In August 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance set sail for the South Atlantic. The object of the expedition was to cross the Antarctic overland. In October 1915, still half a continent away from their intended base, the ship was first trapped, and then crushed, in ice. For five months, Shackleton and his men, drifting on ice packs, were castaways in one of the most savage regions of the world.
Patricia Routledge and Prunella Scales star in Ladies of Letters and Ladies of More Letters, the two popular BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour series. Patricia Routledge is Vera Small and Prunella Scales is her friend (or maybe enemy), Irene Spencer. The two pass their time in regular correspondence and not an event goes by that is left unrecorded by the ladies of letters. Firstly there are the usual family problems to...