TENSING IN GLASGOW

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30144, 30 May 1963, Page 6

TENSING IN GLASGOW

Anniversary Of Everest

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, May 28.

Sherpa Tensing, who 10 years ago today stood with Sir Edmund Hillary on the top of Mount Everest, is paying a short visit to Glasgow to sed his friend, George Patterson, the author and Tibetan traveller. He has come to Britain for anniversary celebrations of the first scaling of Everest and has just spent two days climbing Mount Snowdon with Sir John Hunt, who led the Everest expedition. “A man of great personal and dignified simplicity, it is difficult to believe he is approaching 50,” says the “Glasgow Herald.’’ “He speaks eagerly and with modest enthusiasm of a mountaineering career which began when he went as porter on Eric Shipton’s Himalayan expedition in 1935 and developed an overwhelming urge to stand upon the summit of Everest. He gave the impression that a jaunt round Snowdon dogged by television cameras was exercise quite worthy of respect. “Now full of honours— George Medal, Star of Nepal, American Hubbard Medal, and Honorary Citizenship of Chamonix—he is director of the Indian Government Mountaineering Institute at Darjeeling. There, with a staff which includes Swiss guides, he is continuing and developing the Himalayan tradition and creating a corps of sherpa professional guides to work on the highest mountains in the world.

“Tensing’s two daughters are both .expert climbers and have accompanied women’s expeditions to the Himalayas. Now he has two grandchildren—and also a son six months old. He smiled as he wondered if that too were a record—to have a son six months younger than his grandson.”