Reprinted from Polar Post (Volume 36, No.3 [Whole No. 202] September 2004, pp. 91-94) LETTER FROM DOWN UNDER by Peter D Cranwell In this my first letter to Polar Post I want to tell you about four matters. The first is to do with the issue of AAT stamps to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the establishment of Mawson station, the oldest continuously operating station inside the Antarctic circle. The second is the unveiling of the bronze statue of "Mrs Chippy", the cat on the Endurance, the third is the visit of the James Caird to New Zealand and the fourth is the unveiling of the tribute to Frank Worsley in Akaroa, New Zealand. 50th Anniversary of the establishment of Mawson station: The Australian Antarctic Territory stamps issued to commemorate this anniversary are described elsewhere in this issue of Polar Post. The stamps were issued in Australia on 13th February 2004, exactly 50 years after the Mawson station naming ceremony took place on Saturday 13th February 1954 on the rocky shore of Horseshoe Harbour. The venue for the launch of these stamps was the Postmaster Gallery in Melbourne, where the Exhibition entitled "Philately on Ice - Stamps of the Australian Antarctic Territory 1957-2003", ran from 6th December 2003 to 29th February 2004. Figure 1: Nine members of the Mawson pioneer party, who attended the launch. From left to right they are: Arthur Gwyn, Fred Elliott, Ray Seaver, Dick Thompson, Bill Storer, Ken Dufell, Jim Brooks, Bill Pedersen and Phillip Law. Bill Storer was a member of the first wintering party at Mawson station in 1954. The following account of the arrival and the naming ceremony at Mawson station is taken from The Silence Calling: Australians in Antarctica 1947-97 by Tim Bowden. The Kista Dan nosed her way between the encircling arms of the 'horseshoe' late on Thursday 11th February and into Horseshoe Harbour still covered with fast ice. Unloading of the ship began sometime on Friday 12th February and was well underway on the following day when by late afternoon Phillip Law decided it was time for the official naming ceremony. A flagpole was rigged on one of the barge caravans (depicted in one of the 50¢ stamps) that served as living quarters while the huts were being built. In the presence of all the ANARE men Phillip Law raised the flag and made the following declaration: "In the name of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Government of Australia I raise this Australian flag on Australian Antarctic Territory; I name this new ANARE station 'Mawson' in honour of the great Australian Antarctic explorer and scientist, Sir Douglas Mawson". They then sang the national anthem and gave three hearty cheers. It was reported in the Australia Post Philatelic Bulletin (No. 6, June 1954) that the first batch of philatelic mail for Mawson, comprising 20,152 ordinary and 2,848 registered articles, was received at the Philatelic Bureau Melbourne and was taken in the Kista Dan, which left Melbourne on 4th January 1954 and arrived back in Melbourne on 31 st March 1954. The first postmaster at Mawson station was Bill Storer, who had been postmaster at the Macquarie Island station during the 1951/52 expedition. Bill Storer, who now lives in Sydney, has provided me with some interesting insights into the arrival at Mawson and about the cancellation of the philatelic mail as follows: 'Briefly, when the Kista Dan arrived at the Horseshoe Harbour, which was to be named ‘MAWSON’ the thought of postmarking many letters etc was the last thing on the itinerary to be done. Of course if the ship had not found an ideal place there would not have been any First Day cancellations for the voyage. The main object of this pioneering party was to establish a station and maintain it for year/s to come. This probably was in the minds of Australia Post (PMG) at the time and they did not issue a commemorative stamp for the establishment of a base. Everyone was treated as equal including the scientific staff and work was done during daylight hours, which was about 20 hours a day during the summer months; erection of the base was the first priority. Actually the base was not declared operational till April 1st 1954 when power and all equipment was switched on. It was decided by the Director of the Antarctic Division, Dr Phillip Law, (Dept. of External Affairs) to use the 15th February as the official day of the opening of the post office. It would not have been practical to have had more than one date for cancellation of postal letters etc.' Thus the Post Office at Mawson was officially declared open on 15th February 1954 and all mail, including the philatelic articles, was cancelled with a single canceller [C1a (Milner)/APM1070 (Wooley & Eury)], and all have the same cancellation date (15 FE 54). However, cancellation of this large volume of mail, in excess of 23,000 articles, was carried out over a number of days. Cancellation of the mail, which took place either on board ship or at a Post Office set up outside one of the barge caravans, was completed by 22nd February. The Kista Dan departed from Mawson on 23rd February 1954. Bill Storer was assisted by one of the French observers, Dr André Migot, with the cancellation of the mail. In his book, The Lonely South, Dr Migot records the following: 'On February 22 the base was far enough advanced for us to leave the winter party to their own devices. Our departure was fixed for the next day, everyone was feverishly busy with final arrangements, but the most overworked man in the station was the officer in charge of the post office. For several days the poor fellow had spent his days and part of his nights in stamping masses of letters and stowing them in bags in the saloon. I would never have believed twenty men capable of writing so many letters and post cards. I afterwards discovered that there were more than thirty thousand of them.' (Bill Storer says that the Australia Post figure of 23,000 articles is the correct one) Dr Migot continued: 'This immense spate of correspondence was due to the fact that an official Post Office had been opened at Mawson and that the first stamped mail from this new station would be of great interest and value to stamp-collectors, although the stamps were only ordinary Australian stamps, overprinted "Mawson Antarctica". (No stamps were overprinted; the author probably confused cancelling with overprinting). Next year the station would have stamps of its own. While I was helping Bill Storer, the good-natured meteorologist (he was in fact the radio operator) who had assumed the duties of postmaster, I noticed that packets containing several hundreds of stamped cards, some of them specially printed for the occasion, were addressed to the same address, generally that of a stamp dealer. I must say I was shocked to see the way the mission was being commercially exploited. On the other hand, I was delighted and rather touched to see that Registered Letter No. 1, signed by all the Australian members of the expedition, was addressed to Her Majesty the Queen, Buckingham Palace, London.' Now to some matters regarding the commemorative stamp issue. The layout of the sheets of se- tenant pairs of 50¢ stamps differs from the previous issue of AAT stamps, i.e., Antarctic Ships. In the Ships issue the position of the se-tenant 50¢ stamps in each row were alternated such that in each sheet there were equal numbers of Kista Dan and Magga Dan stamps; gutter pairs had one of each stamp. In the Mawson commemorative issue the position of the two 50¢ stamps in each row of 5 stamps is the same. As a result there are 30 Naming Ceremony and 20 Contemporary view of Mawson station stamps in each sheet; gutter pairs have two similar stamps. The National postmarker (APM36120; Wooley & Eury) for the Mawson commemorative issue used to machine cancel the first day covers produced by the Philatelic Bureau in Melbourne and also for hand cancelling covers to order is shown in Figure 2a. The hand canceller provided to the Post Office at Kingston (APM36121, Figure 2b) and used for hand cancelling covers to order is somewhat different from that used at the Bureau. Figure 2a: APM 36120 Figure 2b: APM 36121 National Postmark used to cancel the National Postmark used to cancel the Mawson 50th Anniversary stamps at Mawson 50th Anniversary stamps at the the Philatelic Bureau, Melbourne Kingston Post Office The major difference between the two postmarkers is that the postcode is depicted incorrectly as 7250 on the Kingston PO postmarker (Figure 2b). It should be 7050 as shown on the Bureau postmarker (Figure 2a). Other differences between the two postmarkers are to be seen in the fonts in the printing, the placement of the flagpole and the printing in relation to the mountain, and the definition and detail in the flag. This is the second time in four years there have been errors in the postcode for Kingston in the National postmarker for new issues of AAT stamps (Wooley & Eury). The previous one was for the Australians in the Antarctic issue in 2001, when the postcode for Kingston was shown as 7060 in both the Bureau and Post Office postmarkers. Both postmarkers were subsequently replaced with corrected versions. For the Mawson stamp issue the Kingston PO National postmarker was not replaced with a corrected version. On page 25 of the Australian Stamp Bulletin (ASB) No.