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

lighthouse, on a steady old horse ‘Painter’ with high pommeled gaucho saddle
and reins. One afternoon we came upon a huge ferocious sealion bull in the
dense tussock grass and the horses bolted, which was quite exciting. The
Harrisons and Kathy Redmond, who lodged with them, became good friends;
Bill Harrison was an ionosphericist and Derek and I used his darkroom for our
photography. We also frequented the local drinking places, the Colony Club
and the ‘Glue Pot’ and various Stanley pubs, such as ‘the Rose’, ‘the Ship’ etc.
Kathy was a Yorkshire lass, a teacher in the local school, and I found her
attractive. After 25 months in “the ice” in the absence of women, the civilizing
company of Marjorie and Kathy was naturally enjoyable. So my time in Stanley
was passing
We were also entertained to drinks and dinners by various officials, such
as the Colonial Secretary and his wife, who were glad of company from outside
the limited society of Stanley. We Fids were also welcomed to Government
House by the Miles Clifford and his wife. He had ginger hair and moustache
reminiscent of Adolf Hitler – and among ourselves we referred to him as
“Ginger Geoff”. He was a colonial servant who had been Deputy Governor of
Nigeria, where he had met my brother Peter, a DC. Their dinners were quite
formal black-tie affairs. I managed to borrow a DJ and black tie when necessary
from a visiting Irish contract steel erector, employed by the Colonial
Development Corporation (CDC), who was also staying in the boarding house!
Those GH dinners were followed by the men spending an hour or so, whiskies
in hand, playing billiards and telling stories. The ladies retired to the drawing
room. Unfortunately Mrs Clifford had a serious drink problem.
I spent a morning with the Governor, briefing him on the results of my
research and he seemed suitably impressed with what I had achieved. We also
discussed my future plans. I would spend six months in Cambridge and return
at the end of the year to continue my research at South Georgia, When I put it
to him, he agreed to increase my salary from £360 to £400 a year (equivalent to
c. £8,000 today, 2002), for this second “tour”. In my experience Miles Clifford
was one of the more effective governors of the Falkland Islands, although at the
time very unpopular with the Falkland Islanders, the “kelpers”. So much so
that when he toured the islands on board SS Fitzroy his opponents collected
signatures for a petition to the Colonial Secretary in London for his removal –
which was unsuccessful.
I also saw a good deal of “Ham” or “Shag” (the bird) Hamilton, the
Government Naturalist and his wife Rose, who hailed from my county of birth,
Northumberland, and was a charming person. “Ham” had been in the
Discovery Investigations and had written several papers on the Falkland sea
lions and on the leopard seal. In 1936 he carried out a survey/census of the sea
lions and concluded, from detailed counts in the breeding season, that the
population numbered c. [379,000]. He had also made observations on their
biology, including age and growth, from the rate of development of their skulls
(based on suture closure, which my more precise work on ageing from the
teeth rings, was to disprove). He had not made seriously productive use of his
time on the islands and was now approaching retirement. His main interest
when I knew him was in a hatchery for brown trout, which he had established
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