Katherine McInnes (16:45)

Heroes of their age, Robert Falcon Scott and the men of his ill-fated South Pole expedition in which all perished, endured tremendous hardships to further the reputation of the empire they served. They left behind five women forced into the public eye by tragedy, and in a remarkable feat of historical reconstruction with a gripping narrative voice, Katherine McInnes retells the story of their lives, loves and losses.

Kathleen Scott campaigned relentlessly for her husband’s reputation; Oriana Wilson, wife of the expedition’s doctor, understood more than most what the men faced in Antarctica; Caroline Oates openly snubbed the King’s invitations to celebrate the expedition; ‘Empire’ Emily Bowers and her son Birdie were ‘more than just mother and son’, they were firm friends; and Lois Evans, constantly on the edge of poverty, had to endure the media’s classist assertions that her husband, the sole ‘Jack Tar’ in a band of officers, must have been responsible for the party’s downfall.

In conversation with Sheena McDonald

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