By Andrew Valente
WHEN the Queen attends tonight's Endeavour on Everest Gala Show, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing's first ascent of the world's highest mountain, two Majorcan residents will be among the Everest team members being presented to her. The highlight of tonight's celebration is the showing of the film The Conquest of Everest, which was codirected and filmed by the late Tom Stobart, a longtime resident in Majorca. Tom Stobart's widow, Jayne, is unable to attend tonight's ceremony at the Odeon in Leicester Square, but the family will be represented by three of Tom's children Majorca residents Ben and Romy, as well as his eldest daughter Gina, who now lives in Hampshire. At an exhibition in connection with the event, Tom's sleeping bag, ice axe and goggles are on show along with other pieces of equipment used by the team on the first successful ascent of Everest in 1953. Tom, a mountaineer as well as a highly successful cameraman, was with the John HuntEdmund Hillary expedition right from the start. He went as high as the 27'200feethigh Camp 5 (only Hillary and Tenzing went higher) and filmed the two climbers as they set off for the summit. He was also there when they returned from their triumphant ascent. The National Geographic Magazine in its May edition publishes a feature that commemorates the ascent of Everest. There is a picture of Hillary on his return from the summit with an enamel mug in his hand. But it's not his mug: on the side, in big black letters, is the name Stobart. The BBC financed the making of The Conquest of Everest which was the most arduous piece of filming Tom had ever undertaken. His widow Jayne said at her San Agustín flat yesterday: It was very difficult for Tom making the film, because he was behind the others. So he had to film and then catch up with them. And that was quite a feat.
Tom had two sherpas to help carry his photographic equipment. But at one stage the sherpa in charge of Tom's gear took ill and Tom had to hump his 30 pounds pack by himself. That was another feat in the rarefied atmosphere on the upper slopes of Everest. Tom's film, which was nominated for an Oscar in the documentary division, was highly praised by the critics. They refer to it as outstanding and rave about the breathtaking photography. One writer said of it: As dramatic as the most completely plotted fiction.
There is a bit of a controversy over Hillary's first words when he and Tenzing arrived back at Camp 5. In the Daily Express of a couple of weeks ago (May 12), a 79yearold member of the team is quoted as saying that Hillary said on returning from the summit: We've knocked the bastard off.
But in the Sunday Express of October 25, 1953, a journalist called Beverley Baxter says Hillary's words were even more earthy and expressive. Baxter writes of attending the first showing of The Conquest of Everest (the Queen was also there) and comments that it is a pity we don't hear Hillary's actually words when announcing his triumphant climb on return to Camp 5. Baxter writes that Hillary actually said: We've done the bitch. Baxter considers that a suitable comment, and not at all disrespectful, by a downtoearth New Zealander who spoke like an Elizabethan Englishman. Jayne Stobart also thinks that Hillary would have said bitch and not bastard.
Tom always said that they thought of Everest as a living thing, said Jayne, because of the way that the snow and the ice moved. They sometimes called Everest the angry woman, because the sudden changes in the weather were just like the changes in a woman's moods. So I think Hillary would have referred to Everest as a bitch and not a bastard.
Tom has written of being on Everest: I could never get away from the feeling that Everest was a living being resenting our invasion.
Although Everest was conquered on May 29, the world didn't know about it until three days later.
A correspondent of The Times was also on the expedition. He was James Morris, who went on to write history and travel books as well as an autobiographical work called Conundrum, which told of how he had a sex change and became Jan Morris. Morris had to race down the mountain to Namche, a village at 12'000 feet in the sherpa heartland of Nepal. There he hired a runner to take a coded report to an Indian Army radio station 20 miles away. The operators there sent a message to the Indian embassy in Kathmandu and from there it was despatched to the British ambassador. He sent the report on to the Foreign Office in London and from there it went to the offices of The Times. The editor of The Times informed the Queen that evening of Hillary and Tenzing's conquest of Everest. The world was told next day the news coinciding with the Queen's Coronation. Jayne still has the special 32page supplement The Times published in July 1953. It is called The First Ascent of Mount Everest and features a fullpage picture of Tenzing on the summit photographed by his companion Hillary, at 11.30am on Friday, May 29, 1953. Soon after he returned to London, Tom Stobart met Jayne and she went with him to Buckingham Palace to pick up his OBE medal from the Queen. The following year Tom and Jayne went off to Paris to get married, and then came to Majorca on honeymoon. They liked the island so much that Tom made Majorca his base and went off on filming assignments all over the world.
He also wrote his books here, including the autobiographical Adventurer's Eye, his famous book on spices and herbs, as well as The Cook's Encyclopaedia, an essential reference work for all serious cooks. The latter two were republished this year. Tom was a pioneer of the TV cooking programme, and he was also a splendid cook. And it was his knowledge of food and his skill in the kitchen that allowed him to achieve a first on Everest that hasn't been repeated by anyone else. The youngest member of the team, George Band now aged 73, was in charge of looking after the food rations. At base camp these consisted mainly of tinned products of the kind fighting armies are used to. But one day George managed to provide a little extra for everyone what he called meat on the hoof. It came from a yak the team had brought with them. The sherpas couldn't kill the animal, because as Buddhists they are forbidden to take a life. So the members of the team had to do it. Another New Zealander, whose father had been a butcher, shot the yak while George Band held the halter.
That night we had yak brain for supper followed by jam omelette, said George.
But a more elaborate dish was in the offing. Tom Stobart used the lights of the yak to make haggis, of all things.
In the late 60s, when seeking Tom's guidance about making a haggis, he told me he had made the Scottish dish often including at base camp on Everest. No one had done that before and I doubt that anyone will ever try it again. It will be a rather tired and possibly sleepy Ben Stobart who stands in for his father at tonight's Leicester Square ceremony.
Whereas Tom became famous for his exploits near the top of the world's highest mountain, Ben's work has taken him in the opposite direction. He is a marine biologist who specialises in underwater work. He flew into Palma yesterday from the Seychelles where he had been on a threeweek biennial inspection of the famous coral reef on the island of Aldabra. He barely had time to drop off his underwater equipment before dashing off to Palma airport to catch a plane to London to join his sisters and meet the Queen at the Odeon cinema.