I am currently reading The Endurance, which is a book about a renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton and a crew of twenty-seven men who set sail for the south Atlantic in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize in the history of exploration: the first crossing on foot of the Antarctic continent. Weaving a treacherous path through the freezing Weddell Sea, they had come within eighty-five miles of their destination when their ship, Endurance, was trapped fast in the ice pack. Soon the ship was crushed like matchwood, leaving the crew stranded on the floes(huge pieces of floating ice). Their ordeal lasted for 20 months and they had two near-fatal attempts to escape by open boat before their final rescue.

When they first abandoned the ship wreckage the plan was to march towards land which was 200 miles away. The men had to limit their personal possessions to only two pounds each with one exception, Shackleton allowed one of the crew members to take his banjo on the premise that is would supply the men with "vital mental tonic".

All the men survived this ordeal. I bet that banjo kept their spirits up at the worst of moments.

Bonnie