Hillary! Campaigns For Funds

Not the Hillary you are expecting and not funds for what you think. Sir Edmund Hillary is attempting to shame the British government into providing some financial support to help preserve Terra Nova, the base built by Robert Falcon Scott (and used by Ernest Shackleton) in Antarctica.

"To find that these relics of a heroic age are barely supported by Britain is just a little bit disappointing," he said as he sat inside Shackleton's rickety hut at Cape Royds, beside the Ross Sea.

The timber huts, with their shelves of tinned food, bedding and equipment, offer an extraordinary snapshot of the conditions faced by early 20th century polar explorers. However, they are increasingly in danger from the conditions.

Britain takes the view that although Scott was British, the responsibility is entirely New Zealand's because the huts are within the Ross Dependency, territory claimed by Wellington. New Zealand says it cannot afford to carry out the work, which it estimates would cost £3 million.

In recent years, campaigners, including Sir David Attenborough, the actor Kenneth Branagh, and the explorers Sir Ranulph Fiennes and David Hempleman-Adams, have tried to get the British Government to support the preservation project.

It would be a shame to lose that bit of history due to indifference.