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Get the latest guides and information from the Bedford area.
* “The Worst Journey in The World” by Apsley Cherry-Garrard is available from all good book suppliers ISBN-978-0486477329
* “Cherry” by Sara Wheeler is available from all good book suppliers ISBN 978-0375503283
.* “Shackleton’s Lieutenant – The Diary of Aeneas Mackinstosh” is currently out of print but second hand book dealers such as Alibris and Abe Books currently have copies.
* “Frank Wild” by Lief Mills is available from all good book suppliers ISBN 978-0905355481
THE FORGOTTEN POLAR CONNECTION
By Trevor Stewart
Largely influenced by Captain James Cook’s voyages of the Pacific Ocean and Antarctic Circle in the last quarter of the 18th Century, global interest in exploration and discovery, particularly of the polar regions, reached its zenith between 1899 and 1922; a period known as the “Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration”.
Successive expeditions set records for reaching the farthest point south and although it was the Norwegian, Roald Amundsen that reached the South Pole in 1911, British exploration teams had dominated the record books up until that time; indeed Captain Robert Scott’s Terra Nova expedition reached the South Pole only 33 days after Amundsen.
In the year leading up to the centenary of Captain Scott’s death in 1912, it is likely that much press coverage will be dedicated to his life and achievements, but it is also appropriate to tell the stories of five men, each with Bedfordshire connections whose pioneering exploits helped secure a place in the history books for the “Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration”
Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Aeneas Mackintosh, George Percy Abbott, Commander Frank Wild and Ernest Wild each had important roles in the expeditions of both Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton. More
