The Committee
President: Dr Barry Heywood
Barry Heywood joined the Falkland Island Dependencies Survey in 1961, and wintered at Base H on Signy Island in 1962 and 1963. In subsequent years he worked during summers on Signy Island and on Alexander Island flying out of Base T on the Argentine Islands. He worked summers on RRS John Biscoe between 1978 and 1986 as Chief Scientist on the Offshore Biological Programme. He has held the following senior posts within BAS: Head, Marine Life Sciences Division 1987, Deputy Director 1988 – 1994, and Director 1994 – 1997. While holding these posts he has spent many summers on all the extant BAS Bases, and in retirement attends as many Base reunions as possible.
A member of the BAS Club since its inception, he became President of the BAS Club in 2008.
Chairman: Terry Allen
Terry Allen has been chairman of BAS Club for the last eight years.
He wintered at Base T on Adelaide Island in 1969 as medical officer, undertaking research into the common cold, influenza viruses and E. Coli. After return to UK he married Julia, who has a FID brother (Ian Flavell Smith) and a FID brother-in-law (Mike Burns). Having retired from his NHS Consultant post in Orthopaedics and Hand Surgery, he continued with medico-legal practice in North Derbyshire until 2012. He plays golf and bridge and is a member of the Lancia motor club.
Terry has supported and fostered ongoing communications between FIDS and encourages them to attend the Annual Reunions. One of his main concerns is the plight of some FIDS as they get older, and how the help that they get from family and social services can be augmented by other FIDS, perhaps with some assistance from the BAS Club Benevolent Fund. He is keen to maintain cordial relations with BAS, wants to encourage current employees to join the Club, and would like to extend contact with similar polar organisations around the world.
Secretary: Tony Wincott
Treasurer: Dick Harbour
Dick Harbour graduated in Civil Engineering at Birmingham before joining the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) as a Topographical Surveyor. After training at the Directorate of Overseas Survey, he sailed on the John Biscoe from Southampton in October 1959, spending three months in the Falkland Islands assisting DOS surveyors mapping the Islands. Operating out of the Hope Bay Base, he spent two years putting in ground control for mapping of the Nordenskjold Coast on the Weddell Sea reaching to the Seal Nunataks.
Dick ran the “Huns” a husky team whose name endured until the last two dog teams were taken out of Antarctica in 1994. During the summer seasons, using helicopters from HMS Protector, he surveyed the off-shore islands, surviving a crash on a mountain side of Nelson Island in 1961. In 1966, FIDS arranged special leave for Dick to return to Antarctica to help finalise the mapping of the Trinity Peninsula, where he survived yet another helicopter crash — this time into the sea.
Magazine Editor: Bob Burton
Bob Burton wintered at Signy in 1964 and 1965, as a metman with a sideline in zoology. He returned South to spend the summer 1971/72 at Bird Island when BAS reopened the base. Otherwise he has spent his working life as an author and lecturer in natural history. This enabled him to go on prolonged jollies, including three four-month expeditions to Greenland and Arctic Canada. From 1983 he led camping tours to north-east Greenland, first working for ex-fid Angus Erskine and then taking over with his own company.
During the mid-1990s he succeeded Nigel Bonner as director of the South Georgia Museum. He now lectures on cruise ships visiting the Antarctic and Arctic, first as a zoologist and now as a historian, which is better than working for a living. He helped found the South Georgia Association and edits their newsletter.
Membership Secretary: Dog Holden
Dog Holden went south as a G.A. in 1973 and had an eventful first summer working with an appropriately-named geologist Fid, Phil Stone on South Georgia. He was badly bitten on the hand by a Furry and underwent an operation to repair the damage at a hospital in Mar del Plata. The local girls helped him to recover quickly. A winter at Stonington Island followed with the Gaels dog team towing him round the local glaciers and finally up Sodabread Slope for a summer on the plateau, supporting a big topographical survey traverse. This season of 1974/75 was the last time the dogs would be used as the main form of field transport on the Peninsula and many were put down.
Stonington closed and Dog’s second winter was at Adelaide Island with a great sea-ice year enabling some wonderful fiord trips. Signing on with BAS for a second tour, Dog was Base Commander of the new Rothera Base in 1977 with a huge building and fitting out work programme. There followed a summer in the Shackleton Mountains, supporting a geology party (alas with skidoos, not dogs) but then was marooned with two other Fids for the winter of 1978 at the Argentinian Army base, General Belgrano, 50ft down on the edge of the Filchner Ice Shelf, close to the old TAE Shackleton Base. Life since has been less eventful!
Committee Member: Petra Searle
Petra was Map Curator at the Directorate of Overseas Surveys, Tolworth, 1953–60, with responsibility for FIDS surveys and mapping. She was also Senior Map Officer at BAS from 1984–88. She is the widow of Derek Searle, Surveyor, Horseshoe Island (Base Y) 1955 and 1956.
Committee Member: Chris Brading
Chris wintered with FIDS as a surveyor at Hope Bay in 1959 and 1960. He also studied and made a collection of lichens and mosses. After FIDS, he made a career in survey and mapping with Military Survey.
He assists the Treasurer in maintaining the subscription database and has recently been appointed Secretary to the Fuchs’ Medal Committee. He has organized a number of Hope Bay reunions in the Lake District.