Grandad Nick's birthday

It was Grandad's birthday yesterday.
He was one year older than he was the day before.

My present was ordered early last week via some fella on ebay and is still on it's way, typically.
Hopefully it will turn up tomorrow.

Here are two photographs of my dad in front of the 'James Caird' (pronounced Care'd) which is now moored on dry land in Dulwich College.


(My dad borrowed one of those stones, which allegedly came from South Georgia.)

For those that don't know, the 'James Caird' was the tiny little boat that Ernest Shackleton, Frank Worsley and four other men sailed from Elephant Island down in the Antarctica to South Georgia which is around 900 miles across the roaring forty's (the strip of water at the bottom of Cape Horn).
These six men risked their lives in order to get help for the remaining 22 men who were left behind, because frankly, nobody else was going to come looking for them at the very bottom of the world.

Dad's words
"When we look at the situation from our comfy modern homes it is hard to get your head around some of the decisions that Shackleton had to make for the benefit of the whole crew.
I was on HMS Protector the ice patrol ship 50 years ago (that long) which spent the Antarctica summers going around the various island where people from the UK were based. They were working for FIDS the Falkland Island Dependencies Surveys and they were mapping Antarctica.
The ship had two helicopters on board and I was one of the engine fitters for the helicopters.
The helicopters were used to move surveyors around Antarctica so they could map the land, and the dog teams that the surveyors used, we had to chuck in the choppers with the sledge slung underneath, to get them away as there was no way the dogs would get in a helicopter for the first time.
Grytviken was a working whaling station with a large work force permanently stationed there
...
The men have all gone now and the Salvesons base at Grytviken is now a ghost base with visits from yachts who post pictures on the web, all the equipment is left there rusting
It is now 50 year since I was there but Shackleton's grave is there in the grave yard, well photographed by every yacht that visits ."

If you want to find out more about Shackleton, then do a google search, or click this Wiki link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton
Or ask my dad, he knows as much as anyone.

This by the way is Daisy aged 13 months sitting on the tiller of the James Caird whilst nobody else was looking.