Professor Liz Morris, glaciologist

0:00Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

0:45My cast away this week is the glaciologist Professor Liz Morris. She's a scientist whose work in some of Earth's most inhospitable environments has not only paved the way for future generations of women in her field, but broadened humanity's understanding of climate change and polar science. Her many accolades include the prestigious Polar Medal, an OBE and her own glacier. Well, one named in her honour. It's a far cry from the early days of her career when women were bound from taking part in field research for the British Antarctic Survey. She persisted and in 1987 became the first British woman to camp out and carry out experiments away from a research station in the wilds of Antarctica.

1:29She says,

1:43Professor Liz Morris, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Hello, and it's lovely to be here. It's great to have you, Liz, and I feel like you're rather an expert. I mean, of all the people that I've interviewed, you have got to be one of the most experienced at survival. You've been to the Arctic and the Antarctic many times. What do you love about it? Well, there are days which were absolutely perfect, where the wind drops, the sky is blue, but still out of the sky from very high altitude, you get ice crystals falling down like a sort of rain of little diamonds because they flutter in the air and you see all these points of colour and then they pile up in a very sort of soft, beautiful layer on the surface which is ideal for skidoos and sledges and you're going off into a landscape where no one else has been before.

2:38It's completely untouched. You're going to be leaving the marks of your skis across it but otherwise there's nothing there except whiteness. And that is absolutely perfect. I do want to hear about your trip to the Arctic when you were prey to a polar bear. What happened? Well, I was invited to join the Norwegians to make some measurements in the north part of the Spitsbergen archipelago. And the first thing that we had to do was obviously test our rifles because we knew it was polar bear country. So we did. We fired off our rifles, made sure they were working and turned round and found that a polar bear had come to have a look to see what all the racket was about.

3:21And my GA and I were living in a crate which had been used to ship a skidoo in. So you and your general assistant are in a crate? A crate, a wooden crate. Is that normal? It's not really normal. You'd normally want to be in a tent because it'd be warmer. I'm just checking. I haven't done a lot of expeditions myself. No. Well, you would normally want to be in a tent, But of course, a polar bear could rip a tent to shreds very easily. So the crate was supposed to give us a bit more protection. But the problem was, of course, you don't have any windows in a crate. And we just had the flap at the front open a crack to let some air in.

3:58And during the night, we started hearing crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch around as the polar bear was sniffing around the crate. and I must admit I will freely admit to feeling absolute visceral fear at that stage because I just thought well this bear can just lift the crate up and just rip it to shreds, throw us around. So we sat there sort of half the night with our backs to the wall and the rifles sort of between us waiting for trouble and it wasn't until the following morning that the Norwegians who had a window in their cabin that they were staying in so they could see the coast was clear, came out and let us out.

4:42And yes, we got the work done, but I will say it wasn't the most delightful trip. Do you ever listen to music while you're out in the field? I don't. People do now, but I come from a sort of pre-Walkman generation, so I would be listening to music in my head. But I've heard that you sing. Oh, well, I do sing on Skidoo. I think my GAs would wish me to be singing something simple and concentrating on whether they're going to go down a crevasse. But sometimes I attempt some Bach fugue or other and get quite absorbed in trying to sing four parts at once. Well, that is what I call multitasking. I think we should get started with your music then, if you wouldn't mind.

5:24Your first track today, what's it going to be? My first track today is the final movement of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. And I've chosen this because it was called by Beethoven, Shepard's Song, In Gratitude After a Storm. And it's the first music I would have heard, undoubtedly, because my mother used it as a lullaby. And, of course, I was born in 1946, when they were finally able to be together again after the war. they were married in 39, they were finally able to start making a life together. And along with many other people in those days, they were full of hope for the future. They were trying to make a better world.

6:10You know, all sorts of wonderful things happened during those years, not to mention, you know, the National Health Service in 48. And I'm sure I absorbed that feeling of hope from them and so this song will represent that period and that hope.

7:03ORCHESTRA PLAYS

7:29Part of the final movement of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Liz Morris, you were born in West London in 1946, the eldest of two daughters to Jim and Jessie, both English teachers. Tell me about family life. What are your earliest memories? It's very difficult to say because I don't have very many really early memories. And some of them are actually confused because there were a lot of friends of my family, young teachers and various trade unionists that they knew, a whole motley of people. And looking back, I can't quite remember how old they were, why they were there.

8:11But all I remember is a great crowd of very happy people. So it sounds like a sociable household. It's a very sociable household. Parties, talking, discussions, plots and plans, and generally stimulating, I think is the word. There was always something going on. And your parents were both teachers? They were both teachers. In fact, my mother had taken over my father's job during the war when he was in North Africa. But when he came back, basically, he wanted his job back. Thank you very much. So she had to find another job, but was fortunate to find one teaching also nearby in Acton. So you were born 1946.

8:54Now I know because my dad was born in the winter of 1947 and that was famously the Big Freeze. Do you remember that? Do you remember your first encounter with snow and ice? I don't remember it directly but I remember very well my parents saying to me that I was walking by then and that I was taken out for a walk in the snow and I absolutely refused to come in. And they had to spend hours trying to persuade me that the walk was over and it was time to come in and warm up. And of course, that became a bit of a family joke that I started early in just refusing to come in from the snow. It's interesting hearing you talk about your mum and dad.

9:35You know, there they are, both obviously fascinated by, engaged with ideas and politics and the life of the mind, I suppose. Tell me a bit more about them as people. I mean, your mother, you know, she was something of a pioneer. She took children with dyslexia as we would see it now. I don't know if that's what she would have thought of it as in those days. Well, that's right. I mean, she had children who undoubtedly now would be diagnosed with dyslexia. But at the time, this was a sort of frungia research field that she only really got to find out about when she had an eye operation and was lying around in Moorfields Hospital.

10:12and the consultants started discussing things with her and telling her about this new research. But the other thing, of course, that happened was that there were very many traumatised children who'd come from the Caribbean and who were completely baffled by this new life in England, cold, wet, horrible, and appeared to be finding it difficult to learn. But, of course, they weren't unintelligent. They were just having a really bad time. So your mum would look after them? My mum was very, very strongly convinced that they needed looking after. So I hope there are a lot of people now, the early Windrush generation, who might look back and think, oh, well, at least Mrs Morris tried to look after us.

11:00Oh, how lovely. It's time for some more music now, Liz. It's your second choice today. Tell us about this one. What are we going to hear? Well, the second choice is Paul Robeson singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. And of course, he was a terrific hero of the time. And I would like to remember that period, which was one, again, of positivity, admiration for a black singer and black activist and no feeling then, really, that there was a problem. This was one of my parents' favourite records. They loved Paul Robeson's voice, and so do I. Swing low, sweet chariot Coming for a carry me a home Swing low, sweet chariot Come and carry me home Paul Robeson and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.

12:14So, Professor Liz Morris, your parents, as you mentioned, married in 1939. Tell me a bit more about your father's experiences during the war. What did he do? Well, he started off as a gunner, but he very rapidly learnt Spanish, which gave him enough languages to join the newly formed intelligence corps. And then in due course, he went off to North Africa and landed on the 8th of November 1942 in the torch landings in Algiers. And from then on, I know quite a lot about what his life was like because I've been transcribing his wartime diaries and his letters home to my mother. Oh, my goodness. So I have a day to day what he was up to and what he was doing.

13:01Heavily censored, of course, in the sense that we don't get much about the detail of the work, except that obviously it was basically police work. I mean, for example, he never mentioned an officer's surname. It was always Captain F or Captain L or whatever. And I had terrific trouble trying to find out who these people might have been, you know, with massive searches in the National Archives and so on, until I realised I'd been stupid and just looked at the envelopes of the letters he sent home to my mother, on which, of course, each officer had signed his name to say he censored the letter. So tell me a little bit more about you as a little girl, Liz.

13:46We've got such a lovely sense of your parents. What kind of kid were you? I'm guessing you read a lot because you had these intelligent English teacher parents. Well, I know I was reading all 16 of our family library books each week and I usually ran out of something to read. 16 books a week? So I had to find another few from the family shelves. So I was reading a lot. What were you reading? and what kind of books? Well, that changed over the years, of course. I mean, my early years, I was obsessed with aircraft. So I would be reading Biggles and the dumpy book of aircraft and the air. I remember as sort of was my constant companion.

14:30And then that suddenly fell away because I saw a film about the Matorn. And from then on, it was mountains and nothing but mountains. So this is all, you know, these are, and I guess would have been seen in the 50s as quite kind of boys' own pursuits, you know. Was that considered unusual? Did you ever have a librarian kind of trying to press a bunty annual into your hand instead or anything like that? I don't think we ever consulted librarians. I think we went straight for the books we wanted. You were like, no, mountains, I'm fine, thank you. Yeah, I knew I wanted the mountains and that was that.

15:08No, and I think I was, again, incredibly lucky to have two teachers who obviously didn't think that girls couldn't do certain things. You know, teachers are always looking at children to say, what can you do, not what can't you do? And of course, when I went to the secondary school, I went to a boys school, which then was just taking girls. So for most of my school life, I was in an environment which was heavily populated by boys. And therefore, there were all the things like good science teaching and things that you would associate with boys schools at that time. When did you realise that it was physics and maths that was your passion rather than, you know, English as it had been for your parents?

15:55I think it was a practical decision, really. And I respected my parents' judgment enough that when they said, well, actually, you know, yes, of course, you could read English and you'd be very good, but you'd have a more interesting life if you became a physicist. I thought, OK, they know what they're talking about. That's what we'll do. And they knew a very famous physicist, didn't they? They were friends with Cecil Powell, a Nobel winner. Yes, I can remember Cecil Powell coming to see us one time and I was in bed with measles. And he came up to say hello, found that I was reading a book on astronomy.

16:33And to my absolute horror, he reveals that there was one more planet than I thought there were, because this was a Victorian book. Which one was missing? What was missing? It would be Pluto that was missing. And then to my even greater horror, he wrote on the front of the book, he signed the book, Cecil Powell. And of course, to a child who'd been brought up to never ever write in a book, I thought that this was an absolute outrage. Who is this man? How dare you? Do you still have it? Yes. Thank goodness. Yes. Came to appreciate it later. Liz, I think we should have some more music now. I'd love to hear your third disc, please.

17:17What's next? Well, what's next is some Bach. I don't think I could really cope without the 48. And it will remind me of my very unsuccessful attempts to play the piano and learn the piano when I was a teenager. As a teenager, OK. And my sister's very successful attempts. But this is Bach's fugue number nine in E major with, of course, Glenn Gould.

18:14Thank you.

18:46Fugue No. 9 in E Major from Book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach, performed by Glenn Gould. Liz Morris, you studied physics at Bristol University, as advised by your parents, so in the mid-60s. Were there many other women on your course? Well, there were four of us in my year, about 100 men, but all four of us were great friends. and I don't think we felt that there was any problem about being outnumbered. What about when it came to tutorials or essay subjects? I know that you were occasionally, people tried to steer you towards things that you weren't so interested in. Well, there was one occasion when my tutor, who was a very nice man, asked all of us what we would like to write our essays about and choose something that we were interested in and turned to me and said, what are you interested in?

19:38So I said, of course, mountains. And he said, would you like to write an essay on mountain clothing? And I was absolutely disgusted because I thought this was a very girly thing to do. So I said, well, no. And I went off to see another lecturer, John Nye, who was a glaciologist and therefore was working in mountainous regions and said, well, what can I write this essay on, please? Can I write on glaciers? So he helped me and that was the start of becoming a glaciologist because then after I graduated I went on to become his doctoral student and start really my studies in glaciology then. Tell me about what you learned from him.

20:24well John Nye was an absolutely towering figure in my field you know one of one of the absolute greats and he was very austere a beautiful writer so his papers are an absolute example of how to write a scientific paper he did have one flaw from my point of view which was that his experience in experimental work had been with a very small and delicate thing called a bubble raft, which gave you some information about how crystals worked. But the task he gave me as a student was to construct a model glacier, which involved a very large heavy sheet metal, two inch thick, and large amounts of lead weights.

21:13And it was generally a lumbering sort of experiment. and I don't think John really, really knew what he asked me to do. So where was it and what were you trying to find out with it? John had really very, very nicely explained theoretically that there would be two processes that a glacier would use to get over its bumpy bed. One would be just by bending the ice so it could go round the bump and the other would be by melting at the upstream and the water would flow down to the lower part and refreeze. So regilation and plastic flow would be the two processes. So I had to basically construct a lump of something that could be pulled through ice and demonstrate these two processes going on.

22:02But of course, ice is a very strong material. So in order to bend the ice and provoke these things, I would have to be putting on large weights and in something which had to be a very strong piece of apparatus. How big was it? About a metre by a metre by a metre. So just fitted into a chest freezer. It didn't help that our lab was on the top floor of the physics building. Oh, no. And so this enormous thing had to be taken by crane onto the top floor and into my fridge. I hope it was worth it. What did you find out? Well, I found out some things about the regulation process which hadn't been demonstrated experimentally before.

22:49But I must admit it was one of those theses where you're very glad it's over. Let's have some more music. Your fourth choice today. What are we going to hear next and why are you taking this to the island? My fourth choice is Carol Lann, which is performed by the Triorkee Male Voice Choir. and for me this is going to remind me of all my friends especially my friends in North Wales and of all the times that I've had happy times up there climbing or canoeing, walking or just hanging out this I suppose will just also remind me of my Welsh heritage you know of my mining grandfather and uncles and all the things that the Welsh stand for, in my mind.

23:42And the Welsh mountains too, of course. And the Welsh mountains too, yes.

24:06Call on Larn, a pure heart, performed by the Triorki Male Voice Choir. Professor Liz Morris, you first applied to the British Antarctic Survey in the early 70s. What did they tell you at that time? I got a very nice letter saying sorry there are no facilities for women in the Antarctic what do they mean by that do you think I mean it's not like there are many facilities for anyone in the Antarctic well that is very true you know you can have as many separate snow pits as you want if you like I don't know I was very cross because I thought well you know I've I've got my qualifications, I've got quite a lot of experience, I ought to be employable there.

25:02This is just not on. But I made a plan. What was it? I'll wait them out. I certainly was able to go and work in universities, so I did a postdoc in the University of East Anglia, which provided a fair amount of entertainment because I was working underneath a glacier in the French Alps where there was access because of hydroelectric power schemes. And the idea was that they were trying to capture the subglacial stream at a high enough point to get a good long run downhill to generate electric power. So how were you recording the data? What kind of equipment did you have underground like that? Well, we started off with a very early version of a data logger, which would take the instrument readings and record them, and then we could come back and gather all the data.

25:55But it very soon broke down. So then I was the data recorder. So I stayed under the glacier for a week, writing down the data every hour. For a week without coming out at all? Without coming out at all. I had a colleague who would come up every day very devotedly, bringing me my bread and my ham and a bit of water and so on. but when I came out of course I was absolutely dazzled by the sunlight. It was extraordinary to come out of that sort of environment. And how did you cope with it? I mean you know how did you cope with the isolation, the cold, all of it? Well you know I was doing my job and I didn't really have much time to think because it seemed like every five minutes I was having to write down some figures.

26:43Taking those hourly measurements. Yeah. And was it just what pencil and paper? Pencil and paper yes. Blimey. And were you always keen to put yourself forward? I'm imagining you as this very determined young woman who's been turned down by, you know, the Antarctic Survey. They've said, no, you can't come. And you're kind of trying. Were you trying to prove yourself? I mean, putting yourself forward for, OK, someone needs to go underneath the glacier for a week. Fine, I'll do it. No, no, no, absolutely not. You weren't like that? No. This might be a bit of a diversion, but these days, unfortunately, the young scientists know that there are very, very few jobs for them and they are having to put themselves forward, demonstrate and try to be as obvious as possible and sell themselves at a very, very early age in order to try and get one of the very few jobs that are going.

27:34in those days I think I knew I always would have a job as a scientist and that was the big big difference that there was pretty well full employment and of course that sort of security is fantastic when you're developing yourself as a scientist yes because you don't have to make a show of yourself too soon you can learn your trade it's time for disc number five what's your next choice? Well, my next choice is the aria, the duet, he shall feed his flock from Handel's Messiah. And apart from the fact that I've actually got quite a devotion to sheep, I've also spent a lot of my life looking after other scientists.

28:20And I think it's one of the parts of science which is underrated. The bringing on of young scientists, helping your fellows by reviewing their papers and reviewing grant applications and just encouraging. And, you know, when they get stuck on a problem, saying, you will solve it. I have to circle back to the sheep, though, Liz. You said very fond of sheep. Why? Well, I live next door to a sheep farm in Glenshee. And when I first went there, I couldn't quite understand how it was that my friend, the farmer's wife, could recognise every you in the flock. But after a while, you realise they are, you know, like people, you recognise their faces, you recognise who they are and what they do.

29:07Then you start getting anxious about, you know, whether they're going to have two lambs or if they have three lambs, can they feed them? And then, of course, the terrible moment comes when you start feeding a lamb yourself. And then you're doomed. That's it. That's it. That's it. You live for the sheep. Then you live for the sheep. So you have done that, presumably. Have any strayed into, have you ever taken one into the kitchen, put it in a box, given it a bottle, all that kind of thing? Well, there is one at this very moment whom the farmer Nat brings into the kitchen, but as his wife remarks, they're not house-trained.