Finding Michael

Michael was my big brother.

He was a wonderful child, very loving, very kind.

Mike was a very happy boy.

Good sportsman.

Lots of friends.

He was a bit of a superhero.

You know, if I had any problems, I'd just go to Mike.

Mikey was tremendously sharp.

He was at the top level of what he was doing,

but you'd never guess it.

I think he was just doing it because he wanted to do it.

To reach the highest peak in the world.

Mike just really wanted to test himself.

To see how far he could go,

how high he could go.

He died at the age of 22.

Having just become the youngest Brit to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

He was left alone on the mountain.

It's an awful way to die.

Twenty odd years later and completely out of the blue,

we're sent this photograph of a body up near the summit.

It looks like it could be Michael.

My heart says we should go and find him.

And if we can...

bring him home.

Attaboy.

Eyes on the front, eyes on front.

Theodore is called "Theodore Frederick Michael Matthews." '

We kind of both wanted Frederick and Michael as a first name,

because Frederick is my dad's name who passed away,

and Michael is Spenny's brother's name.

Oh.

I was 10 years old when Mike died.

Careful. Focus.

It seems so strange, right,

because I'm 33 now and he died when he was 22,

so I'm much older than he ever was.

Good job, T.T.

But I see him very much as my older brother.

I can do it.

And pedal, pedal.

When we were getting to know each other

at the very early stages of our relationship,

he told me about Michael,

and I just found the whole thing quite shocking.

It's really sad.

I think losing him was more difficult than he can even probably comprehend.

None of us had even considered the possibility of a body recovery.

It had been about two decades since Mike died,

and it literally just came out of nowhere.

We received the photo,

and it's of a body at about eight-and-a-half thousand meters,

similar to where we believed to have lost Mike.

It feels like we could go and get him.

If that is something that we're gonna consider,

we all need to be on the same page with it.

Particularly my mom Jane and my sister Nina.

Do you remember we all wore red roses at the memorial?

Mm.

-Wow. -This is, yeah. As in...

And then just lots of letters of condolence.

Could just read for hours actually.

Here's the Yorkshire Post.

"Young Briton missing after record climb. Storm turns Everest joy to tragedy."

Mike was supposed to summit on the 13th,

and I think by the 14th, we hadn't heard anything.

The phone rang.

I was called upstairs.

As soon as I walked on the room,

there was just this...

awful kind of palpable tension,

and Mom and Dad just weren't themselves at all.

They said that a storm had come in and, um, Mike was missing,

but, um, it was too long after by then,

and I sort of knew that that was it, he was... he was dead.

You don't know if he's fallen into a crevasse or over the edge,

or whether he just, from exhaustion,

sat down and collapsed.

I don't think we laughed together as a family

for what seemed like you know, years, as a kid.

I didn't really understand what was happening.

It hadn't registered that I would never see my brother again.

I just assumed that even if he was frozen in a block of ice, that he'd unfreeze it.

I love this. Yes.

He loved that one, funnily enough. Yes.

Spen.

That's a great photo.

Seventeen.

Seventeen.

Do you think now is a kind of the right time,

I mean, given that it's been so long?

I think it's the perfect time to try and bring Mike home to rest.

-To be with him. Yeah. I'm sure that's what he'd love.

Absolutely.

-More than anything. -Not just for us, but actually for...

-Yeah. For him as well. ...for him also.

This is definitely something that we want to do.

But are we getting a bit carried away...

with the dream of bringing Mike home?

All we're going on is this grainy photo.

There is one name from Mike's expedition

that really stuck with me, um, as a kid, and that's Dave Rodney.

Dave and Mike became really close.

They shared a tent and climbed together.

More importantly, Dave was one of the last people to see Mike alive.

-Dave. -Spencer.

-How are you, mate? -Great to see you.

-Welcome to your Alberta home. -Thanks so much for having me.

Come on in, come right in.

Wow, the view's insane.

So, I wanted to show you a little piece of history here.

This is indeed what we shot on back in 1999.

-That's amazing. -I know, right?

-Look at it. -And I have a little something

I can pop in there.

What does it say? What does it say?

That's the summit push.

Summit push. I have, like, no video footage of Mike.

-Mm. -Like I haven't seen...

-Really? -...Mike on camera like ever.

Wow.

-So, yeah, I'd love to see it. -You're ready for this?

-Yeah, yeah, absolutely. -You sure?

-Yeah. All right. All right, let's do it.

Is that the icefalls?

This is the Khumbu Icefall above base camp,

heading up towards Camp One.

There's Mike.

Nicely done, Mikey!

Cheers, mate.

Good job on you.

He took to it like a pro, he really did.

DAVE (in video): Michael will test this.

See? And Mike's going across like it ain't no thing.

-Look at that, skipping steps. Yeah, it's Michael.

MICHAEL (in video): Yes?

-He looks pretty comfortable, eh? Oh, completely.

Yeah, pretty good. Yeah.

What's up, Michael?

You had a nice base and bath with one of the other group members

didn't you, Dave, today?

That was you.

Anyway...

Can I show you something?

The family got an email with photos of a body.

Oh, boy.

On Everest, saying that they thought it could be Mike.

And I was wondering, well, firstly, what you thought.

Okay.

And secondly, if you think it could be him.

-Okay. -Here.

-Oh, boy. -So, there's the body.

Oh, wow...

I don't wanna see that, that whole...

Does that look like it could be...

It might be.

I instantly recognize this.

So, Spencer, this is my summit suit from 1999.

Oh, my God!

But it also would have been the exact same for Michael.

This is what he was wearing that day.

I've seen this suit in kind of pictures, right, of him and on the summit,

-so it's amazing to see it. Right.

It's, uh...

It's strange.

I mean, do you think it's the same suit?

From this angle, my goodness,

this red section here where we see the loop and the Velcro,

that's it, right there.

-The Velcro... -Yeah. There.

And then you might say, "Well, I don't see a black sleeve."

Well, it's because it's out of view. This is covering it.

Right?

-Let's have a look. -Yeah.

Then there's black as well.

-So, yeah. Look, it looks like that. -Mm-hm.

That's the only shot we have, huh?

Yes. That is all we've got.

-Oh, no. -I know.

Um...

But it could be, eh?

It... Listen, my God, this gives me hope that I haven't had before.

I feel like finding Mike is achievable now.

It could become a reality.

So, you know, we need to look at how to do this,

how to plan it.

I'd love to go up Everest.

Don't tell mom, um, that would be a problem.

I'm not a mountaineer,

but there is somebody that I've known for a very long time

whose advice on this I would really value.

I remember we were at school and we were in the theatre.