April 28th

While the blizzard raged

raw pained hands frostbitten black

wrote letters of love

Went to the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge today. This is the last week for the Captain Scott exhibition they are running. And what a gold mine it was. It covered a brief history of polar exploration, looking at artefacts from the likes of Ross, Perry and Franklin but also included such rare items as Scott’s last journal was on show, on loan from the British Library. A selection of the last letters each of the men who died is also there amongst other photographs and artefacts.

There is something calm,dignified and although a cliche, terribly British about their demise. So calm in the face of losing their friends, watching each other weaken, knowing they will never see their loved ones again. Even though their hands were probably shredded, blackened and crippled by frostbite, they wrote. Scott himself wrote to all of the families and loved ones of his party, telling them how brave they were, how proud they should be of them. His guilt at not being able to save them seeped out of his handwriting.

Edward Wilson, one of the party, was an incredibly talented man. Physician, Naturalist, Botanist and Artist, the letter below just made my heart ache. They knew they were going to die, they wanted to tell their friends how much they cared for them. Although the original letter was on show, I’m sharing a photo of the transcript of it.

And the famous last journal entry of Captain Scott. “For God’s sake look after our people”

Finally one of Wilson watercolours, Paraselena Jan 15. 1911. 9.30pm Cape Evans McMurdo Sound. This is also on display in the exhibition. A set of skis for every lost explorer.

January 20th

Dragged through pain, blindness,

Hot tears falling, reminders,

Hollow thoughts of home.

 

Was getting a little bit excited, you know, in a controlled stoic, square jawed, polar exploration way about two important Captain Scott exhibitions this year, to commemorate the 100 years of him and his team reaching the South Pole, but also of his death, expiring in the icy wilderness on the long slog back. One is at the Natural History Museum and the other at a museum I was ignorant of until a couple of weeks ago, the Polar Museum at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge.

I’m looking forward to seeing Scott’s diary (on loan from the British Library) with that poignancy in his last letter to his wife and final line, his hand so shaky through weakness “For God’s sake, look after our people”. Also, the photographs of Herbert Ponting and all the artefacts and scientific specimens collected.

My Haiku however is a tribute to Irish polar explorer Tom Crean, a mainstay of Scott’s expedition as well as others for both Scott and Shackleton. He seemed to be a big gentle bloke, one of those guys you always want on your team, even tempered, reliable and utterly trustworthy. Crean was a member of the support party for the final push, so was ordered to turn back despite being so close to the pole (168 miles), so devastated, he and two others followed the trail back to base (Edward Evans, William Lashley). They got lost and needed to take a long detour, meaning their food was in short supply. The Haiku references his heroic solo walk, 35 miles in 18 hours in terrible conditions to get help for his colleagues, Lashley was weak, and Evans was sick with disabling scurvy and snow blindness. The hot tears were Crean’s, he thought Evans had died. Evans later recounted “his hot tears fell onto my face”.

The illustrated children’s book Tom Crean’s Rabbit is a wonderful true story, about him trying to find a safe warm haven for the rabbit on Scott’s ship Terra Nova as they voyaged south. Well worth buying. By Meredith Hooper and Bert Kitchen.

 

 

Tom Crean (pic from Wikipedia)