At 11:30a.m. (Eastern Standard Time) on May 29 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first explorers to reach the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world.
Diana was made vice president of the British Red Cross in 1993. In March that year, Diana visited Nepal to sign a grant totaling $264,000 from the British Red Cross to assist with agriculture and irrigation projects. It was her first solo trip as a royal ambassador. Her former police bodyguard remembered, "She was a tremendous asset because she had this amazing ability to speak to people across the huge social and political spectrum and that wasn’t something that she was taught because nobody actually taught her anything. Diana picked all this up herself."
Diana was Patron of the Red Cross Youth since 1983. She was one of the 12 advisors selected with steering the Red Cross movement on how to respond to global problems, "The President of the International Federation had 3 personal appointments to make and he invited the Princess of Wales. He felt that she would bring a fresh view point and a modern view point because she had seen the work of the Red Cross both within Britain and on her visits overseas. And therefore had a very fresh and perhaps a very independent view."
In Katmandu Valley, Diana visited patients at the Anandban Leprosy Hospital and inspected welfare projects for the Nepalese 10th Gurkhas who had served with the British forces since the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The Gurkhas joined with colonial forces after they successfully stood their ground during the Anglo-Nepal War of 1812. In July 1991 the Defense Secretary had told the British House of Commons of cutbacks which included the phasing out of Gurkha regiments by July 1997 when Britain would handover Hong Kong to China ("we are celebrating an opportunity, not holding a wake.").
Visiting 72-year-old Maya Chettri in a stone house with mud floors in the village of Majhuwa, Diana vowed, "I will never complain again." Maya later said, "I wish her to be a queen." Diana's former private secretary made the observation, "One of the great thing about the Queen is that we don’t actually know her opinions on a lot of things….It is one of the Queen’s great strength. We don’t know what she thinks about global warming or the prayer book or organic food or the state of education. The Queen is just the Queen and the Queen represents everything that we aspire to and consider to be worth preserving so we don't know what the Queen thinks….The Queen's combination of duty (to the Constitution) and pragmatism is far more important than the Queen's opinion on any number of subjects and she knows that. That's why she put the duty (to the Constitution) first." It was suggested the other Royal family members should try to be "less controversial, less concern with popularity, less concern with telling us their opinions and more with just quietly getting on with existing. After all the British Royal family is required only to exist to fulfil its main constitutional duty."
Diana was Patron of the Red Cross Youth since 1983. She was one of the 12 advisors selected with steering the Red Cross movement on how to respond to global problems, "The President of the International Federation had 3 personal appointments to make and he invited the Princess of Wales. He felt that she would bring a fresh view point and a modern view point because she had seen the work of the Red Cross both within Britain and on her visits overseas. And therefore had a very fresh and perhaps a very independent view."
In Katmandu Valley, Diana visited patients at the Anandban Leprosy Hospital and inspected welfare projects for the Nepalese 10th Gurkhas who had served with the British forces since the Indian Mutiny of 1857. The Gurkhas joined with colonial forces after they successfully stood their ground during the Anglo-Nepal War of 1812. In July 1991 the Defense Secretary had told the British House of Commons of cutbacks which included the phasing out of Gurkha regiments by July 1997 when Britain would handover Hong Kong to China ("we are celebrating an opportunity, not holding a wake.").
Visiting 72-year-old Maya Chettri in a stone house with mud floors in the village of Majhuwa, Diana vowed, "I will never complain again." Maya later said, "I wish her to be a queen." Diana's former private secretary made the observation, "One of the great thing about the Queen is that we don’t actually know her opinions on a lot of things….It is one of the Queen’s great strength. We don’t know what she thinks about global warming or the prayer book or organic food or the state of education. The Queen is just the Queen and the Queen represents everything that we aspire to and consider to be worth preserving so we don't know what the Queen thinks….The Queen's combination of duty (to the Constitution) and pragmatism is far more important than the Queen's opinion on any number of subjects and she knows that. That's why she put the duty (to the Constitution) first." It was suggested the other Royal family members should try to be "less controversial, less concern with popularity, less concern with telling us their opinions and more with just quietly getting on with existing. After all the British Royal family is required only to exist to fulfil its main constitutional duty."
