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Keeping Up Morale

Writer's picture: Margot MorrellMargot Morrell

Ed. Note: Reading over Orde-Lees' diary entries from October 1915, brought to mind the passage below from Shackleton's Way. It highlights the enormous impact that Shackleton-style leadership can have on a crew.


"Read what a crew-member of the Belgica, the 1897 Belgian expedition to Antarctica, wrote in his diary on June 19, 1898, three months after his ship had become stuck in the ice: 'Our gait is uncertain. The hair grows quickly, like plants in a hot-house, but there is a great change in the color. Most of us in the cabin have grown decidedly gray within two months, though few are over thirty. Our faces are drawn, and there is an absence of jest and cheer and hope in our makeup, which, in itself, is one of the saddest incidents in our existence… the novelty of life has been worn out.'


Compare that passage to what an Endurance crew-member wrote on June 21, 1915, five months after his ship had become frozen in the pack ice: 'The Billabong [cabin] has an atmosphere poetic. Macklin in his bunk is writing poetical verses, and I am doing the same. McIlroy is arranging a décolleté dancing rig, whilst Uncle Hussey is being beset by applicants to rehearse accompaniments on his banjo.'"




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