17 March: Lawrence Oates

Today was the birthday of Lawrence Oates, the man who sacrificed himself on Scott's ill-fated Antarctic expedition. He was born in 1880.

1. His full name was Lawrence Edward Grace Oates, and he was born at Gestingthorpe Hall, Essex.
2. His parents were William and Caroline; his uncle was Frank Oates, also an explorer who would die tragically in his early thirties. Lawrence never met him.
3. He served in the Boer War and during that time, suffered an injury to his leg which meant he always walked with a limp.
4. He also came to the attention of Lord Baden-Powell, who founded the Scouts, who said of him, somewhat prophetically, that he was "one of those youngsters that will go far."
5. When he applied to join Scott's expedition, he'd been posted to India and had been getting bored as the post didn't challenge him and he was fed up of going to tea parties. He didn't really think he'd be accepted and so didn't tell his mother he'd applied. When he found out he'd been accepted he had to write an apologetic letter to her.
6. One of his tasks on the expedition was to look after the Horses. He and Scott disagreed often about the horses. Oates hadn't been given any say in choosing the horses and didn't think the horses they had were up to the job. The two also disagreed when Oates suggested they killed the horses when they could go no further and eat them. Scott refused. Oates even wrote in his diary that he disliked Scott intensely and would have chucked the whole thing, but for it being a British expedition. However, Oates was still one of the five man team Scott chose to go all the way to the South Pole.
7. He took a book about Napoleon with him to read during the expedition.
8. He probably died on his birthday. Suffering from severe frostbite and unable to use his hands or feet, he was significantly slowing the progress of the team towards safety. It was on 16 March that he uttered his famous last words, "I'm just going outside and may be some time", before walking out into the blizzard. He was never seen again.
9. There is a museum dedicated to Oates and his uncle, Frank, at Gilbert White's House, Selbourne in Hampshire. Some of Oates's possessions are on display there including his sleeping bag and his book.
10. Oates's sacrifice has inspired several writers to use part of his story or even speculate, in the case of Brenda Clough that he was rescued and nursed back to health by advanced beings. Three characters in Terry Pratchett's novels use Oates's last words - Windle Poons, Brutha and Death. Other writers who refer to him include Margaret Atwood, Beryl Bainbridge and China Mieville.

My Books 

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The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny.