Scotch College

'Sing, like they do at Scotch'

I went to IMAX with year 7. We saw Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure. Some adventure! It's the absolutely extraordinary but true story of polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated 1914-1916 British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

Neal F. Lane, Science Adviser to President Clinton and Director of the National Science Foundation, said at the Michigan State University commencement in 1995, that those organisations that set about 'building a sense of teamwork and community - just as Shackleton and his crew did eighty years ago - be they businesses, schools, colleges and universities, government agencies - will, in my opinion, become leaders in the twenty-first century'. This is intriguing praise for an expedition that failed to accomplish its goal.

While failing to accomplish that goal Shackleton's expedition has become a larger-than-life testament to heroism and human endurance. It is awe-inspiring to contemplate how he and his crew survived months of perilous existence, living-on-ice, while their trapped ship Endurance was slowly crushed. In the thaw, the breaking ice, on which they were living, released the ruined ship to sink in 2000 fathoms of water.

In this harshest of environments and most extreme of circumstances, not one member of Shackleton's party perished. Shackleton's Way, a recent book subtitled Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer makes fascinating reading. In it Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell draw attention to a range of qualities that uniquely equipped Shackleton for the extreme demands he faced.

With the ship lost and the ice breaking up the crew embarked on a weeklong voyage in three small lifeboats over stormy currents in ice filled seas. At one stage they had the frightening company of a school of killer whales. Eventually they arrived at Elephant Island. There Shackleton and his crew endured life under the shelter of the upturned boats and a diet of seals and sea birds for months. There were significant formative influences. Shackleton was one of only two boys among eight sisters. His family were devout in the Quaker tradition. In his early years of apprenticeship as a Cabin Boy in the merchant marine his personal interest in Bible study and hymn singing made him the object of ridicule. As a consequence he 'began practising his religion privately and let his actions speak for his beliefs'.

His interest in singing is intriguing. When selecting crew for the expedition he asked Reg James, the physicist if he could sing. Elaborating: 'Oh, I don't mean any Caruso stuff; but I suppose you can shout a bit with the boys?' The authors comment

'The question about singing had become one of Shackleton's stock queries, and his touchstone for a man's team spirit'. It was a team spirit that endured long after their leader's death in 1922. ' "The Boss" as his men called him, built success on a foundation of camaraderie, loyalty, responsibility, determination, and - above all - optimism'. Eventually, from Elephant Island, in the lifeboat the James Caird, there sailed a party of six seeking help. They completed a now justly fabled 800 mile ocean crossing to South Georgia. That astonishing feat was to become merely the necessary antecedent to a staggering mountain crossing of unmapped terrain, by a rescue party reduced to three, Shackleton, Worsley and Crean, before, finally, help was reached at the whaling station at Stromness.

In his own book South, Shackleton put on record a spiritual perception that sustained him. 'I know that during that long and racking march of thirty-six hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia, it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterward Worsley said to me, "Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us." Crean confessed to the same idea.'

While none of us want to face the extremities endured by Shackleton and his men, we are all invited to build on the same foundation, and to seek the abiding presence of that companion who 'will never leave nor forsake us'. Meantime, lets sing, as a chaplain of another School once remarked to me, 'like they do at Scotch'!

Graham Bradbeer
Chaplain