My relationship with the mountains actually started when I was 16. Every year, a group used to be taken from Auckland Grammar down to the Tangariro National Park for a skiing holiday.

I was definitely seriously affected [with wifw and daughter deaths], no question, but I learnt to devote myself to the things that we'd been doing for years and years and slowly the pain drifted away.

We had so much in common [with June Hillary] that we just carried on with life as we had been doing. It wasn't easy, but it was - I realise now that it was the only thing to do.

I have a number of heroes I still have warm feelings about. [Derek] Shackleton, for instance, was definitely, and still is, one of my great heroes.

I was not a beater of children and as a consequence I've always been, I think, very agreeable and co-operative.

I'm sure the feeling of fear, as long as you can take advantage of it and not be rendered useless by it, can make you extend yourself beyond what you would regard as your capacity. If you're afraid, the blood seems to flow freely through the veins, and you really do feel a sense of stimulation.

I think Himalayan climbers tend to mature fairly late. I think most of the successful Himalayan climbers have ranged from 28 to just over 40, really.