Header Photo: John Yates
Why (or How) I Became a Fid – the 2 Shortest BAS Interviews Ever – John Yates
“I was bitten by a dog when I was very young , so I’ve never been very fond of them……….” I desperately tried to suck the words back in before they could reach the interview panels ears. I failed, I just wanted to stand up and leave. I needn’t have worried I was soon sent on my way with a doleful ”We will be in touch”. It was spring 1968 just as I was finishing my Civ Eng degree at Salford Uni. My course had included one year working on site, full-time surveying, constructing a new cement works near Ipswich and the new Coast Road between Newcastle and Tynemouth. I knew I didn’t want to be a civil engineer. I wanted to be an Antarctic surveyor and I’d just blown the only job I had applied for.
Continued from “Why I” page
I’d thought I stood a very good chance of being accepted. School trips had taken me up on the hills in Snowdonia, The Lakes, Arran, Cairngorms, the Cuillins and Austria – my first glacier. My degree experience followed on from earlier expeditions mapping glaciers – Iceland’s Vatnajockul, Norway’s Jotunheim Galdhopiggen, and Greenland’s Eqalorutsit Kangigdlit – with Brathay Exploration Group. I had my Mountain Leadership Certificate and had been Assistant Leader on the latter 2 expeditions.
Norway 
Iceland
I’d ignored the ‘Milk Round’ so all the civ eng jobs had gone. Very fortunately Brian Ware at Brathay came to the rescue and offered me the chance to ‘work’ that summer, on a bed & board basis, as a general assistant/dogsbody around both Brathay Hall groups and the exploration groups – packing expedition stores, driving minibuses around all over the Lakes, covering for indisposed staff. The gods smiled on me and an assistant leader dropped out of an expedition to Mt Kenya and I was offered a free place at the last minute. I’d desperately wanted to go on this expedition but couldn’t afford it previously. I’d already been quite heavily involved in the logistics planning and resourcing the necessary supplies. The expedition was a disaster. The plan was to resurvey the Lewis Glacier up at nearly 15000 feet. We were based around Klarwills Hut and whilst still ferrying survey equipment up to the glacier altitude sickness struck the group. Devastatingly a 16 year old Kenyan school boy died in my arms of pulmonary oedema as we were carrying him down the Naro Maru trail on a makeshift stretcher. A traumatic experience of CPR that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
On my return to UK good luck struck again – BEG had been asked by the Royal Geographical Society to run a series of training courses at Brathay for surveyors who were going on expeditions sponsored by the RGS. Bingo I had a full-time paid job for the rest of the summer.
In the autumn I had to find a job. At that time a Civ Eng degree meant you had to be a civil engineer – no other disciplines would look at you. I got a great sounding job as Section Engineer at Hinkley Point B Nuclear Power Station constructing the Turbine House and Long Sea Outfall Tunnel. Impressive …but all it did was reinforce my belief that civ eng was not the career for me.
In spring 1969 I applied for the job of Surveyor with Seismograph Service Ltd. Initially they wouldn’t even interview me as I was ‘over qualified’. I mithered them to death and they relented, an interview in Holwood House Keston (William Pitt The Younger’s old house) and I was in. A whirlwind of surveying in pretty remote and logistically challenging locations followed.
Firstly in the deserts of The Trucial States (today’s UAE) and then the West African coast, specializing in the surf zone to connect land and deep water marine seismic surveys. Hazardous work requiring innovation and ingenuity and sheer hard graft in dangerous environments. Many tales to tell ….and a young man maturing and hardening fast.
On one leave break back home a uni friend, Sparky, introduced me to a guy he was working with in Skelmersdale, Derek Postlethwaite, recently returned from Stonners as a wintering surveyor. A grip show and a few beers lit the fire again and Derek convinced me to apply to BAS once more. I guess that was around Xmas 1970.
By the time I received the invitation to go for interview early in 1971 the date had already passed. I was stuck in the depths of the Niger Delta on the Nigeria Cameroon border. Wifi, email & mobile phones were unheard of …it was extremely slow and unreliable pigeon post only. I’d blown it again.
On my return to UK on leave, the inevitable ‘I’m sorry letter’. In April my crew moved onto Gabon and by far the most remote and difficult job so far at Setta Cama. So remote that when we eventually,after a month, did get a supply of beer to camp it was completely undrinkable and returned – unheard off. The surf conditions were so hazardous that eventually we dispensed with all the local labour and the crew of 12 determined to finish the job ourselves. This took much longer than planned. In the middle of this I received news from home that BAS had enquired if I was still available. Blown again ?
On landing back in UK in early September I immediately phoned BAS – “Where are you? Heathrow. Can you come to the office now?” Caught the tube to Victoria and 2 hours later after a 10 min chat with Bill & Eric in Gillingham Street I was a BAS Surveyor destined for Stonners, subject to approval from Barbara McHugo at Tolworth. Bingo ….dreamland…. where’s the nearest pub?
Reporting to Tolworth the following Monday Barbara quickly assessed and approved my survey capabilities, Tellurometer traverses and sextant work were meat and drink to me. She then explained the work programme and how it was based on putting in ground control, based largely on American Trimetrogon Aerial photography. I’d no real experience of using aerial photography so Barbara put me through their stereoscope heighting test of 20 trig points. 1 right 19 wrong! I was aghast. Blown it again?
Barbara took me for a consolation lunch across road in The Tolworth Arms. I calmed down a bit and knew that I had excellent eyesight. I persuaded Barbara to go through the details and exact instructions on how to operate the stereoscope and immediately knew I’d been doing the exact opposite to what she had told me to do. I convinced her to retest me, probably not too hard as they didn’t have any other option for that years surveyor. Bingo 20/20.
I then had a thoroughly enjoyable weeks test field triangulation on the Downs in glorious weather staying in a great pub just outside Newbury. A couple of weeks later on Oct 21st 1971 mum and dad were waving me off from Southampton on the Bransfield – dad far more interested in the QE2 moored next to us …… and the rest is history.
Postscript
On my return to UK in 1974 I did the Msc Applied Geophysics at Brum – largely thanks to Pete Butler’s prodding and encouragement. Whilst there I met up with Sparky again and he rolled up for another boozy Antarctic grip show with 2 mates – Trevor Phillips and John Wright, who both subsequently signed up for Marguerite Bay.
John Yates – Surveyor, Stonington 1972 and 1973