'I wanted to be first to climb Everest'

IT was the sort of extraordinary timing you never get in real life. As the nation geared up to celebrate the coronation of a new Queen and the dawn of a new Elizabethan age, promising a brave new world after the austerity of the war years, reports came through that a British-led expedition had become the first to reach the summit of the highest mountain in the world.

The news was a signal for a general rejoicing, a premature start to the festivities due to explode the following day - all the excitement and anticipation which had been building for months suddenly given an outlet. Despite the ravages of war and the first stages of a dismantling of Empire, Britain had proved it was once again the best.

But not everyone saw it like that. Six-year-old Christopher Brown, for one, was decidedly put out.

"I always wanted to climb Everest, even as a young boy. I was six when they first climbed it, and I remember it as though it was yesterday," he says. "I was watching the Coronation on an auntie's TV and I heard the news.

"You want to be a hero when you are a little boy, and I always wanted to be the first to climb it, so when I heard someone else had done it I was a bit disappointed."

But it was to be more than 45 years before Chris, who farms at Baldersby, near Thirsk, in North Yorkshire, was able to fulfil his childhood ambition and put that disappointment behind him.

He started serious climbing at 40, to raise money for children with schizophrenia, and includes the Matterhorn among his conquests. In 1993, at the age of 46, he made his first attempt on Everest, tackling the north face - but it was to end in tragedy.

'It was very, very cold and suddenly one of our group died of altitude sickness. I buried someone up there at 23,000ft. That was very traumatic. I learned a lot about mountaineering that day: you don't accept death, but it is part of mountaineering. You don't plan for it, but when it does happen it makes you realise how humble we all are."

Four years later, Chris was to make his second attempted ascent, this time on the south side, the same as that climbed by Hillary and Tenzing, but this was also to end in failure.

"We had a very strong team, but I made the decision 1,000ft short of the summit that I just didn't feel right, so I came back. My colleagues went on and climbed it, but I didn't feel right, but I was very disappointed that they made it and I didn't. I thought I had really blown it," he says.

Chris may have thought his chance had gone, but when he returned to Britain he was given an unexpected fillip. A team of international climbers planning an expedition to Everest in 1999, contacted him and asked if he wanted to take part. He didn't have to be asked twice.

After a series of preparatory climbs, including Mount McKinley in Alaska, the team reached the Himalayas in early spring. After a ten day, 70-mile trek to base camp, the team spent around eight weeks at base camp, getting used to the altitude and transporting equipment up to four camps on the south face, then the last two weeks waiting for favourable weather forecasts, beamed in from Bracknell, in Berkshire.

Finally, when the forecast was for a drop in the wind between May 11 and 15, the team decided to go, leaving base camp on May 11. Two days later, at 10.15am on May 13, 1999, at the age of 52, Chris stood on top of the world.

"It was a very demanding climb, in strength and stamina, and there is some tricky technical climbing at the Hillary Step, the last 300ft. When I got to the top it was unbelievable, it was very emotional - it was a dream come true.

"About 30 yards short of the top I knew I was going to do it, I knew I was going to achieve my dream. The tears were running down my face. There was no wind, but it was very, very cold.

"You could just see the Himalayas stretching out before you, and the crystal clear sky. You could see the curvature of the Earth, it is so high. It was such a glorious view. You just feel so humble, you feel very fortunate that the mountain has allowed you to climb it. You feel so minute and insignificant."

Chris had reached the top on his own, but shortly afterwards was joined by another member of the team, Martin Doyle. After savouring the view, Chris spent 20 minutes taking photographs from the top of the world, before he began his descent. He had spent 45 minutes as the highest man on Earth.

Every year since, he has spoken to Martin on May 13 - the day they stood on the top of Everest.

After arriving back at base camp, after a descent almost as arduous and treacherous as the climb, Chris spent about ten days talking with other climbers, allowing the enormity of his achievement to sink in, reliving the experience before he was forced to return to the real world, the world outside his dreams.

He returned to the mountain earlier this year, as part of celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of its ascent. The trip to Everest base camp was an opportunity to talk to other climbers who had stood on its summit. For 50 years, Everest has been a part of his life: from a childhood dream through disappointment and tragedy to finally becoming his past; it has seared itself on his heart.

"If I do a slide show or relive it, it all comes flooding back. You live with the dream, and when you finally achieve it, it has a lasting impact on your life. You look at life differently when you come down: you realise life is for living."

Everest: the facts

Peak XV on the Tibet-Nepal border was found to be the highest mountain in the Himalayas by the Survey Department of the Government of India in 1856, with a height calculated at 29,002ft. It has been surveyed several times since, and its height is now accepted as 29,029ft.

It was named after Colonel Sir George Everest, former Surveyor General of India. The Nepalese know it as Sagarmatha (goddess of the sky) and the Tibetans call it Chomolungma (mother goddess of the universe).

It was first climbed by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who reached the summit on May 29, 1953. By 1987, only 187 people had stood on the summit. Now, there have been more than 1,000 successful ascents.

In 1978, Italian Reinhold Messner and Austrian Peter Habeler made the first ascent without oxygen.

The first woman to reach the summit was Junko Tabei from Japan in 1975.

The fastest ascent was by Lakpa Gyelu, set last Monday, who reached the summit in ten hours and 56 minutes, breaking a record set just days earlier by Pemba Dorjee, who took 12 hours 45 minutes to climb the 12,000ft from base camp to the top.

Around one in ten climbers dies on the way to the summit.