A Personal Everest
Harriet Tuckey’s relationship with her father was a difficult one. Only at the end of his life did she realise the importance of the contribution he had made to the most celebrated of all mountaineering expeditions.
One evening in May 1993 I wheeled my father into the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) for a royal gala lecture to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest. He was Dr Griffith Pugh, a physiologist, who had been the oldest member of the expedition.
I was there under protest. He had been a distant, irascible parent. We didn’t get on and hardly spoke. I had agreed to go along only because my mother felt unable to cope alone with his wheelchair. I knew little about his work; I was just six in 1953 when Everest was climbed.<br
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