On January 9, 1909, a handful of explorers under the leadership of Ernest Shackleton planted the Union Jack in latitude 88deg23'S, longitude 162degE. They were then at the end of their tether, but were still 97 miles short of the South Pole. At the time, it was the nearest any human had been to that desolate place. The party, now divested of their last pony, and having to drag everything by hand over the perilous crevasses of the Beardmore Glacier, had their first glimpse of the great Antarctic plateau. "There was no break in the plateau as it extended towards the Pole, and we feel sure that the goal we have failed to reach lies on this plain," wrote Shackleton in his diary.
On Christmas Eve, when he still had hopes of achieving his goal, Shackleton had recorded: "Tomorrow will be Christmas Day, and our thoughts turn to home and all the attendant joys of the time." And on Christmas Day itself, he noted: "We had a splendid dinner. First came hoosh, consisting of pony ration boiled up with pemmican and some of our emergency Oxo and biscuits. Then in the cocoa water I boiled a little plum pudding, which a friend of Wild's had given him. This, with a drop of medicinal brandy, was a luxury which Lucullus himself might have envied; then came cocoa, and lastly cigars and a spoonful of crême de menthe sent us by a friend in Scotland. We are full tonight, and this is the last time we will be for many a long day." Not everyone's idea of a Christmas feast, perhaps.