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

presence of others got one down. In July l949 I noted in my diary: "A bright moon
later and I went for a stroll on the sea ice for the solitude and silence. There was a
cross of light with the moon at the centre and a corona surrounding it."
One form of winteritis, thoughts that were present throughout the year,
though exaggerated in winter, were gripes about the administration of FIDS. I
was not even sure that I would be left in charge of the base as I was rather
outspoken in my communications and annual reports! There were plenty of
avoidable annoyances about the set up - probably the main one being the lack of
firsthand news about FIDS itself. For example there were two fatal accidents in
the second year. At base G, Admiralty Bay, an accident resulted in the death of
Eric Platt, the geologist and Base leader there. He died of exposure after a rather
foolhardy journey over glaciers without proper equipment. At base D, Hope Bay,
there was a catastrophic fire resulting in the death of Michael Green, who was at
Cambridge with me, and Dick Bird. We heard of both of these accidents long after
it was common property and were naturally rather annoyed that we had not been
told when the press ban was lifted. Also, we were usually uninformed about the
movements of the ships, the next mail delivery and so on. We didn't really know
what went on except by eavesdropping on the radio. But we made a joke about it
usually and managed to keep a sense of proportion.
All in all we were pretty fit - and lucky - so the medical and social problems
were minor.
Food supplies The food supplied was adequate, though greatly lacking in variety
and mainly tinned or dried materials. Because we lacked refrigeration - even in
winter ice caves were not cold enough to preserve meat - fresh material soon
went off. Although we acquired a few mutton carcasses, some fresh vegetables
and fruit when the ships visited us, no more than twice a year; these supplies
had to be eaten before they ‘went off’. The tinned meat was Argentine stewed
steak, steak and kidney pudding, pork and vegetable (least appetizing),
sausage, corned beef, ham (very good), veal and ham, spam, bacon, corned
beef and bacon sides and middles (not tinned). There was tinned fish: salmon,
sardines, pilchards, herrings in tomato sauce (horrible). There were tinned
vegetables - peas, celery, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, baked beans, spaghetti in
tomato sauce. Dried vegetables were pretty tasteless (usually sent as 1 4 inch
cubes): potatoes, beans, French beans, carrots, onion, barley, beetroot,
powdered potatoes and at the beginning of the year, fresh potatoes. Also
tinned fruit (peaches, plums, apricots, pears, fruit salad), asparagus, dates, rice,
semolina, cornflour, jellies, porridge, flour (for bread etc.), custard powder,
marmite, meat extract, bisto, ovaltine, horlicks, nescafé, tea, coffee, boiled
sweets, hard biscuits, butter, chocolate, cocoa, cheese, jams, honey, syrup and
all sorts of oddments.
Except for an excess of full-strength Navy rum, alcohol was in short
supply, because the London dockers had removed the bottles of spirits (gin
and whisky) from the crates and substituted bricks for them - kindly people!
The intended ration would have been a bottle a month. We had no beer, but
made cider from dried apple rings and baker's yeast.
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