Clouds and Sky

When I was a boy and living in the country, my father, who was a farmer and a lover of nature, taught us children about wild birds, their eggs, their song, animals, growing things, keeping a grass tennis court absolutely free of weeds and much more. It was nature for us children to live with and appreciate. But I can not recall him telling us about clouds.

Clouds came into my life when I was accepted into the RAF in 1942 for flying training. But as facilities were full, I was told to return to civvy street and wait to be recalled.

I first took a job as a farm labourer, aware that food for our severely rationed population was of paramount importance. Then, hearing of a job as a prop swinger at an airfield (Theale) some five miles away, bicycled over and got it. (The job was swinging the propellers of Tiger Moth biplanes to start their engines.)

There was no meteorology for us then. So an instructor flew a Tiger Moth  upwind for a distance to see what weather was in store for the novice pilots who were learning to fly until reaching their first solo.

Having already been accepted for flying training in the RAF I was sometimes given the dual control trainee’s cockpit behind the pilot, where I learned to fly the aeroplane well enough, with the instructor almost as my passenger.

Clouds were important. For a learner they could be a deadly hazard. So clear skies were essential for all concerned.

We would come back, fly low over the grass airfield, and stick our thumbs up if the oncoming weather was fair. Then flying could begin.

My next meeting with clouds was when flying in America, where the meteorologist said that cumulonimbus clouds (those huge anvil-shaped ones) were very interesting clouds. “Pilots have found them so fascinating that they have flown into them and never come out again”. They are the clouds that form hailstones.

When piloting a Cornell trainer aircraft in Oklahoma, I flew into a cloud to see what it was like and in no time could have sworn that I was climbing dangerously and might spin. Then I popped out of the cloud heading vertically downward. Fortunately I was high enough to recover from the dive. This taught me, very forcefully, that when in clouds your instincts were useless and that relying on the aeroplane’s instruments was essential. - vital.

Now, when I rise each morning early, I scan the sky for some time to ascertain wind direction, birds landing (into wind), blackbirds patrolling their territorial boundaries, and swifts returning in springtime. Are the gulls coming inland from rough waves, or are they making off in a southerly direction toward calm seas? Aircraft condensation trails at altitude tell me wind direction high up and rough destinations of the aircraft creating them. 

Then I watch for cloud types, and their formation in broken or stratified form, and how they change shape and volume as they pass over. I can then have a shot at predicting the possible weather systems to come (stand with your back to the wind and the lower pressure area is always on the left).

I look at the trees, the way they are bending, the early development of catkins and the size and colour of the ensuing leaves.

As much as anything I watch airliners come in to land at Heathrow airport. I try to identify the type (difficult now that so many look rather alike). If they are in cloud and invisible when passing by on their way to runways 27 left or right, the cloud level is below 1800 feet. If still invisible on their final approach and leaving my usual field of vision, the clouds are 800 foot high or lower.

We seldom take time to look at the clouds, the sky, and the objects and creatures that inhabit the vast space above us. It is a vibrant and fascinating part of our world.

Pot au Feu

It was a French chef who said that a Pot au Feu was one of France’s greatest dishes. To me it has been a very nice way to feed plenty of people a dish of boiled meat with plenty of available vegetables. It is certainly not a stew as the clear liquid forms almost the main part of the dish. I suppose that a Pot au Feu is a peasant’s title. The upper class description would be Une Petite Marmite – being a French dish in which all the ingredients are boiled for several hours. Look at a pot of Marmite and you will see an illustration of the proper French pot.

POT AU FEU

You will need:

Meat in the form of brisket and possibly a bit of ox tail

Vegetables of your choice, like:

Divided cabbage

Potatoes

The white of leeks

Carrots

Parsnips

Swede

Whole shallots

Turnips

Celery and more of the root variety if available

In an iron casserole place the meat (see above). Now add the vegetables cut up into large bite-size pieces. Add beef stock (cubes are fine) to cover. Salt and pepper it.

Bring the liquid to the boil and turn down the heat to keep the dish cooking for two hours or more depending on the cut of beef. Soon after the liquid reaches boiling point, some scum will appear on the surface. Spoon it off, or, as Mrs Beaton said: “scum it off as anything rises” – or something like that.

If you can make this dish the day before wanted, fat will rise to the surface overnight and can be scraped off and discarded. 

When ready to eat, extract the meat and carve it up for the plates. Then I like to place the Marmite on the table with a ladle for guests to help themselves to cover the meat with the vegetables and liquor.

This is a splendid dish for lots of people, and is, anyhow, best made in quantity.

*****

Spring 2016

Springtime is always an exciting time for those who love their gardens. Mahonia fruit ripens for our Mrs Blackbird, damson flowers become our cherry blossom, pear and apple buds grow, and the mistletoe bunches on our potted apple tree start to show new life. Will they flower and fruit this year at last? We hope that they will.

Snowdrops are over, but from the centre of two pots of special tulips have sprung elaborate daffodils. I cannot recall having planted them.

Lilies shoot up from the soil in their pots, the Pieris fans out red leaves leaving tired winter ones still on its branches.

The small lemon tree that held on to its few green fruit in the shed over the winter, displays its lemons now as brilliant yellow in the sunshine. These are as bright as any flower.

A Typhoon rose cutting that I have nurtured for a friend turns out to be a Reverend F. Page-Roberts instead. How could I have made such a mistake? At least two Typhoon cuttings put in last autumn seem to be alive. So the recipient will have to wait until this coming winter to get her rose. But I am not really upset about it. The Rev. P-R in its day was the rose. Now it has almost disappeared from view as roses have become stronger and more floriferous.

Impatiens (Busy Lizzies), because of disease, have, I am told, been replaced by New Guinea. So Plants have been bought, but do not look like those they have replaced. Perhaps I am too impatient.

Autumn planted broad beans (Aquadulce) are already in flower. Runner bean seeds have been pushed down into plastic sacks of well-composted soil.

Other than herbs, they are our only vegetables – except for two bucketsworth of Foremost and Charlotte potatoes. Harvesting these is great fun when we turn the buckets upside-down on the garden table and treasure-hunt through earth for the tubers.

Seaweed with trace elements is the new fertiliser, with tomato fertiliser to be applied on alternate weeks. Vines come into bud.

We bought our hardwood bench because of its alluring curves. But it was just a bench. Now, annually, I sandpaper the slats to reveal the timber’s pale ochre colour, and linseed oil their supporting frame to darken it like mahogany. Although made of the same wood, this treatment makes it a rather special object. It is jobs like this that herald the summer, but the bench does now look a bit too smart for our simple garden.

Roast Chicken with Lemon and Pepper

From a Halal butcher I like to buy chickens, cut off their wings and legs with thighs for curries, then cut away the lower carcass to leave the breasts on the bone for roasting and easy carving. Here is an interesting example of a way to roast the breast or a whole chicken.

ROAST CHICKEN WITH LEMON AND PEPPER

You will need:

Chicken

Lemon

Milled black pepper

Salt

Oil

Score the skin on a chicken breast in a baking pan and pour over some lemon juice, rubbing it in.

Now shake over some salt and grind over a lot of milled black pepper.

Allow this to marinade overnight. Then scoop up any lemon juice in the baking pan and spoon it over the bird. Add more black pepper (it is surprising how much pepper you can add to the chicken without overpowering the dish).

Roast the bird in the usual way (1 ¼ to 1 ½ hours at around 180), having added to the roasting pan potatoes that have been boiled for 10 minutes, drained, and coated with oil, pepper and salt.

Make gravy with the juices left in the pan by placing it over heat, adding some flour, stirring it around, and adding water, or stock made with a cube dissolved in hot water.

 That’s it. Simple.

*****

Ordinary and Sweet Potato Soup

In market stalls it is the custom now to also be offered bowls of a fruit or vegetable for £1 a time. This was done, I believe, for foreigners not conversant with our currency – just to make it easy for them, and for us. Rather like those supermarket offers of three for the price of two, you find yourself buying more than actually needed. So it was with this dish. I only wanted a few sweet potatoes for an experimental dish and had some left over. As there is usually a supply of ordinary potatoes in the kitchen, and a winter soup finished and one to make, I combined these different types of potato for the dish.

ORDINARY AND SWEET POTATO SOUP

You will need:

Onion

Butter

Ordinary potatoes

Sweet potatoes

Garlic

Stock cubes

Salt and pepper

Vinegar.

Preferably in a pressure cooker, put a large lump of butter and some chopped onion. Cook the onion slowly until it becomes transparent.

Now add sweet and ordinary potatoes, chopped into smallish pieces, and a chopped clove or two of garlic. Stir. Add pepper and salt and a stock cube or two..

Now add water to make the soup, the amount depending on quantities of vegetables used. Add a splash of vinegar.

Pressure cook the soup (about 15 minutes will do) or boil it until the vegetables are soft. Test for the salt content – the adjustment being vital to success. You might even think of adding another stock cube (I favour beef cubes).

The soup can be eaten in its chunky form, put through a liquidiser, or started chunky and then blended into a smoother, creamy soup.

So it is pretty simple to make.

A note on pressure cookers: They are very safe. Buy a large one. They save cooking time and gas or electricity. In winter they reduce the amount of steam given off when boiling food, thus reducing condensation. And they seem to lock in the taste of the dish. We even had a huge, ribbed one with a dial on the top in the late 1920s. My father cooked cabbage in it so that he could enjoy the resultant liquid. He thought this to be beneficial to his health. I can smell that cabbage water now.

*****

Bufo

The doorbell rang, and outside stood a nearby, Chinese neighbour in “all of a twitter”. He was in urgent need of help, and needed me right away. What terrible matter had occurred?

Outside his front door and hiding beneath the drip was a toad – a smallish one and in a state of semi-hibernation. Could I deal with it.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   The neighbour rushed to stand on the other side of the road from his house with his eyes closed behind shielding hands, and stood there until I had taken the toad away.

I have always been fond of toads, ever since we, as children, were friends with one who lived in a hole outside a wood by a path to the Roman walls of Silchester. We took it flies to eat.

I placed the toad on a hand, which must have been very warm to this cold, hibernating creature, and took it to our small garden where there are lots of flower pots resting close to each other on the ground and on oculoni (?) – those hollow, hyporcaust bricks that the Romans used for central heating, and are still available in Italy.

I found it a dark and damp place, out of the reach of predators that might disturb its winter rest.

Toads eat flies, grubs, worms and suchlike. And there are plenty of those in our spring and summer garden. So future food supplies will not be a problem.

Returning to view its resting place an hour or two later, it had gone – gone, I had hoped, to find good cover and safety for the rest of the winter months.

Although not visible, it is lovely to have a wild, ground-living pet in the garden to share with our local birds. But we will now have to be careful where we tread.

Mr or Mrs Toad we don’t know, but it has been christened Bufo – part of its true Latin name. And we will presume it to be male until otherwise indicated.

*****

My Uncle Waller

Waldron Smithers married my Aunt Marjory. He was part of a well-known Stock Exchange family. It was thought that his brothers funded him to become an MP (for Orpington, I believe) to keep him out of their city company’s business.

Uncle Waller was a giant of a man. In cricket for the Commons versus the Lords at Lord’s Cricket Ground, he smote a ball high into the pavilion. As a boy I handled his bat and could barely lift it, let alone wield it.

Being made master of the hunt for one day, he sent an athlete at crack of dawn to form an aniseed trail around the Kent countryside. No fox was seen that day, but many remembered it as a magnificent day’s hunting.

As a young boy, he and I would tussle. And because he was so strong and unaware of his strength, I always succumbed – in pain. That was, until I discovered his Achilles heel – or rather his ears. So in a fight I would grab an ear. Then he would become as putty in my hands. At last I had the measure of him. 

Shelleys, where he and my aunt lived, was a cultured house. Artists, musicians and opera singers would stay. Music was important. My brother and I, as young boys, were known by Uncle Waller as “the vile jellies” (Macbeth). We were not musical. But we had a house song. “Out vile jellies, on your bellies, down the road we’ll go (Shelleys was on a hill). On our bellies we’d pass Nelly’s (Nelly was the secretary who had a house nearby), going too and fro”. It was not what you would call a cultured song.

The family were very kind in allowing me to spend time in their house as part of my recuperation from TB when I had been invalided out of the RAF as a young pilot (there was no cure for the disease at that time, rest and being submitted to a large needle between the ribs to allow air to fill a gap between lung and rib cage being the only treatment available). I was friends with the gardener, Smith. Whereas the house had to prepare whatever produce he cared to provide, for me he would fill my little car with vegetables before I would return to London, motoring back to two small Council rooms in Pimlico.

There was a curiosity in the house. This was a “Whorling Spray” prominently on display on a shelf in the bathroom. It was a douche with a black shaft and a red rubber bulb. Was it for pleasure? Was it for bowels? Was it the house method of birth control? I never knew. Nor did I ever ask.

When Uncle Waller needed a rest from politics he would cross the road from Parliament to St Margaret’s Westminster and play the organ there. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue was his speciality, so we always asked him to play it whenever we were with him and he had access to a church organ.

He was a truly altruistic Member of Parliament, stopping his car at any opportunity in his constituency to talk to pedestrians of any political persuasion. So driving with him took time. In town no taxi driver would charge him a fare as he was the motive force in getting cabbies enclosed in their taxis. Before that they were separated from their fares, unprotected, and subjected to the elements.

He was known in the House for asking more questions than any other MP – presumably questions that the Conservatives wanted to answer. He aspired to be The Father of the House, but one MP outlived him.

Knighted, my aunt, her Ladyship, was not changed by her elevation. After some “do” or other, she was known to roll up her sleeves to help clean up in the kitchen. She was that kind of person, gentle, fun, a brilliant mimic, and much loved.

This was an age and a society that I was so lucky to have been part of as a child and then a young man. In looking back it was grand, yet simple, casual, natural, and all very friendly and hospitable.

Champagne Myth

Many years ago I opened a half bottle of old Champagne. The cork had shrunk and was brown. The fizz had nearly disappeared. The wine was yellow. But the taste was sumptuous.

This gave me the idea that even ordinary Champagne of modest provenance would improve if given age.

So now we buy Champagne when it is cheap and lay it down for a couple of years or more before drinking it.

Before the last Christmas, and after, bottles of the stuff have been on offer for only a little more than the now ubiquitous Prosecco.

It has been a good year to buy, presumably because those who make Champagne have over-produced and need room in their cellars for the new harvest. Or is the public coming around to realise that Champagne is disproportionately expensive for what it is, despite the care and attention that its production needs?

We have been conducting an experiment with that famous French beverage.

Now it so happens that at smart “dos”, Champagne is offered as a sign of opulence and generosity. So we accept it gratefully and gracefully. And it does have a certain celebratory connotation attached to it. But would we choose it for preference if other wines are offered at the same time?

Several times recently we have entertained friends for drinks. Before the arrival of those guests we have opened a bottle of Champagne and offered the choice of it or either red or white wine.

Except for me tasting the Champagne when opened, only one of our guests  chose it (and then only one glass) in preference to either red or white wine. I was amazed, amazed and delighted that for days afterwards we were enjoying the aftermath of those parties by drinking Champagne cocktails as an apertif.

An opened bottle of Champagne keeps its sparkle in the refrigerator for a day or two or more with a stopper of some sort resting in the neck.

For the cocktail, put ice in a large wine glass with a measure of Cognac and three shakes of Angostura bitters (some add a little sweetener). The Champagne is then poured on top, a light stir, and that’s it – delicious. Of course you can do the same using sparkling wine instead of Champagne. And I have become aware that using just brandy is no substitute for Cognac.

The strength of this famous cocktail depends on the amount of Cognac used. Ours start as a strong version and get diluted as sparkling wine is added.

*****

A Delicate Omelette for One

I have had an omelette pan for years. It never goes near water and is cleaned with kitchen paper. Yet I hardly ever use it for some reason – unless I am eating alone and a simple omelette seems to be an ideal dish. This recipe is such a delicate one that the ingredients, other than eggs, are minimal. It is not like a normal omelette, being slightly related to a pancake

A DELICATE OMELETTE FOR ONE

You will need

Eggs

Pepper and salt

Shallot

Tomato

Butter

Into a bowl break two large or three small eggs. Add a dash of water and some pepper and salt. Whisk it.

Cut a shallot in half (you only need a little). Peel off the skin, and chop it up as finely as possible. Add the shallot to the whisked egg and whisk again.

In a frying pan or omelette pan melt a good lump of butter – slowly. Turn the pan around until its bottom and lower sides are coated with melted butter. Pour the excess butter into the egg mix and whisk it yet again.

Pour the egg mix into the pan to cook, making sure that the pan is well coated with the egg mixture and that the heat below it is at a minimum.

Now chop up a very small tomato (one of those little oval ones is ideal). Sprinkle the tomato bits over the omelette that is cooking in the pan. It will look rather decorative.

Leave the omelette to cook through very slowly. It will be ready when the edges are just turning up and the top still moist. Depending on the amount of heat used and thickness of the pan, this will take roughly eight minutes. So keep an eye on it.

With a plastic spatula (so as not to scratch the surface of a proper omelette pan), fold the omelette in half and slide the result on to a warm plate. It is ready to eat.

Divided into two, the omelette will make a small but tasty first course for a couple about to eat more. Double up the ingredients and it becomes a main course.

Kedgeree

I have just heard from an author in Ireland, asking if I knew of anyone from the days of the Raj who might know of the recipe for Kedgeree. My mother was such a person and kedgeree was a breakfast staple in our house in the country. When my grandfather was knighted by King Edward V11, he sent my mother out to India where his other daughter (my aunt) was married to an army officer. One of my mother’s names was Hyacinth. She must have been a pretty lively person as she was known as “The Hilarious Hyacinth of Hydrabad Sind”. As for the recipe for Kedgeree, it was as near to the following as makes no matter.

KEDGEREE

You will need:

Rice (that’s not sticky)

Smoked haddock (cooked for a short time in milk)

Eggs

Pepper and salt

Butter

Boil the rice (it can have a little turmeric added for colour if wanted) and drain it well.

To it add flaked smoked haddock, chopped hard-boiled eggs, pepper, salt and plenty of butter. 

Stir and serve.

Ham or Bacon with Brussels Sprouts

In the refrigerator was a piece of ham or bacon, wrapped tightly in plastic. It was my turn to cook. Also in the refrigerator’s vegetable drawer was a packet of already trimmed Brussels sprouts. I had learned before that sprouts went wonderfully in a stew. So, instead of soaking and then boiling the ham, before making a parsley sauce with the cooking water, I decided to cook the sprouts at the same time as the ham and thicken the sauce. The result was delicious and simple – just how I like recipes to be. Here’s how to do it.

HAM OR BACON WITH BRUSSELS SPROUTS

You will need:

A lump of ham or bacon

Brussels sprouts

Oil

Onion

Garlic

Flour

Pepper

A stock cube

A little white wine

In an iron casserole that’s not too large for the meat, put your lump of ham or bacon in water and soak out most of the salt that will have been preserving it. Discard the water.

Put oil in the casserole and add chopped onion and garlic. Cook this through until the onion is transparent. Now add flour – say a heaped dessert spoon full. Stir this in. Add pepper but not salt (there should be enough in the meat). Then add a crumbled stock cube of some sort.

Place the meat on top of the onion mix and surround it with sprouts. Add water with a little white wine to almost cover. 

Bring to the boil and cook this dish very slowly for about half an hour.

Extract the meat and carve it into slices. Cover these with the sprouts and their liquor. It really is as simple as that – and quite delicious.

*****

SOME RECIPES End of 2015

I have been so busy with art work recently that I needed a mental rest, and what better way to do this than to write.

My last two blogs, after quite a break when Margreet changed computers to Apple from Windows, were on the dangers of flying and Francis Bacon. Now, with our alternate cooking weeks in operation, and Margreet having solved enough of the information involved in a new computer language, one or two interesting recipes have come to the table. I intend to offer one per week.

With my present regime of cooking every other week, there have sometimes been leftovers to deal with. This situation always taxes one’s ingenuity and makes for a lot of fun. Here is a first course example when a cauliflower went unused and an avocado was in perfect condition.

CAULIFLOWER WITH AVOCADO SAUCE.

You will need

A cauliflower

A ripe avocado

Vinegar

Oil

Pepper and salt

Capers (optional)

Cut away any green leaves from the cauliflower. Now cut a deep cone into the cauliflower from its base to extract the core..

Break off all the florets into bite-sized pieces, cutting away excess stem. Put them into a bowl. This part can be done well before the first course is wanted.

Shortly before the dish is ready for the table, slice the avocado from stem to stern, hit the stone with the blade of a knife, twist the stone out from the flesh and spoon out the pulp into a separate bowl. Discard the skin, but not into the compost bin or heap. They do not rot down.

Now mash up the avocado flesh with a fork, adding quite a bit of vinegar, pepper and salt, and some capers if you feel like it.

When ready to eat, mix the puréed avocado with the cauliflower florets. Coat them well – until each has a greenish coat.

That’s it. This is a crunchy and appetising start to a meal.

Francis Bacon and how we met

I was going through a box of old documents to find details of my early flying experiences and found an envelope addressed to me at my London bank from Francis Bacon, to whom I had just sold a studio house in the country. The roughly torn envelope contained two letters from him.

In 1958 I sold where I lived beside Chelsea Football Ground in London and was about to set off on a round-the-world voyage of discovery and drawing, when I thought I should still have some sort of root in England as a place to which I could return. So I bought (I think for £425) a tumbledown wreck of a cottage on the Berkshire Downs at the end of an overgrown lane that led from the village of Chieveley, north of Andover.

I bought it from the cottagers next door, a Mr and Mrs Rampling. He was still surviving from being gassed in the First World War, and she looked after him and cultivated a most beautiful cottage garden that looked like a colourful Victorian watercolour.

They had no plumbing, so the contents of the bucket in a small garden shed went into a trench to feed the following year’s runner beans.

Mrs Ramp and I made friends immediately. And, in her only gardening book (a Victorian one that recommended Cannabis for London gardens), she found an engraving of my rosarian grandfather, looking up at tall, spiky, eremurus flowers, on which he had written a chapter. So we established our mutual love of gardens and country lore. She was to keep an eye on my wreck of a house when I was away, and put a man’s hat in a window to deter intruders.

A year later I was back, had drawn up plans, and when Mrs Ramp and I had decided that conditions were safe, I telephoned the Newbury Fire Brigade and told them that there would be a blaze at Chieveley and not bother to attend to it. I put a match to the downwind corner of the mangy straw thatch and was glad to see the last of the verminous place reduced to smouldering rubble.

The house I built in its place, with a Polish builder, would have a gull winged roofline, but I could only afford half of the wing – but anyhow laid foundations for the complete building.

The end result was an innovated structure, there being just one large, glass-walled studio room with a floor of marble washstand tops, saved by me over years for such a project, one internal balcony, and only one bedroom with a bathroom, WC and bidet. Downstairs was a cosy living room with open fire, a separate WC and an under-floor heated kitchen. No plumbing pipes of any sort were visible as they were all concealed within a central column. Air was ducted in beneath the floor to feed the fire, and a parallel chimney ducted in fresh air, which was heated by the main chimney alongside to supply warmth to the bedroom. The structure was of lovely, red, handmade bricks, and internal surfaces were of the unevenly coloured pink plaster that was applied initially. Provision was made for a conservatory, but never implemented. That was the house.

Outside was an ancient well, hand cut through chalk. It was so deep that a pebble dropped into it took some tome to splash into the water below. And so cold was its almost transparent water that we would haul some up in a bucket to keep the beer cool during house construction.

It was a lovely house, isolated, quiet except for the noises of nature, and where birds would even roost in my bedroom.

I grew fat. I struggled to get back into the swing of painting after a year’s worth of drawing around the world. I tried paint, then moved on to collage. At least the latter did help, and although I was not all that pleased with the results, some have now been sold at Christie’s saleroom and been bought by private collectors.

I felt that I was vegetating too much and becoming too introspective. It was time to move on – and to London.

I spoke to local estate agents. They were in accord. No one would buy a one-bedroom house. So I advertised in The Daily Telegraph.

One reply to this advertisement was from a Francis Bacon. I enquired if he happened to be the painter. He was. The year was 1964.

Francis arrived alone. He took to the place immediately, as the internal walls were much like the paint surfaces in his work, and a soft platform surrounding the living room ideal for himself and his subjects. Negotiations took place, with me trying to get a painting as part of the deal. The Marlborough Gallery would not allow it. The sale was completed with, if I remember correctly, the gallery paying.

I must have sent him some seeds, so his first letter was to thank me and invite me back to the country for a day or a weekend. I went for a day.

I remember walking into the bare studio to see a small table on which sat champagne and raw kipper fillets and onion for lunch. The scene was an austere but colourful still life. We got on very well, deciding that “chance” was one of the most important aspects in the creation of a painting.

He spoke of how people thought homosexuals lived in a twilight world. “What absolute nonsense,” he said. “We certainly do not.” 

As we talked, George Dyer, his companion at the time, draped himself on the said platform in a languid, greased-hair pose. He hardly spoke. I occasionally see a Bacon painting of George, which was obviously done when he reclined in the corner of that room. 

I had left a little art there in the form of door paintings. For a Japanese guest I had painted one with cherry blossom. Francis did not like it. On the other door I had painted, very freely with my previous theatre-painting skills, bookshelves with books. This he loved. We parted great friends.

The other letter he sent me was to discover how often the septic tank should be emptied. He was about to sell the house (March 1966) and the new owner wanted to know. This was strange, as I had heard that an inebriated Francis gave the house to George Dyer and that George had put it up for sale almost immediately. Anyhow, George committed suicide not long afterwards – perhaps richer for the sale.

I was never one of Francis’s coterie, but whenever he saw me on the street he would come to talk.

I did go to one of his parties in Reece Mews, South Kensington, where the American author, James Baldwin, was a guest among other notables. I had expected to see a rather Bohemian crowd in his scruffy studio place, and was surprised to find so many smart young men in city suits as fellow guests.

So that’s all I know about the great painter, other than information from countless books and catalogues.

I consider myself very lucky to have met and been friends with so nice a man.

Danger in the Air

There have been recently several nasty air accidents. Danger has returned to flying.

To me it has always been dangerous, although I was often unaware of it.

Through my uncle, who flew in a record-breaking Christmas airmail flight from Sydney, Australia, to London in 1932, Kingsford Smith, the pioneer Australian pilot, was going to land in a field next to our house to take us up. We laid out a T in white sheets to indicate wind direction but, being somewhat unreliable, he never turned up.

However, he was to fly us children (I was 7 years old) from Croydon Aerodrome in April 1932, but the tail skid on his aeroplane had broken. All was not lost. A friend of his flew us over London in a Klemm Bat, an early, low cantilever winged German aircraft. I wore my cap back to front to stop it being blown away by the slipstream, and held on for grim death, there being a rough seat and nothing to stop the passenger from rattling around or falling out.

Flying like that was never thought to be dangerous as we took off and landed on Croydon’s very wet and muddy grass surface. Parked nearby were those lovely Handly Page biplane airliners with four engines with their four bladed propellers strung between the wings. They flew from Croydon to Paris, landing in any large field for repair if anything went wrong. Flying was very much in vogue, very modern, but by today’s standards very primitive.

I loved aircraft, flying, and First World War tales of bravery in the air, and all that went with this new dimension to my life.

Allen Cobham’s Flying Circus had come to Rye. I was taken to the field by my father. A short flip over the sea was 5/-, and with a loop included, 7/6 pence. I had the 7/6 pence worth. It was in an Avro Tutor biplane. And then I flew in a Gypsy Moth from Christchurch.

The 1939-1945 war came. I went to the USA as a refugee until old enough, in 1942, to return by convoy across the Atlantic to join the RAF.

Until there were training facilities available for my pilot training, I took a job first as a farm labourer and then as a prop-swinger at RAF Theale, near Reading.

The latter job was ideal for me. It consisted of starting Tiger Moth (DH 82) biplane engines by swinging the propeller.

I placed chocks in front of the wheels (Tigers had no brakes) and shouted “switches off, petrol on, throttle closed ”. Then the prop was spun around a couple of times to fill the cylinders with a petrol mix and I would shout “contact”, spin the propeller, and jump backwards as the engine started. The switches were positioned outside the fuselage so that prop-swingers could see them and know that they would be safe from being sliced up by the propeller when the switches “off”. The chocks, on rope, would then be pulled clear and the aircraft would taxi to the take-off point. 

There was no meteorology then, so an instructor would fly a Tiger up wind for a while to see what kind of weather was approaching the airfield and be safe for learners. As the second cockpit was usually empty, I was often taken along and given instruction on how to fly the aeroplane. Soon I was doing all the flying. It came naturally to me.

Sometimes other aeroplanes would land at Theale. So I was able to fly in other types of aircraft – like an Oxford, Anson (devils to start their two engines), Dominie and Auster.

The Auster was a small AOP (Air Observation Post), high wing spotter aircraft, flown by my brother-in-law. He was in the Army and flew Generals around battlefields.

For that kind of flying there were no rules like the ones we were being taught. So, by taking off cross-wind or in any direction he felt like, made him somewhat unpopular with those in charge of the airfield.

The slow Tiger Moth biplanes were safe. Even when I flew my first solo flight from a farmer’s field at RAF Shellingford, no one seemed to crash and kill themselves.

As a trainee (U/T) pilot I was posted to Coastal Command’s RAF Davidstow Moor in Cornwall, where 281 Squadron flew twin-engined Warwick aircraft. They had a specially moulded lifeboat slung beneath the fuselage.

For operational experience I was taken along on sorties over the Bay of Biscay to search for baled-out aircrew. Had we ever found any we would have dropped them the lifeboat beneath its six parachutes. Our chances of seeing anyone in the Bay of Biscay were pretty slim, despite our square method of search.

My job aboard, while others were looking down toward the waves, was to look out for German Focke-Wulf Condor aircraft. These flew from Brittany to attack convoys. They were massively armed with depth charges and cannon, and no match for our collection of Browning 303 machine guns. I did see one Condor before any of its aircrew saw us, so we escaped. I suppose that flying like that must be rated as being extremely dangerous, but one never thought of it at the time.

I probably flew there with my present picture framer’s grandfather. But his logbook at the time we were together at Davidstow recorded student pilots like me as “passenger”, and not by name. I suppose that had we been brought down by the Germans and lost our lives I would have been traced.

My 20 hours flying from Davidstow was, in fact, the only operational flying I did in the war. When I was awarded my wings in Oklahoma, the war in Europe was at an end.

But learning to fly in America was quite a different matter as far as air crashes and danger were concerned. I wrote off a lovely PT19 Cornell (not my fault I must add) and quite a few of our number crashed AT6 Harvards and were killed.

Those were pre-radar days of dead reckoning navigation when low cloud and fog were regular killers.

At that time I could not envisage civil airlines being successful. Wartime crashes and deaths had become commonplace. So, why would people willingly risk their lives to travel by air?

Then, post-war, such progress was made in the reliability of aircraft, engines and navigation, that flying became very much safer.

And now, once again, through circumstances that seem to be almost out of our control, flying can occasionally be very dangerous indeed.

James Page-Roberts CV (July 2015)

Skip this CV for my blogs (below)

James Page-Roberts was born on the 5^th of February 1925 in the Roman town of Silchester.

Educated at Wellington College and Taft School (USA).

Joined the RAF in 1942.

Having been invalided out of the war as a pilot, he became a medical student at St. Thomas's Hospital. After a recurrence of tuberculosis, he studied art at the Central School of Art under Bernard Meninsky, and then theatre design. Having completed the design course at the Old Vic School under Margaret Harris, he painted scenery at The Royal Opera House with Clement Glock and designed for repertory, touring shows, children's theatre and television.

            Returning to his primary love of painting, he exhibited in many mixed exhibitions, like the Society of Marine Artists and Wessex Artists, and in London galleries, such as The Leicester Galleries and The Redfern Gallery. He held one-man shows of landscape and people in landscape at galleries in London's Gallerie de Seine, West Halkin Street, The Reid Gallery, Cork Street, The Qantas Gallery, Bond Street, besides shows at The Central Library, Cambridge, and The Kintetsu Gallery, Osaka, Japan. His painting of Tower Bridge and the Pool of London in 1954 was bought from The Leicester Galleries for the National Collection via the Tate Gallery committee of Sir Robert Adeane and Sir William Coldstream..

            Finding that he was adding more and more sculpture to his various exhibitions of paintings and drawings, he was working toward a show of large works in elm wood when a broken wrist, sustained in a car accident, put an end to the project. Now, unable to sculpt, he turned his attention to writing, penning over 700 articles for magazines and newspapers (including the Financial Times), mainly on the subjects of wine and vines.

            He was several times the subject of Jeanine McMullen’s BBC Radio 4 programme “A Small Country Living”.

            He is the author of "Vines in your Garden" (Argus Books), author/illustrator of "The Best Wine in the Super Market" and the first three editions of "The Best Wine Buys in the High Street" (Foulsham), author and part illustrator of "The Oldie Cookbook" (The Carbery Press), author/illustrator and part photographer of "Vines and Wines in a Small Garden" (The Herbert Press/A & C Black), "Wines from a Small Garden" (Abbeville Press, New York/Bloomsbury), its second edition translation into Dutch, "Druif en wijn uit eigen tuin" (Schuyt, Haarlem), "Guide to a Dockland of Change" (The Mudlark Press), "Canary Wharf and Sights from Docklands Light Rail" (The Mudlark Press), "Dockland Buildings Old and New" (The Mudlark Press), "Cooking in Docklands Past and Present" (The Mudlark Press) and "Harbours, Girls and a Slumbering World" (The Mudlark Press).

            In the early 1960s he bought a warehouse on the Thames in Limehouse and converted it to two studios, wanting to live in the district from which he had worked on coasters as a supernumerary. This turned out to be the first warehouse in Docklands to be converted into living accommodation.

            One-time member of the Circle of Wine Writers, he is a member of The Society of Authors.

            Referred to by Punch as a Reformation man, and even 'new age man' by the BBC, he has behind him considerable experiences in life. These include: volunteer fireman, farm labourer, prop-swinger, RAF pilot, medical student, art student, matelot supernumerary, scene painter at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, set designer for the theatre and television, designer for children's theatre and television, house designer and builder, world traveller, painter, fruit picker, house husband/father, vineyard owner and vigneron, sculptor, author, illustrator, sound and television broadcaster (the subject of two Gardeners' World programmes for BBC2 and also for Southern and Cable Television), photographer and publisher.

            The author now lives with his Dutch wife, Margreet, on the borders of Hammersmith and Chiswick, London, where he has returned to painting (pastels, small and large) after a break that consisted of two years of sculpture and 25 years of writing. The subjects of his pastels are his garden, the shadows of aircraft, the relationships between the hulls of ships in and out of water, kites and landscape recalled. He continues to write a Blog (www.webpageroberts.blogspot.com) from which there are links to his paintings, sculpture and books.

            In 2006 his 1954 painting of Chelsea Football Ground sold for £33,600 at Christie’s Salerooms, South Kensington, London.

            Since returning to painting (pastels) he had a very successful exhibition, entitled Aircraft Shadows, at the Mayor Gallery in Cork Street, London, from November 23rd until December 18^th 2009. 

            At Christie’s, in December 2010, a 1964 painting of Tower Bridge with a ship offloading was sold for £7,500, and a collage with paint for £2,250, the latter joining a collection where it replaced a Matisse on the wall. He has sold through the Offer Waterman Gallery. He continues to sell with success to private collectors and at Christie’s.

            On June 2, 2014, as Guest of Honour, he gave the opening speech at Guildhall Art Gallery where 17 of his paintings were exhibited in the Tower Bridge: A Celebration of 120 Years exhibition (exhibition dates 2 June 2014 to 26 April 2015).

MIXED EXHIBITIONS

1955, SOCIETY OF MARINE ARTISTS

1955, DAILY EXPRESS YOUNG ARTISTS

1955 WESSEX ARTISTS

1956 LEICESTER GALLERIES

1956 LEICESTER GALLERIES

1956 REDFERN GALLERY

1957 LEICESTER GALLERIES

1957 GALLERIE DE SEINE

1958 GALLERIE DE SEINE

1958 GALLERIE DE SEINE

2014-2015 GUILDHALL ART GALLERY

ONE MAN EXHIBITIONS

1957 GALLERIE DE SEINE, WEST HALKIN STREET, LONDON

1960 REID GALLERY, CORK STREET, LONDON

1961 KINTETSU GALLERY, OSAKA, JAPAN

1969 QANTAS GALLERY, BOND STREET, LONDON

1977 CAMBRIDGE CENTRAL LIBRARY, CAMBRIDGE

1989 LOFT GALLERY, STANSTEAD ABBOTTS (sculpture)

2009 MAYOR GALLERY, CORK STREET, LONDON

NATIONAL COLLECTION:

Tower Bridge from Bermondsey Wharf 1954.

Windows 95

As my followers know, I write a blog when I suddenly think that a subject interests me – and I hope you as well.

            So, during, or in between paintings, I switch on my Windows 95 (floppy 3 ½” disk) and write about my thoughts.

            Then, after several checkings, it is printed out. More alterations and checkings ensue. Finally, Margreet corrects the hard copy (she is wonderful at making suggestions and finding typographical errors).

            The next move is for me to transfer the material from my computer to a 3 ½” floppy disk. Each piece is held back in the floppy until we decide to release it. Then the disk is placed in a slotted gadget that connects with her more modern but difficult Windows 7 to be released into the ether.

            Well, her Windows was coming to the end of its days and needed to be replaced.

            I had just sold a couple of paintings so offered her a replacement as a birthday present.

            The process of choosing a new computer took a month or two. Confusing and conflicting advice and opinions were taken from every quarter. Prices were compared, as were countless other considerations.

            Finally, already owning an Apple iPad and iPhone, she settled on an Apple Mac Book Pro.

            We bought it at the John Lewis department store, whose excellent expert came (at a thoroughly worthwhile price) to transfer data from Windows to Apple and to  install and discuss the new system.

            The result was to Margreet’s great satisfaction. She had chosen correctly.

            But with a new computer there are inevitably lots of troubles and queries. The operators at John Lewis’s helpline initially did not help, but did later. And a word or two by telephone with their installer solved more outstanding difficulties.

            In case my floppy disk would not work with the new electronic device, we  “broadcast” all my old computer’s reserve blogs before the changeover.

            Not even the Apple expert knew if Windows 3 ½” floppy disks, with their attachment gadget, would work with Apple Mac. But they did.

            People may laugh, but my Windows 95 was made to last, bless it. And as Margreet gets to know her Apple Mac, we are returning to our computer normality of a marriage between ancient and modern technology.

Wine 2015

I have written a lot on wine professionally – columns, columns and columns on it.

            So that when tasting some 2000 wines a year, writing on the subject was easy – well, it could have been easy if done in the way that many wine writers can, and do, by just describing wine (mainly ones offered for free or at merchants’ wine-tastings). For readers this is pretty boring – especially when you actually want to drink the stuff and not read about it. And when I read these columns and want to go out and buy some bottle or other, the purveyors have either run out of stock or not even known about what was recommended.

            So to make wine writing interesting it had to be incorporated into a story of some sort. That was, for me, the pleasure of telling about wine in a fun kind of way.

            Now I am just an ordinary punter, buying wines from many sources and often, I fear to say, being disappointed – even with the higher priced wines when expectations have matched the cost.

            The new discount stores of German origin do us proud. Their cheapest wines are quite drinkable, but their more expensive ones tend to disappoint.

            Red wines (as opposed to white) from any source are diverse and varying in character. Chilian reds have quality as a rule, as do those from Argentina. Australian reds have, in my opinion, fallen off. They were once robust and full of punch. But they now tend to ape European wines. Or, perhaps, with the popularity of roving Australian wine-making experts, European wines are aping the new Australian wines. Anyhow, like South African wines, there are plenty of good ones to be found if you look around. And, after it all, it’s just a matter of taste anyway.

            We now rather like the reds from Ribera del Douero, and from farther down the river where it passes through Portugal on its way to the Atlantic, the reds from Douro. We seldom go wrong with them. Lower Rhônes, too, are favourites, as are those from Puglia in Italy.

            Ordinary claret from Bordeaux, is mostly a lot of rubbish – especially to one who learned about the wines from that region when the 1960s were château wines, splendid, and plonk – plonk prices that is. Then I didn’t necessarily know the châteaux, but certainly the years. The best that I ever tasted though were the 1959s. Lyon’s Wine Cellars, at The Hop Exchange, where they bottled from cask and re-cycled all bottles from clients, sold Château Cantenac Brown at the then heady price of 7/6 a bottle that did me proud. Their re-cycling methods were to immerse and rotate the bottles in a huge tank of boiling water that soaked off the labels and cleaned the bottles. I know that bottles should be, and are, sterilised, but the alcohol in wine does that anyway. It was here that I saw the labels from cheap Hock being soaked off to have royal be-crowned labels substituted.

            Sugar is often added to wine to increase the alcoholic content (often against the rules) – especially in years of poor weather. But now 13%, 14% and even 14.5% wine is becoming commonplace, often much to the detriment of the wine. When I looked after a villa in the south of France in the early 1950s, I would take containers to the local purveyor of bulk wine in Grasse to have them filled. There, red wine was offered at 10%, 11% and 12%. I generally bought 10% as the weather was hot and the wine, besides being a pleasure to swig was thirst quenching as well.

            Having witnessed quite a lot of skulduggery in the wine world, we might as well join in. I often blend wine (which many wine-makers do anyway) and am not averse to adding some red wine (not much) to white wine to make rosé. Champagne-makers do so, and it was common practise with cheap rosé in the past (and, perhaps present). The extraordinary thing is that this seems to improve the white no end. And the result is happy summer drinking outside – en carafe!

            Whatever happened to Bulgarian wines? They were a wonderful introduction to wine in my youth but, probably due to politics, hardly feature nowadays, The conditions in that country for making fine wine are wonderful.

            White wines, with the prevalent use of cold fermentation, seem to me to be much of a muchness. New Zealand whites give me a faint reminder of when in far off days I made excellent sparkling wine from elder flowers. But New Zealand whites, like English, can be a bit too expensive.

            I do like screw tops, but miss corks – the latter telling as much, if not more, about the wine inside the bottle than what happens to be printed on the label.

            Wine can be taken far too seriously and tends to engender snobbery. It is a God-given way of civilised enjoyment (abused at times). And as for rules, if there are some they are there to be broken.           

As we are changing from Windows to Apple computers, there may be a delay with my blogs until we have sorted it all out. Wish us good luck. I expect we will need it.

Cricket

There are not many more pleasant ways of passing a summer’s day in England than watching cricket in fine weather

            In front of you is a large area of grass, dotted about with men or women dressed in white.

            Around the field are spectators who watch avidly, yet go off to lunch and return from formal dining or picnic well after the game has restarted after the interval.

            Cricket is a physical game, a psychological game, and a mathematical game. If you are good at all those you could become either a cricketer or a knowledgeable spectator. If not, like me, you can just love the game, enjoy the skills or ineptitudes on show, have a very nice time watching only the best, and for the rest of the time reading the daily scores in newspapers to keep in touch.

            It is a game that encompasses people from all walks of life, with very seldom any violence, but sometimes inebriation. Matches can be exciting, but more often a bit boring and attritional. During those doldrum times there is a lot to occupy one’s mind and eye.

            The weather has a strong bearing on the game – its techniques and result. And if you were an airman, like me, the cloud formations, types, and wind direction, occupy the mind and give the pleasure of prediction.

            Then there are the spectators – English at their most English, regardless of their origins. Rowlandson and Hogarth would be in their element depicting the English cricket spectator. Exaggerations of facial structure in those 18^th century faces of theirs that we think to be a bit grotesque and exaggerated are much in evidence among a Test Match crowd. And spectators’ dress, even formal dress, is also exaggerated, and sometimes most stylish.

            Hats can be of any shape or colour, and are much needed in sunny weather. These are worn mundanely or with style, from Panama to cloche.

            Near to me one day was a man with a simple black cricket cap on his head. Every 28 seconds, give or take four or five seconds, he took it off to scratch his scalp of sparsely-growing grey hair, then to run his fingers through it like a comb, before replacing the cap on his head. This continued for as long as I took notice of it.

            Dull-looking food often comes from browning Tupperware boxes to be accompanied by red or white wine – sometimes Champagne. A man in front of me consumed an entire bottle of the latter before his lunch, drinking from a plastic wine- glass.

            And then, of course, there is the nodding off. Whatever the intensity of the game, the effects of alcohol and/or the customary afternoon nap, will take its toll. Bodies slump, heads drop. A wicket falling wakes the dozer from slumber for that person to start clapping, not knowing exactly why or what happened on the field of play.

            Aeroplanes, birds (I once saw a pair if ospreys circle high when passing overhead) are useful objects on which to concentrate when batting is slow.

            And when the lunch interval is reached, a pint of cold beer restores the spirits and engenders animated cricket conversation among friends.

            No wonder that this either elaborate or simple game, in all its newly adapted styles, binds together so many races and ages of civilised people.

Sporting Guns

Quite recently I came across someone who organises shoots in wintertime. So I have been reminiscing about a few of my shooting experiences, some of which I may have mentioned previously in my blog.

            Shoots can be rough shoots where a few friends and a dog or two walk the hedgerows and copses in an effort to make birds fly and become targets for the usually country-bred marksmen.

            These are pleasant winter walks to exercise the muscles, take in the fresh air,  and to give the dogs a run.

            Should a pheasant or two be bagged, it would be destined for the oven or pot soon afterwards, and much enjoyed.

            In my family’s home in the country these pheasants were hung up in the larder by two of their tail feathers. When the birds fell to the floor they were ready to be cooked. So they were often very high, ripe, and maggoty. But that was the taste for game in those far off days. I cannot recall if it was mine.

            At that time I had a small “garden gun”. This was a bolt-action .22 bore and had little cartridges that disintegrated when the tiny shot, with the charge behind them, left the barrel. The guns were made, I suppose, for keeping the rat population under control. I loved that gun, as young boys do.

            One day, out of season and with my parents away, I saw a pair of partridges walking in the vegetable garden – and shot them. Very unsporting, out of season, and not flying, there was hell to pay in the form of the back of a clothes brush on the bottom.

            Later in life, and with a 12 bore shotgun inherited from my father, I had joined a rather smart “cocks only” end of season shoot on a friends estate.  Actually I much preferred being a beater, as this involved orderly walking through woods and tapping one’s stick (mine was of bamboo and made a good noise when using it to strike a sapling or tree) to make pheasants fly toward a line of guns.

            Anyhow, next to me on this shoot was a man who was, or had been, running Purdey – probably the smartest maker of sporting guns in England.

            He saw my gun and asked about it. It was a William Evans.

            On inspecting it he almost went into a rage. “William Evans! That’s one of the worst things that ever happened to Purdey,” he said. “William Evans should never have left us.”

            William Evans had left Purdey to set up on his own (“William Evans late of Purdey”) almost a hundred years earlier. Such is sporting memory and gunsmith history.

            My father, just before the First World War, after graduating from Wye Agricultural College, went, under Government sponsorship, to Egypt (then our Protectorate) to irrigate and grow things with Nile water in the desert – or something of that order.

            As he had omitted to take his gun, he asked his father, the great rosarian, then Vicar at Stratfieldsaye, to send it out.

            My father’s name and his Cairo address were put onto a label, and then glued to the leather gun case. George V stamps were added before the gun was posted – just like that. Try posting a gun to Egypt in these troubled times.

            I loaned the gun to the Home Guard on joining the RAF during the war.

            The cartridges then had candle wax mixed in with the shot. These were to become lethal projectiles at close quarters when and if the Germans invaded our country.

            But the gun was neglected (they do need constant and careful attention) and the barrels had become rusty by the time I managed to recover it.

            The barrels failed the “proof” test, so I had to replace them.

            The makers, William Evans, gave me a price, which, in impecunious times, was so expensive as to be quite out of the question. So I obtained quotes from the Army and Navy Stores and others.

            During this process I learned that all barrels were made and fitted at the same factory in, I think, Birmingham. Then they were returned to the gunsmiths for adornment and finishing.

            So I went for the cheapest replacement offered, which was at Gamages – a large department store at the time. They were perfect (full choke left barrel as ordered) – but without provenance.

            I gave the gun to a son, who, when stringent security regulations came into force, decided it was not worth the trouble and sold it at auction.

            None of us had any use for it any more. But that gun had a history, some of which must still be stuck to its leather case.

a Malaiavitz

An unsigned Malaiavitz came up for auction at Christie’s. I had always wanted one of his works, but certainly could not have been able to afford it.

It was typical of his oeuvre, yet, in its way, unique.

            In a viewing at the auction house I thought it to be about a foot square and having the general appearance and colour of driftwood.

            The frame was probably made from the drip at the base of a painted door.

            The colours, faded as if being washed by sea waves over time, were mellow.

            The design of the work within the frame was indistinct. But in its abstract kind of way it was quite delightful. I wanted to bid for it.

            Now, Malaiavitz’s work sells generally from between fifty thousand pounds to five hundred thousand pounds. So I had no real hope of acquiring it unless it was a fake – a “wrong-un”. And a fake most dealers and collectors clearly thought it to be – except Christie’s.

            The auction house had done their research, and so had I. We both knew that Malaiavitz had been on a ship in the war that had been torpedoed in the tropics. And we knew that he had survived and lived as best he could as a sort of Man Friday on jungle fruit and vegetables. Saved by sailors on a passing ship as skin and bone, he died not long afterwards.

            An artist of his reputation and merit would not have spent all his waking hours in searching for food on the island but would have created more than a shelter for himself out of branches and palm fronds. He would have created art.

            This particular work had almost certainly been made from a once colourfully painted driftwood door. I had a very good look at it on the wall at Christie’s – even asking if I could take it down for further examination. No modern saw marks were to be seen. Its construction was somewhat crude. There was more than a bit of primitive art to it. And it was lovely.

            Christie’s catalogue mentioned the shipwreck and Malaiavitz’s time on the desert island.

            I suppose because of its rather vague provenance there were, most fortunately, only two bidders – myself and another man. He dropped out, and I got it for the ridiculously low price of five thousand pounds.

            I might mention that this was of my own doing, Margreet keeping well out of the matter – possibly disapproving of my extravagance.

            Anyhow, I got my Malaiavitz and put it up on the wall of our staircase where it looks lovely but not at all like other pictures around it. It glows in a way that ancient masterpieces can do.

            Then Christie’s came back to me and apologised for selling the picture as genuine when, in their newly considered opinion, it was not.

            I could keep the work and they would refund the money that I had spent on it.

            I now had my delightful (and free) Malaiavitz. And if it is not a genuine one it is still lovely. And should someone have been responsible for faking it, he or she was as good an artist as Malaiawitz himself.

            And then I woke up. It was all a dream.

A Lemon

We bought a lemon tree in a pot, I think because a neighbour said that not only were they very productive but that the fragrant flowers attracted bees and bumblebees.

            Our tree, which I transported back from the garden centre on a bus (attracting comment and some awe), bore one large, fully formed lemon at the end of a branch.

            Alone, this fruit, in its bright lemon livery, looked rather out of place in our garden. But we were proud of it. After all, lemon trees are hardly native to England.

            The lemon had to be dealt with in some way in case it rotted and fell to the ground. And it had to be given the very best of usage – in a sort of celebration if you will.

            I had just sharpened all the scissors in the house, so the kitchen pair, being the nearest to the lemon tree would seem to be the ideal harvesting tool. But the lemon was so well attached to its branch that the scissors were of scant use. Bending and cutting worked in the end. I now had this lovely fruit in my hand to use as best I could.

            I knew that there were some uncooked, greeny-grey prawns ready for use in the freezer. They were unfrozen.

            I grated our lemon’s peel into a frying pan, adding two pressed garlic cloves, some salt, and a good lump of butter. The prawns went on top.

            Ready to eat them, the pan was heated gently. The butter melted. The prawns were then stirred, to coat them with the garlic/lemon peel mix.

            The tails were the first bits to become pink. Then the prawns themselves followed suit. They were turned over for a few seconds. Then we ate them, with our very own lemon peel enhancing the flavour of the dish to its huge benefit.

            Now I had to deal with the bald lemon – zestless - devoid of its outer skin.

            We like to drink whisky sours. I believed that the juice from our large lemon would do for two glasses of it.

            So the lemon was cut. There were no pips in it and it was bursting with juice.

            This juice was divided between two large wineglasses. Some dissolved sugar was added, then Bourbon whiskey, and finally, lots of ice.

            We ate handsomely, and drank a whisky sour toast to our lemon tree and its first and very enjoyable lemon.

Garden Again

I hate to plague you with more aspects of my gardening. But in our very small walled garden, where I know most movements of nature in plant and bird life, I am still surprised each year.

Of course, every year is different in plant and animal life. Some items do well, others not. Even our star variety of a rose, Typhoon, was slow to get going and to flower this spring, when its cuttings in the soil below did so well that I have a new rose to give to a friend and one extra for myself. They will be dug up and find their new homes come Christmastime.

What has been astounding is our “screen” of autumn-sown broad bean plants.

            Old records of mine tell that successful crops of beans depend on the abundance, or not, of bees and bumblebees to pollinate them. This has been demonstrated once more by our October-sown crop of Aquadulce beans that grow from woven plastic “tubs” of soil.

The beans grew to some 8’in height (miraculously with no black-fly infestation), well supported by bamboos and string. When bumblebees appeared, areas of the abundant display of lovely flowers that they frequented produced beans. When there were no bumblebees – no beans. (Only one honeybee was ever seen.)

But just the display of those delightful flowers was a wonderful spring sight, and the crop of beans, when formed and harvested young - delicious.

So how will I be able to attract bumblebees early next year for better fertilisation when my neighbours, in a very restricted alleyway of gardens, do little to produce honey-providing flowers?

Well, it was not until I allowed my sage plant to flower that bees and bumblebees (in particular) discovered that our garden had something very tasty to offer them. They just loved those sage flowers.

So next year a pot of sage will hang among the broad bean flowers – in the hope that both bees and bumblebees will of benefit to us all and be happy.

The only snag will be that sage flowers come a bit later than the strong, autumn-sown broad bean flowers. So I will try and hasten the flowering of my pot of sage by setting the plant on a sunny windowsill in early spring. If Chelsea Flower Show gardeners have control over the timing of nature, why can’t I have a go as well?