Jo Shapcott at the Polar Museum
25th January 2013 | 0 Comment(s) | The Polar Museum
Thresholds poet Jo Shapcott is in residence at The Polar Museum this week. Here she is with poet Kaddy Benyon setting off for a poetry workshop:
Visitors are encouraged to try on the Museum’s set of modern polar clothing of the type worn by SPRI and British Antarctic Survey staff for fieldwork in the polar regions. Other sets of modern and vintage clothing are regularly lent out to schools as part of our handling collection. You quickly learn that multiple layers and really effective insulation can keep you very warm indeed, even in sub-zero temperatures!
Ringing the ship’s bell of Terra Nova, the vessel captained by Robert Falcon Scott on his second expedition to the Antarctic, is an important part of the life of the Scott Polar Research Institute.The bell is rung twice a day on ship’s time – five bells at 10:30am and eight bells at 4:00pm – to summon staff and visiting researchers to tea. It’s a chance for everyone to get together and exchange ideas, learn about new initiatives and generally get to know one another. The bell was a gift to the Polar Museum from Lady Nicholson, whose nephew, E.L. Atkinson, was surgeon on the Terra Nova expedition, on which Scott and four of his companions died in March 1912, returning from the South Pole.
