Today’s Google Doodle is in recognition of the 105th anniversary of the first expedition to reach the South Pole. I have always fancied reading about the expedition(s), can anyone recommend a good book on the subject?

Or any other good factual accounts of similar expeditions (from around the world)?

I was just following the doodle a moment ago and it took me back to school days. I remember being “taught” how Scott and his band were plucky Brit heroes and dastardly Amundsen was rotten johnny-foreigner who snuck past to glory or somesuch. Pity the Story of Amundsen wasnt celebrated more heroically in 70s-80s syllabus.

Get the Roland Huntford trilogy. And prepare to see another side to the ‘heroism’ of Scott. Shackleton on the other hand….

Having sailed to and from the island of South Georgia in a Force 11 in the Southern Ocean with a bunch of weirdos on a patched up homemade floating skip (recently starring on Planet Earth….) and all thinking we were going to die gives me so much respect for Shackleton and his team. What we went through was nothing in comparison, even though we all ‘thought’ we were going to die and were all staring at each other with eyeballs on stalks and having to hold 48 hour non-stop sewing parties…

But I digress…the nightmares still come now and again 12 years later.

There are so many different perspectives on this – it makes for great reading. I enjoyed Cherry-Gerrard’s account, ‘Worst Journey in the World’.

The Ranulph Fiennes book is a fine one. Roland Huntford comes across as a nasty, bitter little man.

Worth remembering too that Scott’s was primarily a scientific expedition whereas Amundsen was bent on nothing else than reaching the Pole.

It’s trendy these days to denigrate Scott. He definitely made mistakes, however that doesn’t justify the denigration of all his achievements and abilities. He often tendsto be a target for people who seem to hate anything to do with British history.

This caption correction on Wikipedia came up on my timeline today…