PING
My grandfather was an able bodied seaman on board the supply ship, SY Morning to the Antarctic in the summer of 1903-04...the ship went back and forth to Lyttleton, NZ bringing fresh meat and other food and supplies ...
Scott was stuck in the ice...Shackleton got sick and was transported to the Morning to be taken back to Lyttleton...
Since they weren’t sworn to secrecy like the regular crew, Scott had many of the able bodied seaman paid off in Lyttleton instead of taking them back to England as they contract promised...where they could spill the beans about the great explorer getting stuck for months...
so Scott was able to brag on himself without any peons saying Nay...He also arranged for his ship Discovery, alone to arrive in England months ahead of any of the rest...
and so my grandfather wound up illegally beached and stranded in Christchurch where he met and married my grandmother...
since NZ was a British country and granddad was English he could live there legally..
so it did end well...for us...
In the National Archives in London, I found a copy of that particular contract the company had with the able seaman on the Morning...It does state that after the expedition to the Antarctic, the men were to be taken back to the English port they left from...my 22 yo grandfather signed on in Oct 1903 just days before they left England...no doubt expecting to be returned home again...
and that’s the rest of the story, etc
:)
Color? That was thoughtful of them. I’d hate to be brought to life in black and white.
Third picture down, guy in a down parka. Not early 1900s.
Today’s article brought to you by the color WHITE.
