Shackleton
All
small boys have their boyhood heroes. A few of mine
were Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail alone around
the world, John Cobb of land and water speed record
fame, Malcolm Campbell with his Bluebird, Amy Johnson
and Jim Mollison both long
distance aviation pioneers, Alexander Selkirk born in
the village of Largo, five miles from
Earlsferry, the real
Robinson Crusoe, William Wallace and Robert the Bruce,
Scottish freedom fighters. Then there was
Ernest
Shackleton. He was my number
one hero. He was the person that I really held in awe
and admiration.
Next door to The Cross, the
house in which I was born,
lived a lady by the name of Mrs.
McNeish and her daughter
Nancy. As I grew up and got old enough to get to know
them Mrs.
McNeish told me about
her husband Harry McNeish.
Harry McNeish was Shackleton's
ships carpenter aboard
The Endurance on
Shackleton's epic voyage to
the Antarctic. She told me from first hand information
from her husband Harry the story of
Shackleton's voyage and his leadership in the ill
fated expedition to the Antarctic that should have cost
all of them their lives. The Endurance was crushed and
sunk by the ice. Shackleton
by his incredible leadership, after a year and a half of
unbelievable hardship, brought all twenty eight, which
included himself, who had set
out on the voyage, safely home. The original crew was
composed of Shackleton, 26
others and one stowaway. 28 in all.
Harry McNeish was
also one of the hand picked crew of the
ship's small, 22 foot long, open boat, the James
Caird in which
Shackleton made the 800 mile
voyage to South Georgia Island, a tiny speck in the
south Atlantic Ocean. This voyage in itself is an
incredible story. As I recall it,
Mrs. McNeish told me
that some years after the voyage her husband Harry went
to New Zealand and never came back. He left behind
all of his carpenter tools in a big wooden box. Mrs.
McNeish let me handle them
but I have no idea what became of them.
A number of books have been
written about the Endurance, and
Shackleton including one called Endurance,
Shackleton's Incredible
Voyage, by the author Alfred Lansing. For those who
haven't read it, I thoroughly recommend it.
The book comes very close to
how Mrs.
McNeish told the story to me
except for the very last page that tells of
Shackleton's last day and
how he died. The book relates that on a return voyage to
the Antarctic Shackleton
suffered a massive heart attack and died in his cabin.
As Mrs.
McNeish told it to me, he
died in his cabin but his death wasn't the result of a
heart attack.