Sorting some of my books the other day, I came across my copy of John Hunt's "The Ascent of Everest". I received this as a prize at the end of my last school year at Newcraighall primary, in 1954, before we moved down to South Yorks. I greatly enjoyed reading this, finding the detailed descriptions of the mountain landscape and the climbing techniques and equipment used informative and interesting. It didn't awake any ambitions in me to be a climber, though; I still regard mountaineers as brave, skilful and mad.
Looking at the illustrations in the book now, however, I can see things I hadn't noticed before. In the attached copy of the picture of the summit can be seen a human face, partly hidden by snow. This has a gentle expression, kind and wistful, as though it's one of the Buddhist gods whom the Sherpas believe to dwell atop the mountains.
And, perhaps going from the sublime to the ridiculous, is that a pair of rock guitarists perched farther down the slopes??