It is the most amazing story of success, failure against the odds, and a race to get to the bottom of the world.
In this episode, we will be talking about explorers Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, and their intense Race to the South Pole.
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about the race to the South Pole.
[00:00:26] It is the most amazing story of success, failure against the odds, bravery, bad luck, honour, courage and exploration.
[00:00:36] OK then, The Race To The South Pole.
[00:00:42] On the 16th of January, 1912, a group of five men pushed forward, their snowshoes crunching on the ice below.
[00:00:53] They were in Antarctica, at the bottom of the world, and despite it being “summer” the weather was particularly bad.
[00:01:03] Temperatures had got to minus thirty, and the blistering wind made it feel even colder.
[00:01:11] What’s more, the men were exhausted. They had been trudging across Antarctica for two and a half months, their supplies were running low, and luck had not been on their side.
[00:01:25] But in the distance, one of the men spotted something.
[00:01:30] It was simultaneously exactly what they were looking for and the thing they feared most in the world.
[00:01:39] They saw a flag fluttering in the distance.
[00:01:44] It was the South Pole, the point of the map that these five men had risked their lives to reach.
[00:01:51] But the very existence of a flag in this most pristine and untouched corner of the world made their stomachs sink.
[00:02:00] Someone had got there first.
[00:02:03] The men pressed forward, and a day later they reached the pole. They unzipped a tent that marked the spot, and in it they found a letter addressed to the King of Norway.
[00:02:18] The letter was from Roald Amundsen, the explorer the men had been racing to the pole. In the letter, Amundsen politely asked the party leader of his opponents, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, to deliver it to the Norwegian king.
[00:02:35] Scott would later write in his diary “Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority. Well, it is something to have got here, and the wind may be our friend to-morrow. Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it.”
[00:02:59] The British had been beaten by the Norwegians, against all the odds.
[00:03:05] But, perhaps surprisingly, the team that came in second place would be remembered as brave and heroic explorers, while the victors would be called cheats and frauds.
[00:03:19] Now, you might have already known that the Norwegians won the race, but the story of how and why is far more interesting than the end result.
[00:03:29] So, let me start with some brief background.
[00:03:33] Antarctica, as you will know, is the vast icy continent at the bottom of the world. It has a landmass of 14 million kilometres squared, so it’s about 40% larger than Europe.
[00:03:48] And in the coldest months of the year, the sea around the landmass also freezes, more than doubling the size of the ice, and covering up to 34 million kilometres squared, an area larger than Africa.
[00:04:05] The point is, in case you didn’t know, Antarctica is absolutely vast.
[00:04:11] But as to the question of how vast it was, well people simply didn’t know. They didn’t even know that it existed.
[00:04:21] Going back thousands of years, philosophers and geographers have hypothesised about the existence of some large cold continent, a frozen land that “balanced” the warmer areas of the world.
[00:04:36] But until 1820, there is no record of anybody having seen it.
[00:04:42] Even getting close was a dangerous affair, with the 18th century British explorer Captain James Cook writing “I will not say it was impossible anywhere to get in among this ice, but I will assert that the bare attempting of it would be a very dangerous enterprise”.
[00:05:02] But “dangerous enterprise” would be no obstacle for many 19th century explorers.
[00:05:08] Indeed, if it wasn’t dangerous, it almost wasn’t worth doing, to some kind of explorers at least.
[00:05:15] And efforts to explore the Antarctic started in the early 20th century.
[00:05:21] French, British, German and Swedish parties all set foot on the icy continent, but the missions were primarily scientific, for information-gathering purposes rather than to make it all the way across.
[00:05:38] One mission, which took place between 1901 and 1904, was led by a British explorer called Robert Falcon Scott. It was literally called "Discovery Expedition", which gives you some idea of its purpose.
[00:05:55] As a quick side note, one of the men on this mission was Ernest Shackleton, whose attempt to cross Antarctica you can learn about in episode number 398.
[00:06:07] This Discovery Mission would be cut short, but a decade later, and fully prepared, Scott was ready to try again.
[00:06:17] Robert Falcon Scott was an accomplished explorer, and he had managed to secure a grant of £20,000, partially from the British Royal Geographical Society and partially from private institutions. Adjusted for inflation, this is over €2 million in today's money.
[00:06:40] And he put all the money to use.
[00:06:43] He bought motorised sleds, which were completely state of the art and untested equipment at the time.
[00:06:51] He also brought 19 Siberian ponies with him, as these beasts would be charged with pulling the sleds containing all of the party’s supplies.
[00:07:01] He brought a lot of stuff, and even before he got to Antarctica, he realised that he might have overpacked somewhat, he might have brought a bit too much stuff.
[00:07:14] The ship the party travelled in was so crowded and overladen that it almost capsized multiple times, with the weight of the ponies and all the supplies causing it to sway from side to side.
[00:07:28] The ship had set off from Britain, in June of 1910, with a planned stop in Australia before heading further south and landing in Antarctica.
[00:07:39] Unfortunately, when Scott arrived in Australia, he found some bad news waiting for him.
[00:07:47] This bad news came in the form of a telegram. It read:
[00:07:53] "Beg leave to inform. Fram heading south.”
[00:07:58] The telegram was simply signed with the surname: “Amundsen.
[00:08:03] Scott’s heart sank.
[00:08:06] The author of the telegram, Roald Amundsen, was a Norwegian explorer who was famous in his own right for having successfully navigated the Northwest passage, the bit of the Arctic Circle that connects the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.
[00:08:22] Fram was his ship.
[00:08:25] And Scott knew that “heading south” could only mean one thing. Amundsen had his sights on the South Pole.
[00:08:35] This came as quite a surprise to Scott, as he thought that Amundsen was heading to the North Pole.
[00:08:43] In fact, the decision to head south, not north, also came as a surprise to the men on Amundsen’s boat, as they too had thought they were heading north not south.
[00:08:56] Amundsen had initially planned to go north, and had raised a not insignificant amount of money to try to reach the North Pole, but as he was on his way he had received news that an American party had got there first.
[00:09:12] By the way, if you’d like to listen to that story, about the race to the North Pole, we covered that in our last episode, and if you haven’t listened to that one yet, that story is just as interesting and exciting as this one.
[00:09:25] Anyway, when Amundsen heard that someone had already got to the North Pole, he immediately changed tack, quite literally, and headed south instead.
[00:09:36] The race was on.
[00:09:39] But it wasn’t quite a case of racing to Antarctica and then racing to the pole.
[00:09:45] The competing parties both arrived in January of 1911. January might be a mild month by Antarctic standards, but the groups knew that it could take several months to get to the pole and back. Even if they were ready to go immediately when they arrived in January, which they weren’t, this would have meant risking returning in the depths of Antarctic winter, and you don’t need to be an Antarctic explorer to know that this was a bad idea if you wanted to get back alive.
[00:10:18] The groups set up their camps, and by September of the following year, they were ready to go.
[00:10:26] At least, Amundsen was ready to go, and his party left on September 8th of 1911.
[00:10:34] But the Norwegians had jumped the gun, they left while it was still bitterly cold, and they were forced to return back to base and wait for the temperature to rise.
[00:10:47] It took more than a month, and on October 19th, with four sledges and fifty two dogs, the Norwegians set off south.
[00:10:58] Scott, on the other hand, waited until November 1st.
[00:11:03] Now, it’s worth spending a moment talking about the two approaches, as the British and the Norwegians took different routes and employed very different strategies.
[00:11:15] They both set off from a similar kind of area, the Ross Ice Shelf, which is to the south of New Zealand.
[00:11:23] Well, it’s about 3,500 kilometres from New Zealand, but New Zealand is the closest sizable piece of land.
[00:11:32] The major difference in terms of route was that Scott’s team took a slightly longer route, but a route that was partially known, as Scott had experience of this area from his earlier expedition.
[00:11:47] Amundsen, on the other hand, planned to take a shorter but untested route. Yes, they might get there faster, but they had no idea what they might come across on their way.
[00:12:01] In terms of their approaches, on paper, in theory, Scott was much better prepared. He had raised much more money, he had expensive equipment, and he enjoyed the full support of the British government.
[00:12:17] Amundsen, on the other hand, had raised a relatively small amount of money. He had no fancy equipment, his strategy was centred on one thing and one thing only: dogs.
[00:12:31] Or rather, 100 dogs, which would be used to pull the sleds.
[00:12:36] And if you’re thinking, hang on, didn’t you say “52 dogs” a few minutes ago, yes, I’ll get to the reason why those two numbers are different in a minute.
[00:12:45] Scott’s idea was to use ponies, horses, and as you heard, he brought 19 of them on his expedition.
[00:12:55] Clearly, on normal terrain, a horse will prove more useful than a dog. It’s stronger, it can carry more and it can walk for longer distances.
[00:13:06] But Antarctica is the opposite of “normal terrain”, and Scott soon came to regret his decision.
[00:13:14] He found that his ponies were a lot slower, and their weight meant that their hooves got stuck in the snow. To try to counter this, Scott’s party travelled at night, when the temperature dropped and the snow was icier and stronger, but clearly travelling at night comes with its own share of problems.
[00:13:37] And what of the three motorised sleds that Scott had brought with him?
[00:13:42] One had fallen into the ice when it was being unloaded from the ship, and the other two proved to be unreliable, actually slowing down Scott’s party instead of speeding it up.
[00:13:55] Amundsen’s choice to use dogs was simple and smart.
[00:14:00] Dogs' paws didn’t sink into the snow, they were well-used to these conditions. Dogs were also much more self-reliant; in the evenings they would huddle down together, so the Norwegian party didn’t need to build shelters for them, unlike Scott’s party had to do for his horses.
[00:14:21] Dogs were also much easier to feed.
[00:14:24] They ate whatever meat the men gave them, seal, canned meat, and even…each other.
[00:14:32] Now, this might sound a bit grisly, but let me tell you another one of the advantages of using dogs.
[00:14:41] When a dog got tired or sick, instead of carrying it or even leaving it to die, Amundsen’s party would shoot it, chop it up and feed it to the other dogs, who would wolf down their former companion without complaint.
[00:14:58] In fact, of the 100 dogs that set off to Antarctica, only 19 remained, the others returned but only in the bellies of their colleagues.
[00:15:09] Even Amundsen’s favourite dog, Helga, was not spared this fate, although it was allowed to limp on to the South Pole, so it got the glory of reaching that destination before being shot and fed to its companions.
[00:15:24] And if you might be thinking that this is some kind of cruel behaviour that was unique to Amundsen and the Norwegians, Scott and his crew did exactly the same thing to their dogs, the only reason that fewer dogs died in the British party was because they had fewer dogs to start with.
[00:15:43] And if you are wondering whether Scott’s ponies might have escaped this treatment, nope, they were shot when the party arrived at a tall glacier that the ponies were unable to climb.
[00:15:54] Moving on to a less grisly topic, another advantage that Amundsen’s party had was that everyone in his group was an excellent skier, so they were both able to go faster and use less energy than going by foot.
[00:16:11] As a result, the Norwegians arrived at the South Pole on December 14th, 1911, a mere 56 days after they set off, or 98 days if we’re counting the false start.
[00:16:25] It was a very business-like affair.
[00:16:28] Get to the pole as quickly as possible, raise the Norwegian flag, take a photo, shoot the favourite dog, and then hurry back.
[00:16:37] Even though the Norwegians were relieved to have won the race to the pole, they were still concerned that the British might get to the pole and then return to their ship first, potentially even casting doubt on the Norwegian claims.
[00:16:52] Fortunately, or unfortunately if you’re on Team GB here, the British had been making very poor progress. They had stopped off to try to take scientific measurements and even collect the egg of an emperor penguin.
[00:17:09] Supplies were running low, morale was low, and to make matters worse, several team members were starting to experience the symptoms of what looked like it might be scurvy, the disease you get that’s caused by a deficiency in vitamin C.
[00:17:26] In fact, the Norwegians had nothing to worry about. When the British explorers did arrive at the pole and see the Norwegian flag, the Norwegians were practically back at their boat, ready to sail home again.
[00:17:41] Of course, Scott and his crew had no way of knowing this, but what they did know was that they now had to make the 1,500 kilometre or so return trip.
[00:17:54] They managed to travel a few hundred kilometres and get off the Antarctic continent, but as soon as they got back onto the Ross Ice Shelf, things turned from bad to worse.
[00:18:08] A man called Edgar Evans, who was considered to be the strongest by Scott, was the first to get scurvy.
[00:18:17] Combined with the frostbite that was affecting all five of the men, the last of Evans’ strength disappeared.
[00:18:25] He collapsed, and was left behind by the men while they pushed ahead to the next supply depot.
[00:18:32] The four others returned to find him, but Scott would write that he found Evans with a “wild look in his eyes”.
[00:18:42] Evans knew that death was swiftly approaching, and later that evening, on February 17th, he took his last breath.
[00:18:52] The five were down to four, and they still had several hundred kilometres to go in one of the most inhospitable climates in the world.
[00:19:03] The four remaining men pushed on, but one member, Captain Lawrence Oates, was suffering terribly from scurvy.
[00:19:13] The deficiency in vitamin C was causing an old war wound in his leg to open up. He was in agony, and he knew that his chances of returning home alive were minimal.
[00:19:27] On the evening of March 17th, on his 32nd birthday, in the middle of a huge blizzard, he stepped out of his tent.
[00:19:38] Scott would recall that his last words to his team mates were “I am just going outside and may be some time”.
[00:19:48] Of course, the three remaining explorers knew what Oates was doing, he was sacrificing himself so that he would not be a burden to the others.
[00:19:59] They did not try to stop him, and the body of Captain Oates has never been found.
[00:20:06] Five were now three. They were getting closer to home.
[00:20:11] In fact, they were only 18 kilometres away from the next supply depot.
[00:20:17] But those 18 kilometres must have felt like an eternity, an impossible distance for three men who were at their physical limit.
[00:20:29] On March 29th, 1912, they got into their sleeping bags in their tent, and wrote their final goodbyes.
[00:20:39] Scott’s last diary entry read:
[00:20:42] “We shall stick it out until the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.
[00:20:49] It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.”
[00:20:54] And in a letter that was addressed to the British public, he wrote “Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale.”
[00:21:17] End quote.
[00:21:19] It’s believed that the three explorers closed their eyes that evening, and never opened them again. Their bodies were discovered, one next to the other, in November of that year, 7 and a half months afterwards.
[00:21:35] In the meantime, Roald Amundsen had returned and won fame and glory for becoming the first person to reach the South Pole.
[00:21:44] In fact, this was just one of Roald Amundsen’s achievements. The others included the navigation of the Northwest Passage, the Northeast passage, then floating over the North Pole in an airship in 1926.
[00:21:57] And he too, like Scott in 1912 and many more before and after them, he too would die an icy death, his plane disappearing in the freezing Barents Sea in 1928.
[00:22:13] So, there you go, the Race to the South Pole.
[00:22:16] On some level, Scott should have easily won. He set off first, he was much better funded, he had the full apparatus of the British state behind him.
[00:22:28] Amundsen, on the other hand, wasn’t even meant to be there, but he still got there first, planting his flag and claiming the title for himself and his country.
[00:22:42] There are no doubt many lessons one can take from this, but the one perhaps lighthearted one that I’ll leave you with is this: never bet against a Norwegian on skis.
[00:22:56] OK then, that is it for today's episode on the Race to the North Pole.
[00:23:01] I hope it's been an interesting one, and even if you knew about this story before, well I hope it was fun to revisit it.
[00:23:09] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:23:12] We do actually have a fair share of listeners in Norway, so tell me, what is the modern legacy of Roald Amundsen?
[00:23:19] Oh, and if you liked this episode and you would like some more on Arctic or Antarctic exploration, be sure to check out episode number 398 on Ernest Shackleton and the one before this, episode 417 on the race to the North Pole.
[00:23:35] And if you want some African exploration, check out the mini-series we just made on the quest to find the source of the River Nile.
[00:23:42] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:23:48] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about the race to the South Pole.
[00:00:26] It is the most amazing story of success, failure against the odds, bravery, bad luck, honour, courage and exploration.
[00:00:36] OK then, The Race To The South Pole.
[00:00:42] On the 16th of January, 1912, a group of five men pushed forward, their snowshoes crunching on the ice below.
[00:00:53] They were in Antarctica, at the bottom of the world, and despite it being “summer” the weather was particularly bad.
[00:01:03] Temperatures had got to minus thirty, and the blistering wind made it feel even colder.
[00:01:11] What’s more, the men were exhausted. They had been trudging across Antarctica for two and a half months, their supplies were running low, and luck had not been on their side.
[00:01:25] But in the distance, one of the men spotted something.
[00:01:30] It was simultaneously exactly what they were looking for and the thing they feared most in the world.
[00:01:39] They saw a flag fluttering in the distance.
[00:01:44] It was the South Pole, the point of the map that these five men had risked their lives to reach.
[00:01:51] But the very existence of a flag in this most pristine and untouched corner of the world made their stomachs sink.
[00:02:00] Someone had got there first.
[00:02:03] The men pressed forward, and a day later they reached the pole. They unzipped a tent that marked the spot, and in it they found a letter addressed to the King of Norway.
[00:02:18] The letter was from Roald Amundsen, the explorer the men had been racing to the pole. In the letter, Amundsen politely asked the party leader of his opponents, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, to deliver it to the Norwegian king.
[00:02:35] Scott would later write in his diary “Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority. Well, it is something to have got here, and the wind may be our friend to-morrow. Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it.”
[00:02:59] The British had been beaten by the Norwegians, against all the odds.
[00:03:05] But, perhaps surprisingly, the team that came in second place would be remembered as brave and heroic explorers, while the victors would be called cheats and frauds.
[00:03:19] Now, you might have already known that the Norwegians won the race, but the story of how and why is far more interesting than the end result.
[00:03:29] So, let me start with some brief background.
[00:03:33] Antarctica, as you will know, is the vast icy continent at the bottom of the world. It has a landmass of 14 million kilometres squared, so it’s about 40% larger than Europe.
[00:03:48] And in the coldest months of the year, the sea around the landmass also freezes, more than doubling the size of the ice, and covering up to 34 million kilometres squared, an area larger than Africa.
[00:04:05] The point is, in case you didn’t know, Antarctica is absolutely vast.
[00:04:11] But as to the question of how vast it was, well people simply didn’t know. They didn’t even know that it existed.
[00:04:21] Going back thousands of years, philosophers and geographers have hypothesised about the existence of some large cold continent, a frozen land that “balanced” the warmer areas of the world.
[00:04:36] But until 1820, there is no record of anybody having seen it.
[00:04:42] Even getting close was a dangerous affair, with the 18th century British explorer Captain James Cook writing “I will not say it was impossible anywhere to get in among this ice, but I will assert that the bare attempting of it would be a very dangerous enterprise”.
[00:05:02] But “dangerous enterprise” would be no obstacle for many 19th century explorers.
[00:05:08] Indeed, if it wasn’t dangerous, it almost wasn’t worth doing, to some kind of explorers at least.
[00:05:15] And efforts to explore the Antarctic started in the early 20th century.
[00:05:21] French, British, German and Swedish parties all set foot on the icy continent, but the missions were primarily scientific, for information-gathering purposes rather than to make it all the way across.
[00:05:38] One mission, which took place between 1901 and 1904, was led by a British explorer called Robert Falcon Scott. It was literally called "Discovery Expedition", which gives you some idea of its purpose.
[00:05:55] As a quick side note, one of the men on this mission was Ernest Shackleton, whose attempt to cross Antarctica you can learn about in episode number 398.
[00:06:07] This Discovery Mission would be cut short, but a decade later, and fully prepared, Scott was ready to try again.
[00:06:17] Robert Falcon Scott was an accomplished explorer, and he had managed to secure a grant of £20,000, partially from the British Royal Geographical Society and partially from private institutions. Adjusted for inflation, this is over €2 million in today's money.
[00:06:40] And he put all the money to use.
[00:06:43] He bought motorised sleds, which were completely state of the art and untested equipment at the time.
[00:06:51] He also brought 19 Siberian ponies with him, as these beasts would be charged with pulling the sleds containing all of the party’s supplies.
[00:07:01] He brought a lot of stuff, and even before he got to Antarctica, he realised that he might have overpacked somewhat, he might have brought a bit too much stuff.
[00:07:14] The ship the party travelled in was so crowded and overladen that it almost capsized multiple times, with the weight of the ponies and all the supplies causing it to sway from side to side.
[00:07:28] The ship had set off from Britain, in June of 1910, with a planned stop in Australia before heading further south and landing in Antarctica.
[00:07:39] Unfortunately, when Scott arrived in Australia, he found some bad news waiting for him.
[00:07:47] This bad news came in the form of a telegram. It read:
[00:07:53] "Beg leave to inform. Fram heading south.”
[00:07:58] The telegram was simply signed with the surname: “Amundsen.
[00:08:03] Scott’s heart sank.
[00:08:06] The author of the telegram, Roald Amundsen, was a Norwegian explorer who was famous in his own right for having successfully navigated the Northwest passage, the bit of the Arctic Circle that connects the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.
[00:08:22] Fram was his ship.
[00:08:25] And Scott knew that “heading south” could only mean one thing. Amundsen had his sights on the South Pole.
[00:08:35] This came as quite a surprise to Scott, as he thought that Amundsen was heading to the North Pole.
[00:08:43] In fact, the decision to head south, not north, also came as a surprise to the men on Amundsen’s boat, as they too had thought they were heading north not south.
[00:08:56] Amundsen had initially planned to go north, and had raised a not insignificant amount of money to try to reach the North Pole, but as he was on his way he had received news that an American party had got there first.
[00:09:12] By the way, if you’d like to listen to that story, about the race to the North Pole, we covered that in our last episode, and if you haven’t listened to that one yet, that story is just as interesting and exciting as this one.
[00:09:25] Anyway, when Amundsen heard that someone had already got to the North Pole, he immediately changed tack, quite literally, and headed south instead.
[00:09:36] The race was on.
[00:09:39] But it wasn’t quite a case of racing to Antarctica and then racing to the pole.
[00:09:45] The competing parties both arrived in January of 1911. January might be a mild month by Antarctic standards, but the groups knew that it could take several months to get to the pole and back. Even if they were ready to go immediately when they arrived in January, which they weren’t, this would have meant risking returning in the depths of Antarctic winter, and you don’t need to be an Antarctic explorer to know that this was a bad idea if you wanted to get back alive.
[00:10:18] The groups set up their camps, and by September of the following year, they were ready to go.
[00:10:26] At least, Amundsen was ready to go, and his party left on September 8th of 1911.
[00:10:34] But the Norwegians had jumped the gun, they left while it was still bitterly cold, and they were forced to return back to base and wait for the temperature to rise.
[00:10:47] It took more than a month, and on October 19th, with four sledges and fifty two dogs, the Norwegians set off south.
[00:10:58] Scott, on the other hand, waited until November 1st.
[00:11:03] Now, it’s worth spending a moment talking about the two approaches, as the British and the Norwegians took different routes and employed very different strategies.
[00:11:15] They both set off from a similar kind of area, the Ross Ice Shelf, which is to the south of New Zealand.
[00:11:23] Well, it’s about 3,500 kilometres from New Zealand, but New Zealand is the closest sizable piece of land.
[00:11:32] The major difference in terms of route was that Scott’s team took a slightly longer route, but a route that was partially known, as Scott had experience of this area from his earlier expedition.
[00:11:47] Amundsen, on the other hand, planned to take a shorter but untested route. Yes, they might get there faster, but they had no idea what they might come across on their way.
[00:12:01] In terms of their approaches, on paper, in theory, Scott was much better prepared. He had raised much more money, he had expensive equipment, and he enjoyed the full support of the British government.
[00:12:17] Amundsen, on the other hand, had raised a relatively small amount of money. He had no fancy equipment, his strategy was centred on one thing and one thing only: dogs.
[00:12:31] Or rather, 100 dogs, which would be used to pull the sleds.
[00:12:36] And if you’re thinking, hang on, didn’t you say “52 dogs” a few minutes ago, yes, I’ll get to the reason why those two numbers are different in a minute.
[00:12:45] Scott’s idea was to use ponies, horses, and as you heard, he brought 19 of them on his expedition.
[00:12:55] Clearly, on normal terrain, a horse will prove more useful than a dog. It’s stronger, it can carry more and it can walk for longer distances.
[00:13:06] But Antarctica is the opposite of “normal terrain”, and Scott soon came to regret his decision.
[00:13:14] He found that his ponies were a lot slower, and their weight meant that their hooves got stuck in the snow. To try to counter this, Scott’s party travelled at night, when the temperature dropped and the snow was icier and stronger, but clearly travelling at night comes with its own share of problems.
[00:13:37] And what of the three motorised sleds that Scott had brought with him?
[00:13:42] One had fallen into the ice when it was being unloaded from the ship, and the other two proved to be unreliable, actually slowing down Scott’s party instead of speeding it up.
[00:13:55] Amundsen’s choice to use dogs was simple and smart.
[00:14:00] Dogs' paws didn’t sink into the snow, they were well-used to these conditions. Dogs were also much more self-reliant; in the evenings they would huddle down together, so the Norwegian party didn’t need to build shelters for them, unlike Scott’s party had to do for his horses.
[00:14:21] Dogs were also much easier to feed.
[00:14:24] They ate whatever meat the men gave them, seal, canned meat, and even…each other.
[00:14:32] Now, this might sound a bit grisly, but let me tell you another one of the advantages of using dogs.
[00:14:41] When a dog got tired or sick, instead of carrying it or even leaving it to die, Amundsen’s party would shoot it, chop it up and feed it to the other dogs, who would wolf down their former companion without complaint.
[00:14:58] In fact, of the 100 dogs that set off to Antarctica, only 19 remained, the others returned but only in the bellies of their colleagues.
[00:15:09] Even Amundsen’s favourite dog, Helga, was not spared this fate, although it was allowed to limp on to the South Pole, so it got the glory of reaching that destination before being shot and fed to its companions.
[00:15:24] And if you might be thinking that this is some kind of cruel behaviour that was unique to Amundsen and the Norwegians, Scott and his crew did exactly the same thing to their dogs, the only reason that fewer dogs died in the British party was because they had fewer dogs to start with.
[00:15:43] And if you are wondering whether Scott’s ponies might have escaped this treatment, nope, they were shot when the party arrived at a tall glacier that the ponies were unable to climb.
[00:15:54] Moving on to a less grisly topic, another advantage that Amundsen’s party had was that everyone in his group was an excellent skier, so they were both able to go faster and use less energy than going by foot.
[00:16:11] As a result, the Norwegians arrived at the South Pole on December 14th, 1911, a mere 56 days after they set off, or 98 days if we’re counting the false start.
[00:16:25] It was a very business-like affair.
[00:16:28] Get to the pole as quickly as possible, raise the Norwegian flag, take a photo, shoot the favourite dog, and then hurry back.
[00:16:37] Even though the Norwegians were relieved to have won the race to the pole, they were still concerned that the British might get to the pole and then return to their ship first, potentially even casting doubt on the Norwegian claims.
[00:16:52] Fortunately, or unfortunately if you’re on Team GB here, the British had been making very poor progress. They had stopped off to try to take scientific measurements and even collect the egg of an emperor penguin.
[00:17:09] Supplies were running low, morale was low, and to make matters worse, several team members were starting to experience the symptoms of what looked like it might be scurvy, the disease you get that’s caused by a deficiency in vitamin C.
[00:17:26] In fact, the Norwegians had nothing to worry about. When the British explorers did arrive at the pole and see the Norwegian flag, the Norwegians were practically back at their boat, ready to sail home again.
[00:17:41] Of course, Scott and his crew had no way of knowing this, but what they did know was that they now had to make the 1,500 kilometre or so return trip.
[00:17:54] They managed to travel a few hundred kilometres and get off the Antarctic continent, but as soon as they got back onto the Ross Ice Shelf, things turned from bad to worse.
[00:18:08] A man called Edgar Evans, who was considered to be the strongest by Scott, was the first to get scurvy.
[00:18:17] Combined with the frostbite that was affecting all five of the men, the last of Evans’ strength disappeared.
[00:18:25] He collapsed, and was left behind by the men while they pushed ahead to the next supply depot.
[00:18:32] The four others returned to find him, but Scott would write that he found Evans with a “wild look in his eyes”.
[00:18:42] Evans knew that death was swiftly approaching, and later that evening, on February 17th, he took his last breath.
[00:18:52] The five were down to four, and they still had several hundred kilometres to go in one of the most inhospitable climates in the world.
[00:19:03] The four remaining men pushed on, but one member, Captain Lawrence Oates, was suffering terribly from scurvy.
[00:19:13] The deficiency in vitamin C was causing an old war wound in his leg to open up. He was in agony, and he knew that his chances of returning home alive were minimal.
[00:19:27] On the evening of March 17th, on his 32nd birthday, in the middle of a huge blizzard, he stepped out of his tent.
[00:19:38] Scott would recall that his last words to his team mates were “I am just going outside and may be some time”.
[00:19:48] Of course, the three remaining explorers knew what Oates was doing, he was sacrificing himself so that he would not be a burden to the others.
[00:19:59] They did not try to stop him, and the body of Captain Oates has never been found.
[00:20:06] Five were now three. They were getting closer to home.
[00:20:11] In fact, they were only 18 kilometres away from the next supply depot.
[00:20:17] But those 18 kilometres must have felt like an eternity, an impossible distance for three men who were at their physical limit.
[00:20:29] On March 29th, 1912, they got into their sleeping bags in their tent, and wrote their final goodbyes.
[00:20:39] Scott’s last diary entry read:
[00:20:42] “We shall stick it out until the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.
[00:20:49] It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.”
[00:20:54] And in a letter that was addressed to the British public, he wrote “Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale.”
[00:21:17] End quote.
[00:21:19] It’s believed that the three explorers closed their eyes that evening, and never opened them again. Their bodies were discovered, one next to the other, in November of that year, 7 and a half months afterwards.
[00:21:35] In the meantime, Roald Amundsen had returned and won fame and glory for becoming the first person to reach the South Pole.
[00:21:44] In fact, this was just one of Roald Amundsen’s achievements. The others included the navigation of the Northwest Passage, the Northeast passage, then floating over the North Pole in an airship in 1926.
[00:21:57] And he too, like Scott in 1912 and many more before and after them, he too would die an icy death, his plane disappearing in the freezing Barents Sea in 1928.
[00:22:13] So, there you go, the Race to the South Pole.
[00:22:16] On some level, Scott should have easily won. He set off first, he was much better funded, he had the full apparatus of the British state behind him.
[00:22:28] Amundsen, on the other hand, wasn’t even meant to be there, but he still got there first, planting his flag and claiming the title for himself and his country.
[00:22:42] There are no doubt many lessons one can take from this, but the one perhaps lighthearted one that I’ll leave you with is this: never bet against a Norwegian on skis.
[00:22:56] OK then, that is it for today's episode on the Race to the North Pole.
[00:23:01] I hope it's been an interesting one, and even if you knew about this story before, well I hope it was fun to revisit it.
[00:23:09] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:23:12] We do actually have a fair share of listeners in Norway, so tell me, what is the modern legacy of Roald Amundsen?
[00:23:19] Oh, and if you liked this episode and you would like some more on Arctic or Antarctic exploration, be sure to check out episode number 398 on Ernest Shackleton and the one before this, episode 417 on the race to the North Pole.
[00:23:35] And if you want some African exploration, check out the mini-series we just made on the quest to find the source of the River Nile.
[00:23:42] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:23:48] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:00] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about the race to the South Pole.
[00:00:26] It is the most amazing story of success, failure against the odds, bravery, bad luck, honour, courage and exploration.
[00:00:36] OK then, The Race To The South Pole.
[00:00:42] On the 16th of January, 1912, a group of five men pushed forward, their snowshoes crunching on the ice below.
[00:00:53] They were in Antarctica, at the bottom of the world, and despite it being “summer” the weather was particularly bad.
[00:01:03] Temperatures had got to minus thirty, and the blistering wind made it feel even colder.
[00:01:11] What’s more, the men were exhausted. They had been trudging across Antarctica for two and a half months, their supplies were running low, and luck had not been on their side.
[00:01:25] But in the distance, one of the men spotted something.
[00:01:30] It was simultaneously exactly what they were looking for and the thing they feared most in the world.
[00:01:39] They saw a flag fluttering in the distance.
[00:01:44] It was the South Pole, the point of the map that these five men had risked their lives to reach.
[00:01:51] But the very existence of a flag in this most pristine and untouched corner of the world made their stomachs sink.
[00:02:00] Someone had got there first.
[00:02:03] The men pressed forward, and a day later they reached the pole. They unzipped a tent that marked the spot, and in it they found a letter addressed to the King of Norway.
[00:02:18] The letter was from Roald Amundsen, the explorer the men had been racing to the pole. In the letter, Amundsen politely asked the party leader of his opponents, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, to deliver it to the Norwegian king.
[00:02:35] Scott would later write in his diary “Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority. Well, it is something to have got here, and the wind may be our friend to-morrow. Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it.”
[00:02:59] The British had been beaten by the Norwegians, against all the odds.
[00:03:05] But, perhaps surprisingly, the team that came in second place would be remembered as brave and heroic explorers, while the victors would be called cheats and frauds.
[00:03:19] Now, you might have already known that the Norwegians won the race, but the story of how and why is far more interesting than the end result.
[00:03:29] So, let me start with some brief background.
[00:03:33] Antarctica, as you will know, is the vast icy continent at the bottom of the world. It has a landmass of 14 million kilometres squared, so it’s about 40% larger than Europe.
[00:03:48] And in the coldest months of the year, the sea around the landmass also freezes, more than doubling the size of the ice, and covering up to 34 million kilometres squared, an area larger than Africa.
[00:04:05] The point is, in case you didn’t know, Antarctica is absolutely vast.
[00:04:11] But as to the question of how vast it was, well people simply didn’t know. They didn’t even know that it existed.
[00:04:21] Going back thousands of years, philosophers and geographers have hypothesised about the existence of some large cold continent, a frozen land that “balanced” the warmer areas of the world.
[00:04:36] But until 1820, there is no record of anybody having seen it.
[00:04:42] Even getting close was a dangerous affair, with the 18th century British explorer Captain James Cook writing “I will not say it was impossible anywhere to get in among this ice, but I will assert that the bare attempting of it would be a very dangerous enterprise”.
[00:05:02] But “dangerous enterprise” would be no obstacle for many 19th century explorers.
[00:05:08] Indeed, if it wasn’t dangerous, it almost wasn’t worth doing, to some kind of explorers at least.
[00:05:15] And efforts to explore the Antarctic started in the early 20th century.
[00:05:21] French, British, German and Swedish parties all set foot on the icy continent, but the missions were primarily scientific, for information-gathering purposes rather than to make it all the way across.
[00:05:38] One mission, which took place between 1901 and 1904, was led by a British explorer called Robert Falcon Scott. It was literally called "Discovery Expedition", which gives you some idea of its purpose.
[00:05:55] As a quick side note, one of the men on this mission was Ernest Shackleton, whose attempt to cross Antarctica you can learn about in episode number 398.
[00:06:07] This Discovery Mission would be cut short, but a decade later, and fully prepared, Scott was ready to try again.
[00:06:17] Robert Falcon Scott was an accomplished explorer, and he had managed to secure a grant of £20,000, partially from the British Royal Geographical Society and partially from private institutions. Adjusted for inflation, this is over €2 million in today's money.
[00:06:40] And he put all the money to use.
[00:06:43] He bought motorised sleds, which were completely state of the art and untested equipment at the time.
[00:06:51] He also brought 19 Siberian ponies with him, as these beasts would be charged with pulling the sleds containing all of the party’s supplies.
[00:07:01] He brought a lot of stuff, and even before he got to Antarctica, he realised that he might have overpacked somewhat, he might have brought a bit too much stuff.
[00:07:14] The ship the party travelled in was so crowded and overladen that it almost capsized multiple times, with the weight of the ponies and all the supplies causing it to sway from side to side.
[00:07:28] The ship had set off from Britain, in June of 1910, with a planned stop in Australia before heading further south and landing in Antarctica.
[00:07:39] Unfortunately, when Scott arrived in Australia, he found some bad news waiting for him.
[00:07:47] This bad news came in the form of a telegram. It read:
[00:07:53] "Beg leave to inform. Fram heading south.”
[00:07:58] The telegram was simply signed with the surname: “Amundsen.
[00:08:03] Scott’s heart sank.
[00:08:06] The author of the telegram, Roald Amundsen, was a Norwegian explorer who was famous in his own right for having successfully navigated the Northwest passage, the bit of the Arctic Circle that connects the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.
[00:08:22] Fram was his ship.
[00:08:25] And Scott knew that “heading south” could only mean one thing. Amundsen had his sights on the South Pole.
[00:08:35] This came as quite a surprise to Scott, as he thought that Amundsen was heading to the North Pole.
[00:08:43] In fact, the decision to head south, not north, also came as a surprise to the men on Amundsen’s boat, as they too had thought they were heading north not south.
[00:08:56] Amundsen had initially planned to go north, and had raised a not insignificant amount of money to try to reach the North Pole, but as he was on his way he had received news that an American party had got there first.
[00:09:12] By the way, if you’d like to listen to that story, about the race to the North Pole, we covered that in our last episode, and if you haven’t listened to that one yet, that story is just as interesting and exciting as this one.
[00:09:25] Anyway, when Amundsen heard that someone had already got to the North Pole, he immediately changed tack, quite literally, and headed south instead.
[00:09:36] The race was on.
[00:09:39] But it wasn’t quite a case of racing to Antarctica and then racing to the pole.
[00:09:45] The competing parties both arrived in January of 1911. January might be a mild month by Antarctic standards, but the groups knew that it could take several months to get to the pole and back. Even if they were ready to go immediately when they arrived in January, which they weren’t, this would have meant risking returning in the depths of Antarctic winter, and you don’t need to be an Antarctic explorer to know that this was a bad idea if you wanted to get back alive.
[00:10:18] The groups set up their camps, and by September of the following year, they were ready to go.
[00:10:26] At least, Amundsen was ready to go, and his party left on September 8th of 1911.
[00:10:34] But the Norwegians had jumped the gun, they left while it was still bitterly cold, and they were forced to return back to base and wait for the temperature to rise.
[00:10:47] It took more than a month, and on October 19th, with four sledges and fifty two dogs, the Norwegians set off south.
[00:10:58] Scott, on the other hand, waited until November 1st.
[00:11:03] Now, it’s worth spending a moment talking about the two approaches, as the British and the Norwegians took different routes and employed very different strategies.
[00:11:15] They both set off from a similar kind of area, the Ross Ice Shelf, which is to the south of New Zealand.
[00:11:23] Well, it’s about 3,500 kilometres from New Zealand, but New Zealand is the closest sizable piece of land.
[00:11:32] The major difference in terms of route was that Scott’s team took a slightly longer route, but a route that was partially known, as Scott had experience of this area from his earlier expedition.
[00:11:47] Amundsen, on the other hand, planned to take a shorter but untested route. Yes, they might get there faster, but they had no idea what they might come across on their way.
[00:12:01] In terms of their approaches, on paper, in theory, Scott was much better prepared. He had raised much more money, he had expensive equipment, and he enjoyed the full support of the British government.
[00:12:17] Amundsen, on the other hand, had raised a relatively small amount of money. He had no fancy equipment, his strategy was centred on one thing and one thing only: dogs.
[00:12:31] Or rather, 100 dogs, which would be used to pull the sleds.
[00:12:36] And if you’re thinking, hang on, didn’t you say “52 dogs” a few minutes ago, yes, I’ll get to the reason why those two numbers are different in a minute.
[00:12:45] Scott’s idea was to use ponies, horses, and as you heard, he brought 19 of them on his expedition.
[00:12:55] Clearly, on normal terrain, a horse will prove more useful than a dog. It’s stronger, it can carry more and it can walk for longer distances.
[00:13:06] But Antarctica is the opposite of “normal terrain”, and Scott soon came to regret his decision.
[00:13:14] He found that his ponies were a lot slower, and their weight meant that their hooves got stuck in the snow. To try to counter this, Scott’s party travelled at night, when the temperature dropped and the snow was icier and stronger, but clearly travelling at night comes with its own share of problems.
[00:13:37] And what of the three motorised sleds that Scott had brought with him?
[00:13:42] One had fallen into the ice when it was being unloaded from the ship, and the other two proved to be unreliable, actually slowing down Scott’s party instead of speeding it up.
[00:13:55] Amundsen’s choice to use dogs was simple and smart.
[00:14:00] Dogs' paws didn’t sink into the snow, they were well-used to these conditions. Dogs were also much more self-reliant; in the evenings they would huddle down together, so the Norwegian party didn’t need to build shelters for them, unlike Scott’s party had to do for his horses.
[00:14:21] Dogs were also much easier to feed.
[00:14:24] They ate whatever meat the men gave them, seal, canned meat, and even…each other.
[00:14:32] Now, this might sound a bit grisly, but let me tell you another one of the advantages of using dogs.
[00:14:41] When a dog got tired or sick, instead of carrying it or even leaving it to die, Amundsen’s party would shoot it, chop it up and feed it to the other dogs, who would wolf down their former companion without complaint.
[00:14:58] In fact, of the 100 dogs that set off to Antarctica, only 19 remained, the others returned but only in the bellies of their colleagues.
[00:15:09] Even Amundsen’s favourite dog, Helga, was not spared this fate, although it was allowed to limp on to the South Pole, so it got the glory of reaching that destination before being shot and fed to its companions.
[00:15:24] And if you might be thinking that this is some kind of cruel behaviour that was unique to Amundsen and the Norwegians, Scott and his crew did exactly the same thing to their dogs, the only reason that fewer dogs died in the British party was because they had fewer dogs to start with.
[00:15:43] And if you are wondering whether Scott’s ponies might have escaped this treatment, nope, they were shot when the party arrived at a tall glacier that the ponies were unable to climb.
[00:15:54] Moving on to a less grisly topic, another advantage that Amundsen’s party had was that everyone in his group was an excellent skier, so they were both able to go faster and use less energy than going by foot.
[00:16:11] As a result, the Norwegians arrived at the South Pole on December 14th, 1911, a mere 56 days after they set off, or 98 days if we’re counting the false start.
[00:16:25] It was a very business-like affair.
[00:16:28] Get to the pole as quickly as possible, raise the Norwegian flag, take a photo, shoot the favourite dog, and then hurry back.
[00:16:37] Even though the Norwegians were relieved to have won the race to the pole, they were still concerned that the British might get to the pole and then return to their ship first, potentially even casting doubt on the Norwegian claims.
[00:16:52] Fortunately, or unfortunately if you’re on Team GB here, the British had been making very poor progress. They had stopped off to try to take scientific measurements and even collect the egg of an emperor penguin.
[00:17:09] Supplies were running low, morale was low, and to make matters worse, several team members were starting to experience the symptoms of what looked like it might be scurvy, the disease you get that’s caused by a deficiency in vitamin C.
[00:17:26] In fact, the Norwegians had nothing to worry about. When the British explorers did arrive at the pole and see the Norwegian flag, the Norwegians were practically back at their boat, ready to sail home again.
[00:17:41] Of course, Scott and his crew had no way of knowing this, but what they did know was that they now had to make the 1,500 kilometre or so return trip.
[00:17:54] They managed to travel a few hundred kilometres and get off the Antarctic continent, but as soon as they got back onto the Ross Ice Shelf, things turned from bad to worse.
[00:18:08] A man called Edgar Evans, who was considered to be the strongest by Scott, was the first to get scurvy.
[00:18:17] Combined with the frostbite that was affecting all five of the men, the last of Evans’ strength disappeared.
[00:18:25] He collapsed, and was left behind by the men while they pushed ahead to the next supply depot.
[00:18:32] The four others returned to find him, but Scott would write that he found Evans with a “wild look in his eyes”.
[00:18:42] Evans knew that death was swiftly approaching, and later that evening, on February 17th, he took his last breath.
[00:18:52] The five were down to four, and they still had several hundred kilometres to go in one of the most inhospitable climates in the world.
[00:19:03] The four remaining men pushed on, but one member, Captain Lawrence Oates, was suffering terribly from scurvy.
[00:19:13] The deficiency in vitamin C was causing an old war wound in his leg to open up. He was in agony, and he knew that his chances of returning home alive were minimal.
[00:19:27] On the evening of March 17th, on his 32nd birthday, in the middle of a huge blizzard, he stepped out of his tent.
[00:19:38] Scott would recall that his last words to his team mates were “I am just going outside and may be some time”.
[00:19:48] Of course, the three remaining explorers knew what Oates was doing, he was sacrificing himself so that he would not be a burden to the others.
[00:19:59] They did not try to stop him, and the body of Captain Oates has never been found.
[00:20:06] Five were now three. They were getting closer to home.
[00:20:11] In fact, they were only 18 kilometres away from the next supply depot.
[00:20:17] But those 18 kilometres must have felt like an eternity, an impossible distance for three men who were at their physical limit.
[00:20:29] On March 29th, 1912, they got into their sleeping bags in their tent, and wrote their final goodbyes.
[00:20:39] Scott’s last diary entry read:
[00:20:42] “We shall stick it out until the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.
[00:20:49] It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.”
[00:20:54] And in a letter that was addressed to the British public, he wrote “Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale.”
[00:21:17] End quote.
[00:21:19] It’s believed that the three explorers closed their eyes that evening, and never opened them again. Their bodies were discovered, one next to the other, in November of that year, 7 and a half months afterwards.
[00:21:35] In the meantime, Roald Amundsen had returned and won fame and glory for becoming the first person to reach the South Pole.
[00:21:44] In fact, this was just one of Roald Amundsen’s achievements. The others included the navigation of the Northwest Passage, the Northeast passage, then floating over the North Pole in an airship in 1926.
[00:21:57] And he too, like Scott in 1912 and many more before and after them, he too would die an icy death, his plane disappearing in the freezing Barents Sea in 1928.
[00:22:13] So, there you go, the Race to the South Pole.
[00:22:16] On some level, Scott should have easily won. He set off first, he was much better funded, he had the full apparatus of the British state behind him.
[00:22:28] Amundsen, on the other hand, wasn’t even meant to be there, but he still got there first, planting his flag and claiming the title for himself and his country.
[00:22:42] There are no doubt many lessons one can take from this, but the one perhaps lighthearted one that I’ll leave you with is this: never bet against a Norwegian on skis.
[00:22:56] OK then, that is it for today's episode on the Race to the North Pole.
[00:23:01] I hope it's been an interesting one, and even if you knew about this story before, well I hope it was fun to revisit it.
[00:23:09] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:23:12] We do actually have a fair share of listeners in Norway, so tell me, what is the modern legacy of Roald Amundsen?
[00:23:19] Oh, and if you liked this episode and you would like some more on Arctic or Antarctic exploration, be sure to check out episode number 398 on Ernest Shackleton and the one before this, episode 417 on the race to the North Pole.
[00:23:35] And if you want some African exploration, check out the mini-series we just made on the quest to find the source of the River Nile.
[00:23:42] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:23:48] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
