The world was recently saddened to hear the news of Sir Edmund Hillary at the age of 88. It is not really a ‘tragedy’ as such when someone who has led a full and interesting life dies at such an age, I mean it is a feat in itself to live so long, but you have to admit that there are some people who should have the right to live forever. People like Sir Edmund Hillary will do just that despite the fact he is gone physically.

But you cannnot speak about Sir Edmund without speaking about Tenzing Norgay at the same time. The man was as fascinating as his start to life on earth was.

Tenzing came from a peasant family from Khumbu in Nepal, very near Mount Everest, which the Sherpas call Chomolungma. His exact date of birth is not known, but he knew it was in late May by the weather and the crops. After his ascent of Everest on 29 May, he decided to celebrate his birthday on that day thereafter. And he so rightly deserved to.

Tenzing took part as a high-altitude porter in three official British attempts to climb Everest from the northern Tibetan side in the 1930s.

He also took part in other climbs in various parts of the Indian subcontinent, and for a time in the early 1940s he lived in what is now Pakistan; he said that the most difficult climb he ever took part in was on Nanda Devi East, where a number of people were killed. But it is his feat of amazing courage in May 1953 for which he will always be remembered when he and Hillary became the first people to set foot on the summit of Mt Everest. It was widely acknowledged that Hillary reached the tip first but also just as widely known that Tenzing was the first to set his foot on that snowy peak. Whoever it was this was a team effort by two inspiring men, neither could have achieved this without the other.

Tenzing Norgay died in 1986 in India at the age of 71. He and Edmund Hillary remained friends to the end.