#expedition terra nova

[thehutpoint]

17 March 1880, Putney, posh district of London. William Edward Oates and his wife Caroline Anne (de domo Buckton) just welcomed their second bundle of joy and first son, Lawrence Edward Grace Oates.

The bundle grew into sickly, yet unexpectedly energetic boy, who loved to ride donkeys ("Rent a donkey for Laurie, we are coming for summer" wrote Caroline to her relative in southwestern England), and then horses. Wrestling heavily with education due to learning disabilities, little boy grew to be a sport-loving teenager, who voraciously read adventure books, then into young man who dreamed about becoming a soldier.

And he did became one, sent to war almost immediately, got wounded while protecting his injured men. The childhood was gone for good.

A fine man he was. Unpretentious, silent, maybe due to atypical, slow speech pattern that got also described as drawl. He had zero penchant for elegance, prefering comfort above all in his clothing and suffering greatly from the demands of fashion of his times (these stiff collars, ick!), he had low tolerance for snobs, assholes and dumbasses, was very known though from getting close friendships with men from social classes lower than his own, as he did not seem to care much about the social divides and stratas.

A man of great, dry wit, he did not have much of social life, out of his own choice. The other officers couldn't remember him going ever once to the town for an usual round of military entertainment, involving booze, ladies of the night and gambling, and every medical checkup confirmed Oates being squeaky clean, without a single trace of any venereal disease that were a plague among the soldiers, officers very much included. He was a frequent guest in the officers club, usually sitting quietly with a beer, which seems to be his favourite beverage, sometimes with his nose burrowed in a book.

Obviously, the life of a peacetime officer, forced him to attend some social events. Dinners, parties, picnics (he hated these fiercely, complaining to his mom about tepid tea and aching back), he seemed to go through these with his teeth clenched and no pleasure at all. He limited his social ventures though, so much he veered into the rude territory, refusing, for instance to drop his visit card in the letter boxes of the newcomer officer families as was the custom. The constant source of frustration for Oates was that during the peacetime, an officer could make a career easier in the drawing rooms, charming the wives of senior officers, than by actual work in the field. As you might expect Titus did not have much of social skills himself, and no gift of the gob whatsoever, despite being an excellent leader material.

Cool headed while facing danger, courageous, resillient, intelligent, avidly learning new skills when they caught his interest, be it woodworking, harness repair or gardening, loving horses, he seemed cut for a cavalry officer, yet he was deeply unhappy in the army. Having low tolerance for idiots certainly did not help, because every army since the beginning of humanity have had it fair share of idiot officers, petrified in their positions.

Oates had his sensitive side though. He was a compassionate big hearted man, who lectured his mother that a servant girl who got pregnant out of wedlock deserved compassion, not judgment, asked said mom to employ his fellow soldier who got kicked out of the army after injuring his spine in a work accident. When ill with smallpox in India, Titus made ruckus in the hospital until his sergeant, who, also ill with smallpox and not being an officer, did not get the nurse care, was brought into Oates's isolation tent where one nurse could tend to them both.

Let's remember and love this fine man today, on his birthday. Let's get a skinful of beer to celebrate this fine unique man!

Happy birthday, Titus Oates!

[thehutpoint]

Aaah, for me it was not "The Terror" though it did play an important part. It was "The Last Place On Earth", Titus, crawling on all fours out of the tent and it might be some time, and the lonely cairn slowly drowning in the snow out there in the white vastness of Antarctic. It premiered in Polish TV in 1986 I think, so I was what, eight at the time? But yeah, that's how it started. These pictures stuck in my mind like a shhip stucks in the pack ice.

And then, two years later I found these under the Christmas tree.

Four brochures with stories from the Arctic. Yeah, these were still the (not so) merry times of the Iron Curtain, so there were some stories about so brave and so plucky Soviet polar explorers, triumphing over Mother Nature. But the rest? The rest was pure delight. Barents, wintering in the Arctic with his crew, Dr. Kane's expedition, Hudson, De Long and his Jeannette crushed by the merciless Ice, Fritdjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen attempting to get to the Northern Pole, captain Cagni of Italian 1899 Stela Polaris, doing DIY amputation of his thumb, Engineer Andre and his balloon, Amundsen and Nobile flying over the Pole in the airship Norge... aaaahhh. Not appropriate for ten years old, though still heavily sanitised, for example the eye inflammation that rendered lieutenant Danenhower of Jeannette (DeLong expedition) unfit for duty was said to be caused by the snow blindness, while in reality it was a sad complication of syphilis. Sanitized or not, appropriate or not, I loved these stories and my favourite play in winter was always The Polar Explorer, that means me, trodding on my crappy plastic skis on the fields around home, dragging my kiddie sledges and pretending I am Amundsen conquering the South Pole, or Nansen trying to reach the North one.

After that I've read voraciusly everything about polar exploration I could find. I went through the school library and other resources, learning about Franklin, Nansen, Amundsen, Exploration of Antarctic and two expeditions of Scott. Somehow, though, Titus did not catch my attention, he stayed somewhere on the margin (isn't that typical of him?) . To be honest he is a tad neglected by the polar autors, who do not know what exactly to do with him, so usually render him to this guy, you know, this silent dude who was taking care of the horses, then said, you know, This Badass Sentence and then went to die This Badass Death. Still, the frosty tales carried me through the chamber of hell called My Teenage Years.

For some time the polar stuff was at the fringe of my attention, because, you know, life happened, adulting was harder than I expected and so on. But then "The Terror" revived my love for brave, starving boys, freezing their lovely arses on both unhospitable ends of the Earth and I started sniffing again for the polar lit. And so I bought "Widows of the Ice" by Anne Fletcher which made me, by one quote in the chapter, I think, about Oriana Wilson, to go back to the man, who started it all. Titus Oates. Quiet, humble Captain Oates, who helped me to survive quite shitty period of my life and became my personal Comfort Polar Man. You might say I made a full circle.

there’s a certain descent into madness one takes after watching the terror. one minute you’re watching the show with mild interest and the next minute you’re hand painting Robert Scott’s sledging flag to put on your wall

[ponkothepenguin]

Made this no good very bad presentation for a powerpoint night one of my friends is hosting! The instructions were to pick literally anything, and, well…. You know.

Sincerely hoping this isn't too insane for the non-polarhead. ah well

[peatbogpirate]

an older polar doodle for today. how I wish to be a fly on the wall for the bizarre antarctic club reunion vibes

[birdiebowers]

[thehutpoint]

Huh huh, I toyed with idea of a Terra Nova tarot deck. Titus as the Hermit, Scott as the Emperor, Kathleen as the Empress, Bill as the Pope, and Oriana as High Priestess. Meares would be the Magician, Tryggve Gran the Chariot. Atch and Penelope? The Lovers. Cherry would be the Star, Lillie the artistic soul the Moon...

the idea of a moby dick tarot deck is inexplicably plaguing me

[gabriestat]

Geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor and meteorologist Charles Wright in the entrance to an ice grotto during Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition, 5th January 1911.

[laissezferre]

ok... i'm ready to be traumatized

[bcmdavis]

Terra Nova x @reallyreallyreallytrying

[irenydraws]

ancient document discovered while cleaning my desk last night

[reginaldkoettlitz]

this is the most important picture ever taken. to me.

[thehutpoint]

To add a bit to the Jessamine lore, a post about winter entertainment in the Cape Evans hut. Remember Deb gushing in his memoirs how he spends these nice evenings, playing chess and chatting with his absolutely best bestie Titus Oates?

Legendary eloquence of my Soldier and his penchant for chitchat is already well known, let's just focus on the other claim, the chess matches between Deb and Titus. What do the other sources say?

The above excerpt is from Ponting's "Great white South". As you can see Oates is mentioned here as the fan of backgammon, with Meares being his game partner. By the way, I cannot refrain myself from laughter at the mention of Scott, avoiding Nelson at the chess board, because chere Marie invariably kicked his arse every time. Con and his fragile ego... No mention of our dear australian jasmine though, let's move then to other sources, namely to Griff and his "Silver Lining".

Ah, so sweet miss Jessamine makes her entrance at last. Take a good notice that chess board was usually occupied by Scott and Atch, Nelson gets mentioned as the best player in the hut, while Deb... Deb usually plays chess with Griff. And Oates gets busy with backgammon. I wouldn't be surprised if Griff made a mistake with Titus's backgammon partner, thinking about Meares. Nobody ever, though, mentioned Titus playing chess. Ever. EVER.

Pictured above: Jessamine and her crush.

So it seems these long, romantic evenings of chess matches and talks existed only in the heated imagination of the australian jasmine, Frank Debenham. Looks like Deb had really huge crush on Soldier and really wanted to get close to him, so badly he attempted to bewitch reality a bit, writing about things not as they were, but as he wanted them to be (me Deb and my oh so close bestie Oates!).

I admit, getting close to Laurie wasn't an easy task, as he kept himself tightly shielded from people. Your chances grew exponentially if you had a mane and hooves, or at least four paws and a wagging tail (poor Deb had none of it). Or at least a pointy nose, have you people noticed that Meares and Atch had the pointiest noses in the whole Terra Nova team? Seems my man had a type!

[finhere]

there’s a certain descent into madness one takes after watching the terror. one minute you’re watching the show with mild interest and the next minute you’re hand painting Robert Scott’s sledging flag to put on your wall

[wanna-be-marie-antoinette]

Debenham’s penguin drawing vs. Ponting’s picture which I think might be debs inspo

[worstjourney]

NEW PHOTOS KLAXON

Or at least new to me!

The Canterbury Museum in Christchurch has the photos of J.R. Dennistoun, friend of the Expedition and the Kiwi who joined the Terra Nova for her relief trip in 1911, in charge of the mules.

Annoyingly I can't copy/paste the link to the collection directly, but if you go here and click on an object, then scroll down on the object details to "Named collection: DENNISTOUN, James R" you can click on his name and see all his stuff that way. I think some of the photos might have been taken by others, such as the product placement ones, but our pal JRD has been quite good at labelling people!