Source: The Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2540141.html Very moving - read on. *************** Scott's final letter to wife goes on display Elsa McLaren Captain Scott's final letter to his wife, in which the dying explorer admits that he shall never see her again, is to go on public display for the first time. Correspondence between Scott of the Antarctic, his wife Kathleen and three-year-old son Peter will be displayed at Cambridge University from January 17, to mark the 95th anniversary of Scott's arrival at the South Pole. His final letter, addressed "To my widow", written on scraps of his journal, was found in 1913 when the bodies of members of the ill-fated expedition were discovered in their tent. He wrote: "Dear, it is not easy to write because of the cold - 70 degrees below zero and nothing but the shelter of our tent. "You know I have loved you; you know my thoughts must have constantly dwelt on you ... the worst aspect of this situation is that I shall not see you again - the inevitable must be faced. "When the right man comes to help you in life you ought to be your happy self again ... I wouldn't have been a very good husband but I hope I shall be a good memory. "Certainly the end is nothing for you to be ashamed of and I like to think that the boy will have a good start in parentage of which he may be proud." Among the letters are notes written by his son Peter, later Sir Peter Scott, the celebrated ornithologist who died in 1982. Sadly, Scott never received the notes in which the boy wrote: "Dear Daddy I am going to be a drummer," and "I love you." A spokesman for Cambridge University said: "Tragically, the little boy's letters never reached his father - Scott and his fellow explorers had already succumbed to extreme frostbite, malnutrition and exhaustion." The letters, which will go on display in the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, were given to the university by Lady Philippa Scott, Sir Peter's widow. Scott set out on his expedition to the South Pole from the UK on board the Terra Nova in 1910. He reached the Antarctic in January 1911 and began the arduous trek, unaware that he was going to be beaten by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who became the first man to reach the Pole in December 1911. All five of Scott's expedition party died on the return journey after reaching the Pole in January 1912. Among them was Captain Oates who famously walked out of his tent on his 32nd birthday in March 1912, saying: "I am just going outside and may be some time."