PC 320 The Atacama (2)

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We continue …. (see PC 319) ……

In my first postcard about The Atacama I mentioned San Pedro being known locally as the ‘Clay Town’. A few kilometres to the south east lies the little town of Toconao, known as the ‘Brick Town’. Unlike San Pedro’s red clay rendering, the houses here are faced with bricks and stone from a nearby quarry.

Toconao church; its door is made from cactus wood

Such is the height of the extinct volcanoes that make up the Andes range, running some 8900kms from the southern tip of Chile to the Caribbean Sea, on the Atacama plateau they are always there, on the horizon, out of the corner of your eye. (Note 1) 

One lagoon worth visiting is Tebinquinche, for it had enough water for a swim, although the salt content was so high floating was the only option! The local tourism organisation had built a changing and showering block, both essential with the heat and the need to rid oneself of the covering of salt.

We were joined on this outing by a German couple and another from France. The elderly German was conspicuous as he was 2.02m (6ft 8”) tall and naturally had played basketball!! I asked the Frenchman Pierre where he came from and he said Lyon. After the normal pleasantries I said I had recently watched the film ‘Resistance’ on British television, about Marcel Mangel (aka Marceau) and how he aided the escape of hundreds of Jewish children out of the sadistic clutches of Klaus Barbie during the Nazi occupation of Lyon. Interestingly his wife immediately said that no one talked about that time, reflecting the difficulties any population has living under foreign occupation, how whole families were torn apart by shifting loyalties and how the repercussions echo down the decades to this day.

An overcast sky meant the ‘Stars & Fire’ tour was cancelled so we missed the opportunity to lie on our backs at midnight and gaze into the heavens. By reputation the skies in the deserts of the world are wonderful. Naturally volcanoes have hot springs and geysers. Andrea and Andreas, our Berlin friends from our first excursion, went out to one, the early hotel departure time dictated by when the geysers normally gush. When they arrived it was about 0615 and -8C, but fortunately soon warmed up!

Our third venture into the dry landscape was to Rainbow Valley (Valle del Arcoiris), lying in the Rio Grande basin about 90kms from San Pedro. Our Trekana guide this time was an ebullient Argentinian called Nicholas, who had married and settled in San Pedro. Joel, who runs a leather fashion-ware company in Boulder, Colorado and his wife Elke who has an online leather bags business (www.byelke.com) were our companions.

The Rainbow Valley landscape was extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. We went from: “Wow!”

……to “blimey!”

….. to an unspoken: “I really can’t believe this!”

The valley obviously owes its name to the various colours of the rock formations – red, beige, green, white, yellow and blue, overlaid with white salt and under a deep blue sky. We have all seen the results of a copper roof oxidising over some years, the roof developing a blue/green patina. Here it was in nature!

On the day of our flight back to Santiago, we had breakfast overlooking the Valle de Luna, before driving down into it for a 45 minute walk. It’s not often you can have some fruit, yogurt and coffee with this sort of view:

Our companions on this trip were eight Chileans up from Conceptión, just south of Santiago, for a long weekend; four of them were surgeons. Leonardo was married to a surgeon but was actually a real estate/property developer and thinking of emigrating to New Zealand. Being British my thoughts go east and around the world to ‘Down Under’. If you’re Chilean you simply look west!

Conspiracy theorists and other nutters have often claimed that the moon landing of 1969 was faked! Well, they could easily have been somewhere here in Luna Valle, such was its dramatic mixture of craters and cliffs and dunes and aridness.

And how do you get to the Atacama? Unless you’re rich enough to fly your private jet into Calama, us mortals fly via Chile’s capital Santiago. We bookended our Atacama trip with two nights in the Ismail 312 hotel, just on the north side of Barrio Lastarria. Our first night was disturbed by a loud party across the river and shortened by the airlines requiring one to be at the airport three hours before our departure time! Drifting around Barrio Lastarria before our flight back to Rio, we recognised the restaurant that Franco took us to in February 2017 on our first trip to Santiago (PC 89)

The more I travel, the more I need to understand what makes a country tick, at least understand how they got to be what they are today and their place on the world’s stage. So having established that copper is Chile’s major export, it was interesting on this trip to learn that Lithium is being extracted from deep beneath the salt flats of The Atacama. Lithium (Li) is the least dense metal and the least dense solid element and has been used to treat depression and mania for centuries. More recently it’s become the star of modern battery development, so important in the burgeoning Electric Car industry. And by the way, it’s unlikely you’ve eaten Chilean cherries recently, as almost 9/10th of the country’s total production, for instance some 352,000 tonnes in 2021, is exported to China.

As far as Chile is concerned, its small population of 19.5 million gives it a GDP per capita US$24,474. Compare this with its continental neighbour Brazil, with its population of 214 million and GDP per capita US$15,553, some 60% of that of Chile. (Note 2 & 3)

So pleased we now have some experience of The Atacama; a beautiful, wild, unearthly and fascinating place. I urge you to go and see it!

Richard 3rd February 2023

Rio de Janeiro

www.postcardscribbles .co.uk

Note 1 The highest mountain, Aconcagua and 6961m high, lies in the Mendoza Province of Argentina, just to the north east of Chile’s capital Santiago.

Note 2 The United Kingdom has a population 67 million and GDP per capita US$44,920.

Note 3 Chile is ranked 58, Brazil 82 and the UK 26 in a comparative list of the GDP per capita of 190 countries.

PC 319 The Atacama (1)

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Chile has always been an intriguing country, so long and so thin, stretching for over 4270kms from its border with Bolivia in the north to its tip on the bottom of the Americas and, on average, only 177kms east to west. For its entire length the mountain range of The Andes defines its geography and ecosystems. But the geo-political entirety of the country only came together in the 1880s, when Chile triumphed in the War of the Pacific and annexed Peru’s southern shoreline and Bolivia’s entire Pacific coast, so land-locking the latter country. At the same time, its troops conquered the indigenous Mapuche people and their land south of Santiago was subsumed into modern Chile.

Down south, the region known as Patagonia is shared with Argentina, the Chilean side characterised by glacial fjords and temperate rainforest whilst it’s the Argentinian side of the Andes that has arid steppes and deserts. North of the squeezed middle with the cities of Santiago (See PC 89 Franco’s Santiago 2017) and Valparaiso lies one of the driest places on earth, the Atacama desert and to its north east lies the tourist town of San Pedro de Atacama.

Main Street, San Pedro

Distinguished by the reddish colour of its clay buildings, it’s …. “a town set on a high plateau in the Andes mountains of north-eastern Chile. Its dramatic surrounding landscape incorporates desert, salt flats, volcanoes, geysers and hot springs. The Valle de la Luna nearby is a lunar-like depression.”

Enough of a basic geography lesson, or reminder (?) Why, you might ask, is this postcard seemingly from Latin America? As Covid travel restrictions eased, in November last year we planned to return to Rio de Janeiro and thought about ‘doing the Atacama and Patagonia’, such is the success of Chile’s tourism advertising; these two, plus Easter Island, have become the go-to destinations.

Luckily one of my Godsons is married to the co-founder of a UK travel agent who specialises in Latin America (www.latinroutes.co.uk). The first draft suggestions from Latin Routes covered both the Atacama and Patagonia. Scrutiny of the journey from the Atacama to Patagonia revealed an early start, two interconnecting flights and, after arriving in Punta Arenas Airport late in the day, a six hour trip in a 4×4 to the lodge. This would not have been a holiday so Patagonia will have to wait for another time!

San Pedro in the centre, mountain lakes bottom right and Rainbow Valley due north

I hadn’t realised how much one might be affected by a change of altitude. Rio de Janeiro is, obviously, at sea level (doh!) and Santiago at 570m. We arrived in northern Chile and drove into San Pedro de Atacama, which lies at 2450m. Someone mentioned we might feel its effects but I can only describe it as walking across a swinging rope bridge, not quite sure where my next step would be and whether my legs were moving independently! On our first excursion we ended up at the mountain lakes of Miscanti and Miniques at 4150 metres.

Fortunately I was wearing a T shirt from the Dutch ‘Iceman’ Wim Hof with ‘Breathe …. Motherf***kers’ emblazoned across the chest! You needed to consciously breathe full breathes and take short steps.

For our first excursion our Trekana guide Mauricio had met us at our Noi Casa hotel and we joined Andrea and Andreas from Berlin and another couple from Madrid. We were staying in the same hotel as Andrea & Andreas and got to know them; we hope to keep in touch. We drove out to the large salt flats of Laguana Chaxa, the ‘Salar de Atacamas’, lying some 30 minutes south of San Pedro in the Los Flamencos National Reserve.

Actually ‘large’ is an inadequate word, as they extend some 150kms south, are 65kms wide and over a kilometre and a half deep. ‘Deep’ as in salt minerals; the surface water is only about 3 feet deep. (Note 2) The attraction here is the three species of flamingos, the Chilean, the Andean and the James’.

From there we went up into the mountains (see map), to those charming lakes of Miscanti and Miniques. It freezes hard up here in the winter but we were lucky with some sun, before a shower of rain. (Note 3)

We drove back towards San Pedro de Atacama and stopped for a picnic lunch at the junction of an old Inca trail and the Tropic of Capricorn (Note 4). Just a line on a map, this latitude of the ‘Tropic of Capricorn’, but walking out down the dusty Inca trail, away from everyone else, lovely to let one’s mind imagine the traffic this path had experienced thousands of years ago; footprints, sandal impressions, the hoof  tracks of donkeys and llamas, but now simply dust.

The Tropic of Capricorn crossing an ancient Inca trail moving off northwards

Part Two to follow next week.

Richard 27th January 2023

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PS As an aside, some of you will have read my postcards from our trip to the north of South Island New Zealand in 2020 (PCs 169 and 170), when I wanted to visit the sand spit where, in August 1877, a seventeen year old girl, who later became my great grandmother, was shipwrecked and rescued some days later. I needed a travel agent with very local knowledge of the area, so went onto Google Earth, zoomed into the town of Nelson and located a travel agent on Trafalgar Street, World Travellers. Then it was a simple task to ask by email whether they could do the international stuff in addition to the local detail. The result was absolutely perfect.

Note 1 Chile is the most prominent example of an elongated type of territorial morphology; other examples include Norway and Vietnam.

Note 2 Compare with the Pantanal, (see PC 17 and 20 2014) the world’s biggest wetland, some 800kms north to south, 500kms east to west, with a height difference of some one metre over its whole length. The Pantanal lies east over The Andes from The Atacama, straddling the borders of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia. Oddly they are at about the same latitude, one of the driest places on earth and one of the wettest; separated by the great mountain range of the Andes!

Note 3.Despite it being summer in the southern hemisphere, the months of January and February mark the Altiplanic winter here, with occasional heavy rain storms. Bizarre huh?

Note 4 Simon Reeve, a British author and travel documentary maker, made a fascinating journey along the Tropic of Cancer and along the Tropic of Capricorn. Amongst his other programmes is one entitled The Americas; the part about Chile is intriguing.

PC 89 Franco’s Santiago

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Tuesday: Hello! My name’s Franco and I work as a tour guide in Santiago, the city of my birth. Tuesday I agree with Alberto that he would take the Spanish-speaking tourists and I would do the tour in English. By the time I get to the meeting point in front of the cathedral in the Plaza des Armes, a German couple are already there; five minutes before the tour starts, an English-speaking couple arrive in a bit of a lather, having been dropped off by the taxi driver three blocks away at 0950. Five minutes after the tour is due to start three Brazilians saunter up, chatting on their phones, not realising they are late; well, what’s late to a Brazilian? Anyway, enough of moaning, I welcome them, explain it’s a ‘free’ tour but ask they show their appreciation at the end. Oh! And they can’t miss me in my red T shirt with ‘Free Tour’ emblazoned across the front.

For the next four hours I take this motley multinational group, some 30 people, around the central part of Santiago. I hope I’ve learned enough about the history of my city and country to make it interesting. I am no expert although I know if one says anything with enough conviction people will believe you! We move off across the Plaza to a statue in one corner and I start: “General Pedro da Valdiva, regarded as the founder of the city of Santiago, sits here on his horse, immortalised in bronze; you may notice that strangely the horse has no saddle or tackle! The year is 1541, the year the city was established by the Spanish. Valdiva took a fifteen-year-old Mapuche slave as his personal aide and over a few months taught him to ride. So good was the indigenous native he was put in charge of the general’s stables. But the smart chap escaped, with all the horses, returned to his tribe, taught them about Spanish tactics in warfare and successfully engaged the invader in numerous battles. As a result, Spanish rule didn’t extend south of Santiago for more than two hundred years.” Satisfied they all seem to understand, my English not being 100%, we  set off to the opposite corner of the plaza for here is a lovely sculpture of a Mapuches native, although to add authenticity it’s cracked and off centre, as if damaged in an earthquake.

Back to the script: “These Indians remained a real headache for the Chilean government for over two hundred years until eventually the order went out to exterminate them. A severed head had a bounty on it; women were enslaved.” (Ed.

The European empire builders have a sorry record of treating the indigenous people cf The Aboriginals in Tasmania) “Chile eventually stretched south right down through Patagonia to the tip of South America and was granted independence from Spain in 1810.”

A rather plump lady asks why is it called Chile. “Well, actually in the Inca language the word for cold is ‘chile’!” Some laughter ripples around the group.

The tour takes in the obvious buildings a state capital must have, eg the Opera House, the Stock Exchange but I sense they are rather underwhelmed by these Baroque buildings. The centre of the city is, I know, a little uninspiring, block after block of close streets, of choking endless traffic ….. and waiting at pedestrian lights to see the little running green man! So much of the shopping takes place in little arcades hidden away from the hot sun. And it is hot today; 36C! After a while I notice the group is slightly smaller (either the hot sun taking its toll or the fact that my ‘free’ tour was coming to an end and it had been made clear a ‘donation’ was expected!!)

Of course I had to cover the political stories of the C20th as, although the names of Allende and Pinochet were probably well known, I needed to be sure they really grasped what happened. “On 1st September 1971 Salvador Allende, a left leaning politician, became president, elected on a platform of social reform, not through the use of violence but through social gatherings and discussion – ‘with wine not guns’.

At this time the geopolitical world was often split into either extreme right wing or extreme left wing governments Eg Castro’s Cuba, Franco’s Spain, Soares’ Portugal, Mao’s China, Nixon’s USA. For two years the right wing, both in Chile and abroad, plotted to undermine Allende’s economic plans to create a more equal society. The USA were particularly concerned as they had invested heavily in Chile and were worried that the socialist government would nationalise foreign-owned companies. There was huge American CIA involvement and copies of letters from Richard Nixon, urging the right wing to act, exist. 

Two years after coming to power, in 1973, Allende’s economic strategy was in ruins and the people disgruntled. General Pinochet, as Head of the Army, gave Allende an ultimatum: “You have two hours to get out of the palace.” Tanks and snipers appeared around the building.

At this particular moment on my tour, we are standing in front of this presidential palace, Palacio La Moneda. I look at the group and they clearly are imagining the armoured vehicles and soldiers and feeling the sense of drama.

“Allende gave one last TV address from his office and was either killed when the airforce bombed the building or committed suicide. “Placed in an historic transition,” he said, “I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life.” He was 63! Another pivotal ’11th of September’ as the coup d’ état ushered in a military dictatorship under General Pinochet.“

“Pinochet’s rule ran for almost twenty years. According to Thor Halvorssen, President of the Human Rights Foundation,:

“He shut down parliament, suffocated political life, banned trade unions, and made Chile his sultanate. His government disappeared 3,200 opponents, arrested 30,000 (torturing thousands of them) … Pinochet’s name will forever be linked to the Desaparecidos, the Caravan of Death, and the institutionalised torture that took place in the Villa Grimaldi complex.”    

In addition, he changed the Constitution in 1980 so that he could remain influential if he stepped down. And step down he did, after enormous pressure from the international community, in 1990. The new Constitution allowed him to take up his old position of Commander-in-chief of the Army and he later become a state senator, eventually dying aged 92. (See note)”

“Why is there an Avenue de Bernado O’Higgins?” asks a tall gaunt chap with an umbrella to shield him from the sun.  “Well, it’s named after a very successful ruler in the early decades of Chile.” “Not Irish then?” “No! Spanish.”

I get quite animated telling the story of coffee in Chile. “It may surprise you to know that coffee was not drunk in Chile until the 1970s when instant coffee first appeared. Then an enterprising woman opened a coffee shop but it was short lived because the coffee was not sweet enough. A different coffee shop developed, one run by woman and staffed by women, where you could have a coffee – but the attraction was not really the coffee, it was the fact that it was served by scantily clad girls, who would come and chat to you while you drank your coffee. These establishments have darkened windows so outsiders could not see what was going on inside.” We were walking through a shopping arcade at the time and I point out just such a coffee shop; some of the group sneak a peep when the door opened, sure enough ……! I assume they think sexism is rife throughout Chilean culture today, but then I tell them that Starbucks has recently opened outlets in the capital which is challenging this somewhat outdated enterprise.

I take them out into Parque Forestal, firstly to the German fountain and then the French one, both given to mark the centenary of the nation in 1910. Many statesmen came to Santiago but sadly the president, Pedro Montt, died on 16 August, four days before the celebrations …… so they went to his funeral ….. and that of his Vice President Fernandez Albano who died four days later! Subsequent gatherings were somewhat muted! (Ed Compare this with what happened in England. Queen Victoria died in 1901. The coronation of Edward VII was due to take place in London on 26 June 1901and the kings and queens, emperors and empresses, presidents and prime ministers from around the world converged on the capital city. Edward suddenly had to have an emergency appendix operation on 24th June and the whole thing was postponed for a month. Imagine the chaos!)

The Canadian couple from a cruise ship docked at Valparaiso (ed. some 120 kms away on the coast) ask how often I do the tour. “Every day apart from Sunday.”

Just to the east of Parque Forestal there’s a rather strange looking office building, the home of Movistar, a communications company. It dates from 1993, and was designed to look like a …. mobile telephone …….. and clearly is now very dated!!

We pass numerous street dogs and there is obvious concern; more for these unfortunate animals than for the street-living humans, of which there are many. Proudly I tell them that a neighbourhood would adopt the local dogs, raise money for vet’s bills, and build a shelter in the nearest park so they had somewhere to sleep when it was cold or wet. Lovely idea huh!

“What’s the mainstay of the Chilean economy?” asks the Englishman.  “Copper” I say, “it’s mined out in the northern deserts.”

During the wander through the crowded streets I’ve pointed out the street stalls selling watermelon drinks, the stalls selling sweet pancakes …. and at about 1230 we stop by a restaurant in Barrio Lastarria for a 30 minute break (Well, I know the owner and he gives me a percentage; helps my bank balance!). I tell them we Chileans love sweet stuff. Ordinary beer is too bitter so we add Fanta! A real favourite dish is beef, French fries, fried eggs, fried onions, topped with corn purée with sugar on top and then placed under the grill. You have heard of Piscosour; here we take Peruvian Pisco, lemon sugar and ice and then, as that’s too sour, add Coca Cola.

Santiago does have a river, the Mapocho, but it is very fast flowing and muddy ……. a little like an open sewer and not attractive at all.

We cross over it on our way to Barrio Bellavista. (Ed. Most capital cities of the world stand on a major river or on the coast of their countries. I say most, as I can immediately think of Canberra and Brazilia which don’t but they were artificially created, if I can use that expression)

Four hot and dusty hours later, we finish the tour at the home of the mistress of famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. (Ed. Famous to those who love poetry, I guess) La Chascona ( meaning a woman with unruly red hair) was actually Matilde Umutia ….. but then you probably knew that as well? I thank them for their attention; well thank those who have lasted to the end, stress the ‘donations keep this business going’ aspect of the ‘Free Tour’ and hope I’ll see them again. Another group tomorrow!

Franco/Richard February 2017

Ed. Note: Those of my readers who live in the UK may remember when Pinochet was in London for some medical procedure in 1998 …… and was arrested on the orders of a Spanish judge on charges under international Human Rights laws ……. He was placed under ‘house arrest’ until the then Home Secretary, a chap called Jack Straw, under huge pressure to either release him or send him to Spain, after 16 months ordered him free to return to Chile on compassionate grounds. In 2004, four years after his return to Chile, he was arrested to stand trial for some 300 criminal charges; he died two years later.

PC 478 Eating Habits

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I have to assume that none of my readers have actually ever been starving, although they may have screamed something to that effect at some moment. Starving is a horrible situation to be in and for some parts of the world starvation stalks people too readily. You may remember Stalin confiscated Ukraine’s wheat harvest in 1932; in the year that followed some 3.9 million, 13% of the population, starved to death. (See PC 273 ‘Stories to Tell’ March 2022)

Malnutrition follows and, unless there’s a slow reintroduction to energy-giving food, the physical effects become irreversible. That is life limiting.

In developed countries we seem to get into fixed routines when it comes to eating. Breakfast starts the day, something in the middle, called lunch in the southern half of England but often ‘dinner’ in the North, then supper/tea/dinner after you’ve stopped working. Other opportunities to put food in your mouth might be mid-morning, traditionally called ‘elevenses’ in Britain or simply ‘coffee’. In my Army service, in barracks most things stopped for ‘coffee’; down to the various messes or canteen, a quick peruse of the morning papers, a chance to talk to others not in your sub-unit, and then back to work. Afternoon tea for the middle and upper classes would have been tea, sandwiches and maybe a slice of cook’s latest cake; for the workers it was their main meal of the day. Who can forget Shirley Valentine’s husband Joe, in the film of the same name, arriving back from work, expecting steak for his tea, only to find that she’s fed it to a friend’s Bloodhound; ‘But it’s Tuesday. I always have steak on Tuesday!’

Fortunately you have a choice, to find some food and put it into your mouth …. and no one is forced-fed!

When I started my executive coaching career, I became a member of The Institute of Directors on Pall Mall in central London, so I could use the meeting rooms to engage with my clients. The huge oil paintings of the great and the good of the C19th that hung around the large rooms communicated a sense of ‘anything is possible’; that’s how I saw them, although I never asked a client their take! Sometimes for lunch I had a sandwich at my table, but more often-than-not I walked across Pall Mall and up the Royal Opera Arcade to an Italian-run Deli.

The arcade itself had a curious mix of tenants; today it lists an art gallery, a ‘Synergy Chinese Medical Centre’, a stationers and bookshop, a diamond merchant and the back door to the New Zealand High Commission, as well as the sandwich centre. This was a busy place at lunchtime, and the energised staff recognised their regulars with a big smile and wave: “The usual?” It was gloriously theatrical! Then my ‘usual’ was slices of rare roast beef in a granary bap with some horseradish sauce and masses of fresh black pepper; I can taste it now ….. to die for!

Another London lunchtime favourite was egg mayonnaise in a brown bap with masses of black pepper, and an apple, when I worked for Short Brothers in Glen House in Victoria. The usual? We do get into habits about food, don’t we.

My body screams ‘sugar please’ when I come back from hot yoga, where I’ve lost over a litre of sweat ….. so need liquid and sugar. I got into the habit of having a large bowl of cornflakes, with granulated sugar, full fat milk and an apple or banana; then some Cadbury’s Whole Nut! Over the months my weight gradually increased; not surprising! Then last year I got quite severe food poisoning on our TAP flight from Rio de Janeiro, took ten days to recover completely, lost weight and recognised here was an opportunity to change my habits. So now my ‘usual’ is a salad of crayfish tails, anchovies, tomatoes and cucumber.

A yoga chum passed me Chris van Tulleken’s paperback ‘Ultra-Processed People – Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food …. And Why Can’t We stop?’, as he thought I might like to read it. He had absorbed its contents lying in his evening bath and the back cover had clearly had alternating periods of being wet and drying out. In some strange way it made me want to read it more!

If you think van Tulleken’s name’s familiar, it’s probably because his ideas were popular with the late Michael Mosely, whose television series about food, particularly about intermittent fasting, low-carbohydrate and the ketogenic diets, made him a household name. 

In 2017 British consumers spent just 8% of their household budget on food; this compares with only 6% in the USA, but 11-14% in Germany, Norway, France and Italy for example. Research by the Food Foundation shows that the poorest 50% of households would need to spend almost 30% of their disposable income if they wanted to eat a diet that adheres to national ‘healthy eating guidelines’; the poorest 10% would need to spend 75%. UPF is almost universally cheaper, quicker and supposedly just as nutritious than foods and meals that need home preparation. For some it’s a no brainer.

I haven’t read more than a third of the book yet, but already like the statement: “Fish oil is bad for you; oily fish is good for you.”, although I accept that for some, ‘cod liver oil tablets’, for instance, might be more available than a couple of mackerel fillets. Van Tulleken uses Palm Oil to illustrate his point: “When freshly pressed, it’s an almost luminous, crimson, highly aromatic, spicy and flavourful, full of antioxidants like palm tocotrienol.”

Not sure whether you’re a fan of Nutella but this spread uses oil, and that can’t be crimson and spicy! So, the palm oil is refined by heating, has phosphoric acid added to remove gums and waxes, is neutralised by caustic soda, bleached with bentonite clay (!) and finally deodorised using high-pressure steam. The process is known as RBD – refined, bleached and deodorised. And it’s this process which is used to make soybean, palm, canola (rapeseed) and sunflower oils.

I wonder what other nuggets I will uncover as I read more of the book. It might make me question further: “The usual?”

Richard 13th February 2026

Hove

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PC 479 Memories of Regimental Service (3)

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Memories aren’t necessarily concentrated – my mind sees one, remembers other, hears a third, from the general collective memory of ‘my time in Germany’. We generalise our memories to make them manageable. For instance: I remember the funeral of Major Dick Jones, killed in a car accident whilst on exercise, and having to practise carrying his coffin with a weighted filing cabinet; the restaurant in the Lippstadt town square where the Pfeffersteak was to die for; spending a long weekend at the regimental Ski Hut down in Southern Germany; my left-hand-drive blue Volkswagen Variant; taking the train to Turin to collect a new Lancia Fulvia from the factory; formal mess dinners once a month,

all booted and spurred – the meal followed by mess rugby; what was known as ‘the porcelain telephone’ in the gentleman’s in the Officers’ Mess in Lippstadt, essentially somewhere to vomit when you have drunk too much (!); pretending to be a private soldier and collecting the late Richard Clarke, a newly-joined officer at that time, at RAF Gutersloh in a little Ferret Scout Car; studying for academic exams for entry to the Army Staff College, a prerequisite to promotion beyond the rank of Major; learning that the wives of my soldiers could also be charged with offences under Military Law – a Sergeant’s wife lost her temper, smashed a bottle over someone’s head (nice huh!) and ended up in a Military Court; listening to the first ever moon walk – ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’ – by Neil Armstrong on 20th July 1969, on a small battery-powered radio in a tent in Trauen Camp; sitting for the annual Regimental Officers’ photograph, which often included a dog or dogs – this one of 27 Medium Regiment Royal Artillery in Lippstadt in 1972;

travelling to the German North Sea island of Sylte one Easter for a long weekend. Accessible by a man-made causeway, an up-market place for Germans to be seen, to promenade, to eat cake; another memory is easy – the extension cable I used in my Officers’ Mess accommodation, to take power to a stereo system, is still in use (see PC 108 ‘I’m Long and Black’ October 2017): attending a ‘Colloquial German’ course in Mülheim, near Düsseldorf, and embarrassingly translating a message to the effect there was a tank (hiding) behind the large farmer – confusing bauer (farmer) for scheune (barn).

Travel to East Germany was almost impossible, although one could drive or fly to Berlin with the correct paperwork. In the British sector of West Germany, troops occasionally patrolled the border with the East, more for its Public Relations value than any suggestion it was a deterrent! I undertook one such week’s fascinating patrol with sixteen of my gunners and am glad I did. We stayed in farmers’ barns, although a young Guard’s Second Lieutenant, who was attached to us, and I shared a room in the main house. I remember our first morning; out of nowhere, in his rather plummy voice: ‘Drat! He didn’t pack my razor!’ ‘What’s the problem, Brian/Andrew/Toby/etc?’ ‘My man (ie batman) forgot my razor!’ I lent him a spare and hope he learned a little lesson; if you want to guarantee something, do it yourself!

I have mentioned that 39 Medium Regiment spent two Christmases (1972 and 1975) on operations in Northern Ireland (see appropriate postcards). Prior to my second tour, the commanding officer, Mike Hudson, decided we should get used to working well into the night, so shifted our working day from 0800 – 1630 to 1230 – 2200. Previously, we just accepted that training went on into the evening. Now we could have a nice relaxing morning and the ‘working day’ never went beyond 2300.

Twice in my Army career I organised an Officers’ Mess Summer Ball, the second time in Bulford north of Salisbury, the first time in the Lippstadt Officers’ Mess. In the latter I was assisted by Anna Clements, the wife of the resident dentist John. I saw a lot of both of them and their three young boys, but it was Anna whose artistic ability gelled with mine in designing the decorations. 

Memories of food outside the Officers Mess are of the wonderful German sausages and their extravagant cakes. Their little ‘Schnell Imbis’ (‘Fast Snack’ (Obviously!)) caravans were everywhere in die Parkplätze and the ‘Currywurst mit pommes frit’, served on a white cardboard tray with a little wooden two-pronged fork, became the easy answer to hunger pangs. Writing this, another memory surfaced! On big exercises in Germany, we tended to operate on Greenwich Mean Time, the time zone adopted by the Royal Air Force. In the summer months that meant we were two hours behind the locals. At the end of one gruelling day, the lieutenant colonel of the armoured regiment I was attached to suggested we had a snack in the local pub – the kitchen of which to our dismay had already closed!

Living on continental Europe had its advantages from a travel point of view. In 1976, a conversation over lunch in England led to an offer; ‘come out to Palau, Sardinia and help Merry Andrews, the old friend of a friend, crew his yacht’. Two weeks on and off sailing, ‘fed, watered and accommodated for free’; I jumped at the chance. Late one Friday afternoon, with some sandwiches for supper, I set off in my little Lancia Fulvia for Civitavecchia, the port city to the west of Rome, from where I could catch a ferry to Olbia on Sardinia.

It’s just under 1500kms; Google Maps today tells me it would take around 18 hours. I drove until I felt the need to sleep, pulled into a layby, dropped the seat down, covered myself with a sleeping bag and slept. I reached Civitavecchia in time to book for the 2300 sailing; my car was hoisted onto the ferry deck by crane and I headed off in search of the bar. Two Gin & Tonics went down in quick succession! It was a very good fortnight.

And finally, our world was a diet of Alphabet soup. For example:

RA JDSC 2IC CO BC BAOR FOO TEWT NAAFI CPX GPO ADC AFV ADJ OP AG6 NSI SGT BDR GNR FP FUP GCM

Richard 20th February 2026

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS Oh! And I managed to find time to race from Tenerife to Bermuda in a 55ft

ketch:

see PC 161 The Atlantic 1976 (Sep 2019)

PC 476 Memories of Regimental Service in Germany (2)

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….. continued from PC 474 …….

In PC 15 Alcohol and Other Drugs (June 2014) I wrote about my own journey from schoolboy to teetotaller, through a great deal of red and white wines, spirits and liqueurs, not to mention cigarettes and little cigars! As a single officer living in the Mess off-duty life revolved, as I’ve already admitted, around the bar; it was part of the life we led. Sometimes you need someone else to tell you some home truths. Paddy Surgeoner, the Battery Sergeant Major of 132 Medium Battery (The Bengal Rocket Troop) Royal Artillery, took me aside one day and said: “Hold out your arm, Captain Yates.” “Why?” (so argumentative!) “Just do it, Sir!” So, I held out my arm, as straight as I could. He looked at my hand. “Keep your hand still.” (It was shaking!) “I am, Sergeant Major!” “Think you should cut down on the booze, Sir!”

South of the German city of Hanover lies the town of Coppenbrügge; to its south-west lie what were the British Army bases of Bielefeld and Paderborn. Somewhere near the town the geography moulds and constricts any advancing enemy from the east into a narrow fold – forever known to those who exercised a fighting withdrawal as the Coppenbrügge Gap. I certainly spent a few days each year in a camouflaged vehicle or trench overlooking this ‘choke point’, waiting to bring down artillery fire on the ‘enemy’.

Recently we have become more aware of our changing global climate and an increase in the frequency of ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ events. In 1972, during a two-week live firing exercise on Hohne, the six self-propelled M109s of my battery (6 Medium Battery Royal Artillery) were deployed in a firing area which was surrounded by very tall pine trees. As the afternoon wore on, the wind strength increased to a point when it would have been unsafe to continue firing. Thirty minutes later a tornado ripped through the countryside. My observation later was: ‘It was as if a malevolent hand had brushed the surface of the land’, uprooting thousands of trees and lifting corrugated rooves off barns.

Often a mammoth ‘fuck up’ can led to glory! In 1973 my battery was on a non-live firing exercise on the Bergen-Hohne Training area, part of which would be a test of our ‘nuclear’ preparedness. As the GPO (Gun Position Officer) I was responsible for every aspect of the gun position. It went wrong from the beginning. I bummed a helicopter ride from a chum, Jim Longfield, to conduct a reconnaissance of the allocated training area to determine where best to set out the six guns; that was OK! But the first ‘recce’ Command Post AFV 432 caught fire on its way overland, causing delays and by the time the test started, we were behind. Our responses were slow because the firing tables hadn’t been amended and eventually the Directing Staff (DS) and AIGs (Assistant Instructor Gunnery) terminated our participation. We would be retested, a NATO requirement, after the DS and AIGs had crawled all over us, admonishing us for this and that; it was not a happy few weeks.

On the re-test, everything and everyone came together. The result was highlighted by the Master Gunner, a full-ranking general, who came by helicopter to visit the gun position. Initially he couldn’t find it, so good was the camouflage that my gunners had used to disguise the six large M109 guns. “Best gun position he’d ever seen.”

You can make out the Self-propelled M109 barrel – but not much else.

Three Nine Regiment Royal Artillery in Paderborn had a tactical nuclear capability, that is the ability to fire a small yield nuclear shell. The US made the shells and their maintenance was controlled by a small American Army detachment led by a Captain Bob Anala. His team’s presence in the barracks ensured there was also a small PX (PX: Post Exchange – an American store), where I was introduced to the delights of Aunt Jemima pancakes, Bourbon, and King Edward cigars.

Bob celebrating his birthday

Other names surface from the murky depths; Ollerhead, Bailey, Corbett-Burcher, Ross, Longfield, Bromby, Watkins, Tar, Bazard, Faith, Sawrey-Cookson, Peters, Piper, Rooke, James, Clarke, Colley, Treseder, Myberg, Pender, Morley, Harman, Gwyn, Freeth, McNee, Quarelle and Scarlett …. and my soldiers like Sergeants Fitzpatrick and Williams or Bombardiers Batchelor or Elrick.

When I started Officer Training at RMA Sandhurst, we wore leather boots for drill and leather boots for training exercises – they got wet, they were uncomfortable. Fast forward to Germany some years later and it wasn’t much better. In the winter Germany was generally colder so I bought a pair of fur-lined tank boots. These, with white long-johns and insulating inner soles, became de rigour, especially when one was on a bare hill practising ‘Observation of Fire’ (ie correcting artillery fire to where you wanted it) and it was -10C. One spring for some reason the whole regiment was in a tented camp up at Bergen-Hohne; we had over a foot of snow!

I reflect that one got used to living outside, either down some hole, under or in a vehicle. So much so that on return to barracks after two or three weeks living in the elements, it was necessary to turn off the central heating and throw open the windows!

I have mentioned in another postcard that, on a day off from an exercise, I visited the Belsen concentration camp, or what was left of it ….. mounds and mounds of banked earth, with a simple sign at their base, something like: ‘Here are buried 2000 bodies’. If the atmosphere pervading the area wasn’t bad enough, sombre, tangibly evil, no birds, one only had to drive across to the Bergen-Hohne railway station, where those destined for the camp arrived. Looking down from an overbridge at the platforms, a light drizzle falling in the dusk, a breeze swinging the station lamps ….. imagining a train arriving and disgorging its human cargo for their final kilometre or so …… words fail but the visuals survive.

(To be continued …..)

Richard 30th January 2026

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PC 474 Memories of Regimental Service in Germany (1)

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During my 20 years serving Her Majesty and her elected governments, I spent almost six years in Germany, when it was divided into West and East, and home to the British Army of The Rhine (BAOR). In the 1970s 1st (BR) Corps, which was headquartered in Bielefeld, had a strength of about 53,000. NATO forces faced the combined might of the USSR and Warsaw Pact armies. To quote a former commander of 7th Armoured Brigade: “These were huge armies that we were going to have to take on, and we were inevitably going to be overwhelmed by numbers. Therefore, it was the amount of damage that we could do …. to limit their advance before ‘nuclear release’, before we actually used tactical nuclear weapons.” I reflect that we never practised ‘advancing’, always refining the managed retreat!

I write these memories at a time of heightened tension across Europe, with Russia reinterpreting history to justify its own belligerent nature. Sad when you read its president talking about war with Europe. Why can’t he refocus, on, say, raising the living standards of his people?

Sailing a 30ft engineless Danboat with the late Bill Pender

In my first year in Lippstadt, before going to university, I was often sailing in The Baltic, on yachts from the British Kiel Yacht Club on the western side of the Kieler Fjord (See PC 106 Sailing in The Baltic 2017, PC 229 Kiel to Oslo 2021 and PC 231 Ropes and Sheets 2021.) I continued to introduce soldiers to the rigours of offshore sailing when I returned to Lippstadt in 1972, before moving down the road to Paderborn the following year.

My absence from barracks was noticeable! So much so that when the Second-in-Command, Major John Harman, wanted to reinforce a point in his lecture to junior NCOs, he allegedly asked: “So where would you expect the FOO of 132 Battery (Note 1), Captain Yates, to be at this stage in the battle?”, a wag at the back shouted: “Sailing in The Baltic, Sir!” In my accommodation in the Officers’ Mess, I had a wall covered with charts of The Baltic, with coloured lines marking different expeditions. Good times!

In August 1969 I heard on the radio Prime Minister Jim Callaghan announce that British troops would be sent to Northern Ireland ‘to aid the police’. I was, naturally, on a yacht, this time near the little Danish village of Aerøskøbing and within three weeks of returning to England and starting university. I genuinely thought I might miss some action, with the prospect of three years studying Civil Engineering. Surely in that time ‘they’ could sort out what would become known as the Troubles? No one forecast the civil conflict would last for 30 years. My own ‘Tales of Northern Ireland’ can be found in PCs 196, 197 & 198 from 2020.

I was a single officer during my time in Germany and life revolved around training in and out of barracks, sport,

An inter-regimental match in February 1973

and the Officers’ Mess. It was here we congregated for a mid-morning coffee, a drink in the bar before lunch, a drink or two in the bar before dinner and possibly a nightcap. I sensed we ‘worked hard and played hard’! There was no watchable television, the newspapers were at least a day old and the only telephone was a landline contained in a little kiosk in a corner of the Mess hallway. For international calls, you had to talk to the operator and book it! The Mess in Lippstadt was a grand building with a double-height dining room and a Minstrel’s gallery at one end. During morning coffee in one of the anterooms, Captains David Morley and the late Bill Pender would read, with appropriate accents, Punch magazine’s Idi Amin column. (Note 2) Somehow a wonderful memory, although the subject was evil! Idi Amin was the dictatorial President of Uganda (1971-1979) whose regime was responsible for the deaths of anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 Ugandans and the expulsion of some 50,000 Ugandan Asians, who owned the vast majority of the country’s businesses; economic collapse followed.

We enjoyed a life of duty-free alcohol, cigarettes and other goods like cars. The British Forces were supported by the NAAFI (Naval, Army & Air Force Institute), which had a large supermarket near the barracks in Schloss Neuhaus. Living as a single chap in the Officers’ Mess, my victualing needs were met, and I rarely went to the NAAFI. On the odd occasion I did, I was disappointed. Looking for some ink cartridges for a fountain pen, I tried the NAAFI: “Sorry love; no, we don’t stock those ….. but you’re the third person this month who’s asked for them.” I left, thinking well why don’t you order some in if there is a demand.

Training for the four-month infantry-role deployment to Northern Ireland took a huge chunk out of our normal Artillery training schedule; I did it twice!

M109s in the direct as opposed to indirect fire role

The artillery training programmes at regimental level hadn’t changed for decades; individual/personal training advanced into sub-unit and regimental exercises, then in the autumn much larger Divisional formations practised over the north German plains. Farmers were paid compensation if dozens of tracked vehicles ripped through, for instance, their fields of Sugar Beet. These exercises naturally never used live ammunition; we practised that with 155mm shells on the Hohne-Bergen and Münsterlager Training areas.

We did some mad things but then we were in our twenties, and everyone does mad things in their 20s, right? One Friday afternoon I got in the car after work, and drove to Calais, some 550kms. I then caught the 2300 ferry to Dover and drove to Leicester. On the Sunday afternoon, I drove back to Dover, caught the ferry to Ostend in Belgium and drove back into Germany, arriving for breakfast in the Officers Mess.

(To be Continued)

Richard 16th January 2026

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 An artillery Forward Observation Officer (FOO) would be attached to an infantry or tank regiment, to bring indirect fire support as necessary.

Note 2 Regular articles by Alan Coren appeared in Punch, “utilising phonetic spelling and current idiom to lampoon this odious dictator. Sadly, its success won the attention of the Politically Correct Commissars, who pompously halted the satire.”

PC 138 Remembrance – Another Time and Another Place

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In case you’ve been on Planet Zog and missed its significance, November 2018 was one hundred years after The Great War ended, at that 11th hour on that 11th day of that 11th month. They waited for five hours after a ceasefire was agreed, they waited for a nice tidy numerical sequence of hour, day and month; meanwhile hundreds died, for a political gesture! (See PS) Much has been made, rightly so, of the immense sacrifice of life, both military and civilian, that four years of conflict had witnessed. The war to end all wars; until we went to war again 21 years later. 

The simply poppy has become synonymous with remembrance in the UK

Now we will remember them. We read about both heroic and pointless sacrifice, of simply ‘doing your duty’, of man’s inhumanity to his fellow humans, and shudder. My maternal grandmother’s eldest brother Dudley Corbett, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps, died a month after the end of the war from a war-related illness; he was 37.

In amongst memorabilia handed down, from whom I am not sure (!), I have this metal shaving mirror in a leather pouch, from Merchant Taylors’ School Club dated Christmas 1915 and wishing its recipient ‘Good Luck’, and think of that hugely optimistic cry ‘It’ll all be over by Christmas’, and that was in 1914!

In Germany, this year’s 100th anniversary is not being commemorated in the same way. Instead of looking back, they are looking forward to this time next year when they will remember the thirty years since the Berlin Wall came down, paving the way for reunification a year later. You may recall the dividing of the then East German city Berlin by a hideous concrete block wall, and the fortification of the long land border between East and West, the Inner German Border (IGB).

Stationed in Lippstadt, West Germany, in 1973, I took a patrol along the British sector of the IGB, accompanied by a member of the British Frontier Service. These ‘civilian’ guides monitored the border along the southern sector of the British zone from Lauenburg to Schmidekopf. They wore a uniform rather Naval in appearance, white topped cap and fawn duffle coat, and the chap who was with us as we watched the East German Border Guards, and were watched in return, was a mine of information. My week-long patrol was accompanied by a Second Lieutenant from some Guards battalion; we shared accommodation in barns and farmhouses – on the first morning he exclaimed: “Drat! My man hasn’t packed my shaving kit!” I didn’t have a batman and packed my own stuff so wasn’t too sympathetic!

Memories from my five years in the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) could fill many PCs. (Ed: In January/February 2026 I wrote three PCs about my Regimental Service (PCs 474, 476 & 479) Some immediately come to mind and others require more than a nanosecond:

The ubiquitous roadside snack bar (Schnellimbiss) that served a long sausage drenched in a hot sauce (currywurst mit pom frits) on a cardboard tray that only just took the weight. When you were hungry, this was manna from heaven.

Two regiments, my Royal Artillery one and one Royal Signals, were housed in a large barracks. On the gate was a soldier with a rifle. No one realised that the ammunition was kept under lock and key inside the guardhouse; couldn’t trust the squaddie with live ammunition!! Until the Baader-Meinhof Gang started causing mayhem; alert states went up and the ammunition went into the rifle’s magazine!

I have fond memories of food! If we were out of barracks on some form of training, but not on a tactical exercise, we relied on the BQMS to provide meals from his 3 ton kitchen truck. The alternative was to have our own tinned rations and do it ourselves; the first option was always the best. Breakfast: great noisy gas blowers shot flames under the large dixies of water; on top flat trays cooked greasy fried eggs, fried bread (yum yum), bacon rashers, mushrooms and tinned tomatoes. It was alright if it was dry, but if it was raining water somehow got into the mess tin and turned the tomatoes into soup.

Married officers lived on The Patch; if you were under 25 you had to get permission to get married, as well as find someone who would have you of course!

Self-propelled guns, armoured vehicles and supply trucks lined up after some large-scale exercise in 1973.

We trained and practised our profession. The cycle hadn’t changed much since Wellington’s time; individual training at the beginning of the year then section, platoon, company and regimental. Not until the autumn did we link up with other units in huge divisional exercises across the north German plains. And as the combined weight of the USSR and Warsaw Pact would have squashed us easily, we practised going backwards (we didn’t talk about retreating, just going backwards or a fighting withdrawal!); hopefully this would have given the politicians time, someone would authorise the use of a tactical nuclear weapon and everything would stop. Fortunately we never had to put these plans to the test. 

We drank. The BAOR enjoyed Duty Free status and that applied to everything from cars to alcohol and petrol. When we were in barracks, as a single officer the temptation to drink at lunchtime, drink before dinner, with dinner and after dinner, was immense; there was no television. (see PC 15) If the Russians wanted to invade western Europe, Christmas was definitely the best time as everyone walked around in an alcoholic haze!

In addition to our professional training, we undertook adventurous training of all sorts. For me this focused on offshore sailing in The Baltic (see PC 106); delightful and memorable experiences.

Our experiences in life are what shape us, and understanding their importance and their influence is essential. We can’t change those experiences but we can keep their memories in perspective, as we live today and move into tomorrow. 

Richard 30th November 2018

PS Rather like the Japanese found on some remote island a year after the Second World War had ended, news of the Armistice took days to reach those in conflict in Africa. It wasn’t until 25th November 1918 that German forces in East Africa surrendered and 100 years on services of remembrance took place in Kenya and Zambia. 

PC 161 The Atlantic – a Tall Ships’ Race

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Way back in 1975, on a cool autumnal evening in Dempsey Barracks, Sennelager in Germany, I was sitting in my room in the Officers Mess of 39 Medium Regiment Royal Artillery, thinking how the last training exercise had gone. The mess orderly knocked; I had a telephone call, someone called Major Mike May. Hard to believe these days, when communication devices are personal and in your face, or should that be at your ear (?), but the Mess’ telephone was housed in a little cubicle off the main ground floor corridor. Outgoing calls were made via an exchange operator! It was a somewhat airless and dimly lit space, but doubtless privy to countless intimate conversations over the decades. I had sailed with Mike May a few times and this was really our only connection; so I was expecting some sailing-related question, but not: “Would you like to navigate an Army entry in the STA Race next year?”

The STA (Sail Training Association) was an umbrella organisation for offshore sailing in the UK, but more importantly organised an annual international race for square riggers and sailing ships. (See note 1) I had taken part in its 1969 race from Portsmouth to Skagen in Denmark, so was familiar with its ethos of encouraging youngsters to develop their character through sailing. Additionally in 1974 I had had a fortnight sailing as a Watch Officer on the TS Malcolm Miller, a three-masted schooner. The 1976 race was from Portsmouth, England to Newport, Rhode Island, USA via Tenerife, in The Canaries, and Bermuda. These four legs would be sailed by different crews; we were allotted the Tenerife to Bermuda leg, a distance of just under 3000 nautical miles. Bermuda, an island lying some 600 miles east of the USA state of North Carolina, is 22 miles long but only one mile wide!

After some crew training in The Baltic we, Mike May as Skipper, me as Navigator and ten other army personnel, flew to Santa Cruz de Tenerife on 21st May 1976 and took over the Nicholson 55ft yacht HMY Sabre.

Two days later the race to Bermuda started; there must have been about 50 vessels, from huge ‘tall ships’ to lesser mortals like us. Offshore racing is strange; you have a crowded, manic surge across the start line, the skippers set their course and off you go. Most modern yachts can sail just below 40 deg to the wind, the tall ships probably only manage 60 deg; but their speed was much superior to ours, so their passage quite different! I don’t think we saw any other competitors after that first night, such is the vastness of our oceans! It’s a long time ago (!) but I think we organised a watch system of 4 hours on/4 hours off with a ‘dog watch’ to change the routine …… for three weeks.

So ….. days of watch and sail changing, attempting to squeeze another knot out of the yacht and our inexorable progress towards Bermuda. Ripped sails needed mending, gear needed maintaining, bread needed making – or should that be kneading? And with twelve people in a small confined space, the crew needed managing!

The trade winds are the prevailing pattern of winds found in the tropics, from the east towards the west. Tenerife is some five degrees north of the Tropic of Cancer so we were able to take advantage of these favourable winds, flying the large spinnaker sail almost for two weeks, before a final few days of head winds and heavy seas. Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic we were becalmed and this gave us all an opportunity to have a swim, although prudence ensured only one crewman was in the sea at any time, the rest maintaining a lookout for sharks!

…….. and me! (Not thinking how deep the water was!)

Fresh water was rationed to 1.5 litres per person per day – although we had an extra splash in a whisky at drinks time. The eventual lack of fresh food and the constant exposure to salt water produced some skin issues but otherwise the planned menus worked well.  Sometimes the nights seemed very long …….

…… and at other times the conditions required much concentration …….

We checked in with the Race Controllers every day by two-way radio, giving our position and listening to those of the yachts we saw as our competitors! Into our final week and we had head winds which gave us more movement and surprisingly some seasickness!

No two yachts were the same and there was a handicap system. We navigated by sextant with sun and moon shots, converting our data by way of navigational tables and a Hewlett-Packard calculator the size of a house brick that had some computing ability, to a position on the chart ……. and were very pleased to find the tiny island of Bermuda right on the bow on the 10th June.

We had arrived in Bermuda at the beginning of the hurricane season, greeted by cloudy and extremely humid weather. The Tall Ships gradually filled up the harbours and small bays and celebrations were numerous and colourful; thousands of young people enjoying a tremendous achievement, crossing one of the great oceans of the world. And if you’ve never tried Planter’s Punch, do so, but do it in the environment for which it was created; doing so back in Germany some weeks later it wasn’t quite the same! But we had done well and somehow managed to win some trophy.

Richard 19th September 2019

PS I even managed to catch up with an ex-school friend who lived there.

Note 1. Founded in 1956, the Sail Training Association (STA) became the Tall Ships Youth Trust. The current Tall Ships’ Races are organised by the Portsmouth-based Sail Training International.

PC 108 I’m Long and Black

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“Oh! If I could only talk I could tell you a thing or two …….  but if it helps I’m almost 50 years old; not that it matters as I don’t measure my existence by years but by my capacity to deliver what I was made to do. OK So I’ve got your attention, that’s good as normally I am just left in a cupboard hung up, feeling abandoned ……. until the next time. Currently I’m in the cupboard with the hot water tank, a lazy maid and some Samsonite luggage as there’s no garage or attic where we live. It’s warm when the water’s hot and quite dry, so I can’t complain.

My first memory I think comes from 1969, when my owner needed something like me; it’s a good feeling to be wanted. He had a large room in the Officers’ Mess Annexe of the Artillery Barracks in the German town of Lippstadt, on the edge of the Paderborner Plain.

The barracks had housed a Luftwaffe battalion and the Mess itself was beautiful, but single officers’ accommodation was limited, hence the annexe within the main barracks. Sadly there were few electrical sockets and he saw a need for an extension cable of some sort. Ah! You’ve guessed it, I’m an electrical cable; three wires, green, red and blue (See Note) sheathed in a black outer casing. I used to be part of an enormous reel of cable that the army used for all sorts of things. Then one Saturday my owner soft-soaped the soldier in charge of the stores to cut some off; it was about 15 yards long (we didn’t ‘do’ metres in those days.) At one end he fitted a square pin extension block and at the other a German two pin plug. The smart record player, the radio and a couple of lights were all plugged in. Oh! And I am ¼ inch in diameter.

You might be surprised to read that I gave birth once! My owner needed about six feet of flex. He never told me why, just got a pair of pliers and cut it off! Didn’t hurt as I am inanimate but I healed up quite well, particular when the plug was refitted. By then we were back in England so my two end connections didn’t change. At one end I have a rubber coated square three pin plug, at the other a rubber coated socket. Both have become pretty grubby over the years but it’s been a long haul!

It’s hard to imagine today but outside lights at Christmas were a real novelty back in the 1980s …… and the best ones came from Germany ….. so a visit to a Christmas market in Hanover secured a large string that was rewired with a UK square plug and that was plugged into me. In those days he didn’t have an outside socket and he relied on me, you see. But it was suffocating, being wrapped up in lots of plastic bags and duct tape to keep any rain out. Oh! The ignominy of it!

Wanda the bronze angel fish doing her thing, provided with power by me! (circa 2001)

I was also used to provide power to the pump that fed water up into Wanda; it came out of her mouth!! But when the outside socket was fitted, my job was done, and I went back to hanging around, for some time at the top of some cellar steps.

Occasionally I would have a car vacuum cleaner plugged in but the suction was never strong enough and invariably the domestic vacuum cleaner was used. Don’t ever do this on a driveway which has been surfaced with gravel. I have always thought of myself as a sort of DIY (Do It Yourself) extension cable; no pretences, me. But I remember he once was in B&Q (a DIY Store) and saw an extension cable in a proper reel, red I think it was. I could sense he coveted it, looking all neat and new, but he is loyal to me and walked away, shaking his head and muttering.

I am grateful for his love of sailing, you know. If he hadn’t learned about how to handle ropes (on board a yacht a rope is actually called anything but a rope – for example warps, sheets, halyards, guys etc,) I would not be in as good a shape as I am now. On board a sailing yacht a tangled rope is a disaster waiting to happen, so there was constant vigilance to ensure all ropes were tidy and coiled It’s best to coil the rope/cable into the left hand, as that movement of the wrist takes out any twists in the rope. Wire cables such as me are no different.

In my twilight years I am generally used to connect to a jig saw, a sander or a garden strimmer, as his drill is now a Dewalt cordless one. You might think this is progress but he uses it so little the battery is invariably dead and needs a charge!! Maybe he rues the day he got rid of the one that needed me; who knows?  I won’t mention the fact that he uses the garden table as his workbench and that it occasionally gets nicked, sawn and drilled into (so don’t tell anyone). I cringe when it happens but what can I do?

And my friend Wanda? Well, she’s come inside …… and seems content to look wistfully down the road to the sea …… some 150m away.”

Sometimes one gets an idea and just needs to scribble …… inane really!

Richard 21st October 2017

Note: these days it would be yellow/green, brown and blue

Old (ie me!) on the left, new on the right