IN 1968, Brian Gargate was serving with the police cadets in Sedgefield. He was looking for somewhere interesting to take them training - and ended up spending 18 months in the Antarctic, looking after a team of husky dogs.

But, all around him, were reminders of home. On Deception Island, in the South Shetlands chain, there were a number of whale oil tanks made by the Whessoe Foundry Company, of Darlington.

Three weeks ago, Echo Memories reported how someone in Somerset had recently visited the island, part of a chain which is linked to the Falkland Islands, and had brought back photographic memorabilia showing Darlington's name still standing in the minus 50 degree temperatures. We believe the tanks were made in Brinkburn Road, between 1891 and 1920.

The Guardian newspaper was so impressed by the Echo Memories article that, a few days afterwards, it published a travel feature on the latest holiday craze - cruising around the Antarctic islands.

It said: "Glass and old tin cans litter the beach on Deception Island, one of several Antarctic whaling ports that played a part in the slaughter of more than one million whales during the last century.

"The base was flattened by a volcano in 1969, and now lava covers the second-floor barracks, while two of the only flowering plants on the continent grow through the whitening bones of a long-dead whale."

Brian Gargate was on Deception Island until a couple of weeks before the 1969 eruption.

He was seconded by Durham Constabulary to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) for 18 months - and placed the force insignia close to the South Pole, so that the frozen continent had a memento of his visit.

The survey did mapping work, and investigated the geology of the region for possible mineral deposits.

"I was the dog-team driver for the geophysists," he said. His team was called The Ladies because all were bitches, apart from the one dog whose job it was to keep them happy.

"Deception Island is an enormous circle of land with water in the middle and precipitous cliffs all the way round," said Mr Gargate, who lives in Newton Aycliffe.

"It is nothing but ash and glaciers, and it was bitter cold - minus 48 degrees, and that was pretty cold."

And there speaks a chap who grew up in Consett, which is not noted for its mild winters.

The whale oil tanks had been knocked higgledy-piggledy by the wind and the various volcanic eruptions, but the 1969 lahar (a mixture of melted glacier ice and volcanic ash) really took its toll.

"In 1970, I went back for a short visit to see the damage," said Mr Gargate. "The lahar flowed down from the high ground behind the old whalers' living hut that was used by BAS personnel and burst through it.

"It raised the ground level across the whole whaling station by three to five feet and moved the shoreline out 100ft. It completely obilterated an old cemetery, and swept some oil tanks into the sea and partly buried the remainder."

Mr Gargate's pictures provide a record of how Darlington's tanks looked before the eruption, and, as Echo Memories showed three weeks ago, a couple still bear the town's name.