by Sara Wheeler
quite the best brain Annotated journal [September 1910].
Poor boy. I wish Isabel Smith to George Seaver, 7 January 1934.
I come to you ACG to George Seaver, Christmas card, 1950.
won’t believe it when FD to AM (then Cherry-Garrard), [n.d.] October 1959, family collection.
school, country club or Particulars, Frederick Reeks & Goode, Auctioneers, July 1948, private collection.
There is about London, Edmund Wilson, Europe without Baedecker, 1948, p. 5.
roaring like a thousand Man of Everest: The Autobiography of Tenzing told to James Ramsey Ullman, 1955, p. 255.
I have never heard WJ, p. 288.
I read it time Edmund Hillary, View from the Summit , 1999, p. 124.
chafed by nearly half Vivian Fuchs & Edmund Hillary, The Crossing of Antarctica, 1958, p. 96.
halo of good fellowship WJ, p. 318.
Know yourself. Accept yourself Postscript, p. 593.
here and here by Robert Graves, ‘Flying Crooked’, in Poems 1926–1930, 1931.
charming and lacelike Oxford Diocesan Papers, Oxfordshire County Archives.
We shall visit the Draft material, WJ.
Men do not fear WJ, p. 287.
Select Bibliography
All books published in London unless otherwise stated.
Amundsen, Roald, The South Pole, 2 vols., 1912
Arnold, H. J. P., Photographer of the World: A Biography of Herbert Ponting, 1969
Brendon, Piers, The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s, 2000
Campbell, Victor, The Wicked Mate: the Antarctic Diary of Victor Campbell, ed. H. G. R. King, Huntingdon, 1988
Cherry-Garrard, Apsley, The Worst Journey in the World, 1922
——, The Worst Journey in the World, with Postscript, 1951
——, Untitled biographical essay in T. E. Lawrence by his Friends, ed. A. W. Lawrence, 1936
Clark, Kenneth, Another Part of the Wood, 1974
Dangerfield, George, The Strange Death of Liberal England, New York, 1935
Debenham, Frank, The Quiet Land: The Antarctic Diaries of Frank Debenham, ed. June Debenham Back, Huntingdon, 1992
Evans, E. R. G. R., South with Scott, 1921
Fussell, Paul, The Great War and Modern Memory, Oxford, 1975
Girouard, Mark, The Return to Camelot, New Haven, 1981
Gran, Tryggve, The Norwegian with Scott, 1984
Jones, Steve, Almost Like a Whale: The Origin of Species Updated, 1999
Holroyd, Michael, Bernard Shaw, vols. I–V, 1988–92
——, Lytton Strachey, 1967
Huntford, Roland, Scott and Amundsen, 1979
——, Shackleton, 1985
——, Nansen, 1997
Huxley, Elspeth, Scott of the Antarctic, 1977
Kennet, Lady Kathleen (Kathleen Scott), Self-Portrait of an Artist, 1949
Lashly, William, The Diary of William Lashly, Reading, 1940
Laurence, Dan H. (ed.), Bernard Shaw: Collected Letters III (1911–1925), 1985
Lawrence, T. E., Letters, Vol I: Correspondence with Bernard and Charlotte Shaw 1922–1926, ed. Jeremy & Nicole Wilson, Woodgreen Common, 2000
——, The Letters of T. E. Lawrence, ed. Malcolm Brown, Oxford, 1991 Lees-Milne, James, Ancestral Voices, 1975
Levick, G. Murray, Antarctic Penguins: a Study of their Social Habits , 1914
Limb, Sue & Cordingley, Patrick, Captain Oates: Soldier and Explorer , 1995
Mackenzie, Compton, Sinister Street, 2 vols., 1913–14
Mais, S. P. B., All the Days of My Life, 1937
Manning, Frederic, Her Privates We, unexpurgated edition, 1999
Parker, Peter, The Old Lie: the Great War and the Public School Ethos , 1987
Ponting, Herbert, The Great White South, 1921
Pound, Reginald, Evans of the Broke, Oxford, 1963
Priestley, Raymond, Antarctic Adventure, 1914
Sassoon, Siegfried, Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man, 1928
——, The Old Century, 1938
Scott, Robert Falcon, The Voyage of the ‘Discovery’, 1905
——, (et al.), Scott’s Last Expedition, arranged Leonard Huxley, 2 vols., 1913
——, The Diaries of Captain Robert Scott, 6 vols., facsimile edition, Tylers Green, 1968
Seaver, George, Edward Wilson of the Antarctic, 1933
——, Edward Wilson, Nature Lover, 1937
——, Birdie Bowers of the Antarctic, 1938
——, The Faith of Edward Wilson, 1948
Shackleton, Sir Ernest, South, 1919
Sissons, Michael & French, Philip (eds.), Age of Austerity: 1945–51 , 1963
Smith, Michael, An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean – Antarctic Survivor , Cork, 2000
Solomon, Susan, The Coldest March, New Haven, 2001
The South Polar Times III (1911), facsimile edition, 1914
Styron, William, Darkness Visible, 1991
Symons, A. J. A., The Quest for Corvo, 1934
Taylor, Thomas Griffith, With Scott: the Silver Lining, 1916
Thomson, David, Scott’s Men, 1977
Tuchman, Barbara, The Proud Tower, 1966
Wilson, D. M., & Elder, D. B., Cheltenham in Antarctica: the Life of Edward Wilson, Cheltenham, 2000
Wilson, Edward, Diary of the Terra Nova Expedition to the Antarctic 1910–1912, ed. H. G. R. King, 1972
Wolpert, Lewis, Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression, 1999
Wright, Charles, Silas: The Antarctic Diaries and Memoir of Charles S. Wright, ed. Colin Bull & Pat F. Wright, Columbus, 1993
Yelverton, David E., Antarctica Unveiled, Boulder, 2000
Young, Louisa, A Great Task of Happiness: the Life of Kathleen Scott , 1995
Selected Unpublished Sources
Bowers, Henry, Diary and Letters, various dates, SPRI
Chatto & Windus Archive, University of Reading
Cherry-Garrard, Miscellaneous Papers, Berkshire Record Office, Reading
Cherry-Garrard Archive, SPRI (includes Cherry’s Antarctic journals, as well as correspondence with Atkinson, Lillie, Kathleen Scott, Oriana Wilson, Sidney Harmer and many others)
Constable & Co. Directors’ Files, Special Collections Department, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia
Emery Walker Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
Garrard Papers, Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, Hertford
George Bernard Shaw Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
Keohane, Patrick, Diary, 1911–12, SPRI
Oates, Lawrence, Letters to his mother, various dates, SPRI
Penguin Archive, University of Bristol
Simpson, George, Diary, 1910–12, SPRI
Scott, Kathleen, Diary, various dates (Kennet Papers, Cambridge University Library)
Williamson, Thomas, Diary, 1912–13, SPRI
Guide to Selected Antarcticans
Lamer
Evelyn Cherry and her first-born, Apsley George Benet, in 1886.
General Apsley Cherry-Garrard and his wife Evelyn, with their children Mildred (standing), Elsie (centre), Ida (‘Lassie’; second from right) and Apsley, posing at Lamer in 1896 for the distinguished royal photographer Frederick Thurston. Evelyn is pregnant with Margaret (‘Peggy’).
Culver House at Winchester College in 1903 (Apsley is circled). The house was known as ‘Kenny’s’ after its housemaster Theodore Kensington (seated centre).
Christ Church 2nd Torpid, 1906. Apsley is in the back row on the far right.
Apsley in the dell at Lamer, aged twenty-one.
Reggie Smith, Isabel Smith, Oriana Wilson and Robert Scott picnicking at Kirriemuir, 1907.
The Terra Nova weathers the Southern Ocean.
Assistant zoologist on board the Terra Nova: ‘I have never seen anyone with such a constant expression of “this is what I have been looking for” on his face.’
The Terra Nova in
the ice.
Home: the hut at Cape Evans.
The Tenements: Cherry (bottom left); Birdie Bowers (standing); Titus Oates (centre); Cecil Meares (top right); Atch (bottom right).
Camping near the Transantarctic Mountains. Atch in his lab at the back of the hut: ‘I consider him to be straight as a die.’
A sledging party leaves Ross Island and heads for the Barrier.
‘Even now, the Antarctic is to the rest of the earth as the Abode of the Gods was to the ancient Chaldees, a precipitous and mammoth land lying far beyond the seas.’
‘This winter travel is a new and bold venture, but the right men have gone to attempt it.’ Birdie Bowers, Bill Wilson and Cherry set out on the winter journey to Cape Crozier.
‘But this journey had beggared our language: no words could express its horror.’
The South Polar Times: ‘Poor Cherry perspired over the editorial,’ wrote Scott.
Scott’s birthday dinner, Cape Evans, 6 June 1911. Left to right: Atch, Cecil Meares, Titus Oates (standing), Cherry, Griff Taylor, Edward Nelson, Teddy Evans, Scott, Bill Wilson, George ‘Sunny Jim’ Simpson, Tryggve Gran (standing), Birdie Bowers, Silas Wright, Frank ‘Deb’ Debenham, Bernard Day.
Silas Wright: ‘robust, willing and uncompromising’.
Biologist Denis Lillie, working on his sponges on the Terra Nova.
‘It will be a fine thing to do that plateau with man-haulage in these days of the supposed decadence of the British race.’ The polar party on the final slog to the South Pole. Birdie Bowers has the camera.
One Ton Depôt.
‘If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin’s egg.’
Lieutenant-Commander Cherry-Garrard at Lamer. During the First World War the house was converted into a convalescent home.
Picnicking near Lamer: Charlotte Shaw, Pussy Russell Cooke, Cherry, Peter Scott, Kathleen Scott, GBS.
Cherry and Angela on their wedding day.
Cherry in the 1940s, birding on the South Downs.
Cruising (i): 1930s.
Cruising (ii): 1950s.
‘It makes a tale for our generation which I hope may not be lost in the telling.’
Illustrations
Lamer (courtesy of Mr John Gott)
Evelyn Cherry and her son (courtesy of Mrs Angela Mathias)
The Cherry-Garrard family (courtesy of Mrs Angela Mathias)
Culver House at Winchester College, 1903 (Winchester College)
Christ Church 2nd Torpid, 1906 (Christ Church College, Oxford)
Cherry at Lamer (courtesy of Mr John Gott)
The Wilsons and the Scotts at Kirriemuir (Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum)
Assistant zoologist on the Terra Nova (Private Collection)
The Southern Ocean (Scott Polar Research Institute)
The Terra Nova in the ice (SPRI)
Cape Evans (SPRI)
The Tenements (SPRI)
Dr Edward Atkinson (‘Atch’) (SPRI)
Camping near the Transantarctic Mountains (SPRI)
A sledging party leaves Ross Island (SPRI)
The Barne Glacier (SPRI)
Setting out on the winter journey (SPRI)
After the winter journey (SPRI)
The South Polar Times (SPRI)
Scott’s birthday dinner, 1911 (SPRI)
Charles (‘Silas’) Wright (SPRI)
Denis Lillie (SPRI)
The polar party manhauling (SPRI)
One Ton Depôt (Sir Joseph Kinsey Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand)
Man, mule and Emperors (SPRI)
Lieutenant-Commander Cherry-Garrard (courtesy of Mrs Angela Mathias)
Cherry and Angela Turner on their wedding day (courtesy of Mrs Angela Mathias)
Picnicking near Lamer with the Shaws and Kathleen Scott (courtesy of Mrs Angela Mathias)
Birding in the 1940s (courtesy of Mrs Angela Mathias)
Cruising in the 1950s (courtesy of Mrs Angela Mathias)
Cruising in the 1930s (courtesy of Mr Peter Wordie)
Cherry at his typewriter (SPRI)
Endnotes
1 When Dr Sharpin died in his eightieth year, the local paper ran a long obituary, noting that, ‘In nearly all serious cases in the town in the practice of other medical men, Dr Sharpin was called in when further advice was needed, and many people in his neighbourhood owe their lives to the advice tendered by Dr Sharpin in critical illnesses.’
2 The book was published the year Apsley was born.
3 The Cherrys were solid Tories, but the sentiment applies.
4 Evelyn got out her best gown for dinner at the Salisburys’. Hobbs’ daughter remembered that her mistress chose less splendid attire when dining with Lord and Lady Cavan at Wheathampstead House, though the servants couldn’t decide whether it was because there were dogs in the house, or because the Cavans were merely Irish nobility.
5 Pupils were known as Wykehamists after the school’s founder, William of Wykeham.
6 At the Treasury, Cripps led a ministerial team made up of himself and two other Wykehamists, Hugh Gaitskell and Douglas Jay.
7 Mais was also a prolific book writer. One of his novels, Caged Birds, was memorably reviewed in the New Statesman by Rebecca West with the six words, ‘How long, O Lord, how long.’
8 Farrer & Co., still at the same address, are solicitors to the Queen.
9 Now, as a result of boundary changes, in Oxfordshire.
10 Then still Virginia Stephen.
11 The image of a slumbering continent was popular among the first men to land in the Antarctic. The American Frederick Cook, the doctor on the Belgica expedition, wrote on his return that with the right backing, ‘The combined armies of peace could . . . march into the white silence, the unbroken, icy slumber of centuries about the South Pole . . .’
12 Peary’s claim has subsequently also been challenged, and he probably didn’t get to the Pole. But at the time it was thought that he had.
13 ’This is how it looked,’ wrote Doris Lessing, who grew up in South Africa and was fascinated by Scott’s expeditions, ‘to quite a lot of people not European: there was little Europe, strutting and bossing up there in its little corner, like a pack of schoolboys fighting over a cake.’
14 Finding myself among thirty British men on an Antarctic base eighty-five years later I was gratified to see that nicknames were still going strong. A man with the surname Garrard (no relation) had, pleasingly, been named ‘Cherry’.
15 Nigger was black, with white whiskers on the port side. He was very popular and much photographed, especially after he had mastered a couple of tricks such as jumping through a hoop formed by a man’s arms. When he got a fright and leapt overboard the following year, the ship hove to, a boat was lowered, and the cat saved. In 1912, when the Terra Nova was returning from her second journey to the Antarctic, he went up into the rigging one day with the men, as was his custom, and disappeared during a squall.
16 Cherry came to believe that Evans had obtained his position as Scott’s second-in-command through deception. Although Evans surrendered the funds he had raised for his own expedition in exchange for his place on Scott’s, the sum turned out to be far less than he had suggested. Cherry privately accused Evans of ‘[trying] to raise a mutiny’ at Port Chalmers, presumably over the reinstatement of Taff Evans. ‘It seems incredible,’ Cherry wrote furiously years after the event, ‘that Scott should have written (at Port Chalmers) “all is well”.’
17 Many floating ice shelves fill embayments (recesses) in the Antarctic coast, all fed by glaciers and ice streams flowing off the land like icing sliding off a wedding cake.
18 ‘It is a terrible blow to me that you are seriously thinking about staying out there another year,’ she wrote on 14 May after getting the news.
19 Both sides were apprehensive about this meeting. When the Norwegian watchman spotted the Terra Nova he prepared himself for all eventualities
by loading his gun with six bullets and looking up ‘How are you this morning?’ in the ship’s English phrase book.
20 The reader may wonder if minus 60 feels any colder than minus 40. My own experience has taught me that it does. Before I went to the Antarctic I glibly assumed that once I had got used to low temperatures it wouldn’t matter terribly if they were in the minus twenties or thirties or forties. I soon learned otherwise. At minus 15 I was able to spend a few minutes repositioning the wire of a radio antenna without gloves. At minus 30 this was a perilous venture: I could manage less than half a minute gloveless before my fingers turned into wooden chipolatas. At minus 45 I could not take any outer gloves off, let alone the polypropylene liners. My lungs hurt when I inhaled such bitter air, my balaclava froze hard to my mouth and I had to massage my nose to prevent the moisture in my nostrils freezing. (Once I threw a mug of boiling tea in the air at around minus 46 and the liquid froze before it hit the ice.) A few degrees made a huge difference to my ability to function, and, as a result, after a few months in the Antarctic I was able to judge the temperature fairly accurately just by standing still.
All this, of course, is without wind. A 25-mile-an-hour wind turns a modest ambient temperature of minus 20 into a brutal minus 74 that would freeze exposed flesh in seconds. I once experienced minus 115 with wind-chill at a camp I had at Cape Evans. That day my companion and I had to stay outside for some time anchoring our hut to ensure that it did not go careering off across McMurdo Sound. I can’t recommend it.
21 I was there in February. Flying low over the icefields round Mount Terror, the Texan helicopter pilot pointed down at the gnarled pressure ridges. ‘See those?’ he said over the headset. ‘You could drive a truck through them.’ As for the igloo, a ring of stones about ten inches high had survived. When we landed next to it, the heavy VXE-6 helicopter swung in the wind like a rocking chair.
