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

She had been thinking about visiting Scandinavia and after I went south
again she joined the Anglo-Norwegian Club and attended quite a few meetings
and socials, the occasional lecture and so on. Through them she contacted a
girl, Karen Voight, in Denmark with whom she could stay - and she in turn
would sometime come out to stay in Portugal. Then she interested Gwen
Jenkins, one of the girls at the Triangle, to join her hitch hiking through
Norway!
So in July 1951 she set out to stay for a couple of weeks with Karen, who
lived near Charlottenlund, north of Copenhagen. She crossed on the ‘Kronprins
Fredrick’ to Esbjerg and then by train to Copenhagen. While there she visited a
Danish ex-boyfriend Charlie (from post war German days) and met his very
attractive fiancée; they all had an enjoyable evening out. She also made a point
of seeing Ib Antons, on whom she had been very keen in Germany - to make
sure that she no longer was! After the visit she hitch-hiked on her own up the
west coast of Sweden to Oslo where she was joined by Gwen. They spent a few
days working at the farm of another old boy-friend from her days in post-war
Germany, Torbjorn Ekern. (He was actually old - nearly 20 years older than her,
and a very charming and kind man she said). The farm was outside Hamar,
just south of Lillehammer. She and Gwen spent a month travelling extensively
in Norway, though only as far north as Trondheim, and then on to Denmark.
They visited Oppdal, Trondheim, Kristiansund, Alesund, Geiranger Fjord,
Sognefjord, Bergen, Setesdal, Kristiansund again. In Denmark they went to
Aalborg, Arhus, Esbjerg, where they fell in with a group of businessmen,
including a millionaire, who looked after them for a few days! In September
she was back in London for a week and then took a ship to Lisbon via Vigo.
In September l951 she returned to Portugal on the RMS ‘Highland Monarch’,
and in October her parents, Bonnie and Leonard took her on a tour in Spain
which was enjoyable, though not new to her. (Her sister Sheelagh was still at
school in Dublin). They visited Seville, Cadiz, Algeçiras, Gibraltar, Malaga, and
Granada, which was the most splendid, especially the Alhambra, and Madrid,
where it was very cold. They went to a bull-fight there. [In November 1951 she
met Jimmy Greenfield, back from Hong Kong [?] ]
Meanwhile I was in the Falklands again later South Georgia. I had arrived
in Stanley early in January l951. On arrival the Governor asked me to carry out
a survey of the fur seal population in the islands, because the South Atlantic
Sealing Company was having difficulty making a success of their sea lion
operations. They had asked for a license to take fur seals and so I spent about
three weeks in Stanley, waiting for a plane to fly me out to their sealing station
at Port Albemarle on the West Falkland. Unfortunately the weather had not
been too good for flying and the plane was well behind schedule. It looked as
though I would be in Stanley for at least another week. It had taken us five
days coming down from Montevideo in S.S. ‘Fitzroy’, the mail and supply
vessel run by the Falkland Islands Company, which was the only regular link
with the world. The weather was pretty bad and I was the only passenger in
circulation, as most of the others were sea-sick. I spent much of the time up in
the captain's cabin - talking and eating. Freddie White was a friend from my
first trip south; he also was from the North-East. a 'Geordie'. We had an
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