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Apsley Cherryc Married Married Married: 1885 Evelyn Edith Sharpinc | ||||||||
| Apsley Cherry-Garrard [CFT #15067] Born: 1886-Jan-2 Died: 1959-May-18 |
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| b 15 Lansdowne Road, Bedford Our picture shows Lieutenant-Commander Cherry-Garrard at his family home, Lamer which was converted into a convalescent home during the First World War. Two books are of over-riding importance; one by Apsley Cherry-Garrard himself, "The Worst Journey in the World" recognised as the best travel book ever written, and the other his superb biography "Cherry" by Sara Wheeler who herself has travelled extensively in Antarctica. As The Observer said "Her last book Terra Incognita, told of the time she spent in Antarctica. Having lived there, she understands the South Pole's intense draw (as well as the horrors its beauty conceals) and she brilliantly communicates the icy spell that holds her, and held Cherry, in its frozen grip." Apsley Cherry-Garrard was one of the youngest members of Captain Scott's final expedition to the Antarctic. Cherry undertook an epic journey in the Antarctic winter to collect the eggs of the Emperor Penguin. The temperature fell to seventy below, it was dark all the time, his teeth shattered in the cold and the tent blew away. 'But we kept our tempers' Cherry wrote, 'even with God.' He claims polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised. He was part of the rescue party that eventually found the frozen bodies of Scott and the three men who had accompanied him on the final push to the pole After serving in the First World War Cherry was invalided home, and with the zealous encouragement of his neighbour Bernard Shaw he wrote a masterpiece. In The Worst Journey in the World Cherry transformed tragedy and grief into something fine. But as the years unravelled he faced a terrible struggle against depression, breakdown and despair, haunted by the possibility that he could have saved Scott and his companions. Sara Wheeler had unrestricted access to Cherry's papers and the full co-operation of his family. Simon Winchester wrote "...this volume is so much more than a story of one remarkable man. It is among other things an exploration of the mind, a tour through the notions of national identity and pride, and a celebration of the tensile strength of the human spirit." |
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