Chard nonagenarian reminsces about life near Scott's expedition member (From This is The West Country)

Chard nonagenarian reminsces about life near Scott's expedition member

11:10am Sunday 5th February 2012 in Somerset By Jamie Brooks

CHARD and Ilminster News reader Stella Davies has been reminiscing about when she lived near the family of one of the members of Captain Scott’s Antarctic expedition, following a story we published last month.

Stella, 90, of Jubilee Close, was delighted to see the story in the January 18 edition on Frank Vernon Browning, who was born in Stockland in 1882.

Stella, who has lived in Chard for 53 years, said she lived next door but one to Browning’s wife, son and daughter when they lived in South Street, Axminster, when she was aged between 10 and 12, in the early 1930s.

Browning died in 1930 and Stella said his family moved to Axminster for a couple of years.

She remembers his wife working in the post office, and was friends with his daughter Mary and knew his son Peter, who was only a toddler at the time.

Browning served in the Navy and was recruited into Captain Scott’s ill-fated British Antarctic Expedition from the Royal Navy’s HMS Talbot.

He carried out extensive scientific observations in the Antarctic over a ten-month period.

Stella said: “I was absolutely over the moon when I saw the story. I don’t know what happened to his son and daughter, I lost touch, but I would be interested to find out.”

Stella went on a fortnight’s holiday with the family in Totnes when she was 13 and remembers seeing Browning’s equipment from the Antarctic expedition in his garden shed.

Stella added: “The ski boots were made of leather and were hand-stitched.”