Maybe less well known is Edmund Hillary’s reputed remark to George Lowe, Everest ascent team member after he and Sherpa Tensing Norgay became the first people to reach the mountain’s summit in 1953: “Well, George, we knocked the bastard off.”
In 1923, to capitalise on the public’s thrilled interest in the Everest expeditions of 1921 and 1922, Chad Valley Games produced a Mount Everest board game.
From the calm of the kitchen table, players negotiated the mountain’s many dangers including crevasses, sickness, blizzards and accidents, with a safe point reached at Rongbuk Glacier Camp at 16,500ft.
The game’s cover shows an intrepid mountaineer standing with arms folded and what appears to be Mount Everest on fire in the background.
Stuart Leggatt of Meridian Rare Books is bringing a copy of the game to PBFA’sTravel and Exploration Fair on Sunday, April 8, priced at £500.
It comes in its original box with four metal mountaineers as playing pieces, and instructions in English and French.
This fair is held in the august surroundings of the Royal Geographical Society at 1 Kensington Gore, London SW7, opposite Hyde Park.
