Word: zealander
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...Born to a teenage single mother in Wellington, New Zealand, Sinclair was raised in impoverished circumstances and, though bright, left school at 16. After being arrested and brought to court for throwing rocks through a train-station window, he was interviewed by a juvenile counselor. Startled by the young vandal's command of Gorky, Conrad and Steinbeck, the counselor eventually referred Sinclair to a copy-boy position at Wellington's Evening Post. From there, his progress through the newspaper world of New Zealand and Australia was buccaneering: sleeping rough on Queensland's Gold Coast after turning up drunk and late...
...joined a New Zealand expedition to the Himalayas. Helped by ever-improving equipment and Nepalese Sherpa guides, mountaineers were advancing further and further up the world's tallest peak. In 1953 a team led by British Colonel John Hunt planned another assault on the mountain the Nepalese call Sagarmatha, "head of the sky." Hillary signed on. The 15-man expedition also included Hillary's friend George Lowe, the renowned Sherpa climber Tenzing Norgay, eight other British climbers, a cameraman, a doctor and James (now Jan) Morris, a reporter from the London Times...
...reached such a lofty height, he was a strange mix of confidence and modesty. A beekeeper from New Zealand, Sir Edmund Hillary was an aggressive amateur mountaineer drawn, he said, by the appeal of "grinding [competitors] into the ground on a big hill." Yet after accomplishing one of the 20th century's defining feats?his conquest, with Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953?he channeled the attention and knighthood that followed toward aiding the Nepalese Sherpas, who had so often helped him. Raising funds through his Himalayan Trust, a project he continued until his death...
...never really let up. How do you feel [here in New Zealand] when you go down to the grocery store and pass a $5 note with you picture on it? I don't spend a great deal of time thinking about that sort of thing...
...became a diplomat as well as a school builder. I became the New Zealand Ambassador to India - High Commissioner, as we call it - and I was also High Commissioner to Bangladesh and Ambassador to Nepal. We had four and a-half years in Delhi [1985-89] and we really enjoyed it. June and I on many occasions were invited along to quite important functions in which we would be the only foreigners, and we loved that. I like India, it's a really interesting place. I think it's doing very much better. When I first went to India...