'Muff' Warden: A young lad heard my tales of Halley and three years ago went there.
Just the person we needed. Builds his own landrovers, physicist,
mountaineer. He left after a year. Rules and regs tied them to base
almost all the time. Jollies to the Emperors, Gin Bottle, hinge zone
out. Field trips virtually nil. Weren't we lucky? Remember tin tray
leaps off the headland? Mark and Steve swimming. Amazing modes of
transport like Brian's sail, the Fairey plane - ski-joring behind that
gave me some bruises.
Now it's Halley 6 at umpteen million pounds. Can that, lots of
flights, and long trips to the ship be more environmentally friendly
than a cheap portal frame base being buried every few years? I'm sure
we were better off with teleprinters, 100 words/month, army trousers,
those horrible geriatric slippers, and no women. [11 November 2010]
Mike Warden:
[Commenting on the death of David Easty in January 2022]
David was the Doc in 1961, the year that the dogs arrived at Halley Bay, and Muskegs too.
Ardus and Johnson made the first trip to the Tottans with the dogs. Those men were real pioneers. Respect.
The link with us in 1971 from David's time was Booboo, who visited the Tottans, Therons, and the Shackleton Mountains.
Been everywhere, done everything, what a champion. If I recall, his record card showed a total of over 10,000 miles.
Because his teeth were well worn down, to eat his seal dinners in winter he had to lie on them to thaw them first.
That's why he was brought in in the winter so that first I could clean up his blubber matted coat and then give him thawed seal,
and of course every other treat from the chippy and black hand gang. But when cleaned up, and especially in the summer
when he was unchained outside with the pups and had the freedom of the Base, his beautiful gingery shiny coat and adorable face
- see the Base Photo for 1971 - just shone. His whole joy of life and his gentle nature just exemplified the wonderful, wonderful husky he was.
Seems Booboo and Easty had a lot in common. [21 Feb 2022]
