This footage shows an RAF Shackleton being prepared for a special flight from the airbase at Ballykelly. The purpose of this flight was a very strange one and required some digging in the archives for newspapers of the time. The craft was to fly over the North Pole and drop, via a parachute, a container full of Irish peat onto the ice. Apparently, this action was as a “tribute to the North Pole.” It gets even stranger when it is revealed that the drop also contained some chocolate Penguin bars – apparently because the Arctic doesn’t have any penguins of its own. This possibly raises more questions than answers but it’s certain that the RAF crews had a sense of fun at least.

An Ulster Television Production.

• Broadcasting Authority Ireland