'These Rough Notes’: Scott's Last Expedition

Their last hope was gone. Inside the tent, Scott composed his final thoughts, 'These rough notes', he wrote, 'and our dead bodies must tell the tale...'. Without his 'rough notes', which are anything but, the story of this heroic struggle for life would be lost. 'These Rough Notes' is a theatrical retelling of the Scott story, based on the diaries of Scott, Bowers, Wilson, Cherry-Garrard and Kathleen Scott, in order to 'hear and see' a first-hand account of the expedition, dating from 3 January 1912, the march to the Pole, through Scott's last diary entry on 29 March 1912. This was first performed in March 1992, and again as a fund-raising event in March 1996 for the Scott Polar Research Institute. The Institute was extremely fortunate to have a group of distinguished readers well versed in polar matters. From SPRI, Irene Burns as Kathleen Scott, Peter Speak as Apsley Cherry-Garrard, and Mathew Huddleston as Birdie Bowers; David Wilson read for his great-uncle Edward, and Sir Vivian Fuchs, leader of the successful TransAntarctic Expedition of 1955-8, read for Scott.