One less Mountain to climb

Well, here we are again kids! Are you sitting comfortably? Well stop it at once, don't want you drifting off during these important announcements.

Once again, this is not the post it was supposed to be - it originally had the title of "the power of hug", and I will no doubt drift back onto that original, slightly sentimental subject at some point.

Before we get onto what distracted me from my original idea, some things I have learned in the short while since I last posted:

• I needn't have worried about the Doctor's name being revealed. But more importantly, I love the fact he basically agreed with my contention that his name actually is the Doctor, and that, in my blurred fictional/real world view, there are now 1 million Jenna-Louise Colemans out there. That last bit sounds like intelligent design at work to me.
• Of all things, my slightly obscure, unfocussed rant on idents and vanity cards has prompted the most comment. And the most common comment (erm) is that the Thames logo looked like it had a crocodile in it for most viewers.
• The auditions for Wyrd Sisters are set for 2nd and 3rd July. Eeeeeek! In the meantime, Canterbury Players' current production is nearing completion. See the Twitter account, Facebook group, and my blogging Guru Miscriant's post on the rehearsals for the play. And book tickets at once.

So, I woke up this morning at some ungodly hour, ready to go to work and look busy for a few hours, thinking "I miss having hugs on tap, there's a blog post in that", when the radio chirped that it was 60 years of a major event in human exploration. Something to do with this big bit of scenery:

Apparently, a couple of hill walkers turned left, rather than right, at Scarfell Pike 60 years ago and ended up meandering up this second rate Snowdon. Looking at them, they don't look too bright, so I can understand how it happened.....

Okay, so it's 60 years since the summit of Everest was reached. Interestingly, I mentioned this in passing in the office. This was a brave move.

Last week, I had, in passing, acknowledged the 70 year anniversary of the Dambusters. I say in passing. My office is on Kings Hill, which from above looks not unlike this:

However, 70 years ago, it looked like this:

Well, not actually. As a military airfield, there aren't a huge number of easy to access aerial shots of Kings Hill, but you get the point. We work on an airfield which was at least a key part of the Battle of Britain. As a result, we were treated to an afternoon fly-by by one of these beauties in celebration of the anniversary of the Dambusters:

So, when I mentioned why we had the fly-by I was dismayed, amused and slightly concerned that half the people in the office hadn't even heard of the Dambusters. And of those who had, a decent chunk thought of it as just a movie.

Look, I'm a geek, and a historian. Whilst my taste is more medieval, and early medieval at that, it is no surprise that I know what the Dambusters are. But the percentage was horrendous. As any general who has invaded Russia in a fit of overconfidence has found again and again (Charles XII, Napoleon and Hitler, stand up, take a bow, look suitably chastised then sit down and be quiet - this isn't your story), "Those Who Forget Their History Are Doomed to Repeat It." Not knowing about the Dambusters does not mean we are forgetting WWII and the horrors it represents (even now, a group of gents I travel with are planning a visit to Aushwitz on a trip which otherwise will be focussed on drinking and the avoidance of all things serious), but if we are starting to forget the details, then there is a slide occurring. Either that or all the study of the war which the people who didn't know the Dambusters undertook at school was, 'shudder', social history.

Perhaps that particular point is a rant for another time.

Nevertheless, I mentioned Everest being summited (don't complain - this came up on the radio this morning and apparently this is the term used by hill yompers...er, mountain climbers....to describe the act of running out of 'up' in which to travel) with little optimism. Of course, people had heard of it. And perhaps understandably, beyond a couple of names, they knew only three things:

• It was climbed 'because it was there'.
• It was a great moment in British history
• K2 is a higher mountain, so it wasn't reaching the top of the highest mountain.

Good, right? People knew stuff. Only....

• Edmund Hillary never said he climbed Everest 'because it was there'. He is more likely to have said 'Beam me up, Scotty', or 'Elementary, my dear Watson' - neither of which were said in the 'canon' of their own myths either.
• Edmund Hillary was from New Zealand. The first British Kiwi? Hardly.  Oddly enough, Sherpa Tenzing wasn't from Basildon either.
• K2 is not higher. It was a spinach incident all over again, with a mis-measurement of the mountain, probably based on an inconsistent start point, and a misunderstanding of the measurement criteria for mountains. (Popeye eating Spinach to get strong relates to a tenfold increase in the reported iron content of the substance due to a misplaced decimal point, of all things....it is good for iron, but not that good. See, maths lies, but we trust it because it is absolute, pure, infallible. Humans aren't though, and maths is a human creation.)

It is almost a requirement of being a historian that you want to 'peer behind the curtain' and debunk the myths of the world. You want to understand how and why things work, how they happened, and therefore you find yourself digging under the surface of received wisdom and knowledge, and occasionally you leave a trail of worms and ring pulls (work it out....I'll wait....there it is) in pursuing that. The succes of Mythbusters, and more relevantly, QI, shows that a lot of us are like that.

But here's the thing. For me, even if the people in the office thought Dambusters was 'just' a film, and believed the three 'facts' about the climbing of Everest which are untrue, I would rather they believed them than just didn't know about it. The myth comes about for a reason, and has its own currency. Dambusters shows the creativity, loss, sacrifice and bravery of Brits at war - even if people think it is purely fiction, it is a fiction they take something from. Climbing Everest? Even I want to believe that it was only done 'because it was there' - it says so much about the human spirit and reach, and espouses values I want the best of us to have.

Know the truth, value the myth. Both are far more important than just not knowing.

Oh, by the way...

• The climbing of Everest has a very important personal meaning for me. The 50th anniversary, 10 years ago (I'm getting old to be able to say that) was a very significant day in my personal life. It is no underestimation to say that that day was the culmination of over 7 years before it, and then proceeded, one way or another, to shape most of the decade since, one way or another. I won't bore you, or me, with why - but I think that 50th anniversary day will probably float into my mind on the 70th, 80th, 90th, 100th anniversaries, whatever else the next few years bring. It's an odd connection.
• I can't believe that so few people had even heard of the Dambusters. Surely everyone 40 and under danced to this song as kids? It's kind of right there (just under 3 minutes in for those who value their ears)
• It amazes me that the most famous man to have climbed Everest but not reached the summit is a man who is most famous for having a pair of wings:

On which basis we can conclude only that life makes no sense.