A CAMPAIGN to honour a world-famous explorer from Cheshire is one step closer to achieving its aim of honouring him.

The George Mallory Foundation, which is seeking to create a memorial in honour of George Mallory in Mobberley – the village where the Everest explorer called home.

The charity reached a key milestone in its attempts to do that by planting a flag bearing Mallory’s name at the summit – in what marks the 98th anniversary since his fatal attempt.

The flag was carried by Garth Miller, a supporter and friend of the foundation, who has a strong passion for Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine, who both perished on the mountain before reaching the 8,849m peak in 1924.

He said: “The expedition was tied with the 100th anniversary of the British 1922 Everest Expedition.

“This expedition was the first to actually set out with the aim of climbing Mount Everest, doing so from Tibet as the southern approaches were denied to the team due to Nepal being a closed Kingdom.

“George Mallory was of course on the expedition, which was the first to use bottled oxygen to aid climbing and went on to set an altitude record 8326m.

“I’ve climbed to within 300m of the summit of Everest from the north (Tibet) side - and to think of the 1922 party climbing to over 8000m 100 years ago is quite extraordinary.”

The 1922 (and 1924) expeditions were both led by a ‘Gurkha’ officer, Brigadier Charles Bruce.

The same regiment today which Garth previously served ‘The Royal Gurkha Rifles’.

It was in the British Army where Garth learnt to climb and was first introduced to high altitude mountaineering, squeezing in as many trips to Nepal as he could between tours of duty all over the world including three tours of Afghanistan.

The campaign to honour Mallory in his home village is being led by Captain Anthony Harrison, a Royal Artillery reservist serving in the same regiment the famous climber once served in.

He said: “This is a key milestone for charity as it is our halfway point for the charity and two years before the centenary of his fatal summit.

“It was great to commemorate this by getting our charities flag to the summit of the world some 8,848m above sea level at Everest’s peak.”