Recalling a child's life in the late 1920s to the early 1930s (part 2 of 4)

Our house was provided with light from a lovely, ticking gas-making machine. Petrol was poured into it and a weight that pushed the gas through copper pipes into the house was powered by winding a lump of concrete to the top of a tree (trees were obviously useful). To ignite the gas, a mantle had to be fitted to wall-hung sconces. These mantles were of soft material, like a small bag, attached to a ceramic ring. Fitted to the gas supply and before turning on the gas, the mantle had to be lit. After its flame had subsided the gas could then be turned on and the now very delicate mantle, lit. The light given off was soft and very pleasant. 

There was never any shortage of water as my father was an expert water diviner. He had selected two sites for wells from which the water was pumped up to a tank in our roof by a Swift car engine that had been bolted into a slab of concrete. But as the engine often failed to work, we all took turns to pump the water up by a hand pump in the kitchen.

The cooking, hot water and irons were catered for by a night-and-day, coal-fired, black-leaded kitchen range, on which was often a pressure cooker filled with water and cabbage.  The resultant liquor was thought to be health-giving by my father. The smell was unpleasant.

The kitchen was a focal point for us children, especially in winter. Connie, our maid (charming, but smelling of carbolic soap) made wonderful cakes there and allowed us to lick out the mixing bowls. The range also provided us with barely-enough hot water for our baths and hot water bottles that we took to our freezing bedrooms by candle light to warm our beds. There was no central heating in those days.

Connie, who lived in a room near the back door, had a boyfriend who was the local steam roller driver. He would leave his bicycle in bushes and climb into her bedroom through a very small window - when just around the corner of the house was a much larger window, which would have been far easier.

I once visited Connie's parents house in Tadley (where the gypsies came from) and when the door was opened, there in front of me, was a vast black pig hanging from a hook on the wall. I suppose that it was about to be cut up. I was impressed.

A man whose job it was to be in charge of a section of road, was called a length man. He mended pot-holes, trimmed hedged and cleared drainage ditches. I'm sure he also needed the services of Connie's steam roller boyfriend. Anyhow, our local length man was a friend of mine and I would sit on the verge of his road, sometimes to share his cold tea, bread, cheese and raw onion - I imagine much to my parents' displeasure.

To get into and out of our village, it was usual to cross over streams by a ford. Whether length men were in charge of keeping these in order I do not know.

Beside an adequate supply of eggs and chickens from the farm, we were almost self-supporting in fruit and vegetables. My father was an agriculturalist and very proud of his kitchen garden, from which we had many vegetables and much fruit - a lot of it being preserved as jam or in glass jars for the winter. At one time, when he was very pleased with a fine crop of giant gooseberries, we woke one morning to find that the whole lot had vanished. The gypsies had penetrated the hedge that separated us from the road and stolen the lot - every one, and at night. I'm sure we called the local policeman, whose name to us was "not good enough".

I was not meant to play with the village boys, and at one time when I went with them to catch newts, and thus gone missing, "not good enough" was called to find me.

When I went to the local pub to collect beer in a jug for Mr. Beer, I would pass by where the newts lived and left them and the village boys well alone.

Going to church on Sundays was a must. We walked there along a Roman track, crossing a pre-Roman fosse, and where a toad lived in his hole. Near to it was where long-tailed tits tended to build their lovely nests of moss and lichen. Then we passed through where there had been an entrance to Calleva Atrebatum, the Roman town. In our designated pew in church we had to listen to long boring sermons and in an atmosphere that smelled strongly of death-watch beetle spray. It was a great relief to retreat afterwards to enjoy Sunday lunch, cooked by Connie as we were supposed to have communed with God. 

Recalling a child's life in the late 1920s to the early 1930s (part 1 of 4)

 This piece is really a glimpse into my early life, a child's life in the English countryside during the late 1920s to the early 1930s.

It all started as Margreet and I were enjoying a glass in our garden "shed" when she asked me more about when I was recovered crawling toward a neighbour's house in my nappies to see the local parson's daughter, a friend. "You must write about it", she suggested. But how could I write a whole piece on such a small incident? So I might as well include it with other small recollections of that time. That is what I have done. I apologise for any repetition as I have written in the past on many of the episodes that I will mention.

I was born in our house at Silchester in 1925. At that time the village could not be reached unless a stream had been forded. My father (badly wounded by the Turks during the '1914 - 1918' war in Mesopotamia) had started a chicken farm in a large field next to our house.

Around our pear-shaped back drive were two ex-army sheds, joined together to form a banana shape. In one end the food for the chickens was kept (mostly dried sweetcorn and ground-up oyster shell) and in the other, the Baverstocks who worked on the farm and did odd jobs. Their daughter remembers me going to see them to ask for "half a naaner" (banana).

One of our jobs was to scrape eggs. Being free range (as all chickens were then) sometimes droppings would adhere to some. These had to be scraped off before the eggs could be loaded on or trailer to be driven to Woking market. One of those scraping knives is still in use in our garden shed. It must be around 100 years old. When there was an order for a chicken from the farm, our spaniel Ben, would under my father's direction, hold down the bird with his paw until my father could pick it up.

We were "gentry" but poor. This came to light I remember when the local brass band came to our drive to play carols at Christmas and we had no money at all to give them. Perhaps we offered eggs or chickens. But I recall that it reduced my mother (a Londoner brought up in court circles) to tears. I don't think she was ever very happy as a farmer's wife. Yet being gentry our financial circumstances were understood. And I am sure that friends and relations helped out with school fees and other expenses. 

This lack of money and the generous attitude to our small income with my father's war disability pension, manifested itself when my parents played bridge with friends. Always someone at the table would cover their losses. It was not a disgrace to be poor.

The Firths lived across a field from us. It was one of the venues for playing bridge. I was often taken along, and boring it was for a small boy. To keep me happy I was given marons glacées to eat, but I would have much preferred a "pennerth" (pennyworth of chocolate drops, a bag of lemonade crystals or a sherbet fountain. 

When the Firths wanted two chickens from our farm for a dinner party, my sister June delivered them - to the front door. Sherrard, the butler, opened the door and asked her, very politely, to deliver them to the servants' entrance at the back of the house. My sister never forgot her embarrassment, especially as no one locked their houses and we were used to simply walk in to see whoever we wanted. 

A social faux-pas that I remember my mother telling we about was when the Duchess of Wellington came to call. When she arrived, my mother was eating bread and dripping. And dripping was one of the  perquisites of the staff.

Harry Firth seldom entered his well-stocked cellar. One day he decided to look at it and found the butler, Sherrard, drinking his favourite port out of a teacup. Sherrard was sacked on the spot, not for drinking the port but for drinking it out of a teacup.

We had other connections with the Firths. Our wireless (a PYE) needed power from a large dry battery and a wet, car battery. As there was no electricity in the village it was my job to take our wet battery across the field to have it charged at the Firth's electricity-generated plant. This extension to the back of their house contained a large flywheel as part of its power generator. On the floor were masses of car batteries linked up to supply the house with light. Our battery was added to the others. My father, being a cricketer (he played for Berkshire) among other sporting skills, wanted to hear the Test Match score from Australia. This needed an aerial strung from the wireless set to the top of a tree. 

The Firths must have moved, I think to Calcott. We stayed there and I recall their men's lavatory being just like stalls in a public lavatory. And after our stay I tipped the butler six pence.

Mary Firth's sister, Hetty Heber Percy, who came to stay at the Firths, became a great friend of my mother's. She lived in London near to the Albert Hall. Much later, when her chauffeur had gone to war, she let us use his flat in the basement, which became a fairly safe refuge for friends and family on leave or needing rest and recuperation. A bomb actually fell nearby and blew off the right breast of one of the sculptures connected to the Albert Memorial. (It was cleverly repaired after the war, but was not quite the same as the original.)

Other rich friends lived at The Vyne, a Tudor house owned by Charlie Chute (he was probably a sir or a lord). There was a chapel in the house, and a resident priest who gave me fishing hooks when I went fishing in their lake. Outside the front door were (and probably still are) two large stone eagles on plinths. They were covered in lichen. I called them "the mossy eagles", and that was then their name.

My grandmother, a formidable lady with a title and rather unknown origins, would come to stay with us. We obviously had to be nice to her as she probably contributed to our finances. She was grand enough that when walking in London's Soho district with my mother, they were confronted by some louts blocking the pavement. She pushed through them, saying "aside, scrum". And they obediently did stand aside.

One day at Silchester, when I had shot or snared a rabbit and not yet dealt with it, she rolled up her old-fashioned sleeves, paunched, skinned and cut it up for the pot. We were astounded. It might have confirmed that she had been an Irish farmer's daughter before she met my later to be knighted grandfather. 

Refugees

 With refugees much in our minds at present, I realise that I have, in my long life, been both the receiver and provider of aid in adversity.

With Russia now intent on overrunning and subjugating the Ukraine, the fear of invasion from hostile forces was as much in the minds of the British people concerning the Nazis in 1940. Hitler's henchmen were then on the rampage, just as Putin's army is today.

In 1940, with my elder brother and sister in occupations that could contribute to the war effort, and my mother working for WVS (Women's Voluntary Service) in London. I, at 15 years old would, she hoped, be one member of the family to survive the probable invasion if I was in a safer country.

An American family from Connecticut in America's East Coast, contacted WVS to ask for an English refugee boy. I was consulted at school, agreed to go, and prepared to leave for a safer land.

With a small suitcase of belongings, I took a train in London to board The Duchess of Richmond liner in Liverpool, thence to sail across the U-boat-infested Atlantic Ocean to disembark in Montreal, Canada.

It was the start of a lonely life in foreign parts, lasting until I was old enough to return to England in 1942 to join the Royal Air Force. 

As a refugee, people in America did their generous best to keep me happy, and certainly safe from Nazi bombs.

Compared with whole families uprooted and with their homes destroyed in the Ukraine, my life as a refugee was one of minor consequence.

That, briefly, was my life as a refugee.

Fast forward through my life in the wartime RAF (written about in my blogs and painted in pictures), TB, the war's end, recuperation (no cure then), medical student (TB again), and on to when I rebuilt a bombed-out house in Fulham, London, to become a landscape painter. 

For painting these landcapes of river and lake scenes, I bought a small pram dinghy and designed and had built a body of a flat-back VW truck in which to house the boat and myself when painting in the countryside. The results were popular.

Fast forward again to 1955 when the Russians invaded Hungary. Refugees, a little like I had been in the war, were pouring into Austria for safety.

With Anne de Goguel, who was well-connected in well-heeled society, we decided to aid these Hungarian refugees.

So, consulting all who might help, we filled my VW "boathouse" van with warm clothes and blankets (mostly new) and set off across Europe, crossing customs borders, and aiming for Vienna.

There we contacted the Red Cross and were told to take our cargo to their warehouse. 

We had not come all that way to do that. So we bought a newspaper to learn that many of those fleeing the Russians were crossing the border at a town called Eisenstadt.

Off we continued, to find a farmyard at the border with many Hungarian refugees trying to keep warm in straw.

Backing the VW into the farmyard we distributed the clothes and blankets directly to those really needing them (there's a moral there). On our way home we took a couple of refugees from the border to Vienna.

So I happen to have experienced both of life as a refugee and, in turn, helped others in much the same situation.

The movement of people throughout the world for economic or oppressed reasons will, sadly, continue for ever. There will always be those who help or are helped - sometimes both. 

\

Skylark

 It was in the spring of 1944 that I was posted for operational training to the highest airfield in England, RAF Davidstow Moor, in Cornwall.

I was only an AC2 trainee pilot, waiting for a vacancy to become a fully-fledged pilot in a friendly country where the weather was more conducive to novice flying.

Here, for experience of operations at Davidstow, my only job was to take the second pilot's seat in Warwick aircraft to watch out for the four-engined and powerfully armed German Condor aircraft, based in Brittany and operating over the Bay of Biscay.

Even with our plentiful collection of 303 Browning machine guns, we were no match for the bristling canons on the far swifter German aeroplane.

So my extra pair of sharp eyes being directed skyward were of vital importance when the others aboard the Warwick were looking seaward to locate bailed-out or crash-landed aircrew for whom we were prepared to drop, via parachutes, a specially-made lifeboat slung beneath the fuselage.

The sorties were often long ones, one, as I recall, lasting 9 hours. 

We were each given a box of food and drink guaranteed as fried egg on our return to Davidstow. 

The noise on board from our two Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp, radial engines was enormous. So conversation was impossible without use of the intercom. 

Back on land at Davidstow there were several useless plans to keep me busy, if not happy. But life on the station was generally pretty miserable with poor rationed food and infrequent leave.

As having the lowest rank in the RAF (AC2), I mostly had to keep my sleeping space in a multi-bed Nissen hut clean and tidy, trousers pressed, boots shiny, brass burnished and blankets in perfect "bisquit" form. So leave, if only a day's worth, was a delightful break from the land-based monotony. 

My favourite outing was to take a bike ride to Boscastle, a delightful, small and almost miniature unused inlet harbour on Cornwall's north coast.

On the way there or back I would stop, make for a field of grass, lie on my back and gaze into the blue sky to listen to the song, and watch the hovering flight of a skylark. 

A Busy Winter in the Garden

 My normal winter jobs in the garden are simple. In early December I prune the vines and turn the pruning into kindlings for a friend who has a real fire in a fireplace.

When it's cold and no longer pleasant enough to use our summerhouse (the shed), we move the potted lemon tree into it for the winter.

Then comes the distribution of compost from our bin and on to soil in pots, bags, or the small strip of garden soil at the edge of one side of the garden (where we grow alternatively new potatoes or beans).

I then prune our two examples of that wonderful rose called Typhoon, and take a few cuttings of it that I hope will "take", then to give away.

With light pruning of the pear and apple trees in pots, and a trim of the mistletoe on the apple tree, I close up shop and only go out in the cold weather to feed the wild birds. Jobs done.

This year has been different.

Rotten wood above the shed door needed clearing out and replacing. This was done mostly by our Lebanese handyman/plumber with my help.

Then I repainted the roof of the shed with another coat of silver, reflective paint and varnished bits of woodwork around the edge that might be subject to further wet rot. 

In attending to the rot over the door we inadvertently just altered the shape of the door frame, which widened the gap at one side of the door to allow wet and wind to penetrate. So I had to buy some timber to put that to rights.

Another winter job was to strengthen the piano, a bamboo framework that supports our summer crop of runner beans. On a recent blog I have related how I solved the problem when having bought long bamboos, the bus driver for my return journey refused me entry with any object over two metres in length (my bundle was six inched too long).

Now came the trickiest of my winter jobs.

The end of one of the slats of our hardwood garden bench had rotted away. I had tried several make-do methods in the past to correct this - and failed. Other solutions, contrived in ideas of the night, also proved ineffective. So I decided to tear off the rotten slat and replace it with new wood. Not selling hardwood at the wood merchant, I had to settle for the proscribed length of softwood. Then I found that the remaining hardwood slat was so firmly attached to the bench framework that it would be just as good and a lot easier if I simply replaced the rotten end of it. So, having drilled and countersunk screw holes, and coated the softwood twice with protective varnish, I assembled, and then admired my handiwork. Only a little wood filling was necessary and, because the colour of the new wood was too light, a bit of artwork came in handy to complete the job.

We live in an age and society where broken objects are often discarded to be replaced by the new. But I like to repair old and often loved objects, and allow them to continue to serve their purpose and become, in their way, unique.

I'm quite proud of my winter's work in the garden. But at my age it has taken a bit of time, and sometimes deserved a restful beer. 

"Waiting " in the SECOND WORLD WAR (part 2 of 2 parts)

 30/12/1944 - 07/01/1945.  I boarded the New Mauritania liner in Liverpool, bound for Canada. I was put in charge of the fruit store and the distribution of fruit barely seen in rationed England. The store was large and refrigerated. The smell was lovely but the cold unpleasant. Had we been torpedoed my chances of life would have been slim. But ocean liners are quick and it was felt fairly safe from U-boat attack. All was well. 

07/01/1945 - 20/01/1945.  We docked in Moncton, New Brunswick, in Canada, and boarded a train to the USA and Miami, Oklahoma, in America's mid west. On board the train, volunteers showered us with gifts of tobacco, chocolates and much else that seemed unbelievably generous and, to our rationed habits, quite eye-opening. We were now in a land of plenty, and almost treated like heroes.

23/02/1945 - 27/08/1945.  One hundred in our "flight" arrived at 3 BFTS (British Flying Training School) Miami, to learn to fly aeroplanes. I can only conclude it was the custom to make us feel less individualistic and more like canon-fodder, that the lavatory lacked partitions and was simply a long row of lavatory basins. Some of our number were so upset by this arrangement that they would only go there in the dead of night. But we all must have got used to it. Food in the canteen was bountiful and initially much appreciated.  But the American taste and menus seemed to pall after a while. The first type of aeroplane that we flew was a Cornell (PT19). This was a lovely aircraft and a joy to fly. One day some of us left our main airfield and flew from an auxiliary grass field not too far away. The day in question was cold, thawing on the ground and freezing in the air. We flew what was known as a circuits and bumps (taking offs and landings). I had done quite a few and had noticed that the controls were becoming a little stiff. So, after landing and taxiing to the shed where our instructor was sitting with his feet on a stove, I told him of this stickiness and asked his opinion. "Carry on or finish." he told me. The one thing uppermost in our minds was not to be short of flying hours and be left behind to join a later flight. So I decided to carry on. Unknown to me, and I think everyone else, was that this tightening of the controls was due to water splashing up from the ground and freezing to the underside of the wing when in the air, and thus altering its aerofoil section.  When I was turning in to land the controls froze solid. I had the choice of climbing, using top rudder and jumping out with my parachute, or flying the aeroplane into the ground. With a good chance of spinning and killing myself with my first choice, I chose the second. It was an instant choice. The resultant crash broke off both wings as well as the fuselage behind my neck. The broken propeller and engine, with me attached in the cockpit behind, skidded along the muddy turf and stopped. I saw what I thought was smoke rising from fire, but it was steam. Anyhow, having knocked two instruments out of the panel in front of me with my head, and somewhat dazed, I jumped out and ran to safety. On my way by ambulance back to the main airfield I asked the driver what had happened. He did not know. What I really wanted to know was had I perhaps been run down by a bus in London or something else. Anyhow, I recovered in hospital quickly. When the Commanding Officer visited my bedside, he asked me if I wanted to give up after such an accident. "No, sir", I replied, "I just want to get out of this bed and fly." I thought I'd overdone it. On leaving, he said to the Adjutant accompanying him: "That's just the kind of young man we want in the Air Force."

 On a short leave a friend and I set out to see some of America. So we set out to hitchhike first south to Dallas (then rather a small town), and west to Albuquerque, north to Denver (the Mile High City), and back east to Kansas City before south to Miami once more. A doctor who gave us a lift was curious as to why we kept turning our heads to right and left.  It was a habit we had acquired when constantly on the lookout in the air for other aircraft. We had not trouble in obtaining lifts, being in our RAF uniforms, but lady drivers declined to stop until we learned that when we saw it was a woman driver approaching, and when she had seen us, we dropped our arms and turned away from the road. Now they would usually stop. One man stopped, gave us his car key, told us of his far destination and went to sleep in the back seat. In eight days we travelled 2,425 miles (3903 km) at a cost of 21 dollars. 

From the charming Cornell training aeroplane I qualified as a pilot in the powerful advanced training aeroplane, the Harvard. This now enabled me to go straight on to fly Spitfires, Hurricanes or conversion to multi-engined bombers. But the European war had just finished and, although the war in the Pacific raged, there were enough skilled pilots available to take part in it. Out of the 100 aspiring pilots in my flight, only 50 completed the course to be awarded wings. Some had given up, some failed and some were killed. I was awarded my wings and a commission. 

28/08/1945 - 04/09/1945. Fort Hamilton. I see that I was posted there but cannot recall why.

04/09/1945 - 10/09/1945. I boarded the Queen Elizabeth in New York as a Pilot Officer on my way to Southampton and an England finally at peace.

11/09/1945 - 17/10/1945.  I was waiting again, now in Harrogate.

17/10/1945 - 13/11/1945. At Hereford, I took part in a course for newly appointed officers on how to conduct ourselves appropriately. We were lectured on subjects such as law (how to arrange a Court Martial), language (on joining up I heard for the first time the word "absofuckinglutely"), and other such as manners (not to raise aloft one's knife and fork when at the table - except when delivering food to the mouth, of course).

The rest of my time in the RAF consisted of waiting, then training as a Photographic Intelligence Officer at RAF  Medmenham, then interpreting German aerial photographs of oil installations north of the Caspian Sea at RAF Nuneham Park. Lack of food and heat at Nuneham in 1947 probably caused my TB (there was no cure at that time). Then came discharge to recuperate. The war was over. My war was over. Had I been born a year earlier I doubt if I would have survived it. Even all the waiting may have helped to save my life. But then I have always been lucky. 

"Waiting" in the SECOND WORLD WAR (in two parts. Part 1)

 Just as nowadays much of our time is wasted in "waiting" for such as deliveries, the post, appointments with doctors, dentists, opticians, telephone answering, and even jabs, so my days in the RAF as a wartime volunteer, and after, also involving waiting, but on a different, larger, and sometimes life-altering scale.

As I was complaining to myself recently about so much waste of time in life, I came to think and mentally record the same seemingly endless waiting around in the RAF both before and after gaining my wings in the USA.

So I have recovered a piece of dog-eared paper (now some 80 years old) on which I recorded the various stations with their now long-forgotten acronyms of purpose on my journey from joining up in 1942 wartime and being invalided out of the RAF with Tuberculosis (TB) in 1947.

If anything of note happened during this saga of billeting I will add a word or two on it for the sake of interest. So here goes.

1942. Having been a refugee in the USA, and now, at 17 years old, I crossed the Atlantic from New York to Liverpool in a convoy as I was at last old enough to join the RAF in England. I signed up right away in Oxford (why Oxford I have no idea).  Disappointed, I was told to await a vacancy for pilot training. So, thinking that one day in the future I might become a farmer like my father, and now fully aware of food shortages, I took a job as a farm labourer to learn and help with the national effort. It was a hard life, which I embraced, but one of worry, which rather put me off the whole idea. I then heard of a job vacancy at RAF Theale, some five miles away from my digs, where a prop-swinger was wanted. Within bicycling distance, I took the job of starting up the engines of Tiger Moth biplanes. With no meteorology available at that time, an instructor would fly up-wind to see if the oncoming weather was suitable for safe flying. As the second cockpit was unused, and I was known to also be in the RAF, I had some gratis instruction in how to fly. This was valuable later when I came to my first solo flight. Then came the welcome news that I could start my training. This period of waiting in civilian life had been frustrating but put to excellent use.

06/09/1943 - 23/09/1943 at St John's Wood, London. This was where we were issued with uniforms and given a collection of inoculations before gathering at Lord's Cricket Ground beneath the corrugated roof of a single story stand where the Warner Stand now exists. One of our number blew up a condom and let it sail out over the hallowed ground to much laughter. We were given a patriotic lecture.

25/09/1943 - 06/01/1944. I was posted to RAF Paignton, Devon, where we were put through the unbelievably harsh training to become airmen and fit men. The non-commissioned officer who chastised us was known as "Chan". Some of our number swore to get even with him after the war. Life was miserable, my fountain pen was stolen and I had not the money from our meagre pay to buy another. On the bright side was the rough cider served in a thatched, woodland pub. Those unused to this drink might fall flat on their faces when leaving the pub. Fellow airmen who had been brought up close to home and mommy-coddled, had a dreadful time of this harsh training/bullying. Those few who had experienced tough boarding school life were far more able to deal with it. It was wonderfully enlightening to mix with people from every walk of life - something for which I have been eternally grateful.

07/01/1944 - 04/02/1944 at RAF Shellingford. This was just a few huts, a farmer's field, and Tiger Moth biplanes in which we learnt initial flying techniques up to the stage when we flew our first solo flights over the Berkshire countryside. It was a magical experience to have now flown an aeroplane alone. Local girls were much in demand by American soldiers stationed in the district. Silk stockings were the reward for sex, but condoms had been pierced by needles - leading to an increase in the local population.

18/02/1944 - 28/02/1944. Heaton Park, Manchester, was a holding distribution station. I can only recall a crowd of us airmen waiting on one railway station platform when three girls walked on to another platform opposite - to much whistling. Showing the airmen some hidden areas of flesh drew enormous shouts of approval. 

28/02/1944 - 14/03/1944. I was in Scarborough but for why I cannot recall, except that it must have included more waiting.

15/03/1944 - 16/05/1944.  RAF Davidstow Moor, in Cornwall was, I believe, the highest airfield in England, so quite often interesting aeroplanes would land there when other airfields were fogbound. After a Wellington squadron was based there, the station became an air/sea rescue unit of Coastal Command flying twin-engined Warwick aircraft. These failures as bomber aircraft had specially made lifeboats slung beneath the fuselage to be dropped beneath parachutes to save fellow airmen in the Bay of Biscay. I have written elsewhere of my experiences flying in the second pilot's seat, only as another pair of excellent eyes. My 20 hours in these Warwicks were my only operational flights in the war - one in particular being extremely dangerous when we managed to avoid the attentions of a powerfully armed, four-engined German Condor aircraft.

17/05/1944 - 07/06/1944. I was back at Heaton Park for more waiting.

07/06/1944 - 17/08/1944. Now I was on a Lancaster bomber airfield. RAF Skellingthorpe, just outside Lincoln. It was very much operational with its aircraft regularly missing from night time raids over Germany. It was not uncommon for those returning from bombing missions to have the vulnerable rear gunner dead and hosed out of their turrets. One day a returned Lancaster had to have a Merlin engine replaced after it had been destroyed in combat. So the new engine installed had to be tested in a flight up to Scotland and back. The rear gunner was, for some reason, unable to fly on this test flight, so I was asked to take his place. Now, at my fingertips I had four Browning machine guns fully armed up and ready. With a twist of the hands I could swing the turret from side to side and the guns up and down. It was possible, but improbable, that a German aircraft could cross the North Sea and beat us up. And I was ready. My only task, when asked by the navigator, was to take the drift (aeroplanes are subject to side winds, and this is drift). I would line up my guns with the landscape beneath and read off the drift on a scaled indicator at floor level on the right hand side of the turret. I would give him the information on the intercom. All was well. The new engine worked. No German aircraft appeared. Then, for the landing, those aboard, except the pilot, would gather around the main spar amidships that connected the wings. I had now flown in a Lancaster which, at the time was exciting enough, and, in recollection, a memorable stroke of wartime luck and experience.

17/08/1944 - 05/09/1944.  I was back at Heaton Park - waiting once again.

05/09/1944 - 21/11/1944. I was posted to RAF Hornchurch a fighter airfield on the outskirts of London - again to wait. So I volunteered to mend bombed roofs in the East End south of the river Thames in Plumstead. Given a mate, the simple equipment, and an hour or so training by a professional slater, I crossed the river on the Woolwich ferry to start mending broken roofs with rather poor quality Welsh slates. It was a filthy job as the terraced slums were Victorian, with their soot, dirt and bits of slate accumulated in the roof space over the years, seemed to penetrate my clothing. The new slates had to have two holes tapped out of them with the point of my slater's hammer and then nailed into position on the slats attached to the rafters (I hope I have the nomenclature right). I must have made three or four bombed houses rainproof. It was such a deprived district that a lovely girl in one of the houses I worked on, smiled only to expose a mouthful of rotten teeth. The inhabitants were not only extremely grateful for the work done but would generously offer us tea and buns from their meagre rations. One day when I was up on a roof I heard a loud a loud explosion, followed by a strange swooshing noise. Later, I learned that is was made by one of the first German V2 rocket bombs to strike London. The noise of it arriving through the air followed the sound of its explosion. 

21/11/1944 -30/12/1944.  Back to Heaton Park once more to wait. Now, at last, important advances were about to happen. 

Bamboos

The quest was simple. I needed some five foot bamboos to mend and strengthen the construction we call "the piano" over which we grow runner beans in the summer. I also wanted two four or five foot bamboos for a new idea of vines in pots, to be grown rather like larger Bonsais with an umbrella-like top of leaves and fruit. So I set out one morning to buy bamboos - all simple enough. Surprisingly, our local garden centre does not stock them. This meant I had to take a bus to a much larger garden centre about an hour's distance away. 

All was well and good when the bus, which normally goes straight on near the garden centre, turned, rather suddenly left. I lost my footing and fell on part of the bus, which was to give me a nasty bruise on the thigh, but no broken bones.

At the garden centre there were plenty of bamboos for sale in bundles of ten, but the shortest were seven feet tall - too long, I felt, for travelling back by bus. But I took a chance and bought a bundle.

At the bus stop for my return journey the driver, who came to a stop at my request, refused me entry. "Two metres is the maximum length allowed for the likes of that", he said. After a short discussion, he agreed to take me to the nearest main line railway station for me to continue my journey by rail. I boarded and managed to arrange my bundle of bamboos to just touch the plastic ceiling but not to damage it. 

Then I realised that the railway would deposit me in central London, and I would be far worse off. Perhaps if I shortened the bamboos all would be well. 

So, at a stop near shops, I disembarked with the idea of either borrowing a saw or buying a cheap one, cutting and shortening the bamboos, possibly on the pavement or in a bus shelter.

Two ladies in a Pound shop did not know what a saw was and directed me to a sweet counter. I returned to the pavement to further enquire if there might be a hardware merchant in the district. After a short walk I found a branch of Screw fix, in a small shop where pre-orders were dealt with by young men behind plastic screens. 

A most helpful assistant produced a small Junior Hacksaw from below the counter, and with a measure (seemingly in feet and inches) we measured roughly what two metres would be. With the bundle taking up rather a lot of room, I started to saw, with the counter as my workbench.

As the bundle swung around a bit and might have upset trade, the boss appeared, heard my tale and took me and the bamboos to a nearby office. Not only that, but he volunteered to cut the remaining bamboos for me. 

What lovely and understanding people they had been. A proffered reward was declined. 

Now, with a bundle of roughly two metre bamboos, I was on my way home - without dispute.

Francis Bacon (A piece to accompany my autobiographical 2021 paintings and covered comprehensively in my previIn 1958 In 1958 ous blogs of 29 November 2015 and 25 March 2017.)

In 1958 I decided to sell my house beside Chelsea Football Ground in London's Fulham Road, to travel and to draw on my way toward the Far East where wonderful Japanese woodcut prints had been produced in the 18th Century. 

But I somehow felt that I still wanted roots in England to confirm in my mind that I still belonged to the country were I was born.

So I advertised in local Hampshire and Berkshire newspapers for a barn to return to. 

"Artist wants to buy a barn for work and life, etc. "

Several farmers and landowners replied, offering me barns - but only to  dismantle and take them away.

One lady, a Mrs Rampling of Chieveley near Andover, offered me a tumbledown thatched cottage on the Berkshire Downs for a ridiculously low sum. I met her. We took to each other. I loved the site with its mouldering wreck, and bought it.

She lived next door in a small cottage surrounded by the kind of garden displayed colourfully on biscuit tins. There was no plumbing in the house that she shared with her First World War veteran husband who had been gassed in the fighting. Effluent went into a trench to grow the following year's runner beans. They were country people at their best, and would look after my new possession when I was away.

I returned a year later after making several thousand paintings, had an exhibition of them at the Reid Gallery in London's Cork Street, and set about designing my new studio and living quarters, using ideas and proportions gleaned from a circumnavigation of the globe. 

Although I might have been able to rebuild the wattle and daub structure and its remaining rodent-infested thatch, I agreed with Mrs Rampling that it would be best to burn it down to the ground and start to build from scratch.

When the wind was in the right direction I telephoned the local fire brigade, told them not to bother, and put a lighted match to the upwind corner of the thatch. In a couple of hours there where only two chimney stacks to demolish. I had already designed the new building, and could now start - but to construct only half of its gull-winged roof design for economic reasons.

The studio house that rose in place of the old structure was, to me, lovely.

I lived there in great contentment and at one with nature. Even a blue tit roosted in my bedroom, and a mother blackbird would virtually leave her first brood for me to look after while she was busy with new fledgelings.

But after a year's drawing abroad I had the greatest difficulty in being able to return to using paint - even with the paint that I had always ground for myself and the wax medium that I had been so used to using, I had vegetated.

In my struggles I turned to making collages out of coloured paper to be able to see my way out of this impasse. They are now popular with collectors. Anyhow, it was time to return to the metropolis, to galleries and a speedier way of life.  So I had to sell the house I loved.

In 1961, after the local estate agent said that he could never sell a house with only one bedroom, I set about advertising it. I chose two nationals. The Times and Telegraph. I was contacted by a Telegraph reader who wanted to see the house. His name was Francis Bacon. He saw the house. It was just what he wanted. There was no negotiation except that I tried to get one of his paintings as part of the deal. It was his London gallery financing him. They declined.

With no fixed address I took various digs and the offers of beds with friends as I looked for my next place as studio and abode. And, quite surprisingly, it was a great period for my art as I returned to painting again, mainly concentrating on the shapes in London dockland, especially around Limehouse where I sometimes worked as a matelot supernumerary on coasters.

Seeing a warehouse for sale at auction, and discovering it had its own river wall by cleaning a patch in a dirty window at the rear, I made the winning bid and got it. 

With no fixed address, a letter reached me via my bank in Regent Street from Francis. Would I come for the day or a weekend? Of course I would. What would be there in my old house with Francis Bacon in residence? 

I arrived to find virtually nothing had been changed from the house I had left. But I could now see why Francis had bought it. The bare walls were still the pinkish, unadorned plaster, slightly varying in texture and colour. The marble floor of the studio was still laid with the collection of Victorian washstand tops that I had been buying and saving for years, and the small room beside the studio was still partly surrounded by a low platform of cloth-covered soft rubber. There were no art materials to be seen in the studio and no pictures hanging on the walls. In fact, the only items missing to make up a Bacon painting were a grotesque central figure and chrome tubing that he once used  when making furniture and was depicted occasionally in his paintings. 

But the missing figure really was there in the room next to the studio, curled up in a corner of the soft rubber platform. It was the contorted body shape of George Dyer, combing his greasy black hair. 

Now, in the centre of the studio, with one of its walls mainly of glass overlooking the garden and Downs, was a small table on which were laid out for lunch of raw kippers covered in raw onion rings, and Champagne. With no pictures anywhere on the walls, this table constituted a small but powerful decoration.

George took very little part of our conversations, but Francis and I were both very aware of the success of chance of painting, and many subjects were covered. 

Sexually we were worlds apart, but he was very insistent that people believed that homosexuals lived in a twilight world, which he emphasised was quite untrue.

Of the two paintings that did feature in my visits to Chieveley, one was an image that I once saw in some publication or other of Bacon's painting of George, curled up in his corner, just as I had first seen him. (I later looked in the Bacon Catalogue Raisonné to find out more about it, but it was not included.) And the other was one given to Mrs Rampling next door. It was of thick impasto paint of Mont Ventoux - almost childlike in its bright colours, simplicity and directness. I do not know what happened to it, even if it had been painted by Francis.

Whereas there was no clutter, pictures or paint to be seen at Horsemoor Studio in Chieveley, other than a painting I had done on a bedroom door to represent a bookcase (which he praised), the contrast was extreme when compared with his Reece  Mews abode in London which was cluttered up with paint tubes, colour, pots, brushes, easels, pictures, scrap paper and much else that forms a messy studio. I was invited there once to meet James Baldwin, who had just arrived from America to launch a new book over here. I was most surprised to see fellow guests who appeared to be mostly young man from the city in city suits and very much "presenting" themselves. 

I had expected an artistic-looking crowd. A more arty crowd was at a pub party given by Francis near the Theater Royal in London, where a fellow guest remarked that Francis was unaware that George was gay - whatever that meant.

Francis wrote to me later (in 1966), thanking me for seeds and that he was selling the Chieveley house. (I thought he had given it to George before George killed himself. Perhaps it came back to him.) He wanted me to explain about the house's idiosyncratic bits so that he could inform the new owner. These were mainly to do with drains and the septic tank. But the house had other hidden features, such as a central, frost-proof core in which all drainpipes, tanks, water piping and cisterns were housed. No pipes were to be seen anywhere. And there was under floor heating, a pipe for air to enter the house beneath the floor to give draught air to the fireplace, and a fake chimney that took in outside air to be heated by the real chimney next to it and then deliver its warmed air to the only bedroom through an adjustable grille.

After this sale I met Francis several times in London, and he would always stop to talk with me.

I suppose that our relationship hinged on the facts that we naturally got on well together, I was not in awe of him, and  that I would not take advantage of our friendship.

As he always seemed to me to be so youthful in looks and mind, it was quite a shock when I learned that he had died.

He was a friend.

Ideas for Slow Cooking

 The trouble with writing recipes is to cover the variables satisfactory. 

All us family cooks have our favourite pans and know their limitations from years of use. We know the settings for our ovens, slow cookers and gas or electric adjustments. Owners of them know their drawbacks.

But we don't know what preservatives have been added to food to increase shelf life, the amount of water injected into meat, or the chemicals used for curing meat - such as for sausages, hams and bacon. And what is used to dye and smoke the meat and fish? Might these be bad for your health?

The times needed to soak dried beans, chick peas and lentils will depend on their age. It is difficult to tell by looking at them. So we have to interpret a lot to get matters right.

Thus, when I write that a dish takes such and such a time to cook, I may know when using my own kit, but with yours it may be different. 

One's own judgment of quantities and timings is what counts, and mine rely on "throwing in" this or that and timing rather roughly. Others have to, and are happy, to measure everything.

As I belong to the "throw in" brigade - I expect surprises and inconsistencies - and delight in them. 

The following two slow-cooking recipes come very much under this approach to cooking.

I think that lamb or mutton shoulder is tougher and certainly fattier than leg.  But a shoulder, or half of one, laid on a bed of thickly sliced potatoes and all covered with plenty of garlic and chopped rosemary (I use a hand-operated Mouli for that), pepper and salt and all moistened with a good glass of wine or beer containing some lemon zest, lemon juice chopped preserved lemon, will produce a splendid dish if given half an hour in a hot oven, followed by an hour or two at 130 degrees

The top part of the cooked joint may be what is now known as "pulled" (stringy), the lower part being more for slicing. The potatoes will melt in the mouth.

Oven settings will vary on the oven make, the height at which food is placed in it, and if others in the district are using the same power source at the same time. And then, of course, timing will depend on the meat, game, stews, fish or vegetables being cooked.  That's when a certain amount of guesswork comes in as well as the occasional glance at the proceedings. Extra liquid may be in order, in which case it is best to heat up the liquid before adding it.

Before serving, pop the plates in the oven for a short time to warm. But keep an eye on them as they can get too hot quite quickly. 

My slow cooker is rather tinny and ancient, but throw into it any sort of meat and surround this with almost any desired vegetable, then pouring over some stock, wine or beer, some pepper and salt and perhaps a herb or spice, and out will come a delicious meal in an hour's time, having set the heat (in my case) at the 1 and a half setting.

I might add that when I last cooked shin of beef in this way (one and a half hours) I used whole potatoes and Brussels sprouts as the vegetables. Should you try this (the sprouts are delicious), add more spuds and sprouts than wanted at the time. Then mash the leftover vegetables to form excellent bubble and squeak.

Cooking can then be so easy and fun.

Mistletoe Surprise

 

And as if to provide us with a Christmas surprise for 2021, out, from the topmost and most vigorous carbuncle (apologies to the Prince of Wales) comes a brave new shoot.

So happy, and vigorous have been our mistletoe bunches on such a small apple tree in a pot, that I have had, for the first time, to prune them back and give away some locally (Hammersmith) grown mistletoe to local inhabitants. 

We wish all our readers a Merry Christmas and a virus-free New Year. 

Planting Trees Safely

There has been much talk - and action - recently on planting trees to aid the environment. What seems to be missing is where they may be planted safely near buildings. No such information seems to be forthcoming.

In my unpublished autobiography, not to be confused with my present project of producing an autobiography in words and pictures, I cover the subject in a chapter entitled How to Run a Happy Household. In this I advise on distances from a house where one might plant a tree without undermining its foundations, causing cracks and damp, etc. 

This is what I wrote:

Trees near to a house can not only cause subsidence, but may fall in a storm and damage the roof if not more. The roots of willow trees travel a great distance and can undermine foundations. So plant them no nearer than 50 metres away from the house. Plant horse chestnuts oaks, planes, poplars and elms no nearer than 25 metres away. Spruce, pine, yew and magnolia can come a little closer, but not too close. I am for keeping house walls and their immediate vicinity clear of any green growth, to allow air to flow around freely to keep stone and brickwork dry. Outside walls are then easier to maintain in good condition, whether coated, tiled, painted or pointed. 

Look after a house and it will look after you.

A Seedy and Friendly House

 I suppose that I am anti-perfection. I like things to be a little seedy, comfortable, and even a little stained. Imperfection is something to be desired in my life - just are straight lines. I don't feel right among the sparkling clean, where an accidental spillage of red wine, for instance, can be disaster and an embarrassment. 

I like to think that if you look after a house it will look after you. With that in mind I have been recently patching up our house a little. I leave electricity, plumbing and boiler work to professionals. The rest is between the house and me.

Sine the 1830s our house has been altered and repaired many times - sometimes only to improve parts of it for looks, possibly for sale, and often using inferior materials. 

So part of it are rotting or have rotted over the years. And those parts have also usually been patched up rather than replaced. 

Panels in our porch, for instance, were constructed using inferior composite, pressed board. These and their attachments have moved with the seasons of hot and cold, which has allowed rainwater to penetrate, soften and rot the wood.

To replace the whole of the construction would not only be disruptive but unnecessarily expensive. So I have dug away and extracted rotten bits, replaced some of it with hardwood, and filled gaps with plaster filler, with deeper areas backed with bubblewrap. 

To arrest further rot, holes have been drilled in specific places to allow air to flow in to dry filler and any remaining damp wood. Come the summer heat, those holes will help warm air to circulate where needed.

To stop further destruction by rainwater, outside cracks and crannies have been filled and then coated with mastic before being coated with paint.

But this is an old house resting on scant foundations over clay, so cracks tend to open and close with the weather. These are left to their own devices. And probably I am the only one who notices them.

Carpets and flooring surfaces are no longer wool and food for moths, but man-made fibres - with the exception of colourful Middle Eastern rugs (where red wine stains only complement the exotic patterns).

The house is well warmed in winter, but certain draughts from sash windows are allowed - only to let in fresh outside air to blend with and freshen the warm air inside. 

I allow this, as having once built a house in London's dockland and installed triple glazing facing the river Thames, patches of mould appear in the stagnant air inside and be the very devil to deal with. 

Here we have installed replacement windows at the top of the house with wonderful, double glazed, anodised aluminium windows. With the latest insulation under our newly slated roof, these improvements have made a great difference to heat insulation and retention in the house.

Our inside walls have not been touched for years as they hide behind paintings galore - mostly mine - and shelves of books.

A coating of pictures, and books read or unread, make a wonderful background to my preference for a certain amount of seediness and comfort in a house.

Bumblebees

Artists create things. That's the way we are.

This particular artist loves bumblebees, despite having been stung and partly paralysed by one in my youth.

However, they are almost essential for the pollination of crops both in wild nature and inside greenhouses. An angry one, caught in a window perhaps, can be nasty, but to have a peaceful one crawling over one's hand is a pleasure.

So I look after them, large or small, welcome them, and cherish them.

When Margreet looked through some internet search engines, we learned that in spring, pregnant bumblebees like a reasonably large nest box to bring up their brood of worker bees. Yet, when we were observing them pollinating fruit in Dutch greenhouses, the offered quarters there were small. But why?

Perhaps these small houses were only for when the bees wanted to hibernate in winter. We saw no breeding boxes where the pregnant queens, having left their winter quarters in springtime, are being offered large enough breeding hideaways to form a nest in which to bring up young.

So, having tried to entice them unsuccessfully in the past with papier-maché homes, I have now made hibernation places from a tin, a flower pot saucer, screwed to an outside wall, and an almost shoe box size wooden breeding home. These are waterproof, camouflaged, and made comfortable inside with cotton wool. 

Making the wooden bee house posed some problems as the wood, acquired from a rubbish dump, had once been moulded skirting board in a house.

But my design, using only available materials of sawn wood, nails glue, hinge and screws and a filling mixture of sawdust, sand and glue, took several days to construct and paint. With an entrance hole having a small landing platform outside it, I'm hoping for the best.

I like making homes for birds and insects. Sometimes they are even used, and hopefully appreciated. A brood of great tits flew the nest box successfully this year. 

Mistletoe Saga continued

Some years ago I wrote my first blog on Mistletoe, that magical mysterious and idiosyncratic parasitic plant. It was about how I tried, since childhood, to establish mistletoe on apple trees - and always failed in my endeavours.

Around the year 2000 my son, Pete, gave us an apple tree in a pot to adorn our London garden. Even though the tree was a small one (some 6' tall and slim), it did give me yet another chance to attain my goal of having live mistletoe in the garden and evergreen stems and leaves to look at in the wintertime, not to mention the decorative white berries.

2008.  This was the year when I started by harvesting sticky fresh berries from a Christmas bunch of mistletoe and pressing them into the junctures of trunk and spur. I used several methods to secure them and protect them from being bird food (even though there are no mistle thrushes in my part of London). I waited for the following summer and  autumn to see if any had "taken". None had.

2009.  I tried again. Still no luck (or was it lack of skills?). I let the matter rest.

2010.  I was passing a skip of rubbish and noticed that on it was a bunch of dried mistletoe left over from someone's Christmas festivities. There were plenty of berry seeds still adhering to its branches, but they were shrivelled and brown. Why not try again? Perhaps these dry seeds might take when the sticky white ones had failed? I would have another shot.

Soon after discovering these seeds on the skip I tied some to the base of apple tree spurs with string - sometimes on dry bark, others on cut bark, and lastly in bark lifted to have a seed inserted beneath the bark (as best I could). As the string was white and unsightly, I coated it with rubber solution (Copydex) and on it rubbed earth. The result made my "plantings" almost invisible. 2011 came and went, as did 2012. I had obviously failed once more. I lost enthusiasm for the project and decided to give up. BUT...

2013.  Three small mistletoe sproutings appeared from the bark - high up and about two inches from where I had planted the seed three years earlier. It was a Champagne moment. Success at last. But it was the only one from many "plantings".

2014.  Another sprout appeared - this time half way up the pillar-shaped tree. 

2015.  And yet another sprout pushed through the bark - this time near the bottom of the small apple tree.

Although all three parasite successes grew well on the moisture running up beneath the bark of their host tree, there was not a sigh of a berry. The bunches must, then, all be male. This was a disappointment.

2019.  Two berries appeared on the lowest bunch. We had one female. But no berries at all formed during the following year (2020).

2021.  In the late summer, and for the first time, a few berries appeared on the topmost and most vigorous bunch. Had this bunch suddenly changed sex, or just been reluctant to come out?

What on earth was happening to this parasite's temperamental lifestyle? Does its decision-making and sexuality have any pattern at all? Or is it just being in line with humanity's present-day gender-bending, intersex confusion?

Autumn 2021 Update

Having written recently a blog on the extraordinary lifestyle of our mistletoe, I will not repeat it. But since I established mistletoe on an apple tree in a pot some years ago, it has been the focus of our attention with its absurdly unconventional lifestyle. Its life and habits continue to astound us.

To reinvigorate the soil where our runner beans had been planted in 2020, I bought a packet of Charlotte potatoes in the spring from a supermarket, chitted them on a windowsill in the kitchen, and planted them beside flagstones in the only exposed soil we have in the form of a strip beneath a garden wall. They have provided us with melted butter, salt and chopped mint.

Our mainly Triomphe d'Alsace vines in the arbour gave us cooling shade in the hotter spells during the summer and a dozen bottles worth of very dry red wine when bottled from demijohns in the spring of 2022. 

Our ancient (40 years possibly) bay tree in a pot has been pruned to become an umbrella bay tree and seems to love its new configuration of showing off its decorative branch construction.

The other bay tree in a pot, which was given to us by a lady of religious persuasion who died, has turned into a ball shape from its previous pointer to heaven form.

Flowers, especially Impatiens and New Guineas, have given us red colours throughout the summer, augmented by pots of black and white pelargoniums. 

Self-sown Morning Glories flourish, but our many pantings of it by plant and seed in a local square failed, due possibly by being trampled on by children and dogs. 

Our Flowering Quince (Chaenomeles) lost its leaves and played dead, but has now grown them back again. Hopefully, it will still come into autumn flower.

In the bird world, great tits brought up two broods successfully in their usual home on the house.

Structurally, I have repaired our hardwood garden bench and varnished it. And the marble-topped garden table has been given new rubber ferrules as feet.

A huge change has been the demise and then destruction on my over-life-size elm wood lovers. After many attempts to make the sculpture weatherproof, it sank slowly as its base rotted - due to fungus, mice and insects. I managed to actually pull it apart by hand and hammer before calling the Council to cart away the bits. It had given much pleasure and an object of conversation over the years. It has now returned to nature.

And nature begins to close down our garden for the year. 

Cat-minding

There can be more to cat-minding than you might think.

Our only instructions were for a two-day stint of unlocking a thief-proof house, feeding three cats with a fishy kind of paté, top up feeders with dry cat food, give clear water, and leave a tap dripping as the cats liked to drink it that way. 

And there was the matter of litter mess to be extracted from two covered litter boxes and disposed of. This was my job as Margreet did the rest.

Well, that was all pretty clear and simple. Moreover our reward consisted of two bottles of good red wine.

On the second of our two visits we noticed that some sliding glass doors were held apart by a spacer on the lower rail, leaving just enough room for cats to squeeze through to reach a high-walled courtyard - considered to be too high for a cat to climb.

We hadn't noticed this gap before, so we telephone the owner to ask if this was intended. It was. All was well.

The owners arrived from the country the following day to find that one cat was missing. 

This one happened to be the one I liked best and, when I was sitting down, would lie on my upper legs and purr. So we were friends.

The search was on. The owners and I scoured the district, and Margreet rattled a tin of the dry cat food.

The cat had been seen and even turfed out into the street by the owner of a garden into which it has probably escaped.

Tired of leg and of calling "Jigsaw", we all retired as darkness fell, with the cat still at large.

With daylight the following morning came rain - thick, heavy, penetrating rain.

I telephoned the owners to find out where might be the best area for search.

So, with umbrella aloft, I was once more peering into gardens and below bushes. 

I was getting a bit wet, when, glory be, there was Jigsaw under the cover of the porch of an industrial building, looking sad and miserable.

I folded my umbrella and picked her up. Cradling her like a baby we set off for her rightful home.

Unable to hold the cat safely and the umbrella aloft at the same time, we both became thoroughly soaked.

Just to see the joy on her owner's face as she hugged Jigsaw made it all worth while. 

So, should you be asked to cat-sit at some future date, there may be more to it than you think.

Two adapted magazine recipes

 I never watch cookery programmes on TV as, generally speaking, I like to make up my own culinary concoctions. That's the fun of cooking.

In a like manner, I only give magazine recipes a glance, knowing that the authors of them have to provide the editor with so many words to fill the space, usually too many and too time-consuming to follow and cook. And the chefs also seem to like to add an ingredient or two that you do not have at hand, or possibly not even heard of. 

So I was surprised to see two recipes in a glossy magazine that I could relate to. They were both unnecessarily lengthy and time-consuming as expected, but easy to condense and simplify.

The first was a heated-through salad that involved frying garlic pieces in olive oil until just browning before adding pepper and salt, chopped fresh tomatoes and chopped red pepper flesh. The interesting part was to add finely chopped lemon that had been boiled beforehand. I have since used some chipped pickled lemon with equal success. For fresh and lovely lemons I grow a small tree in a pot in the garden. It does not produce a great crop, but those it does produce have a wonderful taste. I suppose it is because the lemons are freshly picked. The dish, when heated through gently in a frying pan with the lid on, is left to get cold before being consumed.

The second recipe was a way of forming a spaghetti sauce. Into a frying pan put plenty of olive oil, pepper, salt, lots of chopped garlic, plenty of black olives, with their stones out, then chopped, and anchovies. I have to go to the Portuguese quarter of London to find the kind of anchovies I like, in brine,  pale and shiny. But the dark tinned ones will do just as well. Cook this sauce for a short time to amalgamate the tastes, and add it to hot spaghetti (12 minutes boiling). 

To be in line with the "glossy" chefs who are inclined to use an unusual item, I do add to both of these recipes and many others, my own secret ingredient (it may not be secret at all). They are pickled peppercorns. Just put ordinary black peppercorns in a glass jar with a non-corrosive lid and cover well with vinegar. (I use my own home-made variety with a "mother of vinegar". But that's another matter.) When softening, they add a tasty crunch to many a dish. 

Sculpture of Lovers in Elm Wood

In about 1982 three elm trees died in my Cambridgeshire garden. I marked pieces for sculpture before the dead trees were felled.

One large bole was turned into two clasping lovers.

A friend saw them and asked if he might see the "action" parts, which I had omitted to carve, but then did (and added a little colour for the fun of it).

The next time he came around I said that it would now cost him a pint of beer to have a look. "Good God," he said when he looked at it. "That's worth a bottle of whisky".

The piece was always housed in the open, mainly because of its size.

It came to my London garden in 1992, where it deteriorated to become the home of mice, insects and internal wet rot.

I was all for letting it return to nature as dust, but Margreet wanted me to restore it, which was just possible using thick dowel rods, waterproof glue, wood preservative, gauze, plaster, and black roofing solution. The "action" part of the sculpture had rotted away well before this restoration work.

In 2021, after heaven knows how much restoring work, it started to subside, sinking slowly toward the ground. The lovers' lives had sadly come to their irreparable end. 

What was left had to go.

Although enormous, but fairly hollow, I managed to hammer and pull it apart, enough to dispose of it.  

I contacted the Council, who asked for a photograph of the pieces. This we sent, with next to them a 96-year-old with hammer in hand. They enjoyed the depiction of my efforts and, for a small sum, took the pieces to toss them into the rear of a rubbish vehicle - which made a good crunching noise as it consumed the wood.

So the sculpture would, in the end, have finished up as dust. 

After giving much pleasure during its lifetime, it returned to nature. 

Cruelty and the enjoyment of Beef

 We were celebrating Margreet's birthday in one of our favourite restaurants where we usually start with 3 oysters each and then share a rib of beef.

After a perusal of the menu, when we enjoy a leisurely glas of the house white wine, we decided this time to have the chef's gravadlax as our first course. And excellent it was.

Ribera del Duero red wine at this restaurant is our choice, but as they were out of it when we last ate there we settled for their Cote du Rhone, which we liked so much that we ordered it again to go with our meat. We then happened to talk about beef and its smell.

It was when I did the grand tour shortly after the war in an old Ford 9 flat-backed van that, with some imagination, I converted into mobile living quarters.

I was in Spain, in this instance, at a bullfight, sitting in the sunny side of the bullring, and in great heat.

It was not the spear-piercing of the bull's body by a Spaniard on a horse, or even the barbed wands that were later jabbed into the bull's shoulders by a more elaborately dressed Spaniard that I recall so well. But it certainly was the densely perfumed air of the heavy scent worn by my male neighbours that, mixed with the smell of the bull's blood, made me feel a bit queasy. 

So when our rib of beef appeared, I forgot the smell that once went with beef in Spain and tucked in with plenty of the splendid horseradish sauce that was served with it.

We were unable to eat all the meat on the dish, so I asked the French waitress if we might take what was left home with us in a doggy bag, mentioning that our dogs would be absolutely delighted with it.

When she returned with the wrapped-up meat, she enquired about the names of our dogs. "Jim and Margreet", say I. "And what breed of dogs are they?" she asked. "Human," I replied.

The answer seemed to take her by surprise as she retreated in fits of laughter.