Humour from the Terra Nova Expedition

追加: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]They really hated this alarm clock.

[00:00:01][laughter] >> They really hated their alarm clock.

[00:00:03]It's 1911, Captain Scott and his crew are trying to make it to the South Pole, but these show us that even in those really harsh conditions, you don't have to lose your sense of humor, do you?

[00:00:13]Absolutely. So, yeah, these are the logs and documents from the Terra Nova expedition, which is most famous for that race to the pole, um which of course had, you know, a very sad outcome for for Robert Falcon Scott and his and his companions. Um but for about a year beforehand, they were actually doing a lot of scientific exploration of the coast of Antarctica. During the Antarctic winter, there's no daylight.

[00:00:37]Um so, 2:00 a.m., it's cold, it's dark, it's been dark for 24 hours. Uh they don't much fancy staying awake to take that observation, so they built themselves an alarm clock.

[00:00:47]So, we have a gramophone, a candle with a piece of string tied to it, and then the other end of that piece of string is attached to a bit of bamboo, so you can bend the bamboo under tension. So, you burn your candle down, it burns through the string at the appointed time, which releases the needle onto the gramophone and starts it playing.

[00:01:06]It was called the Caruso-phone. We think it was named after the tenor Caruso. We think that might have been the disc they had. You'd never want to hear his uh his voice again, would you, after that? Um I mean, it worked. It was ingenious. It didn't always work.

[00:01:19]Plenty of references to Caruso-phone failed again. Um but it obviously worked enough because in the back of this same log, we found the most wonderful poem to their meteorological alarm.

[00:01:32]Um I won't read the whole thing, but bearing in mind this is dedicated to their alarm clock, the very last line reads, "The devil waits for souls like yours in hell." They really hated this alarm clock.

[00:01:42]>> They really hated their alarm clock. But it is ingenious. It's an incredible invention, and you've got another incredible document here that does show that they did have a laugh. Absolutely.

[00:01:53]Yes, they had they had a real laugh.

[00:01:54]This is a notice a to let notice, but we have a wonderful bit here. Each time the wind blows, plates rain off the shelves, for with the hut we put them up ourselves. And consequently, we're prepared to state each plank is split and not a nail's in straight.

[00:02:08]It's all yours for the asking, every splinter, but hurry up, it won't last out next winter. I'm pretty impressed that even in these conditions, they're taking the time to write a poem. I mean, it's pretty incredible. Yeah, I mean, horrendous conditions in terms of the weather, but I guess they did have spare time. Um and not a huge amount of entertainment. So, I you know, if if if you're someone that likes literature, likes writing, then maybe that's what you do.