Lowe George - Letters from Everest

Jan Morris

In two senses these memorable letters come, as they say, from the heart. They come from the true heart of a twenty-nine-year-old New Zealander, writing from distant parts to the ones he loved at home. And they come from the conceptual heart of a famous adventure.

In a way those hearts were shared, anyway. George Lowe was a mountaineer of classic stature, straight as they come, indefatigable, unselfish, fine at the long haul and the apparently insoluble obstacle. The adventure was the British Everest Expedition of 1953, the very first to reach the top of the world, and its style, like his, was traditionally dogged, decent and sensible.

Many thousands of words have been written about that expedition in the sixty years since then, but nobody has recalled the emotions of the experience so intimately as George does in these always vivid, often touching letters from Everest. They were written on the spot, at the moment, and sent to his sister Betty in New Zealand for distribution among their family. He writes about matters petty and monumental, comical and disturbing, frivolous and fateful, about oxygen rates and tinned peas and friendships and perilous crevasses, all with the same frankness and homely clarity. So he elevates a terrific experience to the level of ordinary human understanding.

The world was to grow familiar with the names of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the two who reached the top of the mountain, and of John Hunt the leader who got them there. Lowe was to remain more private, but he was essential to the character and success of the venture. There was no phase of the expedition in which he did not play a vital part, spending long periods at extreme heights, ready to turn his hand at any task, step in at any emergency and tackle the most demanding stages of the route. Hillary, his life-long friend, said afterwards that if Lowe had been in the summit party he would certainly have got to the top, and anyone who reads these letters will have no doubt about it, either. No sense of disappointment or irony weakens them. George enjoyed himself on Everest, and what he told his Betty was all honest, all happy, and all true.

His attitudes exactly mirrored those of the expedition itself, which remains as admirable an exploit as it seemed in 1953. A few petty disputes tarnished its reputation for a time who got to the top first? why wasnt Tenzing knighted like Hillary? and several thousand men and women have climbed Everest since. To my mind, though, there was something essentially decent about John Hunts expedition, something almost innocent to its triumph, that has made its memory affectionately cherished to this day.

History has helped. Halfway through the twentieth century the British nation was approaching the end of its career as a great world power signing off, though its people did not always recognize it, after so many victories, such grand tragedies and accomplishments. As it happened in that very year a new young Queen of England was about to succeed to the throne, and visionaries hoped that her accession might mark a sort of rebirth, the start of a new Elizabethan age.

On 2 June 1953, Elizabeth II was crowned at Westminster, and on that very morning the news broke in London that Everest had been climbed. Not only the nation, but people around the world rejoiced at the conjunction. For the Empire, however, it was not a revival but a final hurrah. Yet the Everest success endures far beyond this. These letters from the mountain bear witness to the character of a historic event and to the character of a good man, too.