Tuesday December 24th.

All the others had baths, haircuts and shaves in the evening, but thinking it a mistake, I only had a slight wash. The thing is that it is impossible to keep clean, and you only feel unhappy when you have to do anything that is likely to dirty yourself. So John and David acquired cherubic choir-boy faces and Andrew a priceless Farmer Larkin beard, but they cannot have got much cleaner floundering in a few inches in an uncomfortable canvas bath. Brownie and I retired to bed understanding that the others were following in a few minutes, but they stayed up putting up a fine display of Christmas decorations - coloured paper streamers and two of John’s large pilot balloons.

An active day on the bicycle, and more so on the receiver for we were sent messages from all sorts of people, including Consul Saether, Schmidt, Met, Inst, at Tromsö, Vardö radio station, and “Christmas wishes from three lonely men on L.J.B. (Bear Island).”

Wednesday December 25th. Christmas Day

Up at the usual time for we were not let off our meteorological report. Then we had an extra good breakfast, first porridge then a big plate of fried sausages, ham and eggs, so there was not much room left for bread and marmalade. After that while the others were unpacking parcels of presents, cakes, plum puddings etc brought from England I made some mince pies which turned out remarkably well. Then much of the morning was spent in the usual routine, so I was hardly able to listen to the service from Leicester Cathedral, but the reception was so poor that I never heard a word when I could listen.

Special piece of reindeer meat for Leonidas!

We had a sort of Christmas tea-lunch about 1pm. - cold reindeer meat and mince pies and Christmas cake (John’s) followed by crystallised fruits, raisins, almonds chocolates etc. We finished just about in time for the Empire broadcast. It’s the first time I have ever enjoyed this, and away from home was very moved when we called up Canada and New Zealand and I thought of Emily and Freddy. If only I knew where Esther and Cicely and J and A were, and who was at home. It’s many months since I’ve felt at all home-sick, but I almost broke down when greetings were sent to the British Grahamland expedition, the East-Greenland expedition and the Oxford University Arctic Expedition. It was wonderful - if somewhat egotistical - to think of so many people at home who would be listening and would be thinking of you; so absorbed was I thinking over all at home that I hardly listened to the King’s speech, though actually it faded away at the end so that it was only just audible. We were not expecting a greeting at this tine and were on tenterhooks when the first two expeditions were mentioned.

We spent a longer time than usual sending messages and greetings up to the ice-cap by radio-telephone. Afterwards it was a case of preparing the Christmas dinner; John and David made some superb rum-butter, Andrew photographed Brownie’s marvellous cake ( which we did not begin till the next day) and we decorated the cake and table with candles and then Andrew started taking a photo of the whole table by flashlight, but there were many false alarms and I used up almost a whole bottle of rum keeping the pudding flaming. The duck was delicious, and we had with it green peas and potato-crisps (we got potatoes skinned and ready but in the excitement we forgot to cook them). Then the plum pudding, and many toasts were drunk and we got through six of our nine bottles of champagne.

We finished in time for 9.30. We had had a telegram from Binney telling us to listen in at 9.30, but some of the others were doubtful as to whether we would hear anything after the afternoon greeting, but my faith in Binney won me a bet of eight squares of chocolate. Wonderful to get a special message at the end of the news bulletin. “The BBC joins with the parents and friends of the Oxford University Arctic Expedition, Brandy Bay, Northeastland, in wishing them a merry Christmas, a happy New Year, and a safe return in Autumn.” This was better than the afternoon greeting. Then a lot of photographing.

Monday 16th December

Monday 16th December

It was overcast at first, and of course started snowing when I was doing the weekly charts. Then all of a sudden after sending a report of overcast and snowing at noon, at 1pm. it was absolutely clear with stars shining brightly! It is liable to clear suddenly here, but usually get warnings of changes for the worse, which is as it should be I suppose. The clear sky meant that for the rest of the day I was engaged with aurorae and Polaris. It was a day of great auroral activity, and though it was rather messy and all over the place most of the time yet we had one of the best and prettiest displays when a long rayed band passed overhead swishing in a ghostly fashion - most mysterious in that its movements are quite unaccompanied by any noise - then formed itself into a bow formation which just passed overhead, wheeled slightly to the W. of N. and continued its course slowly until it broke up its form. And while you stand watching all is quiet except for the eerie noises made by the ice - either a rather high-pitched howl which makes you think Ayo has gone along the coast and has found a bear - this is perhaps caused by friction of big pieces of ice, or a higher pitched squeak made either by small pieces of ice on the surface and squeezing against one another or scraping across the rocks - or it is the ghost of Annadark; it is a noise reminiscent of the squeals she used to make when young, and it originates from the point where we dropped her into the sea.

Made bread today; it’s funny how each time it turns out differently though you apparently go through the same process. Today I made a determined effort to obey the instructions on the yeast tin to the letter. It didn’t rise much in the mixer, but did just a bit in the tins. So I put it in the oven, and when I first looked at it the bread surface in both tins had risen up to the edge of the tin, but it was hollow inside. It was not a very hot oven, and took some time to bake through and when finished it appeared normal size, or risen a bit more than usual - but actually it was hollow, a cross section being something like this...... (diagram supplied!).

Tuesday December 17th.

Fine again this morning with auroral activity and at each hour I spend ten minutes observing and taking notes, and take some photographs too. The position of the aurorae is always fixed with reference to stars or constellations. I’m getting to know these better now, and their names mean more here, for though one wonders how they can ever have been thought like what their names represent, in a lonely place like this they do seem to take a personal interest in you, more so here as they go more round and round than at home, most of them never setting at all, all the nice friends like Capella and Vega, and the constellations Taurus, Leo, Pegasus etc never set at all, but keep an eye on what is going on here. There is one which puzzles me terribly. In the star map he is merely marked E, but is not attached to any constellation, so I don’t know what E it is. Moreover E implies rather a weak star but this is bright and red. I’ve searched through the Nautical Almanack to see if any planet can be there, but no, we are to see no planets at all here, except Venus (which as a glorious morning star has now set), and it doesn’t look like a planet. So I just always have to refer to him as E: the trouble is that there are always aurorae in his neighbourhood!

In a view of what I wrote last night about the weather it must be recorded that after observing aurorae in a clear sky each hour and after taking the 3pm. observations I went in to write it up, decided to start up Polaris, collected the plate and hammer, and went out to find it overcast and snowing! It is a good thing I hadn’t opened the skylight in the ionosphere hut and then left it for an hour.

Friday December 20th.

The bread showed signs of forming a roof with an attic below today after baking a little, so I tried pricking it all over with a fork, for after all it could hardly do any harm except give the loaf a slight taste of sardines. The experiment was a great success.

Saturday December 21st.

Found Matilda had escaped this morning. I’ve inspected her cage daily and hitherto she has made no impression on the wire, but she has been getting so thin and in desperation must have got the wire bent just enough to force her body through. I’m sorry for Sandy to some extent, but my sympathies have always been with Matilda and am really glad about it. It is certainly not in the spirit of the Exploration Club rules to keep adult foxes in cages.

Today was the first day of a holiday from technical reading that I am giving myself up to January 1st. It may seem absurd or lazy to do such a thing, but I have such an immense amount of reading to make up for what should have been read last year and must be read before spring 1937, but on the other hand this will be the first time for a year and a half when I will be able to sit down and read just what I want to read. Started off with the “Testament of Beauty” and “Plato’s Republic” and enjoyed the former to the full, but I never could bear with philosophers and I doubt if I ever will get right through with Plato! I have also started learning to typewrite in the correct manner.

Sunday December 22nd and Monday December 23rd.

The special solstice international day was from 4pm. 22nd to 4pm. 23rd. We had been hoping that some of the others would arrive to help us, but in vain. We took altogether 25 runs one at each hour, but it was not half as tiring as I had expected. We were so rushed that we had no time to think of being exhausted.

To bed immediately after the 6 o’clock news bulletin. Then Andrew, John and David arrived having sledged over the bay ice at about 8pm. Brownie woke up to the fact and got up and called me, but though I myself thought I jumped out of bed and went around searching for the new arrivals even as far as the cairn wading through a mixture of rice and Fowler’s treacle, it was only a dream.