Part III: Antarctica and Academe - Scott Polar Research Institute

Surprisingly there was opposition within Cambridge from the last quarter I
would have expected, the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), where the Director,
Dr Gordon Robin, a glaciologist, was a former Fid. I had first met him at Signy Island
in 1948, and we were friends, but he was unhappy about having a large, well-funded
government organisation competing as he saw it in his backyard! By 1973 the
permanent UK staff of BAS totalled 53, a number that was augmented to about 140
each summer by the influx of contract staff being trained prior to Antarctic service,
others writing up their results and additional secretarial staff. Sadly although BAS
provided much support to SPRI – scientific, logistical and financial - over the years
relations between the two organisations have never been warm, even when a later
Director of SPRI, Dr David Drewry, succeeded me as Director of BAS.
Fortunately, however, by 1972 NERC had agreed to fund the move to
Cambridge, and agreed a 4.5 acre site on the university’s West Cambridge land on
the Madingley Road, which had been suggested in informal discussions with Dr Ian
Nicol, the Secretary General of the Faculties in the University. Perhaps it helped that
Dr Nicol’s son Colin was a Fid so he knew the ethos and other strengths of the
Survey! Also I have to declare a personal interest: the land offered was less than a
mile from my home in the village of Coton. This was to prove very convenient,
especially when, on Bunny Fuchs retirement I succeeded him. Meanwhile involving
staff at all levels in BAS, we had been looking closely at the needs to be met by the
buildings, in terms of space and facilities. To guide the architect, when appointed, e
drew up a tight brief for a two-storey building, with offices, laboratories, and other
facilities, located in relation to the users’ needs. An architect was appointed, work on
design of the BAS HQ complex began and a design and build contract signed with a
contractor, all without consulting BAS. I believe that the architect’s remit had
included a requirement to keep the costs down, and a shoe-box should be cheaper
than what we actually needed.
It was at this stage that we ‘users’ in BAS saw the outline plans. The architect
could never have seen the expressed views within BAS on the nature of the facilities
we wanted, because he produced a totally unsuitable design submitted both for the
University’s approval and for outline planning permission. It was a proverbial
shoebox-like structure, a shoebox in shape, with three floors, and a central core that
would need forced ventilation and be unlit by natural light. It did not address our
expressed needs and had no redeeming features. In 1973 Cambridge City granted
outline Planning Permission.
On becoming Director the first thing I had to do was to put this into reverse and
have a new design accepted by the University and by the City’s Planning Committee.
This was complicated by the fact that outline planning had been approved, based on
the three-storey design. Going to see Ian Nicol I explained my dilemma. We needed a
completely new design, which responded to our expressed views. I discovered that
the University had approved a two-storey building and NERC had submitted three
storey plans to the City Planners could and would it take long to reverse the
University’s requirement for a two-storey design. Ian asked what I wanted to hear
and I said I wanted a quick decision requiring a two-storey re-design. He said that it
would take several months for the University to consider the new proposed threestorey
design, which might not be agreed to. However, if they could see a two-storey
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