I RECEIVE a message starting with “G’day Graham”. It’s from my younger cousin, Guy, now living in Australia (which accounts for the salutation), and who has, at various times, also found himself in Kenya (where he was born and grew up), South Africa, Antarctica, England and Asia.
He tells me it was exactly 50 years ago last Friday that the Atlantic Stations, where he was a post-varsity researcher, celebrated mid-winter with parties, some of them involving streaking in temperatures of -40ºC.
“Our base was about 5m below the surface of the Fimbul Iceshelf, built as a line of insulated buildings about 100 yards long.
“There was an ice passage just outside the line of buildings, with leads off to the end of each building.
“There were four shafts to the…