KEY POINTS:
Many of us would have forgotten, or not even been aware, that Sir Edmund Hillary was to be the commentator on the Air NZ flight to the Antarctic that crashed into Mt Erebus in 1979. He had to withdraw because of scheduling problems, so his best friend Peter Mulgrew stepped in for him.
The plane crashed and everyone on that flight perished. Fate allowed Hillary another 28 years longer before his death on Friday.
Many New Zealanders know Hillary only as some old-looking guy famous for climbing Mt Everest before we were born. It must be strange for someone like Hillary to have his life defined by the world at a relatively young age. After all, it was 55 years ago when he reached the top of the world.
It may have been my lack of listening during childhood or just 1960s New Zealand jingoism but it wasn't until my teens that I was aware that two climbers had reached the top. Even now I doubt many New Zealanders could remember the name Sherpa Tensing Norgay, let alone pronounce it.
It was never planned that a Kiwi and a Sherpa from the British expedition team would reach the summit, but lives are frequently determined by being in the right place at the right time. If the climbers who were originally expected to do the final hike had managed to complete it, then Englishmen Tom Bourdillon and Charles Evans would have become world famous. Hillary and Tensing would, like the rest of their 37 colleagues, have spent the rest of their lives in relative obscurity.
At the time, the news of their achievement was held back for a few days, allowing the public relations coup of having their victory headlining British newspapers on the day of the young Queen Elizabeth's coronation.
Hillary never believed in titles but in this case he got no say in it. The new Queen's first act as monarch was to bestow on Hillary a British knighthood before he was even off the mountain.
Although he was mortally embarrassed he couldn't decline. After all, the collapsing post-war British Empire and the young Queen were in need of a new hero and Hillary fitted the bill admirably. Sherpa Tensing received a lesser honour. I presume it was because he wasn't a British subject, not racism.
Despite all the establishment pomp and adulation Hillary has always been important for New Zealand because he was the embodiment of how we like to think we are. How Kiwi is a bloke who, after conquering a summit 8.8km high and in 160km/h winds, tramps down to his mates, points his axe at the top, and nonchalantly says "We've knocked the bastard off"?
Hillary could have spent the rest of his life in luxury, wallowing in his fame. But we love him because he used his stature and fame to raise money to build schools and hospitals in Nepal for Sherpas who were at that time a neglected people, universally illiterate and impoverished. In some ways he belongs more to Nepal and the Himalayas than us. His Sherpa name was Burra-sahib - roughly translated, I'm told, as "Big in stature, big in heart".
My political contacts in that part of the world say he supported leftish activists in Nepal fighting for social justice and democracy. That seems consistent because when he did take an interest in New Zealand politics it was never on the side of the establishment.
The first time I was aware of him in a political role was when he was an outspoken critic of Robert Muldoon in the mid 1970s and became a senior member of the "Citizens for Rowling" campaign - a group of prominent New Zealanders supporting Bill Rowling, the then Labour Prime Minister. Muldoon never forgave him for that. Hillary spent much of Muldoon's reign in Nepal helping the poor there instead.
Probably because of Muldoon's venom, Hillary declined in 1981 to be part of a delegation of prominent New Zealanders to persuade Muldoon against allowing the Springbok tour. But when David Lange took power one of his most popular decisions as new Prime Minister was to appoint Hillary as our High Commissioner to India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Years later Lange told me it was his finest diplomatic appointment and he wouldn't have minded the job himself.
When Hillary's diplomatic term in India expired it was a puzzle to most New Zealanders that despite enormous public support and intensive lobbying, Helen Clark never honoured him by making him Governor-General, appointing a judge and an academic instead. No doubt they were competent but they were hardly representative of the spirit of normal Kiwis. I think it was a lost opportunity to really honour New Zealand's greatest icon then, rather than waiting for him to die before bestowing full recognition with a state funeral.
But it is fitting his family have agreed to our country honouring his life with a public state funeral. It's rare that we, as a nation, have this privilege to show such appreciation.
In the past, state funerals have been reserved for rulers and generals. This time we honour a man of peace and helper of the poor - a great New Zealander we are all proud of.
