A story that has held me for quite some time, and it was good to read the man’s own account. A sense of self-justification hang over it though, not in such a way as to minimise his achievement, but more a sense of his trying to defend himself against certain criticisms which would now not have any purchase. There was also a sense of the stiff upper lip restricting some of the descriptions, especially of morale amongst his men. I have a second book on this (much longer) still to read, the biography by Roland Huntford. An outstanding leader of men – that’s what I feel the need to learn!

Intriguingly, the daughter of one of the men on the expedition is a member of my congregation.