Great Scott ! *

"We should go out on Wednesday" said Bob. He's been rather busy lately, and we agreed a day pooling around in the sunshine would do us go. "Sheringham" I said. "Please can we go and see this?"

I thought it would be really good to find out a bit more about Scott and Shackleton while they were fresh in my mind... 

Sheringham Museum is housed in a building called "The Mo". Apparently years ago, there was an old house on this site called The Morag, and the nickname The Mo remained for the area long after the property was demolished. The guides were very enthusiastic and knowledgeable.

They told us that the museum houses 4 of the 6 lifeboats which have worked from the town lifeboat station [one is still in use - and I never discovered where the other is!]

This is lifeboat JCMadge, in service 1904-1936. We heard all about it, including the fact that Shackleton came to Sheringham and went out with the crew in order to learn to row large boats, in preparation for his trip to the Antarctic. "But there's more about that upstairs"  

So we climbed up to see. The museum has three floors, plus a fantastic 360' viewing tower. 

But the Scott/Shackleton exhibit was incredibly disappointing. Scott lived in the town for about a year in 1906, and joined the Golf Club. Shackleton was around in 1910 to practise rowing. There was a copy of the famous photo of Scott and team at the Pole, and his plaque from the Golf Club. There was a recreation of Shackleton in his Antarctic Hut. And that was about it. And two small info panels 

The hut was [imho] dreadful! The canned goods on the shelf looked so fake - as if someone had just mocked up some labels on the computer. And worse than that Ritz crackers? Not invented till 1934! 

It did feel as if they'd found a very tenuous link between these two men and the town and tried to make something out of nothing. There is a plaque on Martincross, the house where Shackleton stayed - but it only refers to Ralph Vaughan Williams who was there years later! 

It was the S&S ad which had attracted me to the Museum in the first place. 

However the rest of The Mo was really good and deserves a whole post of its own. Which I will do once I've sorted my pictures. 

* I always thought "Great Scott!" referred to our Antarctic guy, but actually it dates to the mid 1800s and General Winfield Scott, commander-in-chief of the American Army during the Civil War.