after a year in Nepal, Louise and
Belinda were killed in a plane crash.
“God knows if I’ll have the courage
to go on living,” he wrote to friends.
He fell into depression and said he
was only rescued from it in 1989, when
he married June Mulgrew, the widow
of his friend Peter Mulgrew, who died
in the 1979 Mt Erebus disaster.
Despite his fame, Sir Ed remained
humble. “I was just an average bloke.
It was the media that transformed me
into a heroic figure. Try as I did, there
was no way to destroy my heroic
image. But as I learned through the
years, as long as you didn’t believe
all that rubbish about yourself, you
wouldn’t come to much harm.”Above: With Lady June
in Kathmandu in 2003.
Left: The Weekly’s tribute upon
his death in 2008, aged 88.
From top: Closing in on the
summit; celebrating success
with Tenzing Norgay; with
Prince Charles and Helen
Clark in 2003.Far left:
Marrying
Louise in
1953; and off
adventuring
with his young
family in 1962.