Halley Bay - 1974

• Coldest recorded temperature -55.3°C, in July.
• Brian Jones 'lost in blizzard' for a day and a half, but survived
• The wife of Capt. Tom Woodfield, master of the Bransfield, became the first woman to visit Halley Bay. A photograph of her with some of the ship's officers, all in evening dress, standing on the ice after dinner, records the event. This was taken by Graham Chambers and hung on the wall of the base for many years. more

Pictures

Base photo:

K Stevenson - D Jones - G Chambers - D Boteler R Dalton - C Bienkowski - J Main - G Wright J McClure - D Connolly - M Daley - I Mclnnes - T Pearce A Moinet - K Lax - R Hewitson - C Cuthbert - B Jones

Picture supplied by Tony Jackson

Gash Run

Photo by John McClure

Oral History Recording

Other information, anecdotes etc.

Graham Chambers on "Streaking"

Reading about various "streaks"* at Halley and the possible dates of the earliest, I am sure that mine was by no means the earliest, but it is the earliest mentioned so far and thus a contribution to history (or hysteria, depending on how you look at it!) In 1974 I was persuaded (against my better judgement - although on reflection maybe my better judgement did not exist until many years afterwards), to run naked for 100 yards at more or less midwinter from the garage exit to the dorm exit (where the doctor's surgery was!) when we hit minus 55.3 - at that time, the coldest Halley had experienced. The entire base at SANAE had streaked and two men at Pole station had effectively run naked around the world - or at least around 360 degrees of longitude. There was nothing for it but to go for the world's COLDEST streak - and in a fit of madness i ran with a pair of running shoes on and nought else. We contacted the "Guiness Book of Records" to record the event, but a year later received the reply that it could not be recorded as it "was not a recognized competitive event". I very much doubt that i was the first, but, for the record, I still have a slide of the event (taken i think by Ken Stevenson) - there is, as you might imagine, not a lot to see! If I can find it, I'll add it to the site. I went on to father two children, so the effects were not permanent! [4 August 2003]
It's been a long wait, but I have taken ages to locate the slide concerned and to begin the transcription of all my best slides onto CD-ROM. Nonetheless, here it finally is, for what it's worth. [23 May 2005]
* See also contributions by Mike Pinnock, Mick Roscoe, Dave Cruse and Tim Elvin.

The Lansing Snowplane (Graham Chambers)

Ken Lax remembers:

In 1974 we had a cardboard cut out of an Aer Lingus hostess - the subject of much admiration and ribaldry - seems rather quaint compared with the blow up doll! I am not sure who was responsible for bringing the Aer Lingus lady to base. It may have been Dermot Connolly. [16 January 2006]

Links

• David Boteler
• Dewi Jones
• Ken Lax
• Many are Cold but Few are Frozen; book by Graham Chambers