Newspaper Article 1980 – Unsung hero is eager to return home

Unsung hero is eager to return home

George Lowe, one of the unsung heroes of the 1952 conquest of Mt Everest is back in Hastings with an eye open for a job.

Mr Lowe, 57, is on holiday here from his job as an inspector of schools in England to visit his brother, Rueben [Reuben], a Twyford orchardist.

He  will return to his home in Nottingham in January to serve the final three years as an inspector.

In England his job as an inspector also calls upon his vast experience as a mountaineer and global traveller.

He advises and leads mountaineering expeditions in England, as well as acting as an advisor to kindergartens, high schools, prisons and other institutions.

Mr Lowe acted as a human mule on the Everest expedition and was instrumental in setting up the camp from which Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing made the final assault on the mountain.

He says he wants to return to New Zealand when he leaves England and is keen to fulfil a role as some sort of advisor on outdoor activities.

Mr Lowe is indifferent to the acclaim that followed the success of the Everest expedition and says he regards his role in the climb as a privilege.

“I’d be much happier visiting schools which don’t know my climbing background. There’s a limit to what you can stand.”

Next year he will lead a Royal Geographical Society expedition through China and Tibet to the old Everest base camp.

That trip will be just another in a long history of gruelling tramps, climbs and adventure trips.

Mr Lowe has tramped and struggled through Greece, Ethiopia, the Antarctic [Antarctic], the Himalayas and Greenland – to name a few – and is not content at 57 years of age to settle down.

He was appointed as an English school inspector after being a high school headmaster in Santiago, Chile for 10 years.

The decision to leave Chile – “a remarkable country” – was made in favour of his children.

He says his close connections with mountaineering probably got him the job in England which is tied closely with outdoor activities.

Mr Lowe was born at Sunnybank, Hastings, and educated at Hastings High School and Victoria University, Wellington, before embarking on a career as an educationalist and climber

He taught at many North Island schools before beginning to fulfil his love for climbing and the outdoors.

Mr Lowe said his second wife, Mary – also a school inspector – is back in New Zealand for the first time since 1968.

“I’m what’s known in England as an HMI – Her Majesty’ Inspector of schools. It is the only inspectorate in England which is by Royal appointment.

“We’re appointed by the Queen, and although we are paid by the Civil Service, much the same as Judges, we are put above the Government of the day.”

Mr Lowe says the inspectors are the eyes and ears of the Minister of Education … “we can’t form policy but we do, and should, advise on educational standards.”

Although Mr Lowe has only been back in New Zealand a short time, he has some harsh words about what he has seen of our depleted native forests.

He says New Zealand should take care not to let native trees fade into obscurity and that we should be mindful of their part in our heritage.

There is also a cautionary tale about the New Zealand system of teacher grading.

Each time Mr Lowe went on one of his many expeditions to the Himalayas in the 1950s he was forced to pick up where he left off in his job as a New Zealand teacher.

“So, by the time I got across the Antarctic and came back here in 1958 I was then seven or eight years out of date as far as the New Zealand teaching service was concerned.”

He said he had been able to further his profession as a teacher better overseas than he would have been able to do here.

Mr Lowe still keeps in regular contact with Sir Edmund Hillary and other members of the Everest expedition, led by Colonel Hunt.

In the meantime, until he is forced to retire in three years at the age of 60, New Zealand will have to do without the talents of George Lowe, OBE.

Photo caption:  George Lowe and his wife Mary with an ice axe and crampons used during the Mt Everest conquest.