Rock the boat

On this day in 1909 Ernest Shackleton, leading the Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, planted the British flag 97 nautical miles from the South Pole, the furthest South anyone had ever reached at that time.

It was on a later Shackleton expedition to Antarctica, in 1921, that Orcadian Norman Erland Mooney was appointed as cabin boy on board the Quest. Norman was one of two boy scouts chosen from over 1000 to accompany the expedition, the other boy coming from Aberdeen. Unfortunately the ship did not have an easy voyage, encountering heavy gales as they left England which continued throughout the first leg of the journey through the Bay of Biscay to Lisbon. Suffering severely from seasickness the initial word was that 16 year old Mooney would leave the ship there and return home but the plucky (some might say completely crazy!) youngster stayed on board for the next leg to Madeira. But the seas got worse and on reaching Madeira the doctor decided that enough was enough and sent Norman home. Shackleton himself sent Norman's parents a telegram declaring "regret necessary action solely in boys interest, he was always willing".

D49/1/3 - Telegram from Sir Ernest Shackleton to Mr. and Mrs. John Mooney, Kirkwall

This wasn't the end of Norman Mooney's adventurous ways. In 1929 he passed the Colonial Survey examination and received an appointment in Nigeria as a mining surveyor.

It's the Final Countdown! Doo roo doo doo, Doo roo doo doo doo.

There are only hours left until the first day of the rest of your life i.e. the first day of Orkney Library & Archive's Discovery Week 2010. Tomorrow is also World Book Day so those few non-Orcadians who read this blog (thanks guys) can celebrate by reading or dressing up as a book.

Downstairs in the library, sale books are being humphed, displays titivated and home-bake recipes pondered. But what is happening in the archives?

Lions... aeroplanes... skyscrapers... huskies & igloos... revolution... petitions...war....ritual charcoal and nudity related humiliation at the hands of South Sea islanders.... Our Archive Discovery World Traill has all these great things and more.

There are two levels to the Traill; Explorer and Traveller. The winner of the Traveller's prize draw will win this brilliant book. The triumphant Explorer will take home not only this awesome tome, but a book of Great Explorer themed pop up board games that is so amazing, we will not post an image of it for fear that it will BLOW YOUR MINDS.

Discovery week starts tomorrow with the Traill, Book amnesty, photo quizzes, children's stories and craft with Britt Harcus at 4.00pm and Tom Muir's storytelling from 5.30 - 6.30pm in the MacGillivray Room on the first floor.

Our manager shall be hanging the Discovery Week banners outside this afternoon in a death-defying, fathers for justice-style crawl along the front of the building. Come along to laugh/cheer/boo, whatever comes naturally.