They didn't immediately tell all their teammates they had been successful. "Then my very good friend and teammate George Lowe raised his hand towards the summit, pushed his thumb up into the air and waved it. All our companions rushed towards us. Hunt arrived first and he threw his arms around my shoulder and gave me a great hug. Then he hugged Tenzing. We all were extremely happy."

Since then, Hillary's life changed incredibly. He won a knighthood, went on an expedition with modified farm tractors to the South Pole, searched for the mythical yeti in Nepal, wrote books and built many schools and hospitals for the Sherpas. It is with them that he is spending the 50th anniversary in Kathmandu, though the British tried their best to make him go to London.

His life has been touched by tragedy too-he lost his wife Louise and daughter Belinda in an aircrash in Nepal in 1975. In 1989, he married Jane Mulgrew and the couple live in Auckland. His eldest son, Peter, 47, climbed Everest last year with Brent Bishop, son of Barry Bishop, a member of the first US team to reach the top in 1963.

MY FATHER'S STORY JAMLING TENZING NORGAY She Tested His Faith

ROBUST RANKERS: Debroy (left) and Bhandari On top of Everest, Tenzing Norgay dug a hole in the snow and buried some sweets and a pencil stub his daughter had given him as offerings to the mountain. That was Tenzing, the simple, unlettered man, who started as a porter in 1935. Born in 1914 in Tibet, he lived most of his life in Darjeeling, where he died in 1986. His son, also an Everest summiteer, remembers his amazing father and his warm ways. My father always said, "I climb so that my children don't have to." It was not as if he was not passionate about climbing-it was just that he wanted us to study and lead a good life. But mountaineering is in my blood. I have grown up listening to the exploits of my father. I have trekked with him in the Sikkim Himalayas, learnt the ropes with him by my side. So it was inevitable that I would one day climb Everest. I kept my desire to climb the mountain suppressed for a while. But when the imax team wanted me to join them in their 1996 expedition, I quickly accepted. I am glad I decided to climb the peak. It felt like I was connecting with my father. I could feel his presence on the summit. As I was Tenzing's son everyone expected more from me. But not my father. He told me to do my own thing. Everything was acceptable to him-except perhaps climbing. However, in many ways he considered Everest his mountain long before he joined an expedition. But she tested his faith. Seven times he tried to reach the summit. Only once did she permit it.

Sir Edmund narrates his remarkable-and inspiring-story to Headlines Today senior producer Vijay Jung Thapa for India Today.

When I was young, I was a very enthusiastic reader of adventure books. I read almost a book a day about adventures. At that stage, I went for a school party down to the mountains 200 miles away. It was the middle of winter and there was a lot of snow everywhere. I found it most exciting. I did a great deal of skiing and climbing. This completely changed my life. From being a sort of a dreamer I became a doer.

For many years after that I was a beekeeper. My brother and I worked with my father. We had 1,700 hives spread all over the countryside and we used to gather 20-30 tonnes of honey every year. But whenever I got spare time, I would head to the mountains. I climbed many great peaks in New Zealand and I became a skilled mountaineer. This went on until the day I went to the Himalayas. By then I was a very skilful snow and ice climber and was determined to tackle every mountain I could.

For the first Himalayan expedition, we went to the Garhwal Himalayas. We climbed six mountains of 20,000-23,000 ft. The great British mountaineer Eric Shipton had just got permission to take an expedition to the south side of Mt Everest on the Nepal side. He invited two of us from New Zealand to join his team because he realised we had a lot of skill in snow and ice climbing. So I joined up with Eric and we went down to the Khumbu glacier and realised there might just be a possibility of climbing Everest from the south side. That was a very exciting moment for us.

In 1952, we had hoped to return to Mt Everest but discovered that the Swiss had got permission for two expeditions, one pre-monsoon and one post-monsoon. And although we spent the same time in the Himalayas as they did, they worked hard on climbing the mountain. But they were not successful. That meant that in 1953, it was up to us to make the attempt. I was, of course, a New Zealander, but in those days we were citizens of the UK and so I was a British citizen and a New Zealand person of law. So there was nothing unusual about me being invited to join the British expedition and going to the Himalayas.

SAVOURING SUCCESS: A day after the ascent, Tenzing (left) and Hillary celebrate their feat with mugs of tea at Camp IV

As for Tenzing Norgay, before I met him at the British Embassy in Kathmandu in 1953, I had read about his efforts. We got to know each other very well and when we reached the Khumbu glacier and Mt Everest, we started climbing together. I think we were a pretty good team. He was very strong and well acclimatised and so was I.

But I wasn't completely sure we would be successful. The psychological barrier meant that we really had no idea as to whether or not we could be successful in reaching the summit of the mountain. In fact, a physiologist had warned us that we might possibly reach the summit but then die from the lack of oxygen. We persisted. We were very determined.

We became the first people to spend a night above 27,000 ft. I was quite uncomfortable really because we were in a very small tent on a slipping area of snow. The temperatures were quite low so we slid very little but finally the morning came. We looked out of the tent and we could see that the weather had improved. We made our preparations and left to climb the snow slope towards the South Summit. When I looked along the summit region, I decided that it was probably possible to climb it and we cut steps all the way, climbing up what we call the Hillary Step, a 44-ft-high step, and then further on until we reached a rounded snow dome. We climbed up that and Tenzing and I stood on top of the world.

I think Tenzing in many ways was more excited than I was. I had a strong feeling of satisfaction. So many expeditions had tried to climb Everest, many of them had got very high but none had been successful. It was a great feeling. I reached out to shake hands with Tenzing but that wasn't good enough for him. He threw his arms around my shoulder, I threw my arms around his shoulder and we gave each other a really good hug to celebrate our success.

MAY 29, 1953. 11.30 A.M.: Tenzing holds up the flags of the UN, Britain, Nepal and India on his ice-axe

Then I got Tenzing to stand in a prominent position and took photographs of him with his ice-axe in the air and with four flags waving from his ice-axe. Then I took photographs down all the leading ridges of the mountains just to give complete evidence that we had been successful. There is no photograph of me on the top of Everest but I can assure you I was there.

As for the whole controversy of who stepped on the summit first, we were a team. I led all along the way to the summit ridge, cutting steps and Tenzing was close behind when I moved up on to the summit. So it was our feeling that we reached the summit almost together.

The next few months were very exciting indeed. We went to many parties, of course. We seemed to be constantly consuming smoked salmon, scotch and champagne, things I had never had before. We went to many important functions. I was even knighted. It was at Buckingham Palace. The Queen had a little stool placed in front of her. John Hunt was knighted first. He knelt on the stool and she touched his shoulders with a little sword. Then it was my turn. I also knelt on the stool and she touched each of my shoulders with the rather beautiful little sword and she said, "Arise Sir Edmund." That meant I was knighted.

When Tenzing and I were on the mountains, communication was a bit of a problem. I didn't speak much Nepali and his English wasn't all that good. We could communicate about mountaineering matters but not about anything else. Later on when I was the New Zealand High Commissioner in Delhi-I spent nearly five years there-I saw a great deal of Tenzing and his English became very good. We had very happy discussions together. We talked about our families, about the philosophy of life, about what was happening in India and elsewhere. Funnily enough, you know, we never ever talked about our climb to the top of Everest.