Endurance: The Newport stowaway on Shackleton shipwreck
- Published
Percy - or Perce - Blackborow became a stowaway after being turned down for a crew job on the Endurance
A stowaway who found himself on a legendary Antarctic expedition that ended in shipwreck has been remembered as a bid to find the vessel gains pace.
When Percy Blackborow from Newport boarded The Endurance in 1914, he did not know the drama that would unfold on Ernest Shackleton's expedition to cross Antarctica via the South Pole.
This month an international scientific expedition set off to find the wreck.
Percy's grandchildren have planted a tree in his memory.
The Endurance22 expedition, which includes the BBC's Dan Snow, is using underwater robots, helicopters and other state-of-the-art technology in a bid to be the first to locate and survey the wreck.
Shackleton's mission may have ended in failure but his efforts to save every one of his 28 crew would become the stuff of folklore.
However, 28th crew member Percy, known as Perce, shouldn't have been there at all.
A tree is planted in memory of Perce Blackborow in Bellevue Park, Newport
How did Percy end up on board?
Andrew Hemmings, author of Secret Newport said: "Perce had been in the Merchant Navy since he was 14, and by age 18 he'd been shipwrecked in Montevideo, Uruguay.
"Soon after he and his American friend William Bakewell heard about Shackleton's voyage from Buenos Aires to the Antarctic, so they made their way overland to try out for the crew, but whilst Bakewell was accepted, Perce was deemed too inexperienced."
He said the pair could not bear to be parted, so Bakewell hid Perce in his locker for three days, until the subterfuge was eventually discovered by a furious Shackleton.
The Endurance set sail in 1914 before disaster struck
"By this stage the ship was too far into its voyage to turn back, so Shackleton was faced with a fait accompli," he said.
"Enraged, he told Perce that 'on missions like this' - when food was short - 'stowaways were the first to get eaten'."
He said a cocky Perce riposted to Shackleton: "I think the crew would get more meat from you Sir!"
Mr Hemmings said from that point on, Shackleton had a particular soft spot for Perce, assigning him to the ship's galley to prepare meals of seal, whale, and latterly even the voyage's huskies.
The Endurance became ice-bound, where it remained for some nine months before it was finally crushed and sank
Terrifying initiation ceremony
"Perce shared the same 'can-do' approach as Shackleton, and when things got grim in the ice his ebullience became more and more important," said Mr Hemmings.
But Rachel Clague, Perce's granddaughter, said Shackleton wasn't about to let him off the hook easily. He made him endure a terrifying initiation ceremony in order to earn his place among the crew.
"Before my grandad was properly accepted he was tied to the front of one of the lifeboats in the middle of a school of killer whales," she said.
"They came and sniffed him, bounced him around, but of course they don't eat humans - not that Perce knew that at the time.
"Once they hauled him inside the boat Shackleton gave him a massive hug, and announced that he was officially one of the team."
But after three years and 750 miles the time for that sort of japery was over.
The Endurance became ice-bound, where it remained for some nine months before it was finally crushed and sank.
Taking the lifeboats, the crew dragged them over ice before they could set sail with whatever they had been able to recover.
They made it to Elephant Island, the only piece of reachable solid land.
Shackleton selected four of his best men, including Endurance's skipper Frank Worsley, and set off in a lifeboat for South Georgia, some 750 miles away.
It is only down to Worsley's pinpoint navigation that the party succeeded in their mission to get help and that today's Endurance22 expedition knows where to search for Shackleton's ship.
Crew on the Endurance
Toes removed through frostbite
It was on their third attempt that Shackleton was able to rescue his crewmates, on a Chilean ship.
Meanwhile on Elephant Island, Perce had the toes of his left foot removed through frostbite.
Ms Clague said: "It's not often you can say having your toes amputated is a stroke of luck, but it meant that Perce wasn't fit to serve in the Royal Navy once he came home.
"Maybe that was what saved his life. We'll never know!".
Indeed, the crew were astonished to hear that World War One was still raging, three years after they had left British waters.
Despite having been one of the Endurance's cockier crew members, Ms Clague said her grandfather was a much quieter man once he came home.
"They'd planned a reception party for him at Newport train station for when he got home but as soon as he saw all the fanfare he got out of the other side of the carriage and ran home along the tracks to avoid the crowds," she said.
She said he never saw himself as a hero or a celebrity, and was never happier than bringing up his six children and working as a docker in Newport.
He died of heart failure in 1949.
On Friday, Perce's grandchildren met at Newport's Bellevue Park to plant a tree in his memory.
Fittingly, the tree is a variety of southern beech which normally grows close to the southernmost extremes of South America.
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