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Lady June Hillary has spoken publicly for the first time since Sir Edmund Hillary's death and revealed how she is overcoming her grief by throwing herself into her charity work.
And she has told how overwhelmed she was by the support and affection shown by the New Zealand public and by the worldwide reaction to the funeral last month.
In typically robust style, Lady June said although she was still grief-stricken, it was business as usual with the Himalayan Trust and running the trust's council, which she now chairs.
She was delighted to be invited by the Queen to attend a special memorial service at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle in April and would be attending with her daughters, Robyn Mulgrew and Susan Hayman.
Recalling the funeral, she said: "It was a fantastic day, two days really. People were very kind, I thought."
Asked how she was coping with her loss, Lady June said: "I am fine. It's all going very well, actually. I just keep pressing on. We have an advisory board of Sherpas in Kathmandu, and they really do the business side of it with the projects.
"We make sure they have the money for the projects.
"I have been doing the work for a while now.
"The Himalayan Trust is going to keep going. That's what's important. We will press on.
"Some family members are involved in the work and others do lots in their own way."
Commenting on the special memorial service the Queen will hold in Sir Ed's honour, Lady June added: "I am very much looking forward to going to Windsor Castle. We are a bit lucky to be going into St George's Chapel because of the Order of the Garter."
The Queen offered the special memorial service after it was announced that no member of the royal family would be travelling to Auckland for Sir Ed's funeral.
A similar, although smaller-scale service was held after Sir Keith Holyoake's death in 1983.
Both Sir Keith and Sir Ed were Knights of the Garter - the Queen's personally selected order of up to 24 knights.
According to protocol, a memorial is held during Evensong at St George's Chapel after the death of a Knight of the Garter, during which the knight's garter is presented to family members.
The offer of a service for Sir Ed is for a larger-scale ceremony to include New Zealand community representatives as well.
Norbu Tenzing Norgay, son of Sir Ed's 1953 Everest partner Tenzing Norgay, said: "Lady June's wishes are to continue the work that Ed started. She wants to keep the Himalayan Trust's projects going, and we are all energised, and the goal is to keep it going."
He added: "The outpouring of adulation and respect [for Sir Ed] around the world has really been quite amazing.
"I don't think Ed had an idea of the extent to which he affected thousands of lives, let alone the thousands of Sherpas in Nepal. He was quite a human being.
"What I found particularly amazing was how the streets of New Zealand were completely lined with people; people shut their businesses. There was public debate about a national holiday.
"People were donating a portion of their day's salary to the Himalayan Trust. You don't find that elsewhere.
"New Zealand is a small country. Even though it was a sad day, what an amazingly happy celebration it was of somebody in his mould that you won't see in a long time."
Sir Ed's trust cashing in
Sir Edmund Hillary's charity, the Himalayan Trust, is benefiting from an upsurge in demand for memorabilia connected with the Kiwi icon.
Five-dollar banknotes signed by Sir Ed are being snapped up by collectors. Members of the Mt Victoria Rotary Club who devised the $5 commemorative banknote project said demand had rocketed since he died.
Their humble five-dollar notes don't come cheap - at around $700 - but they are the only officially authorised banknotes signed by Sir Ed.
Desmond Till of the Rotary club said there had been a big increase in sales of the notes, available via the Sir Edmund Hillary website.
And the club is hoping it continues, with 90 per cent of the money going to the Himalayan Trust, a charity Sir Ed founded to help Sherpas.
"We sold 40 last month - that's how many we would normally expect to sell in a year," said Mr Till.
"They were released in tranches of 200 and are rapidly becoming a collectors' item. We expect demand to increase as they start to run out as there's only a limited number - just 800 left."
The notes can be purchased from www.siredmundhillary.com
Summit quest for 'old man of family'
Sir Edmund's son, Peter, has an ambition close to his father's heart for this year.
In June, he plans to climb Mt McKinley in Alaska, which at 6194m is the highest peak in North America.
If he achieves it, he will have climbed the "seven summits" - the highest mountains on each of the world's seven continents.
And he has vowed to carry on his father's charitable work.
"We are all pretty exhausted by what has happened around my father's death, even with the extraordinary honours that come with it. So we are trying to take things very quietly.
"The way the state funeral was organised was amazing because it was very accessible to everyone. You could have been a Swedish tourist and got totally involved in the funeral if that's what you wanted.
"It wasn't exclusive at all. I think that was very nice. There's also an element of it in terms of grieving and coming to terms with the whole thing. It's not private time really.
"I am 53 and you suddenly go, 'I am the old man of the family now'. There's a lot of stuff involved in it, the changing of the order of the family, reflecting on the loss of someone but also in the wonderful life that they had. If anyone had a grand life, it was Dad.
"He did dedicate a substantial proportion of every year to fundraising, administration and time in the field and ever since I can remember he was initially going on expeditions and began that sort of work and then it became a component of them, then became what the trips were about altogether.
"And expeditions started to fade out progressively. So it was a huge part of it.
"We were sort of raised on that. It was the bread and butter of the Hillary family."
Recalling his father's no-nonsense attitude, he added: "He was definitely a straight talker. A spade's a spade. But he valued the friendships he had and I think one of the things the funeral showed was that he'd shared all those sorts of expeditions and adventures with people and really galvanised some wonderful friendships
"And they were the people swelling the ranks of that church, wherever they had come from just to be there."
Speaking of Mt McKinley, he said: "I will probably do it on my own, I think. We'll see."
