Antarctica: Centenary of Scott Expedition

Baroness Sharples Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sharples]

My Lords, I am also very grateful to my noble friend for introducing today’s debate. Sadly, I have never been to the Antarctic and think I have left it a bit too late to do so. I am very fortunate to have a three-way connection with Scott. My youngest stepson, Robert Swan, is the first man in history to have walked to both poles, as noted in the Guinness book of records. With Roger Mear, he was successful in arriving at the South Pole in 1986, only to find that his supply ship, “Southern Quest”, had sunk. Since then, he has returned a number of times with others to clear up the amount of rubbish that I have no doubt that those who have been to Antarctica have seen around the South Pole and, sadly, near Scott’s hut.

Secondly, my stepfather, Claud Hamilton, was a friend of Scott’s doctor, who I believe was a New Zealander. He and my stepfather left me a number of photographs of Scott’s expedition. Somebody from Cambridge saw them and, as they did not have them, I handed them over for their archives—where they belong.

Thirdly, only recently an American researcher from McMurdo Sound contacted me to say that he has seen Mount Newall, which was named after my grandfather. I understand that there is also a glacier named after him. My grandfather was a successful stockbroker and evidently twice helped Scott’s finances with the replacement of “Discovery”. The Stock Exchange raised large sums to help Scott—the Government of the time were very reluctant to help.

As my noble friend does, I well remember Eddie, Lord Shackleton in this House. He was also my stepson’s patron, as were Peter Scott and Vivian Fuchs. Explorers who risk everything deserve great admiration, if they are successful or not.

Robert goes into business now to motivate staff to—as he says, in not very polite English—get off their backsides and do something like he did. He did it without any money: he raised all the money and managed to be successful. Nobody has mentioned that some years ago he wrote a book about 2041, expressing his concerns that the international treaty now in existence could be modified or changed to allow mining and resource exploration in the Antarctic. He very much hopes that he is proved wrong. We must hope that the schoolchildren of today safeguard the future of such a fantastic region of the world and make certain that it is not despoiled by greed.