One week at SPRI - Februray 19

It is Friday night and I have survived five whole days sitting at a readers desk in the SPRI archives.

The photo below shows the original building in Lensfield Road which has been added too and now extends out the back. The front entrance goes into a museum of Antarctica and Arctic material. One day while waiting I had a look through it and to my amazement I discovered that I actually knew the first man to reach the North Pole overland.  Wally Herbert the man that brought the new huskies to Scott base and during the summer lead a field party down the Axel Hiberg Glacier.

The Scott Polar Research Institute front entrance.

The side entrance is really the main entrance and at present is the replica of the modified lifeboat Shackleton sail to South Georgia.

The side entrance I use each day.

To day I asked if I could take some photos of the Readers room but I was told no. The archivist said it was because of security but she said she could take my photo at the desk as long as she didn't include any of the photographs on the wall or the doors into the the written and photographic archive storage room.
The Readers room is small with just two desks The archivist office offices open off this room and there are two doors into the written and photographic archive storage areas. While writing this I am looking at my photo and see that next to the angle poise lamp is a large magnifier. Just this after noon I went out to my locker to check my bag for magnifying glass and I found I had left it back at the hotel. Here in the photo I am wearing one of the new jerseys I bough at M&S in London.

Me at my readers desk with one of Priestley's field note books.

So far in the first three days I copied sixty pages using a  pencil and paper. I didn't start using my computer until yesterday as I believed with my two finger typing,  writing with a pencil would be faster. Yesterday proved me wrong and now I am tapping away at the keyboard with great gusto.