THE battle to save a Hampshire hospital has been taken to the top of the world by a Gosport adventurer.

A chance remark between a Royal Hospital Haslar supporter and a mountaineer led to a campaign banner being flown from the summit of Mount Everest.

The words "Save Haslar Hospital" were proudly displayed from one of the world's highspots when Gosport climber Mike Trueman, 47, scaled the world's highest mountain summit for the first time in his life.

Keen Haslar campaigner Alan Harding was just chatting to his pal Mike over a pint when he hit upon the idea of sending him up the Himalayan heights with a Haslar banner. Mike then mentioned the idea to Peter Edgar, who is spear-heading Gosport Borough Council's cam-paign to keep the military hospital open.

He was delighted with the adventurer's plans and the pho-tos of the occasion printed today by the Echo to coincide with the launch of the Haslar campaigners' policy document.

The hospital is a cause close to climber Mike's heart, as the former Gurkha, who now runs the Mountain High Adventure company, said: "My dad was treated at the hospital and his treatment was first class. My family live in the centre of Gosport and the idea of them getting out and up to Portsmouth in an emergency is crazy." Mike, a former Gurkha, who runs the Mountain High Adventure com-pany, says that providing it was legal, there was nothing he wouldn't do to publicise the plight of Haslar Hospital.

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