Peacock's Tale and a Pixie Harpist... In an English Country Garden live music video

https://youtu.be/ZJ_XCoPB080

We get together with our old bandmate and soul mate Vanessa Wood-Davies to play this homage to a young man from our village of Sedgeford who spent his 19th to his 25th year flying and fighting above the two main fronts of the Second World War (Europe and Asia) before dying in a tragic crash trialling an advanced training plane at home a month before the hostilities finally ceased. Our hosts and most of our audience were already born and have lived the entire 80 years since, grateful for the many young men like him who risked (and lost) it all on a wing and a prayer.

In An English Country Garden (Peacocks' Photoshoot with Bhas Allan)

  https://www.tiktok.com/@peacocktale/video/7511661056788303126 for Bhas's film of the performance

“I tried to save The Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me.” (Frodo in LOTR) Tolkien wrote that during World War Two (and with his own front line memories of friends lost in World War One) and it probably sums up how many survivors felt; as well as summing up the plight of those who didn't survive. Recording this in an English country garden in Lancelot's own Norfolk parish - the bee loud glades, the tidal wave of birdsong - it really did feel like this was what Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Wiliamson fought 5 years, aged 19-25, to save. What he HAD helped to save in July 1945, on home leave from a year in the Burma campaign (after 4 years in the skies above Europe winning two mentions in despatches and not getting shot down, winning those existential battles) But not, alas, for him. A fatal training flight on the early morning of Friday 13 July above Little Eaton in Derbyshire meant he never got the chance to enjoy the 'Shire' we are sitting in here. This is our thank you. We'll be playing this homage (with our neighbour and musical friend harpist Vanessa Wood-Davies on harp) at the church in which Percy is buried on his 80th anniversary, Sunday July 13 2025 as part of a special memorial service starting at 9.30 am. Three generations of his family will be present. I landed a crocked plane, when still just a fitter, 5 years derring-done, never shot down in flames, In a cloud of unknowing, I flew for the sunrise And came down to Earth but lived up to my names. Six knights of Logres to carry my coffin, Six Logres ladies to walk by my side, Through hellfire and slaughter to a wheatfield of poppies And a home hedge on Friday the 13th of July. Beat the drum slowly and play the pipes only, Play up the dead march as we go along And bring me to Fring All Saints and lay me down easy, I lived in the free air that breathes through this song. Instrumental break Repeat first verse. Lyric © Gareth Calway 2023

Bring Me To Fring All Saints - the remake

A new recording and a new film for the anniversary of its subject, Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Williamson, 1920-1945, late of this parish who died on July 13 1945 after five years service in the RAF on two major fronts of the Second World War, aged 25. He joined the RAF in 1939, aged 19. He was agonisingly close to surviving the entire war when, by a cruel irony, he died in a plane crash on a solo training flight in Derbyshire just after his last home leave in Norfolk. 'Percy' hailed from Eaton Farm Sedgeford, went to school in Fring, sang in Heacham church choir and (a week before his death) played cricket for Sedgeford and is buried next to his older brother at Fring All Saints, North West Norfolk.. We performed this homage as part of the Remembrance service at Fring All Saints in November 2023 since when the gravestone has happily been cleaned and made much more legible, hence the new film. Our thanks to the person who carried that out as well as to Tim Snelling Sedgeford village historian whose excellent research gave us many of the images and press cuttings you see here and in the new abridged companion spoken word version (link to follow) The tune is a traditional folk song about a good young man cut down in his prime. The aircraft you hear at the end of this film was flying over as we finished recording so we left the mikes open. (A similar happy accident occurs in the new spoken word version). I landed a crocked plane, when still just a fitter, 5 years derring-done, never shot down in flames, In a cloud of unknowing, I flew for the sunrise And came down to Earth but lived up to my names. Six knights of Logres to carry my coffin, Six Logres ladies to walk by my side, Through hellfire and slaughter to a wheatfield of poppies And a home hedge on Friday the 13th of July.

Beat the drum slowly and play the pipes only, Play up the dead march as we go along And bring me to Fring All Saints and lay me down easy, I lived in the free air that breathes through this song. Instrumental break Repeat first verse.

Bring Me To Fring All Saints

Saints and Singers; Our Christmas LP

 

First released in 2021 as a 6 track EP and now expanded to showcase  all our Christmas material including new recordings for this year. 
The whole attempts to be greater than the sum of its jolly parts by evoking a journey Eastward - part mediaeval/allegorical orientation, part benighted rural Look East of England-  culminating in an arrival at Whatever Christmas Promises around track 13.

https://peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/album/saints-and-singers-our-christmas-album

https://youtu.be/xdBI4GQp-eY  The video

BBC Upload, BBC Radio Norfolk Interview and Norfolk on Film (tumblr)

Great to see our bicentenary commemoration of the 1819 Thunderstorm and the tragic story of Susan Nobes now has a permanent home here on BBC Norfolk.

https://norfolkonfilm.tumblr.com   

As featured on https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0832p98 (exactly one hour in) 

For those who have come to this blog from those links, here is some extra information from last summer. I particularly recommend this 12 minute extravaganza a one off dramatic representation of the 1819 storm and its accounts  

BICENTENARY EVENTS COMMEMORATING THE 1819 THUNDERSTORM

A small group of historians and creative artists will on Friday July 5 2019 mark the bicentenary of the Thunderstorm That Took Place In Sedgeford in the County of Norfolk on Fifth July 1819” a storm so violent it was recorded in the Register of World News blasting a yardwide hole in the Church tower and taking the life of Susan Nobes, a 14 year old village girl. There are 2 events planned.

1. At the Ladywell, a memorial for Susan hosted by village historian Tim Snelling. Sedgeford residents poet Gareth Calway and harpist Vanessa Wood-Davies will share their "Ballad of Susan Nobes" (https://soundcloud.com/gaz29-1/the-ballad-of-susan-nobes-performed-loveheartsredwine) along with Gareth's reading of Janet Hammond's distinctive verses about the tragedy and the Ladywell boulder. Finally, Andy Wall and Gareth will sing and play their new especially composed "Elegy for Susan Nobes."  All of this event will be filmed and be made publicly available online.
2. At the Boneyard Field, in starting at 7.30 pm, in a showcase evening Gareth Calway, Melanie Calway, Vanessa Wood-Davies and Andy Wall and will perform an evening of musical histories. The centre piece of this evening event will be  a one off dramatic representation of the 1819 storm and its accounts at 9 pm (online films of much of this are also available) 

During the dreadful thunderstorm on the Evening of July 5th the electric fluid struck the top of Sedgeford Church Steeple on the West Side, and precipitated to the ground several stones of considerable magnitude making a breach in the wall of about a yard square. The lightning also passed through the Church entering in at a window near the porch on the South side; and after crossing in a North East direction, it made its escape at two places in an upper window near the Chancel on the North side". (as reported in the Times, the Ipswich Journal and the Register of World News 1819-20)

"Come the evening, folk were going about their daily tasks, working in the fields while birds sweetly sang. The teacher sat in the porch waiting for the schoolmaster to appear before Bible reading class could begin, meanwhile the attending children happily played, running up and down the churchyard, little knowing the impending doom that was to befall them. The schoolmaster duly arrived, readings began and when done was followed with a final hymn, 'Oh let me, heavenly Lord extend, My view to life's approaching end... . "(Religious tract 1819, probably by the then Curate of Sedgeford.) 

It All Comes Out In The Wash by Bardonthewire ( solo album released)

Press Release

This is my arty arty solo album - poems set to Norfolk soundscapes,  including an epic musical account of the 1819 Thunderstorm in Sedgeford (performed in Sedgeford on its bicentenary last July); some vistas of Norfolk autumn; a Greek Choral Ode; comic songs; some elegies; my long delayed Welsh Rock Symphony (all four moments and a coda!!!!)  and a charmingly set Sedgeford Christmas poem and a charmingly set satirical one. 

By the end, we're a long way from the Wash in my Welsh/West country boyhood but by then it should be clear 'Wash' is a metaphor as well.

This digital album is available online only on this link - https://bardonthewire.bandcamp.com/album/it-all-comes-out-in-the-wash-album

Sleevenotes below.

Very congenial listening at this time of the year (autumn into winter/Christmas) I've let myself go wherever the words took me, boldly going into soundscapes and scores and whatever else is needed to bring the poems alive for the listener as an audio experience. Lots of experimental sound poem things including the finally realised ambition of a full blown rock symphony (tracks 13-16).

The title is fairly geographical for the first 'side' (tracks 1-11, though beginning to wander across Norfolk from the Wash by the end) celebrating and enjoying the country of Norfolk where I've lived for the past 40 years but broadens after that to include all the stuff pumping out from deeper levels of memory and experience. And in general to indicate the wash of an artist's palate, splashing about all over the shop. 

Cover pic by Bhas Allan 

JINGLE JINGLE THE PENLAND PHEZANTS CHRISTMAS SINGLE!

The recently formed East Anglian folk trio the Penland Phezants have released an online Christmas single inspired by the Lynn mystic Margery Kempe. The song,  'A Lynn Carol' has a happy Christmas message and a strong local connection.

Margery Kempe of Lynn was not your average mediaeval woman. She wrote the first autobiography in English, 'The Book of Margery Kempe.' It begins with an account of her traumatic first pregnancy (she went on to have 14 children) and what we would call a 'post-partum psychosis' during which she received visions of heaven and hell. Her 'Book' describes visions of devils, Jesus, God, the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary and how her spiritual experiences were regarded by the authorities of the time. In a revolutionary (and at the time heretical) direct personal address to God, she requested that the Holy Spirit she heard like thunder in her right ear be changed to something more homely, merry and English: a robin singing. God obliged! 

 
The idea behind the lyric is that while 'Mystic Margery' and a young modern Lynn shopgirl would probably gape at each other's lives in astonishment, they would both understand and share the experience of love. The moment in the song where the girl falls in love is as much a vision as Margery's.

Now starry angels on the tree
Grow larger in the dusk
To heaven-blue and Eden-green
And gold and reindeer-musk.

And what was heard by Margery,
The Visionary of Lynn,
Rings out on tills for checkout girls
Who hear that robin sing. 

The only gift left on the shelf
That nothing else can rise above
Includes all treasure, lasts forever,
And grows when shared with others: love. 

The Penland Phezants are a combination of Ely folk musician Andy Wall and Waywood, the Sedgeford storytelling duo made up of harpist Vanessa Wood Davies and poet Gareth Calway. They are currently seeking to add further engagements to their Hereward the Wake tour next year, which already includes two nationally acclaimed folk festivals.  The Phezants' Christmas single may be heard via the trio's Bandcamp site, from which listeners can add it to their Christmas playlists or purchase a digital download. https://thepenlandphezants.bandcamp.com

And a little robin also tells us that Margery Kempe's extraordinary story may be coming home to Lynn in 2018, 600 years after she wrote her Book there, with some musical assistance from The Phezants. Watch this space.

The Phezants' next appearance is at Wisbech Library in February, where they will perform "Bread or Blood" the story of the Littleport and Ely Riots of 1816.  (part of the Cambridgeshire Library Presents series) Album sampler here  
Phezant photoshoot by Bhas Allan

Waywood (The Artists Formerly Known as Lovehearts and Redwine)

Waywood performing the Ballad of Fiddler's Hill at the SHARP archaeological dig (pic by Bhas Allan) You won't see this again as  Lovewood now does the fiddle section on the harp.  Loveway's  hair is by Ronald's of Mayfair.

Waywood performing their Soundcloud hit The Ballad of Susan Nobes (coming up to 1000 plays worldwide and several every day) at Elsing Church in 2016 (pic by Maz Calway)

The Doin different project has led to the formation of four bands.  This is one of them - Waywood have played a few one-offs and two-offs before but the Doin different show at SHARP Sedgeford showed them at fuller stretch, moving between tragedy and comedy 

The Ballad of Fiddler's Hill
The Ballad of the Bagaudae
The Ballad of Sedgeford
The Ballad of The Backwoods Cavalier
The Ballad of Fanny Burney
The Ballad of Susan Nobes.

You may have seen Lovewood as a solo act at the National Eistedfodd under the name Vanessa Wood-Davies. If so, please send her home!

Sedgeford October With Winter Geese

"Sedgeford October With Winter Geese." The full photoshoot for the cover artwork is below. You can read and hear the poem in its glorious digitally recorded autumn collage at the link above. 

A corner of a Norfolk field that is forever Europe. And one of the loveliest corners of England. 

Digging Deep (SHARP in Suffolk Norfolk Life Magazine)

(feature published July 2014)

The origins of The Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project can be traced back to a hotel bar overlooking the Bay of Naples. It was here in 1995 that a chance meeting took place between SHARP's founder director, Dr Neil Faulkner, and the owner of the Sedgeford Hall Estate, Professor Bernard Campbell, who mentioned the archaeology found on his estate….

Nineteen seasons later SHARP is one of the largest independent archaeological projects in Britain, and firmly rooted in the local community. It has won awards for its outstanding contribution to education. Half a dozen locals who went on to study archaeology as postgraduates found their futures in the trenches of Sedgeford’s past.

The project was set up with a broad remit – the understanding of human settlement and land usage within the parish. The refusal to narrow focus may be why it has lasted, surviving a shift in archaeology from the micro to the macro. What diggers are now trained to look for is not the individual find but the general picture. One diseased bone is significant: a field full of them tells a story about how a community lived and died.

Since 1996 SHARP has undertaken a wide range of excavation and research projects from an Early Bronze Age crouched burial to a First World War aerodrome.

Beginning with Iron Age and Saxon burials – including murders - in the spooky Boneyard Field, around the Reeddam and St. Mary’s Church, excavations and research have since extended to Chalk Pit Field North, Eaton Roman Villa, the Saggy Horse Field, West Hall, East Hall, Hall Wood, Ladywell Field and even Sedgeford Hall Bowling Green!

The Sedgeford Village Survey, involving excavations of local gardens, proved popular with locals presented with Anglo-Saxon and Medieval pottery unearthed from under their own property along with a greater understanding of the history below their feet.
The aerodrome will receive particular focus in this centenary of that fateful August 1914, whose appalling tally of local names on the Sedgeford War Memorial still inspires.

Death has a long and changing history here. SHARP has unearthed evidence of remote pagan burial practices of the Bronze and Iron Ages and a possible Anglo-Saxon chapel with thegn-class burial in the village’s West End.

It is rare until modern times for a holy site once established to be abandoned. But this one was replaced by what became St Mary’s parish church, intriguingly just before the Norman invasion.

You and I might just see an insignificant depression running north-south down ‘Chalkpit’ field. Dr John Jolleys and his SHARP-eyed team see a shallow U-shaped valley formed in the last Ice Age ‘as a result of glaciation and melt water.’ And their instruments recorded ‘four strong magnetic anomalies’.
What were they? Last year’s excavation – two metres down into Middle Anglo-Saxon layers of soil formed as a result of ploughing activity ... thrillingly revealed an Anglo-Saxon oven capable of large-scale cereal production for an estate or a monastery. There were a further two metres of earlier ploughsoils beneath the Middle Anglo-Saxon one, going back to the Late Iron Age and Romano-British period.
And the ghostly hand of the past. “The presence of hand and finger marks on the inner wall of the oven was noted, the … size of the prints (suggesting) it may have been the work of women, or children.”
Our Sedgeford ancestors’ daily work for their daily bread was also evidenced. “… Small pieces of charcoal…A mass of charred grain…found within the fire pit just by the inner border of the stoking shelf. The soil over a wide area outside was noted to be stained with fine carbonised material.”
What would our middle Saxon forebears make of our exhausted modern soil? Dr Jolleys details the contrast. “The preserved plough soil from the Middle Anglo-Saxon period, a layer rich and humic and containing only Ipswich Ware pottery (c 650 -850 CE) …sealed by 1.5m of orange brown sandy colluvium which has accumulated over the last 1200 years. The modern plough soil has a thickness of 0.3m and is much less rich in humus than either the Iron Age or Middle Saxon layers.”
Could you be part of all this ground-breaking work? SHARP secretary Brenda Stibbons enthused "If you have always wanted to work on an archaeological site, this is your opportunity - we welcome people of all ages on the courses.
“The Basic Excavation & Recording Techniques course teaches the theory and practical side of excavation - they will be working on the main site for their practical experience. A campsite, well served with hearty victuals, is provided.

“If people live locally they do not have to camp on site but can travel in each day.

“If you are interested but do not fancy digging, you can join one of SHARP’s week or day courses which run throughout the excavation season 6th July – 15th August”.

A variety of courses cover the theoretical and practical aspects of archaeology. This year Archaeology of WW1, Church Archaeology, Landscape, Archaeology of Human Remains and Archaeometallaurgy. There are also day courses – like Anglo Saxon cookery- and also Dig for a Day.

It’s not all work. The annual tradition of Norfolk-based entertainment and scrumptious mediaeval banquet will be provided this year by Room at the Gin’s theatrical production of Margery Kempe of Lynn (on July 30) and returning folk band the Fried Pirates.
Director of SHARP since 2007 Mr Gary Rossin sums up, “The project’s founding objective was to research and explore human settlement and land usage within the parish of Sedgeford. The main focus of its nineteen years has been the Middle to Late Anglo-Saxon period. There are important pieces of the jigsaw yet unfound, not to mention the picture on the box!
“In 2014, we’ll be revisiting glimpses of a mediaeval landscape, including a manor house itself, moving backwards and forwards from our continuing Saxon focus.
“And, on the centenary of World War 1, we will also revisit our research at the nearby First World War aerodrome, along with the militiarised landscape of the local area. The Roman farm under Hall Field will have to wait until 2015 as it has sugar beet in it this year!”
Details of courses are at http://www.sharp.org.uk/courses.html and general information on www.sharp.co.uk.

Heacham Electrician Has South Georgia On His Mind (EDP Front Page Pic and Feature 23/11/14)

My Lynn News review of Ray's November 2014 lecture to the King's Lynn Society of Arts and Science on his previous A4 months on Halley Station, Antartica, is here

Link to this EDP cover pic and story here

 

“I’m just popping out for a career break. I may be some time…”

 

Kids gone, mortgage paid, pension looming, many of us dream of throwing up the day job and all our routine securities to do what we always dreamed of, while we still can. Some of us ‘of a certain age’ even do it.
 

Not many of us leap as far as the South Atlantic!

 

But that’s exactly what Heacham electrician Ray Thirkettle has just done. (Last Sunday) he joined the British Atlantic Survey (BAS) on remote South Georgia, the best part of a thousand miles east of the Falklands, for a 13 month stint as an electrical technician. On a pinprick island in a vast cold ocean, with long hours of darkness coming next ‘summer,’ Ray will certainly be needed.

 

 

This is in fact Ray’s second ‘leap in the dark’. In 2012, he was granted a 4 month career break by the NHS to join the BAS’s flagship Halley station on the Antarctic continent itself. This included a midsummer White Christmas. Clearly it wasn’t enough! And this time, it’s not so much a break as the end of an NHS career.

 

Does he have any regrets?

 

“Yes, I’ve just bought a sports car!” he jokes.

 

More seriously, he adds. “I had a secure position as NHS electrician at the QEH in Lynn, where I’ve been for 7 years. While there are definite rewards in joining BAS, money definitely isn’t one of them.

 

“But most of all, of course, I regret a 13 month parting from my wife of 32 years, Pauline.”

 

I ask the 7,697 mile question. And how does his wife feel about being a BAS widow on the other side of the world, starting with another solitary Christmas?

 

 

 

I’m not the first to ask. During Ray’s recent King’s Lynn Arts and Science SocietyLecture about his Antarctic expedition at which Pauline provided technical support – she answered herself with a pair of jazz hands and a big grin. The audience of 65 was suitably amused, if not entirely reassured.

 

Today, however, we get the real answer. “This is something Ray has always wanted to do. Of course I want to support him in fulfilling his lifelong dream.”

 

Ray’s sheepish smile of gratitude says it all.

 

He justifies further, “In this digital age, it’s not that we won’t hear from each other. During my Antarctic trip, we were in email contact every morning and evening and there was a telephone link every week – by satellite to Cambridge and then up the land line to Heacham. All of this will apply equally to South Georgia, where there may even be the luxury of Skype.
 

“In some ways we’ll see and hear more of each other when I’m on the other side of the world than when we’re living in the same house!”

 

 

I stare fascinated at Ray’s map of the bottom of our planet.

It’s easy to forget Antarctica is a continent. The South Pole is on a plateau but elsewhere there are huge snow-and-ice-buried mountain ranges. Halley station was on the frozen coast. South Georgia is a mountain range and a coast in a lot of deep water. It’s not got many similarities to Heacham. Did he learn anything last time to make the long trip south any easier?

 

“Yes, we’d got to South Africa before I realised I hadn’t packed any underpants!”

 

Ray moved to Sedgeford with his wife and young family as an employee of Eastern Electricity in 1986 and their youngest daughter grew up there. He got interested in science via the Sedgeford Archaelogical Research Project. (SHARP). “I had an Iron Age horse skeleton in the garage for six months.” I mention that this must have intrigued visitors even more than the sports car and he laughs.

 

Ray’s involvement with SHARP continues and his distinctive hat and regulation archaeological beard adorned Open Day last year. “I was going to be SHARP’s animal bones expert for the 2015 season. Obviously, since the BAS phone call at the end of September informed me I’ll be in South Georgia that’s all now on hold. But I’ll always be grateful to SHARP for the original inspiration and they are cool about my having a year away.”

 

Ray’s experience with SHARP led on to an OU Degree in Natural Sciences. The degree involved a lot of detail collected by BAS and the more he found out, the more he wanted to see a station for himself. Lamenting one day in the field to Melanie Van Twest, a young Australian member of SHARP, that he was too old to apply to join one of BAS’s projects, the youngster urged, “Go for it, Ray. They’d snap you up.” And they did. “My OU degree in Natural Sciences was crucial in getting me this job.”

 

Does he feel smug at escaping the Norfolk winter before it sets in?

 

“I’m more likely to see a White Christmas than you will in winter Norfolk – South Georgia is mountainous and snow is possible all year. But the main snow will come during May-October.”

 

Temperatures across the South Atlantic vary enormously. A quick glance at the BAS website (at the time of writing) reveals it is currently minus 11 degrees at the Halley station in Antarctica, +9.4 at King Edward Point on Georgia, where it is more than sheltered than the otherwise equivalent Bird Island (+3.1) - and a chilling minus 38 degrees at the South Pole.

 

The temperatures Ray can look forward to in his upside down year will typically range from minus 15 C to a sweltering high of 20 C. Luckily, he will be living in a sheltered valley on a long peninsula called King Edward Point. The high surrounding mountains will protect the small team from the worst excesses. He has been preparing for this and other eventualities with training courses since October.

 

“We had better weather in the Antarctic in Spring 2013 than Norfolk did. And I came back to a colder welcome – from the weather – than I’d left in the frozen South.”

 

“But by June 2015 it’ll be dark and chilly and may even plummet to 20 degrees below.”

 

Is he worried?

 

“No. I am equipped with 22 kg of state-of-the-art Antarctic kit to keep me safe and warm.

 

 

“BAS don’t own the station. It belongs to the South Georgia government. As you might expect, it uses cutting edge sustainable fuels – in 2008, a new  Hydro Electric Power station (designed and built in Kendal, Great Britain by Gilkes Ltd) was installed, using the mountainous terrain and a lake, and – reassuringly – there is a stand by generator.  I’ll be a snug as a Norfolk bug in a rug.”

 

His new penguin-populated Georgia base does have some reminders of home. King Edward Point includes a church; a whaling station converted to heritage and protection; Shackleton’s grave and a harbour for tourist cruise ships. It even has seals. A corner of the world forever England?

 

The scientific research, as you might expect from its location, is primarily fishing based. The BAS-contracted laboratory re-opened after a 20 year impasse caused by the Falklands conflict –Argentinian forces briefly occupied this island and still claim it - and is aimed at providing scientific advice to assist in the sustainable management of valuable and commercial fisheries around the island. What is Ray’s part in it all?

 

“Twofold: 1. to keep the base’s electrical equipment running and also to assist the scientists. The latter includes crewing the power boats as they conduct fishing surveys.

 

2. To generally help run the station, keep it tidy and clean, and take my turn to cook– making use of a recent crash course from Pauline. Unlike the Halley team’s happy arrangement where international chefs in search of adventure and a CV embellishment are typically employed, the Georgia team is too small to justify dedicated chefs. But I’ll do my best!”

 

Ray is keenly aware of the role of science in rescuing the planet. “The station is important to the world as it is collecting data about sustainable fishing and the viability of fish stock.

 

“And also how many whales have been pinched by unauthorised whalers!” adds Pauline.

 

There are penguin and seal colonies to monitor and reindeers to control. Rats were accidentally introduced to the island via whaling boats and the damage to bird species is clear by comparing the birds’ relative thriving on nearby Bird Island, which is rat-free. The station has overseen an enthusiastic rat-eradication programme, still not quite successful.

 

Ray hates talk of ‘decimating’ rats though –because it’s a sloppy and unscientific use of the word. “We need to get rid of them all, not just one in ten!”

 

It is this precision that helped get him the job. He was the only person on the Halley station trusted with polishing the glass frontage of the spiral staircase.

 

This scrupulousness also typifies Ray’s concern with the wider environment and the sustainable survival and prospering of the world to which BAS is so committed. Ray’s recent lecture for the KLSAS ended with his passionate advice to British youngsters. “Don’t follow popstars and footballers– the really exciting place to be in the modern world is Science.”

 

Looking at Ray’s example, there might be a few more ‘of a certain age’ who feel the same!  

Original EDP Feature by Gareth Calway here

The Cambridge-based British Antarctic Survey is one of the world's leading environmental research centres and is responsible for the UK's national scientific activities in Antarctica.  ‘Digging Sedgeford’ the full story of the SHARP project’s first 18 years is published by Poppyland Publishing www.poppyland.co.uk  Gareth’s Norfolk Notables features for the EDP are available online at www.garethcalway.co.uk His Christmas show with Dr Paul Richards ‘A Hanse Christ  Mess’ is in the Hamburg Suite at Hanse House in King’s Lynn on 6 December details www.garethcalway.co.uk  or www.marriottswarehouse.co.uk.

 

RAY OF HOPE: AN OCCASIONAL BLOG FROM UNDER THE BEYOND-

 

Ah! Gentoo Penguin with Chick and an egg!!

“Arrival Sunday 23 November

 

Just got here after a week's travelling! Phew.

I am not a great sailor and the ship was going from side to side a lot.

The Hydro plant we have here was designed and built in Kendal, Great Britain by Gilkes Ltd.

Skype, alas, does not work, it has taken me I hour to log on to emails! Still quite incredible that I can do this on a very remote island down here.

I will keep you in the news loop, may be able to send small photos if I pick my time. This is written at 22:30 on a Sunday when things are quiet.

Seals are very very smelly!

Cheers and love to all,

Ray.”

'Shackleton' Day 5 Dec

Me - Thinking of you on the day Shackleton set off from South Georgia 100 years ago. 'The Guardian' has a centrefold of Endurance in the ice today. The crew are playing football next to it!

Good job we’re all British or we’d faint!

Ray- One of my workplaces, the Hydro Power Plant, is no more than 100 yards from the gentleman's grave. There is a fence around the graveyard, to keep reindeer and seals off.
 

 

Kind Edward Point Factfile (adapted from BAS website http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/index.php)

 

Position: King Edward Point lies 860 miles east of the Falkland Islands, on South Georgia, a mountainous island near the bottom of the world, no nearer South America than Antarctica. Access is by boat or ship-based helicopter.
Purpose: Administration support; applied fisheries research.
Occupied: By the British Antarctic Survey.

Station Facilities

3 separate laboratories; a dedicated communications room; offices with excellent computing facilities; a walk-in freezer for specimen storage and a library

Administration & Status

South Georgia, part of British Overseas Territories, is administered by its own government, based in the Falkland Islands, and represented locally at King Edward Point by a Government Officer. BAS staff at King Edward Point provides logistic support assisting the Officer to carry out his duties plus the delivery of an agreed science plan.

Scientific Research

BAS scientists provide sound scientific advice to assist in the sustainable management of the valuable commercial fisheries around the island.

Climate

Surrounded by cold waters originating in Antarctica, South Georgia has a harsher climate than expected from its latitude. Permanent ice covers over half the island, large glaciers flow from the highest peaks in sharp contrast to the green coastal belt.  Mountain-sheltered, King Edward Point receives drier and calmer weather. Temperature range −15°C to +20°C with well-defined summer and winter, though snow can fall on any day of the year. The island is typically snow-covered from May to October.

Landscape

Mountainous and glaciated.

Coastal fringe is snow-free in summer with lush vegetation.

The island was once the home of the whaling industry. Tens of thousands of whales were brought ashore to be rendered down for oil. Many of the beaches are littered with whalebones. The whaling station at Grytviken, across the bay from King Edward Point, is now a heritage site and includes a museum.

Wildlife

Abundant seabirds including penguins. In summer the station beach becomes a breeding ground for Elephant seals.

Station Personnel

King Edward Point station has 22 people living on station in summer and 12 people throughout the winter. BAS staff comprise 2 fisheries scientists; 2 boating officers; 2 technicians (electrical and mechanical); a doctor and a Base Commander.

Life on Station

Everyone is on a rota to clean, cook evening meals and make bread. Comprehensive training in navigation and Search and Rescue techniques is provided initially in the UK and continued upon arrival.