MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

To Antarctica and back during 30 years.

THE British Antarctic Survey (BAS) loses a unique character this month, with the retirement of Captain Stuart Lawrence.

Captain Lawrence (59), who has visited the Antarctic every summer for the past thirty-three years, made his final Antarctic voyage in charge of the RRS Ernest Shackleton last month.

The call to the sea came to Stuart Lawrence as a five year old living in Grimsby. He explained, "In the same road as my parents was a captain of either the Queen Mary or the Queen Elizabeth. I don't think I knew him particularly well but I certainly was impressed and I guess it was then that I decided the sea would be a good career." After boarding school, Stuart attended the HMS Conway Sea School from the ages of thirteen to sixteen and had his seventeenth birthday at sea as a cadet with Canadian Pacific Steam Ships. This job took him to Canada, chiefly on the East coast, then extending up to the Great Lakes. Captain Lawrence said, "Going through all the locks to the Great Lakes was fascinating. We had to arrive just as the winter's ice was leaving and then we had to beat it freezing up on the last trip as we left because once it started to freeze, they shut all the locks. "If we had been locked in at the Great Lakes that would have taken the rest of the winter's trading out."

Discovering Antarctica

Captain Lawrence then returned to college and spent a year doing a higher educational course. From there he thought about joining the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). He said, "I went out on one of the new prototype vessels in 1969 and it just so happened that the then head of the RNLI was Admiral Egg Irving. Egg had been down (to Antarctica) with Bunny (Sir Vivian) Fuchs. "In discussions with him, I said I had looked at a couple of options, including the RNLI, but I was quite interested in coming down to the Antarctic, because I'd already got some ice experience. He said I had no choice and I had to go to the Antarctic, even if only to do one trip. "So I did the first trip with BAS in 1970." Looking back on that first journey south aboard the John Biscoe, Captain Lawrence said, "She (the ship) was considerably smaller than anything I'd been on previously - 6-10,000 tonne cargo ships, 20,000 tonne passenger vessels - and to go on the 1,500 tonne John Biscoe in to what were renowned to be the worst seas in the world, I knew was going to be an experience and it certainly proved it." He continued, "Just seeing the Antarctic, the wildlife and everything else, I'd already started to change my mind that this one trip might actually go on a little longer. One became two and at the end of the second trip I transferred to the Bransfield. "On transferring to the Bransfield, the then captain was taken ill, the chief officer had broken an ankle and they had nobody other than me to take command - so I did. "That captain, John Whitfield, came back in 1973, then I took over permanently in 1974." Captain Lawrence was only thirty years old when he assumed command of the Bransfield. Every season since then, Captain Lawrence has successfully journeyed to Antarctica, in spite of sometimes noncompliant weather conditions. He said, "We've always been involved with Halley, the furthest south station which BAS operates. The attempts to get in there through the refrozen Weddell Sea each year provided a new and very different challenge. "We always succeeded, but not too long ago we took thirty days to cover 190 miles. We had a very bad ice year." Asked whether the type of person attracted to the BAS organisation has changed over the years, Captain Lawrence said, "I don't think so. I think BAS has been extremely lucky with their recruitment. They have attracted some very, very good people on the stations and on the ships." He added that of all the BAS vessels, the Bransfield was his, "...inevitable favourite," having commanded her for 28 years.

The anthem and mutiny

Captain Lawrence was aboard the Bransfield when the Falkland Islands were occupied by Argentine Forces on April 2, 1982 and in fact hosted an end of season reception on board the vessel only days before the invasion. Invited guests included, "...Sir Rex and Mavis Hunt and all the senior staff from Government House plus the head of LADE (Argentine airline) and all his staff." He said, "It was effectively five days before the invasion but nothing was particularly being said and everything was reasonably amicable. Whilst I would never say my Spanish is good, I have got an O level in it so I was able to communicate quite a lot with the Argentine staff but there was no indication really. "I think some of the Islanders were a little cross that we had invited the Argentines on board because it was already known we were having problems on South Georgia with Davidoff - he wasn't playing the game by the rules - so a lot of ill feeling had already started. However the actual event went remarkably well." The Bransfield remained at anchor in Stanley harbour until March 31. The John Biscoe arrived from Uruguay with a relief detachment of Royal Marines to replace the current detachment based in Stanley. The Endurance, which normally would have delivered the Marines was, "...trying to keep an eye on the Davidoff situation at South Georgia so she couldn't go to Uruguay. The John Biscoe was diverted to carry out the task then headed back to Britain." On March 31, the Bransfield headed towards Punta Arenas, calling at the pilot station, and came out on the Thursday evening (April 1). Captain Lawrence said, "We could have been caught up in the invasion force if we had been earlier. Bear in mind, we were coming out of the Magellan Strait at the time when the invasion force was coming from just north of Gallegos towards the Falklands." However, the first inkling the Bransfield crew had of trouble was when they heard Patrick Watts of the Falkland Islands Broadcasting Station say he would stay on the air through the night. The vessel was midway between Tierra del Fuego and the Falklands at the time, heading to the Argentine Islands (now the Ukraine station, Vernadsky), approximately half way down the Antarctic Peninsula. Captain Lawrence said, "We all tuned in and monitored the whole of the proceedings. I thought Patrick Watts was an absolute star through the whole awful affair and he kept saying exactly what was going on. So we learned that the Governor had destroyed his ciphers, we learned precisely what was happening, we heard the gun being held to Patrick's head and then it all went quiet. "Having heard that the Governor had destroyed his ciphers, I thought it would mean he wouldn't be passing on any more messages so I eventually managed to get hold of our headquarters, and advised them the Falkland Islands had been invaded at approximately 6.00am Stanley time and the Governor had destroyed his ciphers and to pass this on to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office." He continued, "We then turned south to get out of the situation and went down to the Argentine islands, but still monitoring it as we could. When the edicts were issued by General Menendez, we tried to tune in on 550, as it was then, and tried to keep playing the national anthem to drown out his edicts. I don't think it worked too well; maybe a little bit was heard but our aerials weren't really tuned for 550." As a result of the invasion, Captain Lawrence faced a mutiny of his crew. He explained, "All the Falkland Islanders and several of the more junior members decided that they wanted to take the Bransfield back and sink her in the Narrows in Stanley harbour to make a gesture. They had decided they were going to take over the ship. "It was a fairly low key mutiny. They all came up to my room at about 7pm on the Friday. I sat down with them and listened to what they had to say, told them they were absolutely stupid and it was an absolute nonsense. What I did do equally, which I found to be the best antidote, was to keep pouring alcohol down their throats and at 6.00am the following morning, I was the only one left still standing. "I think they decided sleep was getting the better of them and we carried on to the Argentine islands." Having completed her duties at the Argentine islands, the Bransfield headed to Signey, South Orkney Islands then to the South Sandwich Islands before returning to Britain.

The future

After signing off from the Shackleton early this week, Captain Lawrence celebrated his retirement on Wednesday evening with his many Falklands friends at a party in the Waterfront Guesthouse. Captain Lawrence commented on the significance of the date of his retirement party, April 2. He said, "Being here on invasion night made me feel very, very close to the Falkland Islands. It has been a long association. "Living in Cornwall, where I've recently moved to, I know more people here in the Falklands than I do there." Captain Lawrence's wife sadly died in December after an illness and he said he now has to plan for a different future to that which he had hoped. However, he added, "In the words of General McArthur, I will return. And I will return because it has been such a marvellous experience. "There have been amazing changes which have taken place post-1982 but it is still the Falklands and it is a dashed fine place."

By Jenny Cockwell ? Penguin News

Categories: Falkland Islands.

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