Category: Antarctica

For seven years, from the mid 1980’s until the early 90’s, I worked at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. This is the Antarctica I saw working in a kitchen feeding 1200 people in summer, and 200 in winter. Antarctica records the tics and quirks of a world of compulsion – military personnel were sent without choice – and abdication. For many civilians it was an exile of ready money and fled responsibilities. It’s not completely truthful. Some of what occurred is so bizarre as to be not credible and has been omitted. This is one person’s story. It’s not a film. It’s a series of still photographs. The first three posts are scene setting. Because we were all very young – names have been changed – youth provides both an excuse and explanation for what later may cause cringe. Anyone who was there will recognise these obvious contrivances.

Posted in Antarctica

Stark

Posted on by tq1695

My back aches
eight hours bending over a sink
too low for tall people
too high for short.
Washing mixing bowls
roasting pans
cookie trays
the stainless steel and aluminium framework
needed to build meals for 1200.
Echoed warnings from the interview
work is hard – and without glamour.
Right.

At shift’s end we move again.
The third night
the third bed
the third building.

Bottleneck
or cock up
our accommodation is not ready
the boss hopes this the last temporary berth
but makes no promise
anything can
and does happen – reason never necessary.

Bleak beyond belief
high walled double canvas tent
MASH era
flickering fluorescent tubes cast hostage light.
Twenty 1950’s wire strung hospital beds
ten down each side.
Open plan.

Lights out
dishes whirl past
dreams.
Sleep bursts awake
directly opposite
in full view
bill boarded by complicit fluorescence
a naked woman.
I thought I’d died and gone straight to heaven.

For the back story click Backstage

Posted in Antarctica

Technical Assistance

Posted on by tq1695

It was called scullery
the place where returned dishes were washed
glasses, cutlery, plates, cups
the detritus of dinner for 1200.
It was my first day
they had been before.

Rinse, scrub, sterilise
they knew the drill.
I load and unload the machine
skipping from jaws to anus
of a 3 metre beast – of heat, noise and steam
which stops – unannounced.
The senior
squat, brick outhouse muscular
with chest thatch escaping his t shirt
onto shoulders
and down his back
bellows energetically
“kick it in the cunt.”
“Yeah,” growls the other without enthusiasm
“kick it in the cunt.”

I am motionless
with a grin to Jack Nicholson nervous
the hirsute one advanced on the machine.
“EEEEEyaaah,” overtures a roundhouse kick
it burst back into life.
“That’s how you do it.”
I spent the rest of the shift praying it wouldn’t stop again

For the back story click Backstage.

Posted in Antarctica

Introduction

Posted on by tq1695

It took weeks the first-time.
Letter of application. Wait.
Interviews. Wait.
Medical examination. Wait.

Finally a date and flight
latitudinal only – time stays constant.
On arrival corralled as sheep into a freighter
deposited at the mess hall, fed
and then briefed.

He has been here many times before
and seen it all before.
Quiet authority pours the concrete of rules.
They are not for discussion
will not be heard again
except as echo in departure. Certainty chills the room.

By way of conclusion
another issue needs to be explained
some seasoned hands are…….. individuals
but good people and good workers
it would be helpful to reserve judgement and expect surprise.

In the lounge
early the next day – my very first
that distinctive click
and hiss
attention spins to the command of unbelief.
A man is casually relishing a Budweiser
flat faced
and flat voiced, “I love a beer before breakfast.”

For the back story click Backstage