Capt Scott letters go on display

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The last letters written by explorer Capt Robert Scott to his family are to go on display for the first time.

In the letters, found with his body in the Antarctic, he said he and his team were "full of good health and vigour".

Scott famously perished after reaching the South Pole in 1912, where he discovered he had been beaten to his goal by a rival Norwegian expedition.

The collection of letters has been donated to the Cambridge University's Scott Polar Research Institute museum.

We are tremendously grateful to the family for this generous gift without which Scott's final and most poignant letters might easily have been lost to a private collector Prof Julian Dowdeswell <a href="/1/hi/uk/6244541.stm" class="">Moving last letter of explorer</a>

They will be on display at the museum from 17 January.

Institute director Prof Julian Dowdeswell said: "We are tremendously grateful to the family for this generous gift without which Scott's final and most poignant letters might easily have been lost to a private collector.

"Instead they will prove invaluable in enabling us to continue our historic role as an international centre for the study of the polar regions."

The letters were donated to the institute by Lady Philippa Scott, the widow of Capt Scott's son Sir Peter.