When We Were Young

A Video about Mawson, 1970, by Dave Parer

A clean-shaven Allan Foster (Electronics Engineers) en route to Mawson on the Nella Dan. © D. Parer

When We Were Young

Our Mawson 1970 crew were a motley & weird bunch. The OIC was Bruce Smith – a surveyor and scout master who called himself “Leader 17^th Mawson ANARE”. As always, inter-camp abuse was flung between tradies and boffins.

The 2IC was chippy, Bob Nicholson (Nicko) – a burley Kiwi who’d previously wintered at Repstat; Steve Harbour, a fellow Kiwi, was a dieso – super bright, a talented artist and poet who ended up wintering back to back in 1971 with the legendary Lem Macey; Trevor Luff (Luffie) was a dieso from the Sunshine coast, a Queenslander – so no more need be said; Keith (Curley) Watson was wintering at Mawson for the third time as a dieso and declared he was down there for the money. Curley’s best mate was Frank (Narra) Johnson, an ex-cop & radio op whose passion was Collingwood footy club; John Garth (Big Daddy) was the sparks & dogman, who excelled at brewing homers.

Then there were the weather guessers – Ian McCarthy, a seasoned met man; Jeff (Joffa) Callaghan, was dogman & stared down everyone at the bar; Bob (RJT) Tomkins came from the NSW Public Service, and I heard did everything possible to work, anywhere, but in an office; and the radio tech was Dave Robertson (Rockhopper) – named for his hairdo.

Radio VLV was manned by Nev Dippell (Dipole), an ex-Vietnam vet, Peter Fawcett (Petal) was from the British Navy, and Harry Eastoe (“H” the Horse) was the camp leveller & ex-RAAF. Ken Frith (Frithy) and Terry Weatherson (Hook’in), were the radio techs. And the most important bod on the station was the cook, Paul Siddall, or the “tucker effer” as Harbour used to call him.

The boffins were led by the middle-aged & cultured Polish Jan Paszkowski, the doc who frequently blood-let; the geophysicist was Mal Robertson, who was more inclined to music and being a bikie, than science; Phil Tuckett was the IPSO man whose hut was so far away that he disappeared during a bliz. Then there was me, Dave Parer – a pretend cosray physicist and greenhorn who learnt lots about life from the tradies. Finally, there was Allan Foster, electronics engineer who had a story for every occasion. His passion was travel and hockey – a mate to all, who died too young. This video is dedicated to his memory.

Link: https://vimeo.com/475303901