Meeting People
Amul Pandya converses with independent, adventurous and sometimes courteous free spirits. Creativity is an act of rebellion. Whether they are entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, investors, chefs, or corporate antagonists, Amul's guests all share a common disposition of not just pushing boundaries but re-drawing landscapes.
Meeting People
#25 David Cornell: The Greatest Survival Story Ever Told | Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic Journey
In May 1916 three men caked in blood, dirt, blisters, and sweat arrived at the Stromness Whaling Station on South Georgia Island in the Atlantic Ocean suffering from severe exhaustion.
They had endured a journey both by boat and on foot from Antarctica that was harrowing and miraculous in equal measure. In charge of the three men was Sir Ernest Shackleton, one of history’s most famous explorers and leaders.
In my latest conversation I discuss what is known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration with David Cornell. In 2009 David went to the South Pole a hundred years after his great grandfather embarked on the Nimrod expedition that was led by Shackleton.
He took me through Shackleton’s Boat Journey which has been described as the greatest story ever told. Our conversation covered what it takes to get to the South Pole as well as the leadership skills that Ernest Shackleton showed time and again through loyalty and care to his men right until his during his final attempt to reach the Pole.
Since that Centenary Expedition, David helped launch the Shackleton Foundation which provides seed funding and support to early stage social ventures with a primary focus on benefiting young people in the UK.
A narrative of decline is permeating the developed world. Hopefully conversations like this one with David can revivify the spirit of adventure as an antidote to all the negativity and noise
You can find out more about the Shackleton Foundation click here: https://shackletonfoundation.org/
This podcast was produced by MattCooper with music composed by Loverman.
Hello and welcome to Meeting People with me, Amold Pandia. Meeting People is a podcast where I have long conversations with rebellious, adventurous, and sometimes courteous free spirits. Mr. Cornell, welcome to the Meeting People podcast. Thank you very much. Thank you for sparing the time. Some people calling it decline porn, you know, where everything's going to shit and there's no spirit left. And I just thought it would be worth getting in someone to talk us through the spirit of adventure a bit, particularly that kind of Homeric age from a hundred years ago, with the Antarctic exploration, something I know you're deeply passionate about. So would love to kind of spend the time talking to about some of those heroes that kind of inspired you and also some of the stuff that you've done to kind of uplift people around you in that setting. Sure. We'd love to talk about it. So first off, what's what's you've got some heritage in this? What got you into the polar polar ice exploration side of things in your life?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so the the history is that my great-grandfather, my maternal grandfather, my mother's grandfather, uh went to the South Pole with Shackleton on his second expedition, uh, his first as leader. That was the Nimrod expedition that left uh the UK in 1907. And uh it was a pioneering expedition in many ways because they were the first team to kind of break through and onto the polar plateau, and they got very close to the South Pole. They got within 97 nautical miles of the South Pole, uh, having trekked something like 600, 650 miles across the barren ice, uh, and uh and they turned back at 97. And uh Shackleton famously said that he would rather be a lame donkey than a dead lion. Yeah. And I think he was I think he was, I mean, there are there are a number of things about him that people remember um and that differentiates him from some of the other well-known polar explorers, but but he I think ultimately he was the sort of greatest leader of men in challenging circumstances, and this is that is one example of that. You know, he he realised that there was no point being the first to the South Pole if you can't get home. And uh and so they turned round the four of them, and they r reversed uh their footsteps uh for another six hundred miles or fifty miles, maybe more actually, maybe it was nine hundred.
SPEAKER_00:They did sort of between six and a hundred miles one way, had ninety-seven left to go, and had to go back. I mean, it must be it must be quite a decision. A huge decision.
SPEAKER_02:And I think I think of course Scott did the opposite, right? But because I mean he of course he got to the South Pole, albeit second, but never got back. And and because he I think he put the I mean people have different views, but I I think he may have put the the glory of getting to the South Pole uh ahead of uh the value of his uh protecting the lives of his men. Yeah. And of course the heroic age of polar exploration is quite interesting, isn't it? Because a bit like that time, you know, was it was it you know Dulket Corumes by Patrick Mori, you know, it it's it's nonsense, right? Yeah. And I think those two parallels of Shachlin was different from that. So so so my grandfather, my great grandfather was was part of the four that turned round, he was the second in command of the expedition, and as a grow growing up as a child, you know, I was just always fascinated by by those exploits and uh would your dad or your mum be telling you these stories as a kid and you'd be kind of like. Yeah, funny enough, it it wasn't the case. My my Jameson Adams, he was called, um was famously uh reluctant to talk about his time in Antarctica at the at the funeral of one famous explorer, I can't remember which one, I think someone, some bishop of London or someone asked him what it was like to be at South Pole with Shackleton, and he said, Oh, that was my brother, that wasn't me.
SPEAKER_00:Oh wow, just didn't want to go there.
SPEAKER_02:Didn't want to go there. Uh for other for other reasons which we may maybe we'll touch on. But so I my mother didn't know that much about it. What what prompted my interest, I think, was just the fascination of of Antarctica itself, and then understanding that I had this real connection uh to kind of you know just feeds that fascination, and I'd always wanted to go down there, uh, and that opportunity arose um later on.
SPEAKER_00:Well, this gives me an uh we want to go, I want to go into Shackleton and those expeditions and his leadership skills as well as the other characters involved a bit later on, but it gives us a good segue to sort of shoehorn Elon Muskin as ever, and Jeff Bezos. You know, obviously they're both kind of space uh uh investing a lot of money into kind of space exploration and deciding what the next thing for humanity is. Um and Elon's thing is we've got to get to Mars, and Jeff Bezos's thing is that's a stupid idea. We need to be living on colonies that we create in space, and um his his analogy as to why Mars was a terrible idea, is like if you if you think we could live on Mars, spend some time in Antarctica, Mars is kind of a thousand times worse. So could you just give us a sense? What is Antarctica? What is this continent that you don't really get a sense of it looking at it on a map because you only it doesn't you're not you're looking at it from the wrong angle, right? You've got to be looking at it from the bottom up rather than at the Greenwich meantime. So can you just tell us about that continent? Why did it pull people towards it when there's not much beach activity to do there, is there? Or not the kind of beach activity to do it.
SPEAKER_02:No, not that I mean there is beach activity, I guess, but frozen beach. Uh Antarctica is a continent, landmass. Uh not many people know that the South Pole is at 10,000 feet. So so you always think it's kind of probably you know at sea level. Yeah. But it's not. It's it's it's 10,000 feet. And um uh and it doesn't snow in An in Antarctica. Right. So it's like a desert. It's like a white desert. Vast, vast, vast, huge. I mean I can't remember exactly how big it is, but you know, Australia plus kind of thing. And uh a around the you know, the the seashore that there's life because there's penguins and seals, which is exactly you know, that that kind of fantastic um natural sea life, but bird life. But but you know, once you get you get into the interior, there's nothing there at all. Absolutely nothing. No plants, no birds, no animals, no nothing. And it's dark for you know 24 hours a day for nine months a year and light for 24 hours a day, three months a year, or four months a year, and you know, there's nothing in between. And and it's extraordinarily restorative, actually, because you you know think you're gonna get bored, you know, what am I gonna do, or how am I gonna you know keep myself occupied or whatever. But actually your your brain empties of all the things that you're worrying about or you're you know you're concerned about and you just concentrate on surviving, and that that's a really wonderful It's literally one foot in front of the other. It's one foot in front of the other, and and um and it's kind of administering yourself to make sure you don't kind of slip up. Uh you know, we had a we were trained by a fabulous lady called Mattie McNair, who was the first woman to reach South Pole, I think. First all women's team she led, and she was like, you sweat, you die. You know, because once you sweat, the the ice freezes on the inside of your of your your warm clothing or against your skin, and there you you know you have this kind of you know ice ice bag on your on your chest. So you have to manage yourself, and that takes a lot of time in you just getting out of the tent in the morning and getting fed, and you know, it can take three hours, you know.
SPEAKER_00:So there's all the things that annoying colleague told you, or the kind of crap about you know what a politician has said, or you know, it just go melts away. You're with your You're worrying about yourself and your team.
SPEAKER_02:And your team. And you can have a lot, you know, have a lot of fun too, because because you know you're in the tent for you know two or three hours and at the end of the day, you know, you've got to amuse yourselves and writing your diaries or cooking your food or just kind of looking after yourselves. You know, it's it's it's great. It's really healthy stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I remember um years ago I as you as you'll remember, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, which is nothing compared to getting to the South Pole, but you kindly lent me your kit, and um the team that I was with, my mates kind of took the piss out of me because I had all this polar exploration gear for what was something that and one of my friends ended up having a th kind of thermal attack, hypothermic attack after the summit. And it was your kit that I wrapped him in, and he was shivering away. And like we put him in the that big coat, the sleeping bag, rubbed him, rubbed him up and down, just got him and it it it automatically heated him up. So like they kind of were like, yeah, you know, they I felt quite smug after the having the piss taken out of me from the start of the uh it's true, right?
SPEAKER_02:I mean it's fabulous. It was amazing Timlin will be very pleased about that. They they were they were our kit sponsors and they did an amazing job actually. It'll make you laugh that uh one of my uh polar um colleagues, when we flew down to Argentina, he he his he had an excess baggage bill of like 500 pounds, so he just put all his Antarctic kit on and got onto the plane. Got onto the plane wearing every bit of clothing he had in his bag, which made him look right well let's let's talk more about it then.
SPEAKER_00:You decided to go um I guess to scratch an itch and follow the fascination you had as a kid, and also for charitable co you know causes as well. Um let's I remember you telling me you had to pack a lot of you had to smuggle chorizo into Argentina. A little bit of that going on. A little bit of that going because because that's the kind of best food. So just give why yeah, when did you decide to go? What uh what what was it in aid of and um how was it?
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so the so so the the opportunity arose uh because a great-grandson of Emily Dorman, who was married to Ernest Shackleton, uh Will Gao, decided that he wanted to recreate the Nimrod expedition. So that's the second one that your great granddaughter. Exactly. The 1907 expedition. And he wanted to try and find the great-grandchildren of those four explorers and persuade those four to recreate the journey with the intention of being at the ninety-seven mile point, uh, which is a you know, it's just a point on the compass in the middle of nowhere. Exactly a hundred years to the day that Shacklin took that decision not to be a dead lion, uh, on the 9th of January 2009, and then to complete the 97 miles of what we called unfinished business. So Will Gow uh through um Ernest Shacklin's granddaughter uh got in touch with me, and uh we we were able to cobble together three of the four great-grandchildren uh and then uh we uh Eric Marshall's uh we couldn't find a relation to Eric Marshall. Frank Weil's great-grandson, James Adams' great-grandson, Ernest Shacklin's wife's great-grandson, and then one or two other tagalongs. Uh that's a bit bad, uh we put that trip together and we set up a charity called the Shacklin Foundation, yeah. Uh, which was um which was the fundraising vehicle uh uh uh which um which we uh raised money for in, which is still going actually, which we can maybe talk about later on. So that was the genesis of the trip. Uh and yeah, we got there. We got to the 97 mile point, exactly 100 years to the day, uh, and uh and then we were able to close the uh the gap and do the bit that they hadn't done 100 years before.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. What's um what was the preparation like? Did you have to train? Did you have to or did you want to be as pure as you know, were you smoking cigarettes every day like they did? Did you have the same how how pure were you to the uh to the original?
SPEAKER_02:So I have to put my hand up here and say that we did it in two teams. Yeah. So there was a team of three that recreated the whole expedition, and that was the longest unsupported expedition across Antarctica, and they set off from Shackleton's base camp at the Nimrod Hut in late November, and uh and then a smaller team, uh the 97 mile team, which I led, uh, flew in to the point 97 miles from the pole, where we met those three: Henry, Worsley, Will Gow, and Henry Adams, and uh and then they went their way to the South Pole, and we went our way to South Pole. So I I we did train. Uh I was on the ice for 11 days, so I mean, not very much really. They those guys were on the ice for 68 or 69 days. Uh, they had to train a lot harder than we did, and they had to go up the Biermore Glacier, which uh it is extremely, extremely challenging. Um, for us it was about dealing with the altitude, sickness, uh, the cold, the cold and the cold. Um, and you have these things called the catabatic winds that come off the uh off the surface of the of the polar plateau and straight into your face. So that's hard. And you're you're trying to do your miles, you're trying to do you know 10 to 12 miles a day, basically. That's the that's the target. And it is literally one foot in front of the other. We spend a lot of time pulling tractor tyres around ploughed fields uh before we went. You're carrying a lot of weight with you. Of course, you you can't be supported up there. Uh it's very hard to be supported, you can't guarantee you're not getting any support because that's weather dependent and distance dependent and fuel dependent, all those other things. So you're you're carrying food and fuel uh and medical supplies with you. Uh so you're carrying a lot of weight, you're pulling a sledge, and you because you're so uh you know covered up, you know, you can't really talk to anyone.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And you're kind of you're just frightened.
SPEAKER_00:How cold are we talking?
SPEAKER_02:It it varies. I mean, some days it was you know not much below freezing, could be five, eight. Um, the wind makes a lot of difference. Yeah. So, you know, five, eight plus wind could be twenty, twenty plus wind could be forty. Um you know, it can be can it's brutal. It can be brutal actually, and you have to be really careful because if you one tiny slip uh and you're you're frostbitting your fingers or your your nose or something, and then you start to to sweat, and then you start getting there. So so you really have to look after each other. That's another lovely thing about it. You know, you you are looking after ever each other and you're working very closely together to to get the tent up quickly, to get inside the tent, to get the tent down quickly, to pack it away. You know, it's it's gotta be very, very kind of methodical.
SPEAKER_00:And in terms of sort of keeping yourselves together, and do you get do you did you have moments when you were there where it was scenic and beautiful and you had a capture you captured a kind of time together, or was it literally just a complete slog?
SPEAKER_02:No, we you we had some brilliant moments together, and it is the most inspiring landscape. You get these things called parhelions, which are uh a kind of um when the sun uh the rays of the sun capture the the ice crystals in the air and it creates this kind of almost um godlike kind of cross in the sun's kind of shadow, and uh these parhelions are are very inspiring. And and when you're together and you're you know you're doing your miles and you're making your your distance, you know, it is it's it's wonderful. And you have time to think. Time to think, and and uh yeah, you don't stop very often. I mean you might stop for a couple of minutes, change the lead, someone's with a compass at the front, you might eat something quickly just to get some energy inside you, uh, and then on you again, because you don't want to stop for for more than two or three minutes. What about sleep? I found sleep really hard. It's quite interesting. I was exhausted at the end of every well, there's no day at the end of every session. I was exhausted and I was thinking, God, I'm just gonna crash out now, you know, get some food inside me, get into my sleeping bag.
SPEAKER_00:But you're in survival mode, so you're just wired.
SPEAKER_02:A little bit, and also it's daylight.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_02:There's no darkness. So your circadian thing gets thrown for a bar of whatever. And and I think the altitude also makes it hard. So you you sort of slide in your bag and you kind of toss and turn, and you might get three hours or something or four hours, but I I you know on an 11-day thing, it's not gonna make a big difference. But if you're doing 60 odd, yeah, it does eat into you, I think.
SPEAKER_00:And on the flip side of the the kind of special moments you had and the kind of mental clarity it brought was also that kind of downside risk. You know, you're 11 days away from loved ones, family, kids, and you said, you know, you could have you know if the wind, you know, if one of you'd fallen ill or um the weather changed, you wouldn't be beyond help, and you could have very there could have been a six-hour window where you would have lost your life, or three-hour window, whatever it is. And uh did you worry about that? Did that cross your mind?
SPEAKER_02:I think for for for Henry Will and um and Henry Adams, the the the ice team, the the the guys that did the the full expedition, that was a real factor. Yeah, that that's a hundred percent part of their thinking, and there were long stretches of their journey where they were not it was not possible for them to be rescued. And they would have had those thoughts constantly. In fact, I know they did.
SPEAKER_00:I think for us we we weren't tourists, uh I don't want to uh you know Well you're being very be you're being very uh humble about it, but you know at the same time.
SPEAKER_02:I I think we we we we we they could have that you know in a worst case scenario we could have had a difficult time. Fact is we didn't. Yeah. There were a couple of days when it was pretty pretty miserable. And also the it's quite strange, you lose any sense of perspective, so you can't actually tell whether you're going uphill or downhill when you're when you're skiing. It's really strange. And and the the ice forms these things called sestrugi, which are like little f uh ploughed field that's like skiing across bumps the whole time, and you're pulling this heavy stage. And y you know, your mind does play tricks with you. You know, it everyone knows when you when you're tired and you hallucinate and things can go strangely, and you have to keep Close to each other because if someone drops back, you know you could you can lose them in a whiteout.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:You know, it can have a whiteout in minutes and you can't see anyone. And they could be two yards away from you. So you have to really be vigilant in that regard. And we were lucky like that. We didn't we didn't have too many of those issues, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um let's let's talk a bit about um actually no, very quickly, what did you eat as well? What was the uh how did you keep your energy up?
SPEAKER_02:So you boiled snow to melt uh into water, and from there you then boil pasta in bags. In bags, but you pre-prep everything. So every day's food will be bagged already. You'll have a what what we used to call a grab bag, so that would be chocolates, peanuts, raisins, uh jelly babies, all kind of smudged together in one little carry bag that you stuff down the the front of your smock so it's close to your body so it doesn't freeze because everything obviously freezes and you've eating frozen marsballs hard, so you and you you've always got that, so you're always topping up on that, and a water bottle that's close to your body as well, so that doesn't freeze because everything else freezes. And then when you're in the tent, you'll pull out the evening meal, which would have been pre-prepped. Someone will volunteer to cook it or be it'd be their turn to cook it, and they dish it out, and then you you scram with a spoon and a and a plastic bowl, and the food has to be kind of divided up equally very kind of uh methodically. No one wants to be be you know the one that's feels like they've been shortened one pasta tube or something. Yeah. So it's all quite meticulous in that.
SPEAKER_00:There's that story in the in the in the literature you sent me of how they had to share a spoon that they were going, um, and uh Shackleton would always make sure his spoon was smaller than the other guys, and would anyway, it's just quite that's that's so true.
SPEAKER_02:Uh your m your brain, you know, if you think someone's pulling a bit less weight than you on the sledge, or maybe getting a bit more food than you, or maybe doing less time, you know, on the on the on the compass because you're breaking the trail and that's a lot harder, you know. But th those kind of little petty things can flare up really quickly. Yeah, and I think Shackleton was brilliant at managing those those kind of issues. I mean they they you know the diaries of these guys that you do reference it quite a lot, but but I think he he was he was the boss.
SPEAKER_00:So let's go back a hundred years then. Why why were people wanting to with much, you know, not to take it away again, with less technology, less um um direction, because they do the maps and things like that, well, you know, less accurate maybe, um better less good equipment. Uh why what was driving people to want to kind of go somewhere where um, as you say, there's nothing there.
SPEAKER_02:So I I you know um why did m why did Mallory climb Everest? I think the answer was because it's there, wasn't it? Something like that. I think this is similar. This was the Edwardian age, heroic age of polar exploration, it was the peak of the British Empire, you know, we we we it was our it was our destiny to to be the first to the pole, right? No. That was that was our right, as we saw it. And um and the fact we didn't make it was was because I think we misjudged the extent of the challenge and we assumed because we were British and you know we ran the world, we we would by right be the first to get that, but we weren't. The Norwegians got that before us. And but but Shackleton was um was absolutely uh gripped by I mean he went down four times. In fact, he died on the on the on on his final attempt uh to go down and and when Scott uh when the pole uh w was finally reached, you know, he then set up an expedition to cross Antarctica through going through the pole. So that was the next thing, and then when that failed, he he went down and there was another mission to try and do something that so I think I think he he was a true adventurer. He was a he was only really happy when he was in Antarctica. Yeah. And uh, you know, he was a restless soul. Uh and I think when he was down there in command of his ship and in command of his men with a big challenge on his hands, you know, that was when he kind of felt he was at his at his peak. And he was, you know, he was an extraordinary inspirational leader, and people put their trust and their lives in in him, and he delivered, you know.
SPEAKER_00:And it was it a an inner struggle? You I mean the Antarctica it could have been something else in some ways, but like it was him against himself. Was that part of it? Do you think I don't know?
SPEAKER_02:I think he I think he he fancied fame and fortune. Okay. You know, he he wanted the recognition. That drove him. I I I he Irish by descent. His brother famously was locked up for trying to steal the Irish Crown jewels. Uh uh I I think he wanted to be recognised by society.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And and that plus his very steely determination. Oh romantic too, he's a poet. Uh he read a lot of Browning, he wrote a lot of poetry, you know, he was he was a he was a he was a true sort of Edwardian hero.
SPEAKER_00:Is the advert true?
SPEAKER_02:No. No. I don't think it is.
SPEAKER_00:But can we s if we were to pretend it was true, is that the sort of thing he would for people who I've got it written out, just for people who don't know it, um there's a what's sadly probably an apocryphal advert that he put out before the I would think before the the probably endurance expedition. The endurance expedition uh in the newspaper that says men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honour and recognition in case of success. Ernest Shackleton. Um I mean it yeah, it does seem a bit backfitted, uh, but it does it encapsulate 100% encapsulates, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh absolutely. And and he I think he he was a wonderful judge of character. I I think he he could sense on on first meeting someone that this would be an individual who would would be able to cope with the pressures of being in Antarctica.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Whereas I think Scott might not have had that natural ability to judge character. I think he was more regimented, more strict, more kind of by the book, which doesn't work so well when you're under pressure.
SPEAKER_00:So can we talk about the endurance expedition? Because that's the big that's the famous one, right? The boat.
SPEAKER_02:Almost as famous as the Nimrod.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it is the it is the famous one. It's in terms of Again, it's that maybe classically British Dunkirk type spirit where you don't, you know, you're turning a retreat or a not a failure, but uh into something that is quite inspiring and heroic. Um this gack, it's 1914, was it just as the war broke out? Can you just give it a give us a kind of you know take as long as you need um wh why why is this an important thing?
SPEAKER_02:So I'll try and put it into context for you. So following nine the Nimrod expedition, um where they got close um but but failed ultimately to get to the pole. Subsequent uh following that 1913 um Roel Anderson beat Scott in an expedition that Shackledon did not go on, uh although he had gone with Scott in 1903, Scott's first expedition. So so the pole had been conquered, Shackledon still had unfinished business in Antarctica and uh created something called the Trans Antarctic Expedition, which was uh uh the idea was um to to cross Antarctica from east to west uh and go through the pole. And uh and so he sent he he raised a uh a a team and a crew, he got some funding, which was always difficult for Shackleton, uh he was always short of money, the men were always promised their wages, never quite arrived, but that's a another story anyway. He got together a crew, he took Frank Wilde with him. Uh Frank Wilde went on every expedition led by Shackleton, and they famously set off just as war broke out in 1914, and um Shackleton uh sent a telegram to the first sea lord uh on the news that war broke out, um, offering up the crew and the ship for the war effort. And you all know Amul, because your history's good that Winston Churchill was first of the order at the breakout of the first world war, and he just simply said sent one word telegram back to endurance, proceed. Proceed. Proceed. So so off they went, and um I I mean that the the the they were late and they the the ice um they the ship got stuck in the ice before they before they'd got to Antarctica, stuck firm in the ice.
SPEAKER_00:So this was in the Weddell Sea? In the Weddell Sea. So they um which is just off the coast of the of Antarctica and it was so cold that um what these these ice they're called ice flows, are they? And they're kind of surrounded and crushed the ship.
SPEAKER_02:F-L-O-E-S, yeah. So you you you got an opportunity to get in before the ice around Antarctica freezes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And uh and once you're in, you know, you you then overwinter in Antarctica, you build yourself a hut, you you practice your your your route marches, you you lay out your food depots on the way to the pole, you prepare yourself for a then a summer journey. Right. Uh, but you've got to get the ship's gotta get in and out because the ship can't overwinter there. So the ship drops the men and the supplies and then gets out, goes back to New Zealand, waits a year or 18 months or whatever it is for the journey to be completed, and then goes back and pits on. That was the plan. That was the plan. Endurance never got to the Antarctic coastline. And so the men this this has happened before, actually, um uh earlier, late late 19th century with the Belgian expedition bizarre, but um, so they were frozen in the ice and they tried everything to shift the ship and they couldn't shift the ship, and the the ice flows as they move, they kind of create this enormous pressure when the and the endurance broke like a matchstick into thousands of pieces, not thousands of pieces, but the that they had to kind of abandon ship um uh and they lived on the ice uh which was gradually drifting northwards. And they had three lifeboats uh with them. One was called the James Caird, uh Dudley Docker was the second one, I forget the name of the third one, but uh and they lived as a as a crew um on the ice, best part of eight or nine months. Just floating around, not just moving where the water takes you, where the wind takes you. Where the wind takes you, yeah, exactly. Living off seal meat and whatever rations they'd been able to take from the ship and with their dogs, and you'd had to work out a plan of no one knew where they were, there was no radio communication, no one, I mean, as far as everyone was concerned, they'd gone south and they were expected back, you know, two years later. Uh as they got to the edge of the ice flow, as the water started to the ice started to melt and uh and became sea ice, that you know, obviously they couldn't live on the ice any longer. And there were several occasions when uh you know Shacklin's men kind of you know wake up in the middle of the night and uh the ice had split between them, and one half of the tent was in the water, and the other half of the tent, you know, so there was a very dangerous, precarious.
SPEAKER_00:He had someone woke up in their sleeping bag in the water, and he had to basically pick them up and to rescue them. Exactly right, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Tom Green, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So so there was so so and and also Shackleton had famously made everyone leave all their possessions behind on the ship. I think he rationed everyone to a certain amount of personal possessions in weight, can't remember how much it was, a pound of weight or something like that. Um famously uh uh Eric Hussey was allowed to take his banjo with him because that was good for morale. They used to sing and play the banjo a lot. Anyway, they the the the the the crew then decamped into three into three lifeboats.
SPEAKER_00:Just before you did was there also a story where he saw a a copy of Browning poetry and he threw some coins into the sea and said, Oh, that's you know, money well spent. And like took took his poetry with him as well. It was quite a nice powering moment. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Very Homeric. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:No, he and he was he was quite a theatrical you know, he he he he liked to do things like that to kind of you know wow the men.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:You know, and they look they relied on him and looked up to him, and you know, they they definitely believed he would they you know he would get them out of tr out of trouble.
SPEAKER_00:And the is it uh one way of looking at it, his leadership skills were kind of the perfect marriage of maternal and paternal. He was very I don't know if that's the right mental model, but nurture and kind of put a put put a bloody shift in. You know, that you the the Scott was too too stick, not enough carrot, and he was very good at spotting if someone was flagging and giving them extra hot milk or you know taking the load off them onto himself. Is that right?
SPEAKER_02:That's absolutely right. Yeah, but he was a disciplinarian too. I mean there was uh a couple of times uh when a couple of the men, the ship's carpenter, fame famously uh kept cat uh that travelled down to Antarctica uh with them on the ship. I think against Shackleton's knowledge, probably, the stowaway. There was another stowaway, Percy Blackborough was a stowaway, lost a toe. Um but this cat, Chippy McNeish, um Shackleton told him to kill the cat, get rid of it. We don't need it, and that nearly caused uh mutiny, and uh and I think Shackleton made it very clear to Chippy McNeish that if he was gonna break ranks and cause trouble amongst the crew, he would pay for it with his life.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, interesting. And then and then Chippy was well comf comes that he was selected, wasn't he? For the so can we go to yes, where did we get to? We they they just they they realize they can't live on this ice flow anymore, and so they've got to what what happened next?
SPEAKER_02:So what happened then? This famous boat journey where they they aim for Elephant Island, which is a a a miserable uh outcrop of rocks, kind of um maybe six or seven hundred miles south east of the Falkland Islands, a long way south, but along, you know, probably three or four hundred miles north of Antarctica kind of thing. They they set their their their um In lifeboats, effectively. In in three lifeboats, they set their course to to make it to Elephant Island. And Frank Worsley, who was the skipper of the endurance, uh navigated and the three boats were uh joined together with rope and for f for some of the time, but some of the time they beset, but they kept together, and they he he navigated um with his sextant uh by lying on his stomach on the front of the boat with two men holding his feet to stop him falling in as he tried to get a reed on the um on the sextant from the from the stars in the sky. And they hit Elephant Island bang on. It's like a mile.
SPEAKER_00:And and you needed the boat would rock up and down, and you needed a perfect and then also a lot of the time there would be no stars. You'd you'd you're doing it once every five days because there's clouded over and it's a lot of guesswork involved. Dead reckoning was dead reckoning, that's right.
SPEAKER_02:And if you know, had had he been a mile to the to the east or a mile to the west, they would have missed the island altogether. Yeah, and that that would have been bad. So they got to the island and then you know, had they got there, they that was the first time they'd been on dry land for I don't know, I can't remember, you know, maybe a year. They've been on dry land since no, maybe more than that actually. I mean since that they'd left New Zealand.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:In theory. So this is 1916 now. This is 1916. Um on to dry land, but the most inhospitable place on earth, probably. And uh and then what do you do? Uh because you know no one comes to rescue you from there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And no one knows you're there. And where do you go to next? I mean you might be on dry land, but you know, what are you gonna eat? Yeah. So shall we carry on?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So the the So the next move was that Shackleton ordered that James Caird, the larger of the three lifeboats, to be made good for a journey to South Georgia, which was a long journey, uh, again, through the Southern Ocean in an open boat. Uh, and he took four men with him, as far as I remember, one of whom was Chippy McNish, because he took the carpenter because he knew he was a troublemaker, so he wanted him close to him. He didn't want him anywhere near the rest of the crew. Frank Wilde was made um was put in charge of the shore party, and they turned the other two lifeboats upside down, and they kind of lived uh under those two lifeboats, whilst Shackleton and Tom Crean and Frank Worsley and Chippy McNeish and I think one other uh made out for South Georgia in this extraordinary open boat crossing of the Southern Ocean, which I think one or two people may have tried to repeat subsequently, but you know, that is kind of a having just you know got to Elephant Island. And don't forget they don't have any food really.
SPEAKER_00:And for context, this is kind of the weather is horrific, the gales, the storms, and this is in a in a boat that's kind of bare like in a yeah, barely you're barely above the surface. Yeah. And you're wet, constantly baling out water every um and why why did they choose that? That was the only place I mean it was closer to go to the Falklands, but it wouldn't work if they went that way because No, South Children was closer, but but but that was the kind of achievable objective.
SPEAKER_02:And they had this little primer stove that they kept in the bottom of the ship and the bottom of the boat that they'd like to kind of cook themselves some hoosh, make themselves a warm drink, whatever it was.
SPEAKER_00:But it was you know an open so that's their get to humanity, get a rescue, back to rescue the and that was the short straw. The short straw wasn't being left on the island, it was getting in this boat and trying to go row, just row and sail hundreds of miles to Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, again, I forget the exact distance, but I think they were sort of maybe eleven days.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Across the Southern Ocean, something like that. Um, and when they got to South Georgia, they made it to South Georgia. They they the the the wind and the tides took them to a point of South Georgia where that they were aiming for this whaling station, this this permanently manned Norwegian waling station where Shackleton knew uh that they would find humanity. Uh, but they got to a point uh at South Georgia where they couldn't get to the waling station uh because the the boats wouldn't the boat wouldn't take them around and they would they were they'd found shore and they needed to cross Antarctica. Uh sorry, cross South Georgia over the mountains.
SPEAKER_00:And if they'd if they'd gone another day or so without coming to land, they probably would have that was they were the end of their tether with that with that because the boat was freezing and they had to kind of I was some of the from the reading you sent me, like someone would have to climb out of the boat, be held on, and chip ice off it so it wouldn't roll around and it was kind of probably you're just you're permanently soaked. I think the other story was that their sleeping bags and their clothes were made of reindeer skin. That's right. And they're covered in soot the whole time. Their hands are like filthy from burning seal oil, which is their fuel and food. And in the hoosh that you mentioned, um there'd be clumps of reindeer hair that would get into it, so they'd just get these filthy hands in, pick out the reindeer hair, squeeze out whatever porridge is in there just to not waste it and then carry on eating it. That sounds it just sounds like no proper, proper hell. Brutal 11, yeah, and then like you just don't you don't know if you don't even and all to Capana, you don't even know if you're going the right way, whether you've missed it.
SPEAKER_02:Survival instinct is huge, isn't it? And I think they had this obligation, they had this duty to the men that they'd left behind on Elephant Island to get to get them back there. So they climbed over South Georgia, which was uh a journey that I think the parachute regiment did at the start of the Falklands War. And and they found with with full kit and wolder, they found that incredibly hard. Uh that these um men did it almost in bare feet. I mean, you know, the rags that they'd been living in for two years. Uh uh the carpenter had nailed some nails into the bottom of the of the shoes, of the boots that they were wearing to try and give them some grip. And they didn't really know where they were going. Yeah. They were they were kind of guessing. Uh and anyway, they they they kind of made it to to the waiting station. And famously, I mean this is the first time they'd seen human life for two years or something like that. They banged on the door of the waiting station's captain's office and in in Shackleton where he said, I'm I'm Ernest Shackleton. I said, No, no, no, he died. He died, you know, we haven't heard from him, he doesn't exist, he's gone, kind of thing. And he went, No, no, I'm I'm and they didn't recognise. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh and that was the that was the extraordinary moment when they knew they'd survive, but then of course they had to go back to collect the I mean he would have turned up a sorry mess, wouldn't he, with the three three or four of them that would just been through the ringer. Yeah. Um black to the face and and yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, you know, uh just kind of no one could survive that really, yeah, I don't think. Um so they had to go back to Elephant Island and they had to find a ship to take them back and and collect those men, and it took them four attempts and about another six months. The Chilean government eventually lent them a boat, a ship to take them in. And uh the thir first three times they went and they couldn't get in because the uh ice was frozen around the island, so around Elephant Island. So it wasn't until the fourth attempt that they got in. You can imagine what it was like for Shackleton, and you know, he was fine, but you know, he had all these His loyalty to his men was kind of paramount in his mind. Exactly. So he he eventually got back and uh got got into the uh island and there's a wonderful picture of of him arriving, and uh and one of the men on the island sees him and he lights a a flare or something, you know, and and the first question is are all the men alive, you know, and the answer is that we're all we're all alive. So he never lost a man in that whole expedition. 28 men, was it? I think so, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, 11 scientists as well, which kind of didn't know quite know what they were signing up to, yeah, but they all made it back. I mean, and that gives you a sense of the maybe how far we've come away from that time, the spirit of adventure, because you know, I just science as itself as an institution is kind of coming under a lot of criticism, and I think rightly so for many reasons. The kind of the corruption of it is akin to kind of corruption of organised religion in many ways.
SPEAKER_02:But like back then, scientists were going to the depths of hell to kind of learn and explore in the same way that explorers were, and um, the fact that he got them back home, you know, and saved them was that's right, and of course, uh in Scott's expedition you know, they they found in the on the sledges and in the rucksacks of the of the dead men, you know, a large amount of rock that had been carrying needlessly for scientific purposes to bring back, you know. Had they been able to do an extra yard a day or an extra two yards a day, they would have made it to the depot that would have given them the food that would have you know so science came first. Came first, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, certainly Scott. And did it capture the national imagination when they got home? What was the kind of fallout aftermath? Hugely, hugely. Yeah, it was a Dunkirk type moment.
SPEAKER_02:Heroic failure, but but but this the the wasn't a failure because of course everyone survived, but don't forget they got back in 1917, and so the the crew were all sent immediately to the front line.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean within weeks, and not all of them survived that. So having survived this extraordinary expedition, within weeks they were at the front line and and and you know, at the mercy of something else.
SPEAKER_00:One of the first things they asked was when who won the war, and it was only two years in to four and I think there was a really sad moment where the Shackleton's um sold a piece of food to one of the crew members in exchange for a bottle of champagne in the pub in Hull that he was planning to open when he gets back from the expedition, and that the the the crew the crew member kind of got killed in the war and never got to open his pub, sadly, and pay Shackleton back for the bit of food with the yeah, kind of humanity at its best and worst. Yes, um and what how do you looking back kind of a hundred years, how do you see that now? How well when you're looking at the world today with that lens or you know, with that you know, through that lens, does it does it give you a different perspective?
SPEAKER_02:It feels it feels like there's a lot, you know, it's not the age of innocence, is it? But but you know, there's something very natural and pure and and kind of uh healthy about that kind of attitude. I I mean life seems a lot more complicated now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I I mean for better or for worse, but uh something very inspiring about having noble ambitions and and relying on your on your fellow men to to help you through or to to you know achieve a common goal uh for the benefit of the country you love. I I mean maybe this sounds terribly romantic or very kind of rose-tinted glasses, I don't know, but it doesn't, you know, it doesn't maybe maybe the ambitions are all wrong now.
SPEAKER_00:It's something very human about it. I mean there was a story in a previous episode with Nigel McGilchrist, the his classical historian, he talked about um a Phoenician expedition that was sent by the Egyptians to to go south from Afri you know, from north of Egypt to Africa, and um they disappeared, no one ever heard of them. They they there were records of them saying at one point the mast, the sun would point one way from the mast, and that's all of a sudden it went the other way, and they just kept going, kept going, kept going, and then ended up somewhere where people were speaking Phoenician again. And it transpired that they'd circumnavigated Africa, ended up in Carthage from from from Egypt, and they were like, oh, okay, that that then that was the first, like it's just very i it's I think we've been doing it. It's actually natural and and it's been taken away from us in many ways. There's a there's a quote from is this someone called Absley Cherry Gerard, I don't know if Absley Cherry Gerard.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I I pulled a quote out from his something he said, he said now we're living in an age which doesn't give a fig about the spirit, an age fatally compromised by ambition and worldly success. So maybe it contradicts what you said about Shackleton, you know, did want some plaudits, he wasn't doing it just purely for philosophy's sake, but it does feel like um we've quantified our success in terms of kind of money and likes and views and and followers and actually doing stuff is as important.
SPEAKER_02:But I think I think you've got to be a bit careful because I mean Apsy you know was a very privileged, you know, wealthy individual who bought his way onto that expedition, and I mean you know, he was a very brave and heroic man, I'm sure. Uh, but he he had the you know, he he had the privilege of being able to to to say those things. You know, I don't give a fig for this, I don't give a fig for that. But uh and so I think we've got to be a bit mindful of that of that generation's kind of daring do. Yeah. I mean it wasn't didn't work for everyone at that, you know, who was alive in those in those days.
SPEAKER_00:No, sure. And you need the bandwidth to be able to have the opportunity to do it. Yeah. Um but they did do it, you know, to be fair to them.
SPEAKER_02:They did it, they came home and he went down again, you know, after that for the for the next expedition. He got back and and what just couldn't couldn't sit still. Couldn't sit still. Yeah, I I don't think he settled, I mean he wasn't comfortable in in 2.4 children and exactly yeah, yeah. So he went down again with Frank Wilde uh on an expedition in a ship called the Quest, and he had bad sciatica, and he died of a heart attack um and is buried at South Georgia. Um uh uh you know, quite rightly they they left him there where where he was he was uh where he was most happy. And of course, it was only a year ago that that the ship, the endurance that sank on in the Weddell Sea was discovered. And uh a marine archaeologist called Medson Bound uh considers it his greatest achievement to to have found the uh the ship and uh they found it uh bizarrely uh a hundred years the day that Shatelem was buried. Oh wow at exactly the same time of day.
SPEAKER_00:They discovered something.
SPEAKER_02:Something in that fourth presence that go figure, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Um because they did feel like there was something with them when they were exploring the kind of what it's uh what they called a fourth presence that someone sort of You get to your kind of without mean to go all woo, but there's a sort of spiritual angle to the to the endeavour which helps get you through, I imagine. Um big time.
SPEAKER_02:I think you you you know that's when you you rely on anything, everything, yeah. But but they no, I think they they um they famously saw the footprints of a of a person, a figure that that was travelling alongside them across South Georgia. Yeah. You know, so they saw that, they felt that that was a a a you know, godlike presence who was on their shoulder, looking after them as they went over the top.
SPEAKER_00:And the legacy today is obviously of kind of, as you said, cautious, daring do, but kind of leadership, spirit of adventure What's um what is what is the state of the kind of explorers, you know, there's there's there's lots of people doing it still, there's lots of inspirational kind of things happening. Is it Henry Worsley who's a descendant of Frank? What's what could you talk about him a little bit?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, um Frank was a navigator, wasn't he? Frank was the captain of the was was a skipper of the of the of the of the endurance and then famously navigated the the three lifeboats to s to to um Elephant Island, then subsequently the one boat to South Georgia. Henry led the expedition that I went on in 2009, uh, and then subsequently did two more expeditions uh south. Um was Shackledon was his was his hero uh in every sense of the word, and Henry is now buried next to Shackledon in South Georgia. Uh he didn't come back from his final expedition, which he did in on his own uh so just about ten years ago. So there's some he's at peace, I think, in doing what what what he loved doing and and uh and is next to Shackleton in in South Georgia. So there's some there's some some some similarity there, I think.
SPEAKER_00:And so tell us about the Shackleton Foundation then that was this was the um vehicle for the your expedition and what what is what was it trying to achieve? Was it raising awareness?
SPEAKER_02:Was it it's still it's still it's still there and and uh and um so Thomas Pinchon, the uh American uh novelist, uh famously said, everyone has an Antarctic. What's yours? And so we the Chatelin Expedition, the Sasha Shacklin Foundation is there to support um leaders in the mould of Ernest Shackleton who have an Antarctic and who need financial support to cross it. Uh but importantly it's it's to support um early stage charities who need financial support to prove their concept works or need financial support to generate some evidence of success in order to get further backing. Right. But importantly, it's about the individual who has this um passion, this dream, this determination to deliver something for the benefit of the greater good. And it can be anything. It can be anything, but but you know, it's about the leader showing the kind of determination and leadership skills of Shackleton, yeah, who has an Antarctic, who's determined to cross it, who needs support to achieve their goal. And so we funded a lot of early stage kind of venture capital style fundraising for early stage charities with strong inspirational leaders.
SPEAKER_00:So what can we what can we take away in terms of any other kind of tidbits and from from that expedition from the subsequent ones about his style of leadership that we haven't covered that you think is worth talking about?
SPEAKER_02:I think Shackleton uh was a in some ways a flawed character, but and and maybe a lot of of leaders are flawed in some ways. I think he although his men were supremely loyal and you know he got them out of a hole every time, he he didn't necessarily um pay them in the way that he'd promised them, or there was never quite the money there that was expected, or and so and so I think y you know Shackleton is a I mean it's a brand it's a brand name that survived a hundred years, hasn't it? It stands for something.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But there were aspects to him that weren't always perfect too. I think that's the the thing to to remember.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you're kind of your heroes are never as ever, we're all human, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly that. Yeah. Well I hope hopefully people can, you know, decide to explore more about this this whole period because it is fascinating. It's been really interesting for me to deep dive it. As you know, I like to wrap these things up with a closing question I ask all guests, um, which I call the long bet. Um you've got a 10-year time horizon to make a prediction of something you'd like to happen or something you you think will happen or both, um, preferably not world peace or or kind of kindness uh to be discouraged. I'm like to be discouraged, but uh um yeah, would be nice, you know, w whether it's shackleton related or not, um something that you think, you know, from your perspective growing up with the tales that you had, you know, um you see happening directionally.
SPEAKER_02:So we kind of touched on this a bit in the conversation we've had today. My wish, uh ten years hence, would be that social media begins to police itself in a way that um is positive for society. I I know I I I feel like comparisons have been made to, you know, when when alcohol, you know, those paintings done by Hogarth of of ladies kind of sozzled on gin and on every corner of every street there was a pub and p you know alcohol destroyed a society and it led to prohibition and abstinence and all those things. I think social media you know is destroying us in some ways. And we've learned to we've learnt to kind of manage alcohol some better than others and not to let it control us in a way that it did, you know, back then to some extent, hypocrisy maybe, but but I think social media, you know, it's it's it's it's it's all what one and good the Australian government trying to to impose social media bans on young children, but it needs to be it needs to come from the young children, not not from the government and I think so so that was what I would like to see in ten years time sort sort of m a better understanding of of the of the benefits and of the dangers and that so there are two one two more things. What one is that that would lead to children reading more. Yeah. I think I think for me in 10 years time you know one of the big fallouts is that no one reads.
SPEAKER_00:Well it's just just fewer and fewer children read because they don't need to because they can just flip through TikTok and well the the book medium has been under competitive threat for 50, 60 years and it has you know before you know the only thing you could entertain yourself with a hundred years ago was was was a book. And now there's much more competition for that industry. Yeah. I think it's it's even films now I find it under ex you know I struggle to watch films these days because you've got a series that's snappier and sitting through two and a half hours of something is kind of versus a TikTok video or a half an hour Netflix episode is kind of but that but my point is that publishers only publish books by celebrities because that's all people read.
SPEAKER_02:You know I think I think we are as a as a as a society we're losing the benefits of of of reading.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I want that to come back and I think sort of m reducing the impact of social media willingly in a way that we've chosen to manage alcohol willingly so it doesn't destroy us would be a good thing. And the only other thing what happened in ten years' time is that West Indies um compete in test cricket again in the way that they haven't done in the last ten years.
SPEAKER_00:So so that's my I could uh toast to both those things for sure I mean the the the that quantification of value that we see I think has impacted the reading industry or the publishing industry for sure. I mean that there's some statistics that that leaked out from publishing houses that you know books once they reach page 238 sales drop off by eight per cent and then incrementally drop off faster. So all books are now being governed by the algorithm which you know and to yeah to your point it's you've got to you know be a celebrity to kind of get a chance of being published and or read. Or read. And so it's a distribution problem and our ability to to sit with our own thoughts and process them through the written word or even you know it goes back to the whole Antarctic thing, you know, being able to be alone with yourselves and each other rather than kind of hyperconnected.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah and I I think to also um understand the the the the beauty of of what's out you know the written what's there. Yeah. You know there's so much that you can learn from and that can influence the way you conduct your life. Maybe you can through TikTok too. How did you find your mental state after eleven days in you know was there a clarity that last I mean maybe it's still there did it did it did you have a period where you're like wow I can I can really sort of the noise is gone I think I yeah I I I do did think that I think it was we felt very euphoric I think and and and on top of the world and you know it's very life affirming. Yeah. And um and and I I think you know Antarctica is is it's e it's easier to get to now I mean it's expensive and difficult but peop people should should give it a go. And the the the act of kind of being alone with your thoughts for eleven days um would have um I guess did you I mean did you s did you see the world in a different way when you came back or was did you find yourself kind of mean reverting No you mean reverting it within a matter of seconds I'd say once once you're through heathrow swearing at a taxi driver exactly a pain in the car parking goals you know it doesn't last so there has to be almost a kind of continuous discipline to sort of force yourself into these well it doesn't have to be the Antarctic but something I think to see those of us that are lucky enough to have had those opportunities value value them very highly I think everyone should try and find their Antarctic whatever it is and try and cross it because that's you know that's more important in life than lots of things.
SPEAKER_00:Well like I opened with I think we need this now more than ever for reasons we're all aware of and and whether it's a a European decline problem or a kind of developed world loss of belief in ourselves and our futures and a loss of ambition I don't know we're all feeling it we're all sensing it around us and we hopefully things like this and the things that you know you followed through will help and do this do their little bit to kind of help course correct or revivify um bring a spirit of adventure back. So thank you very much for sparing the time it's been I mean it's been quite yeah quite moving so um I appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me. This has been Meeting People I've been your host Amor Pandia this is a podcast produced by Matt Cooper with music composed by Loverman