The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, 2012

Only the English can put on a public show like the three days of Jubilee celebrations in London. As far as we were concerned, the best way to see it all was on television – and to be warm and dry. However, one of the highlights for us was a very modest St Peter’s Grove street party. This started, for me, at 6 in the morning when I rose to make a cake and a large mince pie. Shortly after 11 in the morning we looked out of a window to see our neighbours across the way (from the house that Margreet rented when we met) fixing up an awning to protect a round table of food and drink from the elements. So, with cake, wine, and glasses in hand, we joined a dozen or so St Peter’s residents with more children of tender years that we ever imagined lived in our street. The children enjoyed themselves greatly, running wildly away down the street whenever possible, with parents in hot pursuit. When I came to live in St Peter’s Grove some 24 years ago, I knew almost everyone in the road. At the street party I met neighbours who I didn’t even know existed. This was a splendid outcome from a day of celebration. With the Thames being so close to us, we went several times to the bank of it, hoping to see the Armada of ships jockeying for position. But we either chose the wrong time or tide, or they were mustering down river far from our sight. But on the brighter side of one walk, we discovered a pub that sold excellent hot sausages. The procession of some one thousand boats took place mostly in the rain – rain that had been falling for some weeks already. Yet with all this water falling from the sky, a regional hosepipe ban to conserve water was still in operation. Impressive was an elegant canopied vessel (Gloriana) propelled by many oarsmen. Its kind featured in Canaletto’s famous depiction of an 18th century river pageant, seen and imagined by him from across the river opposite St Paul’s Cathedral. The Royal Barge was, well, a barge with bling on top, comfortable no doubt, as it needed to be. On it, the Royals looked cold and wet, masterfully showing interest and warmth toward their people. One wanted to go aboard and give them all a stiff and warming drink. On the following evening a concert took place for the great and enthusiastic crowds of well-wishers, conducted from the Victoria Memorial roundabout in front of Buckingham Palace. From sunny day to clear evening darkness, notables from the international field of entertainment strutted their stuff, with ill-equipped stand-up comedians to fill in the gaps as one group took over from another. This eclectic mix was an outdoor Royal Variety performance, conducted with truly admirable stage management. Image projection on to the Palace façade was brilliant. Then there were fireworks. On the third and final day of celebration, there was a televised service at St Paul’s Cathedral, luncheon with speeches, and an impressive procession of gilded coaches and mounted horses moving from Westminster Hall, and then along the Mall to Buckingham Palace. Once again, we witnessed on television the massed crowds proceeding down the Mall behind a thin line of marching policemen as they walked in slow procession to see the upper Royals appear on the Palace balcony. The crowd could then see the Queen waving at them and were able to wave back. The climax for such royal occasions is a fly-past of old and newer aircraft. This is also a highlight for me, as it is whenever I have a chance to see an Avro Lancaster bomber again. In 1943, while training to be a pilot, I flew in the rear turret of one. I was stationed at RAF Skellingthorpe, near Lincoln, when a “Lanc” was to have an engine test before leaving for a bombing raid on Germany that evening. I was asked if I wanted to go along to Scotland and back in the turret with its four, fully armed-up Browning machine guns to fire at the press of a button. Sadly, although we watched for the fly-past from a top window of our house, only a formation of Red Arrows and the sole Dakota ever came into distant view. But that was only a small disappointment in a few days of fascinating obeisance to a long-lasting Queen. Long may she reign.

A Holiday at Home

I wrote a blog recently on holidays-at-home, and have just taken one. As we sometimes go to Dieppe, in Normandy, for a few days in springtime, we thought that we would enjoy a quiet holiday-at-home instead of the hassle of going abroad. We started on Sunday for a reunion. Once a year, fellow pilots, who trained together in Oklahoma in the war, get together with their families at a restaurant in Datchet, a hamlet on the Thames off the M4 motorway half an hour out of London. There are four of us left alive, the others having “left the circuit”. Of the four, one has had a series of strokes and is rather frail. The others, all in our late 80s, are thankfully hail and hearty. Wives, children, and now grandchildren, make up the numbers to around 16. Sadly, one wife, well in body and spirit, was not quite with us in her mental state. But everyone had a happy lunch and were in excellent spirits, even with the fund of our wartime stories exhausted. It was a very English occasion – not like Dieppe at all. That was Sunday. On Monday, Margreet and I had booked for lunch in our favourite and very English restaurant in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. We set out to have coffee in Soho, as we might have enjoyed it had we been in France. Then, as we were still early for lunch, stopped off in Chandos Place for an aperitif in a very small central London pub that is a favourite of ours (there’s nothing remotely like it abroad). For this, our grandest lunch, we now barely look at the menu, sharing 6 oysters and a rib of rare beef – with the best horseradish around. Wine, too, was as usual when we splash out, being Ribera del Duero, from Spain (in Dieppe it is French wine only). We once also had an excellent rib of beef in rural France, and wanted to take the bone back to England for a dog. But the French would have none of it. It was forbidden to take food out of a restaurant – even a bone. But we took it – much to the pleasure of that English dog. After a good lunch, as when on holiday in Dieppe, an afternoon snooze is called for. And after eating generously in the day in London or Dieppe, we have little appetite for more food in the evening. On holiday in Dieppe we can usually only manage a light evening picnic in our room overlooking the sea. Tuesday came, but it came with much early morning rain and a forecast of flooding on the south coast. We had planned a rail trip to Chichester to view an exhibition of paintings. So we decided to postpone the visit until the following week. We took lunch at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant where the food had French overtones, the country having once been ruled by them. Our plans for Wednesday were to eat out for lunch and then visit the theatre for a matinee performance. We took an aperitif in a splendid, polished brass, red plush, and cut glass pub in St Martin’s Lane. Over a small drink there we people-watched – mostly tourists – before walking into Covent Garden for an excellent lunch, this time at a Belgian restaurant – the like of which a Belgian tells us does not exist in her country. The theatrical performance was a Commedia dell’ Arte, by Goldoni, altered and set in England, in modern dress, and with English jokes. There would be nothing like that in Dieppe, where the only and quite beautiful early 19th century theatre has become an interesting memorial of the war and, more specifically, the terrible failure of the Dieppe raid – mostly involving Canadian troops and the well-entrenched Germans. Anyhow, slapstick theatre in the Haymarket was great, and had a packed audience “rolling in the aisles”. Which brings us to Thursday. We had read about, or heard of, a Lebanese restaurant on Golborne Road, the Portuguese and very cosmopolitan area at the end of Portobello Road. So we planned to eat there and, when in that part of London, search for olive oils. My theory about olive oil is that as much of it is a “blend from EU sources”, it is best, for authenticity, to aim for the countries from where the bulk of blending oil is actually made. Of these places, Morocco, Spain, Portugal and Greece might feature. So we bought a Portuguese oil from a Portuguese shop, Moroccan oil from a Moroccan shop, and Greek oil from a shop run by a Sikh. But the restaurant of our quest was Muslim enough not to offer wine – or even allow customers to bring in their own. So, as local advice is always the best, we returned to the Sikh with our dilemma “You’ll get good fish and wine next to the Post Office,” he said. Next to the Post Office was a Spanish restaurant. He was right. The lunchtime menu was fine, the house red and white wines were from Rioja, and the sherry was cold. We were transported not to Dieppe but to the Iberian peninsular. The tables were nicely furnished, the wallpaper was peeling, and the old waiter exactly as an old Spanish waiter should be. We enjoyed it. By bus, we carted home bottles of oil and some merguez sausages that had been freshly made in the shop where we had obtained Moroccan oil. Full again, we found that those sausages were quite enough for our evening snack. Our Friday jaunt involved a curry lunch (unwise in Dieppe) and to see a film about English oldies in India. The cinema in question has a curry restaurant as part of a complex. So we ate a lunch of curry before, appropriately, watching a film set in India. Advertised at the table were Indian red and white wines – one of each colour. India? Wine? When we were once in the West Indies, staying in Grenada, we visited, by chance, a Chinese experimental agricultural project. There they were cultivating various fruits and vegetables, I suppose with a view to either growing the successes in the hotter parts of China, or starting up farms in the tropics to supply the Chinese market. Of the fruits on trial, grapes featured. They seemed to be doing rather well in the humid heat. One of the drawbacks of making wine in hot conditions is to obtain enough acidity in the vinification. So acid must be added at some stage. This process, if not done with great skill, can easily upset the balance of a wine. I once knew a man who, many years ago, added to his fortune by supplying acid by rail tanker to Argentine winemakers. The two Indian wines on offer were Cabernet Sauvignon red and Sauvignon Blanc white. They were made north of Mumbai in the Nasik Valley. We tasted each and both were excellent – fresh, and with plenty of taste. But they were expensive. So, if the Indians can make wine this good, there is hope for more – but at a lower price. The film was charming, with some shots taken from the roof of a rather seedy hotel where we once stayed. I remember the hotel for the noise and sight of dhobi-wallahs washing and beating clothes across the rather green water of the Udaipur lake, and of the extended view of the lake with its white palace seemingly floating on its surface. I also remember the place for a large cockroach on which I stepped with a flip-flop. It seemed to hardly notice. And when we were having an evening drink on the roof terrace, a flying fox crashed into a tree next to us for its night-time roost. What films of India cannot convey to viewers is the dirt, noise and smell that makes the country so special. It is a wonderful sub-continent, loved by some (me) but not by others (Margreet). That was the end of our holiday-at-home, except for the postponed visit to the gallery in Chichester. We had enjoyed ourselves enormously – as much if not more than had we gone to Dieppe. And we had avoided the early morning and late return by the M25 and country roads to and from Newhaven, the Channel crossings, hotel booking, dealing with foreign currency, talking with the French, and the tiresome delays of passport and customs controls. We’ll be holidaying-at-home again for sure.

RESTAURANT WINE (AND FOOD)

A country friend, arriving for lunch out in our part of London, was astounded at the low price of meals. An hors d’oeuvre in the country would cost more than a meal here, he told me. It is true. But it is lunch that is almost always far cheaper than an evening meal hereabouts. So when we want a meal out, it is usually one starting between noon and one o’clock. (Margreet and I have the advantage of age and time.) The one item that stays expensive night and day is wine. I have noticed that restaurants that fail to survive have generally been too greedy in the wine department. Margreet was astounded recently, when returning with a friend from a lecture on Africa, that the friend’s friend, who runs the restaurant they went to nearby, was charging £27.50 a bottle for their cheapest wine. Will the restaurant last? Indian restaurants usually serve better value draught beer, which is, anyway, more appropriate for Indian food. We are very lucky to live in an area stuffed with restaurants – from an oriental one where one can obtain three excellent courses for under £7 to one across the road from it where that £7 might possibly get you a bottle of water. We are not great pizza-eaters. But there is an exception, where the food is served only in the evenings. It is a pub. There, on Tuesdays for a special price, they serve giant, wafer-thin pizzas (for two people) with a topping of about everything that ever goes on a pizza – and for £18. Expensive? No. That is because the price includes a bottle of excellent, if rustic, wine. And that wine (at present coming from Sicily) complements the pizza splendidly. So not every eating place is greedy when it comes to the price of wine. But, sadly, they are few and far between. If I were younger and computer-literate, I would start a restaurant guide based on customers’ recommendations of restaurants where wine is considered to be the natural accompaniment to food, and priced accordingly – that is, reasonably.

RADIATION

It was a television programme that made me think of the past. I was once a medical student, extracting the semicircular canals from a dogfish intact – a considerable feat, I was told. Beyond that I know little or nothing of medicine – or radiation. But my experiences in those far oft days, when there was no cure for TB, might be of interest today. Just after the war ended I was grounded as a pilot, learned to be an air Photographic Intelligence officer, and contracted TB during the terribly cold winter of 1947. The disease was discovered when I was about to be demobilised. When working as a late entry into medicine, the TB in my lung returned. There was still no cure for it. One simply hoped for the best. But it was the end of medicine for me. Rest was considered to be all-important for recovery. And to rest the affected lung an artificial pneumothorax was administered. The procedure involved was to insert a thick needle between the ribs to introduce air to a gap between lung and ribcage (no anaesthetic and no fun if the needle hit a rib on its way in). This air gap would then become a buffer and thus rest the lung. But this air, passing into the gap under atmospheric pressure, became absorbed by the lung and had to be topped up – initially weekly, and then fortnightly, over a period of seven years. Before each air-introduction process, doctors wanted to see the size of the air gap so as not to penetrate the lung with the needle. For this I was scanned – that is, placed between a powerful x-ray machine and the doctor, so that the medicine man could actually see through me – or, rather, the upper part of me. The doctors in question wore leaded protection from the x-rays. I, obviously, had no protection whatsoever. So my body, over those seven years, was submitted to a vast amount of powerful radiation. As I write, I am 87 years old. Most consider me to be much younger. So they ask for my secret. I just say “plenty of red wine, plenty of garlic and a good sex life”. That ends the conversation pretty quickly and we can go on to other matters. In looking back, the treatment I received was almost medieval in concept, combined with modern radiation – a word that was later to get a very bad name indeed with the advent of the atomic bomb. But was all that radiation shot at me possibly the real reason that at my age I can still run for a bus, out-walk my wife, cook, paint, garden and all the rest – and all done with little effort. Is, then, radiation, perhaps, rather good for you after all?

Holidays at Home

It has been our custom over many years to spend holiday time in Dieppe on the French Normandy coast. Four or five days there has been enough of eating, drinking well, renewing acquaintances, sitting with a glass in hand to watch people pass by, and to come home laden with wine – mainly everyday plonk that we buy from French supermarkets at half the price of the equivalent in London.
As it was a holiday for us, the cost of these trips was expected to be – well, holiday prices all round and quite acceptable.
I/we would reside in the same hotel in which I had stayed just after the war when it was being built.
To reach Dieppe just after the war with the little money that the British were allowed to take out of the country, was to escape rationing at home and to rejuvenate a deprived body with some of the missing and good things of life.
And so it has continued, with our hotel owner leaving the place to his son, and the son now allowing his daughter to hold the reins.
In all that time I (and then we) have taken the same room, only to change it for a smarter one overlooking the plage when a kite or retro motor festival was taking place on the vast area of grass between the hotel and the sea.
There have been only two main changes in Dieppe over the last 60 odd years. The harbour entrance “pier” has been extended outward, and the ferries that docked in the middle of town to disgorge their passengers on to a train for Paris or hotels in town, have moved to a dock in the tidal outer harbour (making space for a smart marina). Otherwise time has stood still, with only shop owners and some restaurants changing hands.
It was almost like having a second home in a busy French fishing port, but without the trouble of ownership abroad.
But if Dieppe has hardly changed, we have. And one of the main reasons for that change has been the cost. Inflation is rife (especially in France) and everything involved with our holiday outing has now become rather expensive.
The added car insurance for just a short trip abroad has risen in cost, as has the price of petrol, both here and in France. Prices of the sea voyage, cabin, then hotel, food, wine, bar drinks and restaurant meals have risen too much. Only plonk wine has remained excellent value, and buying this in French supermarkets certainly helped to defray the overall cost of our trips to Dieppe. But now inflation has gone too far and begun to spoil much of our holiday pleasure. The gilt has finally fallen off the gingerbread.
So what’s to be done?
“Holidays at home” has become a sort of catch phrase that we think of as a good idea until coming across B&Bs where the cost of a room depends on how many inhabit it (unlike in France). Petrol is suddenly expensive in England, and good food available but often difficult to locate – and pricey.
But holidays based on one’s own home, where bed and pillows are to one’s liking, is surely the answer nowadays when wanting a break.
Mark down a few days in the diary for self-indulgence. For those days avoid the computer. Don’t make appointments, refuse invitations, and do not entertain. Make a list of holiday diversions, like exhibitions near and far, towns to visit, favourite treat places in which to eat and drink, theatrical performances to see, areas of town to explore, and so on.
Then enjoy a real holiday at home – without the hassle of any tedious delays or documentation. But of course this is not for everyone, like those who want to lie in the sun all day or see the world.

A HIGH DEGREE OF CEREMONY

An academic institution is, to me, a select club, difficult to join, steeped in ritual, elitist, innovative, selective and channelled. It is a place where cloistered brains reside and knowledge distributed.
It is also an institution that I would never have been able to enter, even if the 2nd World War had not arrived at a vital time in my education.
Academic language, and the way it is used, is hard for me to encompass. In fact, I find its “in-language” close to being an alien method of expression.
Although I took 25 years away from painting and sculpture to write books and articles, I still would not have had it in me to then write a good academic paper.
My wife, Margreet, has just been awarded a BSc. from the Open University. I would love to have been able to help her in her studies. Except for checking for the odd typographical error I was useless in any way other than to offer encouragement.
It was with enormous pride in my heart that we went to the degree presentation ceremony at The Barbican Centre in London.
Beautifully organised, Margreet was robed in fetching black, blue and yellow, photographed wearing a mortarboard, had her name announced to much clapping and cheering, and then presented to Lord Puttnam, Chancellor of the University.
The seriousness of years of study, tutorials, submitted papers, research and reading (all done when she was still working for the Dutch Foreign Service), culminated in this day of splendid accomplishment and sheer joy.
The clapping and cheering of families helped to dissolve the serious panoply of academia to become, for all graduates, relaxed expressions of outward joyfulness and proud inner feelings of a job well done. More than one tear ran down a cheek.
We needed a good lunch after that.

A Lost Picture

In the 1950s, way before I compiled a pictorial and written record of my paintings, I painted a landscape of the late 18th century Iron Bridge in Coalbrookdale.
I also made a drawing of this icon of cast ironwork, which was done with the then recently invented indelible, felt-tip, black-dye pen. This was a wonderful invention for a budding artist, making drawing far more effective. And it was almost as easy to use as a pencil – though with mistakes uncorrectable.
These pens were better than those available today inasmuch as you could control the amount of ink delivered by pressing down on the felt tip to release ink into it. So one could use its wedge-shaped tip to draw with a light or heavy line, thick or thin. These pens may well still exist, though I would not consider using one today.
It so happens that I am at present working on a series of A4 pastels entitled “Landscape Recalled”. These are recollections of my past landscape paintings. They are interpretations – to some eyes barely resembling the originals.
One recently finished example of Landscape Recalled is of that of the Iron Bridge, Coalbrookdale. I have no record of the original.
A 2’x 2’ painting, done on that very same journey north to Coalbrookdale, I still have. It is of a barge on the Shropshire Union Canal in 1956, when the bargee allowed me to sit at the prow and record us passing beneath an asymmetrical bridge near Eyton. This was exhibited at the Galerie de Seine in 1957.
So where might that original Iron Bridge oil painting be?
Well, when I sold the studio that I had built on a Thames wharf in Limehouse, London, certain paintings were stored in the loft there and forgotten in the sale and my move to America in 1970.
This studio house in Three Colt Street changed hands twice before the then owner contacted me in London after I left my address with the estate agent who was about to sell it once more.
I went to meet the owner, who showed me the forgotten paintings that he had taken down from the loft. They were dusty and scratched.
Technically they belonged to the owner of the property, who chose four of them for himself, kindly giving me back the rest.
One of those returned to me was the barge painting.
So did this kind house-owner select and keep the Coalbrookdale Iron Bridge painting? I can’t recall.
Lost, given, stolen or strayed, at least I now have my pastel recollection of it.

Springtime

Before spring appears in nature outside, it manifests itself in our bodies and brains.
Even thought the temperature of around 10 degrees outside is winter cold, the same temperature in springtime seems warmer.
A blanket comes off the bed. Winter socks seem too thick. You look around for lighter shoes. The neck scarf is not always necessary. Gloves are left at home. In the kitchen potatoes begin to sprout. Onions have a soft core.
Outside plants, shrubs and trees are still reluctant to come into bud. Even catkins are still to appear. Although the mornings and evenings are marginally lighter, a longer day is still needed before nature really makes a move.
The garden, seen outside the window, is still in its winter guise. But in one’s body there is the feeling that the new year’s work awaits.
Bamboo posts need straightening and ties reinforced.
The lower content of the compost bin needs to be extracted for rejuvenating the upper soil in plant, tree and shrub pots. Some must be put on to the ground and loosened in with a fork. And some needs to be put in a bin for mixing with soil for new plant pots and the buckets for new potatoes. With plenty of good home-made compost, no other fertiliser should be needed. Leaves that escaped the early winter clear-up can now be put into the emptier compost bin, along with any bagged-up leaves for which there was no room in the autumn.
Away in the loft, the last vintage of wine grapes has been fermenting and resting over winter in its demijohns in readiness for bottling. Late bottling has the advantage that the wine might have passed its malolactic “fermentation” stage. It is time to act, to bottle, to cork and to inscribe the labels with the vintage year. Will it have been a good year for red wine? (2011 certainly was.)
Birds feel the springtime urge more than humans. They start to feed and fly in pairs. Favourite nest boxes are eyed up, inspected, and the openings prepared yet again by beak-hammering.
The male blackbirds patrol the boundaries of their territories, running up and down on the side they own, while the male of the adjoining territory runs with him along his own side of the boundary. The hen blackbirds are making up their minds about nest sites. They bath a lot to look their best. They are early to nest in springtime, and have already started before other garden birds – except for magpies who are putting together their twiggy nest balls in bare trees.
The tin of seeds must be sorted out, and new packets bought in anticipation of crops as good as those depicted on the packets. And seed potatoes must be bought to grow in soil or buckets. They must be left in the light to chit but not to send out pale, straggly shoots in a dark place.
It is the time of anticipation and planning.
Yes, spring is in the air.

Curried Eggs

There are some very simple, quick to make, reasonable in cost and excellent to eat dishes about. This is one of them.

CURRIED EGGS

You will need:
Oil (any cooking oil)
Eggs
Flour (plain)
Curry powder (Madras mild or any other)
Stock cube (beef or chicken)
Soy sauce (for colour and salt)

Hard-boil the eggs (1 or 2 per person) by bringing them to the boil from cold water and giving them exactly 10 minutes boiling after that.
As this is happening, in a bowl mix, say, 3 heaped dessert spoons of flour and 2 of mild curry powder (or paste). Mix them well.
Put oil in a saucepan and add the flour/curry powder mixture. Add a stock cube. Stir this together, and after heating it through, add, say, a pint of water, and then some soy sauce for colour and saltiness.
Now whisk this well and keep whisking until the sauce is smooth, scraping inward any mixture caught in the lower side edges of the pan. Keep whisking occasionally.
The sauce will thicken. Dilute it with water to obtain the desired thickness, as some like a thick sauce and some a thin one. Test the sauce.
Now comes the time to fine-tune by adding any (or none) of the following: peanut butter (excellent), Worcestershire sauce (excellent), Tomato ketchup (also excellent), more soy sauce or salt. You might even want to add more chilli (powder).
Keep testing, adding what you will. But it shouldn’t need any more attention.
You will by about now have strained the water from the eggs, rattled them around the saucepan (in one kept specially for boiling eggs) to break up the shells, added cold water, and left them for a little while to ease the shelling process.
Add peeled eggs to the sauce. Eat.
Any sauce left over will make the start of a soup by adding water and stock cubes. You might want to fine-tune the soup. Do this as above.

A Nasty Burn

After a recent blog about my medical inventions I’m on to a medical matter once again.
Incidentally, just after my heart pacemaker had been fitted, I went into my local Tesco supermarket and set off the thief alarm when entering and leaving. Perhaps it was the power of my new pacemaker’s battery that triggered it. Having warned the management of what might happen in future, I then went in and out without alarm - presumably as the battery’s power had declined.
What I now write about is the efficacy of a childhood remedy.
Whenever we happened to burn ourselves as country-bred children in the late 1920s and early ‘30s, butter was applied to the burned surface of our skin.
In a rush a few evenings ago, I wanted to change the position of a pot that was cooking in the oven, leaving a very hot empty pan on the top of the stove in the process.
With thumb and forefinger of my left hand I inadvertently touched the scorching metal of this pan, burning the skin badly as I did so. Margreet, who witnessed it, swore that my skin had burnt itself onto the pan.
So I dashed to the refrigerator and rubbed the exposed end of a slab of butter on the wound, coating it thoroughly.
I kept the agonising burn open to the air and covered with the melting butter for the next two hours, until the excruciating pain had subsided.
Margreet, who was rather dubious of the success of this English country remedy, thought that a large blister was forming on my thumb and a lesser one on the adjoining finger. The hurting areas were certainly very red.
I kept the wound in the open air and covered in butter until bedtime, occasionally re-applying the soothing unguent throughout the night.
The next day revealed a thumb and forefinger as if no burn had ever taken place. The area was a little sore, and nerve endings on the thumb’s skin somewhat shaken.
From then on I was using the hand as if no trauma at all had occurred.
It had been a miraculous recovery, and one that had confirmed the efficacy of a country remedy. It also proved that in an era of rather primitive medicine, mother really did know best.

A Patient's Minor Contribution to Medicine

I am rather proud of my two contributions to medicine – although I may be the only person to have benefited from them.
Recovering from prostate cancer, I had a catheter fitted that ran from my bladder to a bag strapped to my leg. This bag had to be emptied when it became too heavy for comfort. Then a convenience (often an inconvenience) had to be located, trousers lowered, and urine released.
I had a zip fastener put into the side seam of my trousers from which to extract the drainage tap. Then, even when in public, I could find a drain or flower bed for the purpose. I dubbed it
“The P-R Zip”.

On another occasion, when being released from hospital with a pacemaker, instructions were not to raise my left arm, the side in which the device had been inserted. A reminder was necessary for the following month or so.
I installed a cord (string) loop that rounded and fell from my trouser belt.
With the arm dangling through this loop, there was a restraining reminder whenever I started to raise it. The doctors had not seen one before.
This could be the cheapest medical aid ever invented.
I dubbed it “The P-R Loop”.
The “Loop” can be threaded through a strong safety pin attached to waist-high nightwear.

My other contribution to medicine was only an observation.
In a shaft of sunlight I was using an electric shaver with an oscillating head, and was astounded to see so many small pieces of hair flying about. These, I thought, must be an irritant when breathed in to my ex-TB lung.
I changed quickly to a rotating headed shaver that retains the cut hair.

Background music and nature films

Being laid low by a virus infection gave me more time to watch television. Two matters from this have been food for thought.
Years ago I saw a film that had, as one of its scenes, a man crawling through desert sand about to die of thirst. He was accompanied by orchestral music. So I didn’t see why he couldn’t have turned right, crossed a sand dune, and asked a musician for a glass of water.
Much the same situation has been very apparent in a nature series that I saw on the box.
It is true that long-lens photography of animals making a noise is difficult to record. So, somewhere, a sound person might well have been extracting a cork from a bottle each time a penguin rocketed from the water to land on an ice floe.
When making appropriate sounds to fit the action becomes difficult, a full orchestra is brought into play. Natural sounds are then thought by these portrayers of nature to be unnecessary.
But the accompanying orchestras can be so intrusive that the music detracts from the action.
One feels that all might well be reversed. Why not show the orchestra, with a showman of a conductor encouraging his musicians - with a few nature bits superimposed on a backdrop behind him.
Because we, as viewers, especially of nature programmes, have now seen the intimate lives of nearly every bird, insect and beast on this planet, it has become essential with repeat images to announce every so often that: “This is the first time that anyone has seen…”
The makers of these films have not been watching television. Most of us have seen the lot already.
So that is now the new quest when repeating the subject. It is to find something new.
The great fall-back is to film lions chasing wildebeests toward crocodile-infested water.
Now, if one of these wildebeests should reach the water, see a crocodile, take fright, turn back, and fall into the jaws of a lion, that might be new. But do we care any more?

Sirens and red lights

Travelling by rail to and from Amsterdam, with a change of trains in Brussels, would seem to be the best method to choose for a winter’s visit. But there was, at Christmastime, a great deal of heavy luggage to lug about at stations.
And then, in Amsterdam, where space is at a premium, and where stairs are unproductive areas of a house with treads narrow and assents steep, heavy suitcases meant that extra muscle power was required.
Probably because of these additional manual matters, my heart acted strangely on our return to London.
When walking along a street I was suddenly short of breath and struggling. Something was not right.
So, for a few days before the New Year, I took my pulse rate at various times of the day and night. It seemed to be extremely low.
Margreet wanted me to see a doctor. An appointment was to be made at the counter of our local health centre, where we learned that no one could see me for several days. At Margreet’s cajoling, the receptionist then found that, due to a cancellation, I could be seen by my own doctor right away.
After the briefest of examinations, she ordered an ambulance and booked me into the cardiac clinic of Hammersmith Hospital.
So, with me in a wheelchair, ambulance paramedics and Margreet, we set off with sirens screaming and red traffic lights ignored.
Wheeled into the hospital for another brief but thorough examination (symptomatic complete heart block), I was put into a bed and connected up to a mass of cables that led to monitors of lights, flashing numbers and noisy alarms.
I was to have a heart pacemaker installed in my chest. These are inserted beneath the collarbone and connected to the heart by two wires. In place, it would result in my heartbeat being under control at a satisfactory level for life. Fine.
Speed was necessary, but I had to be fitted into the pre-arranged surgery programme. It was not until mid-day the following day that the operation took place. Antibiotic pills aplenty were administered.
The surgical procedure was to be conducted with local anaesthetic.
This obviously involved delicacy and, unexpectedly, some brutal force from a surgeon who was discussing his future in medicine with a colleague. The procedure appeared to be a success.
Margreet was much relieved when I appeared from the surgical quarters looking much the same as before.
With some aches and pains and soreness the following day, I dressed to go home. But a final and more comprehensive extra scan revealed that one wire from the pacemaker to the heart had become detached (atrial lead malpositioned).
So off came my street clothes and, once again, on went that surgical garment – one that surely needs some re-design and logical thought directed at it.
But, once again, with a surgical schedule full, could I be fitted in?
I was (possibly to make up for the previous failure).
Now, a glamorously dressed lady surgeon from another hospital appeared. She read my notes, and retired to change into her surgeon’s kit.
I was not really looking forward to another session of pain and brutality. So I asked for the more liberal use of anaesthetic.
She started the procedure after the accompanying sterilisation of about everyone and everything. I expected a repeat blood-letting and brute force – except that it was not that at all.
The surgeon operated so gently and skilfully that, compared with the previous day’s attempt, it was almost painless. She re-attached the atrial wire to the heart.
The female touch in surgery is to be recommended.
Poor Margreet was the one who suffered throughout this medical saga, imagining the worst – the very worst – when the risks were actually quite small.
So, with almost a new heart, I was returned to my hospital room and to Margreet with the prospect of, once again, returning home the following day.
Final (satisfactory) tests were taken, and doctors released me. I was ready to start life again – with the restricted movement of one arm for several weeks.
To remind me not to raise my left arm, I devised a simple cord (string) loop, tied around my belt and hanging down into which to thread my lower arm. With the arm dangling through this loop, there was a restraining reminder whenever I started to raise it. This was a simple idea and, apparently, one not thought of before. And it must be the cheapest medical appliance ever to be used.
Never throughout the saga having felt ill, at times I felt a bit of a fraud. But doctors and nurses knew otherwise, and had saved me with their expertise.
One must admire hugely the Hammersmith Hospital’s staff, the National Health Service – and Margreet, whose supportive hand needed holding much more than mine.

Holland 2011

To travel abroad is to suffer. However easy inspections and controls at airports and railway stations are, there will be queues, noisy children, neighbours with streaming colds and general mayhem. So the relief at having accomplished any international journey is considerable.
One of the many advantages of age is that one generally has an excuse for avoiding it.
After all, the pleasures of enjoying one’s own home environment without hassle are great. Foreign beds, foreign pillows, foreign coinage, foreign manners and foreign languages do not always add up to happiness.
However, I write on this trip to Holland in a positive mood.
Our train journey took us by Eurostar to Brussels (via the Channel Tunnel), and then on by train again to Amsterdam.
We passed through the wet and cold English countryside, while inside the carriage there was warmth and the sounds of pleasurable anticipation.
Space for luggage aboard Eurostar was at a premium as passengers had arrived with Christmas presents for those close to them abroad. So, although Margreet and I normally travel light on this occasion we had two suitcases and a haversack crammed full of beautifully-wrapped presents for the Dutch relations, who we seldom meet and who multiply quite quickly.
We emerged from the Tunnel to find that the weather was better in France – well, it was not raining, anyway. The open spaces were larger, and bleaker. I looked for signs of wildlife – any wildlife. I could not see even a pigeon – or any creature in the sky or on the ground. The French are very keen on “la Chasse”, so by Christmas time, most wild creatures in the countryside would have been eaten – with some sauce or other – and washed down in that part of France with, possibly, cider – certainly beer.
The large fields were either green with winter-sown grain, brown plough furrow or smooth seedbed. The furrow lines often contained unabsorbed rainwater and there were shallow ponds of water lying in fields.
Neither was there any sign of human life. The arable season was in obeisance. Humans were inside and warm – with warm insides – contrived by calvados, probably.
A small bonfire in the grey countryside lit up its small area of monotonous landscape.
Cleverly, concrete “ponds” had been, or were being constructed wherever water could be garnered -such as beside the lowest point of roads. The French and Belgians are wisely preparing for future water shortages.
Trees did not really fit the landscape, and looked a little unnatural, having been planted in regimented rows or in blocks.
Because of the delay in leaving London St Pancras, due to Christmas luggage blocking the carriage exits, we were to be late in reaching Brussels. As we had not booked train seats onward, missing our proposed connection did not affect us too much.
The lateness of our train enabled us to have a beer and a baguette in Brussels’ Midi Station before taking a rather seedy stopping train (called Inter City) through poor industrial suburbs, then to Antwerp. It was noticeable, in Belgium especially, that many house roofs had either water heating or electricity-making panels installed. They were ahead of the English.
So on to Holland and Amsterdam in particular.
How can a country that once almost ruled the seas and been about the most commercially prosperous nation in the western world, and one that produces some of the most delightful architecture anywhere, almost totally neglect the culinary arts?
Ask anyone to recommend an eating place and the answer will be a restaurant that is Indonesian, Thai, Italian, Spanish, Argentinean, Vietnamese, or any non-Dutch – but seldom Dutch. Possibly because of it, these “foreign” foods will have been given a strong Dutch (heavy and mixed up) slant.
But there are charming bars in Holland where one can drink wine or beer in congenial company. And there are “coffee Shops” where, I suppose, if you stood outside for a few minutes you would experience a “high” – at no cost.
Our hotel, the Wiechmann, on the Prinsengracht (No. 328), was all an Amsterdam hotel should be (described by Margreet as being like an old aunt’s well-appointed spare room), overlooking a complex junction of two canals, four roads and two bridges. Its breakfast room must have been one of the most interesting hotel dining rooms in Amsterdam. One sat inside, so close to pedestrians, cyclists, and cars, that it seemed almost possible to touch them. And the vistas were a delight to the eye.
There was a fine bar (a Brown Café) near to our hotel (the Eland Bar, where the Elandsgracht joins Prinsengracht), and a supermarket, wine merchant and cheese emporium. But where might we eat?
We went to a recommended Vietnamese restaurant across from the bar, in the Jordaan. But the food there was disappointing and expensive. So next we tried another recommended place – Italian (La Festa). It was bleak and almost empty when we looked through its window. But we took a chance. They offered carafe wine, and by the time we had started on our excellent mixed hors d’oeuvre, the place filled to bursting point. We ate very well there. Our last “restaurant” was our hotel room, where we dined well on bread, sausage, white goats’ cheese and excellent red wine. Picnic meals like that are hard to beat.
In between our evening meals we were entertained by Margreet’s family. The first was by one brother and his wife (Bert and Henny) who arranged for their part of the family to meet in a splendid, Edwardian 1st class waiting/dining room beside a Centraal Station platform (2b), then to cross the IJ River to a pleasant café (de Pont).
There were 15 of us guests who took the free ferry (destination Buiksloterweg) across the IJ, giving way to a long fuel barge as we did so. Café de Pont, where the ferry docked, was spacious, clean, and ideal for a family meeting. We drank wine, amid much fun noise and friendship, and ate steamed mackerel flesh on bread with salad. The children were charming, enjoyed opening their Christmas presents, and were well behaved.
On the next day we took a 20-minute train journey to Hilversum to meet Margreet’s other brother and family. It being Christmas Day made no difference to the railway schedules in Holland. At Dick and Reina’s modern house, that was full of art (including some of mine), we sat down firstly to individual plates of 8 cheeses with wine. Then, several hours later, we sat at another table for an imaginative repast that included venison with a sweet raspberry/strawberry sauce. The wine was excellent. Here, other children opened presents, behaved well, and were a delight.
Margreet’s brother, Dick Klees, was an original pirate broadcaster on a ship (Radio Veronica) outside territorial Dutch waters in the 1960s. So, being still a broadcaster, he is very much au fait with electronics. So we enjoyed his very professionally produced films on wide-screen television. In the past one was shown still photographs, then slides, then primitive film, now an exemplary presentation such as this one.
Another treat in Hilversum is to see Dudoc’s 1930s Town Hall. This magnificent example of Art Deco architecture is surely one of the greatest anywhere. Its enormous and simple block shapes of pale yellow bricks with deep-cut pointing are designed to form light and shadow to huge advantage in almost all weather conditions.
I notice that when I travel away from England I write about plumbing and its related matters.
This time it is about the bath and a person’s ability to get out of it.
The bath in our hotel was large and the hot water almost at boiling point. All seemed well.
But there were no handholds to help one get out. I had to have help, and then Margreet had to have help as well.
At least, many foreign baths have a handle to help – even though this handle is usually badly placed for comfort and success. This one had no handle at all.
But if one stood upright to have a shower, a handle was supplied – when it was not necessary.
I chose to have a bath and call for help when wanted.
Then I noticed that our bath towels were fairly long. So I asked Margreet to thread my bath towel through the shower handle.
With it doubled up I was able to reach it, to pull myself up, and then get out of the bath. Margreet was then able to do the same.
Do foreign plumbers ever have baths – or even think about how people can get out of them?
We had a day to ourselves for wandering and shopping, eating bitterballen at famous Hoppe and watching skaters in the Leidseplein, where, although the weather was warm, stalls were selling those Dutch batter delicacies of winter - oliebollen and proffertjes.
In the evening we watched the BBC programme concerning a purported portrait of Jane Austen. I had taken part in it to tell of the Gallerie de Seine and its owner, Anna de Goguel. But for the completed film they were not interested in her or the gallery, so my efforts were in vain. We found the programme to be extremely boring. There was no story and no conclusion.
Then it was time to return to England, firstly in a train to Brussels that was so crowded that even to get to the WC would have been impossible, and then to the Eurostar check-in at Brussels Midi Station.
At Security, we not only had to queue for a long time, but on passing through the metal detector several times – as I had forgotten to divest myself of various small items, I was asked to take off the belt holding up my trousers. So there I was, with several other men, trying to master plastic boxes of our metal bits and pieces with our trousers falling down.
Then came the rush, the cut and thrust, then the obvious delay as the security precautions had taken so much time. This could have been avoided had we all been allowed to pass through the checking procedures earlier.
Be that as it may, we were on our way home – with trousers secured.


.

Pheasant fried

Throughout an English winter, oven-ready pheasants are readily available in the markets or butchers’ shops. And because the birds are shot in great numbers (sometimes, we are told, even buried during a glut) pheasant meat is very reasonably priced.
Pheasants mainly consist of breast meat, with a little on the thighs and a worthless, tendony bit on the lower leg.
So cut off the breasts with a sharp knife (keeping the skin on if you feel like it) and pare away any upper leg meat.
Now hold the breasts between thumb and fingers to locate and extract any shot that may have lodged in the flesh.
Cook or freeze the meat, and pressure-cook the rest to make game stock for soups or stews.
Keep the small leg pieces for adding to stews or pies, and deal with the breast meat in the following way.

PHEASANT – FRIED

You will need:
One side of a pheasant’s breast for each person
Garlic (optional)
Olive oil
Butter
Flour
Shallots
Boiled potatoes
Pepper and salt
Watercress for presentation (optional)

Heat a good quantity of olive oil and butter in a frying pan. Add a little pressed garlic.
Coat the breasts well with pepper and salted flour.
Very gently fry the breasts in the oil/butter mixture for 10 minutes on each side. Set them aside.
In the remaining oil/butter fry 2 finely chopped shallots until just browning.
Add sliced boiled potatoes until just browning.
Add the cooked pheasant breasts.
Heat all through and serve, garnished with a few watercress fronds if there are any at hand.

Note: Should you be given feathered pheasants, slice through the skin down the peak of the breast and peel back the skin with its feathers attached. Now cut off the breasts for this dish and throw the rest away.

Perseverance, Application and Endurance

In the post-war Klees household, in Holland, it was thought that the two boys should go to University and the two (pretty) girls get married.
My wife, Margreet, the younger of the two girls, took a job in the E.E.C., and then progressed to the Dutch Foreign Service. There she worked in the Agricultural Department at postings in Africa and Europe, recently retiring as Agricultural Adviser at their London Embassy.
Margreet’s strengths were in writing, reporting, communication, and being a charming hostess and wonderful with people.
But throughout her working career she felt that not having a University degree was a great omission. She enrolled with the Open University, studying Social Sciences and the Arts. Occasionally she took periods off from studying. Her degree course was done in her spare time during full and exacting employment with the Dutch Government. And it was done in a foreign language – English.
When she had enough credits, she was able to embark on her final thesis. The project was “Europe: Culture and Identities, Inclusion and Exclusion in a Contested Continent”. For this she chose the artists Chagall and Pascin, then Chagall and Miró.
The results are through, and she has gained the Degree that she should have acquired in her youth, and with flying colours.
As close witness to her application and perseverance, I am lost in admiration for her – and immensely proud.

Garden, late summer 2011

Rain poured down in the summer, but pots on the ground still needed watering. And as nearly all my plants are in pots or plastic sacks, watering continued as usual.
Failures in the flower section have been few, with only impatiens failing after lots of spring and early summer colour. It seems that some disease or other has tackled them. So there may be a shortage of bedding plants next year.
I knew that pieris hates to be cut back severely, having once killed one with this treatment. But mine had to be cut back, which I did very gently. It should be all right in time. But it is angry with me.
Like treatment with my mahonia was accepted by the plant as a necessity.
An old pink fuchsia that was rather hidden by a new and very vigorous one, complained, and was given space and light. Its vigorous rival soars skyward and produces a profusion of red and purple flowers.
The two roses have fared well. Typhoon, as always, is unbeatable. And even the weaker Rev. P-R produced lots of flowers.
The camellia produced its column of springtime flowers, and a hydrangea and hibiscus, neither of which were particularly happy, were relegated to the dark passageway at the end of the garden. They have provided the required greenery, but have flowered reluctantly.
An agapanthus produced only one flower, so has been divided and re-potted for next year. But its blue flower head made the red pelargonium flowers around it seem more vibrant. Otherwise I might have scrapped it.
The pelargoniums mentioned, growing out of holes in a tall strawberry pot have been splendid, but I need to turn the pot every week to give the plants an equal amount of sunshine. Resting on top of the pot is a rustic bird bath, providing bath and drinking water for our birds.
To distribute water and nourishment to the pelargoniums in the strawberry pot, a plastic flower pot, through which I have drilled several well-positioned holes, has been sunk into the earth beneath the bird bath. This idea has been a success.
Hidcote lavender provided some flowers after over-severe pruning last winter. Its grey foliage has added a nice contrast to the greenery around it.
Near to this non-colour, cascade the scarlet flowers of Bolivian begonia, Firecracker. This has become one of our favourite plants. I will try to over-winter its corm, after failing to manage it before.
From the vegetable pots we harvested a good crop of Charlotte new potatoes. We will plant up another bucket of them next year in place of pink fir apple.
We have not come to a conclusion concerning the flavour and vigour of tomato varieties tried, but feel that after several experiments we will return to Gardener’s Delight and, perhaps, Moneymaker.
The spectacular success has been runner beans, grown over a constructed arbour of bamboos. We have had feasts of beans, harvesting them for the pot at only about 6” in length. Those beans missed among the foliage have grown too large for pleasant eating and have been allowed to grow for seed and beans. By regular cropping the beans have responded by desperately trying to form seed for their survival and have thus been very productive. We have even had enough to give to friends. Their added bonus has been that the many scarlet flowers have attracted bees, and helped to brighten up the garden.
The grape harvest was a strange one, with some bunches never ripening at all. But the quality of our first vinification of two gallons was with grapes in superb condition. The second harvest of one gallon included white and red grapes and will make a rather red rosé. So the quantity has been small, which means, usually, that the quality will be good. But we won’t know about the quality until we bottle and taste the wine just before Christmas.
Herbs have provided for our needs. And the asparagus tree (tied to a bamboo) gives frilly elegance to the garden.
Despite poor summer weather, our little garden has been a pleasure to the eye, and provided food for the kitchen.

Remembrance

When we remember the dead of two World Wars, we should also remember those who survived and then died directly or indirectly of their wounds. My father was one of the latter. The following account I may have put on my blog in the past. If so, it is timely to repeat it.

MESOPOTAMIA

The following is about my father’s part in the First World War – more specifically, his part in the Mesopotamia (now Iraq) campaign, described in his letters home to his mother.
Freddy Page-Roberts’s family lived in the 18th century Rectory, Stratfieldsaye, where his father (the great rosarian) was vicar to the Duke of Wellington. Freddy went to Marlborough, thence to Wye Agricultural College and on to Egypt as an employee of the British Government (Egypt was a Protectorate) to irrigate land with Nile water for agricultural purposes. In 1914, when working on these projects, war with the Germans seemed inevitable. So he returned to England as a Territorial to join his regiment, the 1st/4th Hampshires (although he had played cricket for the neighbouring county of Berkshire). After training on Salisbury Plain he was commissioned and sent to join the Indian Army in India.
In 1915, when the British army was engaged with the German army in trench warfare in France, and the Turks, in league with the Germans, ruled Mesopotamia, it was thought that to protect the allies’ oil supplies in the Persian Gulf, and to rule the Mediterranean waves, a force should occupy just southern Iraq. The Indians, who were to provide the soldiers, on the other hand, had in mind to conquer a Mesopotamia that had historically been a veritable Garden of Eden, colonise it with mass emigration, and return it to its productive state. And a conquered Mesopotamia would be a distant protection of its borders. Anyhow, the army were to beat back the Turks in this sector, about the same time as armies were to strike the Turk in the Dardenelles (where the Black Sea is linked to the Mediterranean).
To gain this foothold in southern Mesopotamia, an expeditionary force (IEFD – Indian Expeditionary Force D) was dispatched from India with mainly Indian soldiers and British officers (of which my father, now Captain FW Page-Roberts (age 25), was one).
The campaign was to be run from both the Empire’s HQ in London and the government in India, who provided the troops. With this divergent command structure and of separate national interests there was bound to be confusion and trouble.
After general chaos, without proper maps or understanding the terrain (mostly mud, water, many extremely vivid mirages and mosquito-infested reeds (let alone it being very cold by night and scorchingly hot by day), it came as rather a surprise that after some difficult fighting the Turks retreated northwards. Danders were up. Advance was almost unstoppable. Generals needed victories and glory.
The Turks were one thing, the indigenous Arabs quite another. The Turks fought like seasoned soldiers and were clearly the enemy. The tribal Arabs, on the other hand, whose allegiances were needed by both sides, resented occupation by both, and took advantage of both. Their method of fighting was to skirmish with stealth, shoot accurately, grab, and run. They were much feared as thieves, even causing the soldiers to sleep on their rifles for fear of them being stolen.
So it came about that my father was part of a force detailed to advance up the River Euphrates to take the strategic town of Nasariyah (sometimes spelt as Nasariyeh). This was to protect the western flank of the proposed operations. Maps and charts were useless, local boats, commandeered and weighed down by armour and guns, drew more than the general depth of water, so were a burden. Thick reeds had to be pushed through, scorching heat caused sunburn, no mosquito nets were available, the marsh Arabs skirmished, killed and stole, not to mention the wily Turk who defended from well-constructed positions and then retired strategically.
It is during this part of the campaign that my father wrote two letters home to his mother.

Near N……. (Nasariyah)
July 21st 1915
Just had mail of June 13th.

My dearest Mother,
It is some time since I wrote, but no boat has gone down from here, so it doesn’t make any difference.
We’ve had a very strenuous time. We went to the advanced trenches about a week ago. We went up by boat at night, landed, and after sundry jobs, got into the trenches at 12. p.m. Next morning we got up at 3.30 a.m., and they started shelling us at 4.30 and we had five or six hours under pretty heavy fire. My Company lost 2 killed and 3 wounded. We were in a very bad spot, as the night before one of the barges got stuck in the mud, and had to be left. This of course drew the enemy’s fire, and we happened to be in direct line about 50 yards short. It really wasn’t at all pleasant, especially as the third shot killed two. I thought we were in for a pretty bad time. If they had had high explosives, we should have been blown to bits, so the gunners say. We can’t dig trenches here, as water is just below ground. Meanwhile the 24th had gone out in boats on the left flank with some mountain guns to attack some sand hills, and had an awful time, five out of 13 officers killed and a hundred and thirty casualties.
Turks much stronger than expected, and hoards of Arabs. As a matter of fact, we all but went on that expedition, and if we had been a little stronger we should have gone. We buried a man called Birkbeck of the 24th Pujalies. Ask the Knights if he is a relation of the Farnham ones. Next day was quieter, but dreadfully hot, and we had to stay in marching order with no shade and no breeze. (I got a touch of the sun). In the evening at eight, we relieved the 76th in the advanced trenches, 600 yards from the Turks. We were lucky, and not fired on, till we settled in and were digging hard to improve cover, then they let loose.
Next day. Stood to arms at 3.15 a.m. and then started absolute torture till 7.39 p.m. Couldn’t move, not a breeze, and awful heat. Time goes very slowly, and we had severe heat strokes, one died. We had to dig for water, which was beastly. At 8.30 we were relieved and went back under a pretty heavy fire: got back all right, sweating like anything.
Next day I was feeling pretty rotten, and had a bit of temp., so came down here (hospital) at night, and am getting on all right. It’s only really an ambulance, with no attendance, and no food arrangements, but we get tents (double fly ones). Today it’s been 110 in the tent, so you can imagine what it was like under one waterproof sheet.
We may not be undergoing the hardships of France, but I should like to get the people who say we are having a picnic here. And put them out in our trenches.
More reinforcements have come up, and one aeroplane at last, which says the Turks are retiring to another position.
Hope we shall soon do something.
Love to all,
Your loving Freddy.


The next letter is headed Nasihirah, and dated July 27th, 1915.

My dearest Mother,
At last we are at Nasihirah, after nearly five weeks hard work and beastly heat. I believe the Indian Mutiny is the only other time that operations have been undertaken in an Asiatic summer. I am very disappointed, as I did not take part in the charge that turned the Turks out of their trenches on one side of the river, being still on the sick list. Three of us who were in Hospital joined the Battalion the night before the show, but were sent with the half-fit men in reserve on a barge, so missed the great show of this war. It was very annoying, but we were not fit, and wouldn’t have been much use for 24 hours of solid work. We started the shelling about 5 a.m., and about 7.30 we (only 120 strong and 9 officers) and the 7th Gurkhas left our advanced trenches for the enemy, and had a very hot time of it, and came under very heavy shell and rifle fire, and had to wait a bit, three quarters of an hour, under a wall before getting on. Meanwhile an iron barge was taken up to the creek we had to cross, about 200 yards from the Turks with sappers and miners and one of our companies. They had a very rough time, and the barge got practically blown to pieces and eventually sank. These men got off and lined the creek, covering the advance, while the sappers made bridges. The creek was supposed to be five feet deep, but turned out to be only three and quite fordable. Two of that Company were killed and most hit.
The Battalion and the Gurkhas then advanced and crossed the creek, cheered by the sappers and miners, and rushed to the trenches, from which the Turks were beginning to bolt, and by the time we got there were in full flight. Only about 20 of us, and 40 Gurkhas were up at first and cleared them out, 500 of them.
The W. Kents on the other side had gone like anything, straight at the trenches, and took them, but with pretty bad casualties. There were about 5000 Turks, and we had about 3000 at the most, our reserves were never used. Besides this they had a very strongly fortified position and excellent trenches. We got about 500 prisoners, and killed about 700, and took 16 guns. Not so bad.
Our casualties were about 350 all told.
We had Officers: 1 killed, 1 died of wounds, 3 wounded. Men: 8 killed, 1 died of wounds and 31 wounded. 44 in total.
Barton, our Adj. from the 2nd Battalion was killed soon after the start. He was one of the very best, and only married last August to an awfully nice girl. He will be a great loss to the Battalion.
Paul Simmons, of Basingstoke, died in the afternoon, hit through the liver. He was quite conscious about five minutes before he died. He was also one of the best, and I am awfully sorry about both of them. The Colonel was wounded, and rather lucky, as it just missed his lung, Osborn in chest, poor old fat Parsons broken arm.
This took place on the 24th of July (1915). We and the un-fit men spent the morning on the barge, and had shells pitching around. In the afternoon I did what I could for the wounded, and saw about burying the dead. At night the barge was towed up to the enemy’s trenches, where the men were, and next evening we came on to Nasihirah, and bivouacked, everyone tired out. Next morning I took 60 men to the barracks on the opposite bank to attend the salute of 21 guns, and the unfurling of the Union Jack. It is still very hot, but we can get some fresh meat and vegetables here, which is a great blessing.
The General came last night, and said we had done, with the Gurkhas (both very weak, 300 about) what a whole Battalion should have done, and we had done quite as well as regulars, and said we might be sent to India to join the rest, and recuperate a bit. I hope we shall go, as we are only about 100 strong, and rather worn out, and have had a good show. We’ve just heard Turkish reinforcements are about seven hours march away, but it’s not verified yet: we ought to give them a pretty warm time if they come.
Haven’t had mails for ages. Many thanks for chocolate. It’s rather melted, but when we get to ice, it will be all right, It’s very nice to be going strong, but I do wish I had been in the charge. Only 4 officers got there. My Company had 13 casualties out of 40.
Yours,

Freddy.


Now comes a large gap when either letters did not arrive, or they were lost, I will fill in the rough details as I know them.
This next letter concerns the headlong push north up the Tigris toward Kut, where the advance army was besieged by the Turks. Later, in an attempt to raise this siege, my father would be badly wounded in the Battle of Hanna. The fighting now described was chaotic, partly due to the speedy advance outstripping the length of available telephone cable back to Headquarters, and an almost complete breakdown of communication between those in command on the battlefield.



Indian Expeditionary Force D
Jan 11th 1916

My dearest Mother,
I am still going strong, and as comfortable as can be expected under the circumstances. Have left Amarah by boat, on the 13th of December (did not see the New Year in) arrived at Ali Gharbi on 1st Jan. Joined up with D Coy (Hugh North etc) all quite fit.
We stayed there until the 6th and then had orders to march. We did a forced march to Calel (?) past part of the force that had gone on in front about 20 miles, and arrived in camp after dark, which made things very difficult. It rained in the night, which didn’t add to the comfort. We had seen shells bursting all morning and next day we went on again about five miles and caught up the first force. Waited for orders, crossed the bridge and advanced towards our right flank to represent heavy reinforcements. We came under rather heavy shrapnel which burst all round. Luckily we only had 5 casualties in my Company. We went on for about one and a half miles and then retired. Got into camp near river and then had orders to march at 9 p.m. to a point of concentration preparatory
to a night march round our right flank. We waited from 11 to 4.30 with no blankets. Bitterly cold. At 4.50 we started again and marched about 6 miles down stream, but eventually found no trace of Turks, and came back to the bridge.
Directly we got back we had to go out again to take up a position on our right flank. We again came under heavy shrapnel, which luckily burst too high. We then dug some good trenches. In the evening it rained and made the trenches perfectly beastly and cold. Next morning it was misty and damp and we found the Turks had gone in the night. About 1 p.m. we returned to bridgehead and thought we were going to advance but got orders to cross over and look after a hospital there. We crossed by boat but didn’t get off, and we slept in the saloon in some comfort and had the first wash and shave for about five days. Yesterday we crossed over again and came up river about 7 miles and joined up with the rest of the force. It took us from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. to do it as we had a lot of cow guns and carts to get along over a very bad road. Then we had to wait to 3 a.m. for our valises and men and blankets. There was a very heavy dew and it froze in the night, so it was pretty beastly. Good day today and I think we rest here for the present. The casualties were very heavy about four thousand five hundred on our side, some of the regiments just arrived got it very badly. At present we don’t know where the Turks have gone.
We’ve had no mail for some time now. Hope to get one soon.
Cheerio. Hope you’re all well. Freddy.




I.E.F. D
Jan 16th 1916
My dearest Mother,
Just a line as I hear mail goes out in about half an hour. There’s nothing much to say except that we are having rather an unpleasant time but no more casualties as yet. I think I last wrote about the 11th. We are not yet in Kut owing to the Turks putting up a very good show in the way of a rear guard action.
There was another scrap about 3 days ago, which just missed being a great success. We hovered about in reserve and on preparing for action advanced to find the wily Turk had gone. We had some very cold wet nights without bedding or covering of any sort. But I’m glad to say we are again at the river and water will give us a chance to get at our parent boat and tents.
The troops from France are beginning to find this not such a picnic as they thought, especially the little things like medical comforts which of course one can’t expect to be as good here, as there.
We had a service on the boat this morning.
We got a mail three days ago, which had been done a long time and dated Dec 7th (latest). While on treck it would be very nice to receive food and chocolate. Mess stores are not very plentiful.
All the officers except Foster are fit and well and full of life.
Glad to hear you’re all going strong. Please thank father for his letter. Love to all

Your loving Freddy.




Hospital, Basra.
Feb. 2nd 1916

My dearest Mother,
I’ afraid you haven’t had a regular supply of letters lately, but we have been wandering about all over the country, and I really haven’t had any letters between the 9th and 27th of December. One is somewhere up river and the other went down on the Persia. I hope Nan (?) Crane wasn’t on it.
I hope you got the telegram about me being hit all right. After being in reserve the lst two shows and only coming under shell fire, we were supporting the attack on 21st over an absolutely open piece of ground with a long way to go, and the poor old Regiment got cut about badly, all the officers except I were hit and about 90% of the men. A good many are missing as we got into their trenches but couldn’t stay there. Next day there was an armistice but a lot were not found.
I expect (SS Varela, Feb5) you saw the casualty list so I won’t write them all over again, but the Turks managed to pick out the very best of the bunch. All my friends in the Regiment are gone or else up in Kut and now the Colonel has gone. I don’t know about what will become of us. Absolutely the very best of the officers were killed or missing, and I’m afraid there’s not much hope for the missing.
Poor old Hugh was killed instantaneously which is better than it might have been.
I am very glad to hear you are going strong and had a successful operation at last. You seem to have been well looked after by all the doctors. I expect that by the time you get this you will be about again.
As to my wound, I got hit about 200 yards from their trenches high up on the left thigh and couloid (?) nerve. They potted at me all day but luckily didn’t get me again. I was hit about 8 am and lay out that day and night till about 3.30 next morning when some stretcher bearers luckily came along, and after a very adventurous journey (as it had been raining all the time and the place was a mass of mud and ditches full of water) I got to an ambulance about 7 am. I lay in the mud there after having some rum till about 10 am, and got onto a boat at about 12 pm and into some dry blankets.
On the 24th I got onto another boat going down stream, full of British casualties who made a beastly noise all night. Of course it rained and the water poured onto my bed. We dined on bully and biscuits most of the way down and eventually got to Basra on the 28th and into a bed in hospital and had a decent meal.
On Feb 3rd we got onto the hospital ship Varela and are now on our way to Bombay, thank goodness.
I think after 11 months of Mesopotamia one wants a bit of a change.
The bullet must have hit the bone but very luckily didn’t break it, but cut the nerves. And I can’t at present move my left foot or leg below the knee much.
I don’t know if it will be a long job or not. If I get any convalescent leave I shall try to get to Cashmere for a bit. I’m afraid there’s not much chance of getting to England.
The food on board is top hole and I’ve had the first decent meal since we arrived in this country 11 months ago. Quite a change after picnicking for so long, and very hard not to overeat.
They’ve got some nursing sisters out now from India at Basra which makes a lot of difference to the running of the hospital, as the orderlies are only picked up from regiments in the country. We have got a lot of men doing orderlies who’ve had practically no training. A few RAMC men did come with the troops from France.

Colaha Hospital. Bombay Feb 10th 1916
We arrived here last night after a very good trip with only one morning at all rough.
We got off Bombay Harbour about 11 am, took some time to get into docks and I eventually got into an ambulance at about 6.30. And so to the Hospital about 20 minutes run. It’s a very fine hospital on the sea, but unfortunately I can’t see out.
My ward is quite nice and high and airy. 18 beds, not all full.
The Major examined me this afternoon and says they’ll explore the nerve (sciatic) to see what’s wrong, and that I shall probably be sent to England as it will be rather a long job.
It will be top hole getting back for a bit.
I heard from Mrs. Bowker who is at Poona and of course very upset about the Colonel. I am sorry for her. I think she’s nursing at a Poona Hospital. If I do stay in India I hope I go there.
I can’t hear many details about my Company. A lot got down river before I got in, and are now all over India.
I believe I was reported killed in the Indian papers. I hope you got the wires I sent all right.
Well I hope I shall soon be home and find everyone fit.
Love to all.
Your loving Freddy



My father doesn’t mention the blood loss, pain, being left for dead among the dead, building a coffin of mud around him for protection and the rain filling this coffin with bloody water, twice falling off the stretcher on the bearer’s three and a half hour treck to an ambulance station, or the unsprung cart that then transported his wounded body to the river Tigris. But he was lucky to have escaped death at Hanna, where 3,600 of his comrades were killed.
He never really recovered from this dreadful experience, living his life as a barely successful chicken and mushroom farmer through the great depression, and with his foot held up by a spring connected to a collar around his leg.
Desperate for good health, he took the great elixir of the time discovered by Madame Curie – radium. This destroyed his blood, and he died in 1938, aged 48.

Plundered Roofs

A house in our street that had been converted from garages sported downstairs door and window projections covered with lead sheeting. These protuberances broke up the otherwise dull façade, and the lead/grey rooflets added a mellow charm to the frontage.
This fine covering should have lasted for many a lifetime. But one morning, after some 15 or more years of the building’s life, the lead had gone – ripped off in the night by thieves.
The ragged bits of lead flashing remained attached to the walls, turning the building into an ugly mess – stripped of its charm.
The thieves were brave, as in front and around were occupied homes, all beneath street lights, where anyone witnessing the nocturnal event could have called the police.
The owner of the house then had the projections covered with slates and dark, quarry, ridge tiles. The result was adequate, but now rather clumsily heavy compared with the original lead.
In a remote way, and many years ago, I may have been party to such lead theft.
I was sculpting in lead, melting it on my kitchen stove and casting the poisonous liquid metal in home-made casts of plaster-coated wood.
In those days I lived in London’s dockland, well before its elevated development took place.
The correct way then, in that area of the East End, was to make it known in a now non-existent pub that was frequented by police and criminals, what commodity one wanted. As if by magic it soon arrived – to be paid for in cash, of course.
You did not ask questions about the origin of anything that came one’s way. For all I knew, my lead came from people like those who stole the lead here in Hammersmith.
When that lead was stolen not far down our street, I was made aware that over the porches of each of our six terraced houses was also lead covering, secured mostly by its weight and a few very inadequate nails.
So I went to the screw box and secured the lead roofing on my porch with four screws (now rusting and very visible) on each side. And I knocked in a few wide-headed galvanised nails in between – just to make sure.
A day or two ago I left my house shortly after 7 o’clock in the morning to collect the paper, and on returning was astounded to see that the lead on my neighbour’s porch roof had been ripped away in the night. Only the contorted flashing attached to the brickwork’s pointing remained.
The thieves had also tried to lever away my own lead covering, but to no avail.
I have spoken to others in our terrace, and some have now secured their porch roofing with screws.
What kind of thieves would risk judicial punishment by stealing such a small quantity of lead, right beneath a street light and with people around?
It was certainly a quiet job, as, on a still night, none of us heard a thing.

Dieppe Autumn 2011

I have written a lot about Dieppe in this blog. I write once more because of the changes there since we last visited this delightful French port more than a year ago.
It is, as usual, our favourite “abroad” place for a few days of complete change, gastronomic delights (mainly fish) and a source for acquiring good wine at a reasonable price. The saving on our car-full of wine pays for our break. Could one ask for more?
I have pretty well squeezed everything I wanted from a few drawings on postcards made at the International Kite Festival there in 2008. These will appear, in bright pastel form, in A4 and A1 size, in due course. The only kite flying during our visit this time was in the shape of an octopus. It was of no interest to me as kites like it, and many other exotic ones, had already reached my canvasses.
My kites are compositions of shape and colour, set in simple landscape. I doubt if any would actually fly. But pictorial representation is not what I am about in art.
I had never noticed before, and certainly not remarked upon, that the ground floors of at least two large shops in Dieppe undulated. To shop there entailed walking gently up and down hill. Floors are usually flat.
Shops change in Dieppe with some regularity. Those that do are mostly clothes shops. Department stores, food and vegetable shops stay the same - as does the smaller twice-weekly market and the large one on Saturdays. A shop where we once bought wine equipment and Pro-Ven-Di soap (soap on a chromium stick, bolted to the wall above a basin) was closed. But we had already managed (in England) to buy that soap, from France, through the Internet.
We discovered this time that it is best to shop early at the large out-of-town supermarket. There are then assistants available to help, and empty wine boxes to use. “Early”, in Dieppe, is before 10 o’clock, when shops open. Around 9.30 appeared to be an ideal time to visit the supermarket, when shelves were being re-stocked and those empty wine boxes available. We need the boxes to make the best use of space when filling the back of our car – to the brim.
A film was being made at the yachting harbour quay. Just whether one of the car ferries was involved we did not discover. But it left the inner port, wandered around off-shore, and came back to moor all night and brightly lit where vessels generally offload sand and gravel for the building industry.
Margreet estimated that the cost of food and goods had risen by 30% in just over a year. But we know where we can still eat lunch splendidly and cheaply, with unlimited red wine and cider. We sit with workmen (no women there), which does give us a direct link with France and the French. I can usually make myself understood, but Margreet, with her command of languages, has to translate the replies to me.
For the first time we were short changed (£5) after eating at the popular Tout Va Bien brasserie, where the harbour stops and the main street starts. The brasserie was under new management. Margreet soon sorted that matter out. The waiter knew exactly what he had done.
A most horrible bronze sculpture, forming part of a roundabout outside the brasserie has been dispensed with. But it had been replaced by another that was almost as offensive.
Dog mess, always a hazard in Dieppe in the past, has been considerably reduced – thank havens. One can now look forward and upward when walking – well, most of the time.
But for me the greatest and most welcome change in Dieppe has been one of convenience. It is that having virtually abolished the pissoire in France, Dieppe, most sensibly, has re-installed them – two, one in the main square and market place, and another near to where fresh fish is sold from stalls by the yachting harbour. Hooray for good sense – and less pollution.
The car ferry is underused out of season, and makes the less than four hour crossing more pleasant. And queuing through the system does give one a chance to talk with strangers. One man supplied organic vegetables to major supermarkets, which is a multi million pound operation. And a motorcycle enthusiast’s BMW fell over in the Austrian Alps, which cost the manufacturer a great deal of money in lodgings, replacement and repair, as it was still under warranty.
He was about to take one of his old bikes on a rally of vintage machinery in northern Spain. We once travelled back by ship from there with the same group of enthusiasts. So we asked if he would give our regards to someone who helped us out with a starting problem. This man could hardly be missed as he rode a bike with his wife in the sidecar. But what was more unique was the fact that he had adapted the bike so that he could manage to ride it one-handed – having lost an arm in an accident.
By talking to people you can make an otherwise boring trip quite good fun.