I’m on my way to Antarctica, and here among the penguins and the pack ice I’ve found a tiny outpost of the British Empire, where the Union Jack still flies and some quaint traditions live on…
PAUL : Okey Dokey. That’s er, I need four stamps and one post card, thanks.
PETE : Sure. We’ve got the photograph or the Keith Shackleton painting.
PAUL : I’ll go the photograph, thanks.
PETE : Right. Four stamps and one postcard, that’s five dollars, please.
PAUL : You take Visa card do you?
PETE : Nope. We’ve got a nice, simple lifestyle down here. No heating, electricity, so a credit card’s not going to work. It’ll have to be cash only I’m afraid
PAUL : Well, five US Dollars it is!
NARR : Well, you can’t expect everything ... ... especially when you’re about to send a postcard to the boss ...
SYNC : Dear Foreign Correspondent ...... and you’re sending it from the most southerly post office in the world.
NARR: It’s not just the most southerly post office; it’s probably the most remote, and certainly the only one open to the public in Antarctica. And if you’re wondering what I’m doing here...... well, it’s a working holiday. I’m a scientific advisor on a tourist ship, visiting the Antarctic Peninsula.
The ship leaves from Southern Argentina, and Port Lockroy is just one of its stops in this voyage through some of the most fabulous landscapes on the planet.
We’re anchored in the bay. Access is by powered dinghy.
SYNC : If you’d like to come up to me, watch these steps here ....
NARR : ... and we’re met by the post master himself. This is Pete Milner’s third summer here at Port Lockroy.
This was one of the first permanent British bases in Antarctica, but it was closed in 1962.Now the British Antarctic Survey is restoring the place as a museum and a post office for the ten thousand odd visitors that come here each year.
Here we’re restoring an old historical hut, first British station on the peninsula, hence the exciting name of base A. In 1996 we started a restoration project. Small team came down, first of all to weather-tight the building and secondly to clean up the area. And we’ve been doing that every summer since. And it’s great to keep it going.One or two of the rooms are as is. Like in the sixties.
NARR : This can be a harsh place but the creature comforts that were provided for the early expeditioners were quite astonishing.
PAUL : French capers, pineapple essence, raspberry essence, mango chutney, branston pickle, mayonnaise, these guys didn’t eat too badly.
And of course, the diet was a hearty British one!
PAUL : Ha, tins of refined lard!
But even at the bottom of the world, they weren’t as isolated as you might think.
PETE : This is the old radio room. When the base was operational, this was the centre of their communications to the outside world. For those of us in the computer era now, an old typewriter from the original radio operator, Clive Farrington. We can pick up BBC World Service, which is just fantastic.
We listen every now and then to catch up on some news, but actually, to be honest, we quite like to be out of the way!
PAUL : This is the bar on the base. There’s an amazing feeling as if the guys have just stepped out and will be back after a little while. Even to the extent of having “Nice People” by Flanagan and Allan on the turntable.
MUSIC
PAUL : In here is the bathroom. Now, there were nine blokes on the base and you got to have a bath when it was your turn to melt the snow to bath in. So that was once every nine days. Well, it was a British base
MUSIC
P : So what sort of science did they get up to down here?
PETE : Well this station when it was operational played quite an important role in the International Geophysical year. And they were using this machine which was called “the Beastie”, I suspect because they had to spend quite a lot of time maintaining it. It’s an “Ionosond”, and basically the idea was to fire radio waves at the ionosphere to see what optimal frequencies were working.
And that was the start of upper atmosphere research that’s been going on in the Antarctic with the British Antarctic Survey as today. And because of the long term data set that we’ve got now it leads to important discoveries. The discovery of the ozone hole is one particular example.
NARR ..... So much to write home about! But this place also receives mail.
PETE : We have an inter-ship message board where staff from one ship will leave messages for other ships who call into us later on in the season.
PAUL : What a service you have down here at the end of the world!
PETE : Fantastic, yes, and even stranger, we have this appear this season, which is probably the most bizarre thing that’s happened on our message board for a number of seasons.
NARR: You can’t keep a good real estate agent down. This one from Florida obviously has designs on the Antarctic!
PAUL : So this is the most remote junk mail you’ve ever received. Someone’s trying to flog your base for you!
NARR : Providing a mail service is one thing, providing an efficient mail service is quite different. And this isn’t exactly the quickest mail service in the world.
PAUL : So what journey does a postcard take from here to say my home in Sydney?
PETE : We need to find a cruise ship that’s leaving here to go to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. …then it’s got to be flown to the UK, Brize Norton in England, so it enters the English Postal system. From there it’s the normal English Postal system back down to Australia. So it’s going to go well north before it goes south which is not bad for a dollar really.
Q : So if I’m home next week I’m actually going to beat this postcard back by a long shot.
PETE : Yes I think you are. Matt and sue in the post office and if they try and charge you express mail, don’t go for it.
PAUL : That’s for the guys at the Lab, my darling wife, the guys at Catalyst, mother-in-law, and Foreign Correspondent. I’ll see you before they do
MUSIC :
END
PAUL : Okey Dokey. That’s er, I need four stamps and one post card, thanks.
PETE : Sure. We’ve got the photograph or the Keith Shackleton painting.
PAUL : I’ll go the photograph, thanks.
PETE : Right. Four stamps and one postcard, that’s five dollars, please.
PAUL : You take Visa card do you?
PETE : Nope. We’ve got a nice, simple lifestyle down here. No heating, electricity, so a credit card’s not going to work. It’ll have to be cash only I’m afraid
PAUL : Well, five US Dollars it is!
NARR : Well, you can’t expect everything ... ... especially when you’re about to send a postcard to the boss ...
SYNC : Dear Foreign Correspondent ...... and you’re sending it from the most southerly post office in the world.
NARR: It’s not just the most southerly post office; it’s probably the most remote, and certainly the only one open to the public in Antarctica. And if you’re wondering what I’m doing here...... well, it’s a working holiday. I’m a scientific advisor on a tourist ship, visiting the Antarctic Peninsula.
The ship leaves from Southern Argentina, and Port Lockroy is just one of its stops in this voyage through some of the most fabulous landscapes on the planet.
We’re anchored in the bay. Access is by powered dinghy.
SYNC : If you’d like to come up to me, watch these steps here ....
NARR : ... and we’re met by the post master himself. This is Pete Milner’s third summer here at Port Lockroy.
This was one of the first permanent British bases in Antarctica, but it was closed in 1962.Now the British Antarctic Survey is restoring the place as a museum and a post office for the ten thousand odd visitors that come here each year.
Here we’re restoring an old historical hut, first British station on the peninsula, hence the exciting name of base A. In 1996 we started a restoration project. Small team came down, first of all to weather-tight the building and secondly to clean up the area. And we’ve been doing that every summer since. And it’s great to keep it going.One or two of the rooms are as is. Like in the sixties.
NARR : This can be a harsh place but the creature comforts that were provided for the early expeditioners were quite astonishing.
PAUL : French capers, pineapple essence, raspberry essence, mango chutney, branston pickle, mayonnaise, these guys didn’t eat too badly.
And of course, the diet was a hearty British one!
PAUL : Ha, tins of refined lard!
But even at the bottom of the world, they weren’t as isolated as you might think.
PETE : This is the old radio room. When the base was operational, this was the centre of their communications to the outside world. For those of us in the computer era now, an old typewriter from the original radio operator, Clive Farrington. We can pick up BBC World Service, which is just fantastic.
We listen every now and then to catch up on some news, but actually, to be honest, we quite like to be out of the way!
PAUL : This is the bar on the base. There’s an amazing feeling as if the guys have just stepped out and will be back after a little while. Even to the extent of having “Nice People” by Flanagan and Allan on the turntable.
MUSIC
PAUL : In here is the bathroom. Now, there were nine blokes on the base and you got to have a bath when it was your turn to melt the snow to bath in. So that was once every nine days. Well, it was a British base
MUSIC
P : So what sort of science did they get up to down here?
PETE : Well this station when it was operational played quite an important role in the International Geophysical year. And they were using this machine which was called “the Beastie”, I suspect because they had to spend quite a lot of time maintaining it. It’s an “Ionosond”, and basically the idea was to fire radio waves at the ionosphere to see what optimal frequencies were working.
And that was the start of upper atmosphere research that’s been going on in the Antarctic with the British Antarctic Survey as today. And because of the long term data set that we’ve got now it leads to important discoveries. The discovery of the ozone hole is one particular example.
NARR ..... So much to write home about! But this place also receives mail.
PETE : We have an inter-ship message board where staff from one ship will leave messages for other ships who call into us later on in the season.
PAUL : What a service you have down here at the end of the world!
PETE : Fantastic, yes, and even stranger, we have this appear this season, which is probably the most bizarre thing that’s happened on our message board for a number of seasons.
NARR: You can’t keep a good real estate agent down. This one from Florida obviously has designs on the Antarctic!
PAUL : So this is the most remote junk mail you’ve ever received. Someone’s trying to flog your base for you!
NARR : Providing a mail service is one thing, providing an efficient mail service is quite different. And this isn’t exactly the quickest mail service in the world.
PAUL : So what journey does a postcard take from here to say my home in Sydney?
PETE : We need to find a cruise ship that’s leaving here to go to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands. …then it’s got to be flown to the UK, Brize Norton in England, so it enters the English Postal system. From there it’s the normal English Postal system back down to Australia. So it’s going to go well north before it goes south which is not bad for a dollar really.
Q : So if I’m home next week I’m actually going to beat this postcard back by a long shot.
PETE : Yes I think you are. Matt and sue in the post office and if they try and charge you express mail, don’t go for it.
PAUL : That’s for the guys at the Lab, my darling wife, the guys at Catalyst, mother-in-law, and Foreign Correspondent. I’ll see you before they do
MUSIC :
END