At last! The true hero of polar exploration has been honoured with this statue outside the Scott Polar Museum in Cambridge's Lensfield Road. As the poet Les Barker explains, (and you can hear the entire poem, recited by the entire poet, here) Amundsen wasn't the first to reach the South Pole....
It was an elementary mistake
That put Roald out of the hunt
How can the man at the back of the sledge
Beat the dog he has tied to the front?
How can the man at the back of the sledge
Beat the dog he has tied to the front?
Quite so, Mr Barker, quite so.
When the poet Thomas Gray (yes, he who elergised in the country churchyard) was at Peterhouse College he found himself sharing a corridor with some frequently noisy and drunken revellers. Their late-night homecomings filled the delicate poet with dread and he imagined that they might easily upset a candle and set fire to the building. Gray therefore ordered a rope ladder "full thirty-six feet long and fitted with hooks" to be delivered. He then had an iron bar fixed outside his window from which to hang his means of escape. All this did not go unnoticed by his neighbours and early one morning a group of them assembled outside and loudly shouted "Fire!", hoping to see the poet making his escape in his nightshirt.
In the event Gray realised what was happening so the prank failed. However the story was told and re-told till the story ran that he had not only descended, but had fallen into a large vat of cold water placed there for the purpose. These lies became so widespread that they even appeared in a well-respected biography.
Gray left Peterhouse soon after and went across the road to Pembroke College. But the iron bar is still there for anyone walking down Trumpington Street to see.
In And Out Of The Eagle
The Eagle pub in Bene't Street is very old indeed. An inn has stood on the site since at least 1353 and it was certainly known as the Eagle And Child in 1525. As you might expect with a building as old as this there are many stories of ghosts. A few hundred years ago a fire raged through part of one of the upper floors and a child, unable to open the window, perished in the flames. Ever since that day the window has been left open, as you can see at the top-centre of the photo above.
But that was not what my friends and I were thinking about when we gathered there in the early 1970s. Neither were we aware that Francis Crick and James D Watson had compared notes there and even chose it as the place to announce the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA.
I do vaguely remember glancing up at the ceiling in the bar though, which was "decorated" with the names and squadron numbers of British and American pilots who relaxed here during World War II.
Pitt's Pizzas
This strange "Greek temple" in Jesus Lane is the headquarters of The Pitt Club, named after Prime Minister William Pitt The Younger and one of the most exclusive University clubs. Its aim originally was to ensure that the right sort of people got elected to parliament - by which they meant Tories.
However their precious "market forces" led them to rent a large part of the building to Pizza Express, though no commercial signage has been allowed. One can almost see the likeness of Pitt, which is above the door, turning up his not inconsiderable nose at the smell of pizza wafting from below.
Back In The Doghouse
A sand-sculptor adds the finishing touches to a hound in repose. This man was in Cambridge for several days and every time I saw him he was re-creating exactly the same sculpture. Now he seems to have moved on elsewhere.
Take care.
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