This is the BBC World Service calling Antarctica.

Hello, I'm Keros Matthews and this time in the documentary.

It's the annual edition of the Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast.

The BBC's unique programme of greetings dedicated to members of the British Antarctic Survey overwintering in the frozen south

and everyone else who wants to join the party.

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it's midsummer. But for the winterers in Antarctica,

the temperatures are below freezing. It's dark. They're isolated far from home and it's a time for midwinter celebration. So over the next half hour, we'll hear from Antarctica and share messages from family and friends for an audience of just 50, working away at vital science in the cold, cold snow.

This year, it's an extra special anniversary.

Not only is it the 10th year I've been presenting the show, it's the 19th for my producer,

and it also marks the 70th anniversary of the first aired by the BBC Overseas Service in 1955.

This is the BBC in London. Donald Milner calling Shackleton Base. Are you receiving me? Over?

Hello, BBC London. This is Shackleton Base, Shackleton base, calling Donald Millie, BBC.

70 years ago, the only way to communicate with Antarctica

was through shortwave radio,

and this broadcast was the only chance the men,

and it was only men who were overwintering,

got to hear their families back home.

Today, the men and women in Antarctica have broadband internet,

but the broadcast is still a central part of the traditional midwinter festivities,

along with the presents, games in the snow, feasting,

and a screening of the old Antarctic horror movie, The Thing,

where a research team in Antarctica is attacked by an alien being. On that note, let's go south, first to the island of South Georgia,

...