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

These kinds of minor problems recurred and each of us suffered from snow
blindness once, through not wearing our snow goggles. Once affected you take
care not to suffer again. It is a very painful condition, like having very gritty sand
under one's eyelids and it affects the sight. The treatment was to insert a cocaine
lamella to relieve the pain and sit it out for a few days.
However, of the long winters and short periods of daylight had a clear effect
on our moods. (Now called SAD, this is known to be mediated by melatonin
secretion). I must say that I didn't find l949 as enjoyable as the previous year; our
trio then had been an unusual combination. In such a small community one
notices and is irritated by quite small mannerisms of other people, which
anywhere else would go unnoticed. And of course it works both ways. Also the
novelty too had worn off a bit for me in the second year. Don't think from this
that I wasn't enjoying life because I was, very much - but perhaps I came to
appreciate civilization a bit more than I did when I left it. At Signy it was so
crowded, relatively - outside the hut there were thousands of square miles of
uninhabited country and yet we were shut in a small hut under 300 square feet in
area! Our individual territories were very small, averaging no more than 10 x 10
feet square. Except by going outside one couldn't get away from the others, but it
only really became apparent in the winter when the days were so short and one
was of necessity confined to the hut for long periods by the weather. This
condition, together with SAD, later became known in FIDS as ‘winteritis’. One of
the most important positive influences was that we all had plenty to do, too much
in fact. And when I got a bit ‘cheesed-off’ I found that painting was a good outlet,
because I became so absorbed in catching the colours and forms that everything
else was forgotten until I'd finished.
By April l949 John was becoming very untidy and slack with the meals; when
his week's cooking ended we would get into a better routine. He also developed a
very bad habit of sleeping in the evening and having to be woken at bedtime. He
then couldn't get to sleep and lay with the light on until after 4.0 am. It was very
annoying. I had a talk with him about late nights and he was first to bed that
night. One evening it was relatively fine though cold we went up to Mite Peak on
ski leaving John sitting by the fire; it was always difficult to get him away from
the hut. Later he fell asleep again and had to be woken. These problems
continued through the winter. On 8 June l949 John heard that his mother had died
and this noticeably affected him for some weeks.
Another factor was that, particularly in the first year when there were only
three of us, we got to know each other very well. This to the extent that after the
initial months we usually knew what the other was thinking; in this situation
conversation lapses and there are long companionable silences. Also there were
problems of moodiness that affected us all. We knew that we had to live together
amicably, so when moods descended on us we each tended to remove ourselves
from the others, either physically or mentally, until it passed off. Otherwise there
might have been angry confrontations that would have been regrettable. The
causes of the moods were usually insignificant - intolerance of particular
mannerisms oft-repeated (Derek’s loud laugh could irritate!) an imagined slight,
on sledging trips the suspicion that one wasn't getting one's fair share of the food
- little things. On some occasions one just needed some solitude, the continual
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