Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

"the thing that strikes you is that everything is represented - from shoe-repairing
tools and a last, to saucepans; from meteorological instruments to snowshoes and
pickled biological specimens". There was little in the way of decoration. I framed a
picture of the Yorkshire Dales and hung it on the north wall. Other posters went up
on the oblique top of the walls and a picture of Snowdon over the lab doorway.
Heating, lighting, washing. Two solid fuel stoves (Esse make) heated the hut when the
weather was colder. The cooking stove glowed red-hot some mornings after a gale,
even though the regulator setting was at ‘minimum heat’. It was a most changeable
beast and might well burn out. We then had to re-light it, a job made easy if it was
possible to use embers from the other fire.
During the first year paraffin burning Tilley pressure lamps, with asbestos
mantles, provided our lighting. They involved a daily evening routine and once we
learnt their idiosyncrasies they were little trouble and, properly adjusted, gave a
reasonably bright light. As a special treat we occasionally used electricity for lighting
and for photographic enlarging, but the fuel supplies were extremely limited so we
had to be very parsimonious. Serious problems engaged us during the second year
because the original small generators were by then ‘on their last-legs’ and eventually
packed up altogether. Unfortunately larger replacement generators proved to be very
thirsty for fuel and consequently electric light was either a luxury or unavailable. We
received a message from Dr Fuchs one day about their using diesel gas-oil in lamps
at Stonington and something about the supply lasting "25 years 16 days 13 mins!" I
sent a reply "We have enough elephant seal blubber to keep us in lighting for 275
years 29 days 11 hrs 27 mins 11 secs. Hope to be relieved before then. Fuchs replied:
"Oh what a glorious thing, To be a blubber-king!"
We slept in reasonably comfortable wooden bunks with mattresses and sheets. It
was quite difficult keeping the sheets white as we couldn't send them to a laundry
and had no facilities - no washing machine or mangle – and there were no detergents,
only soap and soap flakes. We cut a petrol drum in half and it made a passable
washtub, heated over a primus in the Nissen hut. Our best opportunity to do a wash
came during our week on cook's duty, which came round every three weeks at first –
and once a month in the second year when there were four of us. Water had either to
be fetched 200 yards from the stream (when it flowed) or produced by melting snow
in a metal tank that stood near the cooking stove. This involved collecting snow
blocks to pass through the kitchen window. Drying was the main difficulty to be
overcome as, except for a very few days in midsummer, the temperature was such
that the washing froze into boards when hung out of doors or in the Nissen. We
made a drying rack to dry them over the Esse, and this was inconvenient too. On
such a day I would carry up three loads of water - six jerricans, 24 gallons in all -
before beginning the washing session and I might wash stockings, handkerchiefs,
shirts, pants and vest, a large bath towel, 6 tea cloths. There would be more to do the
next reasonable day – trousers, sheets and pillowcases, etc. The sheets took plenty of
rinsing and used up a lot of precious water. We also scrubbed out the kitchen,
including the rough wooden floor liberally soiled with coal dust, weekly, and the rest
of the hut less frequently.
Our infrequent baths were usually taken in the evening. Having ensured that
there was plenty of water in the tank we had to heat it up by the kettlefull on the
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