A Coronation, A Conqueror And A Code!

It is fifty nine years ago today  since the Queen was crowned*

and on that day, there was another important piece of breaking news – Everest had been conquered, by the British Expedition

I remember my Dad saying how excited everyone was, and how fantastic that the news came through that day – almost as if it had been stage managed for Her Majesty’s Delight.

One of the members of the Expedition was a journalist, Jan [James] Morris**, who’d been put there to report for The Times. He was not part of the final ascent, but when Hilary and Tenzing got back to the camp, he ran to the nearest radio station with the message.

I am particularly fascinated by the next part of the story – the Indian radio operator who transmitted the message for him was the father of a lady who subsequently moved to England, and was a member of our previous church in London.

She was [rightly] incredibly proud of her family’s link with this great historical event.

And the other thing is that Morris had pre-arranged with his editor that he should send the message in code, so that nobody intercepting the radio message would be able to beat them to the press. I just love things in code!

The coded message by which the ascent of the mountain was reported read like this:

SNOW CONDITIONS BAD [stop] ADVANCED BASE ABANDONED YESTERDAY [stop] AWAITING IMPROVEMENT

- which meant, when decoded,

SUMMIT OF EVEREST REACHED ON MAY 29 BY HILLARY AND TENZING

I think it was great that the news got back to London for Coronation Day, June 2nd - after all, it was actually May 29th when Tenzing and Hillary reached the summit. Nowadays with all the advances in communications technology, I am sure that the word would have been on the streets almost instantly.

*The Coronation took more than a year to plan **Morris is an incredibly gifted travel writer, with a somewhat unconventional life story.