Woman To Establish Home Comforts On Husband’s Polar Expedition

Southland Times, Issue 23634, 8 October 1938, Page 16

Woman To Establish Home Comforts On Husband’s Polar Expedition

When Lady Wilkins accompanies her husband next year on his submarine trip beneath the ice to the North Pole, she will be housekeeper to a band of eight men on one of the strangest adventures in the history of the world, says The Sydney Morning Herald.

She will be the first woman ever to take part in a Polar expedition. Lady Wilkins, however, believes with her husband that the trip will be a safe one, and she described with enthusiasm for the Women’s Supplement her plans for keeping house under such fantastic conditions.

By file middle of next year. Sir Hubert Wilkins will be ready for a second attempt to reach the North Pole, by a submarine voyage beneath the ice fields—and the eyes of the world will be centred on this famous explorer as he sets out on the extraordinary venture. Inevitably, public interest will centre no less on Lady Wilkins, who will

accompany her husband and his crew on the voyage. She will not go as navigator or engineer—but as housekeeper. Thus, for the first time in history, a woman will attempt to carry out home duties and establish the comforts of a home atmosphere in the Polar regions. Undoubtedly, in spite of Sir Hubert’s assurance of the safety abqut its unusual qualities, it will appeal to the public mind as a marvel of strangeness —probably a terrible thing. And not without reason! It is a venture of the same breed as that epic dream of science—the rocket trip into space—which adventurous men, in ■ their laboratories, still battle to achieve. It will have the terrors of an adventure into “an unknown quantity” of nature, for no man can swear that there is such a thing as an ice cap. It may well be a crust .upon solid land. Moreover, we are still shadowed by the grimneis of previous, attempts, by land and air, to breach the freezing strongholds of the North and South Poles. Success has been snatched, but only against exhausting, racking odds. Death is a ready sniper there, and across those harsh wastes he has dropped his victims, just as often—and at his ease.

Lady Wilkins said with great matter-of-factness that she would be chief cook and entertainer to the expedition,

but it requires little imagination to understand the importance that could be developed in such a role. She could be an influence towards sanity and humour in the group while their strange craft (so unlike a submarine that it is labelled a “submersible vessel”) noses the pitchy fathoms beneath dense icepacks. Caged beneath the sea, groping tortuously through the fanged roots of an ice continent! This is a fantasia that will stifle the average mind. And yet in the midst of it one woman will sweep, dust, dean, make beds, cook and entertain. Lady Wilkins spoke of this weird housekeeping life with cool bluntness, and a practicality and lack of exaggeration that was a real assurance towards her success in this amazing adventure for a woman. . “For the four months of this trip I will be one of those despised housewives who litter the tables with dishes mixed with a host of tinned food products. But that is the way of expeditions, and I should, therefore, escape the usual censure of this. Yet, although most of our supplies will be tinned foodstuffs, and some of these will be already cooked, I am not going to take it easily. I will make a big thing of ingenious and well-planned meals. I enjoy cooking, and if I am as successful as I hope to be, those ‘tinned meals will be as good and as enjoyable as proper ‘home’ meals, of hot, freshlycooked foods.” When questioned as to how many “rooms” she would have for her home on the submarine, she was shocked, and replied with some vigour that .she would have no rooms but “only a bit of space.”

WORKING UNDER DIFFICULTIES “It will certainly be house keeping under difficulties,” she added. “The vessel is very small. I will have no more than a bit of a comer to myself. But this will be a reason for doing the job decently. I will be a good housekeeper, and try and keep things smart and neat. The men will have to toe the line, too, and help to preserve that home atmosphere. But I look forward to that, as I have always enjoyed working with men. I prefer them to women. Women are uncertain, mysterious quantities/even among themselves. . i r “In spite of my'tiny allotment of space, I will be taking my baby grand piano. It is a tiny but very effective instrument- —and. it will be important there, as I am nof only to be housekeeper to the . men, but entertainer, and perhaps entertainer to' the outside world, too, as Iwe plan •to ' broadcast from the submarine. In that case I will be the first woman-to broadcast from the Polar regions. A novel experience. But I have enjoyed a previous novelty of broadcasting—when I sang over the air from the Hindenburg on its maiden Atlantic voyage. This was the first broadcast ever made above the Atlantic.” Lady Wilkins is an established actress and singer in New York stage life..