was what you know resolve the controversy and that's what's on record and in retrospect it looks at other silly controversy as to what different does it make who stepped as long as both of them were there but at that time it was a highly emotive issue it was with some relief that the british party including tensing left nepal to begin their journey back to britain their route would take them next to india before the climb they'd pass through india virtually unnoticed their return would be very different later they flew to new delhi where a huge throng almost mobbed them and their plane on the wellington airfield here again it was tenzing who was the focus of attention tensing had lived in darjeeling in northeast india for over 20 years and he was now claimed as india's national hero tensing became a focus of national pride that someone from among us has done something which was until recently considered only a white man's kind of pastime it was only five years since india had gained its independence from britain and indians readily identified with tensing's rise from porter to clima [Music] tensing was a symbol of the fact that here is a person who is humble more or less illiterate who has been a in a servant position and yet he is able to accomplish as an equal of hillary so there was the feeling that we indians can now accomplish anything we can conquer everest we can develop we can become a superpower we can do whatever we set out to to do or achieve but for tensing being a symbol of india's national pride brought new problems they focused very simply on the question of his own national identity there was a crisis for tensing because the nepalese said he's nepalese the indians said he's an indian and they asked him what are you are you a nepalese or are you an indian and he said i was born in nepal my heart is in nepal i live in india now that was a masterly reply but from an honest man and yet they still kept on the indians said it's you know it's an indian triumph the nepalese said tensing zindabar when he left for england with the rest of the expedition two weeks later tensing traveled with two passports one nepalese and one indian [Music] at london airport colonel hunt and sherpa tensing were the first to be greeted by sir edwin herbert himalayan society president and brigadier head war secondary when the expedition returned to london tenzing was to some extent the center of attention he was someone who people had not seen before he was different he spoke english not very well and so people wanted to see what this man was like and now uh we want viewers to meet tenzing first of all a lot of english-wise would like me to ask him what what what does his wife think about all this going off in the mountains well he says that his his children and his mother and actually his wife too are not too keen on it for obvious reasons in conjunction with the queen's garden party at buckingham palace her majesty held an investiture at which colonel sir john hunt and sir edmund hillary seen here driving in received their knighthoods sherpa tensing was awarded the george medal came with his wife and two daughters the award of a george medal for tensing a far lesser honor than a knighthood prompted accusations of unfairness from some but tensing himself gave no indication of being offended in fact his main concern seemed to be avoiding contentious issues altogether when tensing nokia was asked how he felt his cheery answers had to be interpreted he was often asked how it felt when he reached the summit of everest and he said he was very happy he was very happy and in fact an indian interviewer asked him well in these earlier interviews you've said you were happy but how did you really feel when you got there to the to the summit and tenzing said you felt good and that interview felt good yes felt good we'd attempted the climb many times and we'd finally made it that was in fact how tensing sincerely felt about the ascent he appears to just wanted to climb the mountain that he wanted to reject the political implications that were put upon his achievement by others for the most part tensing stay in england afforded him a welcome respite from controversy before returning home [Music] in october a feature-length documentary of the climb the conquest of everest opened in london now edmund hillary was the center of attention tiger tensing was back in his own country but fellow conqueror sir edmund hillary was there hillary was under the spotlight in london but that was nothing compared to the homecoming he would shortly receive when he returned to new zealand auckland sees the end of an epic journey to and from the top of the world and a crowd of thousands waits to welcome new zealand's heroes from aboard the soul and flying boat sir edmund hillary and george lowe emerged to report all as well they came off this it was sort of a pontoon you know with a flying boat and he were members of the alpine club with their ice axes to form an arch and there were streamers and and there was just a complete uproar and of course eden and george lay were quite overwhelmed by it because they hadn't expected anything like it it was that he's sort of gawky and shy and most naive and george though was being all supportive and it really was it was a wonderful occasion it was sort of there was a villagey quality about it and in terms of scale to the size of the city i don't think there's been anything quite like it since my bar the beatles they weren't local fellow alchemists and many others struggled with footholds ed said that the reception that he had from the public of auckland uh he found the most frightening and the most it's sort of emotional of all all the others you know it's those people all out there but the reception in auckland really moved him this was not the civic welcome but a truly spontaneous greeting by his admirers and friends all the excuse they needed was they were fellow new zealanders i think it was one of those things which proves to new zealanders that we could do more than simply produce butter and cheese and play rugby even the physique of him at that time angular tall shy rather naive seem to fit the whole picture of the farmer who comes off the farm be it a bee farm or whatever it is and climbs everywhere it's just in the process of a day's work the typical kiwi joker what do you consider with the highlights of your trip to everest well i suppose the main highlights were the actual bits on the mountain itself while hillary adjusted to his newfound celebrity in new zealand tensing was finding that his status as a symbol of indian national pride was to be cemented by the friendship of india's president nehru nehru cranked it up in a big way he was a man of the mountains a lover of the mountains his writings are full of it and while being so deeply in love with the mountains himself nehru was also painfully aware that indians as a people weren't mountain loving that they lacked the spirit of adventure and he seized upon this conquest of everest and the personality of tensing as one way of galvanizing india behind adventure behind mountaineering behind doing things as spectacular as the conquest amidst much publicity nehru opened the himalayan mountaineering institute located in tenzing's adopted town of darjeeling it was a showcase training school which nehru proclaimed would produce a thousand tensings tenzing himself was appointed chief instructor a job nehru promised him for life he was very very popular from his house he would leave for our institute which was about four or five kilometers away on the way he'd be signing giving autographs to young people it is the style of living he wanted to live more like the western mountaineers he had in fact bought four cars and his style of dressing was marvelous nehru started telling us that younger generations should learn tensing is your role model and a lot of youngsters fell in love with them in platonics out of way so he was a kind of michael jackson of his period it was not only tensing's lifestyle that was elevated by his newfound status the sherpa people previously regarded as a race of porters were now able to work as climbing instructors tourist guides and even professional mountaineers in their own right [Music] but despite his status as the greatest sherpa of all time tenzing never climbed everest again though he trained many climbers to make their own attempts he was never asked to accompany them on their expeditions in contrast hillary embarked on a life of international adventure scaling other himalayan peaks and completing an historic crossing of the south pole five men three tractors and their fuel that's how the new zealand antarctic team led by edmund hillary reached the south pole at the same time as their lives moved apart the very achievement which had brought hillary and tensing together became a cause of public disagreement between them in the official account of the final assault on everest published in 1953 hillary appeared to belittle tensing's abilities as a climber we reached the foot of the most formidable looking problem on the ridge it was a rock step some 40 feet high despite the considerable effort involved my progress or low slow was steady until i could finally drag myself onto a wide ledge i took a firm stance on the ledge and signaled to tensing to come on up as i heaved hard on the rope tensing wriggled his way up the crack and finally collapsed exhausted at the top like a giant fish and it has just been hauled from the sea when tenzing published his autobiography some months later his unhappiness with hillary's account was apparent i must be honest and say that i do not feel hillary's account is wholly accurate he gives the impression that it was only he who really climbed it on his own and that he practically pulled me so that i finally collapsed exhausted at the top like a giant fish since then i have had plenty about that fish and i admit i do not like it for the plain truth is that no one hold or pull me up the gap i climbed it myself just as hillary had done we were not leader and lead we were partners in laying out his version of the final assault tensing also confronted the question that had taken on such a huge significance who really got to the top first until this point he along with the rest of the team had kept silent on the subject but he was finally persuaded to break his silence by his friend and collaborator rabindranath mitra chandling said i am not going to change my decision when we sign an agreement that we climb simultaneously i must stick to that i told tensing say well someday you will die hilary will die but our future generation will say that well they climbed the top of the verse but never they spoke the truth because in mountaineering nobody mountain can go simultaneously one has to follow the another and you leave it to me i will narrate in such a way it does not reflected in this credit on your part so he agreed all over the world i am asked who got there first very well now they will know the truth a little below the summit hillary and i stopped we looked up i was not thinking of first or second i did not say to myself there is a golden apple up there i will push hillary aside and run for it hillary stepped on top first i stepped up after him if it is a discredit to me that i was a step behind hillary then i must live with that discredit but i do not think it was that tensing had finally put an end to the relentless speculation that had dogged him and hillary ever since the climb but there would always be a distance between the two men there were occasional meetings and tensing actually came to new zealand at one stage and and he stayed with the hillaries and it was all very cordial but there wasn't that great warmth that you would feel of two people had shared some tremendous personal and physical experience and even when you talk to your head about it you don't feel that that warmth there's a a rather one-step back attitude in any with time he discusses tensing in their involvement in some ways it was a disappointment to tensing i think that he felt a lot closer to lambert the swiss climber and i think tensing was always disappointed that somehow he didn't pick up that same relationship with ed hillary's life continued to be one of adventure and celebrity sir edmund hillary conqueror of everest takes a lift to scale new york's mighty empire state building recognize the driver his everest conqueror sir edmund hillary trying the new rover with his wife and sir edmund hillary is here to perform the official opening skiers climbers and visitors flock around to see what happens next i think that it catapulted him out of this basic simple lifestyle into something that i'm not quite sure whether he's always enjoyed but i think he's made excellent use of it as the years went by hillary returned increasingly to nepal where he became absorbed in programs of fundraising and building work for sherpa communities in 1975 tragedy struck when his wife and daughter were killed in a plane crash while flying out to join him in nepal devastated hillary immersed himself in his building work work made increasingly difficult by bouts of altitude sickness i think all these things have affected him i think that he's nowhere near the laid-back simple guy he was understandably the loss of his wife louise and his daughter in the plane crash in the himalayas obviously changed him he has not been a well man for some time i mean i was astounded to see movies of him actually moving around kathmandu with an oxygen mask on and somebody carrying a tube of oxygen you know just this is a relatively low altitude so obviously he is quite a victim of altitude sickness today hillary still lives in new zealand and despite his ill health he continues his close connections with the himalayas [Music] tenzing's life was increasingly one of personal unhappiness in 1976 he had been forced to retire from the himalayan mountaineering institute the job to which he had been devoted for 22 years and which nehru had promised him for life with no pension tenzing took work as a tourist guide his morale and his health declined rapidly towards the end and when i'm talking about the end not so long before he died he was becoming an unhappy man and i met him by chance in china in chengdu when i was out there with a parliamentary delegation we met absolutely by chance he with a group of american tourists and myself and my parliamentary colleagues and we fell on each other's necks in the in the dining room on the whole all the guests got up and cheered for a moment we were so supremely happy to meet again but then he he he told me privately that he was he was having i think trouble with his wife because he was never at home and he was getting very tired of it all i always feel sad that he ended up that way what he felt lonely about is he didn't get any good friends around him that was what i uh last time he came to see me i found that he was liking good friends so the last word he told me two months before his death he came to see me the mr babu i have never forgotten you i never forgot you in my life and that's all right tenzin so this is the last time i met him he was sad in his heart [Music] tenzing died in may 1986. he received a huge state funeral in darjeeling he was honored as a national hero in india in nepal as the greatest chirper who ever lived he was laid to rest at the himalayan mountaineering institute where a shrine has been made of his grave everest after hillary and tensing has lost none of its magnetic attraction this year more than a hundred people are expected to reach the summit but the two men who got there on may the 29th 1953 are the ones who will always be remembered they were very different men before everest they continued to be very different afterwards perhaps all they really had in common were the ten minutes they spent together on the roof of the

Channel: snowymatrix thru-walker

Views: 40,183

Keywords: everest documentary, everest documental, full documentary, Hillary and Tenzing, Everest and After, Reputations: Hillary and Tenzing - Everest and After (1997), summit fever, snowy matrix, snowymatrix thru-walker, reputations, everest 1953 documentary, tenzing norgay, Edmund Hillary, everest documentary 1997

Id: fJdeC6FIK0s

Length: 57min 56sec (3476 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021