Pen Hadow

BBC Learning English

People and Places
Pen Hadow

William: Hello and welcome to People and Places. My

name’s William Kremer. Coming

up in the programme today, we’re going to practise

listening and [strange noise]… and we’ll be finding out

what that strange noise is.

Now, imagine that you were trapped on a desert island and

you had to survive

– that is, you had to carry on living through this

dangerous situation. How would you manage? Now imagine that

you could choose one item to take to the island to help you

survive. What would you choose? A fishing rod? Or maybe
a gun? Well, we’re going to hear now from Pen Hadow. Pen

is a polar explorer

– he travels to the Arctic Circle to raise money and to do

scientific research. Pen once said that if he could take

one thing to help him survive on a desert island, he would

take… a six-inch nail. That’s right, a nail- something

that you would normally bang into wood. Six-inches is about

15 cm. A six-inch nail. Now listen to this clip from an

interview with Pen and try to work out why he would take a

six-inch nail to a desert island!

Pen Hadow:  And the reason I chose the nail was that I’m

aware of a group of walrus 1 hunters who were trapped on an

island in Spitzberg[en] and off, on the edge of the Arctic

Ocean. And they left their ship for the day with a little

rucksack on their backs and the ship got crushed with all

the occupants, so there were four of them left, on this

island and they had to survive and they survived for six

years and the key to their survival was a six-inch nail,

that they found in a log that
had drifted across the Arctic Ocean from Siberia. And they

used that to create

sparks and to create a hammer, from which they then made

arrowheads… they
then killed a polar bear… and… and in those days people

knew how to survive in the real sense of the word.

William: Well don’t worry if you missed the answer,

because I’m going to play that clip again. But you might

have heard that Pen chose a nail in this hypothetical

emergency because of the experience of a group of hunters.

Their ship was crushed, so it was destroyed by being

pressed very hard by ice. All the hunters had to help them

survive was a six-inch nail. But how did they use the nail?

Listen again:

Pen Hadow:  And the reason I chose the nail was that I’m

aware of a group of walrus hunters who were trapped on an

island in Spitzberg[en] and off, on the edge of the Arctic

Ocean. And they left their ship for the day with a little

rucksack on their backs and the ship got crushed with all

the occupants, so there were four of them left, on this

island and they had to survive and they survived for six

years and the key to their survival was a six-inch nail,

that they found in a log that
had drifted across the Arctic Ocean from Siberia. And they

used that to create sparks and to create a hammer, from

which they then made arrowheads… they then killed a polar

bear… and… and in those days people knew how to survive

in the real sense of the word.

William: Pen said that the nail was ‘the key to

their survival’ – which means that it was the only way

the hunters managed to survive. They used it to create

sparks and a hammer, and then they made arrowheads – sharp

metal objects that they used to kill a polar bear.

What does the arctic sound like? Is it quiet or noisy?

Before we listen to the next clip from Pen, let me give you

a bit of vocabulary. Earlier on, we heard the word ‘crush

’. A crash, or a crashing, is something different – it’s

a sudden loud noise, for example if something breaks or

falls to the ground – CRASH!
 
You’re also about to hear this word – grinding. Two

objects grind together by rubbing against each other – to

grind. Lastly, you’ll hear the word ‘rending 3’. If you

rend 2 something, you tear it in two. So, that’s crashing,

grinding and rending.

Pen Hadow:  Sometimes you do hear crashings of ice and

grindings of ice. Mostly you hear it at night, because you

’re lying down, your ears against the ice… they are the

most extraordinary noises. There are terrific sort of

rendings… metallic 4 rendings as if someone had got two

giant pliers and was just pulling a car roof apart. You’re

lying in bed, at the end of a long day and then suddenly

you hear:

[imitates ice rending]

William: Don’t forget that you can download the

script for this programme, and find out more about today’s

vocabulary by going to the People and Places website on BBC

Learning English dot com. Goodbye!