A JOURNEY BEYOND THE SELF
in which there was almost a default understanding, that everyone got on. It was only about the last night, as if we were about to escape, the first time I ever heard anyone say anything about another member of the party that was in any way negative. It was almost as if we were going to go back into real life. There was no sort of gossip; no nastiness or judgment calls made. Maybe that is how you cope with living in relatively confined spaces with days on which you could not go out – we had about two days when avoiding a massive storm in which you didn’t even go on deck. I think that is interesting, isn’t it? I would say that everyone adapted in a really interesting way. SC: What did it feel like to be tracing Shackleton’s foot- steps? JS: That was very potent. It is something that really brought people together. Our expedition leaders said because it was quite rare that, rather than having wealthy tourists who can afford to pay for this, they had a party of people for whom this story really mattered. There- fore, to give the central address meant a lot to me, and it sort of crystallised a lot of thinking about things that are important: aspects of leadership, the importance of building a team, being able to tell the story, of optimism, given what we have just been living through. It felt a really great thing to do out of the years of Covid and the social issues that we dealt with: to just connect. FM: What was it like being away from civilisation for such a long time? Do you think this was the most difficult aspect? JS: There were times when we were in the wastes of the continent which has been unpopulated for many parts of time, but although there was no internet, beyond that, the creature comforts were there. In no way would I want it to appear that it was a James Caird-like voyage; it was a voyage in a very well-equipped, modern boat. It had that element of adventure, but also that element of security really. SC: What would you say are the most important les- sons, for Dulwich College, which you brought back from your trip? JS: The lessons relate to a reinforcement of what I suppose, not too grandiosely, I would call a philosophy of leadership. Having been given a month to think about things, to think: what it would be like to lead in a situa- tion of absolute extremeness? How would you cope? It
A highlight of the year for the Master, Joseph Spence, was his trip to Antarctica in the footsteps of Ernest Shackleton, an endeavour which had been planned to mark the centenary of Shackleton’s death, but which had to be postponed as a result of the Covid pandemic. Francis McCabe (Year 12) and Sam Cowell (Year 8) sat down with the Master to ask about the trip and its impact
Falkland Islands, South Georgia, Antarctica 31 Dec 2022 - 19 Jan 2023 Total Distance: 3747 nautical miles
FRANCIS McCABE: The trip was postponed from 2022 to 2023. Did it affect the magic of the trip, as it wasn’t on the actual centenary? JOSEPH SPENCE: I think it made it all the more special that it did happen. I sensed that everybody in that party, 90 per cent of whom were booked to be on the cente- nary expedition, felt exactly the same way. We hadn’t let Covid and an international situation get in the way. But there was a feeling, occasionally, that we were all still in recovery mode. I was very lucky, but there were people on the boat who got Covid while we were there. Some, therefore, lost five days out of 21 days at sea. The ‘can do-ness’ felt very Shackletonian. Nothing was going to stop this now, and so on we went. SAM COWELL: What would you say was most inspira- tional? JS: The adventure was one of them, the wonder of na- ture and sustainability was another one, and the historic footsteps of Shackleton was probably the third. The nice ‘surprise’ one was the creativity part of it. There were moments of realisation of aspects of the sustainability story and of the glories of nature that either took my breath away, or made me think. In the modern world we have to live being able to cope with interruption. Eight days of the 20 with no internet did make the mind work in a different way. The sorts of things that would have been passing thoughts instead had time to really sink in, and then you reflected on them when you went back to your cabin, late at night. Thoughts crystallised. There was a party of about 70 people and then an ex- pedition party of about 10 leaders. I have never been in such sustained company with such a number of people,
really did capture me, as someone who was a passive environmentalist. Maybe that is wrong to say, but when you are somewhere where you hear ice crack and watch it fall, and when you are in the company of people who have been going back since the 1980s, who tell you that is where the glacier was, that, plus the terror of literally watching ice fall into the sea and realising: that is global warming – it is that real – has absolutely heightened my sense that we must be more than passive. It has made me think about everything I eat, the clothes I will buy, how I will travel. If you asked me previously, would you allow Dulwich College to declare a climate emergency, I would have tended to say no – I want us just to get on with the tangi- ble things we can do. It is interesting, because I would not say it is lifechanging, but it just enforces. I would be more likely now to take that seriously, and before we do it, I would want to be developing an absolute sense of why we now say it. I am more inclined to believe that, yes: we are reaching tipping point. FM: That is really interesting. Do you think it has changed you personally? Or would it change the way you take things into your role as headmaster of the school? JS: I think so. It is very seldom that I have been and done something and brought it back for a whole College. I didn’t know quite how that would work out, because this isn’t just like going to a conference that you report back on. I suppose I would say it is too early for me to know how deeply this has set; you think you have been
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THE ALLEYNIAN 711
OPINION, INTERVIEWS & FEATURES
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