Chairman's Message - June 2024 - Trevor Cornford FRGS
Spring is almost sprung as I write with masses of yellow and colourful blooms in my garden borders – not at all reminiscent of my Southern stopover in the windy mainly green Falklands summer!
Although my enjoyment was of a different calibre, I do love our changing seasons and the wait for
our sunnier days somehow eased by enjoying our hobby. To that end other big changes beckon at
the end of this year, as you may already have read via our E - News bulletins and Website, Yes our stalwart Editor John Youle has fi nally, finally decided this year is the end of his 28-year long tenure as Editor of Polar Post. I know you will all agree he has overseen a massive growth in the quality and content of our printed Society magazine, from black and white plain paper to glossy full colour, and monitored the size and weight after much pressure on costs from especially postage and packing from the UK Post Office.
This leads to our options to consider. Please see your Email Newsletter and the new options and hopefully once again another move forward for our Society – it’s often said change should be seen as an opportunity!
Elsewhere in this issue, we have the Committee members reports for last year 2023. I would just like to add my own thanks for all the dedicated efforts that they put into keeping the Society running and personal support to myself during a sometimes difficult period for me to do my job. Don’t forget if you would like to help look in on our new upcoming Zoom meetings and see more closely what goes on.
As to actual matters of postal history I can share some amazing news referring the Heroic Age, first for some National Antarctic Expedition letters from 1903 auctioned after 120 years in a family attic! Yes amazing that there are some items still hiding. The items of Figures 1a and 1b were sent to Mrs Alice Waymouth as her husband Frederick was managing director of Canterbury frozen meats, and they were part of Christchurch society in the sense of being successful business people. They entertained the members of the expedition at their house called Karewa and helped the ships and crews a great deal, often with free goods! So these letters were all sent as thanks and the senders couldn’t possibly realise what the value would be later even by the descendants who inherited them without researching them at all for over 100 years!
And a reminder secondly, of a contemporary Expeditions fate, the Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901-03, and brave sailors from Argentina rescued the Expedition Members crew of the sinking Antarctic (Figure 2 and Expedition Members Figure 2a) – aboard the Uruguay ( See Figure 3, back then and Figures 4 and 5 today, 2023). I hope you will excuse me delving back again to another aspect of my Voyage last year and showing you pictures of one of the SS Discovery’s rival explorers’ contemporary ship which also still survives – the ARA Uruguay built by Laird Brothers, Birkenhead, England, and launched 6th March 1874 - as I had the pleasure of roaming over her on a very bright sunny afternoon in Buenos Aires, so un-Polar like – so Shackleton ice conditions which are ignored at peril! ARA Uruguay is moored alongside the Quay at Puerto Madero on the river Plate in central Buenos Aires, pretty much unremarked upon and unappreciated, I could not even find a postcard of her for sale on board! You see from my close up of a part of one gunnel
(Figure 5 gunwale for the true seafarer) the need for repairs and restoration but the generally well known poor economic conditions in Argentina probably have other priorities. What a shame if she should deteriorate further to the point of not staying afloat. I wonder if we can twin her with Discovery Point in Dundee, Scotland and at least increase the publicity that she’s still here – too late if the worst happens! I know the Fram is well looked after in Oslo, Norway. As far as I know these are the only 3 ships still available to visit connected to the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration (notcounting the Endurance lifeboat James Caird at Dulwich College London) so only Fram to go for me!
Although my enjoyment was of a different calibre, I do love our changing seasons and the wait for
our sunnier days somehow eased by enjoying our hobby. To that end other big changes beckon at
the end of this year, as you may already have read via our E - News bulletins and Website, Yes our stalwart Editor John Youle has fi nally, finally decided this year is the end of his 28-year long tenure as Editor of Polar Post. I know you will all agree he has overseen a massive growth in the quality and content of our printed Society magazine, from black and white plain paper to glossy full colour, and monitored the size and weight after much pressure on costs from especially postage and packing from the UK Post Office.
This leads to our options to consider. Please see your Email Newsletter and the new options and hopefully once again another move forward for our Society – it’s often said change should be seen as an opportunity!
Elsewhere in this issue, we have the Committee members reports for last year 2023. I would just like to add my own thanks for all the dedicated efforts that they put into keeping the Society running and personal support to myself during a sometimes difficult period for me to do my job. Don’t forget if you would like to help look in on our new upcoming Zoom meetings and see more closely what goes on.
As to actual matters of postal history I can share some amazing news referring the Heroic Age, first for some National Antarctic Expedition letters from 1903 auctioned after 120 years in a family attic! Yes amazing that there are some items still hiding. The items of Figures 1a and 1b were sent to Mrs Alice Waymouth as her husband Frederick was managing director of Canterbury frozen meats, and they were part of Christchurch society in the sense of being successful business people. They entertained the members of the expedition at their house called Karewa and helped the ships and crews a great deal, often with free goods! So these letters were all sent as thanks and the senders couldn’t possibly realise what the value would be later even by the descendants who inherited them without researching them at all for over 100 years!
And a reminder secondly, of a contemporary Expeditions fate, the Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901-03, and brave sailors from Argentina rescued the Expedition Members crew of the sinking Antarctic (Figure 2 and Expedition Members Figure 2a) – aboard the Uruguay ( See Figure 3, back then and Figures 4 and 5 today, 2023). I hope you will excuse me delving back again to another aspect of my Voyage last year and showing you pictures of one of the SS Discovery’s rival explorers’ contemporary ship which also still survives – the ARA Uruguay built by Laird Brothers, Birkenhead, England, and launched 6th March 1874 - as I had the pleasure of roaming over her on a very bright sunny afternoon in Buenos Aires, so un-Polar like – so Shackleton ice conditions which are ignored at peril! ARA Uruguay is moored alongside the Quay at Puerto Madero on the river Plate in central Buenos Aires, pretty much unremarked upon and unappreciated, I could not even find a postcard of her for sale on board! You see from my close up of a part of one gunnel
(Figure 5 gunwale for the true seafarer) the need for repairs and restoration but the generally well known poor economic conditions in Argentina probably have other priorities. What a shame if she should deteriorate further to the point of not staying afloat. I wonder if we can twin her with Discovery Point in Dundee, Scotland and at least increase the publicity that she’s still here – too late if the worst happens! I know the Fram is well looked after in Oslo, Norway. As far as I know these are the only 3 ships still available to visit connected to the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration (notcounting the Endurance lifeboat James Caird at Dulwich College London) so only Fram to go for me!