Explorers: Conquest and Calamity A Timewatch Guide


Explorers: Conquest and Calamity

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For centuries,

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explorers have travelled to the ends of the Earth

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in the name of discovery.

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Along the way, they created our maps...

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..captured our imagination

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and became rooted in our history.

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Exploration has given us some of our greatest heroes

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and most memorable tales.

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But discovery is not all romance and glory.

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As exploration has been studied and re-examined,

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the very notion of discovery has been called into question.

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In this film,

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I'll be digging through the BBC's incredible archive -

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nearly 70 years of documentary footage -

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to pinpoint the monumental shifts in the story of exploration.

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Along the way, I'll discover why some explorers

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have remained our heroes...

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..but others have been reinterpreted.

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One immediately takes issue with the cult of the hero.

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I'll examine the changing face of the first-hand account...

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Had I been facing the other way, it would have killed me.

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..and follow the rise of the amateur explorer.

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We crossed by a horrifying bridge about 400 feet long.

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In this programme, I'll discover not only how television has followed

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explorers and told their stories,

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but also how film has actually changed

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the entire enterprise of exploration.

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This is the Timewatch Guide to Explorers.

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Discovery -

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the word alone conjures up wooden ships sailing across the globe,

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a captain at the helm poring over a map and compass.

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For centuries, that was the enduring image of the explorer -

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fearless, full of ambition, poised for glory.

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But over the last 50 years

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our attitudes towards the heroic navigators of old have shifted,

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starting with Christopher Columbus.

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In 1492, he sailed from Europe to the Americas,

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discovering the New World and claiming it for Spain.

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The BBC reconstructed his voyage and landing in 1963,

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telling the age-old story for a growing television audience.

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In the name of Their Majesties Ferdinand and Isabella,

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King and Queen of Castille, Leon and Aragon,

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I now take possession of this land and name it San Salvador.

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THEY CHEER

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I declare that this is Spanish soil for all time,

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drawn up this 12th day of October in the year of Our Lord,

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1492.

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In the traditional tellings of the explorers' story,

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it's generally from the point of view of the explorer.

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So you will see the classic trope of an explorer arriving on the beach,

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falling on their hands and knees, giving praise to God,

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and claiming the land.

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It's always about planting a flag.

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Or if not planting a flag, extending the influence of your people.

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The British answer to Columbus was Captain James Cook.

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He sailed across the world,

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mapping new lands and claiming them for empire.

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He also brought back hundreds of artefacts -

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trophies of his encounters with exotic far-away cultures.

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Two centuries later,

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The Cook Legacy joined curators,

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only now taking on the challenge of

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understanding what these objects actually were.

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Their first stop was the British Museum's Museum of Mankind.

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It is one of the unfortunate accidents in the history

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of museums that although the Museum Of Mankind

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probably has the most extensive collection of objects

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collected on Cook's voyages, much of it cannot be identified.

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The problem is not that the objects are missing, lost or dispersed,

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as might have happened in other museums.

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The problem is missing documentation.

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What the experts really needed was a paper trail

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that would give them more information.

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They finally found one in Oxford.

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The Forster Collection here at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford

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is important to our research for two reasons.

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Firstly, the material is of very good quality indeed.

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Secondly, we have a great deal of documentation,

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both published and unpublished.

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And this means that we are able to tie down the date of collection

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very precisely, we sometimes know from whom it comes,

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and we can even localise the specimens,

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in many cases, to particular parts of the island in question.

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Pinning down where the objects came from was the first step towards

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understanding the people they had once belonged to.

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So the search goes on,

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for every piece that can be documented

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to collection on Cook's voyages

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tells us something more about Pacific Islanders

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as they were before the voyages of Captain Cook and others

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irrevocably changed their lives.

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The Cook Legacy was not about Captain Cook at all.

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It was about discovering the people he'd met on his voyages,

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as revealed through the objects that Cook had taken from them.

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The material artefacts of voyages of explorations like, for example,

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James Cook's, they become very important because they, in a way,

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are a physical reminder that these objects have a creator,

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they have a history of their own,

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they have a biography.

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The artefacts now told a new and forgotten story.

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Scholars have begun to pay more and more attention

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to the other side of exploration.

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The story of the people already living in the places

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being discovered.

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In the 1990s, the BBC decided to tackle this other side directly.

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For the 500th anniversary of Columbus's crossing,

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film-makers travelled to the USA

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to find out what ordinary people thought

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of the so-called discoverer of their continent.

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In New York City on October 12th, Columbus Day, he is an Italian hero.

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It's something to be proud of, an Italian heritage,

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that an Italian discovered America.

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With no Christopher Columbus, we wouldn't be here right now.

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And irrespective of whether or not you hear about other people

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that discovered America,

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Columbus was the man that opened up the Americas to the world.

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But the programme also revealed that while Americans celebrated Columbus

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as a hero, local people in Mexico had a rather different take

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on his actions.

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To many of the Americas' native peoples,

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contact with Europe is still seen as having brought with it

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little but disease, servitude and deprivation.

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The Mayans who live here share the view of many Native Americans

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throughout the Americas towards the quincentenary.

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The Indian point of view is that it shouldn't be celebrated,

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because the conquest, it means domination,

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the end of our own history as Indians.

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And that, of course, is not an occasion of celebration.

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As indigenous people finally got to tell their own story,

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the traditional European narrative was forced to change.

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Over the last 40 years,

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we've increasingly realised that if we want to tell

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the story of exploration,

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we've got to pay much more attention to the people who were

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already there,

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who were living in these lands that the Europeans went

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to discover and colonise.

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One then immediately takes issue with the cult of the hero.

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From an indigenous point of view, from a post-colonial point of view,

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this is just a tale that Europeans tell.

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A growing suspicion of the European explorer had emerged,

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and that's led to a startling shift on television too.

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2002's The Ship was a very different type of documentary -

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a living history experiment

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that invited members of the public to recreate life

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as one of Captain Cook's crew.

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During their gruelling weeks-long journey

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up the east coast of Australia,

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the film-makers explored the full picture of Cook's legacy,

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warts and all.

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This is the story of an 18th-century voyage and a 21st-century adventure.

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Our volunteer crew includes Royal Navy sailors, scientists,

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medics and historians.

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Also part of our crew,

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some of the people most affected by Cook's arrival in this part

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of the world - New Zealand Maori and Australian Aborigines.

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Along the way, audiences got a taste of the dangers and discomforts

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that Cook and his crew had experienced.

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Sailing a tall ship is a 24-hour operation.

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Alex, an Australian historian,

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is now clinging to a yardarm 130 feet above a rolling ocean.

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I've always felt that it was a dangerous temptation

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for historians to get their history exclusively from books,

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and coming here to a place like this to think about history

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is an extraordinary experience.

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It's certainly an extreme context in which to think about history.

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-BELL RINGS

-Down to lunch. Go, go, get.

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The programme also didn't shy away from the contentious aspects

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of Cook's journey and his legacy.

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In fact, it embraced the complexity of the story.

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I don't see him as a hero,

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but I certainly acknowledge what he achieved.

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-His accomplishments.

-His accomplishment.

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But the story is about Cook.

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But what about the people that were affected,

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and what about the amount of massacres that went on?

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-You mean after Cook?

-After Cook.

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And how the Aboriginal people were affected, and the Maori people?

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The film interwove the indigenous perspective

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with the traditional story of Captain Cook.

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Bruce had hoisted the Aboriginal flag on the first day of our voyage.

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It's a moving symbol.

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I mean...

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..Cook's too easily been assimilated to a kind of white myth,

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but the story is also a story of...

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..of colonialism, of dispossession of indigenous peoples,

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and it's very important that we don't elide that.

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Post-colonialism has meant for historians the need to,

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in a beautiful phrase, provincialize Europe -

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to look from the wider world back at Europe

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and to make it a rather little place.

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What we're now dealing with is a much more richly textured history

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than we had before,

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when you've got the points of view and the experiences of the different

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groups who were encountered.

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Back in the 1960s,

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the BBC had presented discovery as a heroic, white,

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European tale.

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But by the 21st century,

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film-makers not only saw a more complicated and ambiguous story,

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they'd also created new ways of telling it.

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The past doesn't change, but the stories we tell about it,

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they change all the time.

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What we choose to remember from history is not really about

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the past at all, it's about the present.

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Nothing shows this more clearly

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than which explorers we exalt as heroes.

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They fall in and out of favour as our own society evolves

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from decade to decade.

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In 1965,

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the young David Attenborough set out to follow in the footsteps

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of David Livingstone, the quintessential Victorian hero.

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Livingstone was one of the first Europeans to explore

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the interior of Africa.

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His journeys made him into an iconic British explorer,

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even into the 1960s.

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For Attenborough, retracing Livingstone's journeys

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was an opportunity to show the beauty of his greatest discoveries

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to a new television audience.

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As he travelled in the canoe,

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he had with him this small pocketbook.

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These figures are the hours that he took as he went down river.

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Up here, he's noted the nature of the rocks he passes -

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porphyry with crystals covered with copper.

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And then, on the next page,

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come the details of his approach to the falls.

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Not surprisingly, Attenborough paid special attention

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to the natural world

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and to Livingstone's most famous geographical discovery -

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the Victoria Falls.

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And so he came to this spot and looked right over the very edge

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of the falls, the first white man ever to do so.

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Livingstone's own comment is a typical understatement.

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"For a moment," he wrote,

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"I thought we were going to go right into the gulf.

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"And I felt a tremor,

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"but I said nothing,

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"believing that I could face the difficulty as well as my guides."

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Until now, he had never used anything

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but the local African name for all his geographical discoveries.

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But here, for the first and last time, he broke with this rule,

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and he called these the Victoria Falls.

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Livingstone is still famous for his discovery of the Victoria Falls,

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but by the 1960s, he was starting to feel like an old-fashioned hero,

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partly because his main purpose was actually

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not science or inspiration,

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but a very Victorian one -

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to convert Africa to Christianity.

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The people say that it was under this tree,

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which blew down only a year ago,

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that Livingstone pitched his tent.

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Already, before his journey had really begun,

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he was stricken by fever,

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and so weak that he hadn't the strength

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to go out and hunt for meat for himself.

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But the chief of Sesheke hospitably sent him gifts

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of honey and milk and fruit and maize.

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Weak though he was,

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Livingstone nonetheless found the strength

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to preach both in the morning and the afternoon,

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and was listened to by audiences of over 600.

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By the 1960s,

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the religious culture which had really sustained

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Livingstone's reputation,

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I'm talking about Sunday schools, missionary organisations, etc,

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well, that has really ebbed away.

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It hasn't disappeared,

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and Christianity is still an important force in public life,

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but it has nothing like the power

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and authority that kept Livingstone at the centre

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of the public stage through the 19th century.

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In 1975, Attenborough was again at the helm, introducing The Explorers,

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an epic series highlighting ten of the most important heroes of exploration.

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This time, Livingstone the missionary did not make the list.

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Instead, reflecting the priorities of 1970s Britain,

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the producers included a woman explorer, Mary Kingsley,

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who transformed how the British viewed Africa.

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Here now is the remarkable story

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of one of the shortest important journeys

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in the annals of discovery.

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It lasted barely a week in 1893,

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and covered no more than 60 or 70 miles.

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And yet it was a journey which had enormous impact on white Europeans,

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for through Mary Kingsley's eyes,

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the blinkered world of Victorian Britain was to see an interpretation

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of the African that was as new as it was startling.

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Through her experiences,

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Mary Kingsley came to question many of the attitudes Victorians

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held about the people of Africa.

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And her observations were just as powerful for viewers in the 1970s,

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when The Explorers dramatised her diary.

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I stayed with missionaries in the Gaboon.

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I have a profound personal esteem for several missionaries,

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but often they fail to recognise the difference

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between the African and themselves.

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The black man is no more an undeveloped white man

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than a rabbit is an undeveloped hare.

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My route was to lie in the unexplored territory

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between two rivers,

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the Rembwe and the Ogowe, territory inhabited entirely by the Fangs,

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a tribe notorious for their ferocity, treachery and cannibalism.

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The film revelled in Kingsley's refusal to let the inconvenience

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of being a woman get in her way.

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It was just my luck to go and fall into an elephant trap.

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Get a bush rope and pull me out!

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-VOICEOVER:

-Kiva established that I was alive,

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and went and selected a bush rope

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suitable to haul an English lady of my exact complexion,

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age and size out of that one particular pit.

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It is at times like this that you realise the blessing of a good,

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thick skirt.

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While the film paid homage to Kingsley the explorer,

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it also had fun drawing out her prim Victorian values.

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One should never go about in Africa

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in something one would be ashamed of at home.

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I hasten to assure you that I don't even wear a masculine collar and tie.

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And as for trousers, well,

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I would rather perish on a public scaffold.

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It's not surprising that, in making a ten-part series,

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they wanted to include one woman.

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Mary Kingsley as the choice?

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That's a very intriguing choice.

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She was a very intriguing woman.

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She approached exploration in a very different way to most

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of her male counterparts at the time,

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but to be included as the token woman is quite ironic,

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because she certainly wouldn't have called herself a feminist

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by any stretch of the imagination.

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In the '70s, Kingsley was admired

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for challenging the Victorian perspective on Africa

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and the traditional role of a woman,

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but she was still a heroine from a bygone time.

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The problem with heroes is that they can't help but reflect the values

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of their age, and as our values change,

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so the icons of the past can fall out of fashion.

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The ideal hero is someone who embodies the values

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of his or her era.

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Edmund Hillary first made headlines in 1953 when he became

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the first person to summit Mount Everest,

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with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.

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This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the news -

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Mount Everest has been conquered by members of the British expedition.

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The conquest was front-page news,

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and Hillary was crowned a British hero on the Queen's coronation day.

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Hillary is arguably the last great imperial hero,

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who is celebrated at the time of Elizabeth's coronation in 1953,

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an icon for the age of the new Elizabethans.

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30 years later, Edmund Hillary was still an icon,

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but his heroism had also deepened.

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In the 1983 film, Man Of Everest,

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the BBC travelled with Hillary back to the Himalayas, discovering how,

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over decades of climbing,

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he'd developed a intimate relationship with the local communities.

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It also paid homage to his mountaineering career

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beyond Everest, and crucially, it tried to discover

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what it was like to pit oneself against the full force of nature.

0:20:580:21:02

Ahead, some of the awe-inspiring Himalayan peaks.

0:21:040:21:07

Thamserku, first climbed in 1964 by an expedition Hillary led.

0:21:070:21:13

Kangtega, first climbed by Hillary's 1963 expedition.

0:21:130:21:18

And beyond them, probably Nepal's more spectacular peak,

0:21:200:21:24

Ama Dablam, four miles high, once thought unscalable.

0:21:240:21:28

This mountain means a lot to Hillary,

0:21:310:21:33

for the expedition he led in 1961 did climb it.

0:21:330:21:37

We can see a shift to mountains,

0:21:380:21:42

to polar exploration as well.

0:21:420:21:45

And expeditions to these places, well, you can present them,

0:21:450:21:49

you can tell the stories as battles against nature,

0:21:490:21:53

which are, at least seemingly,

0:21:530:21:56

not weighed down with the problematic politics of empire.

0:21:560:22:00

By the 1980s, it was far simpler to explore the struggle to

0:22:030:22:06

reach the top of a mountain

0:22:060:22:08

than grapple with the weight of colonial history.

0:22:080:22:11

Hillary is off through the thinning air,

0:22:130:22:15

bound for a vantage point, to see the mother of mountains,

0:22:150:22:19

where once he spent ten minutes on top of the world.

0:22:190:22:22

He must climb 1,500 feet more.

0:22:220:22:25

That's the same target he and Tenzing

0:22:250:22:27

had to achieve when they set out that final day

0:22:270:22:30

for the unclimbed summit.

0:22:300:22:32

It must have been an incredible feeling, being on the top.

0:22:340:22:36

Well, it was a pretty good feeling, I guess.

0:22:360:22:38

Although I don't remember ever jumping up and down for joy

0:22:380:22:41

at any moment.

0:22:410:22:43

I think we were tired, and we still had a long way to get down again.

0:22:430:22:46

I think the best moment was when we actually finally got down

0:22:460:22:49

into the Western Cwm to meet all of our companions and know

0:22:490:22:52

that the worst of the difficulties and dangers were behind.

0:22:520:22:55

Man Of Everest tried to capture the heroic explorer's inner thoughts,

0:22:570:23:01

the personal joys and the agonies of the quest.

0:23:010:23:04

We're in an era of one man against the elements,

0:23:060:23:08

one woman against the elements.

0:23:080:23:10

And that's merely a function of our time,

0:23:100:23:12

we live in a very individualistic era.

0:23:120:23:14

But it has meant that the world has become a stage, more and more.

0:23:140:23:18

When it came to exploration,

0:23:200:23:22

one of the 20th century's greatest stages

0:23:220:23:24

was the world's largest unmapped territory - Antarctica.

0:23:240:23:29

And the most coveted prize - the South Pole.

0:23:290:23:32

In 1912, a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen

0:23:330:23:37

beat Britain's Robert Scott in the race for the pole.

0:23:370:23:41

Amundsen's team survived, Scott's did not.

0:23:410:23:45

The fact that they had both reached the pole made them the great

0:23:460:23:49

polar heroes of their age.

0:23:490:23:50

But in the 21st century,

0:23:520:23:54

their fame has been equalled by a man who never even made it

0:23:540:23:57

to the South Pole,

0:23:570:23:58

and is best known for a failed Antarctic expedition

0:23:580:24:02

that turned into a desperate feat of survival.

0:24:020:24:05

On the 21st of November 1915,

0:24:080:24:11

28 men were shipwrecked in the most desolate place in the world.

0:24:110:24:16

Their journey to safety was one of the greatest survival stories

0:24:160:24:20

in the history of exploration.

0:24:200:24:22

A journey that would have meant certain death for all of them

0:24:230:24:26

if it hadn't been for the determination of one man,

0:24:260:24:30

Sir Ernest Shackleton.

0:24:300:24:32

In 1914,

0:24:340:24:35

Ernest Shackleton had set out to be the first person

0:24:350:24:38

to cross the Antarctic continent.

0:24:380:24:41

But before he even reached land, his expedition ship,

0:24:410:24:44

the Endurance, was frozen into the sea ice and eventually crushed.

0:24:440:24:49

He and his crew were stranded 1,000 miles

0:24:490:24:52

from the nearest inhabited spot, with no hope of rescue.

0:24:520:24:55

Shackleton contemplated how to save his crew,

0:24:570:25:00

recording his thoughts in a diary.

0:25:000:25:01

Over 80 years later,

0:25:020:25:04

his thoughts were brought back to life in a major BBC docudrama.

0:25:040:25:08

Strong leadership is my only weapon.

0:25:090:25:12

On that depends the sanity of my brave companions.

0:25:120:25:15

He was part of a society that believed in dignity and restraint.

0:25:180:25:22

He had got his men into this predicament

0:25:220:25:24

and he would get them out through grim determination, if nothing else.

0:25:240:25:28

It's not until the 1990s

0:25:290:25:31

when there's really a revival of interest in Shackleton.

0:25:310:25:35

Business scholars, people interested in leadership,

0:25:350:25:38

begin to turn to this charismatic figure, this man who would say,

0:25:380:25:42

"If you don't take my gloves, I'm going to throw them into the water.

0:25:420:25:45

"So, you've got to take them."

0:25:450:25:47

A man who led from the front,

0:25:470:25:49

and inspired his followers through his charisma and personality.

0:25:490:25:54

Forced to abandon their ship,

0:25:560:25:57

the crew set up camp on the floating ice,

0:25:570:26:00

where Shackleton did everything he could to prevent his men

0:26:000:26:03

from losing hope.

0:26:030:26:04

A few days ago Captain Wesley amused the men by running out onto

0:26:060:26:09

the floe in a state of nature.

0:26:090:26:11

Today, a morale boost was needed again,

0:26:140:26:16

so I asked Captain Worsley for the honour of a dance,

0:26:160:26:19

and we waltzed on the ice while the crew whistled.

0:26:190:26:22

Morale was soon up again.

0:26:230:26:25

He becomes a figure who really suits popular culture in the 1990s.

0:26:280:26:34

He's the maverick polar explorer,

0:26:340:26:38

the charismatic,

0:26:380:26:40

Anglo-Irish rogue who breaks conventions,

0:26:400:26:44

doesn't follow hierarchy.

0:26:440:26:46

To escape the floating ice, the crew ventured to Elephant Island.

0:26:470:26:52

And then Shackleton took matters into his own hands.

0:26:520:26:55

Leaving most of his men behind,

0:26:570:26:59

he led a skeleton crew on a torturous journey

0:26:590:27:02

across the Antarctic Ocean in a small open lifeboat.

0:27:020:27:06

They sailed 800 miles

0:27:070:27:09

before finally reaching the island of South Georgia.

0:27:090:27:13

And there, he and two companions

0:27:130:27:14

walked into the treacherous landscape,

0:27:140:27:17

towards what Shackleton hoped was a whaling station.

0:27:170:27:21

Shackleton heard a distant sound.

0:27:210:27:24

It could be the wake-up call for the whaling station.

0:27:240:27:27

If he hadn't imagined it, he knew it would sound again at seven o'clock.

0:27:270:27:30

They'd walked for 36 straight hours.

0:27:320:27:36

This was their last hope.

0:27:360:27:38

WHISTLE BLOWS

0:27:410:27:45

That was a moment hard to describe.

0:27:450:27:48

Never had any of us heard sweeter music.

0:27:480:27:51

This was the first sound of the outside world

0:27:520:27:55

they had heard in 17 months.

0:27:550:27:58

Incredibly, Shackleton and his 27 men would all survive.

0:27:590:28:04

He turned an epic failure into one of exploration's greatest success stories.

0:28:040:28:08

And so, in the 21st century,

0:28:080:28:11

he's acquired an almost mythical status.

0:28:110:28:14

There is a saying amongst explorers.

0:28:150:28:17

For scientific discovery, give me Scott.

0:28:190:28:22

For speed and efficiency, give me Amundsen.

0:28:220:28:25

But when disaster strikes and all hope is gone,

0:28:250:28:28

get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.

0:28:280:28:31

The changing portrayal of our explorers on TV -

0:28:350:28:39

whether the journeys of David Livingstone,

0:28:390:28:41

or Shackleton's trek to survive -

0:28:410:28:43

shows us clearly how each age

0:28:430:28:45

creates the heroes it needs and wants.

0:28:450:28:48

For most of history,

0:28:510:28:53

the story of our greatest journeys was told through the written word -

0:28:530:28:57

a diary or a hand-drawn map was the closest we could get

0:28:570:28:59

to the experience of an expedition.

0:28:590:29:03

But in the 20th century, a new type of record emerged.

0:29:030:29:07

The advent of film completely changed

0:29:070:29:09

how explorers told their story.

0:29:090:29:11

In the 1960s,

0:29:140:29:15

explorer Wally Herbert approached the BBC with a brand-new idea.

0:29:150:29:19

He wanted to film his next expedition for television.

0:29:200:29:23

After initially doubting the idea,

0:29:240:29:26

the BBC came on board and trained one of the four members

0:29:260:29:29

of Wally's team as a cameraman.

0:29:290:29:31

The result was a documentary chronicling

0:29:330:29:35

the first-ever journey across the frozen Arctic Ocean.

0:29:350:29:39

A huge, 16-month trek covering over 3,700 miles.

0:29:390:29:44

The team started in Alaska and went all the way to Norway.

0:29:450:29:50

It was a crossing that has never even been attempted since.

0:29:520:29:55

I think the appeal of this trip is,

0:29:560:29:59

in every sense of the word, the bigness of it.

0:29:590:30:03

The bigness of it just in time

0:30:030:30:05

and the bigness of it in distance,

0:30:050:30:07

and the bigness of it as a challenge,

0:30:070:30:11

a challenge of human endurance.

0:30:110:30:16

But for the viewer there was something else, too.

0:30:160:30:18

A glimpse inside the mind of an explorer while he mused about

0:30:180:30:22

his troubles, frustrations and fears,

0:30:220:30:24

including his first crisis -

0:30:240:30:26

miles of broken ice.

0:30:260:30:29

Ahead of us it was just a complete chaos of ice.

0:30:290:30:31

I've never seen anything like it before in my life.

0:30:310:30:35

The mess of wet, jumbled ice,

0:30:350:30:39

which wouldn't bear the weight of a man,

0:30:390:30:41

the whole thing was moving.

0:30:410:30:42

The film revealed the extreme isolation of the polar explorer.

0:30:440:30:48

When the producers flew out to meet Wally in person,

0:30:490:30:52

they were turned back by the shifting ice

0:30:520:30:54

and had to settle for a radio interview.

0:30:540:30:56

Ideally, we should've been by now about 87 degrees

0:30:590:31:04

and on the other side of the date line.

0:31:040:31:06

That puts us, I suppose -

0:31:060:31:08

I'm just guessing here a little bit -

0:31:080:31:11

maybe about 250 miles or so behind schedule.

0:31:110:31:14

Thinking now of the future, Wally,

0:31:140:31:16

I believe you plan to start in March.

0:31:160:31:19

Is it going to be dark at that time?

0:31:190:31:21

It depends a little bit on the latitude.

0:31:210:31:23

If we're at latitude 87, which is what I hope,

0:31:230:31:26

well, it should be pretty strong twilight by the 1st of March.

0:31:260:31:31

The viewer could see that even for the seasoned explorer,

0:31:310:31:33

expeditions were precarious.

0:31:330:31:36

Wally and his team waited out the winter,

0:31:360:31:38

then continued across the ice.

0:31:380:31:41

They were over a year into their journey,

0:31:410:31:43

closing in the North Pole.

0:31:430:31:45

But still, success seemed far from certain.

0:31:460:31:49

Approaching the North Pole is a rather unique experience.

0:31:510:31:54

You are approaching the point on the Earth's surface

0:31:540:31:56

where all the lines of longitude converge,

0:31:560:31:59

and this is a very confusing place to be.

0:31:590:32:02

It became a problem,

0:32:020:32:03

rather like trying to step on the shadow of a bird

0:32:030:32:06

which is hovering overhead,

0:32:060:32:07

because the ice itself is moving.

0:32:070:32:10

When they did finally pin down their location at the North Pole,

0:32:100:32:13

Wally knew he and his men had won a place in exploration history.

0:32:130:32:18

Because Scott and his men posed in a certain way

0:32:180:32:20

and Amundsen in a certain way,

0:32:200:32:22

and because of our consciousness of history,

0:32:220:32:25

we were more or less obliged to pose in the same way.

0:32:250:32:28

You don't approach a feat like reaching the North Pole

0:32:280:32:32

with a clean slate.

0:32:320:32:34

You are bringing with you ideas of how you should be behaving,

0:32:340:32:38

what's happened before, how you should stand, how you should pose,

0:32:380:32:41

making sure you get that definitive photograph.

0:32:410:32:44

But by this time we were feeling pretty cold,

0:32:450:32:47

and we weren't too sure of the exposure,

0:32:470:32:49

so I remember taking 36 pictures at the North Pole,

0:32:490:32:52

on every different exposure setting on the camera.

0:32:520:32:55

Meanwhile, my colleagues were getting pretty bored

0:32:550:32:58

and fed up with this.

0:32:580:33:00

We're very familiar with the images of explorers at the South Pole,

0:33:000:33:03

in Scott, Amundsen, standing there heroically,

0:33:030:33:06

but suddenly, with Wally Herbert, here was something visceral.

0:33:060:33:09

You could see the beards covered in ice,

0:33:090:33:14

you could see that pain in their eyes

0:33:140:33:16

and that gritty determination that this moment was theirs.

0:33:160:33:21

This was a part of history and you, as a viewer, were part of that.

0:33:210:33:25

By the time Wally and his team began the final leg of their journey

0:33:260:33:29

to Norway, now continuing south over the ice,

0:33:290:33:33

they felt like old friends to the television audience.

0:33:330:33:36

For the first time in something like 14 months,

0:33:360:33:42

we were heading in a different direction to north.

0:33:420:33:44

We got the sense that we were heading for home at last.

0:33:440:33:49

They travelled 12 hours a day and then, within sight of land,

0:33:490:33:53

the ice stopped them again,

0:33:530:33:56

devastating the crew.

0:33:560:33:58

All they could do was wait and hope.

0:33:580:34:00

Miles away, the Endurance, a British ship,

0:34:030:34:06

scheduled to pick them up, waited too.

0:34:060:34:09

The following morning, Herbert called up the Endurance by radio.

0:34:100:34:14

Endurance, Endurance. Traction, Traction...

0:34:140:34:16

Something had happened.

0:34:160:34:17

At 1900 hours, GMT, 29th May,

0:34:190:34:22

a landing was made after a scramble across three quarters of a mile

0:34:220:34:26

of mush ice and gyrating ice pans.

0:34:260:34:28

This landing, though brief,

0:34:300:34:32

concluded the first surface crossing of the Arctic Ocean.

0:34:320:34:34

Crossing the Arctic Ocean wasn't just an exploration first,

0:34:360:34:40

it was also a television first.

0:34:400:34:43

Suddenly, millions of people could be on an expedition,

0:34:460:34:50

experiencing the highs and lows for real.

0:34:500:34:53

They too could be an eyewitness to discovery.

0:34:530:34:56

The era of the filmed expedition had arrived,

0:35:020:35:04

and it was here to stay.

0:35:040:35:06

Suddenly, every cliffhanging moment

0:35:060:35:08

from the smallest of expeditions

0:35:080:35:10

could be broadcast worldwide.

0:35:100:35:12

As cameras became easier to use,

0:35:140:35:16

amateurs could take their turn behind the lens.

0:35:160:35:19

By 1979, the BBC was staging a yearly contest,

0:35:200:35:24

sending adventurers out to make their own films.

0:35:240:35:27

Tonight, we make three more journeys of adventure

0:35:340:35:36

to find the expedition film which will win this year's

0:35:360:35:39

Mick Burke Award.

0:35:390:35:41

None was made by a professional film-maker.

0:35:410:35:44

Each team was given a grant of £500 towards expenses,

0:35:440:35:48

and after an intensive three-day film-making course

0:35:480:35:51

at the BBC's Bristol studios,

0:35:510:35:53

the cameramen and sound recordists joined their expeditions,

0:35:530:35:56

equipped with 8mm cameras, like this,

0:35:560:36:00

60 cassettes of colour film,

0:36:000:36:02

sound recorders and cassette tapes,

0:36:020:36:04

all on loan from the BBC.

0:36:040:36:07

In July, these four set out from Gwynedd in North Wales

0:36:070:36:11

to conquer the unclimbed peak of Bakhor Das.

0:36:110:36:14

The trek to the 19,000-foot Himalayan peak

0:36:170:36:19

was a huge challenge in itself.

0:36:190:36:21

But that didn't deter

0:36:230:36:24

Ann, Marion, Brid and expedition leader Jacqueline.

0:36:240:36:28

For the first three-and-a-half days

0:36:300:36:32

we followed the Braldu River.

0:36:320:36:33

We had to cross several side streams that come down from the mountain.

0:36:340:36:38

These streams swell as the day goes on.

0:36:380:36:40

At one of them, Marion was some way behind.

0:36:430:36:45

One of the porters, who are extremely sure-footed,

0:36:460:36:49

went back to give her a hand.

0:36:490:36:50

Now that Marion and the team were safely across,

0:36:570:37:00

it was time for a well-earned bath.

0:37:000:37:03

For the first time, the audience saw the nitty-gritty of expedition life.

0:37:030:37:07

It was absolutely fantastic,

0:37:110:37:12

been able to strip off and have a thorough wash

0:37:120:37:15

without all the porters gawping at us.

0:37:150:37:18

For Brid, it was foot inspection time.

0:37:180:37:20

As for Marion, she decided to have a good go at her fingernails.

0:37:200:37:23

With the downtime over,

0:37:250:37:27

the toughest part of the journey to the base of Bakhor Das began.

0:37:270:37:30

Now we had to cross the raging Braldu River.

0:37:320:37:35

We crossed by a horrifying bridge, about 400 feet long.

0:37:470:37:51

It was made of twigs twisted together,

0:37:510:37:54

but it was swaying in a horrifying way.

0:37:540:37:56

The secret was not to look at the water,

0:38:030:38:06

but only to look at what you were doing with your feet.

0:38:060:38:08

The women's self-shot footage

0:38:100:38:12

captures the adrenaline of the moment.

0:38:120:38:14

Isn't it horrifying?

0:38:180:38:20

I know! I realised there were people behind me,

0:38:200:38:22

because it was swaying like buggery when I was coming up here.

0:38:220:38:25

After five days, they arrive at the foot of the unclimbed Bakhor Das.

0:38:270:38:33

But then the conditions turn against them.

0:38:330:38:36

The exceptionally warm weather caused snowmelt on the peaks

0:38:360:38:39

to flood the streams.

0:38:390:38:41

Each day, our waterfall turned into a thundering express train

0:38:410:38:44

of mud and boulders.

0:38:440:38:46

We very quickly got the impression

0:38:510:38:52

that the rock on our mountain was not very solid.

0:38:520:38:56

We reached a high point,

0:38:560:38:58

where our ridge met the top of an ice field.

0:38:580:39:01

From here, we could see the last 1,500 feet.

0:39:010:39:04

It was obvious to all of us that the conditions were going to be

0:39:040:39:07

no different. A decision had to be made.

0:39:070:39:10

Much to the team's disappointment,

0:39:120:39:14

the peak proved just too dangerous to climb.

0:39:140:39:17

But despite this,

0:39:170:39:19

the drama and a realistic portrayal of expedition life they'd captured

0:39:190:39:22

convince the judges.

0:39:220:39:24

The women won best film.

0:39:240:39:26

And so we'll close with congratulations to the winners

0:39:280:39:32

of the 1979 Mick Burke Award.

0:39:320:39:35

By the 1990s, expensive film had been replaced by cheap video tape,

0:39:390:39:44

and cameras had become even easier to use.

0:39:440:39:48

The BBC's Video Diaries series used

0:39:480:39:50

this technology to launch a completely new form of television -

0:39:500:39:54

members of the public filming their own lives in close-up.

0:39:540:39:57

One of the most watched was by Benedict Allen,

0:39:590:40:02

who filmed his personal journey to the Peruvian Amazon,

0:40:020:40:05

culminating in a visit to a remote lake said to contain a super snake.

0:40:050:40:10

The lake was still a few days away.

0:40:140:40:16

Apart from a bunch of bananas, we had no food supplies,

0:40:160:40:19

but the forest was full of fresh meat.

0:40:190:40:21

Alligators all around us.

0:40:310:40:32

And not scared at all,

0:40:340:40:39

coming within one foot of the canoe.

0:40:390:40:42

Benedict Allen was a solo explorer,

0:40:490:40:51

but to venture into the Amazon he needed local guides.

0:40:510:40:55

His was Armando, a member of the Matses tribe.

0:40:550:40:59

So we're building our camp right on the Jaguar's Trail.

0:41:040:41:09

It doesn't seem like a very sensible place to build a camp,

0:41:120:41:15

but call me old-fashioned.

0:41:150:41:18

That's what I think.

0:41:200:41:22

I have very, very long arms, and it's perfect,

0:41:240:41:26

because I could suddenly film the action, something over there,

0:41:260:41:30

and then my reaction to it.

0:41:300:41:32

So it was all about speed.

0:41:320:41:34

And I began to realise these things,

0:41:340:41:36

forget about the wide-angle lens,

0:41:360:41:38

forget about complicated things,

0:41:380:41:40

I could never compete with a film crew,

0:41:400:41:43

but what I can do and what a film crew can't do is get intimacy.

0:41:430:41:46

The whole point of this diary is that it exposes the real expedition,

0:41:480:41:53

as opposed to the one you see on telly of

0:41:530:41:57

the glamorous story of the adventurer,

0:41:570:42:00

the Indiana Jones figure.

0:42:000:42:01

The video diary style encouraged complete honesty.

0:42:030:42:07

For Benedict, this meant sharing his difficult decisions

0:42:070:42:10

with the audience.

0:42:100:42:12

The problem is I can go there,

0:42:140:42:16

but...

0:42:160:42:18

if I die,

0:42:180:42:20

if something terrible happens, if I get swallowed by the super snake,

0:42:200:42:23

then Armando's going to get blamed by the authorities.

0:42:230:42:28

They may even say he's been killed,

0:42:280:42:30

or rather he's killed me.

0:42:300:42:32

Armando's killed me.

0:42:340:42:36

So I put him at risk,

0:42:390:42:42

and the whole point of coming here is not to exploit

0:42:420:42:46

the local people,

0:42:460:42:48

and if you're putting local people at risk unnecessarily,

0:42:480:42:51

that's exploitation.

0:42:510:42:52

In the end, Benedict travelled to the lake alone.

0:42:550:42:59

But his video diary allowed the viewer to be with him,

0:42:590:43:02

deep in the Amazon.

0:43:020:43:04

Can't concentrate, not with these funny little splashings,

0:43:060:43:10

big splashings over my shoulder.

0:43:100:43:12

If I'm going to die out here,

0:43:140:43:15

I'm not going to die while reading a book called The Idiot.

0:43:150:43:18

No.

0:43:190:43:21

No, thank you.

0:43:210:43:22

Not today anyway.

0:43:240:43:26

Oh, God.

0:43:290:43:31

The book's disappeared down a snake hole.

0:43:310:43:33

My God!

0:43:360:43:37

OK, it's a tiger, but it's a small one.

0:43:470:43:50

And it's about ten feet away.

0:43:560:43:58

I don't know whether to get the camera or...

0:44:010:44:03

It's uncertain.

0:44:220:44:23

That was small, but it could have killed me.

0:44:280:44:31

And if I'd been facing the other way,

0:44:310:44:35

it would've killed me, it would've taken one leap at my neck and...

0:44:350:44:40

..that would've been that.

0:44:420:44:44

Goodbye, Benedicto.

0:44:450:44:47

This is the single big change for me,

0:44:500:44:53

that I was no longer quite alone.

0:44:530:44:56

I could talk to this camera and get comfort from the fact that,

0:44:560:45:00

even if I died, well,

0:45:000:45:02

I'd have my little camera to say my last words to.

0:45:020:45:05

From Wally Herbert's epic journey in 1960s

0:45:080:45:10

to the most intimate moments of the video diary,

0:45:100:45:13

television has steadily brought exploration into our lives,

0:45:130:45:17

connecting us to the explorer like never before.

0:45:170:45:20

Our world has changed.

0:45:220:45:25

Cheap air travel has shrunk the globe,

0:45:250:45:27

creating adventure hot spots in what were once remote places.

0:45:270:45:32

And television has fuelled our curiosity.

0:45:320:45:36

Suddenly anybody can be an adventurer,

0:45:360:45:38

if only for a week or two.

0:45:380:45:40

And there's one place that reflects this trend like no other - Everest.

0:45:410:45:47

When Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay

0:45:470:45:49

reached the top in 1953,

0:45:490:45:51

they became international celebrities.

0:45:510:45:54

Within weeks, the BBC made them accessible to the public at large.

0:45:550:45:59

The exalted heroes were brought into the studio

0:45:590:46:02

to reveal the intimate details of the climb first-hand.

0:46:020:46:06

We realised that this was really the crux of the whole ridge climb.

0:46:080:46:11

I wriggled into this cornice,

0:46:110:46:13

and by a great deal of wriggling and hard work,

0:46:130:46:16

I was able to get up it.

0:46:160:46:17

And any moment you thought the whole thing might go?

0:46:170:46:19

That was our main worry, I must admit.

0:46:190:46:21

We didn't know when it would give way.

0:46:210:46:24

From this first casual retelling of the climb,

0:46:240:46:26

our fascination with Everest would grow.

0:46:260:46:29

Also in the studio was Hillary's climbing partner, Tenzing.

0:46:290:46:34

Some chance to climb again.

0:46:340:46:36

I wonder whether a lot of English wives would like me to ask him,

0:46:360:46:39

what does his wife think about all this going off on the mountain?

0:46:390:46:42

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

0:46:430:46:46

Well, he says that his children and his mother

0:46:540:46:57

and naturally his wife, too, are not too keen on it,

0:46:570:47:01

-for obvious reasons.

-Yes.

0:47:010:47:03

Without Tenzing, the expedition would never have reached the summit.

0:47:030:47:07

Television helped make the general public aware of the role

0:47:070:47:10

that Sherpa guides played in helping climbers conquer Everest.

0:47:100:47:14

Well, on the way to the Base Camp, we had about 400 Nepali coolies,

0:47:140:47:21

and from there on we used the local Sherpa coolies.

0:47:210:47:28

We needed about 300 to get to Base Camp.

0:47:280:47:31

The Sherpas' importance in opening up Everest was massive.

0:47:310:47:34

And as summit attempts increased year by year,

0:47:340:47:37

it got bigger and bigger.

0:47:370:47:38

So, when the BBC followed Hillary back to Everest 30 years later,

0:47:390:47:44

the story of how the mountain climbing industry

0:47:440:47:46

was transforming life for Sherpa communities

0:47:460:47:49

was a key part of the documentary.

0:47:490:47:51

The call to study is the same at all the schools -

0:47:510:47:54

on the original oxygen cylinders Hillary used to climb Everest.

0:47:540:47:58

METALLIC RINGING

0:47:580:48:00

The film highlighted Edmund Hillary's development work in Nepal,

0:48:000:48:03

a passion since he'd first scaled the mountain.

0:48:030:48:06

THEY SING IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

0:48:060:48:08

I was becoming increasingly concerned

0:48:080:48:10

about the future of the Sherpas,

0:48:100:48:12

and felt that additional schools would help them cope with

0:48:120:48:14

the ever growing pressures of the outside world.

0:48:140:48:17

So, before we knew it, one school had turned into 22 schools.

0:48:170:48:21

But the film also captured a monumental shift.

0:48:220:48:26

The traditional Sherpa way of life was changing.

0:48:260:48:29

-CHILDREN:

-The men are climbing the mountain.

0:48:290:48:32

-The men are climbing.

-CHILDREN:

-The men are climbing.

0:48:320:48:35

-The men have climbed.

-CHILDREN:

-The men have climbed.

0:48:350:48:40

-The mountain.

-CHILDREN:

-The mountain.

0:48:400:48:42

The climbing industry on Everest was about to explode.

0:48:430:48:47

Throughout the '80s and '90s,

0:48:470:48:49

mountaineering became an increasingly popular pastime,

0:48:490:48:53

but as more and more people climbed Everest,

0:48:530:48:56

reaching the top was no longer enough.

0:48:560:48:58

In the late 1990s, the BBC joined a group of climbers,

0:49:010:49:05

not just interested in mountaineering,

0:49:050:49:07

but in discovering the story of those who had gone before them.

0:49:070:49:11

May 1999.

0:49:130:49:15

A joint British-American expedition

0:49:180:49:19

is about to climb the north face of Everest.

0:49:190:49:22

But this is no ordinary summit attempt.

0:49:250:49:27

The team is about to make mountaineering history

0:49:290:49:32

in their search for evidence

0:49:320:49:34

of two legendary British climbers who disappeared in 1924.

0:49:340:49:37

Climbers had long debated whether George Mallory and Andrew Irvine

0:49:400:49:44

had summited Everest before going missing.

0:49:440:49:47

No-one knew.

0:49:470:49:49

But their ill-fated attempt had made them into legends,

0:49:490:49:52

and left behind the mountain's most enduring mystery.

0:49:520:49:55

What really draws me to this particular expedition...

0:49:580:50:00

..is this hunt for Mallory and Irvine.

0:50:020:50:05

You know, to climb this mountain again,

0:50:050:50:07

I've been here enough, I know how to climb it,

0:50:070:50:09

but to try and get inside somebody else's head

0:50:090:50:12

and to try and touch a piece of history,

0:50:120:50:14

that is utterly fascinating to me.

0:50:140:50:16

Mallory and Irvine are just two of nearly 300 people who have now died

0:50:180:50:23

trying to reach the top of Everest.

0:50:230:50:25

But looking for the remains of these two was controversial.

0:50:260:50:30

Some members of our expedition team may have some personal reservations

0:50:300:50:33

about searching for bodies on Mount Everest.

0:50:330:50:36

I think we all agree that to be able to contribute additional information

0:50:360:50:42

to what is THE mystery of the mountain is ultimately

0:50:420:50:48

going to contribute to a better understanding of the mountain

0:50:480:50:52

and its human history.

0:50:520:50:53

The team know that finding Everest's greatest lost heroes

0:50:550:50:59

will make headlines around the world.

0:50:590:51:01

It is their way of winning themselves a place

0:51:020:51:04

in the history books.

0:51:040:51:05

There are quite a view folks in other expeditions

0:51:080:51:12

that would love to scoop us on this thing and find this.

0:51:120:51:16

The search site is not too far from the high camp.

0:51:160:51:22

Early on the morning of the 1st of May 1999,

0:51:220:51:25

the team leave camp five and climb high up on the north face

0:51:250:51:28

of Everest to begin their search.

0:51:280:51:31

What they found proved as significant as any summit attempt.

0:51:320:51:36

Initially I saw a blue and yellow object fluttering in the wind,

0:51:360:51:41

and I looked over to my right and all of a sudden I saw

0:51:410:51:44

a patch of white that wasn't rock and it wasn't snow.

0:51:440:51:48

And I said, "Hmm, I'm going to look over here."

0:51:480:51:52

And as I started traversing closer to this,

0:51:520:51:54

I saw what appeared to be the lower part of a leg.

0:51:540:51:58

And it was a heel.

0:51:580:52:00

The radio calls started coming in about hobnailed boots.

0:52:000:52:06

I just heard hobnailed boot,

0:52:060:52:07

quickly unzipped it and said, "What?!"

0:52:070:52:09

We had decided that once we'd made any contact,

0:52:120:52:16

as quickly as possible go into radio silence,

0:52:160:52:18

because of the security of the radio calls.

0:52:180:52:22

We knew other expeditions were listening,

0:52:220:52:25

and we knew that everybody in Nepal could hear us.

0:52:250:52:27

I can see a boot.

0:52:270:52:31

The second boot

0:52:310:52:32

appears to be on his foot.

0:52:320:52:35

The leg is angulated...

0:52:350:52:38

..angulated fracture, so...

0:52:390:52:41

my first guess is that he took a fall.

0:52:410:52:43

Again, you can see rope around his body.

0:52:460:52:50

OK, this is the collar...

0:52:530:52:56

-Here.

-Wait. This is George Mallory.

0:53:010:53:03

-Really?

-George Mallory.

-Oh, my God!

0:53:030:53:06

Oh, my God!

0:53:060:53:08

-You see that? George Mallory.

-Oh, my God!

0:53:080:53:11

The failure that human beings

0:53:150:53:18

experienced in going up Everest

0:53:180:53:22

in turn drove the need to explore it,

0:53:220:53:26

to reach the top.

0:53:260:53:27

Finding Mallory didn't prove if he'd made it to the top,

0:53:280:53:31

but telling the story on TV

0:53:310:53:33

helped cement the mountain's iconic status.

0:53:330:53:37

Another film, made in 2003, revealed how,

0:53:370:53:40

in the 50 years since it was first climbed,

0:53:400:53:43

Everest had also become a mecca for casual trekkers.

0:53:430:53:46

For most of these amateur adventurers,

0:53:460:53:49

the goal isn't to reach the top,

0:53:490:53:51

it's Base Camp, at the bottom.

0:53:510:53:53

From Gorakshep, a three-hour walk up the adjacent peak

0:53:560:53:59

of Kala Patthar gives the best view of Everest

0:53:590:54:02

a trekker can get.

0:54:020:54:03

When the sun shines and Everest is clear,

0:54:050:54:07

hundreds of trekkers make their way to the top every day,

0:54:070:54:10

each one of us reaching our own personal summit.

0:54:100:54:13

Well, actually, it has been a lifelong dream

0:54:150:54:18

to come to Everest and come to Nepal,

0:54:180:54:20

and it's been more than I could have hoped for.

0:54:200:54:22

It has been very overwhelming.

0:54:220:54:24

When we went down to Base Camp, I just burst out crying.

0:54:240:54:28

I feel tearful at the moment, yes,

0:54:280:54:30

because I have finally achieved it.

0:54:300:54:32

-And cheese!

-ALL: Cheese!

0:54:350:54:37

Thank you.

0:54:370:54:38

But there is an easy way.

0:54:390:54:41

For the cost of a two-week trek,

0:54:430:54:45

you can have half an hour hovering above Base Camp.

0:54:450:54:47

The film captures the new industry of Everest in full flight,

0:54:490:54:53

with no longer the summit at its epicentre, but Base Camp

0:54:530:54:57

the final destination for trekkers.

0:54:570:55:00

The press warned that here at Base Camp, the crowds of trekkers

0:55:000:55:03

and the huge commercial expeditions had wrought havoc -

0:55:030:55:06

Everest had been desecrated by rivers of human faeces,

0:55:060:55:10

piles of oxygen bottles and,

0:55:100:55:12

on the mountain itself, human remains.

0:55:120:55:14

In fact, the Everest clean-up expeditions

0:55:140:55:17

have done a pretty good job,

0:55:170:55:19

and those who make it here enjoy a tangible sense of achievement.

0:55:190:55:22

They are after all, at Base Camp, the very bottom of Everest.

0:55:220:55:25

Well, here we are.

0:55:260:55:28

-Here we are.

-Everest Base Camp.

0:55:280:55:30

-Finally.

-After two weeks.

0:55:300:55:32

-It has been a long haul.

-Two weeks, one day.

0:55:320:55:34

We've got groups coming down off the hill at the moment.

0:55:340:55:37

I think it's going to be such a buzz to meet those boys.

0:55:370:55:40

I didn't come to Everest Base Camp to see Everest, I came to...

0:55:400:55:45

to meet the people who challenge it and beat it

0:55:450:55:49

and some lose against it.

0:55:490:55:51

This is just a buzz,

0:55:510:55:53

being up this far and just the whole excitement in the camp.

0:55:530:55:57

It's fantastic.

0:55:570:55:59

-Not to mention to crack this can of Stella that I've lugged...

-Yeah.

0:55:590:56:02

When are you cracking that?

0:56:020:56:04

-All right, OK.

-A well-beaten Stella...

0:56:040:56:07

-Well-beaten Stella.

-..all the way from England.

0:56:070:56:09

Sorry, Mum,

0:56:090:56:12

but it had to be done.

0:56:120:56:13

Adventure tourism I think is great.

0:56:160:56:18

People can just set out from home and discover the world,

0:56:180:56:22

and there's something delightful about that.

0:56:220:56:24

It's no longer the preserve of the specialist.

0:56:240:56:27

But there are consequences.

0:56:270:56:30

And those consequences can be grave.

0:56:300:56:32

You're starting to develop a tourist industry in a place

0:56:320:56:35

which was isolated, self-sufficient.

0:56:350:56:38

What's happening on Everest is being repeated in wildernesses

0:56:400:56:43

around the globe, for better or worse.

0:56:430:56:46

Exploration has opened up our landscape

0:56:460:56:49

and television has shown it to the world,

0:56:490:56:52

spurring each of us to our own adventures.

0:56:520:56:55

The critical question is whether the way we consume is going to outstrip

0:56:570:57:03

our capacity to explore.

0:57:030:57:04

And will that be the end of the history of exploration?

0:57:070:57:11

As I've examined how television has told the story of exploration,

0:57:170:57:21

I've been struck by just how much

0:57:210:57:23

our notions of conquest and discovery,

0:57:230:57:26

even our very heroes, change from one generation to the next.

0:57:260:57:32

And what's been most amazing is to see how, in the 20th century,

0:57:320:57:36

film has latched onto the drama of discovery and exploration,

0:57:360:57:40

becoming an integral part of the story.

0:57:400:57:43

It has captured feats of incredible human endurance,

0:57:450:57:49

and the most intimate moments of the quest.

0:57:490:57:53

It's helped create heroes or made us reconsider them.

0:57:530:57:58

It's even helped to rewrite history.

0:57:580:58:01

And television will continue to tell the story of exploration,

0:58:020:58:06

wherever it leads.

0:58:060:58:08

It may seem like we have run out of places to discover,

0:58:110:58:15

but centuries of history prove the opposite.

0:58:150:58:18

There is always a new frontier.

0:58:180:58:20

Exploration will go on.

0:58:200:58:23

And following along will be a camera, chronicling the journey.

0:58:230:58:27

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