The antarctic hero Captain Laurence Oates found time to sow scandalous wild oats before his noble act in leaving a tent in 1912, according to freshly disclosed evidence yesterday.
He also left behind a legacy of under-age sex, illegitimacy and concealment which lasted almost a century. This would now make him a great-great grandfather.
Oates is a legend for walking from a tent into a blizzard with the words "I am just going outside, and may be some time" before sacrificing himself in an effort to save others in Captain Robert Falcon Scott's doomed South Pole expedition.
He died an unmarried virgin at the age of 32, according to biographies. But a biography due out at the end of this month cites evidence that 12 years earlier, as a young army officer, he fathered a daughter in a brief liaison with a girl who was less than 12 years old.
The book says the girl, Ettie McKendrick, daughter of a Paisley master builder, was taken by her parents to Ireland to give birth in secret to the baby named Kit. To avoid family disgrace, Kit was put into a special home in Surrey for children born out of wedlock.
Ettie - who later married - was a regular visitor to the home but had to keep her distance. According to the biography, she "was forced to endure the slow torture of watching her child develop in front of her eyes. Even the smallest cuddle was impossible in case it betrayed her secret."
Kit was brought up by her adopted mother, Blanche Wright, owner of the home, to believe that her father was an unnamed "great hero". Only when Kit married in 1926 did Ms Wright confide to her the identity of her parents.
This led Kit to visit Oates' mother, Caroline Oates, at her home in Gestingthorpe, Suffolk. A friend said: "She got a cold reaction. Mrs O did not admit anything and did not wish to see Kitty again."
Only when Ettie died in 1956, aged 69, did Kit tell the secret to her own daughter Gillian. Shortly before this, Gillian and her brother John went to a screening of the film Scott of the Antarctic. The cinema foyer had full-size cutouts of the polar heroes. Gillian, now Gillian Ward, said: "I got a shock because the figure of Captain Oates could have been John standing there. The likeness was so striking."
The author of the biography, Michael Smith, says no birth certificate exists for Ettie, either because not all Victorian births were registered or because of secrecy.
Short of DNA testing, the evidence rests on family resemblance and the testimony of Blanche Wright, in whom Ettie's parents would have had to confide when placing the baby. Ms Wright was a respected figure who cared for a total of 1,700 illegitimate infants. Her home was taken over by the Shaftesbury Society as the Wright-Kingsford Home and she received an OBE.
Michael Smith said: "It is highly unlikely that Oates ever set eyes upon his child. He probably died without knowing he was a father." In reply to inquiries, Oates'descendants had said: "We think family matters should remain private."
Gillian Ward, now 72, said yesterday: "It did shock me greatly when I heard that Ettie was only 12 when Oates made love to her. It rather took the gilt off the gingerbread.
"It is a very strange feeling that it is all coming out now. I don't feel any animosity. We are proud of the connection".
· I am Just Going Outside (Spellmount Publishers, £20)