News and Updates

November 2020

SCOTT POLAR RESEARCH INSTITUTE CELEBRATES 100TH ANIVERSARY

I will be forever grateful to SPRI for one of life’s special moments when I arranged to see the two handwritten diaries of William Lashly who accompanied Scott on both polar expeditions and saved Scott’s life when he slipped into a crevasse on 15th December, 1903. The diaries were placed in front of me, along with the obligatory white cotton gloves, and I remember just staring at the notebooks and realising that I was about to touch, open and read two of William’s most personal possessions.

Time flew as I devoured William’s first-hand, modest accounts of the part he played in this epic adventure. I smiled at the eccentric spellings and lack of punctuation but marvelled at how literate he was and how clear the writing for someone who had left school aged 11. When I thought about the conditions he battled under as he wrote, I was full of admiration. I could hear his Hampshire accent speaking out through his written words. I sensed his rising excitement as the time approached for the sun to return after weeks of darkness and I realised anew what a blessing he must have been to that party of brave men. Scott certainly appreciated his Antarctic experience, his outstanding work and his morale-boosting presence on the team and was understandably quick to sign him up again when recruiting for the Terra Nova.

Reading the diaries inspired my husband, George, and me to do further research and write a much-needed biography of this brave but unassuming gentleman.

I know that William visited SPRI and he must have been delighted to learn of their work. He couldn’t know the pleasure that his unsophisticated and faithfully-written diaries would bring to generations of his family to come – especially to this 1st cousin, 3 times removed!

Well done SPRI.

Valerie Skinner