Budleigh Past and Present

  Author Meredith Hooper presents a copy of her book The Longest Winter: Scott's Other Heroes to Fairlynch Museum Secretary Iris Cooper The great age of Britain’s polar heroes lives on thanks to the organisers of centenary events like Fairlynch’s much-praised   ‘Survival!’ exhibition of 2012-13. Antarctic expert Meredith Hooper followed up her visit to the Museum’s exhibition with an appearance as one of the guest authors at Budleigh Salterton’s 2012 Literary Festival.   Her book The Longest Winter: Scott's Other Heroes highlighted the heroism of those members of Robert Falcon Scott’s Northern Party, which included former Budleigh resident Murray Levick. The book was praised by Brian Schofield in The Sunday Times as “an authoritative and insightful chronicle” of the group’s harrowing experience during Scott’s fatal Terra Nova Expedition of 1910- 13. It was, he wrote, a vivid reconstruction which displays “the true grit and peculiar Englishness of th...

Antarctic artefacts: Former Fairlynch Museum Chairman Roger Kingwill, right, shows Professor Lloyd Davis some of the material used in the 'Survival!' exhibition to mark the centenary of Captain Scott's Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole So many travellers and explorers associated with the Budleigh area have made their mark in distant lands that it’s no surprise to find overseas visitors in Fairlynch Museum keen to trace family trees or eager to see where their forebears lived. Professor Lloyd Davis, who holds the Stuart Chair in Science Communications at the University of Otago in New Zealand , was a recent visitor searching for information.   Wildlife enthusiasts from that part of the world will know Lloyd as a leading authority on penguins, on which he’s written many scientific papers. He’s even written a book   Penguin: a season in the life of the Adelie penguin , which is a story of penguins and Antarctica as seen through the ey...

Actress Jenny Coverack i nside Scott's Hut, dressed as Kathleen Scott Photograph copyright © 2006 Marketa Jirouskova We were awestruck by the courage and suffering of former Budleigh resident Murray Levick and his companions displayed in last year's Fairlynch exhibition 'Survival', and moved by actress Jenny Coverack's performance as Kathleen Scott in Budleigh Salterton's Public Hall.         Meredith Hooper, during a visit to Fairlynch Museum's 'Survival!' exhibition in July 2011   Now comes the final stage of the centenary commemoration of Captain Scott's tragic Terra Nova expedition with a BBC Radio 4 drama to be broadcast on Tuesday 5 February, from 2.15 to 3.00 pm, with Sam West as Scott and Emilia Fox as Kathleen. 'Kathleen and Con' by author and Antarctic expert Meredith Hooper is based on the two volumes of extraordinarily interesting letters written by Robert Falcon Scott and Kathleen Bruce. The dram...

Above: On show in Fairlynch. (L-r) Harry Dickason, Victor Campbell, George Abbott, Raymond Priestley, Murray Levick, Frank Browning.   These six men, the northern party of Captain Scott's last expedition, stand outside the entrance to the snow hole in which they have just spent the 1911-1912 Antarctic Winter in darkness. Photo taken 24 Sept 1912. Photo credit: Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge Half-through the final year of Fairlynch Museum 's exhibition about the epic story of Scott's Northern Party it seems an appropriate moment to record some recent enthusiastic comments from visitors, made since this season's opening in mid-April. Free admission is bringing in many more of them than in previous years, and 2012 being the centenary of Scott's death - as well as that of   R.F. Delderfield's birth along with the Year of the London Olympics and the Royal Jubilee - may see even more in the coming months. The 'Survival!' ex...

Two recently published books marking important local centenaries are now on sale at Fairlynch Museum 's shop. Copies of Antarctic expert Meredith Hooper's The Longest Winter sold out within months. A new stock has arrived in readiness for Budleigh Salterton's Literary Festival in September when the author will be one of the distinguished guest speakers.   Antarctic author Meredith Hooper, left, with Fairlynch Museum Secretary Iris Cooper The Longest Winter is the harrowing account of former Budleigh resident Murray Levick, the doctor with Scott of the Antarctic's Northern Party who survived the six-month polar winter in terrible conditions.   Internationally acclaimed for its depth of research and readability the book was published to coincide with the Scott 100 celebrations.   Marking 100 years since the birth of East Devon author R.F. Delderfield, the centenary edition of Butterfly Moments by author Marion Lindsey-Noble appeared earlier thi...

Volunteer helpers at Budleigh Salterton's Fairlynch Museum have acted swiftly to reassure families that as far as they are aware no scenes of depraved penguins are on display in its display about Antarctic explorer Murray Levick and his companions. Organisers of the 'Survival!' exhibition at Fairlynch Museum admit that photographs taken by Levick are on display, along with a book about the creatures written by the explorer and published in 1914. "We are a family-friendly museum, and the last thing we would want to do is to shock our visitors by revealing what penguins got up to in their natural environment," said the Museum's press officer Michael Downes. His statement comes after the revelation by the Natural History Museum that Murray Levick, the doctor and zoologist on Scott's last expedition, deliberately withheld from publication descriptions of sexual shenanigans among the Ad é lie penguins that the explorer had witnessed and ...

The photo above of Scott's Northern Party is one of the items being auctioned in London on 30 March 2012 by Bonhams. Seen left to right are: Harry Dickason, Victor Campbell, George Abbott, Raymond Priestley, Murray Levick and Frank Browning.  The six men are standing outside the entrance to the ice cave in which they have just spent the 1911-1912 Antarctic Winter in darkness. The photo was taken on 24 September 1912. Photo credit: Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge The tragic death of Scott of the Antarctic and his four companions a century ago has stirred massive interest in the 1910 – 1913 'Terra Nova' expedition. Both the personalities of those early polar explorers and the equipment that they used - primitive by today's standards - have raised questions ranging from the nature of their heroism to the value of the scientific observations that they recorded. Keen interest from visitors and high commendation from polar experts ...