After working as a volunteer in Nepal, town planner Ed Laughton plans to climb Everest to raise money for the organisation providing healthcare for trekkers and the Nepalese people. He tells Steve Pratt how his passion for mountaineering began.

ED LAUGHTON grew up in Lincolnshire, which, to borrow Noel Coward’s description of Norfolk, is “very flat”. Which makes it odd that his big passion is mountains and climbing.

Now Laughton is heading for the very top with plans to lead an Everest expedition this spring – not to fulfil any climbing ambitions, but to raise awareness and money for the medical facilities that help climbers in distress.

He and his GP wife, Jen, gave up their home and jobs in the North-East to volunteer for the Himalayan Rescue Association (HRA), a notfor- profit organisation providing medical care for both western trekkers and the local Nepalese population.

They were working in the village of Pheriche, in the Solo Khumbu region of Nepal, seeing more than 600 patients suffering from high altitude sickness and other illnesses during their three-month stay, That clinic, which was set up in a yak herder’s hut in 1973, is part of HRA which also runs Everest ER clinic, providing a medical facility on the Khumbu Glacier within Everest Base Camp during the spring climbing season.

This was established during the 2003 Everest 50th anniversary spring climbing season and was the subject of a recent BBC documentary series.

Laughton trained at Newcastle University as a town planner, then specialised in urban design, before working for North Tyneside and Sunderland councils.

“A couple of years ago, although my wife, who’s a GP, and I had quite a nice lifestyle, we felt there was something missing. So we packed in our jobs, let the house and volunteered in India for a year,” he recalls.

“We worked in a small health clinic in a really remote part of the Himalayas. It was a wonderful experience.

“We had to come back here to earn some more money because it’s all voluntary work.

The rewards aren’t monetary, but to be living out there and helping the population.”

The most recent stint saw them based in Pheriche, on the Everest Base Camp trek. Just getting there takes six or seven days walking, even for the medical staff. Patients too ill to make the descent have to be helicoptered out.

“There was a great mix of people who came into the clinic,” he says. “We saw close to 600 admissions in three months. The problem was that only a few spoke English. My Nepali was okay by the end of it, but it took a long time to get the medical history of the people. There was a lot of charades going on.”

Patients arrived at the clinic 24 hours a day.

Some were in a coma, others had life-threatening illnesses associated with high altitude.

Some trekkers clearly hadn’t prepared sufficiently for their expedition, so Laughton would give daily talks to people on their way up.

“Everest is very busy and it’s getting busier, so more and more people are likely to get into trouble,” he says.

“They need to get ready for the altitude, to acclimatise themselves. Everyone can do that if they go up level by level, taking it slowly.”

He was able to do some climbing during his stays in India and Nepal to add to his trekking and climbing experience in England, Wales, Italy, Argentina and Vietnam.

Now comes the Ed On Everest expedition to tackle the highest mountain on earth from the northern Tibetan route to promote HRA and Everest ER.

Laughton believes his love of climbing is “just a natural progression” from walking in this country. He dates that interest back to childhood and a family holiday in Spain. “I was really young and there was a mountain and my dad and I climbed it – and it was a brilliant experience.

Maybe that sowed the seeds, I don’t know. I’ve always loved skiing and snowboarding.

“Everest isn’t a particularly technical mountain on the morthern side. Really, it’s the altitude that’s the problem. It’s a little bit daunting.

And avalanches. I was talking to someone who’s been up a couple of times and last time was just walking into camp when an avalanche sweept down and wiped out the camp. If they’d been any earlier that would’ve been the end of them.”

AS well as the personal satisfaction of conquering Everest, he wants to raise awareness of the charity running the medical centres which survive through donations from tourists and trekkers passing through and contributions from western patients.

This enables the charities to provide healthcare to the local population and Nepalis, such as porters, coming through the villages.

He knows that current economic times will make it difficult to raise money, but he’s funding his Everest climb himself, so anything donated goes straight to the charity.

He’s already received help. Gosforth gym Green is providing his training facilities, while the Mountain Hardware store in Kathmandu has given him a full down suit for the climb and Teko/Anatom is providing expedition socks.

But he’s keen to attract more sponsors, perhaps a company that would like to have a flag planted on the top of Everest.

He’s been heartened by a message from British climbing legend Sir Chris Bonington wishing the “very worthwhile project” the very best of good fortune.

He adds in his email: “The Himalayan Rescue Association does a wonderful job both in helping local porters and trekkers or climbers who get into trouble. This is a well thought-out project with a strong team that really deserves your support.”

■ For further details and sponsorship opportunities, visit edoneverest.com