Old Gaffer

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  • Secondary School Part 1

    Oxbridge and ex-Public School staff ran our school on Public School lines – as closely as one could for a day school. We had PT every day, vaulting over boxes, doing running somersaults, walking the high beam and everything one can imagine doing in a fully equipped gymnasium, including a shower afterwards. We played seasonal games twice a week, assembly with hymns every morning. Prefects were allowed to thrash, yet no one complained. A strong sense of pride, fostered by a good academic success rate both at school and after, ensured the popularity with parents. The pride was greatly publicised by names on mahogany-faced boards in gold leaf in the Great Hall, that could be read when the message from the platform was too banal. This pride was dented a bit when some Hitler Youth came over on exchange, taught us hand-ball and thrashed us, then proceeded to beat us at tennis. If cricket had not been beyond the German vocabularies of our upper sixth, we could well have be beaten at that too.

    There was snobbery between us and other schools in the area which we thought beneath us, which I place squarely at the feet of the staff. We had a woodwork department in which the woodwork master was replaced by a teacher who spoke with a working class accent, worked very much with his hands and had probably come from an artisan background. I suspected he had started life apprenticed to a trade in the North and then had worked hard to reach an academic level. One never saw him in the staff room and rarely, if ever, in the company of members of staff. He taught maths as a subsidiary subject but woodwork and metal work were his preoccupations. We had to choose between learning Classics, or Woodwork and metalwork for Matriculation, I chose the latter, and have never regretted the grounding which has helped me throughout my life, and which made training in the Navy considerably easier. Looking back though, I think tuition in both subjects would have been more beneficial.

    It was in my second year the new crafts teacher arrived. Below average height, built like an international rugby hooker, he had hands like vices. He appeared dour. Looking back, and taking into account later experiences with him when we were evacuated, I believe he was probably just reserved. In two terms he single-handedly ripped the workshop to pieces, built steel covered metal work-benches, installed a forge, a lathe, a vertical drilling machine and a plethora of new implements we had never seen before’, while teaching. Then he proceeded to teach us to make EPNS pierced napkin rings, twisted pokers for home fires, the dangerous art of spinning copper – improperly set up, one could lose fingers, ears, chunks of cheeks, as men in the engine Sheds at Crew did, spinning the copper domes for the valves on top of the steam engines. To me it was a period of my schooling I looked forward to every week.

    In his store he kept all the expensive and or dangerous bits and pieces which today would walk the plank. Stealing then was not a problem, there was the odd thief who was generally caught and expelled, but nothing was locked up anywhere in the school, except the school shop and the tuck shop. With permission, we were allowed to fix things, as a privilege, and if we had taken on a project which was behind or took more time than allocated, we could work at it in free periods. It was then I discovered him sitting in his office with a cup of tea or sandwiches for his lunch, something the other Staff would not have dreamed of doing, they were entitled to school meals, even when they were not on ‘dinner duty’. I felt sorry for him, a childish presumption based on my own gregarious outlook. In fact, later, I was to find he was a very sophisticated man with cultured tastes and he probably preferred his own company to the racket of the Staff Room.

    When we were evacuated in Sussex, he had to try to maintain our progress in metalwork without proper facilities as we would be examined not only on written work but a half-day practical. That first winter in ’39 was fierce and the snow was heavy. One day he came upon some of us trying to make a toboggan out of scrap timber, fruit boxes and the like. He called us into his house, produced some decent wood and guided us in the making of one which would seat three grown boys at a time and was properly constructed with metal runners. Once the ice was broken, we went there on several occasions for tea with his family and it was then that I really appreciated the worth of the man. I have often wondered if he was ever really accepted by his peers at the school, or even whether he wanted to be. All I know is that I owe him more than just matriculation in metalwork.

  • Glenlea And The Doodle-bug

    My mother was living in a house called Glenlea in Dulwich. It was a huge house standing within its own grounds and had been taken over by whatever Department of the War Office was responsible for receiving, training and returning Dutch escapees from German occupied Holland, who wished to become saboteurs and Resistance Fighters. A cousin of ours, who was a ship’s captain pre-war, and had lost a leg in an action earlier in the war, was now a Commander in the Navy, liaising with the exiled, Dutch government officials. It was uncharitably suggested by some in the family that he had been a smuggler before the war, so this might account for his close association with the Netherlands. For whatever reason, he set up this sort of spy school and then persuaded my mother to take charge as housekeeper. When I went home on leave, I had permission to stay there at Glenlea with the ‘Dutch Boys’, as she called them, and was privy to much that went on. They had a radio room where they learned to use radio transmitters and, one assumes, code books although that was never discussed. On one side of the garden was a very tall tree growing close to a wall and from the tree a thick rope hung. I understand that the routine was to climb onto the wall with the rope and then, swing like Tarzan, until fully extended, let go and thus learn the technique of landing with a parachute.

    Every Sunday evening, a ritual was performed. The BBC would play, in turn, the National Anthem of each country in exile. The radio was on, the evening meal was over and we sat, smoking, drinking, all were listening. When it was the National Anthem of the Netherlands, the men would stand, some would sing, and at the end they would toast Queen Wilhelmena in unison. Over weeks the men would disappear from time to time to go on courses elsewhere and then return, all without comment. The idea was that no one should know if they had left on an operation or merely a course. In spite of these precautions many were caught as they landed in Holland. It was said later that one of the men I used to go to London with for nights out was a Nazi spy passing information. I was never able to confirm that.

    I remember one of the men in particular, but not his name. He had been caught by the Nazis and had escaped. He arrived in England, either through Sweden and the North Sea, or through Europe to Spain and then London. When he arrived in England he had a large strawberry mark, on his face, yet he was so keen to get back into the fray he was prepared to undergo a skin graft. When I last saw him his face had not healed enough for him to leave our country. Many of the men had come from the Dutch East Indies.

    The Doodle-Bug Sophie and I were just married, on our honeymoon and staying in a hotel almost opposite Glenlea. We would travel to the City by train,. Each night, coming home from London, as we handed in the ticket to the collector on the station at Dulwich he would say ‘Sorry you’ve got to walk!’ until this became a family saying. It was while we were at the hotel that Sophie first became acquainted with the Buzz Bomb. During one night, as she was a lighter sleeper than I, the siren must have woken her and then she heard the wavering, sometimes stuttering buzz of the bomb, sounding for all the world like a two-stroke motorbike with fuel troubles.

    Unsurprisingly she woke me and then followed a conversation for which she has never really forgiven me. She has always considered that I acted boorishly, while I was only being logical. The difference between our outlooks rested with the facts that while I had become hardened to the vagaries of war in all its guises, she had only experienced a few air raids, and, being half asleep I reacted normally instead of in my new role as protector of the Soph.

    “What’s that?” Soph – fearful. “It’s a Doodle-bug.” “It’s a what?” “It’s a Doodle-bug, a flying bomb.” “Oh my God!” “Don’t worry, Dear, if you can hear it you’re safe and if you can’t its too late to do anything about it.” “You’re dead?” “Yes. Go back to sleep, it’ll be all right, we get hundreds of them all the time.” “You expect me to go to sleep? Shouldn’t we be in a shelter?” Then followed the placation, the reassurance, all of which was worth being woken up for, but in spite of that I was never really forgiven.

  • Social Mores And Comic History

    Social Mores. I have previously written about religion, but this spate of worldwide brutality and lawlessness, causes me not only to take a wider view of religion but relate it to some extent to our current problems. I wrote that I had been an interested believer until I was rudely awakened. At which point I steadily shrugged off my previous beliefs, but not the tenets which the religion had instilled in me When my girls were growing up, and as their mother was a churchgoer, I asked them to attend Sunday School until they were old enough to make their own decisions with respect to religion.

    The 10 Commandments are basic social mores which are not confined to Christianity, but all religions with respect to social co-existence. They have been ignored on copious occasions by religious leaders throughout the centuries for secular reasons. What with the change in general attitudes of the 60s, it is unsurprising that in all religions, and probably especially Christianity, the silent majority has turned away from worship. I wonder how many children can now reel off the 10 Commandments without coaching, or even adhere to those tenets.

    Having lived in Northern Ireland, in an allegedly religiously divided society, apart from the members of the paramilitaries, until recently the young were not seriously involved. Over the last few years it has become apparent that the young, in the more deprived areas, are increasingly out-of-control and are seeking excitement at any cost, possibly with pseudo, quasi paramilitary leanings For example – children light fires, with the sole intention of stoning the firemen when they answer the call. Currently the firemen are refusing to attend small blazes. This is clearly a breakdown in family responsibility through not adopting sound social mores. It is necessary that those basic values shall be indelibly printed on the minds of the young, but the question then is posed as to who should do this, as clearly the parents aren’t. Recently I demonstrated, by quoting my own experience, just how much teachers influence their charges, but they have enough to contend with. The solution would appear to lie solely with the parents. It seems totally illogical that bad, uncaring, parents, who allow their children to rampage, causing damage and mayhem, are not brought to book. These children, now and also when they become adults, place a burden on local authorities. It would therefore seem reasonable that the parents of the children should be brought to book for the damage these children commit. As it is likely, they have no money, and probably no job, then they should be given community service. Those who can afford to pay fines should be made to.

    I find it strange that I have been banging on about single parent families, latch-key children, lack of extended families, lack of adequate recreational facilities for the young and teenagers and had just written this page, when, two hours ago, on the lunchtime News, I discovered we were 21st out of 21 European wealthy countries, when it came to assessing the aspects of the care, education, and welfare, etc of children.

    Comic History. I’m not referring to history which has a funny side, but history gleaned in childhood from reading comic papers. In the 30s the comics were the children’s television of today, and every publication was awaited with anticipation. We knew the stories were rubbish, but they were exciting and had sufficient fact to make them real. Many were about wars of the past, and current wars. There was one in particular which was based on the British Raj trying to subdue warring tribes in the Khyber Pass. It was evident to us that the British were getting nowhere, because the story went on forever and was backed up by pieces in the Daily Press. Similarly we learned at school about the wars in the Sudan, the Middle East, and later we would learn all about how the British installed the Israelis in Palestine.

    I am aware that the breadth of education that I received in the 30’s, is now arbitrary, and history and geography are no longer key subjects. So when our politicians, decide to send armed forces into those very places, which caused such problems in the past, without considering all the tribal problems that these various factions have maintained since the dawn of time, I put it down to them not having read very much history, or having ignored reasoned advice.. Not only in the comic books, but in our lessons in school, we were given to understand that on these various frontiers particularly in Afghanistan, the fighters were fierce, and almost impossible to winkle out from their  burrows. Need I say more!

  • The Big Bang and a view of Edinbourgh

    The Big Bang I relate this because afterwards I found the incident in a way, rather funny, and contrary to all I had been led to believe about the imperturbability of the Navy in a crisis. We were sitting at lunch in the Chiefs’ and POs’ Mess. The table ran fore and aft of the ship which meant that the senior men sat farthest from the draught coming down the ladder leading to the upper deck while I, the despised cuckoo in the nest, the interloper, was seated immediately beside the ladder. I suspect we were either eating roast beef and potatoes or corned beef hash, depending on which end of the trip it was, when we were surprised by a bang which caused the side of the ship literally to move, in and out, like a biscuit tin which has received a thump. These Hunt destroyers were designed for speed rather than to resist the onslaught of attack so we had no real armour plate except in vital areas like the bridge and the gun turrets. Indeed the running joke was that the designers had purposely made the hull thin so that a shell would go in one side and out the other without exploding – an impossible suggestion but intended to amuse.

    “We’ve been hit” several voices shouted and as some of the Mess had been in the drink already during the war, they were a little apprehensive, not to put too fine a point on it. Like the rest I jumped up and started to grab the handrail of the ladder intending to get out as soon as possible, but a big hand grabbed the back of my jersey and I was pulled out of the way and a number of the men were up the ladder like monkeys. Again I got my hand on the ladder and the same thing happened. In the end, although I was first to the ladder I was last out. I would not suggest for one minute there was panic, just determination not to be left behind.

    When we reached the upper deck all was made clear. Near the horizon, yes, all that distance away, a sister ship was dropping depth charges and what had shattered the lunch was the tremendous pressure-wave which had travelled miles through the water undiminished to almost deafen us in the Mess.

    Edinburgh For some reason I have never fathomed, the sailors called Edinburgh ‘The New’ – pronounced noo; we would ‘go up the Noo’. To me it was a cold city, closed to strangers and especially sailors. I remember the chap in our Mess who was a one-time lecturer, I’ll call him Reg, invited his wife up there during boiler cleans. He had arranged a completely irregular code with her which could have put him in jug if he’d been caught. She was able, from his letters, to know when we expected to dock and would meet him when he was on leave for the four days. She would book a room and he would join her. I believe it was the hotel at Prince’s Street Station, which annoyed him. When he received the bill at the end of his stay it was made out to Mrs XX (his name) and Friend. In 1942 that was just not on, the implications were implicit. He took the place apart including the manager.

    On my first visit I initially went to the Salvation Army to book a bed for the night and was told that there were only beds in the Annexe. Annexes were quite a common feature of the ad hoc bunk bed doss, so I took no notice and went about my evening’s enjoyment with my bed ticket in my pocket. Come midnight I went in search of the Annexe and the bed. I found the former, but when I was dispatched to a pile of used blankets set in a rectangle scratched in chalk on the floor of a church hall, I jibbed, left and went to
    find accommodation elsewhere.

    I met a policeman on Prince’s Street who directed me to the Station where he said they were putting Servicemen up for the night. They were, in the left luggage office, in the racks usually used for suitcases. There I was pigeonholed, cramped, and, by morning, indented like a waffle because no palliasse or support whatever had been provided to cover the slats of the racks and they had bitten into me. This experience reinforced my conception of the attitude of the locals to Servicemen. They still seemed to be in the era of the ‘No Dogs, No Sailors Admitted’, a sign, which I was told by embittered Regulars was prevalent in Southsea before the war, Southsea being the posh part of Portsmouth. I suppose there was error on both sides – they were certainly cold, and we could be a bit rough at times.

  • The Era Of Cycle Accidents

    I am accident prone and wont to make snap decisions. At fourteen I bought my first bicycle, second-hand, for a pound, and learned to ride it. It was a heavy, characterless brute, with only one gear. A month later I went on my first real journey, to visit an aunt. She was out, so I thought the Crystal Palace is only a little further, six miles in all. After the Crystal Palace, I went on, and to cut a long story short, I found reasons every time I reached the goal to go to the next one, until I found myself on the beach at Hastings, 50 miles from home, at about two in the afternoon. I celebrated by sitting on the stony beach for an hour. I recall a marvelous name from the journey, a village called Peas Pottage. On the return, Pole Hill and River Hill were like crawling up the side of the Eiger. Twice I fell asleep standing on the pedals, going up the hill, and finished in the gutter with the bike on top. I arrived home near midnight – my reception was ambivalent, but I now had a taste for long rides on the bone-shaker. Today I would have been run over on that hill.

    My first cycle accident was bizarre. Cycling up a steep hill, the handcart in front of me pulled out to pass a parked car; I pulled out to pass the cart, a taxi coming behind pulled out to pass me, we were strung out across the road like washing on a line. A cyclist coming down the hill at speed, shot out into the centre of the road to avoid hitting the cab head on, instead he chose to hit me. I flew over my handlebars, his handlebars and landed up the road. My front wheel was a mess. On the second accident, seated on my bike, supported on one pedal on the kerb, feet on the handle bar, waiting for a friend, an idiot on a racing bike, his hands on the low grips, cycling head down, ran straight into the back of me. I got his address, met his mother and that was that – a shut front door. No 3. Crash was on a wet morning with the rain teeming down. Stopped in the middle of the High Street, waiting to turn right, with a tram in the distance coming towards me, suddenly I was hit from behind by a motorcycle and I skated along the tramlines like a stone in the Scottish game of curling, until I was brought up against the cow-catcher device on the front of the tram which was shuddering to a halt.

    The Bizarre World Of The Hospital There was one accident which outshone all the rest. I had a ‘new’ one-pound bike with three gears – a flying machine! Two friends and I set out. They were putting new bikes through their paces, mine needed servicing. Unfortunately my brakes were almost non-existent. >From the top of a hill, coming down at speed towards a major cross road, the others stopped at the junction; I went on, and on, until I was brought up short by the handle of the rear door of a car against my head behind the ear. That was the last I heard until I awoke in hospital. Apparently I lay in the road saying words I could have been expelled for, being given brandy, and when I came to, a policeman was beside the bed asking me what had happened. I was able to tell him that I had been hit by a motorcycle,. That ended police enquiries. A distraught mother, hat askew, scarf equally awry from her hurried departure from home, informed me I had broken my back, and I was on boards and not allowed to move. In fact I had a week in hospital with a cracked skull, a broken collarbone, a cracked arm and concussion, beside minor contusions. In a fracture ward full of characters, the atmosphere between the patients and the nurses was a little like prison where the old lags know the warders and all the dodges – then. broken legs could mean months in hospital. The familiarity was an eye-opener to a fourteen year old. The man in the next bed, run over by a lorry loaded with bricks, had separated his chest area from his pelvis. It was greeted by all as a miracle that he had lived, let alone that he could now walk with only a slight limp, because one leg was shorter than the other. Then there was the bookmaker who was wheeled from ward to ward as a living and breathing reference to the skills of the staff and the surgeons in particular. They ignored the fact that it was also a demonstration of what could happen to a welsher at Epsom Downs. Of course he may ‘have seen the light’, people often do under those circumstances. Apparently at the closing of a bad day, he had been sneaking off when someone thrust a knife into his heart and the surgeons not only got him from Epsom to Tooting, they took the knife out of him and sewed up his heart. I think some of the men tried to embarrass me to pass the time, their stories were pretty lurid, especially about the night nurses, but I had been brought up to respect women, I was surrounded by them, so I took the jokes in the spirit intended. In short order I was put in a cot on the balcony, overlooking a square of grass, with windows opened every day and life totally transformed from the ward. There I met a man who had to stand considerable banter because he had fallen on ice on the front steps. of a brothel. On leaving, after breakfast, he slipped on the steps and broke his leg. The flood-gates really opened when the ward heard that little tit-bit. My education in barely a week was enormous.

  • The 30s, I write, You compare Part 3

    Snobbery & Transport

    In the 30’s the middle class had aspirations of, if perhaps not ‘ectually’ moving up a class, perhaps being accepted as an appendage to the upper classes. This involved display, like a cock pheasant in the spring, only it was even more prevalent among the females who were the prime movers, having nothing else to think about through the day. In ’39 I was evacuated to Sussex along with 500+ other boys and masters from our school, I was 16, impressionable, in a totally strange milieu, amid total chaos. The poor recipients were caught on the hop and so were we. It was then I met everyone from the Lord of the Manor, to gypsy itinerants – country folk.

    At that time, it seemed to me, the boundaries of class were more clearly defined and more stringent than in London – more like the Raj I knew in Africa, and, ignoring the plight of the poor Africans, the rest accepted it and didn’t, as today, rail against it. In Sussex, the gradation ran roughly like – Landed Gentry, Lord of the Manor (LOM) – Gentleman Farmers, the Professionals, the Cloth, and New Rich – Tenant Farmer, Trades People and Craftsmen – Labourers – Itinerants, Seasonal Workers and the Unemployed – the Evacuee. The nouveaux riches wouldn’t even say good morning to us, yet the LOM, with the marvellous name of Sir Amhurst Selby Bigge, not only made our path smoother, he entertained us to tennis parties in summer, on his lawn. The Farmers welcomed us as did the rest, and as we were thrust on all but the LOM, we went to the local secondary school with the locals, we gradually melded, but even then, we knew our place.

    In the 30’s mostly only the pretty rich had a car and an offer of an outing was an occasion. As far as I can remember I only rode about ten times as a guest from 1930 – ’39 In the days of the two seater, with the Dickey seat at the back, the visitors sat cramped in the Dickey seat, open to the elements, and lucky to be there even if they could see little past the hood. Later, with saloon cars we were all together, although ridiculous ritual and absurd display had to play a part. The visitor, to show gratitude brought along a large bar of – would you believe – Motoring Chocolate, fruit and nut, milk chocolate. On the back of the better cars there was a cast iron, hinged carrier on which it was obligatory to display a huge cabin trunk, plastered with hotel labels to demonstrate you were a traveller of wide experience. Inside it there might be nothing, or a wicker picnic hamper. It was de rigueur to hoot when you passed a car of the same make; years later people touring on the Continent hooted when they saw another with a GB plate. There were a lot of other rituals, the most absurd and class ridden was the salute of the AA Man. The AA were dressed in WW1 army cast-offs, rode on a motorcycle/side-car combination and directed the traffic as and where required, or else stood at a crossroads waiting to be called. As you passed with your AA badge displayed, the AA Man jumped to attention and gave a very smart salute. The bit that took me to the fair was that if he failed to, some drivers reported him.

  • Empire Day and the LCC

    When we first heard the King’s speech on the wireless, it was really a celebration of the Empire and its reinforcement, tightening the ties. My first recollection of Empire Day, although I know it was celebrated in most schools in England, was when it was celebrated in Livingstone. Unsurprisingly it was a ‘great day’, which started with some form of
    military ceremony presided over by the Governor of Northern Rhodesia, followed by presents, games, and finishing with a bun fight for the children.

    There was no doubt the early indoctrination of patriotic ideals and the strength of the bond between most of the population and the Crown was a feature of English life before the war, and never more so than in 1935 when we had The Jubilee, the Royal Funeral and then the Coronation of George VI. On the actual days of celebration there were sporadic street parties, and all the towns and villages were decked out. The papers had a field day with special editions and school children were involved up to the hilt. All the Crowned Heads of Europe and the potentates of the Empire were assembled and London was agog. Souvenirs were on sale everywhere and the London County Council (LCC) gave every child a commemorative EPNS spoon and an embossed or painted mug for both occasions and, in the case of the Jubilee, there was a separate parade by the King and Queen and all the panoply down The Mall at about midday especially for the children.. Public transport and special coaches brought the children there. Stalls, toilets and first aid stations had been erected in the Park and the youngsters had to be in place quite early. I was there, in the front row halfway down the Mall and constantly there was something to watch. For the first hour the excitement was enough but then we would see troops of soldiers on horseback, police on horseback and other people passing and re-passing, and each time a cheer would go up. The trees, lamp standards and the streets were decorated with flags and bunting from the real celebration and the atmosphere was electric. For whatever reason, patriotism was tangible.

    On a purely personal level I regret the advice given to the Royals to come off their dais and try to meet the commoners on the same level. Their own history should have warned of the pitfalls awaiting them, and if they had only followed the progress of the Continental Press, after all they are fluent in the languages, they would have seen where it would all lead. Changing course, no matter how or when, will never retrieve what, in effect, we have all lost. The Dutch achieved the change, but I suspect their press is either more controlled or less aggressive.

    The Severely Maligned London County Council
    Londoners prized the LCC because of its Avant Garde approach to community care in all senses and aspects. The parks in Greater London, which were generally called ‘The Common’ by the locals, were valued and widely used. Well before ’33, when I sat the examination , the LCC had introduced a form of the Eleven Plus into the Public Elementary School system and I believe the general public were delighted and thought the LCC was advanced in its educational policies. There was no concern for the children being subjected to strain, everyone was only too glad to get the opportunity to have a chance of subsidised further education, instead of leaving at fourteen to become apprenticed, to work behind a counter or lean on a shovel. That it introduced segregation and consequently another category to the class system was evident, possibly resented by a few of the relegated, but accepted as a necessary ill by the majority. I still believe the LCC was right. In retrospect, there is no doubt that there was stress, there were times when tears were the order of the evening, when rows developed over nothing more serious than the answer to a homework question, but those times returned again after the Eleven Plus, they had to for all but geniuses. It is automatically part of the examination ethos and assessment is unlikely to convince an employer of an applicant’s ability An interesting highlight on this last view was the widely held notion among candidates for professional posts, right up until the ’80’s that appointment boards throughout the country, were more impressed by the number of institutions a candidate belonged to rather than either his experience or the quality of those same institutions. It seems that examinations have a psychological effect on employers. I think the LCC were first to use occupational psychology. About 1937/8 I attended aptitude tests, intelligence testing, the solving of problems and practical tests such as reassembling a mortise lock. They decided I was suited to Architecture – I became a Civil Engineer – close!

  • The New Industry Has Gone Crazy

    Still on the Blog, the piece I entitled New Industry, can currently be read under October. I now am forced to comment yet again, due to the passage of time and what I believe to be the rubbish that is being talked.

    I Start with David Attenborough’s apocalyptic programme. Some three weeks ago on TV, he demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the world would be almost uninhabitable by the turn of the next century. Only those who have a deep understanding of a subject should pontificate, thus, I can only offer my amateurish opinion. In that programme, one could believe the scientific evidence to be irrefutable, but the development of the world, the way in which nature can adapt, damage to the brain being a case in point, one could be excused for being sceptical and believing that there is a half-truth here which only time will resolve. I find myself wondering, therefore, if there is another agenda which we know not of, which is making those in charge, to come up with unreasonable and illogical legislation, that will cost us an arm and a leg any time now.

    The EU and Green Cars. On the 7th of February ’07, the BBC News informed us that the EU is proposing that all cars by 2012 must conform to new standards of emission which can only be achieved by redesign of the engines. It is estimated that this would put some £3000 onto the cost of a new car. Can anyone seriously imagine that the Italians, Spanish, and all those other impoverished countries which have just joined, or are knocking on the door of the EU, will toe the line? They don’t with respect to some of the other legislation so why should they do so with one as expensive as this? I have previously made the point that the British civil service operates as if they were handling their own personal cash. So it is reasonable to assume that we shall be forced into this situation, but it will probably be glossed over in other areas of the EU. I find it incredible that what I believe to be a country low on the emission list, probably similar to Holland, which has divorced itself almost totally from heavy engineering, generates some electricity without fossil fuels, is being steadily forced by legislation to spend money to reduce, even this lower output of carbon, when the rest of the world is chucking it out in the lorry load. I am all for care of the environment, providing that it is equable, and that I am not being required to foot the bill for the rest of the world’s lack of consideration.

    In this modern age a car can readily last, with average mileage, and average use, for eight to ten years. This legislation would then seriously affect those people who had bought cars around 2002. In the context of global warming and the percentage that this change is likely to make, it would seem fairer, if the system were to be introduced, to date it from now, for 2017.

    I was highly amused at that programme on television when the reporter marched on the screen carrying a half hundred-weight bag of coal and informing us that this was the amounts of carbon we would be emitting over a certain period of time. I do not believe that he had an idea, and certainly I had none, of the relationship between that bag of coal and carbon dioxide emission. So many people, especially politicians are now getting onto the bandwagon, making grandiose gestures, and talking complete nonsense, because they wish to appear to care. Those same politicians are probably driving around in the biggest cars imaginable, with another gas guzzler or two at home, while we even in the short-term, are going to be required to build in, carbon saving initiatives in all new houses. I grant you the life of a house is of the order of 60 – 100 years, and so there might be some small excuse for bringing in this legislation now, but I believe the building industry rather than the Earth’s atmosphere will have a greater profit.

    Just a thought! The other day I was pouring tea, and was exhorted to include semi-skimmed milk in some of the cups. I had been thinking about the disproportionate attention which is being given to saving emissions in this country, and realised that to some extent the same exaggeration probably applies to a lot of aspects of our lives. Take skimmed milk, some of these folk wanted me to put skimmed milk into the tea because they were worried about their health. I have no idea exactly what the differential in fat between full cream and skimmed milk is, and life is too short to sort it out, but I’m convinced that, in certain cases, while there is justification for using skimmed milk in large culinary operations, I can see no advantage in the differential in a cup of tea. I have drunk full creamed milk all my life, and I believe that, apart from people who have serious illnesses which require consideration concerning fat consumption, that the rest are being indoctrinated unnecessarily – maybe by butter and cream manufacturers?

  • Taking Responsibility

    I’m not sure if irresponsibility has exactly the same connotation as not taking responsibility or indeed negligence. I propose to assume they do.

    Banking. On Tuesday the sixth of February, Watchdog on BBC1, TV, presented a piece which irrefutably showed that some major Banks are considering that if money is withdrawn, using a valid pin number, but without the approval of or even knowledge of the account holder, the Bank will hold the account holder responsible for the loss, due to “negligence”, even if the account holder has not been in the same County at the time of the theft. They even go so far as to suggest that the account holder may have passed on the pin number to someone else, written it down, or made it available in some other way. There was the case quoted, of an elderly woman who never used her pin number. £20,000 was withdrawn from her account without her knowledge and the Bank refused to honour the loss, and suggested that she should take out an overdraft. I can only draw the inference that the Bank considers that she withheld using her pin number to build up a case for fraud, which in my view is tantamount to slander.

    I have written to my Bank with a list of questions, at the head of which is whether it too has or is adopting this heinous policy. If it has, I can see considerable difficulties ahead, in conducting my financial affairs both conveniently and safely.

    Irresponsibility In Areas Of Our Welfare. In a previous article I mentioned the case of the Chancellor who inadvertently gave information that he was about to publish in his budget. Without inducement he resigned. It seems today that those who control our destiny at every level, negate any responsibility for their actions and are not brought to book. This would appear to be the case from the highest level down to those managing the affairs of local councils. I don’t think there is a need for me to hack over what has been happening in the last few years with respect to major decisions, reversals, and incredible wastage of public money with no return. It is all well documented in the press.

    I highlight what has happened in Northern Ireland where, we are told, our rates will be increased as a result of European fines, for not having carried out work as and when instructed, to minimise marine pollution by sewage. The ratepayer, once he has elected politicians and councillors, has very little ability to take steps to control their management. In this case Councils were fully aware that the system was overloaded, they could not have been otherwise, as regular testing of the seawater constantly proved it so. Vested interest in the form of spec building, has been allowed to progress at an alarming rate, in spite of everyone knowing that the sewerage system would not and could not cope. Planning was corrupted, which should have staved off the situation, and when it was evident that the EU would be clamping down, the rate of building increased. I find it incredible that those who were acting on our behalf, had the audacity to plough on in the face of evident disaster, fully knowing that any fines will be deducted from the overall Northern Ireland budget, and yet they continued to allow what amounts to a criminal act to be perpetrated. There has been no word of censure, reproof or indeed some form of legal action against them.

    Today too many people in positions of responsibility, are taking unwarranted chances in their administration, for reasons which cannot be justified, and proposing actions based on untried theories and often against professional advice – all apparently with no chance of any serious comeback, such as impeachment, criminal charges, or even the sack. We are told that, due to the changes in the voting boundaries, a hung Parliament is likely at the next election. Let us hope so! We will have a period of considered government, which we can hope will slow the race to ‘lead the world’ ( Margtet Beckett’s words – among others), when we can’t govern ourselves adequately, to the levels and higher standards of the past,.

  • In Praise of a Lost Art

    The making of a ‘Prick’ of tobacco. The ration was supplied in leaf form, as the name implied, with stalks and all, and I intended to turn this mass of dried cabbage into a plug of tobacco, which could challenge any in a tobacconists shop. Just writing that has made me realise there are few if any shops these day devoted solely to selling tobacco and the appendages that product needed. Many, like myself, graduated through the lighter tobaccos which burned the tongue but didn’t give you hic coughs, to the heavier tobaccos and finally to plug, the man’s smoke, the smoke of the aficionado and Jolly Jack Tar. It was this tobacco I learned to make from the raw dried leaves when I was at sea. I also learned to role a ‘tickler’, a thin, hand rolled cigarette, without a burning agent, saltpeter, to keep it alight.

    The plug, the end product was called a ‘Prick’. Firstly the hard stalks and stems were stripped from the leaves until just the finer textured leaf was left. A strong mixture of brown sugar, rum and water was made and a square of linen about the size of a man’s pocket handkerchief procured. The leaf was then arrayed on the handkerchief in layers and as each layer was complete it was generously dabbed with the solution of rum and sugar, until all the leaf was used up. The tobacco was then rolled in such a way that it formed a cylinder and the handkerchief was tightly rolled round, with the edges turned in – a standard parcel.. This was then wrapped in a square of canvas, and twine was used to tie the canvas in place in the way a hammock is secured, with lashing at intervals along its length and tied in at each end. This was the ‘prick’. Finally, the canvas was lashed in a way similar to the that one would bind anything in string or rope, except the binding started at the centre. A length of tarred spun-yarn was tied by its ends to the hammock rail so that it formed a slack ‘U’; a loop was made in the spun yarn and set along the length of the prick and held in place while a second loop was wound round it securing the first loop to the prick at the centre. From then on the spun-yarn was looped round, working from the centre out in both directions and after each application of two loops the sailor put all his weight on the prick so the loops tightened round the prick, squeezing out any surplus moisture through the handkerchief and into the canvas . This procedure progressed until the whole length of the prick was encased in tight spun-yarn which was then made secure and detached from the length tied to the hammock rails.

    I always assumed that the moisture allowed an element of the tar in the spun yarn to be absorbed into the tobacco as well. The sailor then put the prick in the bottom of his kit bag and forgot about it for about three months by which time it was mature and the tobacco had been transformed into a short length of gnarled wood with all the wrinkles of the handkerchief, the canvas and the bands of spun-yarn permanently fossilised. When the end of the prick was shaved and rubbed in the palm, the aroma was wonderful, totally transformed from the ingredients, and the smoke was better than anything one could buy in a tin ashore.

    I write this long description because soon pipe smoking, which is now frowned upon, will be a thing of the past and people will have forgotten the rituals and the simple pleasures the pipe gave, what was it the musical hall artists used to say? A woman is just a woman, but a pipe of baccy’s a good smoke. I remember some of my relatives were not enamoured with me if I smoked in the house, so it is unsurprising if pipe smoking too is a lost art.