Thanks to Mrs Macleod for this work from 4A. This is how she described what they had done:

4A did the most amazing work for me – well I think it is amazing for year 6 boys.

We read an article by AA Gill from the Sunday Times that was about six pages long. The boys had to imagine they were AA Gill and that a huge story and some lucrative advertisements  had come in so that the story had to be condensed to a few hundred words.

 One Cast for the White Bear

Everything is fine, until it’s not.

Cold. We spent our lives getting out of it, getting away from it; our whole human history has been spent avoiding it, wrapping up against it, fighting and escaping it. Cold shoulders, cold stares; vengeance is cold, corpses are cold. Who wants to be cold?

The cold places of the world have a siren call, those frozen lands. By popular demand the heat is winning. It’s all about the kit, you walk along and it’s okay but lose a glove and you’ll lose a hand. My hands are constantly warm, everyone else has to count their fingers. Everything is fine until it’s not. We were off to Svalbard, known as “cold coast”. You fly from Oslo to Tromso then to Longyearbyen. As we landed in Lonyearbyen it was more exciting than a month of white Christmases, but as stepped out the cold hit us. The cold is a cruel thing; it turns toothpaste into minty cement, scours your eyes. It’s too hardcore even for Eskimos. This place is 78 degrees north; the North Pole is 90.

We travelled into Svalbard on foot, with our many items of clothing plastered to our bodies. We drove on separate snowmobiles into the town; Svalbard has more snowmobiles per capita than anywhere else on Earth. As we charged through the town, the wind felt like fine shards of glass rushing through the wind. They had half-mast flags up; we thought it was the skier who was killed in an avalanche the day before. No, said our guide. It was for the teenager who killed herself.

I lay in my hotel room and stared out at the sky, sleepless with anticipation. Our group needed to set up the campsite, so I put on my 25 items of clothing, in the hotel room I felt half man, half Aga. We had long journey to the campsite. When we finally got there, we set up the trip wire attached to explosives just outside the tents. Dogs usually scare polar bears with their barking. We didn’t bring dogs. The explosives weren’t too big, just enough to scare the polar bears away. Setting up the campsite was hard, but not as hard as going to the loo, that was a serious expedition.  A flapping plastic box is about 20ft away from the mess tent and inside is a collapsible toilet seat. You wait till the last possible moment - to the point of colonic no return- then grab a biodegradable plastic bag, inform the room that you’re just going outside, which never ceases to raise a smile, and stumble through the white wind to the little bivouac, and dig for a piece of paper in the snow. You begin to pull the woolly layers with stinging fingers. “How did you go to the loo?” they ask. The answer is very, very quickly. You don’t go to the loo unless you really need it. In the mess hut we sit and make up new dishes. Mine is best; cocoa with Tabasco. The weirdest is porridge with brown boiled cheese and red jam, which is what the Norwegian children eat for breakfast.

There is no one here to come and get us, no helicopters, no snowplough, nothing. The wind now sounds like an express train wrapped with cellophane. We sit fitfully. At 3am one morning, I saw someone’s head pop in a gap in the tent. “Get out,” he says. “We’re about to be entombed.”

We’ve lost 13 snowmobiles, 11 sledges, 2 tents. We had to make a tough decision; we can abandon the camp and make a trip to Longyearbyen, which would take over 14 hours or we could stay here and have one cast for the white bear. It’s unanimous. The next morning we set off in single file. The land and sky are the same polar hue, for an hour it looks as if we’re ascending through heaven like Valkyries. The air clears, the curtains are pulled back, and the landscape is revealed in all its vast, sublime harshness. This is an epic landscape, a land of saga, of awe. Then our Swedish expert points across the world. We follow his finger, squinting into the distance, and there is a dot, a lone exclamation, moving slowly across the ice. It’s him. The isbjörn, the ice bear, old-tooth yellow against the land, 300 yards away. The binoculars quarter the distance. A large male out hunting. He surfs the frozen waves on enormous feet, head carried low — listening for seals under the ice, listening to the wind, listening to the rhythmic crunch of snow under his claws, listening to his breath, tasting the air. Polar bears are the most solitary animals on Earth. These males are shunned by all living things, including their own kind. They seek no solace in company, no warmth in togetherness. Mary Shelley sent Frankenstein’s misbegotten monster to this distant vastness. This bear is the parable at the end of the world. Lord of the bleak, haunting, sighing silence, listening to the loneliness. We spent an hour walking with this big old bear, travelling part of the way with him. Even now, I have the sense of him up there beyond my horizon, on that blasted shore, sniffing the chill, padding through the ice, hearing the cry of the fulmar. We are still on our journeys, separated by 12 degrees of distance, and 58 degrees of temperature, parallel but apart.

J Felt (11.01)

AA Gill Tracks the Isbjörn

When someone asked me if I wanted to go to the Arctic I said yes, absolutely yes, before they could add camping. It’s all about the kit, putting it on, taking it off, the web hunts, the packing and the unpacking. The pile that grows in the corner of my office is like a glacier of wool, feathers and Velcro. Before I had left I bumped into David Attenborough. When I said that I was going to Svalbard, his face, instead of glowing enthusiastically flickered with sudden alarm. “It’s very cold you know, extremely cold.”  “Lose a glove and you’ll lose a hand,” but that did not dishearten me. Someone told me that I’d have to be fitness level four. I did not realise that there were Michelin stars for aerobic muscles. So I asked what sort of activities level four would have to undertake and someone emailed back that level five would expect to climb Everest.

Svalbard is the furthest north anyone lives permanently. The flags are all at half mast. When I asked if it was for the skier killed in an avalanche the day before, “No,” said our guide, it was for the teenager that killed herself. There are a lot of suicides, the absence of light, and the relentless weather. Getting dressed was like some murderous sport, but I only had to do it once. No one can smell you in the arctic. Except the polar bears. The laws of thermodynamics say that all the warmth we get we have to make ourselves. I had huge mittens on a string like in infant school. But overheating is as dangerous as freezing so it’s a constant battle between ventilating and battening, a bit like half man, half Aga. I discovered with joy that the huge mittens I had bought had nose wipe patches and were undoubtedly the best, everybody else had to keep counting their fingers.

We put up our tents in hurry. There is nothing fancy about them – small Glastonbury jobs that only keep out the wind and the snow. The last thing to go up is the tripwire attached to explosives. The best defence against bears is dogs: dogs bark, bears stay away. But we’re here to see bears so we haven’t brought dogs. Going to the lavatory is a serious expedition. About twenty feet from the mess tent is a flapping plastic box, the sort of thing workmen would put over holes in the road. You wait until the last possible moment – the point of colonic no return-then grab a biodegradable bag, stumble through the snow into the bivouac and then dig in the snow for some toilet paper which isn’t wet because only defrosting snow is wet. “How did you go to the loo?” everybody asks. The answer is: very quickly indeed. One night on a particularly strong blizzard, while we try to sleep, we hear digging outside and a head appears. “Get out,” said our guide’s head, “get what you can carry.” “We’re about to be entombed.” As dawn comes the blizzard blows its full and we see the damage it’s caused. We’ve lost 13 snowmobiles, 11 sledges and 2 tents and all we have is three foldable spades. The guide said that we have a choice; we can take the trip back to Longyearbyen which will take 14 hours or we can go to the coast to look for the bears, it’s unanimous. Next morning we set off in single file in a last cast for the white bear. Late in the afternoon the Swedish expert points across the humpback granite, the frozen rubble of the sea. We follow his finger squinting and in the distance there is a dot, an exclamation, moving slowly across the ice. The isbjörn, the ice bear, old yellow tooth against the land, 300 yards away. The bears seek no solace in company, no warmth in togetherness. Mary Shelly sent Frankenstein’s misbegotten monster to this distant vastness. Two bears turned up in Iceland last year- that’s a big swim from Greenland. “What happened?” I asked the Icelander who told me. “We shot them, of course.” I have the sense of him there beyond my horizon, on that blasted shore, sniffing the chill, padding through the ice, hearing the cry of the fulmar. We are still on our journeys, separated by 12 degrees of distance, and 58 degrees of temperature, parallel but apart.

W Pritchard (11.04)

“There is no horizon. For an hour it looks we’re ascending through clouds, ascending to heaven like Valkyries.”

Cold. For millennia we have tried to escape its icy jaws of death. Before our eyes, the cold retreats and melts. We need to feel it while stocks last. So when someone invited me to go to the Arctic, I said yes, absolutely yes. In the arctic, the kit is everything. Lose a glove, you lose your hand. And the list for the kit is almost five pages long. In the arctic, they expected me to have fitness level four. And some with level five would be expected to climb Mount Everest.

In Svalbard, it’s cold. It’s not parky, it’s ridiculously cold. And if Norwegians and Eskimos think it’s too hardcore, how do we stand a chance? The flags are always half-mast here. I wondered if it was for the skier killed in the avalanche the day before. No, said our guide, it was for the teenage girl who committed suicide. Longyearbyen, which is on the island of Spitsbergen, is the name of the town where we would be staying for a few days. It’s named after Mr Longyear, who was an American who bought a coal mine here.
This is where we met the rest of our team. None of them trained in any way for the unmerciful Arctic. “Oh my god,” hisses Tom, “this is the cast from a 70’s disaster movie.” We have all become lemmings, to camp in the wilderness where no man has ever camped before. I walked around the town, and noticed a few shops, a church and various other things, but for some reason there was a candy shop with a bewildering variety of liquorice.

I went to the hotel and thought about what I really wanted to see before I came here. Then I said to myself, "Of course". I thought of the magnificent beast who roams these wastelands, the polar bear. It also came to my mind that for a visit, Svalbard is just as good as a month at the beach. In my hotel room, I stare at the sky, sleepless with anticipation, just waiting for a brand new morning.

When I woke up, I decided to learn how to get dressed, as I had to wear twenty-five different pieces of clothing! Getting dressed is like preparing for a bloodthirsty battle crossed with training for the Olympics. These multiple layers, buttoned, zipped, laced and overlapped, are all to stop any cold coming in. But you see, if you overheat, you will sweat and you will die.

The day after the next, we get up early, pulling sledges with all the things we’d need. We leave town on our snowmobiles, pointing towards the east. After five hours through valleys, round mountains and down incredibly steep passes, we arrive at a short blind valley and set up camp. Setting up camp in the arctic is inevitably the invention of a cold devil. Cold here turns toothpaste into cement. It’s as cold as rejection, as cold as loneliness. It burns like the pain of the branding poker.

In the valley, the snow pours down and buries our snowmobiles and covers our tents. But on the third night, it gets worse. Outside, the weather is an animal, prowling, intractable, vicious, relentless. The wind and cold have all control over us. There is nothing we can do. The world has been shredded down to a few metres. This is all we have. In this wilderness, this is all we are.
That night, the weather reaches its peak. The snow presses in on us like concrete. I lie and watch it creep up the walls. The wind whistles and crackles, and shakes the tent so much you feel you’re in a baby’s rattle. We sleep fitfully.

We wake up to hear someone digging outside. “Get out,” he says. “Bring what you can carry.” The wind has blown its full, and we’ve lost 13 snowmobiles, 11 sledges and 2 tents. Between us we have three spades. We are all eager to dig, and manage to dig them out from 6ft of snow. Now we have a choice: We can stay here and make the trip to Longyearbyen, or spend another night here and go to the coast and search for the white bear. It’s unanimous.

The next morning, we set off in single file. There is no horizon. For an hour it looks as if we’re rising through clouds, ascending to heaven like Valkyries. The coast is breathtaking. The air clears, the curtains are pulled back, the landscape is revealed in all its vast, sublime harshness. Great blocks of shimmering sapphire ice, distant, serrated shores over a sea held in a cage of ice. This is an epic landscape, a land of saga, of awe, of romantic vision.

Late in the afternoon, the Swedish expert points into the distance, across the ice and sea. We squint in the direction he points in, and in the distance there is a dot, moving slowly across the ice. It’s him. The isbjörn, the ice bear, 300 yards away. I get out binoculars to see it. It’s a large male out hunting. He surfs the frozen sea, listening for seals under the frozen waves, listening to the wind, listening to his breath. This bear is the parable at the end of the world. And to go to the top of the world without the polar bear would be a great and significant loss.

We spent an hour walking with this bear, travelling part of the way with him. Even now, I sense him up there beyond my horizon, on that wonderful shore, padding through the ice. We still are on our journeys, separated by 12 degrees of distance, 58 degrees of temperature, parallel but apart.

J You (10.08)