by Michael Gill
One wonders how different life might have been for Ed had he started at Grammar one year older than average, rather than two years younger. He would have started in the Third Form in 1934 when the family moved to Auckland, so there would not have been three years dominated by those long train journeys. He would have been one of the biggest in his class rather than the smallest, and with his strength and combativeness no one would have risked taking him on physically. He would have looked down on his peers both literally and figuratively. He would have been in demand as a lineout forward in a succession of rugby teams, culminating in the 1st Fifteen in his last year, perhaps even in his fourth year, and that would have given him the status that excelling at rugby can bestow in a New Zealand boys’ school. He had the intellectual ability to pass exams and would always have been in a top form. With a final year in the Upper Sixth he might have developed the maturity to look around and find a vocation. He would have lost some of his shyness, found friends and got to know their sisters. Ed says that he saw himself as physically unattractive, but in reality he was tall and good-looking with a considerable presence. Given confidence and a sense of direction he would have obtained a degree, a job and a wife. He would have a role in the small city of Auckland. He would not have had the decade of uncertainty, inadequacy and searching that lay ahead as he left the law office.
He would probably not have made the first ascent of Mt Everest.
The Hillary brothers as beekeepers
In 1938 Rex too was at a loose end. He had failed his Certificate of Proficiency at Tuakau Primary in 1932 by one mark, though by 1933 his report notes that ‘Rex is now putting more effort into his work.’ In 1934 he was at Auckland Grammar in Form M3C: ‘Results generally very satisfactory. 1st in class, 1st in maths, 1st in French.’ But in 1935 and 1936 Rex was out of school, working for his father, and when he reappears in 1937 he is in Form 4U at King’s College and, at 16 and a half, a year older than the class average. His form master reports: ‘He should exert himself to do better.’
By the spring of 1938, the Hillary brothers had abandoned the higher education their mother had hoped for and were hard at work beekeeping, an occupation which, apart from a two-year interlude in the Air Force, would provide Ed with his modest – very modest – income up to 1953. In his 1975 autobiography, he writes:
It was a good life … of open air and sun and hard physical work … We had 1600 hives of bees spread around the pleasant dairy land south of Auckland, occupying small corners on fifty different farms. We were constantly on the move from site to site – especially when all 1600 hives decided to swarm at once. We never knew what our crop would be … but all through the exciting months of honey flow the dream of a bumper crop would drive us on through long hard hours of labour; manhandling thousands of ninety pound boxes of honey comb for extracting … and grimacing at our daily ration of beestings … In the summer we worked seven days from dawn until dark … We accepted cheerfully that this was the right thing to do …4
This is about as much as he ever wrote about bees, despite their central role in the formative years from his teens through to the age of 33. He doesn’t mention his imagination being stirred by the extraordinary life of the bees, their specialised roles, their devotion and obedience to their matriarchal queen whose unceasing egg-laying sustained her hive.
It was Gertrude who learnt about queens and how to breed and sell them. At the height of her success she was dispatching them not only around New Zealand but also to Australia, California, England, even Egypt. Her daughter June remembers packaging each queen in a tiny basket for the journey abroad, along with worker bees who would attend to her majesty and feed her royal jelly. For a while Gertrude was said to be earning more money than the honey gatherers. Though June helped, in the late 1930s she was busy with her university studies, achieving the success that had eluded her two younger brothers. Science and maths were her best subjects, and her BSc was taken with a major in botany. Later she became a psychologist.
Percy was always on the lookout for better ways of managing his bees. He was largely self-taught, using his questioning mind to garner information from the New Zealand Beekeepers’ Association, its members and his own hard-won experience. In 1937 he began his own quarterly journal, the N.Z. Honeybee, a Journal Devoted to the Interests of Beekeepers, and he worked with the government to improve overseas marketing. He was lucky that he had two extremely hard-working sons who did the heavy lifting in his bee business without complaining too much about his frugality. From a distance one can only marvel at Percy’s strength of will that kept his two sons in such a submissive role.
Radiant Living
Part of that strength came from the ethical convictions that had grown out of Percy’s war experiences and the economic failures of the 1930s. Political systems were in crisis and inquiring people were searching for something better. Into this spiritual vacuum, in September 1938, stepped a charismatic evangelist, Dr Herbert Sutcliffe, with his School of Radiant Living.
Sutcliffe was born in 1886 in Lincolnshire, England, where he trained as a telegraph engineer and sang in the cathedral choir. After emigrating to Australia, he became interested in the psychology of Freud and Jung. He then moved to New York, where he gained a doctorate in divinity through the Divine Science Church which followed a path of alternative spirituality.
From these sources, he developed a philosophy which he called Radiant Living, a holistic, quasi-religious faith centred on the need to keep in balance the threefold nature of human beings: body, mind and spirit. The body was kept radiant through a wholesome diet and exercise, and the mind and spirit through teachings and meditation. There were Buddhist overtones to the belief that humans are condemned to suffering owing to their fear, hate and feelings of inferiority. He was a charismatic speaker, dressed in a Masonic-style royal-blue gown, and was known to turn cartwheels on stage in his sixties. He was lively and entertaining and, according to Rex, attractive to some of his more susceptible female disciples.
A strong thread of moral seriousness ran through the Hillary family, much of it not answered by traditional Christianity. With war in Europe looming, they were ripe for conversion, and all five of them joined the cause with enthusiasm. Percy was briefly a vice-president, Rex a teacher; June led communal singing and Gertrude was the first Auckland secretary. Ed became more closely involved than any of them. Sutcliffe wrote later:
For five years, from 1938 to 1943, the Hillary family was closely associated with the Auckland School of Radiant Living. I am glad to have on record the many times they testified to the fact that Radiant Living came into their lives bringing harmony and understanding to each member of the family and the family as a whole just when it was most needed.
Father Percy Hillary was so appreciative that he requested me to take Edmund with me on lecture campaigns because he could not think of anything better for Edmund’s future.5
Sutcliffe’s claim that Radiant Living brought harmony to the family could easily be true, particularly for Ed who in 1938 was a troubled 19-year-old. The processes of education that were meant to have helped him towards finding answers about the nature of the world and his place in it had failed him. He later described himself as ‘academically mediocre and emotionally unsure; Victorian in outlook; but physically strong and with a mind crammed full of dreams, ambitions, loyalties, spiritual searching … plus a basic set of principles pounded into me by my parents’.6 Radiant Living came to fill this void. He began to read about philosophies and religions. He became an Associated Teacher of Radiant Living. With developing confidence he began to speak in public. His writing skills grew. From feeling himself a failure he became a leader, of sorts. The School of Radiant Living was his high school and his university.
In 1941 he sat the exams, passing all subjects (apart from PE) in exceptional fashion:
• Health 98%
• Everyday psychology 98%
• Psycho-cosmology 100%
• Letters to Students 100%
• Physical exercises 91%
• Lecturing Ability 100%
Percy observed Ed as a speaker at a meeting in 1940:
We had a wonderful meeting at School last night, 105 present. Miss Sutherland was radiant with the baton and Edmund was excellent. Mr. Dunningham gave a splendid address, most comprehensive, with inspiring ideals, and aims for the future. Love offering £2-18-6.7
Gertrude kept a notebook with scraps of poetry and quotations. She wrote of spirituality, God, right thought, the life force, worthy purpose and the desire to serve:
The radiance you express will be in accordance with the ideal you tenaciously hold.
Prayer: To ask earnestly and reverently as in worship; to make known one’s desires to God. And what is prayer but the expansion of oneself into the living ether.
Love is divine emotion. I surround my child with infinite love and wisdom.8
But flashes of wit are slipped in as well:
Her face is her fortune and it runs into a nice figure.
Slips that passed in the type.
She gave her husband a look that spoke volumes which would be read to him later.9
Conscientious objection and a glimpse of two mountaineers
Meanwhile, on 1 September 1939, the German invasion of Poland had triggered the Second World War. When New Zealand’s call for volunteers for the armed forces was less successful than expected, the government, in June 1940, introduced conscription for males between the ages of 21 and 40. The Hillarys were conflicted. Ed had briefly volunteered for the Air Force but soon withdrew and declared himself a conscientious objector, as did Rex. Percy was an uncompromising pacifist and he was hard to ignore, as was the moral argument against killing. But the arguments in favour of joining the battle against evil were at least as strong, and most of the country’s young men accepted their conscription and went off to Greece, Crete, the Battle of Britain, North Africa, Italy and the rest of it. Conscientious objectors were likely to be subjected to the humiliation of being handed the white feather of cowardice, and once conscription had been enacted in June 1940 they could be held for the duration of the war in one of the country’s seven detention camps. Of the years between 1939 and 1943 Ed wrote, ‘I was very restless and unhappy and the first few years of the war were the most uncertain and miserable of my life.’10
As an early escape from his inner turmoil, Ed, then aged 20, persuaded Percy to give him time off over the Christmas period of 1939–40. His destination was the high mountains in the Hermitage–Mt Cook area of New Zealand’s Southern Alps. He was accompanied by ‘an older friend’ who was a tramper rather than a climber, and they had no clear plan apart from making their first crossing of Cook Strait and getting close to big mountains. It was to be another intense and unforgettable experience on Ed’s mountain journey, and he described it in almost identical words in his autobiographies of 1955, 1975 and 1999:
We arrived in the early afternoon. It was a perfect day and the great peaks seemed to tower over our heads. I looked on them with a growing feeling of excitement – the great walls, the hanging glaciers, and the avalanche-strewn slopes … Sitting in the lounge that evening I felt restless and excited. And then the hum of voices hushed, and I looked up to see two young men coming into the room. They were fit and tanned; they had an unmistakable air of competence about them. I could hear a whisper going round the room: ‘They’ve just climbed Mount Cook.’ And soon they were the centre of an admiring group with all the pretty girls fluttering around like moths in the flame … I heard one of them say ‘I was pretty tired when we got to the icecap but Harry was like a tiger and almost dragged me to the top.’
I retreated to a corner of the lounge, filled with an immense sense of futility at the dull and mundane nature of my existence. Here were chaps who were really getting some excitement out of life. Tomorrow I must climb something. My companion agreed to give it a try and suggested we take a guide.
Fate was kind to us and next morning was fine … we’d tackle Ollivier, a small peak on the Sealy range above the Hermitage … I climbed up the steep narrow track with a feeling of freedom and exhilaration … we swam in the cold clear water of the Sealy lakes while our guide lit a fire and boiled a billy. A thousand feet of snow stretched between us and the crest of the range … This was real mountaineering … We reached the crest of the ridge and looked over into a magnificent valley of great glaciers and fine peaks … In a few minutes I was climbing onto the summit of my first real mountain. I returned to the Hermitage after the happiest day I had ever spent.11
Ollivier is a modest summit in a small range of low peaks, but it was a start. Perhaps more inspirational was the sight of those two tanned heroes who had just climbed Mt Cook. But 1940 was wartime, and it would be five years before Ed went to the Hermitage–Mt Cook area again.
Ed attained the age of conscription in July 1940, but a year passed with no military call-up for him or for Rex, who was 15 months younger. In July 1941, with the bees in hibernation, both brothers were working for Radiant Living, Rex in Christchurch and Ed in Hastings where he was secretary to Dr Sutcliffe. In a letter to Gertrude, Ed shows that he remained committed to his position as a conscientious objector:
Dear Mum,
I was very pleased to hear that Rex has returned [from Christchurch]. He will be invaluable with the feeding of the bees … In regard to my coming home: - When I am called up I will put in two objections to service. One will be on the grounds of Conscientious Objection and the other will be that it is detrimental to the Public interest – because of the bees. Therefore if I do not succeed in the C.O. I hope to succeed in the Honey one. To do this I will have to be working the bees to show that I am necessary. So it looks like I will be home for good. Ask Dad what he thinks about it anyway. He may have some ideas on the matter. As regards the Doctor, I think he will be very sorry to lose me. In fact I’m sure he will be. He has given me some great help in regard to my attitude to the C.O. question …12
Eventually Ed was called up and his objection was sustained on the grounds that his work as a bee farmer was in the national interest. Rex, as the second conscientious objector in the family, was not so lucky and on 19 May 1942 he was placed in the Strathmore Detention Centre. Disciples of Radiant Living – and various other beliefs – did not have the same immunity from conscription as Quakers or Christadelphians. Ed felt guilty that he was free while Rex was in prison. In 1944 he was writing to Gertrude, ‘I think it is most necessary to take every possible channel and means to get Rex out of camp. It’s a most abnormal life for him, especially at his particular age’13 – but there was not much they could do and Rex was not released until early 1946.
Ed might not have been conscripted, but at home his speaking skills were put to public use, as shown in a letter revealing that in 1940–41 he had been conducting his own national radio programme for a full year:
26 June 1941. Letter from J. N. Gordon, Production Supervisor for National Commercial Broadcasting Service, 1ZB.
This is to certify that MR. EDMUND HILLARY for something over twelve months has been conducting the ‘Young Citizens’ Session’ at 1ZB every Sunday morning. The session has been handled entirely by Mr. Hillary, and incorporates various Youth Organisations in Auckland, and invites co-operation and comment from Youth in general. Mr. Hillary can be commended upon the work and initiative put into these sessions.14
Equally surprising is this undated 1600-word address:
Dominion Reconstruction Conference. Youth: Mr. Edmund Hillary.
I consider it a great privilege to have been chosen as the opening youth speaker this afternoon … I noticed when I came this afternoon that some of you seemed very tense so I would suggest that we all have a try at just relaxing and taking a few deep breaths …
During the last war people looked to the future and said: ‘There is a new and better dawn coming.’ But the dawn that followed the last war was one of sorrow and sadness, overcast and depressing. The dawn that must
follow the darkness of this war depends on our efforts …
The attributes of youth for success are enthusiasm, energy, courage, ability and vision. Youth goes forward despite difficulties in the path, and has the courage of its convictions. Youth supplies the driving force …
Now, the spiritual side of life: youth is rather wary of this and associates it with repression but that is a misconception … Everything we do is in accord with or working with spiritual forces … The spiritual, God, is with us here and now, with us everywhere …
Also I think youth can serve its greatest purpose by using the power of prayer. The great scientist Einstein tells us that if 3% of the people in the world knew how to pray effectively, the present war could not have happened. Three out of every hundred people could have prevented this catastrophe! Let us all as young people determine to play our part by using the dynamic power of spiritualised thought to uplift the world. Material things are not everything – but the greatest blessings we can achieve are the blessings which are mental and spiritual …
There is a great work for us to do. If we look forward we can see a world of happiness and harmony, a world in which the people live in brotherhood and understanding, in which there is no fierce competition, no selfishness, because individuals are free from these qualities. Let us not wait but go forward now; let us endeavour to enthuse others with these ideals. We must act now. As Mr. Winston Churchill says: ‘Let’s go to it.’15
In 1942, Ed briefly became less conscientious, as he explained for the first and only time in View from the Summit (1999):
When I was about 22 years old I had my first notable relationship with a member of the opposite sex, and indeed the only one until my marriage 12 years later. How I met her, or even her full name, I don’t now remember. She was a couple of years younger than me, slim, pretty with beautiful auburn hair. I could never understand why she bothered with me. We had a warm relationship and it was certainly a new experience for me. I was still working hard for my father and receiving very little pay in return, but whatever I did obtain I hoarded carefully – it wasn’t very much. Finally I bought her the cheapest of engagement rings which she seemed to prize greatly.
