A review in the Washington Post Book World of Tenzing: Hero of Everest by Ed Douglas has this to say: "Tenzing travelled the world in style and met celebrities and royalty, but he was used as a symbol of Asian nationalism, was neglected by his new, much-younger wife and fell into drink and depression." True enough about being lionised. As also about his drinking rather heavily towards the end; but in my eleven years in Darjeeling I do not recall hearing about being neglected by vivacious Daku and Darjeeling is a small place.

He was certainly in fine fettle when some of the 1953 expedition members and the widow of one of them met in Darjeeling on the anniversary of the climb 25 years ago. Although Edmund Hillary was not there, Lord Hunt was. All of them have signed my copy of his book of the ascent.

I met his daughter Sally last summer in Richmond-on-Thames at the house of a college contemporary. I had met her there some years earlier. This time coincided with my having just read Eric Shipton’s autobiography. It was he who discovered the route through Nepal to Thyangboche and up the treacherous Ice Fall and into the Western Cwm. Moreover, he was the outstanding climber in Britain, and therefore justified in assuming that he would be chosen by the Himalayan Committee to lead the 1953 assault on Everest. Imagine his surprise therefore when John Hunt was made the leader, a soldier, hardly a famous climber.

Rather brashly, I mentioned this to Sally last year at dinner. To do her credit she did not take umbrage; mind you, she must have been not yet ten in 1952 when her father was chosen. She replied that presumably they chose the best man. So also said a friend, quite famous in the circle of geographers and climbers who knows our mountains rather well having worked both in Bhutan and in Nepal for many a year.

Pears Encyclopaedia says that Colonel Hunt’s mandate included: the need for proper acclimatisation of the climbers; the use of oxygen on the final stages; and the setting up of very high altitude camps so that the climbers chosen for the assault on the summit would start off as fresh as possible. Hunt was also able to avail of all the experience gained on Everest till then. Remember that Shipton had made a reconnaisance along with some others in 1951; and then the gallant Swiss had very nearly succeeded in 1952, reaching a height a couple of hundred metres short of the summit, driven back by the intense cold and ferocious winds.

Their attempt was the very first using Shipton’s route. Till then all attempts had been by the British through Tibet. That is why the Sherpa porters, including Sherpa Tenzing, lived in Darjeeling, at least during the climbing season in the hope of being chosen by an expedition.

It was not only Everest that was attempted. The Bavarians had made the great peak of Kanchenjunga their very own and Paul Bauer made several unsuccessful attempts, one of which resulted in several deaths. Incidentally, their great sirdar, Karma Paul, retired in Darjeeling where I sometimes greeted the brave man. Now there was a man who can rightly think he was neglected in later life. It was just after my finals in May 1953, that a fellow Catsman (as we were known) suggested that four of us drive down to London for the coronation. That is how I came to be on the pavement of the Mall, leading up to Buckingham Palace, that morning at dawn on June 2 when the news of the ascent of Everest was broken to the world.

It happened on May 29, but the news was delayed to coincide with the coronation. The first pair was Bourdillon and Evans who were beaten back just short of the summit. Next came Hillary and Tenzing who spent the night at the highest camp before stepping out for the final assault and success and fame.

Tenzing once told me that the Swiss were very good to climb with. Because they have a tradition of alpine guides (unlike the British), a respected elite lot, they treated their Sherpas likewise, giving them the same equipment as they themselves had. Tenzing also told me that modern expeditions make a big mistake in not walking all the way from Kathmandu to base camp, thus depriving the climbers of the chance to get acclimatised.

I left Darjeeling in November 1985. Tenzing died the following year. It is a good thing, perhaps, that he did not live to see the desecration of his mountain.

This year, as I write, there are 1,500 people on the slopes of Everest. I wonder, by the way, how many readers know that the Everest family pronounced their name Eve-rest and not, as we do, Ever-est.