A Monmouth man has told how an article in last week's Beacon helped to stir things up at a weekly coffee morning.

When the paper arrived at Hammett Court in Wyesham last Wednesday, the front page picture of Port Lockroy brought back memories of Antarctica for not one but three people.

John Huckle, a resident at the flats, was sent to Port Lockroy in January 1947 as the Governor of the Falkland Islands' aide de camp.

Alan Wearden, who happened to be visiting Monmouth last week, worked for the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) for 19 years as a cook while Judith Bibby visited Port Lockroy as a tourist.

Mr Huckle's voyage was supposed to last a month, but thanks to a fire at one base and a tsunami wrecking another hut, he spent three years in the Antarctic.

Port Lockroy is now a museum visited by thousands of people each year, but when Mr Huckle spent the first three months of 1947 there, he had only Jimmy Smith, a Falkland Islander, and a dog for company.

"We were very short of food and had to live on penguins and seals. We also had fried penguin eggs every morning for breakfast," he said.

While at Port Lockroy, Mr Huckle (pictured above right) made history by making the first official protest against Argentinian involvement near British territory.

"Eventually, I was sent to go surveying and exploring at George VI Sound, further south than Port Lockroy, with Vivian Fuchs," said Mr Huckle.

"I had some recognition in that they named a mountain Mount Huckle. It is in the Douglas Range on Alexander Island."

Mr Wearden sailed past Port Lockroy on his first posting to a base further south in 1968, working mainly as a cook at one of the BAS's main bases.

"Everybody on the base would have been dying for some food after a long day in the field, so a good cook is worth their weight in gold," said Mr Huckle.

"I believe Alan is the only cook to have been awarded the Polar Medal for services to the BAS.

"Judith visited Port Lockroy as part of a package tour in 2000 on the Lyubou Orlova, a Russian ship.

"During her tour of the Lockroy base, one of the artefacts was the Remington typewriter (above left) on which I'd typed my letter of protest 53 years earlier – it is now a museum piece."

Mr Huckle says all three are hugely supportive of the work being done by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, the organisation run by director Rachel Morgan from her home near Raglan.

For more information on the group's work visit http://www.ukaht.org">www.ukaht.org