Cats

Originally (from 1960) there were two cats on base, Strom and Ness.

Doug Finlayson:

Ness had disappeared prior to my arrival in Jan 1962. Not sure what happened. Some said the dogs got to her. Hence there was a plea from the base for a "companion" for Strom. A female cat was kidnapped from Stromness, South Georgia and brought on board the "Kista Dan", much to the annoyance of Capt. Peterssen who threatened to throw it overboard because it was regarded as bad luck (something about females on board boats). However, the crew rallied round and she was safely transported to Halley Bay. She was named "Kista" and adopted a sleeping spot on a shelf above my desk next to my office heater that had to be kept going 24 hours a day to melt the ice off the roof of the deeply buried IGY hut. [9 June 2005]

Photo by Doug Finlayson

Kista

Doug Finlayson:

Some more photos of Strom and Kista are shown below. Strom is the black one. You'll see they had a favourite sleeping place on the shelf near the coal heater in my geophysics office in the old IGY hut and incidentally pressing magnetic photographic records from La Cour variometers. [3 April 2006]

Photos by Doug Finlayson

Unfortunately Strom had to be put down, having eaten a lot of indigestible wood shavings.

Chris Jefferies confirms:

There were two cats at Halley when I arrived in 1963 Kista, and Strom a black male who unfortunately died mysteriously during the year. Gordon Bowra did an autopsy and found a large ball of wood shavings in his stomach which  was almost certainly the cause of death. I have a photo of him and Kista if anyone is interested. [28 August 2006]

Peter Noble:

Regarding the names of the Halley cats:  I recall they were Kista and Dan (not Dillon) after the Jack Laurentsen ship of the same name. [12 September 2006]

See also articles by Walter Townsend, Roger Tiffin and Hwfa Jones.

See also Halley Bay Cats on the "Purr-n-Fur" website.