A follow-up to essays I have previously written about – the explorer Ernest Shackleton, the upcoming “Man from UNCLE” movie, and the inquest into England’s “Hillsborough Disaster”, after the jump …..
Although I featured the story of Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton – there have been some recent developments, one hundred years after he set-out on his ill-fated journey to cross the Antarctic, yet which resulted in one of the most heroic rescues of the 20th Century.
If you are unfamiliar with this story, at this link is my original essay.
This piece of history was concisely (and with wonderful photos) recounted in a book by Caroline Alexander whose title was Endurance – the name of the mission’s ship.
To recap: after Roald Amundsen led the first successful trip to the South Pole, Shackleton settled upon a 1914 mission – to trek across the entire Antarctic continent. This failed, as his ship never reached the continent’s shores (due to an intense ice pack) – but is now considered the most heroic of all, as he rescued all of the lives aboard his ship, despite being utterly alone (and without radio contact) for two years. This advertisement for the mission below is almost certainly apocryphal – no trace of a copy has ever been found in any archive – and yet if it had been placed … it would not have been inaccurate.
Now, an update.
Improbably, a romantic musical has now been produced on the life of Ernest Shackleton. Pacific Northwest composer-musicians Valerie Vigoda and Brendan Milburn saw a major exhibit about him, and with Broadway writer Joe DiPietro (“Memphis”) and noted director Lisa Peterson (“Pullman Porter Blues”) have put together a quirky musical entitled Ernest Shackleton Loves Me – with the line that it is better “to be poor and inspired rather than rich and tired”. If this ever made its way East … I’d love to see it.
In Scotland, the campaign to award a posthumous Polar Medal to a key member of Shackleton’s crew continues. Henry McNish was the ship’s carpenter, earning the occupational nickname ‘Chippy’ – often given to shipwrights on wooden vessels. He was irascible, but excellent at his craft – and I have a fondness for such a gruff man who nonetheless brought along his gray tabby, named Mrs. Chippy (although being a male cat) since he was like a wife to him.
In fact, a statue of Mrs. Chippy was placed on the gravesite of McNish (in his adopted New Zealand) just a few years ago (photo below right).
Of his (twenty-seven) crewmembers, Shackleton recommended all but four to receive Polar Medals in recognition of their service – and one was McNish, who questioned Shackleton’s authority at a particularly tense moment of the mission. Still, it was McNish who made seaworthy one of the ship’s three lifeboats - the James Caird - which incredibly survived a harrowing 800-mile journey across rough seas which resulted in the rescue of all of the crewmembers safely.
In short: it was McNish’s work (along with luck) that enabled the rescue to take place. Yet authorities in Britain have long been hesitant to award a Polar Medal - even long posthumously - to McNish and the others, believing that Shackleton’s wishes ought to be respected.
Perhaps the case of Alan Turing may offer some hope. The hero whose work helped Britain survive WW-II was nonetheless buried with a criminal conviction for homosexuality on his record – and it was only due to the dogged efforts of many people that he only recently received a pardon from the Queen. Here is hoping that spirit will win a Polar Medal for Henry McNish – it has been one hundred years, after all.
Lastly, the escape from the shipwreck on Elephant Island (off the coast of Antarctica) ended many of his crew’s desire to strike-out on dangerous missions – but not Shackleton. A few years later, he returned to South Georgia Island (on a mission to help clear his debts) before he died in January, 1922 of a heart attack … while in a cabin on a Norwegian schooner-rigged steamship (named “Quest”). The Quest worked as a minesweeper during the second World War, and eventually sank during a seal hunt off the coast of Labrador in 1962.
However, before it went out to sea that final time: the cabin was removed and placed on a farm (above the Arctic Circle) in northern Norway. And now, that cabin (photo right) may now be coming to Shackleton’s birthplace in Kildare, Ireland.
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A few years back (in 2010) I recounted the story of one of my favorite childhood TV shows.
It was entitled The Man from UNCLE Affair - since each of the show’s episode titles ended with the word ‘Affair’. It went off the air in 1968 and - apart from a reunion movie entitled The Fifteen Years Later Affair in 1983 - nothing further from the series had resulted.
It starred Robert Vaughn (as Napoleon Solo) and David McCallum (as Ilya Kuryakin) in the lead roles, and both are still working actors today. Robert Vaughn (photo left) is the only surviving member of the seven actors who comprised The Magnificent Seven and in recent years has appeared on British television. David McCallum today has the role of Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard in the long-running series NCIS.
I followed-up my initial account with a 2011 follow-up when efforts seemed to be finally underway to produce a feature film of the show. And even those UNCLE fans (on a ListServe I subscribe to) who are wary of any sort of new offering – who feel it will despoil the original show - seemed pleased with the choice of Steven Soderbergh as the prospective film’s director. Yet after several missteps – including the choice to cast George Clooney as Napoleon Solo, who was really too old for the role – Soderbergh left the project, due to disagreements over the budget and other issues. And thus the project seemed doomed.
Now, an update.
After the departure of Steven Soderbergh from the seemingly ill-fated project, Guy Ritchie – Madonna’s ex-husband – took it over … and he has made it happen.
He cast the British actor Henry Cavill - who starred in the superman film Man of Steel last year - as Napoleon Solo. The other lead went to Armie Hammer - who starred as The Lone Ranger from last year, and as Clyde Tolson in the film J. Edgar from 2011 - as Ilya Kuryakin.
Filming has been completed, with UNCLE fans pleased at reports of how meticulous the film crew was - since the film is set in the 1960’s (as was the TV show) – about re-creating scenes that reflected the times.
Warner Brothers has set a release date of next January (over the Martin Luther King Day weekend) for its release. Thus, just over fifty years after the TV show’s premier, it will be brought to the big screen.
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In late 2011, I gave the account of a 1989 soccer match in England (and its aftermath) as it existed at that time. In what has been described as “the darkest day in British football history”, the Hillsborough Disaster - the death of 96 fans of the noted Liverpool team, who were crushed to death at a match held at the neutral site of Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England - has remained in the news ever since.
If you are unfamiliar with this event, please read at this link my original account - suffice it to say, what made a tragic day even more tragic were the actions of your-friend-and-mine, Rupert Murdoch – and his Sun newspaper, which blamed the disaster on unruly fan behavior leading to the crush - and also afterwards, where they claimed fans disrupted police and rescue crews, urinating on (and picking the pockets) of the dead.
By late 2011, events had already unfolded as to what had really happened – with poor decisions made by the police as what led to the crash, with two officers placed on trial for the disaster (with one acquittal and one deadlocked jury). It took awhile for the truth to begin to emerge, as the police engaged in a cover-up that was forcefully assisted by The Sun. As one commenter in my prior account noted, circulation for The Sun – to this day - has always lagged in the greater Liverpool region, dating back to this event. And prime minister David Cameron pledged to release the Thatcher government’s files on this by summer 2012.
Now, an update – twenty-five years (this month) after the disaster.
In the autumn of 2012, an independent commission (headed by the Bishop of Liverpool) issued a nearly 400-page report – more complete than the original inquest, as it had access to previously unseen documents that the British government unsealed – which truly described the chain of events that led to the disaster. The original inquest described the deaths to have been accidental – effectively exculpating the police. The victims’ families have always challenged the original inquest, which concluded all the victims were dead or brain dead 15 minutes after the game had kicked off – this new report estimated that 41 of the 96 dead might have survived with treatment (though unable to say how many would have survived).
Shortly thereafter, prime minister David Cameron addressed Parliament and offered an official apology into how the entire matter was handled. He referred to it as a double injustice – how police actions led to the disaster, and how a cover-up tried (unsuccessfully) to shift blame to the Liverpool fans.
More recently, an Independent Police Complaints Commission revealed that 13 serving or former police officers have been identified as suspects in the ongoing investigation, 11 of whom have already been interviewed relating to a range of offenses including manslaughter, misconduct in a public office and obstructing justice.
On April 15th, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the tragedy: a memorial service was held at Liverpool’s Anfield stadium. And to demonstrate how disaster changes everything: Liverpool’s cross-town arch rivals (Everton) decided to simulcast that service … in its own stadium, with free admission to anyone who walked in (and presumably unable to attend at Anfield). Think of Yankees-Mets, Dodgers-Angels or Cubs-White Sox … except even more intense.
And this was not the first time: after the explosive September 2012 report mentioned above, Everton paid tribute to their rivals at a home game against Newcastle. Traditionally, the teams are led onto the field by children (known as mascots) before the match.
Here, the two children are dressed in the uniforms of cross-town rivals Everton (blue) and Liverpool (red) …. with the number 96 to note the number of people who perished.
Let’s close with a song written by Piero Piccioni – a film composer and the first Italian to lead a jazz group ever broadcast over the radio. He wrote the theme song to the film Light at the Edge of the World – based upon a Jules Verne novel – and this tune has a somewhat elegiac quality to it. So much so that I’d like to have this version below – by the tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders – performed at my funeral.
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