Journal No. 8: Maintaining the impresssive fine standard of JCS Journals.

The quality of the James Caird Society Journals, edited by Stephen Scott-Fawcett, has been nothing short of top-rate since the first issue appeared.

The range of subjects, the coverage of Shackletoniana and Shackleton himself, his expeditions and his crew, has been up to the best in Polar Studies, and indeed in any sphere of studies. It has guaranteed that the James Caird Society stands to the fore in research, in historical and social coverage of the world’s interest in matters. The quality of its production and printing has been first rate, as any glance at previous issues has shown.

Stephen Scott-Fawcett has now issued The James Caird Society Journal Number 8, and the exceptionally high standard of previous issues has been maintained. This is a numper issue.

Volume No. 8 (2016) covers a variety of matters, each one significant in its way, and one of those given special and thoughful priority: the . As usual, there is a feast of striking pictures, carefully chosen, and many of them new or unfamiliar to most readers; and as a special treat, they include a handful of particularly striking images of Ernest and Emily Shackleton’s children, Raymond, Cecily and Edward (later the distinguished politician and Falkland Islands and Antarctic expert, Lord Shackleton).

As well as a strong commissioned colour painting on the cover, a tradition Stephen Scott- Fawcett has made special to these handsome publications, on the cover, there is a bonus: a magnificent coloured version of the picture of Shackleton in harness on the ice. This in itself is a splendid keepsake, well worth framing.

It is pointed out that the Shackleton Centenary Book (2014) - a superb production reissuing many of the most striking items from previous issues as an overall tribute to the centenary of the sailing of - was a complete sell-out: surely a tribute to Stephen Scott- Fawcett’s imaginitive idea in producing such a splendid document. .

Six pages, vividly illustrated, are dedicated to the most impressive achievement of the Endurance centenary, the launching and sailing - in Shackleton’s footsteps - of the Alexandra Shackleton: the scrupulous reconstruction of the James Caird named after the expedition’s patron, the explorer’s granddaughter. It was led by Tim Jarvis, who had already in 2007 participated in a historically authentic march over Antartica to reeneact Sir Douglas Mawson’s 1912 expedition.

This article was typically well-detailed. The boat using authentic materials was built at the International BoatTraining College. The sailing rig was designed to match Shackleton’s own, and both ship’s costume and mountaineering gear were akin to those worn on the original journey. Like the James Caird, the crew consisted of six men: the navigator Paul Larsen, bosun Seb Coulthard (also in charge of amassing vintage navigation equipment - sextant and chronometer, Admiralty boat compass and ballast), commander Tim Jarvis, mountaineers Barry Gray and Ed Wardle, and sailor Nick Bubb. Wardle, who tracked down vintage clothing, was the cameraman.

A key figure behind events was Philip Rose-Taylor, with crucial Cape Horn experience, who made the sails from flax canvas, using hand-stitching. But they were also determined to stick so far as possible to ‘Shackleton-approved food’. The Journal report includes details of accompanying support boat Australis In some respects (eg no tiller) the reenaction voyage was even more perilous than the original: especially as they attempted to make land. This is a gripping outline of one of the perfectly planned - and most authentic - small boat voyages in recent years.

Stephen Scott-Fawcett has a gift in his JCS Journals for coming up with the unexpected. Actor Ken Drury played Harry McNish in the Charles Sturridge/Kenneth Branagh film Shackleton and Stephen has unearthed a diary kept by Drury, one of the most impressive and credible cast members. He tells how the Kaskelot was converted into Endurance - with space for the huskies; then the Polar Bird, the filming being off Iceland and Greenland. Reenacting he appalling journey of the three small boats between the ice and was notably taxing. Fascinatingly, the scenes on Elephant Island were shot in the UK - off Whitby!

Most imaginitively, Stephen has reproduced something that has long deserved reproduction in Shackleton literature: a fascinating piece of documentation, Shackleton‘s detailed evidence to the 36-day, English (as opposed to American) Enquiry into the sinking of the Titanic, and the evidence (on Day 26 of the enquiry, 18 June 1912). Shackleton is quizzed about visibility, the dark colour of bergs, growlers (floe bergs), danger amid ice, recommended speed in knots within an ice zone, look outs.

In particular, Sir Ernest drew attention to the tendency to increase speed because of competition between rival companies aspiring to achieve the quickest passage; and emphasised how the effect of sea ice could be as threatening as icebergs. Especially important was the difference between the surface and below-surface size of an iceberg (‘the bottom of the berg’); and the merits or not of reducing speed when in icy waters of that kind. The generous 15 pages allowed enable one to get an immensely clear picture, both of the questions addressed to Shackleton and of his answers, as well as the care and caution he showed, in his replies, in not jumping to any conclusions, or allowing the Inquiry to do so.

One of those who have made valuable contributions to past JCS Journasl is Stephen Haddelsey. Here he offers an overview of Mechanised Transport in Antarctica, working back from 1958 and the arrival of the four snocats of the Vivian Fuchs Trans-Antarctic expedition. By the 1950s motor vehicles had replaced man-hauling and dog-driving as the vital force in Antarctic travel.

Haddelsey traces motorised transport back to the four cylinder, 15 hp Arrol-Johnston vehicle unloaded from Nimrod donated to Shackleton by William Beardmore’s Glasgow company almost exactly half a century earlier. After some initial success, it came adrift under soft snow. Sadly its planned 150 miles in 24 hours proved unviable. Less success was achieved by the Wolseley tracked motor sledges taken by Captain Scott on the Terra Nova. Douglas Mawson’s experiment with a plane came to crash on a test flight, but the air tractor sledge he got engineer Frank Bickerton to convert it to proved initially more successful when towing, then failed when it seized up.

Shackleton in 1914 took with him a propeller-driven sledge involving a 12 foot, 30 horse power Coventry Simplex engine - ‘ a sledge with an aeroplane propeller’, designed to cover just 500 of the 1,800 anticipated journey, and then be jettisoned. He believed 200 miles on 500 lb petrol could be a great asset on the transantarctic journey. Tests in Norway were less than convincing, and though Endurance engineer Thomas Orde-Lees was unable to test his vehicle, the Ross Sea Party’s ‘motor-crawler’ was a dismal failure.

The Editor draws attention to a later single-engine De Havilland Moth, taken on the 1934/7 Australian-led British Graham Land Expedition, which, he says, proved remarkably successful in sea ice reconaissance and was vitally life-saving in situations of peril.

From the USA came Richard Byrd’s Ford ‘Snowmobile’, which, combining skis and tracks, proved an initial success before its necessary abandonment. Byrd’s second expedition, with six cars and mobiles, seemed promising though also managed only 105 miles. A ‘Weasel’; machine brought hope, but both fans and tracks broke. Other Chrysler powered Snocats in the 1950s proved a major step forward, before the hugely successful efforts of Edmund Hillary yielded a successful crossing of the continent. Haddelsey covers much more than the above, and his essay is a treat because of the splendid detail into which he goes, revealing his considerable expertise in the subject.

By way of a tribute, the Editor has also devoted no fewer than 18 pages to the Ross Sea party, whose crucial role in the planned crossing is sometimes unnoticed or badly undervalued. Anna Lucas examines the planning of the Aurora epedition from the New Zealand side, and includes two sections of diary, that of John King Davis in Sept-Dec 1916, and James Paton from July 1915 to March 1916; and at length examines the various controversies that surrounded the leadership issues.

A further nine pages are contributed by Anne Phillips and the Editor to . This total of 27 pages is a most generous allocation to the Ross Sea Party and its membership, rendering Journal 8 a specially valuable contribution to lesser known Shackleton studies. A glorious photo of Aeneas, his mother and three siblings is one of the many enchantments which Stephen Scott-Fawcett has selected for Journal 8. The puzzle that remains over Mackintosh’s disappearance and loss is naturally addressed.

Noone has contributed more to the history of Irish polar explorer than Michael Smith, whose new biography of Shackleton (Shackleton: By Endurance We Conquer) was recently issued to much praise by the Collins Press. Bransfield and Crozier, courageous figures from from an earlier era, and Forde, Keohane are all examined alongside and the McCarthy brothers. Both this article and the Ross Sea studies are finely illustrated.

Equally we have an expert on Shackleton’s period in Ireland: Neale Webb contributes a feature ‘Sir in Dublin’, which looks at Shackleton’s Lecture at the National Concert Hall, his earliest years in County Kildare and Dublin, and gives a valuable overview of Dublin landmarks - Shackleton’s flour mills, and the Quaker graveyard where 19 members of the Shackleton family - to which Neale himself belongs.

A nice personal touch comes from the records of Hurley and Orde-Lees, gathered here under the title ‘Songs for Marooned Men’, which gives us a substantial list of songs sung by the party, often with Hussey’s indefatigable banjo. ‘The Village Blacksmith’ transformed in ‘The Snuggery Cook’; ‘Solomon Levi’ produced one of the most popular songs, about .’ In party mode, there are offerings from Rickinson, Kerr, Greenstreet, Clark, Worsley and Cheetham. Hussey’s popular traditional songs like ‘Little Brown Jug’ and several negro spirituals all contributed to the festivities. This collection gives a marvellous feel of the way the 22 men kept their morale up in those long months.

The Editor offers a pearl by way of conclusion. He sums up the lives a descendants of Shackleton’s three children: Raymond, Cecil and Ernest. The pictures are especially good, especially one beautiful one of all three taken in 1925 - a real rarity. Sadly little is known of Cecily, who became godmother to our President, the Hon. Alexandra Shackleton, but Edward, who went on to become Lord Shackleton and have a great deal to do with the Southern hemisphere, as well as Leader of the House of Lords, was one of the most significant figures in British politics during the 1960s, and was first President of the James Caird Society. We owe it to the metoculous research of the Editor that every one of the JCS Journals has contained fascinating material and photographs almost entirely unknown. It Iis the fresh surprises that so often make the Journal so highly absorbing, intriguing and and refreshing.

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