The famous diary of Captain Robert Falcon Scott is read in excerpt together with readings from Roald Amundsen’s recently translated journal and from other diaries and letters, some revealed for the very first time, including a last, loving letter to Scott from his wife Kathleen. Beginning in 1910, and with Imperial fanfare, Scott’s South Pole expedition ended with death in a freezing, storm-bound tent in March 1912. Although Amundsen beat them to the pole by just one month, their courage in the face of appalling conditions and certain death became legendary. One hundred years on, this film retells that story in the light of never-before-seen texts and with the benefit of modern medical knowledge to reveal what made the difference between life and death in these expeditions.