penguins leaping through the water were great fun. See- ing the ice collapse: it is now just calving and calving, and even while we were there for one afternoon we heard two calvings happen. FM: Was it harder to leave all that behind you on the return journey? Was it harder, with the anxiety and the worry about what was going to happen, than on the out- ward journey? JS: In terms of the journey back, I would say there was a real sense of what we were saying goodbye to, and of the sorrow of that. But I was looking forward to telling the story: I was already thinking, whilst I was there – this is how I must talk about it. I’ll do this and do that. The journey out was pretty difficult. We had been told how severe weather can be in the Drake Passage and it was. It stops you doing anything. Although I didn’t get sick, I think what you do is that you mentally spend your time knowing how not to get sick. By the return journey, I felt that I was ready to be back, but only because it had been complete. There was also a sense that I had almost reached my optimum number of sensory evasions and actually now I just needed to get out of there. FM: What do you think distinguishes Shackleton from other Arctic explorers, like Amundsen, or Scott, and what should Dulwich students take and learn from this?
he had Worsley as the most brilliant navigator; there is even the fact that he had exactly the right sort of painter with him to capture the images, or that he had Frank Hur- ley as the right photographer, or people like Tom Crean, who were just absolute workhorses. Everyone had been chosen for something. I love the story of James, the scientist, who was chosen for his sing- ing and not his science: they needed someone to keep people’s spirits up. It is that sense of building teams, of giving everyone a role. That has been written even larger, for me, in running my own team, and thinking of how to encourage the pupils to make the most of it. I was at a Dulwich function, and I was saying this to someone who said, ‘but what about his treatment of women?’ And that is absolutely right. He was no saint. There was much that Shackleton didn’t get right. Should he have even gone in the first place? Was he endangering people when he went? Was he overdriven by that sense of that imperial mission to a degree? But we all make
JS: The most famous quote on this I think is by a man called Cherry-Garrard. It is something I have often heard but had never really taken seriously. ‘For adventure give me Amundsen, for science give me Scott, but when all hell breaks loose and you need someone, pray for Shackleton.’ I think it is that sense that optimism is moral courage. I think that the night the ship went down was the only night they all saw him depressed, but by the morn- ing he was up and saying: ‘I have a new goal: we are all going to get home. No-one is going to die.’ That captures the sense that, however bad things get, there will be a new goal to aim for. Set it. Set it pretty high, and go for it. There is a sense of taking responsibility: to set yourself a worthy goal, and to aim for it. I think what I love is that sense that Shackleton could only do that, not because of his greatness as a superhero, but because he brought around him the right team of people. I think the other lesson is the selflessness of the members of the team: that he had someone as good as Frank Wild to look after the 22 left behind on Elephant Island; that
changed, and then the ebbtide comes, and slowly you just go back. I would say that there are some elements on which I am going to have to steel myself to make sure I live up to what I have said. What we haven’t touched on yet is what I would call the networking, and that is part of my job too. I am like that anyway. I can’t go anywhere without thinking: is this per- son I have just met worth bringing to talk to the pupils, or might they be interested in teaching, or would they give a guest lecture, or would they be great with SSLP? There is a writer called Brad Borken – a businessman who has made his retirement role the writing of books about the entrepreneurism and leadership lessons learned by the polar explorers. He has already done our Year 8 entre- preneurs’ day. I suppose I would say that if you are in the company of people from whom you or others can learn, harness them, because they are gold dust. SC: You talked about the awesomeness of nature. What do you feel were the most amazing wildlife scenes? JS: I love Cape petrels, the flying chessboards. Then there was a sort of crag rock, almost the size of the Barry Buildings: that was the only land we saw for four days, at one stage. You see nature at its roughest as well as its cutest. I was struck by the colour of ice. I did not realise ice was blue, and not white. Seals are beautiful, and the
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THE ALLEYNIAN 711
OPINION, INTERVIEWS & FEATURES
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