After Everest Page 12

  The great friends, Ed and Tenzing Norgay, meet in Wellington in 1971. (Courtesy Alexander Turnbull Library)

  Ed (second left) with Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the Order of New Zealand in 1990. (Courtesy Alexander Turnbull Library)

  The hero returns. In 2003 Ed celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his and Tenzing Norgay’s Everest climb with a street march through Kathmandu.(Courtesy APN/Paul Estcourt)

  Ed received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Waikato with June by his side in 2006. (Courtesy APN/Sarah Ivey)

  Sarah and Peter Hillary at Middlemore Hospital where a ward was named after their father in 2010. (Courtesy APN/Greg Bowker)

  CHAPTER 10

  ANOTHER CHANCE

  Ed needed rescuing. Not from the bottom of a crevasse, the middle of a frozen waste or the top of a mountain—but from his deep pit of black despair. There had been encouraging signs that he was finally going to get over the loss of his wife and youngest daughter, but he couldn’t quite seem to cross the line. It was his good friend Peter Mulgrew’s widow, June, who would come to the rescue.

  Peter Mulgrew and Ed had ceased to be close in the years since Makalu. There were several points of contention: one was Mulgrew’s disappointment at being passed over for the Ganges trip; another was disagreement over the affairs of the Himalayan Trust. Disagreement over the Himalayan Trust would become an increasing feature of Hillary family affairs over the years.

  Mulgrew’s career had flourished—he had become general manager of industrial manufacturer Alex Harvey Industries, and a director of commercial giants such as AHI Aluminium and Comalco.

  According to Norm Hardie, who was also on the Trust, Mulgrew’s increasingly sharp commercial acumen, as he ascended the business ladder, led him to push for a more business-like management structure and record-keeping for the organisation. Ed, on the other hand, seems to have functioned on an ad hoc basis with the Trust, doing what was necessary to get the results he wanted and shunning what didn’t seem so important. It was what happened in Nepal that mattered, not what was kept in filing cabinets in Auckland. Mulgrew, possibly frustrated at Ed’s continuing inability to yield supremacy in any area where he faced competition, ultimately resigned from the board of the Trust.

  Sarah Hillary contends that the falling out with Mulgrew began after Louise and Belinda died. ‘I think it had something to do with paying for my airfare. There was a bit of a fight about that. I think it was that Peter had taken me to Nepal. For Ed this was really a terrible time and you can overreact. I think they had been really close friends until that point. They were both quite driven people and they both took offence. Ed wanted to pay him back, but he didn’t want Ed to pay him back.’

  Despite their personal differences, Mulgrew and Ed were taken on by Air New Zealand as guides when it began operating scenic flights to the Antarctic because they had both spent time on the frozen continent. The hero of the Race to the Pole and his doughty mate were perfect for the job, and they took turns going on the trips. Ed was down to be on Flight 901 on 29 November 1979 but had to reschedule. Mulgrew went in his place and was among the 257 passengers and crew who were killed instantly when their DC10 crashed into the side of Mt Erebus.

  Although June and Peter had drifted apart over time and were separated at the time of the crash, it was the most bleakly ironic of tragedies. Louise and Ed and Peter and June had been close friends for many years, sharing good times as a foursome, travelling in Nepal together and enjoying each other’s company back in Auckland. And now, two of the four had died in plane crashes that had a strong connection with Ed’s activities.

  It was natural—if misguided—for people to wonder if Ed felt some sort of guilt, given that his old friend had taken his place. Here he was, just dragging himself out of his depression and visited by another calamity.

  But the adventurer knew that chance holds all the cards in such cases. ‘I don’t think it would have remotely resembled the blame he would have laid on himself about Louise,’ says Mike Gill.

  Ed and June grew closer and eventually would marry.

  Inevitably Louise and June—both twelve years younger than Ed—would be compared. For some, their very friendship was an unlikely pairing.

  June’s forceful personality made a big impression on everyone who met her. She may have been the epitome of 1950s suburban domesticity in the early years of her marriage to Peter Mulgrew, but she showed enormous strength in nursing him through the twin traumas of amputation and drug addiction.

  Mike Gill describes Peter as ‘a hugely determined and tough man’ who could not be said to be ‘second to June’. He describes their relationship as being like ‘two rocks hitting against each other’. Gill remembers June in the early days as ‘a more compliant, more womanly sort of person, but she had a hard life’.

  Ed’s first wife had been courted by a slightly awkward adventurer on the way up. His second wife, June, would marry a man who was not only the country’s most respected citizen, but a world figure. She would need to be a strong personality in her own right for them to have anything like an equal relationship. Fortunately, June also shared Ed’s enthusiasm for things Nepalese. Twice a year, beginning in 1975, she led trekking parties to Nepal as well as to Kashmir—an activity that requires initiative and resourcefulness.

  Many observers describe June as a woman with a line-in-the-sand approach—a powerful person in her own right, very determined, strong-willed. ‘June is totally different from Aunt Louise,’ says Hilary Carlisle. ‘Aunt Louise came from the heart—she was heart based. I am not sure June is heart based; she is more head based. Louise would do things like include the family. [. . .] She and Ed were young adventurers together—it was an adventure love story. With June, the adventures were over, but it was actually maintaining and servicing the requirements of the adventurer.’

  ‘She can be very witty,’ says Sarah. ‘She is very funny; but the problem is she is very definite about things.’

  Peter, whose relationship with June would grow increasingly fraught, describes her as ‘very black and white’. And according to Tom Scott, ‘June is really intelligent and a lot of fun, but she can get things wrong and be difficult.’

  Climber and Trust member Murray Jones liked both Louise and June, but acknowledged their vastly different personalities. ‘If [ June] wanted something, she used to go for it in a very determined way. I have argued with her strenuously on many occasions. I have crossed her more than anyone else in this bloody world . . . She never approved of the way I dressed, because I am a real country boy. I am a Southern man who wears shorts everywhere and that’s not the done thing in Remuera.’

  Exactly when Ed and June might have developed the sort of friendship that can grow into a relationship and marriage is not clear, although it’s worth noting that June reminded the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly in 1985 that the magazine had been chasing the story for ‘about eight years’. With the trekking, June was ‘in Nepal once a year and then Kashmir in their summer, and so when Ed was in the Himalayas—because he’d go for six to eight weeks at a time—I’d see him and so it just wound up, I suppose’.

  A man in his late fifties seeking a wife looks for different qualities in a partner than a man in his thirties does. Before there could be any sort of relationship, Ed had to be in a fit state to have one, and June’s first job was to help him rekindle the joie de vivre that had always been a large part of his character—flipside to the melancholic tendencies—and that he still hadn’t quite regained.

  Hilary Carlisle, who describes June as focused and driven, says: ‘She chivvied Ed out of the darkness, which took quite a bit of effort and time. He wasn’t well. She provided him an infrastructure that enabled him to be out there in the public and raise money and keep work going for the Himalayan Trust and all the other things. He wouldn’t have been able to do it for so long without her. She was also younger than Ed, so she had a bit more energy. She was quite tenacious and she was the one that wou
ld jolly him along and say “Come on Ed let’s go for a walk.” ’

  ‘He was never easy going, so she certainly helped him out of it,’ says Mike Gill, who notes that June was a great support to Ed in his work as well as at home. ‘He needed a companion . . . He needed the emotional support, because Ed could do the organising himself but you can’t buy the emotional support.’

  ‘Ed would not have lived as long if it had not been for June,’ says Murray Jones. ‘June was always beside Ed, managing his affairs. The children weren’t.’

  This might be a strange comment to make about the dynamic between parent and child. People in their sixties don’t expect to depend on their children, and adult children don’t expect to have to provide the sort of emotional support for a middle-aged parent that a husband or wife would.

  Yet so many people put themselves out for Ed—inspired by his example or the desire to be near him, or because he exhorted them to do more than they thought possible—that the expectation arose that his children would do the same. And those who have that expectation make Ed’s mistake: he failed to note that Peter and Sarah were devastated by the loss of two people they loved, too.

  Whatever else may have been missing in their lives, Peter, Sarah and June weren’t short of people with opinions about how those lives should be conducted. The one person who could and should have expressed an opinion—Ed—appears not to have done so.

  June had her work cut out getting Ed back in shape—but she had done it before. ‘He was on heavy medication and she managed to wean him off that,’ says Murray Jones. ‘She managed him. While she was quite pushy, she made sure he got plenty of exercise and ate good food.’

  ‘It was certainly great she was there,’ says Sarah, ‘because I think Ed really needed to be in a relationship. He’d been married for so long and he felt tremendously lonely, so the house was like a museum. Everything was exactly where it had been. [There was] a friend who did the cleaning and every time we tried to move anything, she would move it back to exactly how it had been. It couldn’t go on forever like that.’

  The one person who doesn’t believe June was the crucial factor in Ed’s return to normal functioning is Peter. ‘I don’t think June brought him out of depression,’ he says. ‘I just think it took him fifteen years to climb out of depression. But he needed company . . . He needed to have a woman there, but I think it was a long hard road. I think the whole psychological business had to run its course and it was a very long, deep business for him.’

  Ed, who was not comfortable talking to any great extent about his feelings except in letters to one or two people—notably Louise when she was alive—described the burgeoning relationship with characteristic brevity in his writing.

  It’s often observed that having children is the hardest job most people will do in their lives. And for those who have had to parent other people’s children it can be even harder. The role of stepmother is a difficult one to fill, especially for a woman who is called upon to take the place of a much-loved mother. Some step-parents are accepted from the start. Some take a pace back and let a relationship evolve. Some never get a chance.

  As stepmothers go, the odds should have been in June’s favour. She didn’t come with a lot of the problems that are often present to sour the relationship. She was certainly no gold-digger in search of an income rather than a companion. Peter and Sarah were both in their mid twenties, so they didn’t need a new mum. And June already had two children—her daughters Robyn and Susan; she didn’t need a new family.

  A big problem for June, as far as fitting into the Hillary family went, was that she wasn’t Louise. ‘She said several times,’ says Tom Scott, ‘ “I get older every year—bits fall off. Louise is forever 44.” Louise got more and more sainted with every passing year.’

  Ed and June didn’t have the sort of blended family where the kids need to get on because they have to share rooms and there are fights over whether or not everyone goes to the same school. But it still had the potential to be a real family, if the work was put in and the will was there.

  However, tension and personality clashes, particularly between Peter and June, seem to have been part of the dynamic from the start. Peter is a man who feels things keenly. His stepmother keeps her own counsel. ‘June is closed and really unwilling to open herself up,’ says Mike Gill, who eventually fell out with her. ‘You just have to look from a distance and peer through cracks in the door.’

  Hilary Carlisle tried to keep a balance between the sides in what she says was a difficult relationship from the start. Her position was probably easier because ‘[ June] wasn’t my stepmother. I made it my business to get on with everyone and that’s my role in the family and I try to maintain it.’

  ‘I think she felt when she got married to Ed she didn’t necessarily want to like his friends,’ says Sarah. ‘But I guess that’s what happens when people get together—it’s a different dynamic. I wouldn’t say she disliked all of them, but there is a new dynamic going on; there are the complicated family relationships. It’s a tricky situation, so many things [have] changed.’

  Having initially resisted any suggestions they should marry before Ed took up his post as high commissioner in India, the pair did in fact wed in 1989. The ceremony was performed by an old friend, Auckland mayor and later governor-general Cath Tizard. ‘When she heard that I had said I was marrying Ed Hillary,’ Cath Tizard says, laughing, ‘June said, “I think I might be present too.” ’ The joke has become part of both the Tizard and Hillary families’ folklore.

  Ed told Peter by letter of his wedding plans.

  The ceremony was an informal affair at the Remuera Road home. Sarah describes it as a great celebration. Years later, both Sarah and Peter would note the contrast between this relatively relaxed event and the pomp and ceremony of Ed’s state funeral.

  ‘The wedding was funny,’ says Cath Tizard. ‘I think it was her family that said they ought to get married. I remember Ed saying, “I don’t know what we’re going through all this for. I thought we were perfectly all right the way we were,” and the family shouting him down: “Be quiet. Calm down.” He wasn’t upset; but if it had been up to him, it wouldn’t have happened.’

  Ed came to rely increasingly on June and she proved to be eminently reliable—a doting and devoted support in all sorts of ways. ‘In the space of about a year she decided to change his wardrobe,’ says Tom Scott. ‘Ed went from wearing old man’s clothing to wearing Rodd & Gunn-type sweatshirts. She sharpened him up. And she got his hair right. It was just starting to thin and recede, so she carefully plastered it. She made certain he shaved and the nasal hairs were attended to. Ed was just a mess, not looking after himself for the two years of grief.’

  ‘I always got the impression they were comfortable together and she was doing the right thing,’ says Pat Booth. ‘I couldn’t imagine Ed getting away with anything she disagreed with, without her telling him she disagreed.’

  ‘The age difference thing was very big,’ comments Mike Gill. ‘At 80 a lot of energy is drained away.’

  ‘He lost his hearing aid once when we were [in Nepal],’ says Tom Scott, ‘and June gave him bollocks. “They’re very expensive those hearing aids, Ed, very expensive.” “Sorry, June, it must be here somewhere.” And we turned the room upside down looking for it.’ ‘He loved someone caring for him,’ says Murray Jones. ‘He didn’t want to end up in an old people’s home. He said about Louise, he married a younger woman because she could look after him when he was older. But that’s not the real reason—the reason is he loved her.’

  Reporter Mark Sainsbury, filming a story on Ed in Nepal for the Holmes show, noted that he could look grumpy on occasion. ‘We also realised how important June Hillary was,’ says Sainsbury. ‘Once there was a school we were supposed to go to. “I’m tired,” said Ed. “No, Ed, you’ve got to go,” June said. She knew people had been sitting out in the sun waiting for him. He probably would have gone anyway, but she was good at keeping hi
m on track.’

  Ed himself described June as a very strong influence, ‘and particularly now in my ancient years there is no doubt at all: if there’s a decision to be made, quite often June is the one who makes it.’

  CHAPTER 11

  LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

  If Peter Hillary were anyone else’s son, he would almost certainly be regarded as one of the world’s great adventurers. Firsts include the first ski descent of Mt Aspiring; and the first high-altitude traverse of the Himalayas—a 50,000-kilometre trek from Kanchenjunga to K2, with Graeme Dingle. He has climbed the seven summits—the highest peaks on each continent—including Everest twice, in 1990 and 2002. He came close to death on K2; and survived a hellish journey on foot to the South Pole.

  Charismatic and passionate, he is a compelling speaker and an engaging writer with six books to his credit. He has a pilot’s licence and, in his mid fifties, still acts as a mountaineering guide from time to time on peaks as challenging as Mt Cook. And he is a mainstay of the Himalayan Trust, continuing Ed’s work in Nepal.

  And yet . . . there hovers about Peter the impression that he has spent his life trying, and failing, to measure up to his giant of a father. And no matter what Peter did, Ed appeared to remain unimpressed. The father was always polite in acknowledging his son’s achievements—just not very enthusiastic.

  There was a rare nod of approval for the record late in Ed’s life, when Peter made his second summit of Everest. ‘I think I felt more excited at that moment, and Peter felt more excited,’ Ed told the New Zealand Herald, ‘than I did when we made the first ascent of Everest nearly 50 years before. Peter climbed it for the second time. I’ve only done it once, I’m sorry to say. It was a good moment to have one’s son doing even better than I had before.’ Ed was 82 then and such effusive public praise—‘a good moment’—had been a long time coming.