Scott's flag

I made the most of the daylight with a long walk along the Thames from London Bridge to Victoria and headed to The Queen's Gallery, which exhibits elements of the Royal Collection. There's a fantastic exhibition at the moment called The Heart of the Great Unknown featuring photographs that were given to King George VI by the photographers of Scott's ill-fated trek to the South Pole and Shackleton's adventures in Antarctica. The photographs themselves are incredible - many I'd seen before in books, but it was extremely interesting to see them all together with the stories behind them. Those images that Birdie Bowers took while the five men neared the South Pole tell a real story of endurance. The exhibition photographer had turned back by this point and had taught the five men how to operate the camera. The negatives were found in the tent along with the bodies of three of the men - Scott, Birdie and Wilson. Also found in the tent was this flag, which had been hoisted at the South Pole, thirty-five days later than the Norwegian polar team. The search party that found the bodies returned the flag to the king. The flag alone on a wall at the end of the exhibition was quite a moving sight.