In 1953, acclaimed travel essayist Jan Morris was in a singular place: scaling the previously-unclimbed Mount Everest with Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay and the other members of what would become one of history's most celebrated mountaineering expeditions.
From the new 1999 Introduction by the author:
The book , which I wrote in the 1950's, needs to be read with a strong dose of historical sympathy, for everything has changed since then. I have changed myself- I was living and working as James Morris in those days- but Britain and the world have changed hardly less. Few such moments (Climbing Everest) now could be accepted around the globe with such generous and uncomplicated pleasure.
The book gets its title from the fact that the announcement of the successful climb reached London on the Queens coronation day in 1953.
The narrative relates more to the logistics of keeping dispatches and announcement in regards to the expedition secret from newspaper rivals than the technical aspects of the climb, although Morris went over 20,000 feet. Dispatches to London were taken from Everest by runners who managed to get them to the nearest radio generally within 8 days.
To enable the announcement of the expeditions success to reach London on coronation day the runners made it in about 6 days helped by a large wage increase.
A great story of great daring- there were no "safe rooms" if someone said something nasty in these days- it was 'iron men, wooden ships" stuff.
Morris has never written a bad paragraph and all the writing in this as usual,is beautifully understated; a is a wonderful read.
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