"A VERY GALLANT GENTLEMAN"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 36, 26 February 1937, Page 13

"A VERY GALLANT GENTLEMAN"

□wn Correspondent).

Mother's Pilgrimage of Memory S0N WALKED T0 DEATH

(B.v Air Mail —

LONDON, Jan. 24. Every week a grey-haired lady of 8(5 walks with the aid of a stick to the Fourteenth Centnry church at Gestingthorpe (Essex) and polishes a brass plaque erected to the memory of her squ. 8he is Mrs. W. E- Oates, and the son who iq evpr in her thoughts was Captain L. E. G. Qates, who died in 1912 during the Captain Scott exp;edidition to ihe Squth Pole. After polishing the plaque till it shines like gold, Mrs, Oates kneelg as she reads the familiar inscription. "In memory of a very gqllant gentlq- ' man, Lawrence Edward Grace Qates, Captain in the Inniskilling PragOQng, born March 17, 1880, died March 17, 1912, on the retum journey from the South Pole in the Scott Antarctic Ev pedifion, "When all were beset by hardship, he, feeing gravely injqred, went out into the blizzard, to die in the hope that by so doing he might enable his cqmrades tq reach' safety." During the past few days scores pf people have flocked to this tiny unpretentioui village to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Captain Qates' death, which straugely coincided witb another • drama of thq Antarctic — this week's reseue Qf a party of sin qfficers and men from the Royal Research Ship, Dipcovery ±1, It is eeldom that Mrs. Qates leaves Gestingthorpe Hajl, excepf for the weekly pilgrimage to pqlish the jmemo' rial taplet, When I visited thq churqh, th® xe?tor, the Rev. H, M, Qreening, told Andrew Kidd, the Sunday Chronicle reportsr: 1 1 This is the church where Captain Qates used to worship. On the anniversary Qf his death wa always sing his favourite hymu, "Qnwaxd, Chtistian Soidierg," "Captain Oates has made Gestingthorpe famons. Previously it was an nnknown yillage.^ The life of the remote villaae centrea round Gestingthorpe Hall, a stately redbricked manor house, whqre Qaptain Oates was born and whare his wid°wecj mother cherishqs the Antarctic medal awardod posthumously to the son oi whom She has such proud memories. But she shares her memories of a natiqnal hqro with only her most mli: mata friends. As a member of her staff said: "These memories are eq depr- to her that she besitates to dis: cuss them, ' * The story of Captain Qatqs's brqve gesture is one. of the epics of Britisb history. Qates was with Scott, Evans, Bowers, and Wilson when they reached the South Pole. Beset by blizzards, and having lost Evans, who died oi exposure, thq men gradually losl strengtb. For days they were imprisoned by the weather in the tent, only eleven miles froca one of their supply dumpq. Bnt they cquld not xeach it, and they faced death from cold and starvation. With his feet frost-bitten and feel ing himself a burden to his cqmrades, Oates stumbled out of their tent intq the snow to die, His last words were: "I am just going outside and may be somp time." In thq diary he left to thq world Captain Scptt wrote: "It was the act pf a brave man aud an Engligh gentieman." The body of Captain OateB was nqvei located. A cross was placed on the scene of the search with the ingcription: "Hereabouts died a very gallant gentlqman. ' ' And this, with tlxe tablet in thq little church in Essex, is his undying memorial, o