Today is the centenary of Captain Robert Scott’s arrival at the South Pole.
But when he arrived there on January 17, 1912, Scott was shocked to discover that Roald Amundsen had beaten them to be the first to reach the pole.
Tragedy then struck when Scott, pictured below, and his four companions died on their journey back from the South Pole.
A dinner was held by the Scott Polar Research Institute at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, to celebrate the centenary this Tuesday evening.
The guest of honour at the dinner was the Duke of Edinburgh who was undertaking his first public engagement since the 90-year-old had been taken to Papworth Hospital, also in Cambridge, when he suffered chest pains two days before Christmas.
Journalist and colleague Chris Eldon Lee told me the other day about another celebratory Antarctic dinner – this time at The Lion Hotel just before Christmas.
A group, who had worked in the 1970s for the British Antarctic Survey at Halley, the most southerly British base, met at the Shrewsbury hotel, because one of their leaders lives nearby.
They enjoyed their weekend so much they have already booked another one at the hotel – in 2013.
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