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

keen sense of humour and stimulating company. There were two assistants,
John Smoughton and Miss Doris Wilson. John was a general
handyman/assistant, who was later to help me to examine the material I
collected and later collections. Doris was working on an extensive index of the
large published Discovery Reports Series.
During this strange-seeming hiatus, a period in limbo, I stayed at 13
Ashfield Place, South Kensington, where Bunny Fuchs had rooms. My
landlady was Diana Russell–Cowan a statuesque blonde whom we had met on
the Andes cruise in 1950 – one of the two "slick chicks". I liked her and her
husband very much and they were very kind to me at this time of flux. Now I
had acquired the necessary residence in Britain and as prescribed by the
Church of England, thankfully put up the bans for my wedding to my darling
Maureen. I planned to travel out to Portugal by train at the beginning of June.
In the event the time passed quite quickly as I had a great deal to do, and I
found myself on a train from Waterloo heading for Gare du Nord, Paris.
At the end of May the RMS "Alcantara" arrived in Lisbon with my parents,
my brother Mike, Sheelagh, and Arthur Mansfield who had all come out for the
wedding. There were a few others as well, including a rather amusing Irish
chap, Sam Glassey, an Antarctic friend, travelling out to take a holiday in
Portugal and who was also invited to our wedding! Maureen went dancing at
the Casino with them, Sam and Bill, Mike and Arthur and of course Sheelagh
and other girlfriends. She got home at 3.45 am with tired feet and feeling
famished!
Meanwhile I had travelled out by train: perhaps it was cheaper, or the
timing fitted in better with my work and the marriage bans in South
Kensington. Leaving from Waterloo Station the train was overdue at the Gare
du Nord, Paris, and in a mad rush I took a taxi to Gare du Nord, catching the
southbound train with only moments to spare. Then at great speed down to
Irun on the Spanish border, where I changed trains (as the gauge of the tracks
changed) and continued on across Spain. I was travelling third class, not very
comfortably, and felt cold on the high Spanish plateau with no heating in the
coaches. The train seemed to be full of priests and troops, and country people;
it made a number of stops on the way, as sitting upright in the crush I tried to
sleep. The journey improved when we reached Portugal; coming to the
Portuguese frontier, [I think] we transferred into another train, which was
daintily old-fashioned, with Pullman tables and lamps, and flowered porcelain
fittings in the toilets. There was a soldier sitting at a desk in each carriage I
think. This toy train, pulled by a puffing steam engine negotiated the beautiful
winding river valleys of northern Portugal and down to the coastal plain
seemingly at breakneck speed and eventually, with much hissing of steam,
pulled in to Lisbon station on Friday 4 June. Maureen drove into Lisbon on her
own (for the first time) to meet me. We were both rather nervous and felt a
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