31/07/2016
60 Years ago, my father Peter Mulgrew set off on the Trans Antarctic Expedition to the South Pole and to build Scott Base. Last night I gave a short talk to the Auckland Branch of the Antarctic Society about his extraordinary journey.
Imagine setting off from Wellington for the Antarctic 60 years ago in the Endeavour, a little ship crossing the roughest sea in the world with a group of young, crazy explorers who were heading for the equivalent of the International Space Station today. No contact with home, no turning back, everything alien, everything they were going to need for over a year travelling with them. Prefabricated huts, a plane, huskies, sledges, tractors, food, warm clothes, all the bits and pieces for scientific research, for keeping planes, tractors and generators running, radios operating and most importantly a streak of madness and a strong sense of humour.
My father was in his late twenties when he was selected for the Trans Antarctic Expedition. He was a Chief Petty Officer in the New Zealand Navy and a radio operator with a great deal of experience operating ionospheric equipment which enabled the radio operators to communicate very long distances.
He was a driven, determined man and would have done anything to be part of the expedition, especially as the navy would not release him to be part of a British-Norwegian expedition to Antarctica in 1948.
One of the things I remember as a little girl was him bending down to smile at me as I sat in the car, he had no teeth! All gums, I can still see him now. It had been decided that as there was no dentist on the expedition, the best thing was to have all your teeth taken out.
No problem. He wasn’t going to let that get in his way!
My father and Ed become close friends and my father’s competence, loyalty, determination and sense of humour made him an ideal expedition companion. He was Ed’s strongest supporter in the party of five who drove the Massey Ferguson tractors to the South Pole, arriving there on 4 January 1958.
At one point a tractor fell into a crevasse and somehow they had to get it out of gear so that it could be pulled back up. Ed immediately knew that Pete Mulgrew would do it, he said. Sure enough down into the crevasse he went took the tractor out of gear and climbed back up to help haul it to the surface. Mad as a meat axe…….
During down time in the Antarctic my father spent a lot of time with the famous mountaineer Harry Ayers who was in charge of the huskies which my father always said along with the penguins were the best part of the Antarctic!
But they also did a fair bit of climbing. During one of their forays, they climbed a 1,600m nunatak at the top of the Skelton Glacier in the Cook Mountains. They named it Robyn Peak as both of them had daughters called Robyn. Unfortunately the stuffy old Geographic Society wouldn’t allow anyone to name mountains or anything else after people, so for a long time Robyn Peak was just a number. It is now named Mulgrew Nunatak, but of course that doesn’t include Harry Ayers part in conquering the peak for the first time.
In the middle of winter they had a Christmas dinner like we are this evening and a radio link was established between them and the committee in Wellington. Louise Hillary and my mother went down to speak to their husbands in what must have been very awkward conversations. However the day was saved by a mixture of a great deal of Antarctic rum and a couple of Gilbert and Sullivan fans on the committee in Wellington. The Pirates of Penzance has never been so heartily sung since!
My father received the British Empire Medal for his naval service and Antarctic exploration and also the Polar Medal. The Polar medal was very precious to him as a Naval officer, he felt the connection with Captain Scott. He was awarded the medal by the Admiral of the navy on board Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory.
The Polar medal was awarded for “extreme human endeavour against the appalling weather and conditions that exist in the Arctic and Antarctic”
