CHAPTER 14
The Himalayan Trust, Ed’s informal charity which started its life modestly with the aim of helping the Sherpas of the Solukhumbu with some basic facilities, has grown into a multifarious, sprawling collection of organisations around the world, including the Hillary Himalayan Foundation, the American Himalayan Foundation, the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation of Canada, the Australian Himalayan Foundation, the Himalayan Trust UK (founded by members of the 1953 expedition) and the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation of Germany.
There is no doubt that his ongoing humanitarian work in Nepal was seen by Ed as his greatest achievement. He intended it to be his legacy; and he went to some lengths to put that on the record when being interviewed by Mark Sainsbury in 1991. ‘When the camera was rolling, Ed made a solemn declaration: “When I kick the bucket, I don’t want memorials. I don’t want statues. I just want the work to continue.” ’
But Ed’s vision for what the Trust would be after his death—and who would be running it—would be a major source of contention. As well as continuing Ed’s work, the New Zealand-based Himalayan Trust also provided a means by which family conflicts were acted out. Various parties took on the roles of antagonists, peacekeepers and bridge-builders with varying degrees of success. These currents swirled around Ed but, so long as he was alive, they were contained because of respect for him and his reputation. After his death, they spilled into the open and brought many long-concealed differences to a head.
The greatest question around all this is why Ed Hillary, the leader of men who could inspire others to do so much, could not settle a simple, all-too-common family squabble. But the fact is that, for the last few years of his life, he was simply too old—these were the years when people made efforts to keep conflicts away from him.
However, the conflict between Peter and June—which was Ed’s problem too—had been there from early on. Unfortunately, each of the three people concerned was unusually strong-willed. It was no doubt easier day-by-day to pretend it didn’t exist, rather than confront this difficulty. Ed’s absences in India and Nepal also meant it could simply be ignored for long periods of time. And Ed was never comfortable expressing himself except in letters, or in a burst of temper. He may simply not have known what to say. However, failing to deal with this conflict would lead to deep divisions within the Himalayan Trust; and a public squabble after his death that did nothing to enhance Ed’s legacy.
June had been there at the start of Ed’s work in Nepal. In early 1961, visiting with Louise and other wives of members of the Himalayan Scientific and Mountaineering Expedition of 1960–61, she had literally put in some hard yards, completing a 290-kilometre trek. And when she and Ed were together, just as Louise had done before her, June practised hands-on humanitarianism. ‘At Phaplu Hospital,’ she told ABC’s Foreign Correspondent, ‘I remember painting the whole kitchen, inside the cupboards. The paint was awful and the brushes were hard to work with.’
The pace never let up. Ed had insisted that they be allowed time in Nepal to carry on their work while he was high commissioner in India. Travel was a constant. ‘Ed and June went around the world fundraising year after year,’ says Murray Jones. ‘It was bloody hard work. Ed was quite nervous with travelling. He got anxious about that sort of thing. He wanted to do everything right, so it was quite hard work for him as he got older.’
Peter and Sarah, too, had been involved with the Trust from early days. It was widely, but by no means universally, accepted that Peter would take over leadership of the Trust in due course. June, for example, was another strong candidate.
‘Many of us thought it was Peter’s legacy anyway,’ says Graeme Dingle, ‘so that created a tension. Had they got on, it would have been clear to June that that’s what should have happened in the long term, but the other thing that we can’t possibly know is what Ed said to June.’
According to Tom Scott, who remains one of June’s greatest admirers, there were also external cultural obstacles that had to be taken into account. ‘June has been astonishing and done great work,’ says Scott, ‘and the Sherpas know that. But it’s a patriarchal society and Peter Hillary is the son and they probably would prefer Peter—he’s younger and fitter—to take over. And Peter would like to take over.’ Peter echoes Scott’s opinion. ‘A lot of people in Nepal, which is a very traditional community, see it in that light. I have a lot to offer in that area. I am on the boards of most of the supporting foundations. I have done a lot of fundraising for the Himalayan Trust. I work with the British and German foundations as well.’
Like any organisation populated by the sort of people who can get up mountains and to the South Pole, the Trust has always been subject to numerous internal tensions driven by the strong personalities involved. One of its first directors to resign, in fact, was Peter Mulgrew who, as we have already seen, was agitating for a more rigorous, business-like approach to the financial side. He had been one of the original members when the Trust was founded in 1966. ‘Mulgrew put demands on Hillary,’ says Norm Hardie, a 22-year veteran of the Trust. ‘He told Ed to put things in order, have proper minutes in the meetings. Mulgrew was the first of the original board members to withdraw and it was Hillary’s lack of business ability and poorly run meetings that caused all of it.’
Hardie himself remained with the Trust till 1988. ‘I resigned over the differences I had with Ed and Rex . . . In doing so I said to Ed I hoped the other old ones would also retire (meaning Rex) and that young workers would replace us. I had said in the past that Ed should have taken Peter on early American tours so that continuity would occur, and that Peter should be on the board. Nothing came of my wishes.’
According to a story in the Sunday Star-Times, in 2002, in what seemed to outsiders an unpaternal gesture at best, Ed prevented Peter from gaining control of the Trust board. If Ed, as he had said, did not approve of dynasties, he was going out of his way to demonstrate to what extent he disapproved. ‘That was ludicrous,’ says Mike Gill, who blames the tension between June and Peter for the move. It was tension, he says, that sometimes rose to the surface.
Some commentators suggest that it is odd for Peter yet again to want to do something his father did superbly well; but in fact, it’s the most natural thing in the world. No one queries the logic of a Ford going into the automobile business, or a Rockefeller into banking, or a Redgrave into acting.
Old friends and allies—people whose bonds had been forged on high adventures with Ed—suddenly found themselves having to take sides. ‘I have taken Peter and Sarah’s side,’ says Mike Gill, adding that ‘pretty much’ everybody else has too. ‘I was a very good friend of Jim Wilson’s; but he is a very good friend of June’s, so we had a bust-up. June expects loyalty. With June you are either in, or you are out.’
From 2002 June held sway at the Trust, supported by many of the old guard, such as Jones and Wilson, who continued to support her after Ed’s death. ‘Jim and I are only doing what we think Ed would [have wanted],’ says Jones. ‘He told people he wanted June to carry on with his work with the Himalayan Trust, and she did. That’s why we supported her, because she was carrying on Ed’s work; but others couldn’t accept that for whatever other reason, and I don’t really understand their reasons.’
Underpinning the family conflict were some serious philosophical differences about how the Trust should work and in which direction it should go. Even Hilary Carlisle felt some things needed to be changed. ‘The Himalayan Trust was done on Kiwi ingenuity—No. 8 wire,’ says Hilary, ‘and actually in the modern world it needed to be more robust. The accounts are complex, with all the different currencies—the Nepalese accounts, the Americans, the Canadians, the British accounts. Imagine doing it by hand.’
‘Peter wanted to corporatise everything,’ says Murray Jones, ‘and Ed didn’t believe in that. Ed did all the work himself, apart from Betty Joplin, his secretary, and he wasn’t getting any money from it. There was no middle man getting a cut. He was a one-man band.’ (He was actually a two-man band—Mingma Tsering was the Himalayan Trust in Nepal.)
‘There was no office as such,’ adds Jones. ‘It was just his study. Ed did most of the books, but in the end he got Doug Page to do the books.’ But some weren’t happy with Page. When Mike Gill questioned his ability, ‘I couldn’t get anywhere. I would talk to Ed about it and he’d say he’d get back to me. When he did, he would say, “No”. So that was the way it went.’
One key difference of opinion was over who should direct the way the aid was used: Should the money be handed over to the Sherpas to do with as they saw fit; or should the projects be driven by the Trust?
Ed had always taken the first view. The Trust only existed because he asked Sherpa Urkien what the locals needed that he might be able to provide for them. And even in the days when he carried around his sack of cash, that cash was distributed to people based on what they told him they needed. He never changed his view.
‘June and Ed decided,’ says Jones, ‘and this was [Prime Minister] Helen Clark’s policy at the time, that it was for the local people to run their aid work. [The New Zealand Government makes a substantial contribution annually to the Himalayan Trust.] The day of the white man over there is long gone. And some people in the Himalayan Trust in New Zealand cannot accept that. They feel they have to be the guiding white man and give them the guiding hand. Ed and June never accepted that. The Sherpas are perfectly capable of organising and doing things their own way. All we are is the go-between, between the New Zealand Government and the Sherpas.’
In Peter’s view, however, New Zealand has a lot to offer, not least because of the half-century of experience the country has in providing practical assistance in Nepal. ‘You’ve got the high-altitude physiological research, the first schools and hospitals, the forestry—all this expertise coming, much of it from this country. The Department of Conservation joined forces with Nepal to set up the Mt Everest National Park, and that was something Dad was very involved with. So New Zealand has been involved in the Mt Everest bit of Nepal for 60 years and we should maintain that involvement. There are a lot of opportunities for us to continue our work in health and education.’
Ed didn’t cope well with criticism or being challenged, and he didn’t cope well with the disagreements within the Trust. They might appear to have washed over him, but he clearly knew what was going on because he prevented Tom Scott from getting drawn into it. Scott recalls: ‘June Hillary said, “Tom and Averil should join the Himalayan Trust.” ’ Ed said, “Oh there’s no need for them to do that.” He virtually told Averil and I not to get involved. He knew what a mess it was turning into.’
As he got older, Ed’s ability to cope with being challenged grew less and less, effectively pre-empting any criticism. ‘You learned not to say stuff,’ says Hilary Carlisle. ‘I am in strategic planning and governance. I had a lot to contribute to the Himalayan Trust which was about modernising it, but Ed didn’t have the energy for it. I think Ed and his friend Zeke [O’Connor, president of the Sir Edmund Hillary Foundation of Canada] got worried about the ongoing program of the Himalayan Trust and what would happen. He got more and more concerned about how he would continue it. He couldn’t cope with that change, so in a way it was easier not to change.’
Ed never stopped working as hard as he could for the Trust but, as he got older, the strain began to show. ‘It was a big effort to do the fundraising,’ says Carlisle. ‘He couldn’t have done that without June. He would spend a week to two weeks doing the accounts, manually of course. And then in the Trust meetings people would challenge the numbers and Ed would get upset. June didn’t like seeing him upset, so she would try and manage the situation. It [was as though] that stuff wouldn’t get discussed because he would get upset. He had hearing aids. He could cope a bit in a group, but for a three- or four-hour meeting it is really tiring if you have people speaking in all directions. June really looked for ways to reduce his stress.’
As time went by, it might have been expected the Trust would get on with its work free of family tensions. But the 2011 ABC-TV’s Foreign Correspondent program contained criticism of June for something that had occurred back in 2004. The program focused on an occasion three years after Ed’s death, when Peter and June attended the 50th anniversary celebrations for Khumjung School. It included an interview with Jim Strang, who had run advanced teacher training for the Trust in Nepal from 1997. But June had felt that enough was enough and in 2004 Strang’s funding had been turned off.
‘We did it for six years . . . four years . . . I can’t remember,’ said June. ‘They felt that was good enough. It was the same with the forestry—we did that for a certain time. I think that’s the way to do aid, really.’
‘This [decision] is incredible,’ said Peter on the program. ‘We’ve got this remarkable person, a team of teachers, a great need.’
The depth of the conflict is apparent, not only from what was said onscreen. When Peter and June are seated for one of the ceremonies, they are only centimetres apart; yet there is no eye contact, not a word exchanged. Two adults—a man and his father’s widow; a woman and her late husband’s only son—cannot bear any contact. Peter and June live in adjoining, upper-crust Auckland suburbs and have travelled thousands of kilometres from there to get here, yet it would seem each pretends the other does not exist. It was during this visit, June said later, that she decided to step down from the Trust.
ABC reporter Eric Campbell put into words what many in his audience would have been thinking. ‘It’s fairly obvious today there is something of a rift between you and Peter Hillary,’ Campbell suggested.
‘I don’t want to discuss that,’ answered June. ‘No. Peter Hillary has created a rift between him and me.’
‘I think up there with that ABC documentary,’ says Peter, ‘I know it was dawning on June she had to do something and she has. She resigned. But when you think about it, she was at the helm for a short time. She turned 80—I think she made a good decision.’
Jim Strang’s teacher-training program was almost immediately picked up by the Australian Himalayan Foundation in 2005 and expanded over the following two years. It now involves almost 300 schools. The New Zealand Trust still resources schools, but doesn’t conduct training.
In a telling contrast to June’s view of ‘the way to do aid’, Peter led Eric Campbell’s cameras away from Khumjung to a nearby town—just a short way from one of the trekking hot spots, but far enough from the beaten track for it not to benefit from tourist money and not to be as favoured by the Himalayan Trust as other areas. The poverty is extreme, especially by comparison to the area around Khumjung. ‘A lot of the challenges people had in Europe centuries ago are their challenges,’ Peter says.
In 2003 the New Zealand Government set up a new Annual Funding Arrangement with the Himalayan Trust. In 2007, the year before Ed died, New Zealand Aid conducted a review of the Trust. For all the fretting about the Trust’s attitude to professional accounting rather than Ed’s old-fashioned approach, the organisation emerged relatively unscathed from an inspection. The review found that:
One of the main strengths of the work of the Trust is that it has focused on helping people to help themselves, rather than importing ready-made solutions. The Trust occupies a position of influence in Solu Khumbu and has a great opportunity, and a certain responsibility, to accomplish all it can, to the highest possible standards, while continuing to leave the development agenda in the hands of the people of Solu Khumbu.
The report identified as key issues that ‘Solu Khumbu’s fragile environment is under increasing stress due to growth in tourism’ and ‘The Trust faces the challenge of finding and developing a new generation of leaders for both fundraising and project implementation.’
The question of leadership would certainly be a focus of interest in the next few years.
Things came to a climax following certain events that occurred after Ed’s death. In its 2011 newsletter the Trust noted the celebrations of its 50th anniversary and recorded its international achievements for the year. Included was this anodyne paragraph:
After the celebration of 50 years’ work of the Himalayan Trust Senior Founding Members of the Himalayan Trust New Zealand, Lady June Hillary, Jim Wilson, Murray Jones, Douglas Page, David Hayman and Rebecca Hayman resigned and the responsibilities passed on to the Chairman Dr John Heydon, Diane McKinnon, Secretary Dr Kobi Keralus, treasurer Sarah Hillary and Dr Mike Gill and the new members of New Zealand Himalayan Trust Council is expected to increase in near future with amendment of Himalayan Trust New Zealand Constitution [sic].
The Trust issued a statement at the time of these resignations but it couldn’t seem to decide how it felt about June and her allies falling on their swords:
Whilst all of those who have stepped down have made a hugely valuable contribution, over long periods of time, to the work of the Himalayan Trust Board, there is great significance in Lady June and Jim [Wilson] each ending their long-standing membership of the Council. Both Lady June and
Jim were foundation members of the Council, when the Himalayan Trust Board was established in September 1966, and each has had an unbroken chain of involvement in the work of the Himalayan Trust Board since that date. Murray Jones has also had a very long association with the Himalayan Trust Board.
But the move came as no real surprise to those close to the main players. ‘June and the other trustees could see the writing on the wall,’ says Graeme Dingle. ‘There was no future. The trust had to be reinvented and to do that it needed some modern ideas.’
The two camps had become irreversibly entrenched in their own positions. There was no Ed around, whose feelings both sides wanted to spare, and inevitably blood would be spilt. Some family members had tried to bridge the gap between the two sides, but the distance was too great.
‘The whole thing is very, very sad’, says Murray Jones, who is still of the opinion that Ed wanted June to head the Trust. ‘What he wanted to happen in the Himalayan Trust was laid out, but other people thought they knew better and wouldn’t accept it. Like many people in the Himalayan Trust, I have been torn to pieces because of my loyalties to Ed and I don’t want any more to do with it.’
By choosing not to speak publicly, June has passed up a chance to defend herself. She has obviously been pained by much that has happened, not just since Ed’s death but in the years leading up to it. Now, she does not even have the consolation of her husband’s presence to make her plight more tolerable. She has left her defence to others in her ‘camp’; but they, like her, have little stomach for what seems to be a tawdry epilogue to a life of devotion and service.
‘It wasn’t just about the Himalayan Trust,’ says Jones. ‘It goes way, way back. I am well aware of the problems. I find it quite disturbing to see the people who have put so much into the Himalayan Trust, like June, unfairly maligned. But she can’t really defend herself. If she says anything, it makes the spat even worse and sometimes you have to rise above it. But, it’s torn us all apart and we really want nothing to do with the Trust anymore. Ed would be so upset as to what’s happened. I was there when Ed said he wanted June to carry on with his work, but other people couldn’t accept that.’
Several months after the resignations, Sarah was adamant the Trust was in good hands. ‘June and her family resigned but we are an interim committee council. We were in the middle of updating our new constitution anyway before they resigned. We expect a new constitution completed by next year, then we can start the process of electing new council members.’ Sarah suggests the new system will be both more flexible and more secure, lessening the possibility of someone getting and keeping a stranglehold: ‘Anyone can be voted on. The chairman will be elected for the year—there will be no permanent positions.’
The Trust is important to Sarah, she says, ‘Because our parents put so much work into it and because we think it has been very successful; but there is still a lot more work to be done.’
June’s move was reported as far afield as the UK, where the Guardian newspaper reported the reaction of Mary Lowe—wife of George Lowe and secretary to the Himalayan Trust UK. ‘We can’t hide the fact that Peter and June never got on,’ Mary told the Guardian. ‘They’re both tough characters. June’s been working for the Himalayan Trust for fifty years. It’s just the right moment for her. It’s a new start.’