You'd be amazed at what doors digital sklls can unlock. For one man who climbed Everest cultivating them has led to a better work-life balance.

by Mark Horrell

On 30 May 1953, James Morris of The Times struggled down the "newly oozing ice-bog" of the Khumbu Icefall during darkness. The following morning at Everest Base Camp he dispatched a runner to Namche, the nearest village with a telegraph office, with a coded message which read: 'Snow conditions bad stop advanced base abandoned yesterday stop awaiting improvement.'

Two days later while lying in his tent he tuned into his wireless and heard an English voice announce Everest had been climbed, The Times had broken the news, and Queen Elizabeth had received it on the eve of her coronation. He breathed a sigh of relief his danger-fraught communications process had worked.