The last days of Ernest Shackleton

ISBN 9781901037203

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Special Limited Edition of just 150, Signed and Numbered

Limited edition of just 150

SIGNED AND NUMBERED

The Last Days of Ernest Shackleton, is a unique and fully illustrated account of Shackleton's death and burial in South Georgia from the personal point of view of a seaman on the Quest Expedition by the name of George Ross.

George joined the Quest Expedition, at a place called Leith Harbour, in South Georgia, with the position donkey-man (a person in charge of a ships engine room) and he explains in detail the daily running of the ship after Shackleton's death as a first hand account from a below decks crew members point of view.

Along with George's first hand account the book covers both the funeral arrangements, the Shetland Pallbearers, a short history of Shackleton's Scouts, and the speeches at the unveiling of the Shacketon memorial. This along with over 100s of photos, maps, paintings and drawings of the expedition, crew, ship, Grytviken church, funeral and grave.

To finish off the book the book contains an interview with the late Ernest Shackleton where he explains in his own words how his life at sea started and how he would like to be remembered.

About the Author Mr. GEORGE HENRY ROSS, was with Shackleton on his 1921-22 expedition to the South Pole. Mr. Ross was one of the last survivors of the ill-fated Shackleton expedition. He was whaling in South Georgia when he joined the ship Quest as a donkeyman.

He was born in London and, at the start of an adventurous career, went to sea when he was 14. In 1913 he went to the Shetlands, where two years later he married a Shetland girl. Mr. Ross was one of the first men from the Shetlands to join up at the outbreak of the first world war.

He was in the battle of Jutland, and was seriously injured while serving in the Royal Navy. Lumberjack: After that war he went to South Georgia. Between the Shackleton expedition and the second world war he worked as a lumberjack in Canada. Then he joined up again for service in the second war.

Two of the ships in which he served as a gunlayer were torpedoed. For a time during the war he was based in Lowestoft. As well as whaling and lumberjacking, the other jobs Mr. Ross tackled including helping in hospitals and fishing. He claimed that there was not a country in the world he had not visited.

He travelled round the world eight times. Mr. Ross came to Yarmouth from the Shetlands after the last war with the Scottish herring fleet. His wife, Mrs. Annie Ross, worked for more than 40 years as a fisher girl. Mr. and Mrs. Ross went into the boarding-house business at Yarmouth.