Having plied the lake waters behind his workshop with a sailboat and windsurfer, the BRC craftsman is a reader of historical fiction and eye witness accounts of adventures and mishaps on the high seas. One such astonishing narrative, the “Endurance: Shackleton`s Incredible Voyage” involved a banjo. During the ill-fated 1914 Antarctic expedition, explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton`s three-masted ship the Endurance became fatally trapped in crushing ice. As the crew abandoned ship, each sailor was allowed to bring only 2 pounds of personal possessions to face the brutal survivalist ordeal ahead.
The only exception to this injunction pertained to the ship`s meteorologist Leonard Hussey (below) and his 12 pound Windsor zither banjo. Knowing cruel trials would be faced by all in the hostile ice cap environment, Shackelton pointedly advised the banjo owner to bring the instrument along as, “It`s vital mental medicine, and we shall need it.”
While the marooned shipmates struggled for months to survive in harsh glacial environs not dissimilar to a year-round polar vortex, Hussey entertained them with his banjo and morale-raising sing alongs. Crew members keeping journals recorded, the “…banjo does, as Sir Ernest said, supply brain food,” and another grateful shipmate praised “…Hussey`s indispensable banjo.” One mirthful wag reported, “Hussey is at present tormenting (us) with his six known tunes on his banjo.” With Shackelton`s determined and indefatigable leadership, the stuff of legends, the entire crew was eventually and miraculously rescued.
Located in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, the Windsor banjo factory manufactured thousands of banjos over its lifetime until it was destroyed during World War II by an air raid in 1940. Hussey eventually donated his banjo, signed by all the crew, to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. In 2013, with the help of a Kickstarter campaign, the Great British Banjo Company was founded and launched its commemorative “Shackleton Banjo” model which became a runaway best seller.
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