To Tom Crean

Queen Anne's Mansions
27TH June 1917
London.

My dear Tom,

I have been so busy that it has been quite impossible for me to write before. There has been so much to settle up with the Expedition.

I have had a lot of bother with the carpenter who has the infernal cheek to ask 2/0 a week for storing, as he calls it, my gun and compass. The blighter has no right to have touched them at all, now he wants £10 for keeping them, as he calls it, for me. I don't care a damn about the money but after all I have done for him it is the limit. I am issuing a writ against him.

Now about your own job, all I have been able to do is not much for I am met with the statement that it is absolutely necessary for you to pass this easy examination before you can be considered eligible for the commission. You are sure to get it if you only do this. Why don't you buck up and tackle it? Go ahead old son. It means a lot to you. You say that the others are getting army commissions, they are not the same as the Navy: the training is not difficult, a soldier is made in a few months a sailor in years. You are not frightened of any seafaring job so don't let a little exam beat you.

Now about the money, you know that things have been pretty bad with everything to pay out and nothing coming in but I want and, as you know, have always kept my promises though I cannot always do everything [at] once. You were getting £160 a year and I told you in the winter I would increase it to £260, I think it was.

I am now sending you £100 of that increase and, as soon as I can, will send another £100. Write and let me know when you go up for the examination so that I can get busy as soon as you are through with it. My own work is not yet settled. I expect to go to Russia.

Yours ever,
Ernest Shackleton

P.S. Lady Shackleton sends her best wishes to you, also Ray.
EHS

To G.R.S. Townshend, Headmaster

Marlborough Club
Pall Mall

Dec. 21, 1919

Dear Sir,

Great pressure of work has prevented me from answering you before.

The only message I can think of for your boys is: -----

In trouble, danger, and disappointment never give up hope. The worst always can be got over.

Self-reliance is one of the prime qualities for boys as well as men.

Believe me,
Yours truly,
E. H. Shackleton

G. R. S. Townshend, Esq.
King's College School
Wimbledon

Click here for a scanned letter to Lieut A. H. Macklin.