In the first 33 years of my life which is up until I climbed Everest, I was a very restless and slightly unhappy sort of person. I really didn’t have a great deal of social life, but I’d become very interested in adventurous activities. Perhaps, I was, in some respects something of a loner. But after I got married, that certainly changed my life very considerably, indeed. I found that it was possible to mix having a family with continuing on with adventurous activities, but I think a great deal of that was having a suitable wife. My wife was very, long-suffering. She knew that there were certain things I wanted to do and she was happy that I should do them. She was prepared to put up with considerable periods of being alone with the kids. She, was marvelous, so it made it possible for me to do the things that I wanted to do as well.
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Edmund Hillary
Mountaineer and explorer; first ascent of Everest, 1953
New Zealand · 1919–2008
Politics and public life
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New Zealand mountaineer who with Tenzing Norgay made the first confirmed ascent of Mount Everest in May 1953, and who later reached the South Pole overland. He founded the Himalayan Trust, which built schools and hospitals in the Everest region.
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