parents persuaded the Grammar School to let their son study cookery with the girls instead of woodwork. He remembered: “There was a girl in the class who was always at loggerheads with the cookery teacher – her name was Jenny McCloud – and she said ‘If Pearson can do cooking then I want to do woodwork,’ so she did. It was so revolutionary that we made it into the national press.”
Studying for his City and Guilds qualifications at South
Devon Tech, Clive worked in hotels and restaurants all around Dartmouth, Kingswear and Torquay, waiting on tables at civic functions and learning his trade. His first real job was at a hotel in Sidmouth, leaving Dartmouth for the first time in 1952. National Service meant a spell in the
other side until the weather calmed down. Eventually we set sail again, this time to South Georgia, and then the Falklands.
In January 1958, Clive and the expedition finally arrived at their scientific base in the Antarctic... in the snow and ice,
Army, and because he was a cook, Clive found his way into the regular Army Catering Corps, working in Kent and Sussex. Demobbed in 1956 he returned to Dartmouth and worked in the senior gun room galley at the Naval College – 14 cooks and 70 stewards on every shift, cooking for 500 to 600 people at a time. Working a split shift earned the prize of an extra half a crown.
But a chance conversation set Clive off on his travels with an experience that was to change his life forever. “Someone said did I fancy a job in the Falkland Islands? I said if I knew where that was I could maybe give him an answer.”
At 22, Clive found himself being interviewed in London. “They asked me about my motorbike and my boat, and I got the job. I still didn’t really know where I was going.” The job was general assistant and cook to an expedition to Antarctica. Clive set sail from Southampton on the RRS John Biscoe, and when he was seasick before the Needles he wondered if he had made the right decision. “I surfaced from my bunk at the bottom of the Bay of
Biscay. On board with our expedition team were a new agricultural administrator and a new head teacher for Tristan da Cunha, plus general cargo for St Helena. The administrator had his wife and two young children with him. What an amazing adventure for that young family.
“Our first stop was St Helena where we dropped off their supplies, then to Tristan da Cunha – the loneliest place in the world. Twelve square miles and sheer cliffs rising out of the wild sea. While we were there the weather was really ugly. Waves 20ft high smashed a barge and our motorboat so we had to off load using the lifeboat. Some of the crew were stranded on the island and the ship had to shelter around the
Dartmouth seemed like a distant memory.
“There was a party for us in Government House in Port Stanley and we loaded up with building materials for the base we were building in Antarctica. We were on the final leg of our voyage when we heard that the Shackleton had hit an iceberg and been holed. So it was back to South Georgia to help the Shackleton into the whaling dockyard, where they patched her with sheet metal.” In January 1958, Clive and the expedition finally arrived at their scientific base in the Antarctic, from where scientists would continue research into the weather, the resources and the landscape. In the snow and ice, Dartmouth seemed like a distant memory.
“In the first weeks it was really busy because the outgoing team stayed on so that a power station could be built. When they left things settled down, and the 11 of us lived there together for the next three years.” As the permanent cook on the team, Clive didn’t have to get involved in the research. And his being there meant that the researchers didn’t have to take turns in the kitchen, apart from covering Clive’s day off every Sunday, much needed after working round the clock six days a week. Immediately everyone was allocated a birthday. Clive explained: “We didn’t want all the celebrations at the same time, so with 11 of us we could make sure there was a birthday party every month, and then Christmas. We were each entitled to one tin of beer a fortnight, 14 cigarettes a day or the equivalent in pipe tobacco, and nine bottles of whisky and gin plus nine stone jars of rum a year. We saved most of the drink for the parties, and I would always make and ice a celebration cake to reflect any interests of the person involved, or any incidents they’d been involved in. I made ski slopes, books – and of course Christmas cakes.”
The men found various ways to Cooking in the Antartic
entertain themselves, gathering penguin eggs during the laying season (“I cooked penguin once but nobody liked it – they weren’t keen on cormorant either, even though the cormorants out there are as big as a goose”), shooting the occasional seal for steaks, devising plays and shows, swimming (“I did it once just to say I had – round the jetty and out again onto the snow”) inventing gadgets and going for walks. On one trip to climb a mountain on the Antarctic mainland, Clive fell 80ft and landed on his binoculars. He had to walk back with two broken ribs, which still hurt today. With no fresh food, Clive had to
contd over
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136