Christmas is a time for home and
hearth when we welcome back to our shores those of our extended families whom
live abroad. But we should give a moment’s
pause to those of our country men and women who are unable, for various reasons,
to return home. The Kilkea born Polar
explorer Ernest Shackleton was one of those whose life was mostly lived outside
the country of his birth and because of his pursuit of discovery in the
Antarctic regions many of his Christmas’s were spent in the icy wastes of the
Polar regions. Just one hundred years
ago Shackleton's ship Endurance
left the island of South Georgia on the 5th of December heading
towards the pack ice of the Weddell Sea.
He was embarking upon his ambitious plan to cross the Antarctic from the
Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. Ultimately
the expedition ended in heroic failure and Shackleton and his men would spend
two Christmas’s in the Antarctic before returning to civilisation.
Christmas for Shackleton
invariably meant time away from hearth and home and with companions in the
windy wasteland of the Antarctic. His
Christmas of 1902 was spent on the Antarctic barrier with his companions
Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Dr. Edward Wilson, both of whom would die later
on a trek back from the South Pole in 1912.
Christmas was important to Shackleton and unbeknownst to his colleagues
to supplement their standard lunch of Bovril, chocolate, biscuits and Plasmon
he had stowed away in his spare socks a small plum pudding weighing 6 ounces
which he produced as a surprise on Christmas day with a piece of holly. Although he spent much of his life away he
understood the importance of observing the rituals of home life. Christmas in 1908 would again find Shackleton
in the Antarctic this time on the Antarctic Plateau at a height of 9,500 ft.
almost 250 miles from the Pole.
In his book The Heart of
Antarctic he wrote about Christmas day in 1908 ‘we had a splendid dinner. First
came hoosh, consisting of a pony ration boiled up with pemmican with some of
our emergency oxo and biscuit. Then in
the cocoa water I boiled our little plum pudding. This with a drop of medicinal brandy was a
luxury, then came cocoa and lastly cigars and a spoonful of crème de menthe’.
As for many of us at Christmas
time food was an important part of the celebration but never more so for those
explorers starving themselves in their endeavours to reach the holy grail of
the South Pole. To return to
Shackleton’s expedition of 1914, December 25th of that year found
the Endurance battling its way through the ice but Shackleton was able
to have a full sit down meal with his fellow crew members in the Mess cabin of
the ship. One of the ship’s officers
decorated the mess with flags and Christmas presents were exchanged. This was later followed by a luxurious dinner
consisting of turtle soup, whitebait, jugged hare, Christmas pudding, mince
pies, dates, figs and crystallised fruits with rum and stout as drinks. The evening concluded with a sing song
amongst the men but one can only imagine the variable quality of the voices
after a day of indulgence!
The last few Christmas’s of
Shackleton’s life were spent abroad. In
Christmas 1919 he was coming to the end of his service with the British army in
Northern Russia where it was fighting in support of the White Russians against
the Bolsheviks. Shackleton's expertise
had been required in assisting the British troops in training for cold weather
conditions. Embarking upon a royal navy
ship HMS Mars he met A.S. Griffiths an old school pal of his from
Dulwich College days with whom he had played truant more than 30 years
before. Christmas day was spent in
reminiscence with his Griffiths while that night Shackleton joined the sailors
of HMS Dublin for a Christmas party aboard their ship.
Christmas 1922, found Shackleton
in the Southern Oceans on his expedition ship the Quest. Sadly for Shackleton the man who placed such
importance on the rituals of everyday life Christmas celebrations were not
possible as no cooking could be done in the difficult atrocious conditions that
the ship encountered. It would be
Shackleton’s last Christmas as he died just over a week later at South Georgia
in the early hours of the morning of the 5th of January.
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