Everest - The First Ascent: How a Champion of Science Helped to Conquer the Mountain (64 page)

Venetia Lascelles, David Lascelles, Auriol Stephens, Sir John Ashworth, Professor Hugh Stephenson, Penny West, Nina and Mike Beasley, and Mike Morrison have all given up their precious time to read and make invaluable comments on the full manuscript, and Professor Bruce Paton has been good-hearted enough to read the full text with an editor’s eye and suggest many editorial changes. Winning the Biographers Club Tony Lothian Prize in 2009 gave me the courage and self-confidence to continue with the book when I might have given up. I also owe colossal thanks to my agent, Anthony Sheil, and my publishers, Judith Kendra and Susan Lascelles.

Most importantly I want to thank my brilliant, incisive editor, David Smith, whose help and guidance were to my mind akin to the role my father played in helping the British to climb Everest—without him this book would not have seen the light of day. It was a joy to work with him; he understood what I wanted to say almost better than I did myself.

The author and publisher would like to thank the following for permission to use copyright material, referenced in full in the Notes and Bibliography:

The Alpine Club Archives; the British Library; the British Olympic Association Archives (BOA), for extracts from the John le Masurier file (senior coach of the Amateur Athletics Association) and files containing miscellaneous Olympic material connected with the 1968 Olympic Games; Peter Hillary and Sarah Hillary, for extracts from the late Sir Edmund Hillary’s private diaries and his books; Sue Leyden and family, for extracts from
Ascent of Everest
and
Life is Meeting
by the late Sir John Hunt; the Medical Research Council for permission to reproduce extracts and images from Pugh’s pension file (the MRC does not endorse any views or opinions expressed or inferred by the author); Jan Morris, for extracts from Coronation Everest (Faber & Faber, 2003); the National Archives at Kew; National Geographic, for extracts from “How We Climbed Everest” (1963) by Barry Bishop; the Royal Commission on Accident Prevention, Royal College of Surgeons, London; the Royal Geographical Society; Peter Steele, for use of material in the Alpine Club’s Shipton archive; Julie Summers, for extracts from
Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000); the Wellcome Library and Archive. While every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the author and publisher will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.