An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor (45 page)

His fondness for his family also extended beyond the living and, around this time, Crean did something unusual. He personally built a large tomb for past and present members of his family in the little cemetery at Ballynacourty, a quiet but historic spot alongside the Anascaul River up the hill from Anascaul and not far from his birthplace at Gurtuchrane. Ballynacourty once stood at the crossroads of various pathways across the surrounding hills and tradition has it that it was once the site of an ancient Brehon law court.

Crean was doing more than returning to his Irish roots in building his own tomb at Ballynacourty. It was a powerfully symbolic gesture which showed how much Crean had come to terms with his own mortality. The man who had faced death on many occasions in his perilous Polar career now faced his final journey with the same equanimity. The tomb survives to this day.

But his peaceful, contented life came to an abrupt halt in the summer of 1938. At around the time of his birthday on 20 July, Crean suddenly complained about severe stomach pains and began to vomit. He was taken to hospital in Tralee, about 16 miles from Anascaul, where acute appendicitis was quickly diagnosed. But there was no surgeon available at Tralee to perform the necessary operation and Crean was transferred to
the Bon Secours Hospital, Cork, over 75 miles away, where his appendix was removed.

The delay was fatal. Crean’s appendix had perforated and infection set in. The seemingly indestructible character had been felled by an illness which today is usually treated as a relatively minor problem.

He drifted in and out of consciousness for a week, with Nell in permanent vigil at his bedside as he clung to life. Tom Crean lapsed into unconsciousness for the last time and died on 27 July 1938, exactly a week after his sixty-first birthday. Nell was at his side.

The funeral a week later was among the biggest ever witnessed at Anascaul. He had commanded particular respect among the villagers and they were intent on paying a special homage. After a solemn requiem mass, Crean’s body was proudly carried on the shoulders of friends and old naval comrades in a long relay from Anascaul church through the village and over a mile up the hill to the tiny cemetery at Ballynacourty overlooking the Kerry hills.

He was laid alongside daughter Kate and other members of the Crean family in the tomb he had built with his own hands. Around his neck Tom Crean was still wearing the scapular which had been with him all his life.

One of the host of floral tributes came from Admiral Sir E.R.G.R. Evans, better known as Teddy Evans. The tribute of porcelain flowers, set in a clear glass case, contained a simple heartfelt message which read:

A few feet away from Tom Crean’s last resting place the peaceful Anascaul River flows gently down the hill and past the South Pole Inn.

T
om Crean’s memory has not been allowed to fade away, particularly among the devotees of polar exploration history and especially in Kerry where they are rightly proud of his achievements.

The South Pole Inn, for many, remains a notable commemoration of Crean. The pub will forever be associated with Crean and, like the man himself, it has a colourful history. Nell Crean kept the South Pole Inn for ten years after Tom’s death, finally selling the pub in 1948 when she was 67 years of age.

By coincidence, 1948 was also a year in which Nell and her daughters briefly relived part of Crean’s exploits on the
Terra Nova
expedition when they travelled to Cork to watch an early showing of Charles Friend’s reverential film,
Scott of the Antarctic
. Tom Crean was portrayed by John Gregson and sitting alongside the three women in the cinema was Robert Forde, the Petty Officer from Cork who had served with Crean on Scott’s last expedition almost four decades earlier.

Nell lived until she was 86 and, when she died in 1968, was buried alongside Tom in the family tomb he had built at Ballynacourty. Tom’s daughters, Mary and Eileen, married two brothers called O’Brien who had their own building business. After moving a few miles to Tralee, Mary and Eileen had their own houses built next to each other. Appropriately one is called
‘Terra Nova’ and the other ‘Discovery’. Perhaps if young Kate had lived her home would have been called ‘Endurance’…

The pub had mixed fortunes after passing from Nell’s hands in 1948. The celebrated director, David Lean, came to Anascaul in the late 1960s when making the film
Ryan’s Daughter
and bought the pile of stones from the old forge that had originally stood on the site of the South Pole Inn. The stones, which had been collected by Crean when he was building the pub in the 1920s, were used by Lean to help construct authentic Irish cottages for the film sets.

But the pub itself changed hands several times in the years following Nell’s retirement and became badly run down before finally closing in 1987. It remained empty for about five years but was then happily restored by the new owner, Tom Kennedy, a distant relative of Crean’s mother. After considerable refurbishment, the South Pole Inn is now thriving once again and serving the people of Anascaul and passing tourists alike.

A further recognition of Crean’s exploits came in 1987 when his daughters and relatives from around the world attended a simple ceremony to unveil the memorial plaque, which still stands above the doorway of the South Pole Inn.

Sir Edmund Hillary, the great twentieth-century adventurer who shared a birthday with Crean, opened an exhibition on the Irishman’s life at the Kerry County Museum in Tralee. The display contains his many Antarctic medals, some photographs, a few letters, a naval uniform and ceremonial sword, and the silver tea service which Shackleton generously gave the Irishman on his wedding in 1917.

Another more ambitious attempt to commemorate Crean’s life came in 1997. A team of five leading Irish mountain climbers and sailors attempted to follow in the footsteps of Crean, Shackleton and Worsley by sailing 800 miles (1,300 km) across the Southern Ocean from Elephant Island to South Georgia and then repeating the famous crossing of the island.

Their boat was named
Tom Crean
in special remembrance of the Kerryman. Unfortunately, the violence of the Southern Ocean defeated the party and after overturning three times in ferocious Force 10 storms, the
Tom Crean
had to be abandoned.

Perhaps the most touching tribute to Tom Crean is to be found in the family of Teddy Evans. Evans never forgot the man who saved his life in Antarctica. Years after the heroic rescue, he framed one of Ponting’s photographs of a smiling Crean and placed it in a prominent spot in his home as a constant reminder of an outstanding man. Today the photograph still holds pride of place in the home of Broke Evans, son of Teddy Evans.

But the most permanent celebrations of Tom Crean can be found in his adopted home of Antarctica. The four-mile long Crean Glacier on South Georgia and Mount Crean, which rises 8,360 ft (2,550 m) above Victoria Land on the Antarctic mainland, will forever perpetuate the memory of polar exploration’s unsung hero.

1.
Steve MacDonogh,
The Dingle Peninsula
, p37.

2.
Royal Navy service record.

3.
Ibid
.

4.
Ibid
.

5.
Ibid
.

6.
Quoted Denis Barry,
Capuchin Annual
, 1952.

7.
RN service record.

8.
Ibid
.

1.
Sir Clements Markham,
Antarctic Obsession
, p1.

2.
Robert Scott,
The Voyage of the
Discovery, p24.

3.
Ibid
, p66.

4.
Tom Crean, Royal Navy service record.

5.
Log book, HMS
Ringarooma
, 29 November 1901, PRO.

6.
Ibid
.

7.
Robert Scott, letter to RGS, 18 December 1901, RGS.

8.
Ibid
.

9.
Ibid
.

10.
Markham,
Antarctic Obsession
, p90.

11.
Ibid
, p175.

12.
Log of HMS
Ringarooma
, 19 December 1901, PRO.

13.
Scott to RGS, 18 December 1901, RGS.

1.
Robert Scott,
The Voyage of the Discovery
, p84.

2.
William Lashly,
Under Scott’s Command: Lashly’s Antarctic
Diaries
, pp19–20.

3.
Scott,
The Voyage of the
Discovery, p84.

4.
Lashly,
Under Scott’s Command
, p20.

5.
James Duncan, Antarctic journal, McMG.

6.
Scott,
The Voyage of the
Discovery, p86.

7.
Duncan, McMG.

8.
Scott,
The Voyage of the
Discovery, p98.

9.
L.C. Bernacchi,
Saga of the
Discovery, p27.

10.
Ibid
.

11.
Thomas Williamson, Antarctic diary, SPRI.

12.
Frank Wild, papers, SPRI.

13.
Lashly,
Under Scott’s Command
, p21.

14.
Scott,
The Voyage of the
Discovery.

15.
Williamson, diary SPRI.

1.
British National Antarctic Expedition records, RGS.

2.
Robert Scott,
The Voyage of the
Discovery, p170.

3.
Louis C. Bernacchi,
Saga of the
Discovery, p40.

4.
James Duncan, Antarctic journal, McMG.

1.
Michael Barne, Antarctic diary, SPRI.

2.
Robert Scott,
The Voyage of the
Discovery, p466.

3.
Ibid
.

4.
Barne, diary.

5.
Ibid
.

6.
Scott, p539.

7.
Louis Bernacchi,
Saga of the
Discovery p107.

8.
William Lashly,
Under Scott’s Command
, p64.

9.
Scott, pp566–7.

10.
Barne, diary.

11.
Charles Ford, diary SPRI.

12.
Ibid
.

13.
Scott, p667.

14.
Ibid
, p672.

1.
British National Antarctic Expedition records, RGS.

2.
Tom Crean, Certificate of Service, Royal Navy.

3.
BNAE records, RGS.

4.
Ibid
.

5.
Crean letter to R. Scott, 10 October 1905, SPRI.

6.
Crean, RN service record.

7.
Recorded in several books and based on memorandum from Dr Edward Atkinson among papers for the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910–13.

8.
Ibid
.

9.
Robert Scott letter to Crean, 23 March 1910.

10.
Sue Limb & Patrick Cordingley,
Captain Oates: Soldier & Explorer
, quoted from recollection by Oates’ sister, Violet Oates, p95.

1.
Victor Campbell, diary, 29 November 1911,
The Wicked Mate
.

2.
Robert Scott, diary, 25 December 1910 (Quotations are taken from the facsimile edition,
The Diaries of Captain Robert Scott
).

3.
William Lashly,
Under Scott’s Command: Lashly’s Antarctic Diaries
, p20.

4.
Scott, diary, 2 February 1911.

5.
Tryggve Gran,
The Norwegian With Scott
, p52.

6.
Apsley Cherry-Garrard,
The Worst Journey in the World
, p154.

7. Cherry-Garrard, quoting Henry ‘Birdie’ Bowers, p183.

8.
Ibid
, p186.

9.
Ibid
, p196.

10.
Scott, diary 3 March 1911.

11.
Gran, diary, 1 March 1911.

12.
Polar Record, 3 (17): 78–79, SPRI (1939).

13.
Scott, diary 19 April 1911.

14.
Cherry-Garrard, p217.

1.
Tryggve Gran,
The Norwegian With Scott
, p89.

2.
Ibid
, p114.

3.
Robert Scott, diary, October 1911.

1.
Edward Wilson,
The Diary of the ‘Terra Nova’ Expedition
, 29 October, 1911.