Hillary: A View from the Top - The Early Years

These excerpts from part one of Tom Scott’s award-winning series on the life of Edmund Hillary look at his early years. Ed reflects on his youth as a gangly Auckland Grammar student, beekeeping, and a school trip to Ruapehu that sparked a “fiery enthusiasm” for alpine adventure. Coupled with a young man’s frustration with his “miserable, uninteresting life”, this passion for the hills soon led to a solo ascent of Mount Tapue-o-Uenuku as an RNZAF cadet — famously climbed on a weekend’s leave from Woodbourne base— and a 1947 ascent of Mount Cook, with his mentor Harry Ayres.

Everybody in the valley was talking about my attempt, and everybody thought that by this time I’d be well and truly dead.

– Ed Hillary on skeptics’ opinions of his weekend ascent of Mount Tapue-o-Uenuku

Key Cast & Crew

John Carlaw

Director

Denis Harvey

Producer

Tom Scott

Writer, Research, Associate Producer

Rita Stone

As: Young June Hillary

David Seymour

As: Young Ed Hillary

Geoff Steven

Network Executive