Part of our planning was to be in Alaska/Yukon on the longest day of the year!! Get your mind around this: in Dawson City the sun set at 00:47 on a bearing of 345° and rose at 02:59 on a bearing of 15°. So strange but actually it was wonderful, to have these long evenings, staying warm with a strong sun until you went to bed. Driving on unfamiliar roads, it was comforting to know you wouldn’t be wending your way up hill and down dale in the dark.

Dawson City developed a reputation for lawlessness and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police took a tough line. Consequently some Americans, wanting more freedom and fun maybe, took off down river to a newly established outpost called Eagle, which was over the border in Alaska, America. There is some speculation that Eagle was developed on the back of a half-truth, that a couple of prospectors staked out 50×100 foot plots, went to Dawson City with a bag of gold, sold the line that there was ‘gold in them thaar hills’, and gullible chaps, unable to find a free unclaimed creek around Dawson City to work, bought it! Eagle became a flourishing township of 2000, living in log cabins and tents. Obviously the London Alaska Syndicate that employed George bought several claims, particularly on the Fortymile River and at Colorado Creek and George spent several months here in 1901 and 1902.

The road to Eagle initially follows the Top of The World Highway, which is aptly named. This is emptiness writ large.

The view from the ‘Top of the World’ Highway

Mile after mile of dirt road, astride the tops of the hills. In every direction you see more of the same; trees, hills, greens, blues, golds ……. and sky …. and only one or two vehicles came in the other direction during our drive. We were blessed with wonderful warm weather and, driving along this unique road, we truly felt ‘on top of the world’. The entry onto this highway had been a ferry across the Yukon River, only open from late spring to early autumn due to the icing up of the river; also the snow of course would make driving on it during the winter months too difficult. Amusing to stop at the US Customs Post, go through the formalities, and drive onto tarmac – a modern surface, even boasting a middle yellow line ….. which stopped when you were out of sight of Canada and it reverted to a hard-packed dirt surface.

After some 170 miles, we turned off the Top of The World Highway and onto the 70 mile Taylor Highway. This was the one part of our trip I had felt might be rather daunting. The Taylor follows the trail developed by the gold prospectors who did not go down the Yukon River from Dawson City to Eagle. After 10 miles we crossed the Fortymile River, and followed the O’Brien Creek northwards. The road twisted around hills, down to the river and up over another shoulder, no wildlife visible apart from rabbits, on and on; sometimes the drop off the roadside was quite steep and there were no guard rails, so this was not a road to hurry on!

O’Brien Creek on the Taylor Highway

Two and a half hours later we drove slowly into Eagle. You remember I said earlier that Eagle had had a population of some 2000? Well! They left!! Currently there are about 109 people living here, swelled in the summer months by tourists to, maybe, 116. If you wanted to live away from it, here’s the place to come … Eagle City, only about 150 miles south from the Arctic Circle!!

The Settlement of Eagle City (2015)

George wrote to Eva after his arrival at Eagle:

“I think I may say that I have at last reached the outermost edges of civilization. Dawson looks to me now as a place of refinement and luxury. Eagle City is a settlement of about fifty huts (log cabins), two large iron stores, and a board house used for Government purposes, and a little way out log buildings, round a space with a long pole flying the Stars & Stripes, of the Military barracks. The town site is a great improvement on Dawson. The hills stand well back from the town with a handsome bluff on the left, at the foot of which fans out Colorado Creek. A good view up and down the Yukon gives a feeling of breathing space.”

Everyone we met, from Theresa the postmistress who doubles up as the local historian, Mary the librarian, Terry who gave us the guided tour (and hoped we would spend money in the museum’s gift shop), and Philip, who was in the Visitors’ Centre and who looked old enough to have known George when he was here, were unfailing helpful, courteous and engaging. Lovely, lovely people! The restaurant was being refurbished and we had to improvise supper. We could cook at our B&B, so we looked in the village store for some provisions. The store owners were stocking the shelves; we looked into the freezer. Well, funny ‘burger’ shaped blocks called sausages, chunks of meat of all sorts (Moose? Caribou?), all very suspect – particularly if you’re a vegetarian as Celina is!

The old and the modern in Eagle

George trekked out of Eagle up to the mines they were working. He wrote to Eva:

“I can only describe the trail as the worst on earth. Mostly swamp – one moment nearly dragged off by the scrub, the next floundering in black mud. All the time the mosquitoes were in swarms, driving us both mad, the animals to madness. Really the mosquitoes question is terrible. We all wear netting and gloves, but you can’t keep them on always. We have to burn smoke fires round camp day and night, but still are covered with bites. I had been warned about the Alaskan mosquito – but dear me, I had no idea they could be so persistent and so hungry. They have learnt to climb through the netting; I watched them do it! The inside of our tent is splashed with our blood and squashed mosquitoes.”

After a lovely peaceful mosquito-free night (!) in the Falcon Inn B&B we left, filled up with petrol at Ron’s (See PC 43), and made our way back to the ‘Top of The World Highway’ and turned west. There is no record of George having been in this direction, so we mentally left him at Eagle, ruminating about his London-based syndicate and the uncertainty of the whole project. After a few hours we got back onto tarmac and drove into Chicken. Only in Alaska maybe would a place be called ‘Chicken’! And you know what? One night, as the prospectors sat around the fire after a hard day panning for gold at the creeks, it was agreed that their settlement was large enough to be christened. The area was abundant with a wild bird, the Ptarmigan, and this was the popular choice. Unfortunately no one knew how to spell the word, and when someone helpfully suggested that a Ptarmigan looked vaguely like a chicken, a show of hands adopted that name instead! (Nice story huh?)

The roadhouse shop and petrol station at Chicken was a favourite stop for the large Recreational Vehicles (RVs) – and the place was fairly busy. In an adjacent steamy café, the menu board had all sorts of fried this and fried that, fizzy this and that ….. but what I really wanted was a decent coffee. “What sort of coffee do you do?” “Fancy coffee!” “Do you do expresso?” “Yes, fancy coffee! In the roadhouse they don’t know what an expresso is, so they do ordinary coffee and we do ‘fancy’ coffee.” And this is the C21st!! Bless their little cotton socks.

I have mentioned RVs. In America everything is bigger and this includes RVs (and some of the inhabitants!!); if you live in Europe, I don’t think you will have ever seen the size of the RVs we saw in Alaska. The biggest ones tow the family 4×4 and are the size of the biggest coaches you will see in the UK! In Tok (pronounced Toke) we blagged our way on board one, to see just how big they are inside. The elderly couple proudly showed us around; expanding sides gave an extra 6 feet when you were parked up, the fully-equipped kitchen came complete with an ‘American-style’ refrigerator, and there was the king-sized bed and walk-in shower. Wow! “How much?” I rather cheekily asked. “$300,000, but we don’t own a real house; this is it.” One could see the attraction, sort of, and we had also met people in Whitehorse who toured Alaska all summer in their RV, before heading back to Florida for the winter. The Australian writer Tim Winton observed that many people in Australia bought a RV when their retired, and drove around the coast of their island continent. He called them SAD – See Australia (and) Die! If they completed the circumnavigation before one of them passed on, they simply reversed and went around the other way!

A smoke-shrouded Delta River on the way to Fairbanks

We arrived in Fairbanks in the gloom – there was sunshine somewhere but smoke from hundreds of forest fires had reduced visibility to a mile at best; not pleasant! Alaska’s second city, Fairbanks is fairly modern, sitting astride the Chena River and roughly in the centre of Alaska. Go north along the Dalton Highway for 500 miles and you arrive at Prudhoe Bay on the Beaufort Sea, the largest oilfield in North America. The Dalton Highway has become famous as the road the ‘Ice Road Truckers’ travel on. After a night beside the river, we head down to the railway station and board the Alaska Railroad train, bound for Anchorage. Over twelve hours the train would wind its way through some of the remotest, beautiful and rugged scenery in North America, past the entrance to the Denali National Park and hopefully, if the visibility improved, there would be a glimpse of the highest mountain in North America, Mount McKinley (20,320ft), in the distance.

This journey was stunning and a fitting end to an amazing trip. We sat in the observation car, or stood on the open platform at the back of the carriage, watching Alaska unfold; around every bend, across rickety bridges, close-at-hand streams and woods and way-off the snow-covered mountains – the mournful whistle of the train forever announcing our presence.

View from the train

People got on, people got off; it was a busy day – but what I will never understand was something they served at breakfast on the train – “biscuit & sausage gravy”. The biscuit is like the English scone …. and cold; the sausage gravy is warm, grey, with bits of unmentionables in it. Absolutely disgusting – and they had announced its inclusion in the breakfast meal with some pride! Over my breakfast plate we talked to Jason and Bob, two guys who had been hunting moose, and who were now making their way down to Denali to do some fishing. Jason hunted with a bow & arrow – proudly telling vegetarian Celina how he liked nothing better than to kill a moose, do all the butchery, and fill his family freezer in Montana. We didn’t check how many chest freezers he had but an adult moose regularly weighs 300kg! We had seen a mother and calf beside the road out of Tok – wonderful, powerful, magnificent creatures.

We arrived in Anchorage late in the day and prepared to fly down to Vancouver early the following morning. Our Alaska adventure was over. We had followed George for some part of his journey, we had driven over 1000 miles and travelled on one of the most scenic railroads; we had had virtually no rain in over three weeks and were blessed with hot sunny weather for the most part. We felt extremely privileged to have been able to visit this wild and beautiful state – and grateful to George for having planted the seed.

Thanks George, my sentiments entirely!!

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

P.S. You remember that Frank Sinatra song about traveling (?) “It’s very nice to go traveling, …. but it’s so much nicer to come home.” How true!!

P.P.S.   If you have read this and PC 44, and are tempted to go to Alaska yourself – GO!!

Years ago I wouldn’t have been able to locate cities in Alaska, simply aware that it was that bit of North America up in the top left hand corner. Wasn’t it Russian at some stage? ’Cold and dark’ was another thought; you can tell I can’t have paid much attention in my geography lessons, or maybe we didn’t cover it. Since then a number of television programmes have been made about this vast American state, focused generally on survival, darkness, cold and oil;  “Ice Road Truckers” or Ben Fogle’s “New Lives – Alaska” for instance, or dramas like ‘Insomnia’ with Al Pacino.

Alaska is the largest state in the United States but has a population of only 750,000. It was bought from the Russians in 1867 for $7.2m – about 2 cents an acre – and most of the then population could not understand why US Secretary of State William Seward had paid good money for it – “Seward’s Folly” or “Uncle Sam’s Attic” were two descriptions! Eventually it became a fully-fledged state of the Union in 1959; Alaskans refer to the other states as ‘The Lower 48’!

Some eight years ago I uncovered the history of my mother’s father’s family, the Nations. I know few are interested in all the details, particularly of someone else’s ancestors; “They are dead; why the interest?” so I’ll be short, but it helps if you understand a little! George M Nation was born in India in 1848, moved with his family to New Zealand in 1860, and after marrying Eva Fosbery, moved to California in 1884. They arrived in London in 1890 with three children. I surmise that George was involved in gold mining in California, gaining valuable experience, because in 1900 he was hired by a London Gold Syndicate to manage their claims in The Yukon, in Canada. He returned in 1901 and 1902 to Alaska.

My great grandfather George was a prolific writer and some of the letters he wrote to his wife have been preserved, and are in the care of a cousin living on Vancouver Island. His beautiful writing covers sheet after sheet, all the letters beginning with “My Darling Eva” and finishing with ‘your loving husband, GM Nation” such was the formality of the time.

Transcribed, they are a delightful insight into a world that now seems so distant from ours. Travel needs a purpose; it doesn’t have to be anything deep or exotic, but here a seed began to germinate. What if I followed his path, up into Alaska, to see what he saw, feel what he felt, be emotionally closer to an ancestor, but with the benefits of modern comforts?

George journeyed from London, across the Atlantic by steamer to New York, took a train north to Winnepeg, another across Canada and eventually arrived in Seattle, after about 3 weeks travelling! We jumped the ‘pond’ and continental North America and arrived in Seattle – 11 hours later! There was no sign of the Hotel Butler he had stayed in, demolished years ago for some more modern development. Cruise ships are popular on this coast, going north into south east and southern Alaska, but we chose to follow George by taking a ferry up the Inland Passage on what’s known as the Alaskan Marine Highway; this was a smaller ship used by locals, campers, hikers and the like. George wrote of his trip:

“The steamer we left in is only really intended for river travel and very top heavy. We met with very rough weather and it was nervous work to see how the boat rolled. As usual she was overloaded with freight, horses and sheep and crammed with managers. However we got to Skagway after calling at several canneries two days late. Of course the winter scenery was wonderful to see.”

There was a period of rolling swell crossing the Queen Charlotte Sound, but otherwise ours was generally a smooth passage; whilst it was summer, there is still snow on the tops of some of the higher mountains. A brief stop in Ketchikan, the little town a magnet for the cruise ships, enabled us to access the internet to keep in touch with the outside world. Some people got off our ferry, some got on! (CF The Hurtigruten along the Norwegian coast)

George had stopped at Douglas Island, lying opposite Juneau, the capital of Alaska; we stopped here for a couple of nights. There had been a huge mining operation that only closed in 1944, and now the town focuses on tourism and State administration. We took a ride out to the Mendenhall Glacier and looked astonished at this slow-moving icefield. The Park Rangers pulled a large chunk of clear ice from the lake; 200 years old?? Staying in Juneau enabled us to book a ‘Whale Watching’ trip. “Guaranteed!” they said: “or your money back”; they haven’t given much back, they say! A small boat took us out into the Sounds, and we watched and waited. Sure enough, more than 6 humpback whales, some mothers with calf, hunted for herring, forming those famous bubble circles and then rising up to snap the fish. Neither of us had experienced this, being close to some of the most enormous mammals in the world. Did you know that all their fins are unique, similar to the the ears of the reindeer? It enables researchers to keep a track of individual whales. To pinch an overused American word ….it was ‘awesome’.

A Humpback Whale off Juneau

We completed our journey to Skagway, from where the gold prospectors started their trek, on a smaller ferry and had a night at the Mile Zero B&B – see PC 43! When the cruise ships are in, Skagway’s sort of crowded; when they depart, it’s a ghost town, but the museum was interesting and the snow-plough engine used to keep the railway line to Whitehorse open in the ‘Gold Rush’ days was a wonderful piece of engineering. George took the train; we hired a car …… and went to Whitehorse, a sprawling town on the Yukon River, crossing over the international border to do so. We had imagined Alaska would be full of fast-flowing rivers, crystal-clear and freezing. Well, some were! They were fast-flowing for sure and the water was pretty cold, but the Yukon River itself was grey, like diluted cement. Its waters originate in a glacier in British Columbia, and consist of fine-grained, silt-sized particles of rock; the water appears cloudy and is sometimes referred to as Glacial Milk.

In Whitehorse we watched The Frantic Follies Vaudeville Revue, which claims to have been entertaining ‘visitors from around the world for over 40 years’. Actually a clever mixture of music and dance and …… gags, the latter hardly changed since they started: eg. “Where are you staying in Whitehorse?” “The Fiddler Hotel.” “Oh! I’ve heard it’s a vile inn!” (Violin? Fiddle? Get it?). But we did go on board the SS Klondike, an old paddle steamer that historically took the gold prospectors and supplies down river to Dawson City, which gave one a feel for travel in this part of the world in the late 1890s. And we did practise panning for gold!! Well, in the hands-on museum we took the pan of soil/grit/sand and washed it, slowly, to get rid of everything except specks of gold; it’d helped that our pans was seeded with $5 worth of the precious metal!!

The world has become very sensitive to the issues of original exploitation of ‘first nation’ people by the ‘early settlers’, almost exclusively European. In New Zealand the local Maori population have reclaimed some of their ancient rights; in Australia the Aboriginal people have gained much long-deserved recognition; in the USA, the native-born Americans have are no longer ‘redskins’ and in Canada the various tribes who inhabited the country long before the Europeans arrived have achieved huge acceptance of their ancient rights, and their wish to retain their customs and not integrate into the ‘white man’s society’ ….. but in Whitehorse you see evidence of those who partially integrated and failed, and who are now alcohol and drug dependant. It’s the same the whole world over, sadly. In Canada ‘Eskimos’ became ‘Inuit’ …… became ‘First Nation’ ….. became ‘Aboriginal’.

The drive up the Klondike Highway to Dawson City was some 330 miles long and took seven hours. It was uneventful except a close encounter with a grizzly bear, awful coffee, the lack of petrol stations …… and after a while, one Black Spruce fir tree looks like another ……. and there were millions of them, one ‘wow’ comment on the simply stunning scenery loses its poignancy with multiple use …… and you wonder when it will …. er ….. end! We passed Five Finger Rapids, where both paddle steamers and melting ice got stuck as they made their way down river to Dawson City.

Five Finger Rapids

If you really want to see what we drove through, go onto YouTube and watch the 3 minutes of ‘Whitehorse – Dawson City’, except that that trip was recorded in the winter. We even bought a ‘pot luck’ CD from the first and only place to get breakfast – ‘The Greatest Hits of Shania Twain’. I really can’t comment on songs she might have sung that were not ‘greatest hits’, but out of the 21 on this Canadian singer’s CD, two, possibly three, were bearable!! Sorry, fans of Shania!

George took a horse-drawn sleigh from Whitehorse to get to Dawson City. He wrote:

“…. over deep rivers and lakes, always following the trail  worn by the traffic. Of course the cold was far beyond anything I had ever felt, especially when the wind blew a little. Every morning we started at 4 o’clock to take advantage of the morning frost. We took our meals at Road houses (Rough Cabins), regular labourers’ food on tin plates and cups and their beds of course, stretched across poles between one another, the blankets I found moist as they had been used by every one who had come  along through the winter. Of course we washed and slept in our day underclothes. Marvellous to say we escaped all vermin and disease and after a good soaping with hot water wash we are  more the warmer.”

Amazing that this trip in March 1901 took less than a week!!

At the height of the Gold Rush in 1898, Dawson City was home to some 30,000 souls. Most had made the arduous trek too late, arriving to find that all the creeks had been staked out and claimed; such is the lure of gold that most apparently felt an achievement simply in getting here. Today, Dawson City claims to be a bit of a cultural centre; maybe that’s because there is nothing for miles in any direction!! It’s C21st meets the wild west! Our hotel was Swiss run and great, good food, WiFi etc. The town museum’s a solid building housing good memorabilia of the city’s heydays but the rest of the place is dusty, with dirt roads and replica facades of buildings. Interestingly, they have allowed some of the older structures to show the long-term effects of building on permafrost, slopping and sinking in all sorts of different directions. If George hadn’t come here, there was not much to recommend it!!

Dawson City with the confluence of the Klondike River (the dark one) and the Yukon River (the grey one)

(To Be Continued ………..)

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

We’ve just returned from a real adventure, following in the footsteps of great grandfather George, who was in Alaska in 1900, 1901 and 1902. Whilst I gather my thoughts on the trip and how to share some of our experiences through my PCs, in the following I simply report what I heard!

The gold prospectors arrived in Alaska in the 1890s at Skagway, a town lying at the northern end of a sea inlet; so did we! We stayed at the Mile Zero B&B, appropriately named as the starting point for the trip into the Klondike and Yukon. At breakfast the following morning, we heard of the horrific attack by a white supremacist on a bible study group within a church in Charleston; nine people were dead. “Oh! This is so awful!” exclaimed our host as she watched the morning TV. I don’t think I have talked to an American about their views on gun ownership before, although I am aware that there are very polarized positions. Without knowing anything about this lady, I simply said that the United States seemed very wedded to their gun culture, so this news wasn’t very surprising. Wow! It was as if I had stuck a stick into a hornet’s nest!

“I think everybody should carry a gun, then people like this man wouldn’t do it (not quite sure why she really believed this, but I could not interject!). I have guns in my house (not in the B&B thank God!) and we leave the doors open ….. so anyone coming in we don’t like will get shot. Mind you, I have been personally affected by shootings. One of my brothers shot the nose off the other when he was quite young; well! Just nicked a bit! But my! Was it bloody! Then my niece and nephew had a fight over a gun when they were young, 7 and 5 I think, and it went off ……. and my niece is in a wheelchair for the rest of her life! (So you have had 2 extended family members injured by guns, and yet you don’t bat an eyelid when it comes to having a gun in the house?) But it’s in the Constitution! We must be free to carry guns!”

At this point I decided that it was too difficult to influence this lady in any way, especially as my toast was getting cold. I emailed my daughter Jade to tell her of this experience. She replied: Oh! A gun law conversation over breakfast! Punchy! Next PC sorted then.” And so it was! I was pleased to read later that Barack Obama had said: “At the very least we should be able to talk about this issue. At some point we will have to reckon with the fact that this kind of mass violence doesn’t happen in other advanced countries.”

The polarised positions have their own way of proving their case, so it’s not easy to get definitive data, but accept that some 60 people are shot in the UK every year ….. and in the USA it’s about 11,000. So the comparative figures are, for every 100,000 people, 0.1 of a person (!) in England & Wales and 3.6 people in the US. (But per 100k, 3.5 people in the UK and 11 people in the USA are killed in automobile accidents every year!) Another startling figure is that there are 88 guns per 100 residents in the US!

I am sure Americans choose bits of their Constitution that they like, and ignore those they don’t. In this case Article 2, amended in 1791, states: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” I am not sure the lady in the Mile Zero B&B was a member of some militia, but there you go.

Just outside Eagle, a hamlet sitting beside the Yuk,on River, lies Ron’s garage cum scrap yard cum workshop cum timber yard; we pull in for some ‘gas’. “Where’yer from?” asks Ron , mid 60s, bearded, fit. “England!” And without further prompting, Ron launches into: “Oh! You let everyone in, anyone from Europe, migrants, asylum seekers. Here I have a white friend who wants to settle here but she ain’t black, homosexual, with HIV, from Haiti, and unless you’re black, homosexual, with HIV and from Haiti, you can’t come here! Of course we have a Communist president so it’s kinda weird! What did you do?” I felt immediately that expressions of liberal views would not go down well: safer to be short and, talking to someone I guessed would be an appreciative audience, I said I was an ex-military man.  “Oh! Well! So you know how to shoot!, he said, visibly relaxing; “Of course only the criminals in England can get a gun! Here, you can walk into a shop, choose a gun from any number of types, buy a box of slugs, walk out the door …..” and, I thought, “start shooting innocent people in Charleston”, but didn’t say it aloud! “That’ll be 25 dollars …… cheap huh compared with where you’re from ….  you pay by the gallon or by the litre?? Have a nice day!” This all at half past eight in the morning!

It may have been we would have got a different view if we had raised the issue in Vancouver or in San Francisco, where we would be a week or so later. Maybe Alaska is still pretty much a wild state, where residents naturally keep guns for hunting and for protection. We all remember Sarah Pallin? But do you really need a semi-automatic rifle? For what? Maybe if you live in an environment where the law-enforcers are always armed, unlike in the United Kingdom, there is a tacit acceptance that this is the norm, to carry a gun. Any conflict, however minor, requires a range of responses, generally more serious with each step. But it seems to me that having a personal weapon takes away a huge part of the gradual response, and that’s sad.

Just musings whilst the memory is still fresh!

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

Recently there have been headline-grabbing news items of madness …. bikers in Waco in the USA having a fight over ‘who ran over whose toe’ ….. and nine motorcyclists died! Or a family, husband, wife and housekeeper, gunned down and the house set on fire …… probably caused by someone ‘slighted’ in some way. A father in the Balkans not happy with whom his son had married, so he shot them all, the new wife and her parents. We seem so quick to take offence! The continuing barbarism of ISIS in the Middle East, in our C21st world, suggests that the human race has not developed and evolved as one would wish, that in a blink of an eye we can revert to the very basics in behaviour, as exemplified in the C13th and earlier. These headlines remind me how precious this life of ours, this existence, is and how we must try to live it to the full.

Do you remember that glorious television series “Life on Earth” by the indefatigable David Attenborough? There were many memorable pieces but one particular one has stayed with me, the life cycle of a fly on Lake Malawi. The eggs geminate on the lake bed, the larvae float to the surface, become adult, and rise up into the sky in such numbers that it looks like a cloud, or smoke from a fire, as there are billions of them. The females mate, the eggs fall to the lake surface and thence to the bottom, and the cycle starts again – apparently every month near the time of the new moon, such is the rhythm of some of nature’s wonders! The adults get eaten by birds – and their existence is over in a few hours!! Do you think they know? Know that their life, their existence, is measured in minutes ….. and in this short existence they have to mate, to ensure the longevity of the species? Or maybe for them, it feels like days/months/years – their perception of time is, well, their perception of time!

I imagine it’s only us humans who know that life is finite. Did the fly above Lake Malawi know? Did an oak tree know it would finally develop a disease, grow weak and fall to the ground? Did my lovely Labrador Tom, when his body began to pain him and he looked more mournful that normal? I don’t think so!

Babies certainly don’t as their focus is on the immediate needs of food and sleep. The young don’t care, don’t think, spending all their energies on growing, on learning and on living this exciting existence; and why not?! It’s only in middle age when you begin to think that time has come to matter …. and by the time your parents are both in another world, you really really know. It’s funny this feeling, as if there is no one ‘above you’. You start seeing obituaries of people you know …. and think “Oh! No!Not him/her, not yet, .. surely!”

I have a wonderful ‘Anthology of Great Lives’ culled from the obituary pages of a British newspaper; it’s a good book to leave in the loo. The editor has ensured that the stories of the lives who grace its pages are mirrored by the title, “Thinker, Failure, Soldier, Jailer” a nod to “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor”! The people whose existence is written about certainly had a colourful time.

A chum encapsulated a thought beautifully the other day, walking above Brighton on the South Downs. “But we are intrigued as to what comes after death …… and we will never know!” he said, with a slight smile on his face. Various religions make cast-iron suggestions, describe a heaven with numerous virgins or pearly gates and someone welcoming you, or some vision of purgatory if you don’t follow this or that doctrine. There was that film ‘Flatliners’ in 1990 when a group of medical students tried to journey into the ‘afterlife’ and return ….. so they could tell everyone what it was like.

The insignificance of the human race in relation to the scale of space is mind-boggling. Have you heard how you could fit the entire global population into a sugar cube? Let me explain! We are all a mass of atoms; but each atom is formed of a nucleus and a spinning electron. In scale terms, if the nucleus was on the altar in the centre of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, the electron could move from alongside it to up into the Whispering Gallery in the dome. Take all that space away within each atom, and between each atom, and …….. we could fit into a sugar cube. (Does anyone still use cube (loaf) sugar anymore?) Well, some nice nerds did some mathematical calculations on Goggle and reckoned that actually the cube would be about 72 cubic metres ie approximately 4x4x4 metres; an enormous sugar cube but the image of scale is easier to understand.

I guess we’ve all known friends or relatives whose existence has not been the biblical four score years and ten; in early adulthood, too soon, too young. My PC 22 observed this uncertainty of life. There is no certainty in the length of our existence ….. and how we cope with that uncertainty can colour our own existence here on this earth.

I must have seen it somewhere, sometime, a picture of God holding the Universe in the palm of his hand – sorry I’m being sexist here, thinking of an old man with a flowing beard, not a woman-God. He’s looking at it with a smile on his face as if he has a sense of humour – and why wouldn’t he? He could be looking within the universe at ….. a single sugar cube? And those who leave their existence, leave this sugar cube, are simply dust …… just like the seeds of a dandelion blown by the wind from his breath.

Mere musings at the start of our summer here in the Northern Hemisphere.

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

OK! OK! I know I am not the greatest example of the lasting strength of marriage but maybe that gives me a different slant on this institution, just as we prepared for a family wedding in deepest Dorset. So it’s with slight trepidation that I write about this social event.

Some of you may be single, some may have been married for a short while, for some it may seem for ever, to the first person you ever met, to someone you ‘courted’, some of you may be on your second or even third marriage. No one starts a relationship believing it will only last for a specific time; it’s always going to last forever … and ever! Maybe some of you have taken advantage of more liberal laws that allow same-sex marriages, and we know of one such couple expecting their first baby next week. It’s a funny world!

It seems that marriage as an institution is still the aim of many, remaining socially the ‘thing to do’. A modern habit is to live together for months, even years – to try it out, so to speak. Imagine if, after a long courtship, you got married and you suddenly found you were not compatible; he/she squeezed the toothpaste in the middle/end, left the loo seat up/down, didn’t imagining empty the rubbish bin, taking her/his iPad to bed, left their clothes all over the place. Am I admitting to pet hates here? Ooopps!

We heard that my nephew and his long term girlfriend had got engaged!! How exciting this news, wondering when they were getting married, where, imagining the flowers, the whole ceremony …. that lovely film “Four Weddings and a Funeral” comes to mind ….. everyone in their best clothes, gorgeous food, champagne, speeches .… and awful jokes from the best man.

The invitation indicated ‘morning suit’ or suits, a nod to the ‘younger’ generation perhaps, although it’s obvious they like making an effort too. I suppose I have a predilection for ‘dressing up’, having been seduced to join the army for the dress uniforms (well, not really!!), so I looked forward to the prospect of wearing a morning suit and all the accoutrements. Some men turned up in suits, but a couple looked as if they were wearing their gardening ones ….. and I wondered what they would wear to a more formal occasion? Am I missing something here? Did they want to appear ‘different’, perceiving themselves as rather ‘above’ the social convention? It’s not that they were not educated ….. maybe an unconscious need to ‘cock a snoop’ at the rest of us, who had made the effort? There was a nice story from an Army chum who had been Officer of the Watch at the Tower of London when the Queen dropped in for supper; well, she has to eat somewhere! One officer was wearing his soft mess shirt and not a stiff one. The queen remarked on it: “Oh! Stiff ones are for more formal occasions.”!! I think dressing up for a wedding is de rigueur!

The small church in the village of Abbotsbury, a mile or two from the coast in Dorset and nestling under an escarpment, was the location for this wonderful celebration. Abbotsbury dates from the C10th and had a thriving Abbey until it was dissolved by Henry VIII; a huge barn is all that remains of the abbey, but on a hill overlooking the village stands a lovely little chapel used by monks for private contemplation. Nowadays Abbotsbury is famous for its swannery; started 600 years ago as a source of food for the monks, it has a large colony of mute swans, and is an important nesting and breeding ground.

Time before the service to gather one’s thoughts, admiring the wonderful flowers and looking at the other guests, wondering who they all were!! The church had a large wooden board above the altar with the Ten Commandments written in gold letters. Made me think of a discussion with Celina’s father about when to use ‘shall’ and when to use ‘will’ in English! The Commandments are all ‘shall’! But I was intrigued to read that, whereas numbers 6 to 10 start “Thou shalt not  ……”, the one concerning taking another’s life read: “Thou shalt do no murder.” Rather quaint wording for a serious subject!

The bride’s parents’ initials are ‘H’ and ‘H’, and my nephew and his now bride’s – H&H, or H² as it was written on their wedding invitation. The vicar made much of this, and added Hope and Hospitality in his homily about the benefits of marriage and how these two could embrace hope and hospitality in their union. The bridesmaids and the page boy and girl looked gorgeous. H² exchanged the traditional vows: “…… for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love cherish and (maybe?) obey, till death do us part ……..”. It’s good to have a faith and a belief.

All too soon the dinner, the speeches and the dancing at the reception were behind us, the live music group was packing up, the newlyweds departing and ‘mwah mwah’ everywhere; it was time to wend our way back to our Bed &Breakfast, The Old Rectory in Winterbourne Steepleton – doesn’t that sound just wonderfully English? And it was!

My father’s father married three times, my father married three times, and me? Well, yes, following the family tradition, but I really really didn’t set out to!! “Rather be an “incurable romantic than love’s loser with an estranged wife” as Cosmo Landesman says. Funny world, innit?

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

I’m no petrol head but like most of us (?) enjoy driving, so was intrigued when I saw a question in a magazine about whether one should use the car brakes to slow down or change down a gear and use the engine to brake. I had been taught to use the engine as it was safer and produced less wear on the brake pad. So I was surprised that, with the advent of disc brakes, the perceived wisdom is now to use the brake … and not the engine. Old habits die hard, so I remain deaf to this new advice!

Got me thinking about how habits scope our behaviour … and wondered what other habits I had that belonged to the last century (and why not?!) Gosh, so many, but one or two stand out from the crowd!  For those of you who sometimes judge me to be hypocritical … and talk of glass houses and stones … or pots and kettles and the colour black …. I’m only human!

I am a morning person. I love getting up early; it feels good to occasionally see the dawn. When Tom my Labrador was alive, in his last year (2011/12) I used to get up at 0520 to walk him, before going off at 0610 to the 0630 Bikram Yoga class. There were not many people about, and we always passed an oldish chap, walking with a rolling gait, on our way and said “Good Morning!”. No response – nothing; but I persevered! After 3 months he eventually said: “Er’! Yer not English, are yer?” “Well, actually I am, from the West Country.” I said, rather affronted!! “Well, I’m a Londoner and no one says ‘good morning’!!” “Well, I do!” …. and we said hello and from then on we both felt good at acknowledging each other! A cheery “Good morning!” never hurt anyone, except those whose head hurt from too much wine the night before. In the institutional setting of the Officers’ Mess dining room, it was not ‘done’ to say ‘Good Morning’ – and the breakfast crowd hid behind their newspaper. The paper was placed on a wooden stand, rather like a music stand, thoughtfully provided by the Mess in front of their place. Celina’s father has a similar tale of an Oxford college’s lecturers’ accommodation; “Good Grief, man, Sssshhhhh!!” Even in our morning Bikram session, the teacher’s enthusiastic ‘Good Morning!’ is often met at best with a grunt!

An old habit of mine that has driven my early mornings for many years is to have three boiled eggs for breakfast. I love the ritual of correctly cooking them, of cracking the shell with a teaspoon, the wonderful deep yellow of the gooey yolk – and the salt & black pepper!! Can’t have a boiled egg without salt. I have however dispensed with the ‘soldiers’! For those readers unfamiliar with English habits, traditionally a boiled egg came with fingers of buttered toast that looked like soldiers on parade. You could dunk the ‘soldier’ into the soft yolk and eat; yum! yum! (In Australia they make ‘marmite’ soldiers.) On Northcote Road in Battersea there was even a café called ‘The Boiled Egg and Soldiers’!

Why do they make a cover to fit over the loo seat (sorry, I hate the word ‘toilet’ although it was very socially acceptable to use ‘lavatory’. Maybe it still is!!?)? They make a cover so that the place for one’s daily deposit is covered; never sure how some people don’t develop some very basic standards here …. but there you go. So why do some people leave the loo seat UP and not down? Our local Bikram studio fitted one of those self-closing lids ….. to the men’s loo. This is somehow sexist, isn’t it? Is it only men that leave the seat up? I don’t think so! Anyway, I can’t abide a raised loo seat, so wherever I am, in someone’s house, in a restaurant or even a motorway service station loo ….. and I find the loo seat up, I ensure it’s down when I leave. So if you unexpectedly find the loo seat in a motorway service station down, you know I may have been there recently!! …. And I think this is a good habit!

Then there are “Thank you letters”. This is such a generational thing, this need to say ‘thank you’ properly. You read about it in agony columns (what? You think I don’t occasionally read an agony column? Well, very, very occasionally). A grandmother moaning that their carefully chosen gift to their grandchild has gone unacknowledged. Asking whether she should simple stop sending a present! Then there’s the ‘After Supper’ note. I was always led to believe that if you use a knife and fork in someone else’s home, you should write a note of thanks; ie after cocktails, no – after a meal, yes! Is email OK? Better than nothing and in some countries where the postal service is abysmal maybe the better option. But a manuscript note is best, simply expressing gratitude at their efforts. Some people have come to dine with us, clearly enjoyed themselves and not a squeak of appreciation …  nothing .. da nada … niente!

Someone close to me has kept all of his bank statements, I mean all, ever since he first started banking; what he will do as more and more banks dispense with paper statements and go digital I don’t know. But it’s worth keeping a monthly check, isn’t it? So, back in the last century, when I eventually mastered an Excel Spreadsheet, I created one of my income and expenditure. So ever month I take the figures off my bank statement and put them into the spreadsheet, making sure the figures correlate. But then what? What do you mean? That’s it! They all check out, and I’m happy. Do I use the data in any other way? No! Er! So why do you do it? I need to keep a handle on my finances! This is a habit I sense I should just give up, the spreadsheet I mean, but I am wedded to it.

Just some mumblings on this first day of May.

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

In the old days there was one telephone in our house. When it rang, someone went to answer it. If it stopped before they got there, it was imagined that the caller would ring back if it was important. Then came the ‘answering machine’ with its funny bleep and pulsating red light to welcome you home …… to a message or two? Some people used this as a filter, deciding whether they wanted to talk to the caller, or not. Now people answer with: “Oh! It’s you. I can’t talk now ……. we just having dinner/about to take the dog out/sleeping!” Well, why did they answer the telephone in the first place …. if it wasn’t convenient? You can always find out who rang, either with your answering machine or by calling some telephone number that will tell you the last number called. Why let the telephone interrupt what you were doing?

When we first started using electronic mail (email) I imagined it was because the sender wanted a quick answer – so a week after sending an email to a chum in KL and having had no response, I sent another, a hastener if you like: “Did you get my email?” “Yes” Martin replied, “but I didn’t think it was urgent.” And to think in the 1930s Short Brothers built flying boats, to ensure that mail was speedily delivered to the ends of the British Empire; it only took two days to get a letter to India.

So I observe this table at a restaurant, someplace, somewhere, sometime – I’m sure you’ll recognise it? A party of chums have come to have supper, to catch up and to renew friendships. As soon as they arrive at the table and have said hello to everyone, they sit down …. and out comes the smart phone or tablet, which is placed down beside their tablemat. It’s become such a habit …….

Sam was on a night out away from his wife and young family. They knew where he was, but he was anxious that he was able to be reached immediately, in case  ….

Suzanne had often had troubles with the babysitter and tonight’s was no exception – she had arrived late and had been in a foul mood. Suzanne had given her her new mobile number and of course her phone had to be in sight in case it rang.

Stephanie was involved in the world of politics and was never off duty. Her tablet was linked to the party’s website in case there was some urgent matter to attend to … and, she admitted secretly to herself, it gave her certain kudos amongst her friends if there was during the evening. Or so she mistakenly thought!

Stuart had split up with his boyfriend, not something he had wanted to happen. Always wanting to be available, just in case Bill called and they could make up. Not that he wanted to be a slave to the ‘I’m always available’ label …. just, well, you know ………

Sonia lived in an anxious world, emotionally touched by global events she inevitably had no control over. So she had a constant ‘news’ feed – flashing information every few minutes … about which she could worry.

Sean was addicted to Facebook. It was completely incomprehensible to him that anyone would not check their messages every 5 minutes. “You never know what’s going on” he would exclaim – in the lives of his 2,034 close friends!

I don’t think I’m a technophobe but will admit, even proudly maybe, that I have never looked at anyone’s Twitter account. At the table, Sara was anxious that her Twitter followers were aware that she had chosen the King Prawns with a salad (“Oh! And go easy on the Mayo” she had told the waiter!). Did she do this in 160 characters? What happens if you go over this limit? Is it not posted?

Sophie was always keen to show her complete understanding of the latest topic, and would secretly access Google on her smart phone under the table to find information, so she could appear up-to-date.

Do you wonder, like me, why anybody like those above go out socially any more? No one seems to talk/chat/discuss/argue with those they have supposedly come to meet. It’s insidious, this perceived need to be constantly available/constantly in touch.

During ‘active service’ in the army, the Regimental Operations Room was manned around the clock; these days we would say “24/7”. It had banks of telephones and radios and duty personnel. Major John Harman was in charge one particular night, on the graveyard watch as it was colloquially known. The duty ended at 0800 and John was anxious that Staff Sergeant Craig would still provide breakfast in the Officers’ Mess, if he was late. At around 0600 he called Craig on the internal telephone number; he heard it ring; at that very moment the ‘hot ops’ ‘phone rang. “Hang on a minute, I’m on the other line” he said …… to himself …. having misdialled!!

Have you inwardly screamed when someone on their mobile asks: “Can you hear me?” at a volume which would negate making the call in the first place? They get so focused on the call they forget that other people can hear their conversation. The other day a woman left the table she was lunching at, to make a confidential call. She stood three feet away from us to make that call, completely oblivious that we could hear her whole conversation; how rude and inconsiderate! Soon, no place will be silent. How lucky Celina and I were to be able to experience complete silence in one of nature’s wildernesses, in the Pantanal. Maybe one of the few places where your heartbeat is the only sound you hear! “What, no mobiles?” “No, no coverage!!”

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

This is a potential mine field, isn’t it? …… and I tread a path with care, although maybe I should have managed to find someone to clear it first! At the end of my last PC I said: “……but it stands in splendid silence, a memory to a different time and a different generation, and that silence is broken only by the bell being rung to summon the staff, to clear the dishes from the dining room table.” ….. and I am reminded of attending afternoon tea with my step father’s physically diminutive high-born Scottish mother. As a teenager one sat very formally, jacket and tie (!), at the huge, polished mahogany table, waited until we were spoken to, and tried not to grab too many scones!! When we had demolished the pile, Dummy (as she was called!!) would ring a little silver bell and we waited, expectantly, until Mrs Gold the cook came in with a large cake. She was good at her craft and we were not disappointed.

I am prompted to scribble about cutlery, table manners and etiquette because of something I observed towards the end of last year. I don’t set myself up as the arbiter of right or wrong generally, can be as hypocritical as the next person (!) and appreciate there are real cultural differences between nations and social classes. We were out at a local restaurant, a group of people, some we know well, some not at all. I was finishing my main course and looked across the table …… to see a woman licking the end of her knife. I wanted to ask her not to …. but I did not know her, and it would have been rude (ruder than …..?)! It might have been covered with yummy sauce but she should have resisted, surely? And then, to compound the felony, 10 minutes later when she had finished eating … out came the dental floss and …. and I sat there amazed while she proceeded to …. clean the food from between her teeth. I was speechless, completely lost for words; later I thought of many things I could have said, most extremely rude, but I’m slow with the acerbic retort! According to Wikipedia, that wonderful (?) online reference, toothpicks in some shape or form have been used since Neanderthal man or woman walked this earth ….. and Debretts tells you how to use them …. but dental floss? That’s a whole new ballgame!

If you haven’t heard of Debrett’s, (www.debretts.com) it’s been a guide to “the stewardship of Empire and the arbiter of society etiquette” since 1769 and, whilst it makes no mention of dental floss, it offers guidance on how to eat, use cutlery and how to behaviour at a table. For instance:

Ensure the handle of both knife and fork rest in the palm of your hand.

When eating, keep your mouth closed …. and don’t talk!

Pips and stones should be discretely spat out into a cupped left hand

          Puddings: “always eat with a spoon and fork.”

 …… and don’t gesticulate with either a knife or fork

For those tricky vegetables like Globe Artichokes and Asparagus it also offers advice. Cute huh? It even mentions the use of chopsticks, that ubiquitous eating implement used throughout Asia. Funny how eating utensils have developed differently, in this case because a fork will damage a lacquered bowl and chopsticks won’t! Some of us master their use, others can’t be bothered. Bit like eating spaghetti; here in the UK long Spaghetti is becoming very difficult to buy, as we seem to have lost the art of eating it without sucking hard, when the free end sprays tomato sauce everywhere. So the short stuff is more popular, and easier to eat.

My mother, who had been a very accomplished cook, became completely disinterested in food in her dotage. She simply cut the food up as if she was a child, and then pushed it around her plate ….  and around! If it was fish and someone said: “Be careful, there might be the odd bone!”, the eating process took forever.

Back in Germany in the 1970s as a junior officer, I was sent to the headquarters in Rheindaland to have what was generally referred to as a ‘knife & fork’ test. I was being ‘interviewed’ for a job with the most senior military general, which clearly required lots of wining and dining and I had to have lunch with General Sir Harry & Lady Tuzo! Mind you I could spin a yarn about dining with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in 1976 and being on one’s best behaviour; well, me and 131 others!!

It was a Mrs Beeton, in her 1860’s book on ‘household management’, who observed that “all creatures eat but only man dines.”! So cutlery and its use became the norm, to stop our hands getting greasy ….. and then we got all ‘strict’ about how to use it, eat and behave. There were even special knives and forks for eating fish! I still have some but I don’t think I’ve used them this century. Then we started cooking chicken drumsticks using BBQs and eating Pizzas …. and we started to use our hands again!

In Singapore there is, or maybe ‘was’ for this was many years ago, an Indian restaurant called The Banana Leaf Apollo. It had a terrific reputation but was fairly basic. I have this rather romantic notion that the ‘plate’ was a real Banana leaf and the food simply dumped onto it. OK! It could have been green plastic but then if you’re a romantic that doesn’t sound so good! There was no cutlery so it was a choice of which hand, left or right. I know that there is a rule about this in Arabic countries, a rule I’ve never learned but I appreciate that we do other things with one’s hand!

A William of Wykeham wrote, in the late 1300s, ‘Manners Maketh Man’. And that’s right, isn’t it? Without developing good manners we run the risk of behaving like Neanderthal man … or woman.

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

P.S. Chinese saying: “Man who can catch fly with chopsticks can achieve anything!”

“A Small Town in Germany” is the title of a 1968 John le Carré novel of the Cold War era. At the time, Germany was divided into ‘East’ and ‘West’, with the capital of the latter a small town called Bonn. The story is one of espionage and intrigue in Bonn. For some reason the title of the book remains with me, which is more than I can say for the contents!! This scribble has a European connection hence my mentioning the title (!) …. and I think it’s an interesting story …. OK! … rather historical but ……… see what you think?

The Canton of Friburg in Switzerland lies north east of Lake Leman; it’s capital on the river La Sanne, midway between Berne and Lausanne. In the early 1800s the Brazilian (Portuguese) government encouraged European emigration and in 1818 some 1500 people from Friburg settled in a mountainous area some 130kms north east from Rio. The place was chosen for its similarity with their Alpine home. Can you imagine making such a journey, in 1818 (three years after the Battle of Waterloo)? I guess the publicity campaign must have been extremely clever! Six years later a large party of German immigrants added to the population. Together they founded a little town and called it Nova Friburgo. Today Friburgo is mainly known for its tourism, but it has been, according to a guidebook, a thriving manufacturing hub for the ‘undergarment’ industry. Funny word that – ‘undergarment’!! These days we would probably say ‘lingerie’, and as you drive into Nova Friburgo the lingerie shops with scantily-clad models are ubiquitous. The architecture of this rather charming town reflects the nationality of its original inhabitants – somewhat Alpine and not a Portuguese-style church in sight.

The largest coffee plantation owner in Friburgo was not, however, of Swiss descent but a member of the Portuguese aristocracy, a Baron San Clemente. He was a hugely rich landowner and had become the mayor of Friburgo. In 1860 he built a large mansion befitting his status; these days one might think it suggests a certain ostentatious display of his wealth. A French landscaper, Glaziou, created a wonderful park and numerous lakes to complement the scale of the house. Today it’s known as Parque Sāo Clemente and is open to the public. In the late 1800s coffee was a major export of Brazil and the plantations up and down the country were only economically viable if they were worked by slaves. Somehow the plantation owners never believed that their vested interests would be ignored, but slavery was eventually abolished by royal degree in 1888, a year before Brazil expelled the ex-Portuguese monarch and declared itself a republic. The lack of cheap labour created a crisis and Baron San Clemente was not the only one to be affected. Unable to harvest his coffee bean crop, he eventually went bankrupt. In 1913 his large house on the outskirts of Friburgo was bought by Eduardo Guinle, the oldest son of Eduardo Palassim Guinle, a wealthy industrialist. Guinle senior, whose family had emigrated from the Haute Pyrenees area of France in the C19th, had been educated in the United States and, with two other entrepreneurs, developed under licence the main port of Port Santos, near Sāo Paulo. Additionally he became the Brazilian representative for, inter alia, two giant American companies, General Electric and Otis Elevators …. just when Brazil was embracing electricity! Talk about right place, right time!! He and his partners worked extremely hard ……. and made a fortune! His son clearly had the money to buy the large mansion from the bankrupt Baron.

In 1953 his grandson César divided the estate in Friburgo, selling the mansion to the Nova Frigurgo Country Club and building a house for himself in another part of the grounds. Whilst the current drought remains a top story here in Brazil, in 1995 it was severe floods that caught the headlines. The water from heavy rains in the mountains surrounding the town eventually made its way into Friburgo. Accumulated rubbish thrown into the river channels dammed up under bridges. Eventually the pressure was sufficient for it to break free, causing a wall of water to rush downstream, engulfing the Guinles’ house. It was Christmas Day …. lunchtime … and various members of the Guinle family had travelled up from Rio. They were eventually evacuated to safety by the local fire brigade. Once the waters had subsided, it was clear to see the enormous damage that the water had done and the house was never the same again. You can still see the ‘tide mark’ of the water in the exposed stone walls.

In 2011 another terrific thunderstorm brought further flooding and landslips to Friburgo, killing 1000 people and again inundating the ground floor of the family home. The lake in the garden retains a huge amount of silt and today needs to be dredged. The dark wood floors, once much lighter …..and polished …. and even, are rather dull and warped. The house is owned by four siblings who want to sell it …. but so far they have been unsuccessful and it’s become a real millstone around their necks. And whilst they attempt to interest those developers with money to convert it to something different, it soaks up money just keeping it secure and rainproof.

Old Long Playing records lie abandoned on the dusty top of the grand piano, as if the last guests from some fun 1950’s weekend had just left. I felt somewhat awkward visiting this house that I had heard so much about, a house that holds so many memories …… yet belongs to another time. Family portraits and photographs stare at the empty rooms, the office of the man who built it a shrine; dusty and untouched …. but very much loved. There is a reverential feel to the place, this family ‘millstone’, and I can understand the conflicting emotions that run through those who own it. But it stands in splendid silence, a memory to a different time and a different generation, and that silence is broken only by the bell being rung to summon the staff to clear the dishes from the dining room table.

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com

P.S. Celina is the great great granddaughter of Eduardo Palassim Guinle

“I sit on the chair, up against the dining room table, with my laptop in front of me. Through the windows I can glimpse the palm trees and tropical plants of the family garden and in the distance the tower blocks that line the shore of Sāo Conrado. The electric fan, sitting on the floor, stirs the air and keeps me moderately cool.

“Dateline Monday 2^nd March 2015 Rio de Janeiro . ……” I stare at the empty screen, praying my weekly ‘copy’ for the Times of London (I can dream, can’t I?!!) is going to flow ….. although I know from experience it never does! My battered notebook, full of scribbles, lies open. Yesterday was the 450^th anniversary of the city of Rio de Janeiro; the founding fathers would not recognise this beautiful city of 2015.”

It depends on your perspective and the reliability of your information, as to how you view this world of ours. But recently I have been rather open-mouthed, hence this PC follows sharply on the heels on the last one!! In The Times of London of Saturday last week there was a long article on how much money the Blair government of New Labour, in 2005, had wasted or was unaccountable. The author has suggested the figure was some £230bn! There was the normal run-list of items such as failed IT projects and how the taxman had written off some £37.6 bn but most interesting to me was the amount of smuggling that apparently goes on. I thought that that had disappeared with sailing ships and rocky shores in Cornwall … but I can be very naïve sometimes!! It seems that enough fuel oil is smuggled into the UK to deprive the country of some £5.5bn of tax. And tobacco? Well, just how many cartons of packets of 20 cigarettes account for £21.4bn of lost tax? Unbelievably, the Government announced that they would increase the surveillance at 11 of the 43 points of entry. So the smugglers simply used the other 32! I was shocked. But I guess I shouldn’t have been. It’s natural that everyone wants to pay as little as possible to the government, especially if the Government wastes money, so tax avoidance becomes a game. And this report says that the government wasted £230bn, that’s £230,000,000,000! Isn’t someone accountable, you might think?

In simplistic terms we have a National Audit Office that scrutinises public expenditure and a Parliamentary Accounts Committee that can call anyone to appear before it, to question them. Both bodies write reports and everyone goes: “Oh!” and “Ah!” at some revelation of waste or profligacy …and shakes hands:  “Job well done”.  And ……… that’s it. Neither organisation points the finger of blame and cries: “Off to the Tower!” Maybe they should. Ah! But these are the people, those we elect to govern us, who bend the rules governing their own expenses … and declare all innocence when they get caught. There was the famous case of one Member of Parliament who used public money to do maintenance on a little duck house on the island in the lake of his country house. And he thought he could!! The arrogance!

And yet I suppose if you’re Greek, you have a different perspective; you think you’re the only country in the world with corrupt politicians and civil servants. It simply depends on where you live. The other day the ex-president of Yemen, one of the poorest countries on the planet, was accused of taking kickbacks from foreign companies wanting oil & gas exploration rights. Ali Abdullah Saleh also took a 10% slice of the ‘National Fuel Subsidiary Programme’. He is accused of amassing a personal fortune of $60 billion ….. robbing one of the poorest countries of its wealth. There is news everywhere of people milking the system and thinking it’s OK

And where am I typing this from? Well, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where for some months now the absolute scandalous story of corruption at the highest levels in government and business is laid bare through one company – Petrobras. Founded in 1953 this semi-public company (public 36% Government 64%) dominates the Oil & Gas Sector here and accounts for 90% of oil production and some 1/5^th of the Brazilian economy. The figures appearing daily are breath-taking. One spotlight shone on the story of the Pasadena (USA) Oil Refinery. Bought by a Belgian company in 2004 for $50m, it was then sold to Petrobras two years later for $1bn, twenty times the earlier price!! Or the chairman of Petrobras who seemingly had 5% of the turnover of the company added to his paypacket! The money has allegedly gone to fund the governing Workers’ Party for years, despite continuing denials from the past and current Presidents. Completely unbelievable!! Sitting in a makeshift jail in Curitiba, those who stole billions of the nation’s wealth protest ….. some offering millions of dollars to buy their ‘plea bargain’. Disgusting!

Brazilians love their Soap Operas and now we have a real life story that sounds like one. It runs alongside the daily dosage of corruption news from Petrobras, and is a bankruptcy hearing of a faded industrialist, Eike Batista. He had built his fortune on oil forecasts from unproven drillings. The judge hearing this case is one Flavio Roberto de Souza. Well, maybe he isn’t anymore, as last week he was seen driving around in Batista’s impounded Porsche Cayenne and parking it in the underground garage …. of his apartment block! “I felt it needed to be protected from the sun and rain.” he said in mitigation! And the ex-Batista grand piano was also seen on its way to an apartment in the same building! You seriously couldn’t make up a script such as this for a soap opera – except this is life here in Brazil.

It’s often thought that in Britain we ‘do the right thing’ and that we are an ethical country. Sometimes I wonder what we would really find if we did more than scratch the surface. Waste and corruption, greed and dishonesty? Probably!

Something to chew on over breakfast, wherever you are. Just scribbles really!

Richard Yates – richardyates24@gmail.com