Everest anniversary: Tenzing Norgay's grandson calls for 'gesture' from Britain

Jason Burke, Namche, The Guardian, 29 May 2013: Lack of equal recognition for Sherpa who made first ascent in 1953 alongside New Zealander Edmund Hillary still rankles. 

The grandson of Tenzing Norgay, the Sherpa mountaineer who made the first ascent of Everest as part of the 1953 British expedition, has called on the UK government to "make a gesture" to recognise the contribution locally recruited climbers made to the successful climb on its 60th anniversary on Wednesday. 

Tashi Tenzing, who has himself climbed Everest three times, said it was wrong that Edmund Hillary, a New Zealander, had been knighted while his grandfather received only relatively minor decorations. 

The news that Norgay, who died in 1986, and Hillary had reached the 8,848-metre summit of the world's highest mountain arrived in London three days after their climb, on the morning of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. 

The conquest of Everest prompted celebration in a Britain demoralised by austerity, the costs of the second world war and loss of empire.

Hillary and John Hunt, the British army officer who led the expedition, were knighted but Tenzing only received the George medal, an award created in 1940 for acts of bravery by civilians. Other recipients included air raid wardens during the war and, later, members of the emergency services. 

"I think my grandfather should have been knighted. He was a member of the expedition, not just a Sherpa. They just gave him a bloody medal," said Tenzing, 49. 

The 60th anniversary of the historic climb was an opportunity for "a gesture from the Queen and the people of England to recognise that my grandfather was the man who took their flag to the summit," Tenzing told the Guardian. 

The 1953 expedition was under pressure to climb the mountain. A Swiss team had narrowly failed the year before and a French team was due to try the following spring. Norgay had climbed to within 200 metres of the summit with the Swiss, and was the mountaineer with the most experience of the peak on the British expedition. 

Hunt had paired Norgay with Hillary to form the strongest possible summit team. The two men left their high camp at 8,500 metres at 6.30am on 29 May and reached the summit five hours later. 

In interviews immediately after the successful ascent, Hillary insisted that he and Norgay had reached the summit simultaneously, though he later admitted he was in front, cutting steps into frozen snow, during the final stages of the climb. 

The alleged lack of official recognition has been blamed on prejudices of the British establishment at the time. 

Ed Douglas, biographer of Norgay, said the George medal seemed inappropriate."Tenzing had been to Everest seven times by 1953, and knew the mountain better than anyone on the [successful British] expedition. His journey to the summit was the longest and most unlikely of all," Douglas said.

The apparent slight has long rankled in Nepal. A Nepali folksong includes the lines: "Our Tenzing Sherpa climbed the highest mountain, pulling Hillary along." One local political party suggested renaming Everest "Tenzing Peak". 

"The more you look at the history of the climb, the more it seems that Norgay was the man but he fell into shadow," said Kunda Dixit, editor of the local Nepali Times newspaper. The Queen did, however, award Coronation medals to 12 leading Sherpas from the 1953 expedition, including Norgay. 

Sherpas say their achievements are ignored even within Nepal today. 

Speaking shortly after descending from Everest after leading a western client to the summit for the sixth time, Nima Sherpa, a veteran guide, told the Guardian that although recognition for Norgay from Britain would be welcome, appreciation from their compatriots of the contribution the 150,000-strong mountain community make to Nepal's economy would be even better. 

"If the Queen could say something about Norgay that would be really good but even our own government doesn't recognise our work and achievements," the 30-year-old said. 

After climbing Everest, Norgay, the 11th child of poor Tibetan yak herders, invested his earnings in the education of his children. He became director of field training at the Indian Mountaineering Institute in 1954 and lived in Darjeeling, the Indian hill station, eventually taking Indian citizenship. 

Today, some Sherpas compare him unfavourably to Hillary, who worked hard for the development of the Khumbu, the community's mountainous home. Last Sunday, schoolchildren, local villagers and clerics held a short ceremony of commemoration at a monument in Hillary's memory erected on a hillside above the village of Khumjung. 

"Tenzing did not stay here. He went to India. He did not help us like Hillary did," Kancha Sherpa, an 81-year-old veteran of the 1953 expedition, told the Guardian. Others say there is no need for further awards. "Everybody knows about Tenzing. Everybody recognised him. There is no need for more," said Apa Sherpa, who has climbed Everest a record 21 times. Tashi Tenzing admitted his grandfather was not particularly interested in fame. 

"I don't think he was really bothered. He climbed Everest because it was part of his life and because the work allowed him to look after his children. It was not for recognition," he said. 

Norgay received awards from Nepal and India and it is unlikely that the UK will bestow any further decorations now. 

"Any award is a matter for the [British] government, as it would have been 60 years ago," said a spokesman for Buckingham Palace. 

There was no comment from the Cabinet Office. Posthumous knighthoods are not awarded. 

The Guardian wrote a leader in 1953 criticising the award of the George medal to Tenzing. "Would it not be wiser, since Sir Edmund Hillary and he stood on the summit side by side to honour them in the same way? Honorary knighthoods conferred on foreigners are rare but not unknown," it said.

There may have been opposition to a knighthood from Nepali or Indian authorities, according to Douglas, Norgay's biographer. When the award was criticised in parliament by opposition MPs the then prime minister, Winston Churchill, said the responsibility for the decision did "not entirely rest with the British government."