Cherry

Apsley Cherry-Garrard was one of the last of his particular manifestation of England's landed gentry, and one of the most unlikely heroic explorers of the polar age. Through a family friend, the biologist Edward Wilson, he became the youngest member of Scott's final expedition, as an assistant zoologist. Despite poor eyesight and a background in flitting about Hertfordshire, Cherry's enthusiasm, dedication and sheer grit  made him a key part of Scott's team, both in the scientific work that took up most of their first year in the Antarctic, and in the preparation for, and aftermath of, the Polar Journey. Cherry also wrote the most long-lasting and widely read account of that expedition, and one of the best travel books you'll ever find, The Worst Journey in the World (or see a BBC adaptation of it). Its opening lines set the tone for an entertaining, intelligent and heartfelt telling of a story that's become part of British culture: 

'Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised...Take it all in all, I do not believe anybody on earth has a worse time of it than an Emperor penguin'. 

The title of the book doesn't refer to Scott's fatal Polar Journey, but to an earlier journey of unbelievable endurance made by Cherry, Edward Wilson and the redoubtable Birdie Bowers, who were the first people to sledge across the Antarctic in winter, not for glory but for a tiny little nugget of scientific discovery. They man-hauled sledges for six weeks in darkness, gale force winds and temperatures below -50, in order to find Emperor penguins, the only animals who breed on the Antarctic continent, and collect their eggs so they could investigate the nature of bird embryo development. Now that was science. They did bring back eggs, although as almost unbearably told in Cherry's book, they got little recognition for it (now that's also science!). But you can still see their three miraculous eggs at the Natural History Museum (where up til 2 September you can also see an exhibition marking the centenary of Scott reaching the South Pole).

Sara Wheeler wrote a nice biography of Cherry, with fascinating detail of the politics behind Scott's expedition, as well as a poignant picture of Cherry's later life. He did have more adventures, but most of the rest of his life was spent quietly, trying to come to turns with the changes of the 20th century and the end of the world he'd been brought up in. Neighbour and friend to George Bernard Shaw, he remained a dedicated landlord and steward of the Hertfordshire countryside he loved. I was cycling there a couple of weeks ago and we took a detour to the village of Wheathampstead (bustling with its Jubilee celebrations) to make a pilgrimage to Cherry's grave. Inside St Helen's we also found a poignant memorial: a little statue of him in his sledging gear that sits curiously in the English church, next to the formal plaques and reminders of his grand ancestors who worshipped there for centuries. But it's a fitting tribute to this quiet, unassuming man, who gave so much to adventure and science in the remotest place on earth, and who was probably never happiest than when helping his comrades pull a sledge under Antarctic skies. 

Photo (c) J Martin