Travel in the winter in the UK is always weather-dependent and no more so if you’re booked to fly to Rio de Janeiro, departing 1125 on the penultimate day of January. When it’s good and the traffic flows, this 65 mile trip normally takes 90 minutes from our apartment, minutes from the sea in Hove. Part of the journey is around the London Orbital Ring Road, known officially as the M25 and unofficially at times as a carpark. Add the peak traffic times of 0630-0900 into the mix, throw in a weather forecast of snow and sub-zero temperatures and suddenly you start to look for an alternative. Suffice to say, after many telephones calls, we secure a room for the night before our flight at the Thistle Hotel at the North West corner of the airport runway and Jon is happy to drive us. BA’s Terminal 5 actually has its own hotel, operated by Sofitel: just roll out of bed and roll across the concourse to check-in? Well, if you want to part with £325 and if you’re quick enough; it was fully booked!

The Thistle does what it says on the tin; clean, comfy bed and bathroom, good soundproofing and somewhere to eat. You could niggle about the fact that the bathroom door scrapes against the loo, or that the loo roll holder has been positioned so close to the receptacle that you have a choice, sit askew or accept the loo roll is wedged into your flank, but actually it is OK. Like all places where the majority of its occupants only stay one night, the ambience needs to be pumped in through the air conditioning. I see some of the minority, those in huddled groups enjoying, for example, an ‘off-site’ meeting to discuss managing ‘work from home’, or some-such. All the delightful male staff seem to be related and have a look of a Bradford-born Asian; the females, equally delightful, for some reason are no taller than 5 feet; so weird it’s noticeable!!

The Thistle Hotel has a POD (Passenger On Demand) service that runs to Terminal 5; sounds very space age! Leaving the hotel you make your way to the station, a driverless pod arrives at your beck and call and whisks you to the terminal in 5 minutes – for £5 per person. “Go through the door opposite Reception (marked Car Park A) and follow the green path and signs to T5 Pod. When you reach the steel gate enter your 4 digit code followed by the # key. Turn left and look for Station B.” Blah blah!

Wonderful if you don’t have luggage for a year, or in this case simply going back to see Celina’s Ma …… and having responded to the ‘Can you bring some …… and some …..?’ and then of course gifts for cousin’s birthday or friend’s baby. With four big suitcases as well as ‘carry on’ and no trolley in sight, we rely on Imran, an ancient grey haired Pakistani who should have had his slippers on and feet up a long time ago, to take us in his taxi; job done.

Why do I always believe the ‘bargain’ labels on scent bottles? Seems hugely expensive, a small bottle of Gucci something or D&G …… but I do because it’s Duty Free (really?) Up to the BA lounge, where James and Daphne, manning the entry desk, are too busy chatting to each other to even look up. James senses us approach,  puts out a hand, imagines I am going to place my boarding pass in it, which I do (!), scans it and waves us through. A zero score for customer service!

The lounge offers every sort of snack, mainly of the breakfast variety, and drink. I suppose passengers using the lounge are from the four corners of our globe and maybe on a different body clock, but seeing people drink a glass of red wine at 0945 looks strange. The waitress staff shuffle silently between the little tables, clearing, wiping, asking ‘Is this finished Sir?’, succeeding wonderfully to be unobtrusive but extremely efficient. I wonder where all these people are going, or if in transit where they have come from and going on to, such is the nature of an international airport hub. Unless there’s a delay ….. “The 1100 flight to Manchester is delayed due to snow. Please listen for further announcements.” ……. flight departure notifications are no longer made (thank God) so there is no way of knowing  …. unless you overhear other’s conversations!

I go off to buy a book and come back to find 64 year Professor Marjorie Styles has unplugged her iPhone from the charging socket, switched off her iPad and left for the New York flight whilst David Winthrop, sitting two seats over from the professor, has also departed; actually he had looked as though he’d shuffled off his mortal coil some time ago, poor chap, so I was relieved to see there was life! Their replacements in the row of seats opposite, a ‘creative’ rather pleased with himself and a serious, bespectacled, earnest 40 something reading the Financial Times, are equally observable; I just didn’t get their names!!

Outside brilliant winter sun blazes down on the Heathrow apron and there’s that constant movement of planes, some landing, some taxiing, some lifting off into the cold air. We go to our gate, board and join them, first moving to the de-icing area then taxiing to the end of the runway for take-off. In addition to the normal in-flight announcements in English about what to do should we land on water etc, I am surprised to hear it repeated ……. in Spanish! You probably know that all the Latin American countries speak Spanish apart from Brazil, which was originally a Portuguese colony. Even though the languages are vaguely similar, it seemed totally wrong; like flying to Stockholm and having the second announcement in Danish!

Twenty minutes later we’re over the Isle of Wight ……….

Hours later the Mauritanian part of the Western Sahara looks like this ………

After 11½ hours in the air, the gentle kiss of the wheels onto the apron of Rio’s Galeão Aeroporto Internacional Tom Jobim announces our arrival. We disembark into the tropical evening heat of 36 C at 2130. Quite a contrast to London’s Heathrow!

Richard 8th February 2019

PS Rio de Janeiro endured an extreme tropical storm on Wednesday (6^th) night; six people died and landslips and flooding are widespread. No power and no water. You can guess the subject of the next postcard!

Thomas Edison famously replied, when asked what it was like to fail for the 1000^th time in his quest to develop an electric filament bulb, that he had simply found lots of ways that didn’t work (Interestingly the figure of 1,000 sometimes is quoted as 10,000; inflation? Then common sense kicks in – 10,000 times would be testing something three times a day for ten years!!!). For us mere mortals success and failure are part of life, the latter instrumental in bringing about change, I hope!

Rummaging in my three-drawer filing cabinet for some document, I saw a hanging file labelled “Certificates & Reports”. I don’t know about you but I am quite organised in filing important papers and such. This particular collection of papers spans decades of my life and some hadn’t seen the light of day for years; many deserve to be shredded!

For some reason I have kept my ‘National Registration Identity Card’ dated 31 August 1950 (I was 4!). It allowed me to have a Ration Card so I could buy some sweets (those black jacks, a farthing each, were favourites).

In an academic sense I am very average. I didn’t particularly take to school work but was made aware how important it was to one’s success or failure in life. In amongst the pieces of paper there were those little slips recording my examination results. There seemed to be quite a lot as I made several attempts to pass enough …… but the one that bugged me the most seemed to be Chemistry. For some reason I needed this at ‘O’ Level to add to my science ‘A’ Levels for entry to university. I failed it at school, sat it twice at the officer training academy and finally got my pass.

The Chemistry lecturer, whose name escapes me, had a passion for betting money on horses. If we hadn’t spent so much time discussing the tips, runners, form and betting odds for the 3:15pm at Cheltenham, for instance, I might have passed first time! He seemed to think the names of all the winners could be deduced from the racing pages of the Daily Telegraph and instructed us accordingly, when we should have been discussing whether common salt was Na Cl or why CH₄ + 2O₂ equates to CO₂ + 2H₂O; I never knew!! I judged his success at gambling on the horses by his fifteen year old car and the rather moth-eaten cardigan he wore.

I scribbled a little about university in PC 139 and can only assume that I was given my Civil Engineering degree for my reasonable attendance record. You will know the mnemonic POET’s Day relating to Friday – ‘Piss Off Early Tomorrow’s Saturday’. At Shrivenham some students left early, missing some pithy lecture on concrete for example. On a number of occasions the lecturer, who we had for the first period on a Monday, would declare that the Monday class would be ‘private study’. Those who weren’t there to hear this turned up as scheduled on Monday; ah!

Classical music and its part in my life was the topic for PC 109; how I had given up learning to play the piano and took up the trumpet. According to The Royal School of Music, on 7^th December 1962 I took my ‘Wind Instruments Grade V (Higher)’. Although I scraped a pass, I didn’t impress the examiner during the Aural Test – “seemed to have no idea of pitch and timing” and my ‘Scales & Arpeggios’ had “only fair fluency”!! As I am almost tone deaf, I was surprised to be successful but thank my lucky stars I persevered as, although no Alison Balsom (see note) it gave me a life-long love of classical music, and particularly the music of Sibelius.

Entry into Sandhurst was via the Regular Commissions Board at Westbury in Wiltshire where, aged 17, I spent three days undergoing assessments. I passed; the rather faded report says my ‘reserved personality may have something to do with the fact he comes from a broken home (!!)’ with a forecast ‘the boy might develop into a useful officer’. Ah! Such confidence! The term ‘broken home’ is rarely used these days, such is the acceptance that marriages don’t always survive. Of course the good thing is if you start somewhere at the bottom, the only way is up and I left Sandhurst and my officer training with a couple of prizes! Hey!

Officers were graded once a year in a ‘Confidential Report’ (CR). The ‘pen picture’ was always a challenge, either reading your own or writing one for one of your subordinates. I never met anyone who knew to whom they referred, but two anecdotal comments of officers always amuse: “I would not breed from this officer” and “His men follow him not out of duty but out of curiosity.” These CRs were delivered by your immediate boss, in the formal atmosphere of his office; your subsequent career depended on a good mark!! I have reread some of mine, copied unofficially by a friendly Chief Clerk and 18 years of my life goes by in a flash. Suffice to say my entry into Staff College confounded those early predictions of being average.

Life is such a lovely journey and we make choices all the way; if you don’t think you have a choice, think again. Being fairly casual of heart, I have faith and trust in others to do what they are meant to do. Sometimes I fall flat on my face! One such occasion was in Germany in 1974 when my unit had some super important inspection of our tactical expertise. The Artillery Firing Tables had not been amended (not my job!), a Command Post caught fire and we failed as spectacularly as possible! I had been selected to be a possible aide-de-camp to the most senior British military officer in Germany and I left the exercise early to travel 100 miles to have lunch with him and his wife (General Sir Harry & Lady Tuzo). My failures followed me, others had serious second thoughts and before I had even picked up a knife or fork I was recalled. What if I had succeeded? Different path, different journey; just the way it was, success or failure? Nah! Just life! We were retested, passed with flying colours and nothing more was said.

My military service is so long ago now that it’s overshadowed by my twenty five years of efforts to improve other’s lives and this period is littered, I judge, with much success. But all these events and experiences are in the past; I understand them for what they are and how my current behaviour is inevitably coloured by them.

Richard 25^th January 2019

Note: Alison Balsom OBE is an English Trumpet soloist, arranger and ‘spokesperson for the importance of music education’.

A sucker for the popular, on Monday we decided to go and watch the award-winning film ‘The Favourite’.  My knowledge of English history isn’t bad, but details of Queen Anne’s reign (1702-1714) have somehow escaped me. Now I know that she was bisexual, responsible for the union of England and Scotland, and looked like Olivia Colman. That’s right isn’t it? Having plenty of time before the film started, I left earlier than necessary so I could renew my International Driving Permit (IDP) at the Post Office.

On the bus into Brighton it occurred to me I should organise lunch with my dear friend Jon. Reaching for my iPhone I texted him, asking when he was free in the next couple of weeks. With an affirmative answer for week one, we then focused on whether Monday or Thursday was better. I wrote ‘poss Monday 14’ and said I would confirm when I got home. Not wanting to forget, I then went to my iPhone diary to add this. It was extremely disconcerting to find that the person who lives in my phone had been reading the text exchange and had already put into my schedule ‘poss lunch Jon’. Now that is very scary! Maybe I should call it AI?

At Churchill Square I went down into the bowels of WH Smiths, the national newsagent chain established in 1792, to go to the in-store Post Office. (See note 1) It had had a make-over since I was last there. There is a self-service area where you could weigh, determine the correct postage, and then dispatch your packet or parcel, a ‘digital transactions’ booth, screened by a curtain, and a queue! Well, when isn’t there a queue in a post office?

It was the reason these scribbles came into life, to avoid a queue in a Rio de Janeiro post office to buy some stamps. Brighton queues are of course fascinating for the diversity of their participants, but only to those who don’t live here; we get inured! Ten people in front; I look at my watch – time enough before the film starts I reckon.

The city’s diversity stretches to the staff. There are two counters; at one a chap in his 50s with well-cut greying hair and a goatee beard which is long enough to be plaited into a little rat-like tail, and next to him a man in his 30s who must have been to a local Turkish barber where, halfway through the haircut, he got up and left, leaving the left side of his head almost shaved and the hair on the other side long. I am not sure whether this look will catch on. The queue moves forward and I find myself in front of Mr Half-half. He looks at me as if I am a waste of time and glares questioningly; a ‘Good afternoon, how can I help you?’ was too much!

“I would like to like to renew my International Driving Licence please, to be effective from the end of this month.”

His body language suggests he’d rather be in Outer Mongolia and his sigh could have blown a house down. He gets up, rummages on some shelf a long way away, and comes back with a box of IDP forms.

“Where are you going and do you have your UK Driving Licence and a photograph?”

“Brazil” I answer, pushing a photo and my licence under the window. “And here’s my old licence if that helps?”

Why did I do that? I could have just given him what he asked for and would have been out of there within 10 minutes.

He starts filling out the form, then notices that the photo I have given him is the same as the one in my expiring IDP.

“It says ‘recent’ photo. This one is a year old.”

“My face hasn’t changed in 12 months” I say, pushing my visage against the glass.

“It says, recent and this is not recent. The rules is the rules.”

Purists of our language will know immediately that this should have been ‘the rules are the rules’ but I don’t feel I would gain any advantage if I point this out to him.

“Go and get a new photograph.”

I am about to get angry, realise that this will gain me nothing and that it’s better to just let it go. I turn and walk off to the nearby Photo-Me booth, conveniently located about 30 metres away. It’s occupied. I wait, looking at the advertising on the side of the cubicle and notice the variations of print form; beside me cartons of rolls of half-price Christmas wrapping paper almost become tempting! The dark blue leggings and little ankle boots visible under the booth’s drawn curtain suggest the occupier is female, but you never know in Brighton!

“This photograph does not comply. Please check your settings and try again.” The computer-generated voice tells them they have got it wrong. She tries again …… and again. In the older booths there used to be a little metal stool whose height you could adjust to ensure your eyes were in the correct place. Here there’s a large cerise rubber ball and the machine adjusts itself. The anodyne voice continues to say that the photograph is not compliant ….. and the woman is getting frustrated. Nothing compared to the chap, me (!), outside, who’s looking at his watch and wondering whether he will make the curtain up in the cinema. Obviously his expressions of exasperation become loud enough, the curtain is ripped back and the woman escapes, unsuccessful, and disappears, muttering to herself and throwing me a dirty look.

 The old IDP photo (Jan 2018) compared with today

Five minutes later I am back at the end of the queue in the Post Office with five copies of a ‘recent’ photo. Fortunately Goatee Beard and Mr Half Half are busy and I present myself to the next free counter, manned by a young woman (Ed. That could be ‘womaned by a young woman’ in these ridiculously PC times, could it not?) with yellow-streaked purple hair and a few studs. She’s only worked for the post office for 9 months and has never done an IDP for Brazil (IDP1926 – see note 2) so she’s delightfully keen to get it right and, very quickly, we are done and dusted, without any fuss; I pay my £5.50 and head off to the cinema.

Simple observations about C21st life.

Richard 12^th January 2019

Notes

1. Despite this digital age, WH Smiths sells magazines, newspapers and books. There are some 2800 different magazine titles published annually in print form in the UK.
2. It’s rumoured that UK citizens will need an IDP to drive in Europe after we leave the EU. I hope it’s from the same rumour factory that says post-Brexit flights will be unable to land in Europe.

For those who find geography a black art – an orientation!

Lying some 30 minutes travelling to the west of Lisbon, Estoril has drawn people for over 150 years; some settle down to live in this Atlantic coastal resort, others visit briefly on holiday. The Hotel Palacio, the five star establishment whose de luxe rooms overlook the swimming pool and beyond to the gardens, in front of one of the largest casinos in Europe, opened its doors in 1930 and the ground floor corridors are lined with fading photographs of those who came to stay.

European royalty, for example the Italian, French, Bulgarian and Romanian ex-royal families, mingled with actors and actresses, heads of government and Portuguese aristocrats. During the Second World War it was the home to both British and German spies and in 1969 featured in the James Bond film ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.’ I personally don’t think it is the best 007 film (starred George Lazenby and the gorgeous Diana Rigg) but it was in the Hotel Palacio that Ian Fleming had conceived the idea for the series, and that’s a great coincidence!

A sumptuously appointed corridor in the Palacio

My mobile rang when I was in Saloio, a very up-market grocer’s store on Avenida de Nice, a street in front of the hotel. It was my chum Stewart calling from Wimbledon in London to wish us a Happy Christmas. I could easily picture him as I know his house and whereas he might have some notion of the sort of place I was in, being a well-travelled chap, he would have been amused to actually witness it.

I call it a grocer’s store as this is what it is, like Partridge’s on the King’s Road in London for instance; one central shelving unit snakes down the centre, each part crammed with particular foodstuffs. On the walls to one side are little bottles of condiments from every corner of the globe, jars of jams and marmalade (Marmalade is a very English description and coveted by the international clientele who shop here.) and then racks of vegetables, dairy produce and cheeses. If you want more specialist cheese the deli counter on the other side of the shop provides countless alternatives. Meats and poultry, raw or already prepared, lie on the next counter, under the watchful and attentive Paulo.

A rather empty early morning on Boxing Day!

I told Stewart it was lovely and unexpected to hear his voice and that we were in the basement of the Saloio grocery store in Estoril. Down here, away from the shoving and pushing around the delicatessen counter, there is a moment to reflect in peace about which packet of loo paper to buy and to search for the dishwasher rinse aid.

On the narrow stairs back up to the frenzy of Christmas Eve shopping, towers of boxes of tea, of every make, type and taste, confuse and irritate one in equal measure. Those who linger here in indecision risk the wrath of the staff, moving in both directions, downwards empty handed, struggling up with replacement boxes to stack a small shelf, or clutching a single item asked for with an imperious tone and raised eyebrow in answer to the ‘they are downstairs madam’ response.
The old-moneyed Europeans mingle with the nouveau riche, both stretching past one for a packet of smoked salmon for instance without any consideration or acknowledgement of your existence. There’s a certain haughtiness, a sense of birth right, that gives them the confidence to act in this rude way, whether the disdain is obvious or not. Can you smell money? I think here there is a certain scent, whether it’s the classic Austrian Loden jacket that may not have seen the inside of a dry cleaners, ever, or the fur coat’s slight whiff of moth balls worn with a disregard for those who fight for animal rights. Maybe it’s the aftershave and perfume, or the cosmetics that cost a month’s wages. The younger generation, with their modern gilets and designer trainers, mix well, as they belong to this group where an excess of cash is the common currency.

The staff who stack the shelves, inquire whether it’s the smoked or unsmoked bacon of which you need 10 slices, ensure the baskets of warm fresh rolls are fully stocked, smile when you ask if they have any pickled ginger as you can’t find it, despite looking high and low, or simply take your euros at the checkout, unfazed by the bill for five items and a bottle of fizz that they wouldn’t consider value for money are, of course, lovely, polite, helpful people, with the patience of some saintly horde. Recognise them in some way, acknowledge them, and they ooze warmth and helpfulness, just like anyone in a similar position.

You can tell from the top-of-the-range cars hustling for parking space outside in the little narrow street that this is a very up-market shop. In amongst the Mercedes and BMWs I spot a beautiful deep-blue Bentley convertible with a Principality of Monaco licence plate. Just stunning, if of course you can afford a car that probably costs about £175k? Of course the Portuguese will park anywhere convenient to them. Pedestrian crossings? Why not? ‘I never walk anywhere so why should I recognise something for other people?’!!

Hotel Palacio to the left, Saloio just right of centre

Down Avenida de Nice, towards the sea, you can see the end of the queue that stretches for over 100 metres to Pastelaria Garrett, a real cornucopia of all things bad for you, but just so yummy! Pre-ordering cakes, puddings and pastries is fine, but someone has to collect them! In Portugal the traditional Christmas cake is either the Bolo de Rei (King’s Cake) or a less showy Bolo de Rainha (Queen’s cake).

Bolo de Rei

Just some seasonal observations gleaned from looking up and down one little street in Estoril, Portugal on Christmas Eve 2018. More scribbles in 2019 no doubt.

Richard 29^th December 2018

 

 

 

 

The frequency of my blog continues to be fortnightly, although last December I wrote an extra one (PC113) to reflect the modern tradition of having a little something extra at this time of year. Some companies pay their staff a 13^th month’s pay, some give bonuses, and that’s all well and good; when I was working I was paid to carry out a role, for which I got a salary – end of! My PCs 86 (Boxing Day) and 27 (Christmas) covered something of this period but here’s a little extra scribble; have a great Christmas.

I have two pieces of homework to share, one because it’s seasonal and the other because I think it works (but then I would, as I wrote it!).

The first brief was to write the story behind a Christmas song or carol.

“It’s just before dawn in an old dusty room in an outbuilding beside a wooden clapperboard church. The church has only recently been connected to the new electricity supply and old gas lamp fittings from the main building are stacked in the corner. A single electric bulb hangs from the ceiling, giving light to a large table in the centre of the room. At the table a middle-aged man, wrapped in an old, rather worn, silk dressing gown, is bent over a pad of paper, writing something; his moving hand casts eerie shadows on the wall. There’s a knock on the door and, without waiting for an answer, a woman enters carrying a cup of tea.

“Here you are dear. I thought you’d like something to warm you up; there’s a favourite cookie on the saucer. How’s it going?”

“Bless you Matilda, bless you. How’s it going? Well, I am trying to write something we can sing on Sunday, something based on my trip last year to the Holy Land.”

“And ….?”

“It’s coming on, you know! I was very taken by the little place I stayed at, in Bethlehem, and I recall dreaming about that village’s importance in our Christian story. It was such a quiet place; unable to sleep I had looked up at the stars and the great sweep of the heavens, you know how one does, and I felt so humble and in awe.”

“Ah! Phillip. That’s lovely. Why don’t you put that in the lyrics, something about how the stars are so silent, something about the morning star, the wondrous heavens, angels and so on?”

“ …….. and now I’m on a roll, Matilda; how about ‘O morning stars together proclaim the holy birth’?”

“That ‘Holy Birth’ is good, although I never quite understand how we Christians could create an enduring religion based on a biological impossibility. Drink your tea, dear, or it’ll get cold. I’ll be back in half an hour or so.”

Matilda goes back to the main house and Phillip continues to scribble phrases that work, complete lines that flow; rubbing out some, inking in others, all recalled from his Bethlehem visit. Before 8 o’clock Phillip looks up as Matilda come back, bearing a bacon butty on a kitchen tin plate and places it on the rough table.

“Do you think Lewis could compose some music for this little carol? I’m calling it ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’.”

“Don’t see why not. He’s a dreamer like you; he’ll be inspired by angels and other celestial beings” Matilda replied with a slight smirk.

As Phillip takes a bite into his butty, Matilda mutters:

“You know what, Philip! It’s snowing outside; could you work into your carol something about snow and how it’s deep and crisp and even?””

 

The second brief was to write something using an ‘unreliable narrator’.

I arrived home, the Victorian terrace I’d shared with George for 25 years, deep in the backstreets of Brighton. I could feel myself sigh as I put the key into the lock, a sigh of resignation mixed with excitement perhaps.

“I’m back, George!”

Silence! I took my coat off and walked down the corridor into the small kitchen. George predictably was sitting hunched over a book of crosswords on the pine table. Ever since he’d lost his job 8 months ago he’d become more and more introverted.

“Five down’s a problem, Fiona. 10 letters for ‘deceptive’; third letter’s R.” he muttered, without even looking up.

“Evening George” I said, although I couldn’t find any warmth in my greeting. “How about ‘Unreliable’”?

“OK! that works; thanks. By the way there’s a parcel for you from Victoria’s Secrets; you must have been ordering something online. You normally buy M&S’s ‘Three knickers for £10’, don’t you?”

He wasn’t expecting an answer, his head already back into the crossword, so I picked up the padded envelope and went upstairs to change. Sam had suggested I look at the Victoria Secrets website and the result? A trio of gorgeous sexy panties dropped out of the black tissue paper. Yes! Yes! And I could feel myself grow slightly moist.

The following morning George dragged himself down to the kitchen as I was finishing my breakfast of two boiled eggs; it was still dark outside.

“Eggs? You don’t like eggs; what happened to the muesli soaked in apple juice?”

“Oh! I was reading this magazine article in the dentist’s waiting room last week and it said how good eggs are, full of protein and stuff, so I thought I would try them for a bit. Is that OK?”

“Of course, Fiona, of course! Just that I do notice things you know, even after all these years.”

Slurping the last of my coffee, I suggested he could telephone Mark down at Temporary Solutions to see if they had any work for him, but I could tell from his face he was more likely to look for a solution to 11 across or try a Killer Sudoku. I headed out for my 15 minute walk to work.

“Sorry George, I’m going to have to pull an all-nighter. Paul’s got a deadline on the Mental Health campaign and he needs his team.” The message on WhatsApp sounded plausible and George wouldn’t question it. This wasn’t the first time that I had had to work late.

By 8.30 that evening Sam and I were tucking into some lovely food at Terre Terre and thinking of the room we had booked at The Old Ship Hotel. When you’re in those first weeks of new-found love, it’s full on; our legs touched under the table and, completely engrossed in each other, we fed each other little morsels as if our lives depended on it. So much so that it was a while before I noticed George, standing by the door. He’s probably found my paper diary with ‘S. Terre Terre 8pm’ pencilled in. What I will never be quite sure about is whether the shock on his face was because I was there, or that Sam was a beautiful redheaded young woman.

Enjoy!

Richard 21st December 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those who know of my early life will appreciate the service I gave to Her Majesty over twenty fun years. The devil is in the detail they say and it may not be common knowledge that I spent three years gaining a BSc in Civil Engineering. Some of you may wonder why two years at Sandhurst, the military academy, wasn’t enough? Well, the Armed Forces needed officers who were able to make a meaningful contribution to the development of future equipment and, to ensure that, those of a science bent went to the Royal Military College of Science (RMCS); those of an Arts bent were disregarded!! (See PS) I had joined the army with the intention of doing my bit for Queen and Country ….. and resisted the news I had a place to read an engineering degree; I didn’t want to! In characteristic institutional fashion the short answer was “Tough. Get on with it!” So 18 months after being commissioned, in September 1969, I started at the university, reading Civil Engineering as it had parallels with architecture, which had been an alternative career to wearing a uniform. My experience leads me to encourage those not really suited to an academic course to do something more vocational.

RMCS was based at Shrivenham, which should have been a sleepy village on the Wiltshire/Oxfordshire border. But it was on the main A420 road from Oxford to Swindon; in those pre-bypass days (see note) the road ran straight through the middle and traffic had to negotiate a tight S-bend in the village centre. Most of the larger lorries carried pressed-steel car bodies, made in Oxford, on their way to the automotive manufacturing and assembly plants in Swindon; ‘sleepy’ it was not! But the establishment nestled under an escarpment on which ran the ancient Ridgeway, a path in use for some 5000 years. It runs from just to the west of Marlborough to the north west of London, a distance of some 87 miles. From my bedroom window I could see the Uffington White Horse, a huge chalk figure cut into the hillside during the Bronze Age. This was very much a rural campus.

The Uffington White horse

I was one of two non-Royal Engineer officers doing Civil and it was suggested I should gain some hands-on ‘engineering’ experience. At the end of the first year, our general year, I spent 6 weeks with Alexander Gibbs & Partners, the consulting architects for the construction of a section of the M4 Motorway between Newbury and Swindon. Apart from memories of checking levels and survey points, I can vouch for the fact that the tall transmitter mast at the Membury Service Station is within a few seconds (of degree, obviously) of vertical!

The Army didn’t accept that us military students should have the same length of vacations enjoyed by our civilian counterparts and ensured our holidays were busy. They had a point as we were being paid a salary!! In addition to my time on the embryonic M4, we went off to coastal South Wales on a geology field trip one Easter and went ‘wow!’ and ‘oh!’ and ‘that’s so ….’ about synclines and anticlines, conglomerate rock formations and Freshwater Beach.

Survey is an important part of a civil engineer’s skill set, so apart from doing a great deal of outdoor surveying and plotting, we spent two weeks at the School of Military Survey at Hermitage (awarded its Royal accolade in 1997 on its 250^th birthday) during one summer vacation. Surveying is all about mathematics and during our examinations we had to use both slide rule and mechanical calculator. The latter are completely extinct but for dividing Log Sines by Log Cosines to six places of decimals (for whatever reason!) they were a godsend. Every time you got a decimal place the bell rang.

 A state-of-the-art mechanical calculator

On the second summer vacation we had to attend a three week ‘Workshop Practice’, when we spent time in the foundry, in the turning shop and in some other workshop with an unremembered name. In the first we learned how to make a mould and fill it with some molten metal; if your first visualisation is of white hot metal rods and steam, we were of a slightly smaller scale! I copied a brass doorstop and my mother-in-law’s front door’s Georgian door knocker, which I still have – I have been looking for a door on which to hang it ever since!

In the second we spent time turning metal rods, using a lathe to cut threads etc. I have kept a little bollard I made, with a movable collar. It still amuses me after 47 years!

Our instructor in the workshop with the forgotten name had an accident while we were there and we had a day off; his tale of woe is hard to make up. In his kitchen, he was putting down some floor tiles with Evostick, a very effective glue. Halfway through, he thought he could clean the glue off his hands with a piece of newspaper. When finished, he threw the balled-up newspaper into an open coal fire. Sadly a part of the newspaper stuck to his hand; as it caught alight and flames began to burn his skin, he tried to pat it out ….. with his other hand – which also had some glue on it. Big mistake! Both hands needed hospital treatment!! Ouch!

Of the subjects we studied the only one that really brings a smile to my face was ‘Materials of Construction’. It stood apart from Squiggly Amps & Ohms (my name for the Mechanics of Electronics) and Mechanics of Fluids, where we studied, for instance, Water Hammer, by its practical aspects. Can you imagine getting excited about breaking a concrete beam? Well, for even greater pleasure was the ‘Concrete Slump Test’!

Ah! Yes! University!

Richard 14th December 2018

PS. You know how it is at school; you begin to concentrate on subjects which you seem better at than others (note in my case not ‘good’ but ‘better’!) So I left school with very average scientific A Levels …….. and in my next life would like time for some of the more creative aspects of human existence.

PPS. Having graduated I thought, and hoped, I would never go back to ‘university’. However as part of our Staff training, I spent another year there seven years later completing a quasi MSc/MBA!

Note: Part of our Survey module was to design a bypass around the village. I wistfully hope that one of our designs was actually used but think it highly unlikely!

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 11^th hour on that 11^th day of that 11^th 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 100^th 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 batman 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. 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 1974.

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 30^th 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 25^th November 1918 that German forces in East Africa surrendered and 100 years on services of remembrance took place in Kenya and Zambia.

My last postcard was going to mention allergies, to add to the gender and mental health issues that seem to be hot topics in this second decade of the C21st; I ran out of space but didn’t want my thoughts to be solely inward focused.

When I grew up it seemed no one had allergies – or if they had they had died because they were allergic to something and no one knew. Now we are very much aware of how individuals can be agin some aspects of life, mainly food. Nuts are often the main culprit. Recently there’s been an inquest on the death of a teenager who had bought a baguette from Pret a Manger. She was allergic to sesame seeds; the wrapper did not mention these specifically, in fact they were part of the bread mix and now every manufacturer is rushing to ensure every ingredient is mentioned. Wise after the event huh!

Sharwood’s Green Label Mango Chutney – ‘may contain nuts’

Some time ago I saw a packet of, I don’t know, Trebor’s Extra Strong Mints; I am making this up but somewhere on the wrapper it said ‘didn’t contain nuts’! What a pickle we’re getting into; a band wagon has started rolling and everyone wants to jump onto it; a badge to wear, part of our C21st life. I sympathise with those who truly are allergic as I’m fortunately not ‘allergic’ to anything, not a Hay Fever sufferer, not allergic to dust mites, insect bites, latex, food which includes eggs, cow’s milk, nuts or shellfish. Celina is allergic to the last item; fortunately she found out with a very allergic reaction many years ago so carries an Epipen and asks about cross-contamination in the kitchens of seafood restaurants. Anaphylactic shock, in extreme cases, can be life threatening.

Using language and sayings that have arisen as part of our culture and history are what defines us, us British. Other nations have their own repartee, slang and ways of relating. But in this globalizing interconnected world anything and everything particular is under the judgmental microscope; some are necessary, for sure, but some are simply aimed at creating a bland environment devoid of colour. (Whoops! You see! I write the word ‘colour’ and think ‘have I written something racist?’)  For example, in English we have used the saying ‘Whiter than white’, to mean ‘absolutely pure’ in a moral sense, morally beyond reproach, since the early 1900s. Historically of course the forces of Good and Evil are often represented as white and black. Then Persil started claiming that using their washing powder would produce white clothing ‘whiter than white’. But in September a detective superintendent used the phrase in some briefing, about the need to be faultless and above reproach in carrying out inquiries. ‘Someone’ complained, and the detective’s been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct for ‘poor use of language’. How come? No newspaper reported what the complainant had said. If I assume that it was thought he was using the phrase in a racist sense (?) then that’s stretching imagination beyond Young’s Modulus! Outrageous! But sadly no one really got on the soapbox and put the Thought Police back in their box. It seems to me a little like the suggestion, currently being seriously discussed here in the UK, that misogyny and misandry should be criminalised. So now if we think something offensive, that’s enough to be fined or even sent to prison? How effing ridiculous! (See PS)

George Street Hove with local people doing their thing

 Are we becoming oversensitive … to everything? I feel we have become ultrasensitive to perceived slights, are quick to judge and quicker to turn to anger. When I walk down George Street, people come into and out of my vision. I might notice one individual more than another, just for a millisecond. I might even make some judgement about the way they look, their manner, their ‘air’, their sense of purpose, but it’s a fleeting thought and doesn’t linger; other thoughts quickly take its place. My glance could be interpreted as homophobic, misogynistic, misandry, anti-obese, racist, sexist etc but it’s only in my head. But then what we think determines how we feel and consequently how we act; it’s the latter that sometimes gets us into trouble!

The rollercoaster of our lives continues, exciting, challenging; for example, for the last six months we have been practising Yin yoga. In addition to our daily hot yoga obsession, once a week we do the complete opposite. Whereas hot yoga is all about using your muscles to try to obtain certain postures, a Yang activity, Yin yoga is practised on the floor, adjusting your limbs into a certain posture and then staying in it for 5 minutes or more, without using muscles to maintain it. Practising Yin is like applying WD40 (see note) to your ligaments, tendons, joints, cartilage, fascia and other connective tissue. After the first session I didn’t feel anything – until the next day. Wow!

 

This got me thinking about the Yin and Yang of our lives, living this rollercoaster; playing safe here, chancing our arm there, hanging on! An analogy that occurred to me is being like pebbles on a beach (for those of you who only know beaches of sand, come to Hove!). The sea washes the pebbles, sometimes gently, sometimes with such force that they are drawn back into the waves, or thrown violently up into the air, to land in a different place, in a different time. And the rhythm of the tides means that for some periods they’re completely submerged and at other times high and dry, basking in the sun. Some will crumble with the continuity of movements, becoming grains of sand, other pebbles will resist. But these inanimate objects of nature can’t think, can’t move of their own accord, can’t reason; we can and we should. So I scribbled some contrasting experiences you may have had or may yet discover:

Becoming a parent, a unique experience; losing one – not a unique experience.

Falling in love (again) and again .. and falling out of love, that deadening realisation that it’s over

Going for the first job interview and being chosen; being told you are no longer wanted, are redundant and rationalising it’s the role and not you.

Becoming a grandparent and holding the little mite, knowing your own DNA is in there somewhere.

Travelling somewhere exotic and seeing the mundane of where you live on your return.

Getting to the end of a book and wondering how you struggled to finish it, or wanting to have yet more pages after ‘The End’, such was the gripping, imaginative tale.

Going to university; attaining that special qualification.

Walking the dog, having a dog in the first place; and then that awful decision about end of life.

Being told you have some form of cancer; being told you’re in remission.

Buying your first shed/flat/house or your second one and borrowing beyond your ‘maximum’; paying off your mortgage.

Worrying about the quality of the politicians and realising there isn’t much you can do except vote them out next time around.

Making friends and losing them when you divorce, move!

Writing your first story in some lonely café; when the bills are piling up.

Walking for miles across the country, grateful for your waterproof boots; clearly for not being on a wheelchair.

Whistling when sailing, when there’s no wind and your sails flap, as folklore suggests you’ll get more than you wanted; then an hour later wishing you hadn’t whistled as the wind howls in the rigging and you hang on!

Let go and go with the flow.

Richard 15^th November 2018

Note WD40 Actually named after ‘water displacement 40^th formula’ from 1953 – prevents corrosion by displacing the water molecule, eases joints, and loosens nuts and bolts. An essential aid in any household.

PS The Times columnist Giles Coren reported on Tuesday that a 69 year old lady, Jane Savidge, had been reported to the police for sounding her car horn on a garage forecourt, in an effort to get the car in front to move. The driver of the car in front was coloured and Savidge was charged with a Racially Aggravated Public Order Offence. I wish this was ‘Fake News’ because if it’s an actual fact, God help us.

 

I am probably quite blinkered in my views about certain things …… get concerned about how some aspects of our society, western society, global ….. are trending (See! I can pick up on the modern use of some words, so not too stuck in the mud!) ….. but it’s got to a point when I have to say something! ‘For fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ ……. or something like that.

The words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are often interchangeable, but after 1955 the word gender took on a different meaning, as in “The state of being male or female, typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones.” or “describing someone’s personality, character and behaviour’.

I was born male! It says so on my birth certificate and once I had attended a few biology lessons I realised there was a physical difference between the genders. We had talks from a ‘sexpert’ about the ‘birds and the bees’ – such a funny choice of animals to explain human reproduction! Fumbling around with a female friend at the age of 6 or 7, the sort of ‘you show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ experience under some bush, I found out that she didn’t have the same appendage as me; in fact none! Weird! Ah! The innocence of one’s youth. Then I learned that in the animal and plant kingdoms there are alternatives, particularly neuter and, I am not sure of the gender terminology here, those living organisms that have both sexes ….. ah! Yes! Asexual. So we learned that there was a male gender and a female gender and in the human species both were needed to procreate, not for sex though, but to reproduce themselves. But now I am made aware of a new gender; ‘Trans’.

They have always been around, this ‘Trans’ group, but now we are more accepting and willing to help these individuals who believe they are ‘male’ in a female body or ‘female’ in a male body … or transiting from one to the other. That’s OK isn’t it?  …… but the issue raises complicated questions in areas such as sport segregated by gender and in the provision of safe women-only spaces. Bending over backwards to please everyone, however different they are from the societal norm, just isn’t practically possible. The current law requires a medical diagnosis, proof that they have been legally living in their new gender for at least two years and a gender recognition certificate. In the US the move is in the other direction, to enshrine the male and female gender in the constitution, reversing the liberal trends of the previous President Barack Obama. I think I am with Trump on this one. Gender has become a political issue when simple me thought it was, and should be, purely biological!

The words ‘mental health’ seems to be on everyone’s lips at the moment. Our Princes William and Harry are pushing this topic, as is the British Olympian Dame Kelly Holmes, who’s raising awareness of ‘mental health’ in her ‘It’s OK not to be OK’ campaign. Everyone has, at last (?), woken up to this new crisis, this affliction. It is certainly an area of our overall health that has been overlooked, wasn’t talked about, relying on the ‘Stiff upper lip, Carruthers; what!’ so the acknowledgement of the issue is a huge step in the right direction. Of course an increase in people seeking help from their doctor could mean more are experiencing problems, or simply that we feel more comfortable in asking for support; I hope the latter. My concern is that the GP will too easily prescribe drugs rather than offering the alternative range of treatments which include more longer-lasting remedies such as talking therapy and self-care techniques such as exercise.

I acknowledge that the world of the C21st century is very different from that in which I grew up, but isn’t it simply challenging in a different way? My name isn’t Carruthers but at school I suffered from divorced parents, felt abandoned in a boarding school; bad memories of bedwetting, parental interventions and hushed meetings that didn’t include me! My time at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst changed me for sure; put simply, we had to bond with someone else to create a team environment, looking out for each other and gaining emotional strength from that bond. We were tested, often to the point of physical and mental exhaustion, but came to realise it made us mentally stronger. The Sergeant Major, his face sweaty and red from the horror of some drill infringement you had just committed, inches from yours, screaming “You ‘orrible little sh*t, Sir! (a lovely nod to the fact we were training to be officers!). If you don’t get on with this I’ll shove my pacestick (see note) up where the sun don’t shine ……. and if you continue to think this is a joke I’ll open it out 30 inches, sah!”. You take it on the chin, wonder whether he enjoyed his garlic evident from last night’s supper, and move on – stronger. On some other exercise, designed to push us to our limits, and beyond, we were on our second December night out on the Brecon Beacons in South Wales and hadn’t slept. Yomping up one hill and down the other side, in the dark, ticking the sheet at a checkpoint, and off to another. The mind plays tricks and I remember seeing the full moon and swore to God there was a ship sailing across its face!!

Later at the end of my first marriage I went through that ‘what’s the point; is it worth it?’ sort of internal dialogue. But the conclusion was that it was worth continuing this life; for life is to be lived and you need to be robust mentally.

Ignoring those who have suffered trauma, for they need and deserve all the help we can provide, I am concerned for those younger members of our society who have been sucked into the modern ‘I want to be famous and I want to be famous NOW’. I might think it vacuous and stupid and sad but the subsequent disappointing realisation that life isn’t like that could drive them to self- harm and depression. So doesn’t it worry anyone that we seem more and more fixated on providing support for those who are depressed, are mentally weak, however temporarily, rather than engaging in positive schemes to improve the robustness of our society?

On the day of my recent birthday the quotation in the yoga studio was very serendipitous: “Happiness involves taking part in the game of life, not standing on the edge of things and frowning.” Mental Health was a minority issue that has moved mainstream; failure to address it properly will have major consequences for the nation.

 

 

Richard 3^rd November 2018

 

Note The ‘Pacestick’ was rather like a large pair of wooden dividers, about 30 inches (85cms) long. Infantry Drill Instructors used it to measure the length of the marching pace, from left foot to right foot, to ensure uniformity. They had a wonderful knack of swinging it through 180º as they ‘marched’ …… or offering to put it where the sun doesn’t shine!!

 

It’s only recently, in the last 18 months I guess, that I have been observing people differently. Before you think I am starting a career as a stalker, or weirdo, relax; I have simply been looking at them and wondering where they are in their life’s journey, what they are doing and why. I certainly didn’t think like this in my 30’s, 40’s or even in my 50’s, for I was too busy working and enjoying my life. But today, not working but still enjoying life (!), I look at other people inhabiting their space, their time, their universe and wonder what they are doing, planning, experiencing. Probably I’m invisible to them, focused as they are, doing their thing, living their life; unless of course I live, however temporarily, in the same universe. We come together at certain places, for example at work, at airports and railway stations, in the supermarket, in restaurants, in hospitals and when driving. Some people I simply observe and don’t interact with; others I engage with, converse with, exchange ideas with.

 

One of my ‘universes’ is that of yoga. Regular readers will know of my obsession with yoga and as I scribble this one morning before the sun has risen, I reflect on the individuals with whom I share this interest. There are teachers at different levels in our schools and colleges, an administrator, a gas fitter, an tour guide, the independent financial advisor, the retired trader from the City, a management and leadership consultant, a builder, a banker, a musician, someone who works in the Care Industry, a systems engineer in the generating industry, someone learning to be a driving instructor, a chiropractor, grandmothers, and mothers and fathers galore, some with school-age children and others whose offspring have flown the nest – and they all love yoga! Do I envy them, at their time in their life? Part of me does, absolutely; part of me knows that we only have one life and I have no regrets at the way mine is panning out.

The main building of the Institute of Directors (IOD) is at 116 Pall Mall in London and, during my fifteen years as an executive coach, it was here that I would meet my clients, those whose employer believed my intervention and interaction could assist them be more effective and more successful. I met some great people, working with them on a very personal and individual basis, and loved the results that came from that challenge. So you can imagine the memories the building holds, but now initially it’s simply a kaleidoscope of people and conversations and coffees and the IOD staff, all jumbled together into that segment of my life. I guess some things we remember well and other events and experiences get lost in the noise and mush. But then I look more closely at the grand old façade and remember clients, these shadows in my past, and see their faces illuminated as if by the flash of lightning. The ‘wood’ becomes a collection of individual trees, of individuals and the memories are sweet.

 

The Brazilian Flag

The Brazilian Embassy is a short distance from that IOD building, just to the west of Trafalgar Square. On the first Sunday of this month it looked lovely in the early Autumnal sunshine and the memories made me smile. Celina had come to vote in the Brazilian Presidential elections. A long line of people snaked around the corner; all ages, all colours, for Brazil has not one homogeneous skin shade. The queue was as mixed as you might imagine; the young away from their homeland experiencing London’s vibrant life, the older ones maybe having been here for a long time, all coming together to exercise their democratic right. (See note 1) I walk around the corner into Trafalgar Square and grab a double espresso at Pret.

Pret a Manger on the south side of Trafalgar Square

My daughter started back at school at the beginning of September, in a permanent teaching role. You may recall from PC 132 me saying something about how she has to be super organised or it’s chaos! Maybe she subconsciously covets my freedom, wishes she could do yoga and walk along the beach and write – conversely you may think I hanker after her involvement with the next generation, with the development of young brains and minds? What neither of us would wish is the attendant detail that goes with it, the organisation that gets her two boys to school, someone to look after her preschool son and herself to a different school. But it’s just the time in her life and for me it’s just the time in my life. The time’s the same, the experience personal to both of us in different ways.

Neighbours have recently become parents for the first time and I remember very clearly, as if it was yesterday, after my daughter was born, driving home in the pre-dawn hours of a glorious June day and being given a glass of champagne by my neighbour. That was just a time in my life and a time in theirs, and of course the start of my daughter’s time.

Time is never still, never stops. And our lives reflect this; rarely still, always growing, physically maybe, older certainly, often a bit of a rollercoaster! As the French poet Alphone de Lemartine wrote: “La vie doit avoir un courant; l’eau qui ne coule pas se corrompt.” (‘Life should have a current; water which doesn’t flow becomes stagnant.’ A view reflected by the delightful story from Richard Bach; see note 2 below)

Don’t let your life stagnate! Let go and go with the flow!

Richard 20^th October 2018

Note 1: The election for Brazil’s next president will go to a second vote on 28^th October, where the only choice will be the two front runners from the 7^th October vote. Two men from the extremes of politics, one from the hard left and one the hard right. Some choice huh?

Note 2: A little tale about life:

Once there lived a village of creatures, along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all – young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own self. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twig and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting what each had learned from birth. But one creature said at last: “I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go and let it take me where it will. Clinging I shall die of boredom.” The other creatures laughed and said: “Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than from boredom!” But the one heeded them not and, taking a breath, did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried: “See, a miracle! A creature, like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah comes to save us all!” And the one carried in the current said: “I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.” But they cried the more, “Saviour!” all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Saviour.

From “Illusions – The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah” by Richard Bach