New Beginnings: From DB To Antarctica!

When a decades-long aviation career took an unexpected turn, Vicky Edwards embraced a new challenge. Her next destination: one of the most remote places on Earth. Edward Szekeres reports 

PHOTOS BY Andrew J.C. Spires & courtesy of Vicky Edwards

It all started with a movie. In late 2019, as COVID was silently spreading across the world, Vicky Edwards was on her way home to finish a work project when she walked by Palace ifc. Where’d You Go Bernadette, a comedy-drama starring Cate Blanchett, was showing. Compelled by a strong inner force, Vicky – an ardent Star Wars fan – decided to “ridiculously” watch the Blanchett flick, even pleading with her boss for more time to finish her work later that evening. 

It didn’t take long for her to realise why she felt so drawn to this movie about a middle-aged woman who, for various reasons, had lost her mojo and then regained it by escaping to Antarctica. As Vicky puts it, “It made me think, ‘That woman is mirroring my life.’ I was in a position where my career was shifting and I’d lost an air-traffic controller job. I was going through some quite challenging experiences in life.” 

While Vicky did not embark on her own Antarctica journey until a few years later, she left the cinema that day with a newfound outlook on the world. “That movie pretty much changed my life,” she says. 

British-born Vicky arrived in Hong Kong, and settled in Discovery Bay, in 2019 on an air-traffic controller contract. She came with the highest of accolades, having spent three decades in London as an area radar controller at one of the busiest air-traffic units in the world, often juggling 20 to 30 airplanes at once in large chunks of airspace – all with an exceptional safety and training record. 

Aviation was in her blood, with her father and uncle both clocking time in the Royal Air Force. As a teenager, she saw an ad for air-traffic control openings and was immediately hooked. At a mere 18 years old, she passed a gruelling selection process that only about a fifth of all candidates can complete, and launched what would become an illustrious career. 

So 30 years later, when she arrived in Hong Kong and unexpectedly failed her on-the-job training, Vicky’s new chapter shifted course. Her qualifications as an instructor were enough for her boss to offer her a different contract, and she sprang into action, helping set up the Basic Air Traffic Control College for HKIAA, where she trained cadets for the Civil Aviation Department for more than three years.

But something was missing, and Antarctica (that Blanchett flick, remember) was stuck in Vicky’s mind. Things fell into place in January 2025, when she saw an article about the British Antarctic Survey, and how they were recruiting. “I went on the website, found a vacancy for a radio operator in Antarctica, and I literally ticked all the boxes for what they required for the job,” she says. 

For the first time in three years, Vicky was genuinely excited. “All of my friends said: ‘Do it!’ They said they could see in my face this was something I really wanted, even if it meant falling off the planet for a six-month deployment.” 

Vicky’s children Rohan and Grace, then 17 and 18 and living overseas, were totally on board. “I’m always absolutely there for my kids and support them, but they’re also aware that parents need time-out to be themselves,” says Vicky, who has always been a working mum and raised her kids “free-range style” to be independent. 

And so Vicky applied – and got the job. She was one of four selected out of 170 applicants – not least on her first try, a rarity in this field. She aced her interviews despite not having experience working in remote environments, something she attributes, at least in part to her experience as an expat. “I knew what it took to live a long way away from family and friends due to my move to Hong Kong,” she says. 

After a rigorous medical check, she jetted off to the British Antarctic Survey’s headquarters in Cambridge, UK, for a month of training before hitting the ‘far south’ in October 2025. She deployed as one of five radio operators at the airfield of Rothera Research Station, a British Antarctic Survey base about a thousand miles from the southern tip of Chile – the nearest hub of civilisation. 

The job itself was exactly what she’d trained for – eight- to 10-hour shifts managing communications and providing flight information to incoming planes and ships, many of them bound for Antarctica’s vast, frozen interior. Her team was also the only connection to the world for remote units building stations further out. Her contact with these field guides and scientists involved everything from relaying their needs (including much-needed beer supplies) to singing Christmas carols to them on the phone, at designated – and very sporadic – call times. 

“When they finally came back from their months-long remote tour and we heard one another’s familiar voices in real life, it was like meeting long-time friends. One of them followed me around like a puppy for their first day back as they slowly reintegrated into society,” Vicky chuckles. 

Vicky’s stint in Antarctica spanned the summer season, which somewhat counterintuitively runs from October to early March. “I pretty much loved every minute of it,” she says. “I knew there were going to be challenges, but being a little bit older, more mature, with plenty of life experiences, I was ready to face them. 

“I think the hardest thing was getting used to sharing a room with a stranger,” Vicky adds, as she describes her compact room resembling student accommodation. But the views of icebergs, the ocean and the occasional penguin or seal hobbling across the runway made up for any discomfort. “I never got bored of it. The scenery around us literally moved with the icebergs,” she explains, pointing out that while 98% of Antarctica is covered in snow, the patch she worked on is not – at least in the summertime. 

Vicky immersed herself in everything – the vista, her work, the people around her. Strangers became friends, colleagues turned into soulmates. “You make friends fast because of the environment you’re in, more so than you would naturally. You’re working and living together at close quarters and around the clock. When you’re such a small team, 130 that summer, the onus is on you to take care of the social aspects. If you want something to happen, you have to make it happen. So you have to be prepared to be a social coordinator as well.” 

For Vicky this meant arranging weekend trips, including a once-in-a-lifetime tour of the research ship RRS Sir David Attenborough, and organising quiz nights back at base that kept spirits high (with alcohol consumption capped at two glasses per night). “I’m always the one who will make the effort to keep the connections going,” she says. 

That applies to her family and friends in DB, too. Back home now, having wrapped up her deployment, Vicky’s focusing on a life far from the icebergs. She’s completing a master’s degree in psychology and spending time with her children and her local dragon boating ‘family’, the Sea Cucumbers. Vicky’s also one of the organisers of Piece of Mind, the new DB-based jigsaw-puzzle swap group – an activity that keeps her curious mind busy. 

“At the end of the day, my job is my passion, but it is not larger than my life. There are other things that matter just as much, if not more,” Vicky concludes with a smile.