A Summer in Antarctica

By J. Jones

The writing in this book refers to a construction project that I was lucky enough to have being chosen to take part in on behalf of the British Antarctic Survey. The Project took place at Rothera Station, Adelaide Island, Antarctica, in the summer season of 1994/95. The project was to continue with the on-going regeneration of the accommodation and working structures at Rothera Station.
The experience of working on the Antarctic continent was truly amazing and having being well travelled with my previous employments, nothing compared to the sights that I witnessed from leaving the Falkland Islands until we reached Adelaide Island at 67 degrees South, 68 degrees West in late November 1994.
Today, I am based in Birmingham, England and I spend my time working and travelling between the United Kingdom and Turkey. I wrote this book through a diary of events relating to a construction contract that I was involved in on the continent of Antarctica.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467880077

J. Jones

Julian R. Jones is a Royal Academy of Engineering/EPRSC Research Fellow in the Department of Materials, Imperial College London. In 2004 he was awarded the Silver Medal for outstanding achievement by a young researcher in materials science by the UK Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

CHAPTER 8

Introduction

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Early September 1994, we are barely out of the summer season and this morning it is not necessary to open the curtains to see what the weather is like today, because I can hear the rain lashing against the window again. Today, the same as yesterday, it is a case of forcing the body out of the warmth and preparing for another day of work.

After the battle of walking the mile or so through the driving rain and wind to get to work, I, like the other lads who had even bothered to turn up today, were informed that due to the mini hurricane that seems to be pounding us this week, we may not be required to work again today. This week the weather has been very unkind to the construction industry. Upon arriving at work this morning the freezing wind, driving rain and high winds make for a daunting start to the day ahead. Those of us who have turned up are busy in the canteen trying to get as much hot tea into our systems as possible, whilst changing into our waterproof clothing. To-day, as yesterday and the day before, we start our climb up the scaffolding towers some seventy feet up in the air to replace or repair the canopy sheeting that was our protection from the elements as we worked. It is whilst we are doing this that we get our first soaking of the day. At this time the lads down below are preparing to hoist up the industrial blow heaters that we require on the platforms. No, these heaters are not for our benefit to keep us warm and dry, but because the certain compounds we were using to do our jobs could only be used at certain temperatures. As always we got our tools out and prepared to begin work as and when we got told to go ahead. While this is happening, the engineers are busy here and there with their air temperature gauges generally getting in everyone’s way. After an hour or so, now cold and wet, a message is relayed to us from the site manager, Sorry lads, but its tools away, we will not be working today.

We are once again we are thanked for our efforts this morning and told when we get the tools away we can make our way home. We now realise that we are not going to be breaking any financial records for earnings this week. Three days, two hours per day amounts to the grand total of six hours pay.

Now might be a good time to explain that we are a concrete repair gang, working on the support beams on the Birmingham Expressway, more commonly known as ‘Spaghetti Junction’. For many construction workers some important decisions have to be made when they are ‘rained off’. Shall I go straight home and get on with those jobs that need doing, but I keep putting off? Or shall I go for a few beers? From personal knowledge, I know the decision is most likely, go for a few beers.

As I left the site, walking into the rain and wind that was blowing straight at me, I got my head down and thought I had better do some serious thinking here. I have to find a better job than this. My mind was not thinking straight at the time due to the weather conditions, so all I could think about was getting home, having a hot shower and some dry clothes, then down the pub for a beer or two. After a while I found myself walking up the high street cold, wet and miserable, contemplating my loss of earnings for this week, but in a strange way also feeling quite relaxed.

As I looked up to survey my surroundings, which I should have known only to well having walked this high street on numerous occasions before, for some strange reason my eyes became focussed on the sign for the local ‘Job Centre’. This was not a place that I would normally look for. Constructions workers normally have a set way of looking for employment and job centres are not one of them. More often than not, construction workers rely on friends, agencies or the local newspapers. One of the more popular construction agencies is the ‘pub’. For whatever reason, I found myself been drawn towards the doors of the job centre today. Maybe it was because it was the fact that I was now soaking wet and cold that I thought I would go in for a while just to get a bit of warmth to the body for a short time. Slowly and trying to give the impression I was there for a reason, I began to make my way around the various vacancy boards around the walls, when I found myself standing in front of the board advertising the construction vacancies. Looking at the board there were some four or five jobs on offer. ‘Wanted: 16/17 year old to train in construction skills £45 per week’. (In other words, tea boy wanted who could use a broom and clean the site manager’s office). ‘Carpenter wanted: must have 10 years experience, two weeks work at £140 per week’. (In other words, carpenter wanted to cover for someone who is going on holiday for two weeks). It’s no wonder we do not see construction workers in the job centre. But wait, what’s this? ‘Construction Operatives wanted for Antarctica’. No this cannot be for real, you do not get jobs like this advertised in the local job centre, this has to be someone’s idea of a joke. After reading through the job description two or three times, I felt my hand reaching up to take the card of the board. With the card in my hand, I casually looked around me to see if anyone was looking at me and laughing at the fact that I had taken the card at all. Slowly and slightly embarrassingly, I approached the assistant at the information desk, expecting to be told that I was not the only to have been fooled by this card today. To my surprise, after a few questions, I was handed an application form to complete. Little did I know or even imagine at this time, that in approximately eight weeks time I would be on an aeroplane flying to the Falkland Islands to board a ship that would be sailing south to ANTARCTICA.

Chapter 1

The Early Years

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Leaving the job centre, thoughts of going for a few beers soon became unimportant. It was now a priority that I got myself into a frame of mind to complete the application form that was now safely tucked away in my pocket. Nothing else seemed to be of any great importance to me at this particular time. Once again I set off walking into the driving rain, head down with a million and one thoughts running through my mind. For the rest of the walk home, I was trying hard to piece together my previous employment history as this is always required on these application forms. The first 10 years were relatively straightforward, since leaving school, two years as a welder and eight years in the army. The problem might be the eight years moving about in the construction industry that will get my mind ticking over. Having never really needed or thought I might need a curriculum vitae, I was going to be stretched to remember names and dates of whom, when and where I had been working. Therefore the simple task of filling in an application form was going to give me more trouble than I had bargained for. Throughout my time in the army, I had gained the knowledge of the importance of teamwork. I have always been a believer that everyone has their own individual skills, but by putting them together with other individuals you will form a formidable team. Therefore being a team player has always been an important part of my lifestyle.

Having left Duddeston Manor secondary school, in the summer of 1975 with no more than four or five CSE’s, I never once imagined that I would be applying for jobs in the upper market scale of banking or the medical professions. Duddeston Manor was I suppose an average inner city school, where students went after their junior years. I can remember it was a school that appeared to produce more of a sporting student than an academic one, having said that, I am sure that there were a certain amount of successes that to this day I am unaware of. A 1980’s pop group called Musical Youth were a product of Duddeston Manor at the time of their musical success. I also believe we had one or two lads who made it big in the sport of basketball. Me, I just seemed to dislike going to school like many others the world over and thought no more of education than waiting for the bell to go at the end of each day, so that I could race home then get to the park for a game of football. Homework was always something that could be done quickly in the morning before school started, or so I thought. Personally my better subjects were always the more manual ones like sports, woodwork, art and geography, which I always found interesting. So in 1975, there I was a sixteen year old, walking away from my school days and not really knowing what direction life was going to take me.

The area that we lived in Birmingham, was shall we say, not one of the most affluent areas of the midlands. Having said that like a lot of areas the people in their own communities appeared to have closeness about them. Everyone seemed to look out for one another and no one seemed to be alone. Of course, like every community in every city, town or village anywhere in the world, there were always those who were not as trusting as we might have liked them to have been. Community relationships in whatever area of life we live in, come down to an important relationship with each other, which I would refer to as teamwork. Coming from a not so well off family, there was my parents, two brothers and two sisters and myself, it was now time for me to get down to the serious part of life where if you wanted something you had to get out there into the big wide world and work to earn a living. It was now time for me to give back to my parents some kind of thanks for the upbringing I had over the last sixteen years of my life.

At secondary school, the forth and fifth years were the years when we all had our bit of respect from the younger kids, just as we had had to give respect to the older kids as we were the youngsters. Now that I was leaving school and going into the big wide world, it suddenly became a daunting place to be. Suddenly I was a little boy again having to go through the process of earning the respect of the big boys again. Like in any walk of life, certain rules apply to the different situations that we might find ourselves in. Being a young lad in the seventies there seemed to be a healthy respect for the law amongst the youth of the day. The sight of a policeman approaching looking seven feet tall and just as wide, made even the toughest of the bunch start to think twice about misbehaving. There were always the ones who thought that the law was not for them and constantly tried to beat the system, unfortunately, the system always won. I remember been told at some stage that you cannot beat the system, but you can make it work for you. Today, in 2010, the troublesome youths seem to be determined to bring about some sort of lawless society. This is my personal opinion, but one I believe is shared by many others. The point I am trying to make is that as youngsters in the seventies, we were kept in check and under control. Parental control seemed to be a lot more evident and if we were not kept in control by the law, then we would have to face the older lads who did not trouble brought into the area and would soon let you know if you were out of order with your behaviour. These were the lads whose respect you were trying to gain, so it was always considered sensible to behave if you were given a warning.

Money, this is the key to life. With money you can make things happen and as we are all aware there are different ways of obtaining this golden egg. A popular phrase I always remember hearing was ‘by fair means or foul’. I chose the ‘fair’ method, which meant getting a job as soon as possible and starting to earn a living. It is now 1975, I was now about to begin the beginning of my future, the decisions I was about to make from now on were going to form the basis of the rest of my life. It became a focus that I wanted those smart clothes and to be able to go to those places that my parents could not afford to give me financial help to go to, I wanted to be independent and spread my wings in the big wide world that was stretching out before me. Suddenly, hanging about on street corners with pals and kicking a ball about in the park did not seem important any more. It was time to grow up and take responsibility for my own future destiny. By this time I had already had my interviews with the school careers officer, who in a roundabout way informed me that with my limited educational certificates, it is more likely that I would be suited to manual labour types of employment. With these words of wisdom I made the conscious decision to start seeking employment in a factory or warehouse environment. As I was not from a well to do family and we did not have the luxury of a telephone in our home, I would visit the local careers office and should a job take my interest then I would ask the staff to make any necessary calls to prospective employers on my behalf. This method brought very little response in the way of interviews or offers of employment. At this point I decided that if I was to gain employment more quickly, then I would have to put the legwork in myself. Therefore being a cocky and fit young sixteen year old, I would get myself out to the factories and warehouses that had ‘Vacancy’ boards up seeking employees. My parents were as helpful as they could afford to be with helping with transport costs to various areas that were a distance from home, but most of the time I would end up walking to any prospective opportunities and use any cash I had to buy snacks along the route. Therefore most of my job hunting was done with the legs I was born with.

Factory after factory, warehouse after warehouse, mile after mile was anyone going to give me that opportunity that I was seeking. After the first week of my endeavours, it became apparent that gaining employment was not going to be as easy as I had thought. At this time, my best friend, Bryn, who was a year younger than me, decided that he would use my job hunting experience as a reason for some school truancy and would therefore keep me company for a couple of days on my now daily routine. Many years later in 2007, Bryn played another very important role in my life by being ‘best man’ at my wedding.

Going into week two since leaving school, I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to get onto that ladder of employment. Every day I would take to the streets of Birmingham in search of meaningful and gainful employment. I was young, fit and healthy and above all, eager to offer myself to any organization that would that would give me the chance to prove my willingness to learn and become a valued member of society. Later during the week, I walked into yet another factory on my daily hunt for work which was giving me mixed feelings by now, as I seemed to be getting constantly told Sorry son, but we are looking for someone with experience. On this occasion, I did not even look at the factory signs to know what type of production was advertised, it was just another factory to try my luck. I was not about to give up looking, so everywhere was a new window of opportunity. As I walked through the entrance it was quite noticeable that this factory was a lot smaller than ones I had visited previously. It was like a small engineering works of some description.

Hello, do you have any vacancies for a school leavers please, I asked quite confidently. The lady sitting at the desk asked me a few brief questions, as some of the other businesses I had tried had, but this time the lady asked me to take a seat whilst she went away to get someone to come and have a word with me. This gave me a good feeling as I had previously been told there and then that there was nothing available. As I sat patiently waiting, I started to feel a bit apprehensive about what was happening around me, was a job offer coming my way or maybe yet another rejection for having no experience. I felt as if I was sitting in my old head-masters office waiting for the door to open, feeling quite nervous and wondering would I be able to answer any questions in a sensible and direct manner. Just then the door opened and into the office came a tall man in his late forties or early fifties. I immediately stood up as a sign of respect to this man who was, I assumed going to be making some decision on my employment future. In a friendly and relaxed manner he told me to sit down, whilst he stood towering over me asking a series of questions. I tried to answer his questions as best my nervousness would allow me to, as previously I had not got to this stage, I must have managed to string together a few sensible sentences together, because some fifteen minutes later I left the premises feeling ten feet tall. As of Monday morning I was to be a member of the working classes. I was offered a position of employment as a trainee welder. I was to be given a one month trail period in which I would have to prove I was worthy of position within this company. I was later to find out that this man who offered me this position was Dave and he was in fact one of the owners of this small family welding engineering business. I was over the moon now and spent the next few days telling anyone who might be interested that I now had a job. At the same time I was trying to find out what a welder actually did. Over the next few weeks I became a member of a team at work. I was now working for a small but well organized family business. I got stuck into my training taking on board as much information about the job as possible and showing a willingness to learn. At some stage over the next few weeks I must have impressed my boss, because without asking or been told, I now found myself to be a regular member of the workforce. I was now training as a Co2 welder and actually enjoying what I was doing. Over the next three years, by asking a lot of questions and showing a keen interest, I was able to learn a lot more about the various aspects of the welding trade. At any one time, I cannot remember there been more than thirty or so of us working at the factory. The owners Dave and his brother Douglas were always out on the factory floor working with their overalls on everyday working along side the workforce. The lady I met that very first day was Jean, she was Doug’s wife. She was the receptionist, the secretary and when needed, she would have no hesitation in putting on overalls and working on whatever machines needed to be producing work. This is where, looking back now, I encountered my first introduction to teamwork within the adult world. We were a mixed group in the factory, young and old generally mixed well together. The turnover of personnel was never too great as to cause any disruption, so there was always a closeness about us that kept the humour within our factory unit.

It was now 1978 and I was now nineteen years old and still living at home. I had the same group of friends that I had had for the last six or seven years, but I seemed to have grown up with the responsibility of my job. Football in the park suddenly became unimportant and was replaced by going to disco’s. There was no more going out in the evenings just to hang about on street corners trying to be one of the ‘in-crowd’. In our group of friends there was maybe five or six of us who had jobs, so fortunately we were able to dictate our own lifestyles and were able to do things and go places that some of our friends could not. My job and the money I earned gave me a sense of security and I tried to keep focussed on the fact that the lifestyle I was now living was because I had gone out and done an honest weeks work to have earned it.

Around this time things at home started to get a bit strained with my parents, the arguments were becoming more regular, can I afford to pay more rent? Do I really need to be buying new clothes every week? To an extent I could understand the questions, as my family upbringing was one where money was not always readily available, but I felt that as I was earning this money, I should be allowed to take control of my own decisions. Each year as my wage increased, I would offer my parents an increase in the rent I was paying them, but it never seemed to be enough. Although my father was a hard working man for as long as I could remember and my mother always had a cleaning or factory job, there never seemed to be enough money for going out or spending at will, every penny had to count. Over a period of time, it appeared to me that the amount of money I was putting into the household was more important to my parents that I was. Although this was never the case, it did seem at the time to be putting a lot of pressure on me as a young man. Looking back now in hindsight many years later, I was probably just been an arrogant teenager who thought he knew better than his parents. To meat this time life seemed to be about me having money in my pocket and to be able to do the things that a few years previously I had only dreamed of doing. I now had money in my pocket to go to football matches when I wanted or to go into town to a rock concert. I could afford to buy the clothes that my parents could not or would not buy for me whilst I was still a schoolboy. This I thought was what been grown up was all about.

I can say in all honesty I was never a troublesome youth. Of course, like most teenagers I had friends who were often caught on the wrong side of the law and appeared to be wandering through life aimlessly in the early years of their lives. I also knew that by joining in some of the activities that were going on, I would indeed be jeopardising my own journey through life. I decided that I did not want to become another police statistic. There would always be the street scuffles or the teenage ‘Bring a bottle’ parties, where the teenagers then, as nowadays, thought they were the most important people on the planet. After the first two cans of beer it would be time for all the bravado to start rearing its ugly head, which inevitably led to waking up the following day with a cut lip or a black eye, wondering who had annoyed who. It was around this time that I decided that I would have to start making a few decisions about my future. It was time for me to make a few changes to enable me to lead a more independent lifestyle. I was now ready to leave the pressure of living at home and would need to start looking for somewhere else to live, a place of my own. Some of the older lads were able to offer advice on how to go about looking for a flat or a bedsit by using the local papers or the notice boards in newsagents shop windows. After a couple of weeks of this and looking at some of the accommodation available, I soon realised how lucky I was to still be living at home with my parents. With this new knowledge gained as to the cost of independent living, I found it easier told give my parents an agreed increase to the rent I was paying them and stay at home.

It would now be the summer of 1978 and while at the local bar one Sunday evening playing pool and having a few beers and laughing and joking about the events of the weekend we just had, the football, girls, fighting and who may have had a tug from the law that my thought process suddenly changed. ‘Surely there must be more to life than this’. I suppose what I was thinking by this train of thought was ‘is this really what I want to be doing for the rest of my life?’ Here I was with a great bunch of lads some of them in their mid to late twenties and realising, with respect that they had not really done a lot with their lives as yet. It seemed to me at this moment in time the question I had to ask myself was ‘Is this it? Is this, what life is all about?’

Sleep, wake up, go to work a few beers at the weekend and if you were lucky, maybe go on holiday for a week once a year. Then year after year it becomes a cycle of repeats and then you die. Where, is the adventure in that? Yes, maybe I did have more going for me than a lot of lads my age, a close group of friends and a regular income. Therefore, why was I suddenly having thoughts that there was much more for me to be doing with my life that I found myself thinking of giving up what I had to consider my future. Did I really want to spend the next fifty years of my life working in a factory, going to the football on a Saturday followed by a few beers to see off the rest of the day? If I was lucky I could save some money throughout the year to have a holiday at Western-Super-mere once a year. Maybe I was destined to meet and marry a local girl, have two children, a mortgage and live happily ever after.

My feet were getting itchy and my thoughts were now working in a different direction. As things stood at this time I was in love with Gabrielle, a girl that I had been seeing for o couple of years now. We were very close but still also very young.

Occasionally our conversations would indeed get around to marriage, but looking back now I suppose a lot of teenagers had these conversations but ten minutes later the conversation had changed quite dramatically. We were your average couple of teenagers who enjoyed each others company and had our regular nights out at the pictures or the disco’s the same as anyone else. As strange as it seems, I cannot remember us ever having what I would call a full blown argument, we just seemed to click into each others lives. We obviously had our disagreements like any other couple but nothing so drastic that we ever felt the need to end our relationship. I will say that we were never the types of teenagers that felt we had to be together every moment of every day. We both had our work and gave each other space to unwind, therefore creating a better atmosphere when we met up two or three times a week.

If at any time I did have thoughts of settling down to married life, this is without doubt the girl I would have wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Another Sunday night and another few beers whilst playing pool, when I turned to my mate Danny as we were chatting away at the bar, How do you fancy joining the army? I casually threw into the conversation. I was quite surprised when he replied Yes, why not, I do not have much going on here. It was not something I had given a great deal of thought to, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe this, a usual, was just beer talk on a night out it will all be forgotten tomorrow. Danny was a good lad to have around, a joker in the pack, nothing appeared to faze him. Over the next couple of beers we spoke constantly of the places and countries around the world we could be sent to. We also spoke of the array of activities that the army could offer us parachuting, windsurfing, skiing and canoeing. Yes this was a good idea after all and we would be getting paid for it. At this point, maybe again it was the beer talking but we decided that tomorrow we would both take the day off work and go into Birmingham to the army recruitment office and make enquiries as to how we would go about joining up. Maybe I was thinking like this as a way of escaping the pressure I felt that I was constantly under at home with my parents, but also the thought of the travelling around the world was very appealing. My immediate thoughts were to keep this idea from my parents until I had made the necessary enquiries and made any decisions as I did not want to rock the boat at home at this particular time. I also consciously decide not to tell Gabrielle of my intentions at this time. So that night I went home with these thoughts of a new life floating around in my head.

Having had a nights sleep, I woke on Monday morning thinking was last nights conversation with Danny about this army life just another daft teenage idea or were we really serious about joining the army. My personal feeling were that I did want to find out about what the army could offer me if I was accepted, maybe this was the new direction I was seeking in my life. Sitting in the lounge on my own, I was thinking is this to big a decision to make to give up the relative steady lifestyle I had at the present time. Another cup of tea and YES, I made the decision there and then that I was going to follow up last night’s conversation and attend the army office to find out what ‘Joining up’ involved. I also felt in some way that I was being disloyal to my employers who gave me a start in life that I was extremely grateful for. As we did not have a telephone in our house, I ran down to the telephone box on the corner of our road and called work to tell them I had been ill during the night and did not feel fit enough to go to work today.

At approximately 9am after making some feeble excuse to my mother as to why I was not going to work today I knocked on Danny’s front door which was only two houses away. Danny answered the door and said words to the effect, Sorry John, but I will not be able to come to the army with you today because my father needs me to help him with some work he is doing. This knocked me back a bit as I looking forward to getting some information about military life. I was now again thinking it must have been youthful bravado fuelled by alcohol that had us thinking about a life in the army last night, or was it that Danny had had time to think and had decided this morning that army life was not really for him. His idea was that if I still got the information we would meet up later in the day to discuss it and we would make a decision. By now I had made my decision, I was going to go ahead and follow it through. I agreed that I would go to the army office myself to see what the army was all about. Although I was annoyed that I was now having to this myself, I carried on regardless. Within an hour, after a bus ride into the city centre, I hesitantly and nervously approached the soldier that was sat at the