Welcome to the latest in our occasional series of profiles of Godhelmians of the past - Godalming's Great and Not-So-Good.

We live in an old town with a rich and fascinating history, a history shaped by the individuals who lived through it and helped make Godalming the town it is today.

This series tells the stories of some of our better-known residents. Today we look at the life and legacy of teacher, writer and mountaineer Wilfrid Noyce.

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The Wilfrid Noyce Centre in Crown Court car park is central to the community life of Godalming. At the moment it houses the Community Store, but in happier times its halls ring to the sounds of groups using it for meetings, parties, music and drama. The new building stands on the site of the former hall, opened in 1962 as a youth club.

Both halls were named after mountaineer Cuthbert Wilfrid Francis Noyce (31st December 1917- 24th July 1962). A former Charterhouse pupil who returned to the school as a teacher, Wilfrid spearheaded the campaign for the centre to give young people a place a meet. In a cruel twist of fate Wilfrid died in a mountaineering accident just over six weeks after officially declared the building open. The building was named posthumously in his honour.

Wilfrid Noyce was born on New Year's Eve 1917 in Simla, India, the eldest son of Sir Frank Noyce, a senior official in the Indian Civil Service, and his wife, Enid. Wilfrid and his siblings were sent back to boarding school in the UK - Wilfrid first to St Edmund's School in Hindhead and then to Charterhouse, where he became head boy - while his father pursued his career overseas.

Wilfrid developed a passion for climbing at an early age and spent several summers in the Welsh mountains, honing his skills and climbing with his cousins.

War service.

After gaining a First in modern languages at Cambridge University Wilfrid joined the Friends Ambulance Unit at the outbreak of the second World War, and later served as a private in the Welsh Guards. He was then commissioned as a second lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps in 1941, and later in the war was employed in codebreaking operations as a captain in the Intelligence Corps. The war over, Wilfrid became a modern languages master at Malvern College before heading back to Godalming and a post as a teacher at Charterhouse, bringing his new wife, Rosemary Campbell Davies, with him. The couple went on to have two sons, Michael and Jeremy. Records show the family living at a house called Badgers Hollow in Peperharow Road in 1961. National fame.

Wilfrid achieved national fame in 1953 as part of the British Expedition led by Sir Edmund Hillary that conquered Mount Everest.

On May 21st 1953 Wilfrid and Sherpa Annullu (the younger brother of Sherpa Tenzing) were the first members of the expedition to reach Everest's South Col at about 26,000 feet.

The pair ascended the South Col a second time on 29th May, the day of the successful first ascent of Everest. Wilfrid was one of only two members of the climbing party to reach the South Col without oxygen.

On his return to the UK Wilfrid wrote a book about the expedition, titled South Col, as well as a poem of the same name. He was a prolific writer, producing poems and scholarly articles and contributing to climbing guidebooks in addition to his own.

In one, he wrote: "If adventure has a final and all-embracing motive, it is surely this: we go out because it is our nature to go out, to climb mountains, and to paddle rivers, to fly to the planets and plunge into the depths of the oceans... When man ceases to do these things, he is no longer man."

Youth centre.

He was a leading light in the four-year campaign to provide a youth centre in Godalming, and was invited to cut the ribbon at its official opening on 6th June 1962. Just over six weeks later, on 24th July 1962, Wilfrid died in a mountaineering accident after a successful ascent of Mount Garmo in the Pamirs, a mountain range in Tajikistan in central Asia. He was 44 years old. As a memorial to him the youth centre was renamed the Wilfrid Noyce Centre. A courageous, intelligent, spirited and popular man who made his mark on history, Wilfrid Noyce's name rightly lives on in our town – definitely one of Godalming's Greats. With thanks to Godalming Museum for additional material. Like what we do? Please Like our Facebook page!