Cold Hands Warm Heart E-Book

Tess Burrows

• Herausgeber: Eye Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 394

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

A 60-year old woman's incredible attempt to race to the South Pole, carrying a call for compassion. A grandmother of two, Tess Burrows came to climbing late in life when she found her true calling in campaigning for the Tibetan cause. Here, she races to the South Pole to promote world peace. She not only learns to push the limits of the human body, but also to push out the reaches of the human spirit. She and her partner, Pete, join the historic South Pole race to compete with Olympic champion James Cracknell and Ben Fogle. To complete this mission they have to battle severe medical problems, lack of money, hardship, and deprivation. For Tess it is more than combating cold hands with a warm heart, it is also a journey to push past the influences of the human mind.

Leseprobe

Published by Eye Books Ltd 2010

29 Barrow Street

Much Wenlock

Shropshire

TF13 6EN

Tel. [phone]

www.eye-books.com

ISBN: 9781903070789

Copyright 2010 Tess Burrows

Design by Emily Atkins

Edited by Martha Ellen Zenfell

The events and opinions in this book originate from the author.

The publisher accepts no responsibility for their accuracy.

The moral right of Tess Burrows to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Printed and bound in Great Britain.

eyeOpener

Eye Books publishes books that record the travels of people who set out on adventures that not only test their physical and mental strengths, but more importantly change the way they look at the world. Sometimes these stories go beyond uncovering physical or spiritual reward, and instead become missions to achieve a greater good, and alter the perceptions of many along the way.

Travelling requires us all to carry something. On the road we take with us what belongings we need for the journey and our personal experiences which we use as guides to interpret every new place we encounter. Along with these things Tess Burrows takes with her an extra piece of luggage – a message of hope, peace and understanding that is amplified by the hundreds of Peace Messages she intends to deliver on her expedition.

Cold Hands, Warm Heart is more than the account of a sixty-year old woman’s incredible attempt to race to the South Pole, but also the tale of that same woman carrying a collective call for compassion through elements too daunting for most of us to withstand. Tess not only tests her strength and will by exposing herself to constant physical duress and extreme temperatures, but also by adding the expectations of those who have entrusted her with delivering their Peace Messages. Yet it is within her promise to transport those messages that she finds the power to endure endless bodily strain, Cold Hands, and her warm internal spirit is the insulation shielding her from unbearably treacherous cold and the harsh wind chill, Warm Heart.

With her quest to reach the South Pole Tess demonstrates that the journey can be about more than individual gains or enlightenment. She does not travel as one person within a group but as the embodiment of all those who spur her onward in hopes of raising awareness for the Earth and creating a better life for the children of the Earth.

It is our goal in publishing stories like Tess’ that Eye Books challenges the way we see things. It is our hope that our readers will open their eyes to new places and experiences that differ from what they would ordinarily find. With this book you can join in on the shared journey that is already taking place on every snow covered path and at the turn of every page.

Dan Hiscocks Publisher Eye Books

www.eye-books.com

Dedication

With love for my granddaughters, Elsie and Bess, and all the children of the world,

for their future on this Earth, in peace and in harmony.

Contents

Foreword

Map

Letter of Introduction

Antarctic Christmas

Unfinished Business

Heart Song

Commitment

New Life

Impossible

No Way Norway

Quickening of the Heart

Out on the Pull

In the Lap of the Gods

Wings of the Messenger

Holding the Nerve

The Emperor

Cape of Good Hope

Ilyushin Illusion

Russian Roulette

Of Penguins and Pensioners

March of the People

Gathering of Fear

New Year Messages

Waiting Game

Go!

Shining Lights

Cracking of the Shell

Egbert the Ego

Senior Handicap

Cold Hands

The Struggle Holds the Pearl

Warm Heart

Pulling for Peace

The End

And Beyond

Peace Messages

This page marker is a sketch of an ice crystal at the South Pole, illustrating harmonious six-sided configuration.

Foreword

by Sir Ranulph Fiennes O.B.E. April 2009

Some things are timeless; like stories of adventure and endeavour which continue to stand out and stir the human heart. It particularly applies to those about people pushing out boundaries and attempting to make their seemingly impossible dreams come true.

This is one such account. It has a fairytale nature that touches us, saying – well, if a 60-year-old grandmother can set out on a quest to try and help the Earth by joining a race and walking to the South Pole, then it’s possible to find the energy to walk down the road, or the guts to keep going when there is pain, or the courage to knock on a neighbour’s door to offer help.

Each of us is on our own archetypal South Pole journey. We have setbacks and heartaches to cope with, blizzards and intense cold to survive, crevasses to avoid, exhaustion to overcome, relationships in times of stress to manage, higher ground to climb.

These pages offer inspiration to put in the extra mile, to keep striving, to work through the struggle and to believe in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They give a taste of “life on the edge” in the Antarctic, of the beauty and stark tranquillity of this precious wilderness, and, ultimately, an invitation to enjoy the race which we are all running anyway, the race for the peace and harmony of our planet.

Map of the Antarctic

Letter of Introduction

from Tess Burrows

Dear Reader,

I send you loving greetings. Each one of us lives on the Earth. This is our home. I passionately believe that it is possible for us all to exist here in a state of peace and harmony – not only with ourselves but also with the environment.

This is why my partner Pete and I run a small charitable organisation known as Climb For Tibet, supported by our chief patron His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

At a practical level we raise funds for the building of schools in Tibet. We also collect Peace Messages which both children and adults write for us in the form of prayers, wishes, hopes and pledges for the environment, in the spirit of individuals making a difference. We undertake to carry these to high places to speak them out. This is like the Tibetan tradition of flying Peace Messages on prayer flags from the highest places possible, as a way of sending blessings far and wide to reach all beings.

I believe that this, along with multitudes of other initiatives, large and small, is helping in the race for the peace and harmony of our world; that the cold hands of greed, separation and fear are being transformed by the warm heart of sharing, unity and love.

But if you felt that you wanted to try and take Peace Messages to the ends of the Earth, indeed to the South Pole, how would you ever go about it?

This is my story.

Tess

Antarctic Christmas

23rd December, 2008

The wind came in the night. We had gone to sleep with the sun blazing, filtering its orange glow through the side of the tent, comforting and even hot. I had stirred a few times, restless and aware of a sound, pulling my headband lower over my eyes and ears, not wanting to know. It was hard to get a sense of when it was morning in this land of continuous light, but the alarm hadn’t gone off. The clock we’d bought in Cape Town didn’t seem to work. Can’t say I blame it. It wasn’t designed for extreme cold, but for big soft beds, lazy cups of tea and books to read. We were relying on my explorer watch, though sometimes I sleep through that alarm. I felt for it on my wrist to touch its solid reality. It had been a gift to me from my tiny granddaughter holding my heart strings tight, far away on the other side of the world.

There’s that weird sound again. Was it a roar? No, more like an animal howling. Oh my goodness! My eyes shot open in fright. My blood raced and pounded through the veins. I sat up and instinctively moved closer to Pete. This was scary. The tent was shaking as though an unseen force had it in its teeth. The sides were flapping loudly. I shivered as fear took hold of my body, settling in as if it owned the place. There was a ferocious slooshing of snow outside and the wind was yelling. Then I saw it.

“Pete! Wake up. The tent’s caving in!”

The whole side near where he was lying was squashed in. Wind and snow together were forcing it down.

“The wind’s changed. It’s blowing from the east,” he said, now wide awake. “It was due south on the rear of the tent last night when we made camp. That’s a 90-degree shift.”

“What can we do about it?” My voice trembled as I tried to control it.

“Not a lot. But we’ll see how the new tent stands up to a side wind. This is a test of the design in these conditions. Don’t worry; it’ll be okay.”

Great. We were about to freeze to death and he was interested in the design. But, as always, there was something about Pete’s rock-like strength that calmed me. He was my knight-in-shining-armour, always there to protect me.

Just then, there was a muffled voice from outside. “You okay in there?” It was the Norwegian guide whom we had dubbed the Warrior (not because he’d walked to the North Pole eight times, but because of his Mohican haircut).

“Yeah, ‘cept the side’s caving in.”

“I’ll tighten the guy-lines. That’ll help. Tent down as usual. We’re leaving at 10am.”

We were going out in this weather?!

There was nothing for it but to go through the motions of breakfast and packing up. This process would take us more than two hours. Even though we had melted snow into water to fill up all the flasks and bottles last night, we still needed at least two litres of water for the porridge and drinks now. This meant that we had to melt more snow so that we could set out with six full containers. Then the stoves, so crucial to our survival, had to be packed away carefully, so that they weren’t bashed on whatever adventures the day’s journey might bring. And all the gear had to be ready to be stowed in the canoe-like sledges we pulled behind us – our pulks.

I fiddled about with what I was going to wear, procrastinating as long as I could. Once outside there would be little chance to change, especially in this blizzard. Taking anything off would not only give the wind an opportunity to blow it away but increase our vulnerability to cold. Anyway, doing anything with big gloves on wasn’t easy. At this stage – two days before Christmas – we were on the acclimatisation trek with the other racers, being guided through the worst of the crevasses. So it was useful to try out different combinations of kit to see what worked best as we needed to be as efficient as possible up on the plateau once the race itself started.

This was the South Pole Race. My pulse quickened even more at the thought of it. A race to the South Pole hadn’t been attempted for nearly a hundred years, since Robert F. Scott and Roald Amundsen set off in 1911. Everyone knew how that had ended; Captain Scott and his companions had not returned. Nobody knew now if this race was possible. How had I ever become involved in something so terrifying? Pete and I were one of the six teams taking part. When the race started, we would be faced with four weeks of long days pulling pulks across 500 miles of the world’s largest, coldest and emptiest ice sheets – the Antarctic.

Now we were confronting our first blizzard. Things could get a whole lot worse. Already I had fear seeping through every cell of my body. And hidden away somewhere in my mind were tales of 200 miles per hour katabatic winds, of tents ripping and blowing away, explorers falling into fathomless crevasses, unspeakable frostbite and gangrene… all bundled up into a knotted dread of the unknown. On top of that was the thought that once the race started, apart from one resupply checkpoint, Pete and I would be entirely on our own.

Trying to concentrate on the job at hand I chose my headwear – a silk balaclava and my windproof cap which had a Tibetan flag on it. I felt good in that; it always reminded me of our greater purpose. In my mind the flag was synonymous with peace. We were on a peace mission. We had collected 1,300 Peace Messages from individuals, including many children, promising to do all we could to take them to the South Pole to speak out. This is in the Tibetan spirit of flying Peace Messages on prayer flags from the highest places to send out blessings of peace and harmony to all beings. Thoughts of our mission gave me mental strength which I hoped was somehow going to see me through, along with other things, like wearing my cherry coloured neck warmer that I hadn’t taken off since arriving in the Antarctic. I had bought it with part of a shop voucher that my sons and their girlfriends had given me for my 60th birthday. It represented my connection with them all, a holding of closeness.

I pulled on my salopettes over thermals and a fleece. Then went through the foot process of thin and thick socks, followed by felt liners, boots that took ages to lace and the orange and maroon gaiters that I loved. This was followed by a windproof jacket and finally, goggles with a face mask flap, so that I had no skin exposed on my face. Finally, the hood of the jacket. It was all horribly claustrophobic; I could barely breathe or see.

At this stage, going outside was inescapable. We unzipped the tent’s inner and outer doors and chucked our gear into the little spot which was sheltered by its end. Today I was the last one out, so I rolled up the mats. Then it was a matter of transporting everything into the pulks. Except… where are the pulks? We definitely left them in this spot last night. Ah, I could just see the tops of the red covers poking out of the wild scene that greeted us. It may not snow much in the Antarctic, but that’s not to say there isn’t a lot of snow about. The wind picks up every bit it can and uses it as a battering ram against the slightest impediment in its path. Spindrift. This gradually builds up into huge piles.

The gale whacked into us as we grabbed the shovels and dug out the pulks. There would be a lot of extra snow to pull today as we hadn’t closed the pulk-covers very well last night and it was too hard to tip it all out now. Never mind. I went into a frenzy of packing the gear and then working on the tent, which had to be dug out and rolled up. Heaving a sigh of relief we fixed it to the top of Pete’s pulk.

From nowhere, Tony appeared. I had forgotten that the organisers and film crews would be camping discreetly nearby with the vehicles. “Well done, guys, good job.” Praise indeed from Tony, the organiser of the race. He was as tough as they come, an ex-commando logistics expert who had trained soldiers in Arctic warfare and police in Iraq. “Get inside your emergency shelter until everybody’s ready,” he ordered.

The emergency shelter was a round nylon sheet tied to the end of my pulk. When undone it started flapping madly trying to take off. After much wrestling we tamed it so that we could sit underneath on the end of the pulk with bits of the shelter secured by our boots. It was noisy but gave us a few minutes respite from the wind. Then I noticed how hot I was. Too many clothes on; I was steaming, but there was nothing I could do about it. The consequence was my goggles misted up so I could only see from one corner of my left eye. How annoying.

We compressed the emergency shelter back into its bag, put on our skis, attached harnesses and pulks and huddled together with everybody else to hear the instructions for the day.

“This is great weather isn’t it?” shouted the Warrior gleefully.

“‘Tis if you’re Norwegian,” Ben responded loudly to James and Ed. They were in the celebrity team, QinetiQ, which was being filmed for the BBC documentary On Thin Ice. I could see why Ben was a TV presenter. He always had a good comment for the cameras, even in these appalling conditions.

“Stay close together and keep an eye on those near you,” the Warrior said. “The still air temperature is only minus nine degrees Centigrade, but the wind speed of 35 miles per hour is bringing the wind chill down to minus 25°C. Stay covered up.”

I could only just hear him above the roar of the wind, but I needed no prompting to cover up. What’s it going to be like when it’s seriously cold? I knew that the coldest still air temperature ever recorded had been here in the Antarctic. A mind-blowing minus 89°C. Even if we experience only half of that it’s going to be nasty, especially with the wind chill.

My face was already really cold. This didn’t change throughout the day as we skied, although I found I had to work hard to hold the pace, battling the wind-driven snow coming awkwardly from the side. Soon I was sweating. I thought of the standard training advice: “You sweat, you die”, and hoped that this would be an exception. I was far too busy concentrating on keeping up with everyone to contemplate death just at the moment.

Stopping skiing was a nightmare. I became chilled immediately. The first break we put up our emergency shelter, which felt good when we were inside, but it took us so long to do it that there was no time left in the 10-minute break for eating. Gaz thoughtfully helped us take it down. He, Christian and Gary, of team Danske Bank, had put theirs up too and continued to do so successfully. It looked as though it was more easily done in a team of three. The only other team of two people was Missing Link. These were the Norwegian boys, Stian and Rune. They gave the impression that they could survive even if traversing the Antarctic solo.

On the next stop we just faced away from the wind, suffered the cold and tried to get into our supplies and moving again in as short a time as possible, which became our standard method. On this occasion we had entertainment. The Warrior suddenly went flying by without his pulk, skiing as though he was running barefoot on a beach at a tremendous rate and disappeared into the oblivion of white – sky or snow it was impossible to tell. What was that all about? Had he become bored with our plodding pace? After a while he returned.

“Sorry Ed, I couldn’t catch your glove. I had to give up or I’d’ve lost you all.” It had been a vital over glove. Luckily, QinetiQ had brought a couple of spares. It was a lesson to us all. In the blink of an eye the wind can eat a crucial piece of equipment that could lead to frostbite… or worse.

I struggled on wearily through the day, battling the blizzard and not being able to see much because of misted up goggles. Even when I could there was nothing except the fuzzled outline of a pulk in front and a skier to my side. The whiteout made everything strange. Without discernable form or shadow we were in a multi-dimensional cloud, and I felt quite disorientated. It was difficult to tell what was up or down, near or far away.

Sometimes when everything seems crazy bad and it feels like the world is caving in there’s one lovely thing that shines through and changes the day around, making that thing seem almost magical.

We sat huddled for another break after a hard two hour session across very heavy snow. I pulled down my goggles to wipe them. At that precise moment right out of the swirling mists came the most beautiful bird I’ve ever seen. It was pure white from wing tip to wing tip. Soaring gracefully to within a metre of my face as though dropping a message, it connected a coal black eye with mine for a lingering second and was gone. It all happened so fast, I wondered if it was real.

“Did you see that, Pete?” I declared excitedly. “It was so wonderful.” “See what…”

“Did anyone see that bird?” I shouted.

All I received back was “What bird?”

It had to be a welcoming angel, surely.

After two more hours, we’d done a total of eight hours on the move, and it was time to make camp. The Warrior gathered us around. “We’ve had slow conditions. We really need to keep going for another couple of hours. Is everyone happy with that?”

I wondered if I dare say anything. I knew I’d had enough and had been mentally preparing to stop as planned, though everyone else seemed so strong and energetic (not to mention youthful) I thought they would probably want to keep going. But my body needed to build up day strength slowly rather than in a macho way. “It would be nice to camp here,” I ventured.

“Okay, let’s compromise and do one more hour. By the way, did anyone see the snow petrel? They come inland to nest in the rocks in the mountains here.”

“So that’s what it was, a snow petrel. How lovely. A good sign, I think.”

“Nah,” he said sceptically. “Signs are inventions of the mind.”

They may be inventions of the mind, but it was a sign to me, a welcome from the land.

That evening it took hours to dry out our soaked gear. We melted the water for the meals in the end porch and then brought two stoves into the inner tent and positioned them under the hanging net piled high with wet stuff. Snow seemed to have got everywhere. Even the inside of my jacket was lined with ice from the sweat. It wasn’t going to be much fun if we had to sort this out every night. By the time we wriggled into our sleeping bags with the wind still grunting and whining and the snow hissing, fatigue had become stronger than anxiety. I just hoped that the blizzard lizard would have scurried away by the morning.

It hadn’t.

“It’s marginal, going out in these conditions,” said the Warrior as we gathered for the day’s instructions, kitted out and ready to go. From what I could see of his face he was enjoying this. “By the way, does anyone not feel safe?”

I thought I’d keep quiet this time.

Today was Christmas Eve. I wished for a less white Christmas.

By mid afternoon the storm had abated and the sun was shining. There was a collective sigh of relief. Everyone relaxed, took off their hoods and chatted. Now we could enjoy the freedom of visibility and gaze at a stunning white sea and distant mountains. Everyone, that is, except for Mark, who with Simon represented Ireland in team South Pole Flag. Mark is blind. After the whiteout conditions I appreciated a little more of what he was going through, even though he always seemed to be cheery and unfazed, which only increased my admiration. I thought of the time he’d told me that it had taken the full 10 years since he went blind to accept who he now was, to stop looking backwards and to get on with living life. He’s only 32, but is now a top motivational speaker who helps others find their own positive paths in life. Mark has found the freedom of inner visibility. His story inspired me to look for more strength within myself.

The return of the light pleased the film crews as well. They would lie in wait for the cavalcade to pass by with cameras and sound dogs at the ready, then rush ahead to position themselves to do the same all over again. At first it felt strange, but now I accepted it as normal to be in this great wilderness of thousands of square miles devoid of any hint of humanity and have a film crew suddenly pop up in your face.

We had now reached an altitude of around 1,500 metres and barely noticed the climb. In fact, the snow today had been flat and easy going, but it doesn’t do to become complacent in the Antarctic. We’d been skiing for nine hours. High cloud had blocked out the sun and everything had taken on a grey hue. The temperature had dropped considerably. My body was ready to stop, particularly as I was feeling a painful blister on my right big toe. The Warrior gathered us together and I thought for the first time he almost looked concerned.

“Watch out here. Crevasse field. Come back into single file. Ski exactly where I ski. And take care on the ice.”

It was ice alright. Well ribbed blue ice, full of little crevasses, lines crossing and cracking all over the place. Skis skidded in all directions making it tricky to stay upright and taking lots of concentration. We were nearly through when I noticed that someone had taken their skis off and was managing much better without them. I wished I’d thought of that. It was Rachel, who was with Phil and Hylton in team Due South. She had a reputation of being tough, but I knew her to be sensitive and compassionate. It was comforting to know there was another female on the race.

Once across the most perilous ice, our worries continued. It was time to make camp, but we were still on ice with just a small covering of snow. No way were bamboo tent pegs going to go into that, or even skis. We needed ice screws and a hammer, which we hadn’t brought.

“Tie your tent to your pulks,” said the Warrior.

Right. And scrape up lots of snow to go round the valance. And pray for no wind. “Please Antarctica…. hold us safely,” I whispered to the land. Like many explorers, being in this wild wilderness far from civilisation had already prompted a need in me to connect at a deeper level with my surroundings.

By the time we’d eaten and melted snow for the bottles it was midnight. I unzipped the inner tent and just enough of the outer tent to poke my head out, and was greeted by something wonderful: no wind. I gasped, feeling the air brittle and sharp in my lungs. Beyond our little camp I could see only snow, snow and more snow stretching out in wavelets of purple haze reaching to far-off peaks painted purple, too. The sky had cleared to blue, with long streaks of cloud in front of the sun low on the horizon burnishing with golden light. There was silence, and absolute peace. The magic touched me at a deep level with its utter beauty. I thought of all my family at the other end of the world. This was the time we usually go up the hill near my home, Plumtree Cottage, to welcome in Christmas. Merry Christmas, everyone.

Never was there a Christmas day like this one. Whilst Pete was asleep I hung up the decorations. They consisted of a piece of red tinsel which I strung across the tent and the one card that I had brought from my dear Mum. She’d been quite concerned about my going away, asking repeatedly why anyone would actually want to go to the South Pole. Her card was complete with traditional tree and snowy scene. Great, that felt more Christmassy and would be nice for Pete when he opened his eyes. Then I tore out a page from my diary and wrote him a card, wrapping it around a squashed piece of chocolate I’d been saving for the occasion. In the morning it added to our decorations along with a card that Pete had bought me in Cape Town, usefully written in Afrikaans, as well as one that team Due South had made us. We were touched by the festive gesture, but it smelled so strongly of glue I felt woozy (interesting team tactics).

Then we had a visit from Santa and his elves – Tony and the camera crew in silly hats. They were bringing each person a tiny parcel of Christmas cake and a little bottle of brandy. I took one whiff and went woozy again, so Pete thought he’d better have double rations. After all, he was meant to be convalescing after two major operations. He found a little email from his brother wrapped around the cake, which made him feel emotional and long to hear from his four children. I felt for everyone being apart from wives, girlfriends and families, particularly those who had children. Although Pete and I enjoyed the Christmas hugs with the rest of our racing family, we were glad we had each other.

The still air and sunshine brought sparkles to the snow and also to our faces. We put our sleeping bags outside. The air is so dry in Antarctica that it grabs any moisture immediately. Due to the low atmospheric pressure, sublimation occurs. This is a process whereby a solid goes directly to a gas, missing out the liquid state – useful as it means that snow goes straight to water vapour without getting everything wet. We tipped out everything we had onto the snow, as did all the teams. Any passing person would have thought there was a car boot sale on.

Pete decided that he was going to celebrate with a snow bath. Cavorting naked in the snow, he tricked his body into thinking that it was having a wash. His feet and ears knew otherwise, though, as he still had on tent bootees and earphones, listening to groovy music. Perhaps it was a good thing that there were no passersby. Must have been strong brandy.

There was a lovely sense of togetherness and purpose that Christmas Day as we all set off. I wound the tinsel around my head to mark the occasion and also cut some for Gaius, my penguin mascot sitting on the front of the pulk. He looked about as dashing as a penguin could look. It was warm enough to not wear jackets and face masks, which felt so good. Hoodless, I could turn my head from side to side and enjoy the amazing beauty that only dazzling sun on snow can bring to a landscape. It also meant that we could be sociable, chatting to others coming and going in varying assortments of coloured nose guards.

Ed had gone for seasonable red felt with a slight upturn on the cheeks. It was good to speak with him about the family gatherings that we were both missing, and as he was about the age of my sons it filled a little bit of the gap. He was lucky to be on the race, picked out of the nationwide selection process that James and Ben had put on to find their third team member, with TV cameras rolling. But now he had to cope with being thrust in the limelight. Today, he was having to wear a camera around his neck that stuck out half a metre in front of him on poles secured from his waist. Tinsel might have been more Christmassy.

How often have I had Christmas dinners and not appreciated them. I mean really, really appreciated them. As the day wore on and we trudged across well hidden crevasse fields and up long inclines that became more and more taxing, blisters rubbing and thigh muscles aching, the thought of Christmas dinner became more and more appealing. I remembered the year we had decided to only have a bowl of rice on Christmas Day and send money to charity instead. That was the one that stuck in my mind most of all. By not having something I was appreciating it more than when I had it. I started talking to anyone next to me about nut roasts, vegetarian sausages, roast potatoes and parsnips, steamed vegetables and lashings of gravy… they then told me to shut up. No one wanted to be reminded of what we were missing.

We skied for only eight hours, though a bit faster than yesterday and came down into a wide open bowl surrounded by stunning mountains. To the south they were iced with snow. To the west they rose like rock fortresses inviting exploration. A few wispy clouds paced the sky which shone with so much light that if I looked up I had to screw up my eyes. The snow itself was wind-flattened to glistening slabs. And the air was so clear it sparkled. This was our camp sight.

As we were putting up our tent, Tony appeared and thrust a satellite phone at me.

“Right. You’re allowed one quick phone call.”

“Wow. Thank you.” I knew that it would be pot luck to catch any of my sons near a land phone, but wonderfully I found my youngest, Marco. On these occasions it’s all too easy to talk drivel. I was being filmed as I spoke, but I still talked drivel. In the middle of a list of all the people to send love to, I reached granddaughter Elsie. And promptly burst into tears.

“Everyone’s okay, Mum. We’re all thinking of you and sending love… and to Pete, too. I’ll be there at Heathrow to pick you up. Love you loads.” And he was gone.

I hadn’t realised touching in to the family at the other end of the world would mean so much to me and how often it would give me strength in the days ahead.

It wasn’t until after we’d eaten our packs of sheep-poo casserole that the film director, Alexis, put his head through the tent door. He’d had a tough day missing his family, too.

“Wondered if you two would like a Christmas pudding.”

Would we ever! It was the best I’d ever tasted. Alexis was now a friend for life.

It was then that I opened the Christmas cake that I’d saved and found an email message from my brother, Graham. Another little tear escaped.

The Christmas weather miracle continued into Boxing Day. We woke to little wind and it was still warm, only around minus 10°C, though the sky had clouded over. On setting off, the first task ahead was a very steep hill. To young men, a hill is an irresistible challenge to prove themselves by going at a flat-out pace. To a granny, it’s an “Oh help”, so I went with a steady plod. This was where my relative lack of strength really showed up. Also my bad technique. I reached the top last in the line and sweating heavily. Tony, who’d been watching everyone’s style, came and tried to help me.

“Thrust from the hips,” he advised, “and be more upright, so you won’t get neck strain.” I didn’t like to tell him that I’d tried all the correct ways of moving on skis but my body just wouldn’t do it.

We were now on a wide plateau and going up more gently. The temperature was beginning to drop, and it was actually snowing fresh snow, but the wind was holding off. I concentrated on trying to keep moving and keep up. As I was close to the Warrior, I asked him about my technique.

“Relax and believe in what your body wants to do. Think of something else and your body will work out the right way for you personally.”

Thank goodness. My kind of language. I could relate to that technique. Around 3pm I went through some sort of barrier and felt great, as though I could keep going at a strong pace forever. The gradual build up had worked for me, even though for many of the others it had been frustratingly slow.

That night, we checked out the day’s distance. In 10 hours we had covered 18 miles. This was more than the minimum mileage that we needed to do every day during the race. We were confident about the distance. All things looked possible.

But I had forgotten…

Sometimes the universe has other plans.

Unfinished Business

16th April, 2006

My quest to reach the South Pole had actually begun two and a half years earlier at the other end of the Earth. I knew, even then, that it was the most disappointing moment of my life.

The racers were jostling to stand in line. Behind them were pulks bulging with all the equipment that would be needed to ski the 368 miles to the magnetic North Pole. I shivered, not from the minus 25°C temperature, but from the ice knots in the pit of my stomach that were giving a chill from within.

I stood silently, Pete by my side. I could hear the teams speaking amongst themselves, the laughter and the banter. They were about to ski over the line of rope that had been placed as a marker between two sponsor flags flapping merrily in the wind. The race was about to start. That’s where we should have been. The charge began. Everyone rushed off, swinging ski-sticks and marching legs, swept up in the excitement, cheering, arms punching the air. One person did a cartwheel expressing the exuberance and joy of the moment (unless he just slipped).I stared, mesmerised in disbelief. My mind was almost floating out of the back of my head as though it couldn’t bear to stay in this place of despair. We had been preparing for this moment for two years; two years of building up fitness, of struggling to find sponsors, of scrimping and saving, of charity fundraising, of choosing and testing the gear, and most of all, two years of collecting Peace Messages. I had thought of little else over all this time.

The racers became smaller as they pulled away, dark figures settling down to a steady pace, stark against the great expanse of white. They crossed the flat sea ice and headed towards the hills, which sloped invitingly off to the north. Angrily I wiped away a tear, my eyes never leaving the scene until it was one of small black dots disappearing over the distant horizon. My world shattered into a thousand pieces, brittle and cold, like the ice at my feet.

Pete turned and put his arms around me, breaking the silence.

“I’m so sorry, Tess,” he said. I clung to him then and sobbed uncontrollably.

We had been pulled out of the North Pole Race for medical reasons. Pete had experienced what he called a palpitation. The medical term is Supraventricular tachycardia. This is a sudden quickening of the heart rate, which continues for an indeterminate period of time and then just as suddenly stops, leaving the body to carry on as fit and as strong as ever. He had experienced it on and off for a few years and had learnt to live with it even during mountain adventures and in far-off places. Whilst it was happening, his body worked at less than full capacity and he felt light-headed, so he would either keep going gently or sit for a while – sometimes minutes, sometimes hours – until it righted itself. I accepted it too, as just one of those things.

Pete had been careful to follow the right procedures. He had been signed off by his home doctor as fit and well to go to the North Pole and informed the race doctor, Deirdre, about it before all the training on the ice had started.

Unfortunately, a palpitation had come in the middle of the acclimatisation trek and it was something out of the ordinary that the support team hadn’t experienced before. This had started a bureaucratic rigmarole between medical advisers and insurers back in England that couldn’t be resolved from the Arctic.

The general upshot had been, “Pete can come to the end of the acclimatisation leg when there will be support around, but a palpitation might occur again in a gale force wind, in whiteout conditions whilst he’s falling into the sea ice and Tess is being eaten by a polar bear. There is no way that he can cross that start-line and take part in the race.”

That had left me without a team-mate, and it had been too late to join up with anyone else.

It was not to be.

“You’ve got to let go,” the kind Canadian guide Matty said when we were back in the outpost of Resolute. “You’ve got to move on, difficult as it is. It’s worse because you had so much determination to make it happen. You were all wound up holding onto your goal so tightly and for so long. That makes it harder.”

Pete nodded in agreement. He had experienced the pain of disappointment on numerous occasions, mostly tempered by his own down-to-earth wisdom of knowing when to turn back on a mountain, when safety overrides the dream. He had learnt the hard way about letting go. When we had been waiting for the palpitation to stop he had suspected the implications. I remembered the way he had looked at me then, with hurt in his eyes, desperate not to let me down, desperate not to let himself down. Somehow, he had already moved on. “You just do it” was his way of tackling these situations, and he put his hand on mine, trying to give that strength to me.

I sighed heavily, blinking to stop the waiting tears. “Try screaming at the top of your voice,” Matty said. “It really helps.”

I looked around, furtively, at the groups of explorers, scientists and hunters at the other tables where we were all enjoying a quiet coffee in relative civilisation after long and exhausting journeys across the Arctic ice. Could be interesting, screaming here…

She continued, “You know, the main problem with visiting the Arctic is that it makes you want to go to the Antarctic.”

Pete leaned forward, his interest immediately caught. “Radical! What would that cost, to go to the South Pole?”

“It’s a lot more than to the North, obviously,” Matty answered in a matter-of-fact way. “But if you’ve got a group it’s not too bad. Last year we skied in with the kids and kited back.” She made it sound as though it was a trip to the local supermarket. “You have to do these things with style, you know, keeping a positive spirit of adventure.”

I helped myself to a couple of biscuits and chewed this thought over.

South Pole – hmmm. The words immediately conjured up feelings of cold, terrifying cold and isolation. Boldness in pitting yourself against the elements and the unknown, to explore and further the knowledge of mankind. They spoke of hardship and deprivation, of toughness and strength of character. Inexplicably, they had always stirred the adrenalin in my heart.

I remembered as a student in 1969 hearing about the first females to be at the South Pole. It had been five American scientists and a journalist. They had been flown in, so to my mind it didn’t really count, but I remembered the twinge of “Oh, I’d like to be there.” It had touched a longing, a desire to tread on unexplored land and feel the challenge of an impossible dream.

Impossible – until now.

Now, we had some experience and training in the harsh polar environment and, with someone like Matty to guide us, I could visualize a South Pole journey that could manifest a dream into a reality. And it could further our work with the Peace Messages. Okay, finance would be a huge hurdle, but there were means of raising it, like sponsorship.

A tiny spark of excitement ignited at the possibility, licking at the edges of the black cloud of disappointment. Maybe, just maybe, the South Pole could be a way out of this failure at the North Pole.

Heart Song

It took several weeks to recover both physically and mentally from the Arctic trip. Thoughts of never-ever-again need time to disperse, leaving just the good memories. This was no exception. Time worked its magic. However, there was one concern that stayed with me – the warming of the Arctic environment. We had witnessed the unseasonal melting of the ice and continued to hear about it from friends there. We’d had temperatures considerably higher than expected. The summer period without sea ice was two weeks longer than normal. This meant fewer seals. So polar bears went hungry and seemed to be on their way to being wiped off the face of the Earth.

Our Peace Messages are all about harmony, both for humanity and the environment. So many of our Arctic Messages were pledges for the environment that had been written by children, some including beautifully coloured pictures. These were promises to make a difference in their lives, such as “I will walk to school to save petrol and help the Earth.” Others were on the theme of “Love to polar bears.” These Messages touched my heart. I knew I couldn’t just stop the work of trying to raise awareness and make a difference to the Earth; we had to continue. Perhaps we could find a new high spot from which to send out the next lot (somewhere warm would be nice).

This is how we raise the money for Climb For Tibet. People