Archive footage of the 1955 first ascent of Kangchenjunga

It’s not often I’ve sat through a whole silent movie that doesn’t feature slapstick comedy and a honky-tonk piano playing in the background, but in this case I made an exception.

The British Film Institute (BFI) has recently digitised a whole load of grainy 16mm film footage from the Royal Geographical Society’s historical archives and put it on their website to watch for free.

Among this treasure is some amateur footage of the 1955 British expedition to Kangchenjunga. The expedition was led...