The Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast 2024

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

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Summary

This special programme is dedicated to the team of scientists and support staff isolated at British research stations in the Antarctic midwinter. For the staff living at three British Antarctic Survey research stations (Rothera, Bird Island and South Georgia), and at other national bases across the frozen continent, midwinter is a special time. With no sunlight, Antarctica is at its coldest and those stationed on the frozen continent face months of total isolation. Midwinter celebrations at the British research stations include a feast, exchange of presents, watching the 1982 horror film The Thing (where an alien monster terrorises an Antarctic base) and listening - on short wave - to the BBC’s Midwinter Broadcast. Presenter Cerys Matthews features messages from family and friends at home, as well as music requests from Antarctica.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC World Service, Colin Antarctica. I'm Kerris Matthews. Welcome to a special edition of the documentary,
0:07.0	the BBC's Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast, a unique program of greetings dedicated to members of the British Antarctic Survey overwintering in the northern hemisphere it's mid-summer, but for the
0:27.6	winters in Antarctica the temperatures are below freezing it's dark they're isolated far from home and it's a time for a midwinter
0:36.2	celebration. So over the next half hour we'll hear what it's like to be in Antarctica in
0:47.5	winter and share messages from family and friends for an audience of just 46, working away at vital science in the cold, cold snow, messages
0:58.5	with a common theme.
1:00.5	Eber's favourite is the penguin.
1:01.7	Have you caught my penguin yet, George?
1:03.8	Is it going to take you home something?
1:05.2	A penguin. A penguin.
1:08.3	Come back with a penguin soon.
1:10.8	I don't think they'll make good pets. and I'm certain it's not allowed to take them out anyway,
1:16.5	plus they smell. With me in the studio at Broadcasting House here in London is Olivier Hubert who once worked at Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris.
1:27.0	Then he was offered a job as a chef in Antarctica and his life changed.
1:32.0	Eight years later he is catering manager for the British
1:35.2	Antarctic survey visiting research stations every year. Welcome Olivia.
1:40.7	Thank you. Tell me how you got the job.
1:44.0	I think it was just sheer luck.
1:45.0	I always wanted to go either north or south and one day I just saw an ad from the
1:50.0	British Artic survey asking for a chef.
1:52.0	So I rushed back home. I was very young, I was in my
1:54.9	20s and my wife was, my then wife was pregnant with my first child. And I came back home
	...

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