POLAR HERO’S POVERTY

Greymouth Evening Star, 29 August 1929, Page 10

POLAR HERO’S POVERTY

ZULULAND FARM FAILURE. DURBAN, S.A., July 19. Commander Frank Wild, C.8.E., F.R.G.S. the hero of five expeditions to the South Pole, and the only living descendant of Captain Cook, is eking out a precarious existence as a barman at £4 a month in the tiny Zululand village of Gollel, the most northerly point of the Zululand railway. After his Antarctic expedition in 1922 Commander Wild decided to settle in South Africa and -went cattle farming in the Mkusi Valley, Zululand. There, among other difficulties, he encountered four .years of drought. To make matters worse all sorts of unanticipated difficulties arose and the end was disaster. Ruined and penniless Commander Wild was glad to take the position of barman. When a newspaper correspondent arrived at Gollel he found Commander Wild attending to passengers’ luggage and rooms and serving out drinks in the bar. “He was wonderfully cheerful,” says the correspondent, “but afterwards I found that this was a mask pluckily assumed. He is too proud to show his real feelings.” “I do not foi- one moment blame those who so earnestly asked me to farm in Zululand,” said Commander Wild. “I believe that they themselves were convinced that the proposition would turn out to be a sound one, but it seems that they were misinformed.” Commander Wild said that when he retired from the navy at the close of the Great War he and Dr Mcllroy bought an estate in Nyasaland. They were doing very well when the late Sii’ Ernest Shackleton organised his last Antarctic expedition and cabled asking Commander Wild to take second command of the Quest. “When Shackleton died I brought the Quest home and it was then my intention to return to Nyasaland. Unfortunately, when in Capetown, I was persuaded to go farming in Zuiuland.” Commander Wild is a direct descendant of Captain Cook. He is the only person in the world to have a South Polar medal with four bars. The late Sir Ernest Shackleton and Mr E. Joyce’s medals have only three bars. Other honours won by Commander : Wild include a David Livingstone Pat- 1 rrn gold medal, of which there are i only ten in existence, that of «• Patron of the Royal Geo -raphical Society silver medals, a silver Scottish Geographical Society medal, a Belgian Geographical Society gold medal, and a French Geographical Society medal. He discovered and named Queen r Mary Land. He was on a mission to j Russia to discover iron deposits in the | Arctic when the revolution took place. . He was with Sir Ernest Shackleton , when the Discovery was smashed by ; ice and drifted for weeks on an iceberg. ]