Shropshire hero who masterminded conquest of Everest
“Snow Conditions Bad. Stop. Advance Base Abandoned Yesterday. Stop. Awaiting Improvement. Stop. All Well.”
The dispatch by The Times' correspondent James Morris brought electrifying news in a world-beating scoop that he protected with a cunning code.
Everest, the world's highest mountain, had at last been conquered by Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing who made it to the 29,028ft summit 70 years ago, on May 29, 1953.
“Snow Conditions Bad” meant the summit had been reached. “Advance Base Abandoned” identified Hillary as the conqueror.
It was several days before the news reached Britain, breaking on the eve of the Coronation of the Queen. It was, the headlines said, the crowning glory.
And nowhere was the sense of pride and celebration greater than in a small Shropshire village on the Welsh border where, for eight years, the expedition leader Colonel John Hunt had made his home.
It was at 10.30pm on June 1 that the phone rang at the Hunt household at Weir Cottage, Llanfair Waterdine. It was the Royal Geographical Society giving the news that everybody had been longing to hear.
Nobody had much sleep in the village that night. Some of the villagers heard of the success on the BBC midnight news. Soon neighbours were being knocked up and told the glad tidings, and a car toured the outlying parts of the parish to make sure that no one remained long in ignorance of what had happened.
