Rexford Fleming Hillary, beekeeper, aid worker. Died aged 83.
Rex Hillary, the younger brother of Mt Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hillary, knew and helped the Sherpa people in Nepal for over 25 years.
He was a member of the Himalayan Trust founded by his brother to help provide education and health care for them.
But the "other" Hillary, the most active partner in their Tuakau beekeeping business, kept out of the limelight. According to Rex's son John his father loved bees and the company of beekeepers.
"Dad was the hardest worker I have known," he said at the funeral service.
"They say one man can run 300 to 500 hives, Dad was running 1200-plus. He did have a partner - but he was always skiving off racing Poms to the South Pole and running up some old hill in Nepal."
Family friend Donald Mackay spent time working for the beekeeping business as a labourer, from the age of 12 until he finished university, and remembers Rex had certain rituals.
The beekeeping day started exactly at 8am.
Around morning tea he always arranged to get to any of their destinations by about a quarter to 10.
Don lit the bee smokers then pumped the primus stove on the back of the truck for a cuppa. Rex would calm the hives with smoke and check them over. At one minute to ten he would be back in the truck for his tea and biscuits, just as the 15-minute radio soap Doctor Paul came on the airwaves.
"Then if it looked like rain Doctor Paul would be followed by Portia Faces Life," says Don.
"My job was to spot the rain clouds, though Rex did not notice that most seemed to be located on my side of the truck."
As time went on Rex Hillary became more involved collecting and organising shipments of hardware from New Zealand to Nepal. There were long-distance arrangements to be made for building permission and much other necessary planning.
In a rare interview he told the Auckland Star in 1987 that building was a specialised job in the remote mountainous Khumbu region, directly below Everest.
Timing was vital for the work had to be usually completed around March to May - between the monsoon and the bitterly cold winters.
Most of the numerous sites he worked on during more than 20 visits over the years were at least three days' travel from the nearest airfield.
Rex Hillary was a jack of all trades - ironically partly through the skills he picked up during his World War II internment in a camp as a conscientious objector.
Although not really a climber, Rex always had a close association with Sir Edmund, accompanying him on training runs and being involved with organising expeditions.
Rex is survived by his son John, John's wife and two children and by his wife, Ann, and daughter Su from his second marriage.
<i>Obituary:</i> Rexford Fleming Hillary
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