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Online coverage of Edgar Evans’ story

3 Apr

I am really pleased that Edgar’s story has attracted ONLINE cover in the Daily Mail and the Western Mail. Both give a good account of his achievements

The Daily Mail online is http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123592/Edgar-Evans-Explorer-blamed-Captain-Scotts-ill-fated-Antarctic-mission-unsung-hero-say-historians.html

Western Mail  coverage is: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/showbiz-and-lifestyle/books-in-wales/2012/03/31/edgar-evans-antarctic-hero-91466-30653464/

It is wonderful that the story will be reaching so wide a readership

 

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Service at St Paul’s to commemorate the Terra Nova expedition

2 Apr

This was a wonderful, memorable occasion, made more so because the sun shone  throughout. I had not realised how impressive and awe inspiring the Cathedral is. The military band played as we entered and was succeeded, beautifully,  by the Sub-Organist.  Sir David Attenborough read from Scott’s ‘Message to the Public’ as it has never been read before. The Bishop of London gave insight into the significance of the mens’ achievements, both in terms of exploration and in scientific advances.He pointed out that their work was not the end, but the beginning of  peaceful progress in Antarctic Science.Three descendants of the Terra Nova expedition led a Litany of Praise and Prayer.  The Princess Royal read the second lesson.

Everyone attending seemed moved and uplifted. It was a ‘spot on’, appropriate, recognition, one hundred years after the heroes deaths

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My Life on Shelter Island

21 Mar

Zoe Hudson has written to say how much her seven year old daughter enjoyed the book. This gives me great pleasure. I hope other young girls may enjoy it too. Milla remains fixated on horses. W hen she stays with me she goes to  muck out  in a stable every day and does not even mind if she cannot ride the ponies. She does not mind if we have to be in the stable at 6am!

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The wives of the dead heroes

14 Mar

A blogger has written to ask about the ongoing lives of the wives of the men who died with Scott.

This is an interesting question. Three of Scott’s party were married: Scott himself, Edward Wilson and Edgar Evans.

When the news reached England, pensions were awarded to the widows. The amounts were determined on the ranks of their husbands. Kathleen Scott received an Admiralty Pension of £200 p.a.a gratuity of £693 and £36 back pay. She was given a Government Pension of £200 p.a. and £850 from the Mansion House Trust Fund (M.H.T.F.), her husbands British Antarctic Expedition  (B.A.E.) salary, plus income from books and articles. She was a wealthy woman.

Oriana Wilson received £300 from Government Pensions, £850 from the M.H.T.F and Wilson’s B.A.E salary of £636

Lois Evans and her three children had an Admiralty Pension of 7s 6p a week, 2s a week for the children (when they were minors), plus £52 back pay, a government pension of 12s 6p a week plus 3s a week for each child. She was given £1,250 from the M.H.T.F and her husband’s £44 B.A.S salary. She professed haeself well satisfied.

Kathleen was awarded the rank of widow of a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1913. She remarried in 1922 and became Baroness Kennet in 1935.

Orians did not remarry. The news of her husband’s death shook her faith, she never really recovered from his loss. She worked for the N.Z Red Cross in World War 1 and was made C.B.E. She supported Frank Debenham in the new Scott Polar Research Institute and presented the institute with many water colours and pencil sketches. She followed her husband’s interest in ornithology and became quite an expert. She lived in Hertfordshire and died there in 1945.

Lois remained in Wales She was with the other widows for an investiture in Buckingham Palace where she received Edgar’s medal and clasp which celebrated his Antarctic expeditions. She was the only widow alive at the premier of ‘Scott in the Antarctic’ a famous film, still remembered and premiered in 1948

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‘The Blinding Sea’, documentary film by George Tombs

5 Mar

My attention has been drawn to this film, (which is due for release this month), by the Canadian writer and film maker, George Tombs.  The work emphasises how Amundsen was extremely well versed  in dealing with Polar conditions, well before his attempt on the Pole in 1911. He  lived with and learnt from the Inuits. He understood how to manage dog teams, when to kill weaker dogs and importantly how to ward off scurvy by eating meat regularly as well as undigested seaweed from the intestines of slaughtered seals. Amundsen’s recognition  and appreciation of Inuit skills stood him in good stead in the Antarctic. They apparently thought of him as ‘one of their own’.

These were skills that  Scott had no opportunity to learn. Although diligent in acquiring every piece of information and technical advance, his time was completely taken up  between 1904 and 1909 with his naval career (and supporting his mother and sisters). There was no space for exploration. The fact that he did not take dogs onto the glacier and plateau in 1911 contributed significantly to the final tragic outcome.

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The Lost Photographs of Captain Scott

2 Mar

Scott was aware of, and keenly interested in, technical developments in the early 1900s. He also understood the importance of marketing his second expedition. To help advertise the expedition he took the ‘Camera Artist’ Herbert George Ponting as part of the ‘Terra Nova’ crew. Ponting was considered to be one of the finest travel photographers of his time. When he was appointed he wrote that the expedition would allow him to turn the experiences he had gained into some permanent benefit for mankind.
Ponting taught Scott to use the cumbersome photographic equipment. Unsurprisingly Scott was fascinated by the technique. He made many false starts; on one occasion, having followed the check list carefully and taken photographs to no effect, he worked out that he had forgotten to remove the camera lens. But he developed into a talented photographer. He learnt how to ‘compose’ an image so that, for example, outlines of the tents were in pleasing harmony with the silhouettes of the background mountains, shapes moulded gracefully into each other. It was a technique that took time.
Ponting did not go across the Barrier and on towards the Pole. It was left to his students to faithfully record the last few months of Scott’s ill-fated expedition. Many of these images are in ‘The Lost Photographs of Captain Scott’ edited by Dr. David. M. Wilson.

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Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

2 Mar

I recently gave a talk on the life of Edward Wilson at Caius College Cambridge where Wilson was a pre-clinical student. It is a wonderful college to visit. Established in 1348 by Edmund Gonville and refounded and extended in the sixteenth century by a doctor of medicine, John Keyes, it is called Caius, rather than Keyes because Dr. Keyes ‘Latinised’ the spelling of his name. He built three famous gates in the college grounds. Wilson was above the Gate of Virtue but was not always virtuous by the strict rules of the day. He was ‘sent down’ (expelled) for the heinous crime of leaving the college, after hours, and without permission.
There was a service dedicated to Wilson in the chapel before the talk.The choir was superb.
Gonville and Caius are proud of their famous graduate. A sledge flag that Wilson took to the South Pole has pride of place in the dining hall. It was presented to him by the wife of the Master in 1910, Dr Roberts and has been refurbished recently. The present Master is Sir Christopher Hum.

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Captain Scott’s Invaluable Assistant, Edgar Evans

2 Feb

My book is to be published this week and I am delighted at the interest already expressed, particularly in Wales. I have been interviewed for ‘Wales This Week’, an ITV production in Wales which was an excitement; the piece is to go out on 14/02/12 and I also gave a short interview on ‘Good Evening Wales’  on the 17/01/12. I am to speak on the ‘Jamie and Louise Show’ next Monday, the 6th February and gave a long interview to Abbie of the ‘Western Mail’ for a  weekend supplement piece on the 18th. Incidentally the ‘Western Mail’ editor in 1909 ,W.E.Davies, organized great support for the ‘Terra Nova Expedition’ both with cash and much needed supplies.

The book launch will take place in Swansea Museum on 18/02/12, just over 100 years after Edgar’s death.

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WILSON’S EMPEROR PENGUIN EGGS

19 Jan

There is a big Antarctic exhibition at the Natural History Museum. This includes the Emperor Penguin eggs that Wilson, ‘Birdie’ Bowers and Apsley Cherry-Garrard brought back at such cost from the Emperor colony at Cape Crozier.

The embryos were not found to prove the theory that Wilson was investigating: a link between birds and early reptiles. He was interested in penguin eggs because he thought that penguins were the most primitive of birds (now known to be untrue). When the eggs were examined years later no support for the suggestion was found

I do not think that Wilson would have minded this. Throughout his life his emphasis was on objective scientific research. He would carefully examine any theory before accepting or rejecting it. This expedition was his scientific investigation, he had hoped to examine a series of eggs at the colony. Had he lived to hear the verdict, no connection proved, he would have accepted this calmly as part of God’s plan

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Science in Antarctica

10 Jan

I am giving a number of talks on Antarctica this year; obviously a most important year in relation to the commemoration of the deaths of the British Polar Party in 1912.  People remain fascinated by the achievements of the early twentieth century explorers.

But history is only a part of Antarctica; scientific advances on the continent have focussed the world’s attention on it as a platform for pivotal new information about the universe.

Since the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58 (when scientists from many nations cooperated for the first time on scientific projects) and the Antarctic Treaty of 1961 (which set aside territorial claims and ensured the freedom of scientific projects), a vast amount of information has been gathered: weather balloons floating above the continent raised the first concerns about global warning, the South Pole telescope will survey thousands of galaxies. ‘Ice Cube’s a powerful telescope that searches for dark matter and is collecting information on neutrinos, Ice Cores (which retrieve a core of ice from deep below the Antarctic surface), give us information about the geological conditions existing hundreds of thousands of years ago. Antarctic lakes have been found deep below the ice with living creatures in them.

Truly a place of important ongoing possibilities, potential and fascination.

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