Hillary: A View from the Top - The Early Years

These excerpts from part one of Tom Scott’s award-winning series on the life of Edmund Hillary look at his early years. Ed reflects on his youth as a gangly Auckland Grammar student, beekeeping, and a school trip to Ruapehu that sparked a “fiery enthusiasm” for alpine adventure. Coupled with a young man’s frustration with his “miserable, uninteresting life”, this passion for the hills soon led to a solo ascent of Mount Tapue-o-Uenuku as an RNZAF cadet — famously climbed on a weekend’s leave from Woodbourne base— and a 1947 ascent of Mount Cook, with his mentor Harry Ayres.

I plunged on through the cloud until I could plunge on no further and I realised that I’d reached the summit of the mountain.

– Ed Hillary, on climbing Tapue-o-Uenuku

Key Cast & Crew

John Carlaw

Director

Denis Harvey

Producer

Tom Scott

Writer, Research, Associate Producer

Rita Stone

As: Young June Hillary

David Seymour

As: Young Ed Hillary

Geoff Steven

Network Executive