Michael Warr

Michael Warr spent two years of his life in his early twenties living in the Antarctic. It was a time of coal fires for heat and to melt snow for water.

He worked with the British Antarctic Survey as a meteorologist. Isolation was for eight months. A 100 word radio message could be sent out once a month.

The first base Mike was on was the small volcanic island, Deception. There was also a Chilean and an Argentinean base there. Wine and whisky was exchanged, plus music.

Mike ran the husky team, sometime with a sledge and if there was a lack of snow, a wheeled trolley.

In his second winter Mike was on Adelaide Island 400 miles further south on a small base attached to a 90 mile long glaciated island. Again he ran the husky team, but on permanent snow. He went camping three times away from the base. At the end of his tour he left reluctantly thinking he would never return.

Thirty-nine years later when writing his South of Sixty book he revisited the Antarctic Peninsula. The changes were more whales, many more fur seals and a temperature that had risen by over 2 degrees C. This voyage became the last four chapters of South of Sixty.

Subsequently Mike went on five more Antarctic voyages as a staff historian.

His interests are running, reading and writing. The last is mainly concentrated on an Antarctic murder mystery. This became Murder in the Antarctic published December 2013.