As the afternoons draw in and in most Northern Hemisphere countries the clocks were wound back one hour last Sunday, cafés emit a warm welcoming glow, encouraging one to drop in for a coffee and a slice of cake! And why not? I need no encouragement, however, to drop into The Hope Café, such is my familiarity with and love of its regulars and its offering.  

I haven’t seen Mo in The Hope Café for a while, so delighted to spy her in a corner and, grabbing a double espresso from Libby, make my way over to her table.

“Hello stranger!” says Mo, as she sees me coming. “You OK?”

“Absolutely. Had my birthday last week; actually the same day as Sami’s. A friend called James, who obviously likes numbers, said if you were born in 1978 – I wish – I would have been 46. As it is, I was born in 1946 and am 78! Good to see you; you got time for a catch up?”

“Yes! And I’m pleased to see you too, as I’ve been enjoying your postcards about your time at Sandhurst. It would have been an alien world to me, so fascinating reading of your memories and just what has stayed with you over fifty-five years. There’s one more postcard on the subject, I think. My own experience has parallels in that within secondary education one’s developing young minds and instilling values in teenagers …. so come to think of it there are similarities, albeit dealing with a younger individual. You mentioned military law. I guess the civilian world doesn’t really grasp the concept of an organisation having its own judicial system.”

“Do you know, Mo, I found studying military law at Sandhurst really interesting; learning about it, how it works and then using its provisions to deal with minor offences like losing kit, which could be dealt with by a fine, or stoppages of the individual’s pay. The interesting aspect was to find the right section to apply, rather than use the catch-all lazy one, Section 69. This section’s provisions covered those ‘guilty of any conduct or neglect to the prejudice of good order and military discipline’. Major offences, for instance when one of my sergeants smashed a pint glass into someone’s face, were dealt with by a Court Martial. The Military Law Manuals themselves are extremely detailed as you might imagine, covering every aspect of minor and major offences. Every soldier had the option to be tried by a civilian court.

Another part soon. Probably could have written a fourth part but recognise one’s own memories are not always interesting to others. To reinforce the issue about being on time for parade (See PC 408 Memories of Sandhurst) Jim Longfield, an ex-Army chum who was in Intake 40, wrote: “I recall Day One and being told to be 10 minutes early for the following morning’s parade; the final reminder was ‘remember gentlemen, 5 minutes early is late’. For Jim those words became his platoon’s mantra. I’ve been doing a lot of ‘looking back’ recently as I had those two celebrations of life to go to; for obvious reasons personal memories of the two individuals surfaced.”

“I enjoyed Saying Adieu (PC 409) as it’s something we will all experience, although one won’t know much about one’s final adieu!”

“Ana Ronchi, who tried to teach me some basic Portuguese, wrote:

‘Refletir sobre a morte e os adeuses nos faz lembrar da transitoriedade da vida e da importância de valorizar os momentos com aqueles que amamos. Que possamos sorrir ao recordar, como escreveu Christina Rossetti, e encontrar consolo em nossas memórias compartilhadas.” ….. which translates as ‘Reflecting on death and goodbyes reminds us of the transience of life and the importance of cherishing moments with those we love. May we smile as we remember, as Christina Rossetti wrote, and find solace in our shared memories.’

She’s spot on. Jonathan, who had also been at Carol’s funeral, attended another the other day and remarked: ‘Fantastic tributes to Hugh, but everyone attending had hours of their own stories and memories which would never be heard. And there they go ….. leaving the car park!’ The analogy is quite apt. Jonathan will be going to the memorial service for General Sir Mike Jackson.”

“Jackson? Funnily enough I read his obituary in The Times and now remember that incident during the Balkans War.”

“Where he disobeyed an American four-star general?

“Exactly. Had to be reminded of the details; the obituary was very well written. He was in command of the Kosovo Force (KFOR), the 40,000-strong NATO multinational force assembled in Macedonia to implement the peace agreement in neighbouring Kosovo.”

“It was 1999 wasn’t it?”

“Yes. By God those Balkan nations have a very individualistic parochial outlook. One only has to think of that siege of Sarajevo in 1992/93 and the atrocities committed by the Serbs. In 1999 that scumbag President Milosevic was very friendly with the Russians and encouraged their leader Yeltsin to contribute some forces.”

“Yeltsin! There’s a blast from the past. Not sure how good he was as President but my abiding memories are of him regularly drunk and at some time standing on top of a tank somewhere.”

“Mischievous! He sent some troops, inaccurately marked KFOR, to secure the Kosovan capital Pristina’s airport, in order to fly in more troops from Russia.”

“Yes. I remember this bit. General Clark, the American senior NATO commander, flew to Macedonia to talk to Jackson. Clark suggested a couple of things Jackson should do and Jackson declined to agree to either, saying they were too dangerous. Accounts differ, but Clark has not directly challenged the version in Jackson’s Soldier (2007), in which Jackson told Clark: ‘Sir, I’m not going to start World War Three for you.’ Clark, a four-star, full general, insisted that he had the authority and repeated the order. Jackson replied: “Sir, I’m a three-star general, you can’t give me orders like this. I have my own judgment of the situation, and I believe that this order is outside our mandate.” (Note 1)

“And Mike Jackson not only survived but some six years later became Chief of the General Staff.”

“Wonderful stuff. Mo, must go and have a pee! Be right back.”

(To be continued)

Richard 1^st November 2024

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Jackson agree with the Russians that he would provide a security cordon around the airfield, effectively blunting the ability of the Russians to do anything.

Britain has been a Christian country seemingly for ever and religion plays a crucial if understated role in the conduct of war, both at a personal level but also at an organisational one. One of our Captain instructors was a lay preacher and, on a weekend’s adventurous training exercise, led a small Sunday morning service – in the middle of a wood, in the rain. One comment has always stayed with me: “There are no atheists in a slit trench”. Fortunately I have never been in an operational slit trench, waiting to go ‘over the top’, but understand how those who were might have prayed to some higher being. At Sandhurst every Sunday we paraded in front of the Commandant and then marched off across the square to the chapel.

Nine hundred male voices singing hymns would lift anyone’s spirits and the memory of kneeling in the pew in the final minutes, quietly murmuring ‘Eternal Father, Strong To Save’ to the tune Melita by John Dykes, still brings goose pimples to my neck!

If you were tall and reasonably good at drill, you might be picked to be a Stick Orderly, as were Charlie Wilson, Edward Armitage, William Burrell and myself; four of us out of the 225 officer cadets in our intake, Number 39. (See PC 341 Tradition June 2023) On ceremonial occasions we stood on the corners the Inspection Dias, although I am not sure how effective my stick would have been in protecting the Commandant!

Prior to the Commandant’s Parade on a Sunday morning, the four Stick Orderlies would join him and his family for breakfast in the extremely large house which went with the job. I was a Stick Orderly for a year and recall that, after breakfast and before we needed to get moving, we would gather in the Games Room in his basement and compete on his Scalextric set. Such fun and far removed from our next task, the tradition of escorting him and the Adjutant to where the other 886 cadets were lined up for inspection.

I was assigned to Burma Company in Victory College, one of three colleges making up the Academy. The other company names in Victory were Alamein (North Africa 1942), Rhine (1944) and Normandy (1944). Old College represented the past glories of Dettingen (1743 War of Austrian Succession), Waterloo (1815), Inkerman (1854 Crimea) and Blenheim (1704 War of the Spanish Succession). New College companies reflected the First World War with Ypres (1914), Somme (1916), Gaza (1916) (Note 1) and Marne (1914). The organisational structure today is different, the number of companies reflecting the total number of officer cadets under training. Company names now include ‘Falklands’ and ‘Borneo’.

There is something fundamental to being a soldier, being capable of using weapons in times of war. Later I would serve in artillery regiments equipped with ‘medium’ artillery, the 5.5in howitzer and subsequently the 155mm Self Propelled M109, but at RMAS it was the self-loading rifle (SLR) and the general-purpose machine gun (GPMG), both using 7.62mm ammunition. I gained my marksman badge for the GPMG, taking in the instruction like a duck to water …… and it’s all about the breath! We were tested at various times, for instance after a 10-mile speed-march, and we developed the habit of keeping one’s small arm (aka personal weapon) close and clean. Obviously out on exercise or on the firing ranges, not in a classroom learning about Chemistry for instance. I highlight chemistry, as I had failed it twice at ‘O’ level and I needed to pass it. The lecturer was more interested in teaching us about his passion, seeking out the runners and their form in some horse race! We learned his techniques, lost a lot of money and I passed my Chemistry examination!

I have written that academic studies took up more than 50% of our working day. Having followed the science route in my choice of A Levels, I joined the ‘Special Maths and Science’ set, a pass ensuring my place at university a couple of years after commissioning. Non-science subjects covered International Relations, War Studies and Military Law. The latter is designed to “maintain order and discipline within the armed forces, and to ensure they can carry out their duties effectively. It covers a wide range of offences, from minor breaches of discipline to more serious crimes such as murder and rape.” As a commissioned officer, for minor offences I was ‘judge and jury’; for more serious ones there’s a Courts Martial system, run by the Judge Advocate General’s Department.

One Easter holidays some of us volunteered to become military parachutists. I asked Crichton, who was also in Burma 39 and with whom I have kept in touch, who else was there, apart from him. “Sorry! I suffer from old git syndrome and simply can’t remember who was with us. Pity!” Anyway, twenty or thirty of us went off to some RAF Base, I think Brize Norton as that’s where they’re trained today, for three weeks. During that time we learned exit, flight and landing techniques in large hangers with mock-up fuselages, completed three jumps from a balloon tethered at 800ft and a further five from a DC8/9 aircraft, the last one at night. Back at Sandhurst we wore a little light-bulb badge on our uniform to signify our proficiency, joined The Edward Bear Club (See PC 28 Balloons, Bacteria & Bloating December 2014) and jumped out of an aeroplane over Hankley Common near Aldershot for a summer picnic – called ‘the Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ obviously!

There will be a Part 3!

Richard 25^th October 2024

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 The Middle East was fought over during the First World War and that arena of conflict was recognised by Gaza Company. The land borders one sees today were laid out in the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, created by the French and British, with tacit assent from Russia and Italy. It defined their mutually agreed spheres of influence and control. Over 100 hundred years later it remains a troubled and unsettled part of the world. (See PC 286 I’ve Read That …. June 2022)

I love familiar places as much as I love the adventure of travelling somewhere new; something reassuring that there is continuity of activity even if you yourself are absent. I hadn’t made it to The Hope Café since we got back from Estoril, so it was a little potluck as to who was there on Tuesday afternoon. ‘Ah!’ I thought, ‘Josh has gone back to Israel’, as he was not behind the counter and the candle was back, a testament that our thoughts go with him. Despite him being wounded when he was last with the IDF (see PCs 361, 368 and 378), he recovered very quickly and there was a lasting legacy of action, of tension, of excitement; no wonder he’s gone back. I imagine he’ll be used in some support role.

A quick scan of the occupied tables and I recognise Sami, Anna and Robert. The latter has his head down into his laptop on the window counter, hopefully being creative, so I decide not to disturb him.  

Sami looks up. “You look as though you’ve a lot on your mind, Richard!”

“Hi! Sami. How are you? Sorry! Am I wearing some underlying tension on my face?”

“Yes. Not usual for you; you’re normally fairly laid back, unstressed, calm. Where were you yesterday? Had hoped to see you.”

“A very good chum of mine, a Canadian called Bill Pender, had died of cancer. Never one to make a fuss, he didn’t want the mawkishness of a funeral, rather a ‘Celebration of (his) Life’. That was yesterday in Salisbury; he had a very good turnout, despite the weather, and good to exchange memories of Bill with others. But the slight stressful look? Actually, it’s not about me but my daughter and her family. They are buying her grandmother’s house and frankly it reminds me of that film with Tom Hanks and someone ……”

“The Money Pit? With Shelley Long ……”

“Exactly. This is a house that’s been allowed to become decrepit through lack of maintenance, doesn’t have a kitchen or working bathroom, has a hole in the roof but with lots of TLC could be a wonderful family home for her, Sam and their three boys.”

“So why are you looking so concerned, it’s not you buying it?”

“For all sorts of reasons, they exchanged on the house without exchanging on their own ….. although their purchaser says he’s firmly committed to buying it!”

“Woah! Now that’s risky but ….”

“Funny how purchasing a house, possibly the most expensive item you will ever own, is never straight forward and one of those four ‘most stressful things in life’; divorce being another! But, Sami, you became bankrupt after the Post Office wrongly accused you of fraud ….. and you lost your home.”

“Indeed. I lost everything and went back to square one. The Post Office eventually made an acceptable compensation offer and Lisa and I have found somewhere together down here in Hove. She’ll keep her house in Folding-over-Sheet and enjoy the rental income. Did you personally do something so risky as your daughter?”

“No, although her situation has brought back some memories of house purchases. I bought my first for £29,500 and four years later my second, which we couldn’t afford but you kid yourself somehow you will. Fortunately I was never in a negative-equity situation with a large mortgage! A decade or two later I bought a terraced house in Battersea and, after we’d exchanged, someone offered an extra £10,000. I had written to the owner to say how much I was going to love living in her house, la-di-dah-di-dah, and she turned down the bigger offer (phew!). And I almost lost our large apartment in Amber House here in Hove …..

“It is big, isn’t it Richard. I remember when Lisa and I came to supper (See PCs 329 and 330) we were in love with the tall ceilings and gorgeous proportions.”

“….. as my now ex wouldn’t commit to somewhere for herself. We exchanged three days before it was to go back on the open market! Seems a long time ago! I noticed the candle’s back up on the counter. You surprised Josh has gone back?”

“No, not really. He’s young and he got so fired up the last time. I feel sorry for Luke, left behind and always going to dread an unexpected telephone call. Libby said they have bought a dog, a Norfolk Terrier, to keep Luke busy!”

“Great idea! Hey! Listen. Must go and speak to Anna. (See PCs 358 and 365). Been good to catch up; love to Lisa and see you anon.”

And with that, and a squeeze of my hand on his shoulder, I got up and moved across to Anna. I don’t know her at all well but had noticed she’d been away during the Paralympics in Paris (28 Aug – 8 Sep).

“Hi! Anna. Hadn’t seen you and assumed you’d gone to Paris. Were you competing or simply in some support role?”

“I didn’t make the wheelchair basketball team as here in the UK we have too many extraordinarily gifted players, but I went to the Bercy Arena to support them. The Netherlands won gold, the USA silver and China bronze; we came fifth, although I am pleased our men’s team won silver.”

“You’ll try for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028?”

“I’ll see! Working full time restricts the amount of time I can dedicate to training …… and you need to be extremely dedicated! Listen, need to finish this report but good to see you.”

On my way out, I pass by Sami’s table. “Forgot to say, Sami, I’ve shrunk!”

“Sorry?”

“I have always been 6ft 2̋ which equates to 187cms. In a recent medical, I confidently replied ‘187’ to the obvious question, to be told that I was now 183. I’ve lost four centimetres Sami! Where did they go?”

“Where indeed …….”

Richard 4^th October 2024

Hove

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

If you walk down a pavement in any town after overnight rain, you’ve probably noticed a snail or three, making their way slowly across the paving stones. Sadly some get crushed by people’s shoes and a gooey mess and broken shell are all that remains. But I don’t think anyone does this on purpose, extinguishing life just for the hell of it. I certainly don’t, carefully side-stepping the little creature and wondering what urges it to travel in a certain direction. And if you ever wondered, on the ends of a snail’s tentacles are its eyes, which can’t focus or see colour but can discern different intensities of light, helping it to navigate towards dark places.

When I put my small gardening hat on, it’s a different matter.

I love the Hosta, a large-leaved plant that produces white flowers around July time. In the winter months it hibernates under the soil, then in the spring little shoots appear and the cycle begins all over again.

Snails love Hostas! Not wishing to use pesticides, I have tried a number of different things to discourage them from eating my plants. Placing the pot in water sort of works for small pots, as snails are not good swimmers, but that’s impractical for a large pot of Hostas. I read that applying some grease around the rim of the pot creates an uncrossable boundary; it works for a week or so then the little buggers wade through it or jump it or …… I bought a roll of copper tape, well, three actually as it was on offer, and stuck it in a thick band around the top, having first got rid of any grease! The pot looks nice with a copper-coloured band around it but, contrary to the advertising blurb, the snails still got across.

Now I have resigned myself to thinking I grow Hostas as a food for snails.

I love watching them slide across the grass, I hate them munching through my juicy Hosta leaves, and I loved eating them, although I haven’t for over 15 years as my tastes have changed. You used to be able to buy them in little plastic tubes, complete with garlic butter and parsley; pop them into the oven for the requisite number of minutes and ….. yum! yum! …. But you have to like garlic.

The Portuguese eat an estimated 4000 tonnes of Caracóis a year. Some are of the tiny variety, usually about 1cm in diameter. Cooked in a broth with lots of Rosemary and not swimming in melted garlic butter, normally you’re presented with about 100 in a small bowl and enjoy them with a cold beer. Or if you visit a cheap tasca bar they come as grilled appetizers. Helix Pomatia is often referred to as the land lobster for its superior flavour and texture. The French eat about 25,000 tonnes of snails a year; about 6.5 per person per year, normally cooked in garlic butter or chicken stock. I remember whenever I sailed across the English Chanel to Cherbourg, supper was at a bistro that specialised in snails and mussels; it could have been called Madame Escargot?

In Britain snails are available in supermarkets or delicatessens but I am reminded how on The Continent you can buy live ones. Many years ago I was on holiday with my daughter near Estepona in southern Spain, staying with cousin Susie and husband Robin. Tasked with foraging for things for lunch, we went to the local market. Jade, aged 8, saw a large cardboard box and sensed it was moving. Closer inspection revealed it was full of live snails. After the screams and tears subsided, she was placated with buying a dozen ….. which she set free in Susie’s garden; we didn’t tell Susie!

Used to small snails, I saw a photograph of a giant one. It turns out to be the Giant African land snail (Lissachatina fulica) which can weigh nearly a kilo and whose shell is some 20cms long. Celina tells me they also live in Brazil.

Sadly it really is a pest; it feeds voraciously and causes severe damage to agricultural crops and native plants.

In my postcards from our time in Croatia this summer (PCs 390 & 391 Tales of Croatia) I wrote that our guide in the seaside town of Split was a very tall chap called Pero Ugarković and he’d written a book about the sea snail. Sea snails breathe with gills whereas land snails with lungs. There is another type, the freshwater snail which use either gills or lungs.

I think we could call snails nomads for they take their home with them! The shell is created from calcium carbonate and has a protein outer coating. Other creatures consume the shells to obtain the nutrient calcium. There’s something very practical and endearing about carrying your home with you, self-contained and all that, and snails often feature in stories written for children.  

“Soon, which in cosmic time means millions and millions of years, they crawled out of the ocean and onto the land. Not knowing whether they would find a home, some of these brave early explorers carried their homes on their backs. So snails took to the earth!” extracted from ‘The Snail with the Right Heart: a True Story’ by Maria Popova     

Still wondering why I have titled this postcard ‘… aka Brian’? In 1965 the BBC bought a French children’s programme ‘Le Manège Enchanté’, created by Serge Danot, and used the footage with new English-language scripts unrelated to the original story lines to produce ‘The Magic Roundabout’. It proved a great success and achieved cult status. Its characters included Dougal, a drop-eared variety of a Skye Terrier, Zebedee, a talking jack-in-a-box who kept crying “time for bed”, Ermintrude the cow, Dylan a hippy rabbit and a cheerful, bashful and intelligent snail called ……. Brian. (Note 2)

Richard 27^th September 2024

Hove
www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 There are three main species of helix snails that are edible: Roman or Burgandy snails (Helix Pomatia), Garden snails (Helix Aspersa and the European Snail (Helix Lucorum)

Note 2 Who knows why the writers called the snail Brian. But if you’re called Brian, I hope you’re cheerful, bashful and intelligent!

Towards the end of last year, I decided I needed a couple of medical referrals (see PC 366 Medical Decluttering December 2023) and the quickest way was to see a private doctor. Fortunately, Celina has a good one, one whose opinion and professionalism she values, so I fixed myself an appointment. After some 50 minutes of inspection and chat, I left with three, not two, referrals and a personal endorsement as to his efficacy. Wind the clock forward six months and it occurs to me it would be nice to have the doctor and his wife to supper one evening in the autumn. Not sure of the modern etiquette, I email him at his practice, tentatively outlining my thoughts, looking for agreement before trying to pin him down to a date.

His reply was disappointing, wishing to maintain the boundaries of the doctor-patient relationship, so declining. I think this is a rather sad reflection on modern life, for as a teenager I remember the local doctor, an Ivor Haire, coming to supper with my parents when they lived in the village of Balcombe, some twenty miles north of Brighton. And some of the individuals who went through my coaching sessions became good friends and sometimes came to supper. There was of course an implicit understanding that what had been discussed in the coaching sessions stayed there. It gave a little more colour to my life and I had rather hoped that Celina’s doctor could have accepted the invitation.

I am lucky enough to be the current guardian of an oil painting of my great great grandmother. Sarah Fosbery (née Smith) was born in 1822, aged 17 married Francis Fosbery in Adare Ireland (see PC 127 I Went Looking For a Family Seat – September 2022), delivered nine daughters and died, presumably exhausted, in 1861 aged 39. Her 8^th daughter, Eva Constance Fosbery, emigrated with seven of her siblings to New Zealand. (see PC 169 Shifting Sands and PC 170 100% New Zealand January 2020). Varnish yellows with age so it needed a clean, which was professionally carried out by Stig Evans here in Brighton. Those of us lucky enough to own these historical heirlooms have a responsibility to keep them in good shape.

In Portugal I finished Simon Winchester’s book ‘Atlantic’, chock full of information and well researched. I was so taken by Simon making a fascinating link between problems in Britain during World War One and the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 that I thought I could share it. Stay with this story, even if it’s a little convoluted! Back in 1915 there was a shortage of cordite, a smokeless explosive, for shells that were used to attack surfaced German submarines. For the non-chemists, cordite is made from a mixture of nitro-glycerine, guncotton, acetone and petroleum jelly; it was the acetone that was in short supply. CP Scott, the editor of the Manchester Guardian, by chance had lunch with a White Russian émigré and science professor at the University of Manchester in early summer of 1916; his name was Chaim Weizmann. Sometime during the main course Weizmann said he had developed a new bacterial method for producing acetone.

Scott told his friend David Lloyd George, then Minister of Munitions and soon to be Prime Minister, about Weizmann and the latter was invited to London. Within a few weeks, Weizmann had an industrial space to start production, but needed a ready supply of cellulose, found in maize and surprisingly in chestnuts. Horse chestnuts are normally used by schoolboys (Note 1) for the very traditional game of ‘conkers’, but in the autumn of 1916 thousands of tons were brought to the factory and, after various chemical reactions, acetone was produced in sufficient quantities. Eventually the Royal Navy destroyed enough German submarines in surface engagements to tip the balance in Britain’s favour. Such a good story, but how does this relate to Israel you might well ask?

Prime Minister Lloyd George asked his foreign secretary, a chap by the name of Arthur Balfour, to suggest an honour for Weizmann, who was also the leader of the British Zionist League. Chaim Weizmann desired no official recognition but his closeness to those in power enabled him to push for some form of government recognition of the Zionist’s aims. In November 1917 The Balfour Declaration formalised the British Government’s support for the birth of a Jewish State in Palestine, something that was achieved in 1948.

In PC 402 Connected Thoughts August 2024 I mentioned that I was doing a morning walk, leaving the Estoril apartment at 0700, then down to the sea, west to Cascais and back through the residential areas of Cascais, Monte Estoril and Estoril; in all about 7kms. Most people’s morning routines are intentionally timed to the minute, Monday to Friday, to catch a train, drive to work, take the children to school; for example, Celina and I leave our apartment at 0915, give or take a minute, to go to yoga.

So it is in Portugal. Just before I get to Jardim dos Passarihos, I pass an apartment block with beautifully landscaped gardens and an underground car park.

The driver of a green Mini wouldn’t have recognised me on the Monday or even on the Tuesday, but by the Thursday, as she triggered the sliding gate onto the road to open, she might have thought: “I’ve seen that chap before!” I have generally got there a second or two before her, so she’s let me get clear!! Given that my own walking speed varies and I occasionally stop to take a photograph or have some water, it’s strange that I have been in exactly the same place as the Mini driver on 4 out of 5 days in a week!

Finally, Francisquinha’s new passport (See PC 403 Idle Thoughts September 2024) is no longer virginal. Leaving Lisbon on the 11^th, an understanding officer stamped it … with a little bit of encouragement!

Richard 20^th September 2024

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1. I had a tuck box full during the autumn term. To harden a horse chestnut (conker) you popped it vinegar. The harder the conker, the more difficult to break.

Our French friend Benedicte was supposed to visit her mother in France one Saturday last month. When she found she couldn’t check-in at home with EasyJet for her flight from London Gatwick, she drove to the airport, about 40 minutes from Hove. EasyJet had overbooked her flight and offered her one on the Monday. She texted me:

“I had to cancel the trip. It’s fate ….”

“Fate can play a funny part – is that why fate’s feminine?”

“La destinée.”

“Exactly!”

“Yes but we also have ‘le destin’. I wonder why we have those two words; there must be a slight difference in meaning. I think ‘destin’ is what you are born with. What is written for you at birth, influenced by your place of birth, your family economic status, your race… you can’t do anything about it. Destinée is more something you can influence. You take your journey in life into your hands. But the difference between the two is also a big philosophical conversation that can vary according to religious beliefs.”

It’s clear that ‘la destinée’ is actually ‘destiny’ in English and ‘le destin’ is Fate. I turned to a dictionary to find some definition. … of destiny:

“A noun. The events that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future. For example: She was unable to control her own destiny’. Or ‘The hidden power believed to control future events.” (Which is confusing!)

…. and ‘fate’:

“A noun: the development of events outside a person’s control, regarded by some as predetermined by some supernatural power. In Greek and Roman mythology, there were three Goddesses who presided over the birth and life of humans. Each person’s fate was thought of as a thread spun, measured, and cut by the three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.”

There’s a phrase in English ‘It’s all Greek to me!’, meaning I have no idea what you’re talking about. (Note 1) It appears in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (1599) so it’s not modern, but it sums up my knowledge of Greek mythology and stories of Icarus and Hades and Odysseus and Achilles and ……. However, they had an interesting take on fate, those ancient Greeks.

The ‘Fates’, otherwise known as the Moirai, were the personifications of destiny. They were three sisters: Clotho (Note 2) aka The Spinner, Lachesis, the allotter, and Atropos who was ‘the inevitable’, the metaphor for death. You can see where this is going, can’t you?

Their role was to ensure that every being, mortal and divine, lived out their destiny as it was assigned to them by the laws of the universe. For us mere mortals, this destiny spans our entire lives and is represented by a thread spun from a spindle. I only hope that when Clotho was spinning my life, she didn’t run out of thread too early, and that Lachesis was generous in her use of her measuring rod! These female fates were considered to be above even the gods in their role as enforcers of fate, although they did acknowledge orders from the chief of the gods, Zeus. (Note 3)

The Ancient Greeks were not alone in their beliefs about Fate. In Norse mythology the Norns were a trio of female beings who ruled the destiny of gods and men, twinning the thread of life. One was called Urḋr, from Old English wyrd from which comes the modern English weird.

One source suggests that ‘although they are used in similar contexts, they cannot be used interchangeably’; that’s an ugly word! Fate implies a lack of control or inevitability, like the situation that Benedicte found herself in, no personal control when EasyJet’s overbooked her flight; destiny suggests a sense of purpose or direction that can be within one’s control.

The composer Guiseppe Verdi wrote the opera ‘La Forza del Destino’ (The Power of Destiny). As Shakespeare and the Greek dramatists have taught us, man is not always in control of his own destiny. In Verdi’s opera, based on a Spanish drama, the power of destiny contrives at every turn to frustrate the happiness of Leonora and Alvaro. In 1960 at the Metropolitan Opera, the famous baritone Leonard Warren collapsed and died during a performance of the opera in New York. The supposed curse reportedly kept Luciano Pavarotti from ever performing the opera and the tenor Franco Corelli used to follow small rituals during a performance to avoid bad luck.

You can imagine William Shakespeare had something to say about destiny, and you’d be right. For instance – “This above all; to thine own self be true. And this must follow, as the night the day. Thou canst not then be false to any man. It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” This was from ‘Hamlet’ and then we have: “We know what we are but know not what we may be.” Knowing what we are, who we are, is essential to knowing how to be oneself (PC 399 Why Can’t I just be Me? July 2024)

And who could forget Destiny’s Child, the name of an R&B/Soul Quartet that formed in 1990? Its most famous member was Beyoncé Knowles and I’m told its hits included ‘Say My Name’ and ‘Survivor’.  I am more likely to remember the hits of Paul Anka, a Canadian singer born in 1941, particularly ‘You Are My Destiny’, the first line of which goes “You are my destiny, you share my reverie, you are my dream come true, that’s what you are.”

Finally John Dryden, England’s first Poet Laureate (1631 – 1700), wrote of fate:

“Tis fate that flings the dice,

And as she flings

Of kings makes peasants,

And of peasants kings.”

So was it fate that caused you to read this postcard ….. or destiny?

Richard 13^th September 2024

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Other nations have the same saying. For instance the Czechs think it’s all Spanish and the Dutch ‘That’s Chinese to me’ (Dat is Chinees voor mij)!

Note 2 Clotho’s Roman equivalent was Nona, a goddess called upon during the 9^th month of pregnancy.

Note 3 In Shakespeare’s Macbeth the weird sisters were prophetesses, but also known as the three witches.

In the early Nineteen Seventies, in the Officers’ Mess of 39 Medium Regiment Royal Artillery in Sennelager, Germany, we had a monthly ‘film night’ on a Sunday evening, the 16mm film being shown in two parts through an old-fashioned projector. In the interval we tucked into traditional curries and their accompanying side dishes. For a year or so I was the Mess Secretary, responsible for all the Mess’s social events and in this case for choosing the film. One Sunday evening we showed Klute: ‘John Klute’s best friend has disappeared, and he has only one lead, a prostitute. While he struggles to get her to help him, he doesn’t know her life is in danger.’ The film came out in 1973 and starred Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.

It was sad to read that Sutherland had died in June aged 88, for I loved his films, particularly ‘Don’t Look Now’ and ‘Death in Venice’. But then I remembered ‘Klute’ and how Sylvia, the wife of the Commanding Officer Guy Watkins, had come up to me in the interval and criticized my choice of film: “I don’t like smutty films!” Such a good word ‘smutty’; such a great film!

The memory of the 16mm film and its projector reminded me how important radio was in providing entertainment when I was growing up.  Television was in its infancy and my step-father was not, at the time, a fan. One of the best comedy shows was ‘Beyond Our Ken’, which was broadcast from 1958 -1964, and starred Kenneth Horne, Kennith Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden, Bill Pertwee.

It was replaced by ‘Round The Horne’ (1965-1968). I can still hear one of the regulars on his show introducing himself: “Hello! I’m Jules and this is my friend Sandy.” in an extremely camp voice, something which wouldn’t be acceptable these days! The Goon Show, with Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, was another must as were some of the American comedians like Allan Sherman (Camp Granada: Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh) (1924 – 1973), Shelley Berman (1925-2017) and Bob Newhart who died last month aged 94.

Two of Newhart’s sketches are worth highlighting; bear in mind his gift was to make you the listener fill in the other side of his one-sided dialogue.

In his ‘The Driving Instructor’, he imagines the instructor making all sorts of allowances for his student: “You want to start the car?  ….. You turned on the lights. The controls all look alike, don’t they? …. All right, let’s pull out into traffic. What’s the first thing we are going to do before we pull out into traffic? I mean besides praying, let’s say. No, what I had in mind was checking the rearview mirror. DON’T PULL OUT! Haha! Please don’t cry. I’m sorry, but there was this bus . . .”

Ironically, when he first performed this monologue, Newhart could not drive.

His Walter Raleigh sketch relied on huge assumptions. We do not hear Raleigh, who is in Virginia. Instead, the speaker is the English importer, with the voice of a wise-guy modern-day American, reacting to the 16th-century Raleigh’s despairing description: “What’s tobacco, Walt? It’s a kind of leaf, huh? Oh, it has a lot of different uses. What are some of the uses, Walt? You can chew it or put it in a pipe. Or you can shred it and put it in a piece of paper and roll it up. Don’t tell me, Walt, don’t tell me. You stick it in your ear, right? Oh, between your lips. Then what? You set fire to it. Then what do you do, Walt? You inhale the smoke, huh?” His genius is obvious.

I read them now, hear his voice narrating the skit, and find them funny. I wonder whether they transcend the generations.

I am an avid fan of the books of John Grisham and some years ago read The Testament, about a rich American leaving his fortune, much to the anger and bewilderment of his ex-wives and children, to a missionary living in Pantanal. (See PC 17 Pantanal – a Prequel August 2014). I had never heard of the Pantanal, the world’s largest, flattest wetland, 800kms north to south, 500 east to west. On our next visit to Brazil, Celina and I decided to spend a few days at the Fazenda Barranco Alto, one of the agrotourism eco haciendas (see PC 20 Pantanal September 2014) We spent some time on the Rio Negra, often in the company of two Americans, Tim & Diane Tinnes. We kept in touch and in 2015, after our two weeks in Alaska (See PCs 44 & 45), dropped down to visit them in San Francisco for a couple of days.

Tim continues to read my PCs and occasionally comments. Recently he highlighted an article in The Guardian about the current state of the Pantanal, how it’s drying out at a horrendous rate, so much so that large parts of it have been ravaged by fire and fauna and flora are dying. Maybe it will recover but we’re pleased to have had the opportunity to visit it and understand its importance.

During the WhatsApp conversation with Sami and Mo in the Hope Café (PC 401 23^rd August 2024) a couple of weeks ago, Mo and I chatted about OE (Note 1). I was about to tell Mo about Joe Baines-Holmes, a neighbour who was off on the ultimate OE and the internet had connection dropped out. What I wanted to say was that Joe, a computer engineer, has flown out to Wisconsin on a 17-month contract. In a few weeks he will travel via Christchurch New Zealand to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Base (Note 2) where he will spend twelve months ensuring the base’s computer equipment is serviced and maintained. The Antarctic has two seasons; winter, when it’s completely dark, starts in March and lasts until October; summer, when the sun doesn’t set, from October to March. And in the winter the temperature varies between -40C and -70C. Quite an experience for anyone; not sure any other OE could beat this?

My regular readers will already have been introduced to Francisquinha. If you have only recently started reading these scribbles, you could update yourself by reading PCs 172 and 217. I had to apply for a new passport around Easter this year so thought I could apply for one for Francisquinha. Both arrived back in the same envelope, although hers is slightly bigger than mine!

Richard 6^th September 2024

Estoril

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 OE is a New Zealand abbreviation for Overseas Experience.

Note 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amundsen%E2%80%93Scott_-South_Pole_Station

“They say (Ed. Whoever ‘they’ are?) that if a butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian rain forest, it can change the weather half a world away. This is the theory of chaos. What it means is that everything that happens in this moment is an accumulation of everything that’s come before it. Every breath; every thought. There is no innocent action. Some end up having the force of a tempest. Their impact cannot be missed. Others are the blink of an eye, passing by unnoticed. All I know today is that you can think that what you’ve done is only the flap of a butterfly wing, when it’s really a thunderclap, and both can result in a hurricane.” Catherine McKenzie ‘Fractured’

So, the butterfly …….

Away from our unvarying regime of five sessions of hot yoga a week in Brighton, there’s an opportunity to indulge in some less strenuous activity, like swimming or walking. My mother-in-law’s apartment in Estoril is just under 4kms from the better known town of Cascais, so I have devised a triangular route that takes me down to the little Praia da Poça, west along the promenade to the Cascais railway terminus and back north east ….. to a shower and breakfast!

It takes about 80 minutes and after a while you begin to recognise some of the locals out for their early morning constitutional; roughly the same time, same place!

On my return route, I use a small pedestrian underpass below the railway lines; at the end are some steps, with a metal handrail to assist those who need assistance!

About a week ago I noticed that someone had placed a sticker illustrating a butterfly on one of the rails. Our masseuse Kay Delphine is a great fan of butterflies and has one as her logo; it was automatic to think of her when I saw this little illustration.

Yesterday morning I decided to take a photograph of it, to send to her via WhatsApp. Twenty minutes later she responded:

“That’s so weird, as I’ve just had this tattoo done yesterday. It was meant to be for my 50^th – so only ten years late!”

I just LOVE these coincidences, these very weird connections that appear out of nowhere.

It’s rare to think of natural disasters and their possible occurrence when planning an overseas trip; if you did, you wouldn’t go anywhere. (Note 1) I’ve been to both New Zealand’s North and South islands where earthquakes happen quite frequently, the last in Christchurch, South Island in 2010, when some 185 people died. The Hawkes Bay, North Island earthquake of 1931 devasted the city of Napier and killed 256 people. Nearer to home last year’s Turkish 7.7 magnitude earthquake in southern and central Turkey and northern Syria killed some 60 thousand and displaced some 16% of the Turkish population.

For most people Monday mornings are the start of the working week, a time to get up …. and get on with it …. but not too early a start! Last Monday, the 26^th August, started at 0511. Our bedroom was shaking, things were rattling, noisily waking us from our slumbers and although it only lasted for some 5-8 seconds, if you count those out in your head you will realise this was an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.4!

Celina, naturally anxious, is out of bed heading for her mother’s room to check on her. Peace returns, nothing was broken, nothing cracked, but the emotions take some time to subside. I remember making some reassuring comment that earthquakes are extremely rare in this part of Europe, and we should all go back to sleep. Later I remember that Lisbon, 30kms to the East, and the areas around the city, were almost completely destroyed in a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in 1755; over 30,000 people died! (Note 2)

On returning from my walk, over breakfast we compare thoughts. Toni was wondering about after-shock Tsunamis, just how high these walls of water can get. We see on a contour map that the apartment is some 60 metres above sea level, so feel safe.

After many weeks, I have finally returned to and finished Simon Winchester’s Atlantic (see PC 392 Hope Continues 21 June 2024), recommended to me by Sami. This is a fascinating book, chocked full of so much information that you need to absorb the facts in bite-size bits! “As he travels around its edges (the Atlantic Ocean) and across its expanse, he reveals its most captivating stories – the age of exploration; the colonization of the Americas; the rise and fall of the slave trade and history’s great naval battles.”

In his Epilogue, he reveals that the results of extensive modelling suggest at some point in the future the southern tip of South America will join with the Cape of Good Hope and the Atlantic Ocean will cease to exist. The forecast for this major event is some 170 million years in the future so, whilst this should not worry us, today’s movement of the world’s tectonic plates will continue to cause earthquakes and tsunamis. And whilst the visible horror of these movements is too obvious, the scale of movement isn’t. The Sumatran tsunami of Boxing Day 2004 may have killed a quarter a million people and passed into human history as one of the greatest natural disasters of all time, but it only moved the sea floor south of Sumatra a few metres northward and that sea floor is many thousands of miles wide.  

A butterfly flaps its wings ……

Richard 30^th August 2024

Estoril

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 Of course one should avoid, for instance, sailing in the Caribbean during the hurricane season, June to November, or going to some of the Gulf states in their summer, but natural events are hard to forecast.

Note 2 The wooded houses were lit by candles. The shaking caused them to fall over, setting the houses alight. The 30m tsunami completed the destruction.