Madam, - As Ernest Shackleton's niece (my mother, Helen, was one of his eight sisters), I have been most pleased to receive recently from a friend several items of news from The Irish Times, relating to "Shackleton" matters. The latest was the report of November 1st concerning the most generous grant towards the conservation of the Antarctic base at Cape Royds on Ross island.
My uncle's adventures, undertaken with other brave Irishmen so many years ago, are constantly being brought to our attention again in these modern times.
Recently there appeared in the London Times (October 26th) an interview with Alan Johnston, the English journalist kidnapped in Gaza. I was especially touched to read that "in his search for inspiration", as he put it, in the midst of all that he had to endure, he remembered the "endurance" of Ernest Shackleton.
What is perhaps not quite so well known is the fact of my uncle's deep faith in God, or Providence, as he put it. This comes across in the entry he made in his diary following that sea and mountain crossing in 1915:
"When I look back on those days I have no doubt that Providence guided us, not only across those snowfields, but across the storm-white sea that separated Elephant Island from our landing-place on South Georgia. I know that during that long and racking march of 36 hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia, it seemed to me often that we were four, not three. I said nothing to my companions on the point, but afterwards Worsley said to me, 'Boss, I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another Person with us'. Crean confessed to the same idea . . . a record of our journeys would be incomplete without a reference to a subject very near to our hearts." - Yours, etc,
PATRICIA DUCÉ, St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England.