Baby Fed On Seal Gravy, Biltong And Milk Powder

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29330, 8 October 1960, Page 10

Baby Fed On Seal Gravy, Biltong And Milk Powder

(Associated Newspapers Feature Services) LONDON, October 1. NINE-MONTHS-OLD Scottish baby who was fed on melted snow and seal gravy returned to London this week from the Arctic. He is Robin Simpson who lived for five .months with his parents on a bleak and frozen island. Robin was hauled across snowfields on a sledge, taken across freezing, iceberg-bound fiords, bathed in melted ice.. He came through it all without even catching a cold. /

Robin’s father, 29-year-old Dr. Hugh Simpson, an Edinburgh scientist, was leader of a spaceage research expedition. Dr. Simpson, his 29-year-oid wife Myrtle, and Robin arrived at Newcastle-on-Tyne this week on their way home. The parents told about life with the baby in the land of the midnight sun and sub-zero temperature.

To keep Robin warm his father bartered a bottle of whisky with a Laplander for a snug reindeerskin “jomse”—the Lapp version of a carry-cot. To feed him, his mother melted pots of snow to add to milk powder. Robin also gnawed strips of biltong (dried beef) and sipped seal gravy. Angry Sea Birds To bath him, chunks of ice were melted over a wood stove.' To protect him from Arctic mosquitos, dets were draped over his cot. He also had to be guarded when angry sea birds attacked the party. There was one big advantage—his napkins dried quickly in the cold winds and the sun. Mrs Simpson held him up proudly and said. “Doesn’t be look healthy? “Look at his lovely tan. That comes from the long hours of sunshine. There was no real darkness. “But it was bitterly colu, particularly when the sky clouded over in the blizzards. Robin seemed quite happy, though, and got on splendidly with everybody. “When my husband planned the expedition the baby wasn’t even expected. But' when he arrived we decided to take him along. He was only four months old when we set out in May. “Everybody helped to look after him. One of the boys even made him a high chair out of driftwood.” r Space Crews Dr*. Simpson, who is on the staff of Glasgow Royal Infirmary,

fingered the thick beard he grew in the Arctic as be explained: “We wanted to see how people react to the sort of things space crews will encounter on planets or satellites. - "We made our day 21 hours instead of 24. It is possible to do

this in a land where, during the summer, the sun never sets. We regulated our lives by special clocks which, had been speeded up.” Dr. Simpson said: "We-were trying to find out how the human body stands up to various stresses. In this business of space research it is important to know. “I took physiological samples 14 times a day from the 10 adults on the expedition. These will be measured chemically. There is about a year’s work in the laboratory ahead of me.” “Robin was a great help because he made the team a family unit and helped the experiment along.” Robin’s weight when the expedition set out was 111 b. Now it is 201 b. The expedition was backed by the Royal Geographical Society, the Mount Everest Foundation, and the Medical Research Council. ’ .