travel

PC 211 Off Arromanches (continued …. see PC 209)

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Asking Kevin, both mate and the yacht’s mate and the most competent of my crew, to take the wheel I headed below. Sure enough there was about two inches of sea water washing around; lifting a board confirmed the bilges were full and it wasn’t simply water off crew oilskins. (Note 1). My heart started to beat faster as the crew expected me to sort it out!

I turned on the electric bilge pump; nothing happened. I shouted to John in the cockpit to find the manual pump, to make sure the tube was out of the locker and to start pumping. My mind began to fill with a thousand things I should do …… and they were all ‘NOW’! Where’s the pump? Saucepans please! Put a position on the chart, note in the log. Where are the flares? Is the life raft easily ready? What about life jackets? I had never felt the necessity of always wearing a life jacket on a yacht – but sense these days with smaller less-bulky ones available that might be an out-dated practice. But I knew down over the lee rail was the coast of Arromanches, with its rocky shallow foreshore extending far from the beach and we were on a falling tide. (Note 2) “Oh! Shit! The club’s flagship might go aground! Explain that to the Committee!” Then at last the first and only important question: “Why was there water inside?”

The crew formed a saucepan chain (you know what I mean!) and bailing began. Waves were breaking over the bow and it was unpleasant below and on deck. I needed to get the yacht in a more stable state so took the helm, brought the bow through the wind without changing the jib sheets and hove to. Wonderful! Suddenly the movements lessened and there was less noise.

Rudder tries to turn the yacht towards the wind; wind on the foresail resists

I hope none of you have had to heave to in an emergency; I certainly hadn’t before but had demonstrated the technique to those learning to sail. I had likened the sails to two hands around a bar of soap. Squeeze – tighten the sails and the wind has to accelerate through the narrower slot – the soap and it shoots out – and the boat moves forward. When you take the bow through the direction of the wind, and leave the foresail untouched, the mainsail and rudder try to move the boat forward and the headsail resists. The yacht simply sits, slightly head to wind, and if the sail areas are well balanced, hardly moves.

I have sailed on many wooden yachts that let water in, as the planking opened a millimetre or two beating hard to wind. The 30 sqm and 50 sqm yachts at the British Kiel Yacht Club (see PC 106) were particularly wet below and it was essential to have all your spare clothes and sleeping bag wrapped in black rubbish bags to keep them dry! But St Barbara III’s hull was made of GRP (Glass Reinforced Plastic) – God help us if we had somehow cracked the hull on some high bounce as we left the harbour!

Dismissing this nasty idea, my thoughts then turned to the anchor stowage. A more stable yacht meant less water was breaking over the bow ….. and finding its way below! I knew from experience that if the Kedge Anchor was not exactly positioned in its locker, with even a centimetre proud, the hatch cover would not fit and lock properly and water would seep in, and in rough conditions flood in. Turning on the foredeck lights, I took Hew with me and, clipping on at each stage, we made our way up to the bow.

Generic ‘anchor stowage’

Sure enough, we could make out the anchor locker lid was not flush with the deck. In their haste and in the pouring rain, coping with a pitching deck as we motored out through the harbour entrance, the foredeck crew hadn’t got the anchor properly stowed. It took Hew and I about 5 minutes to get it fitted properly and, as we made our way back to the cockpit, we hoped that the level of water on board would begin to reduce. After ten minutes that was noticeable and there was much relief all around.

I was a bit of a stickler for writing up both the daily log and the journal so, as we set a revised course for The Solent and Gosport, wrote up both whilst the emotion was running! Somewhere in the archives of the Royal Artillery Yacht Club are that log and the journal entries.

Google Earth showing The Solent, with the Isle of Wight on the bottom left and the entrance to Portsmouth top left

As is often the case when sailing, conditions can change quite rapidly. From our rough start from Trouville in a Force 7, the wind had gradually decreased as we crossed The Channel. We shook the rolls out of the mainsail and changed up to the No 1 Jib.  Abeam of the Nab Tower, the wind dropped completely, the sea strangely calm and the last few miles were made under engine. 

The Nab Tower at the entrance to The Solent

It was quite a relief to tie up alongside the pontoon in the Gosport Marina mid-afternoon and switch off – in every sense!

Richard New Year’s Day 2021

PS A Very Happy New Year to all my readers

Note 1 Gallows Humour is often part of a crisis and this was no exception!  I was reminded of part of Tales of Old Dartmoor, a radio sketch from The Goon Show (February 1956). To cut to the chase (It’s all on You Tube so if you have never listened to it, do so!) Dartmoor prison had somehow become HMS Dartmoor, a floating prison ship (!), and the crew were looking for the ‘treasure of the Count of Monte Cristo’. Rumour had it it lay under the floor of Cell 626. They lifted a flagstone.

“Ah! Look! Water.”

 “Salt Water!”

 “Look! There’s more of it! It’s coming in.”

Note 2. After reading PC 209 Jonathan sent me this photograph of his great uncle Harold Hickling briefing Churchill at the Mulbery Harbours off Arromanches. June 1944

PC 209 Off Arromanches; at night, in a gale!

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This is a page from my Royal Yachting Association Log Book. Note the entry for 10th – 17th June 1979:

…… doesn’t say more than the very basic headlines but the memories from those few days, in fact one particular two hour period, linger on over forty years later. I attended the two-year Army Staff Course at the end of the seventies: Division 1 at RMCS in 1978 and then a year at The Staff College Camberley 1979. In the summer of that second year we were fortunate enough to tour the Normandy beaches and hinterland used in D Day 1944. The Battlefield Tour was a welcome relief to classroom discussions and it lived up to its colloquial name, The Bottlefield Tour!

The battlefield tour was unique in that soldiers who had attacked and defended this part of northern France came and talked about their experiences and memories. I think it was the last, given the increasing age of our guest speakers; we were blessed. The administrative part of the tour was centred around Deauville but by tradition a number of us sailed across on service yachts to Trouville, the next-door harbour. I was lucky enough to skipper the RAYC flagship St Barbara III, a Nicholson 43.

The crew with St B on the left

After all the normal pre-voyage activity we assembled at Gosport opposite Portsmouth on 9th June. The weather forecast for the week was mixed, a bit like the weather of early June 1944, but for our outward trip was set fair. From memory a north-easterly F4 allowed us to clear the Solent forts and set a course for Trouville. Trouville, in keeping with a number of ports on the northern coast of France, could only be entered some two hours either side of high water.

We found the harbour entrance on the bow after some 65 miles of uneventful sailing and tied up stern-to on the harbour wall, bow to anchor, not a method I was well practised in but fortunately there weren’t too many rubberneckers!

When I was doing my military service or sailing offshore, the mnemonic ‘grid to mag add, mag to grid get rid’ served us well as the variation was some 4 degrees ……. and mistakes happened! An hour after our arrival one of the other skippers, who I knew well, took me aside up on the quay and quietly questioned whether you added the magnetic variation or not, as they had missed the channel entrance!! (Note 1)

Some left for the on-shore accommodation, others were staying on board. We did have a chance to have a party on Gladeye, skippered by Robin Duchesne.   

Of the tour itself, out of all the stands where a veteran, of whatever nationality or rank, told us of their experience, one particular talk stays in my memory. A grey-haired rather rotund Yeoman Officer told us he had been in command of a troop of three tanks and that they had come under fire from some Germany artillery on top of a ridge to his front. His leading tank was hit and he had watched in horror as his troop sergeant had emerged from the hatch in a ball of flame. We stood exactly where his tank had been 41 years before; on the horizon we could see the escarpment.

This lovely chap told us how it was. “I hadn’t really listened to much of the training about radio procedures and artillery cooperation and stuff, I just knew I wanted to get hold of some artillery fire to neutralise the enemy, and bloody quickly. I picked up my radio mic and yelled: “Hello Gunners, this is Tony! I need your help.” (Note 2) “Hello Tony, Gunners here!” a voice crackled in his headset “Where do you need us?” Tony admitted he wasn’t very good at map reading but after some discussion eventually the gunners put a round on the ground somewhere towards the ridge. From there Tony was able to say “Further on” “Right a bit” until he was satisfied that three rounds fire-for-effect would sort out Jerry. And it did!

The tour eventually ended and some of the participants left for the ferries whilst us sailors returned to the harbour basin in preparation for our trip back across the Channel. In an ideal world we would have time to wait for favourable weather but so often work commitments squeeze that window. The forecast was a squally Force 8 gusting 9 out of the North East …… so prudence suggested waiting a while. Just after midnight on 17th June, with the gale forecast to blow itself out, we hoisted the mainsail with its four rolls, tacked on the No2 Jib,

Bottom right shows the crew putting the reefs in. Bottom left happens to have the late Robin Duchesne.

…….. slipped our moorings and headed down the sheltered harbour entrance towards the sea. I sensed it was going to be a bit bumpy and ensured the fenders and warps were safely stored in their lockers and all the crew had well-fitted safety harnesses; I reminded myself the crew were not particularly experienced. Two of them worked on the foredeck, under the lights and in the torrential rain, to stow the anchor in its bow locker. Their stance was made difficult by the sea rolling in, and St Barbara rose and pitched as we motored out; every now and again there was a loud bang as she smashed into a large wave. By the time we cleared the entrance pilings they had returned to the safety of the cockpit. We could just about make our bearing to the Solent and, having hoisted the Jib, after about 30 minutes I switched off the engine; Tony went below to put the kettle on.

“Hey! Skipper! There’s lots of water on the cabin floor” (‘cabin sole’ for whom this sort of thing is important!)

To be continued …..

Richard 18th December 2020

Note 1 Each degree of variation over a distance of 60 miles will result in one nautical mile off course. A 4 degree variation would give you 4 nautical miles off course …… and the entrance to Trouville was a narrow dredged channel you approached on a transit!

Note 2 I was a Gunner so knew it should have been something like ‘Hello G31 this is Tango 23A over’

PC 54 The Loo

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Some subjects are so dry it’s difficult to get worked up about them, but my PC about loo paper brought back many memories for my readers, some good and some hilarious. So popular was this PC that it’s inspired me to go the next step and scribble about the actual loo.

Some of you will have visited ancient castles or manor houses in England where the ‘loo’ was a little seat in a turreted corner of the bedroom; an improvement from the portable box! From the outside, the turret overhung enough for the ‘drop’ to clear the stone façade. Some years ago there was a TV documentary series in the UK, trying to take a new look at old designs: one was about the loo. The design of the loo doesn’t seem to have changed much in more than 150 years.

There are many words for this receptacle for our daily waste. Whilst this list if not definitive …….loo, toilet, lavatory, ‘long drop’, khazi, WC (short for water closet), the crapper, the Dunny, the ‘restroom’, bog, the ‘ladies’ or ‘gents’ in a public environment, the facilities, the white phone, latrine, the John, little room and privy.

Funny how words become part of our language. Take ‘crap; possibly a verb and certainly a noun! It’s been around since the C17th referring to waste, but not used for bodily waste until 1846. But the word only became well known thanks to a Victorian plumber, Thomas Crapper. He was extremely successful in manufacturing bathroom fixtures and had a Royal Warrant. So ubiquitous were Mr Crapper’s toilet bowls, with his name written on the rim, that American servicemen stationed in Britain during WWII coined the phrase “going to the crapper”!

Thomas Crapper (1837 – 1910)

I do remember potties under the bed, but was shocked by this story, told to me in 1975 by a female newspaper reporter who had covered the kidnap by the IRA of a Dutch industrialist in County Kildare. Traced to a small village called Monasterevin, the siege attracted the world’s press, who had trouble finding somewhere to stay. My chum eventually found a house that offered the share of a bed (!) …… but was horrified to find that under the bed were emptied beer bottles ….. full of urine!

I am indebted to Paul for sending me this photograph, the latest design of ‘pissoire’ used by men at the Spa motor racing circuit in Belgium. He couldn’t find the female equivalent although you can buy a female ‘P EZ’ funnel on Amazon!

I wonder at what point the rocket-nose-shaped ‘pissoires’ take off?

Back in 1968 I chartered a small 19ft yacht for a week’s sailing in The Solent on the south coast of England. On board was fellow Gunner Gerry and two girl friends (note that this is girl …. friends and not girlfriends!) joined for the weekend. Braganza was a very basic sailing boat, with two small bunks and a little gas stove – but no loo! This doesn’t present a problem if you’re a bloke, but for members of the fairer sex a bucket placed below on the cabin sole of a moving/shifting/lurching sailing boat does not encourage the natural flow of things! On the Saturday evening we moored in Wootton Creek on the Isle of Wight …. and I have a very vivid memory of these two girls rowing the little pram dinghy ashore to find a proper loo. The speed at which they were rowing was possibly indicative of the urgency of their quest.

I remember painful experiences at boarding school. If you wanted to go to the loo before breakfast, you had to go before the breakfast bell sounded. After that, you were simply not allowed to go, irrespective of how desperate you might have been. I really to this day do not know what aspect of social behaviour I was meant to learn? If you need to go to the loo, you need to go to the loo – simple!

If you were camping in the 1960s and 1970s you simply took a shovel and walked off to somewhere where no one could see you. Cousin Susan writes: “…. Then there was the loo paper in Egypt and one small town in particular…..a hole in the middle of the floor, no loo paper and no doors so we had to get our friends to stand in the doorway so passers-by could not see us performing our acrobatic ablutions. My thighs were mighty strong in those days!”  Benedicte has similar memories of loos in China today – but would rather forget them! In the Army the camping arrangements were more formal; the Royal Engineers dug bore holes (should that be bored bore holes I wonder?). If it was cold it was OK, in this hessian-encircled latrine; if hot, the flies ensured it was not somewhere you lingered.

My stepfather loved smoking his pipe, particularly when mowing his wonderful lawn … but also, and sadly for the rest of us, when occupying the small downstairs loo. Part of his morning weekend routine, I guess, attempting the daily crossword in the paper, sucking on his tobacco-filled pipe and attending to nature … all at the same time. The little room needed a quarantine notice on the door for at least an hour afterwards.

Mind you, it isn’t necessarily your own loo experiences that are worth writing about. Jeremy Clarkson, a man made famous as much by his Top Gear TV Motoring programme as his ability to call a spade a spade, has a column in the UK Sunday Times. After someone complained of their hotel in Turkey, his weekly column was full of his own experiences, including this: “Certainly I cannot forget the converted old sheep station in the uplands of Bolivia. During my stay, I was woken one morning by a cleaner who entered my room without knocking, shuffled past my bed with a mumbled ‘Buenos dias’, went into my bathroom and took a noisy dump (slang for ‘going to the loo’!!) before shuffling out of the room with a frankly insufficient ‘gracias’”

I have always remembered a story that did the rounds one term at school; written on a grubby piece of paper it told the story of the confusion that arose between the use of WC for either ‘Wesleyan Chapel’ (Named after John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church in the C18th) or ‘Water Closet’. This being the C21st, I ‘googled’ it (That must be a verb by now – ‘to google’?) to get the story correct. It hasn’t lost its amusement after 50 something years and is reproduced in full below.

Celina’s father would sympathise with Paul who, recalling Bronco loo paper, wrote:  “Bronco was absolutely useless of course but then I have always detested loo paper of any sort, as it is just not up to the job (so to speak)! Every house I have ever owned has had a bidet and I would find it uncomfortable now to live without one.” Maybe he should try the combined loo/bidet; choose your music/scent/temperature/softness/air …… and away you go!

This PC seemed to go on and on; sorry! I normally try and constrain myself but seem to have suffered a bout of verbal diarrhoea with this one! Enjoy the scribbles!

Richard 8th November 2015                                               richardyates24@gmail.com

PS. “There was a little old English lady who was looking for a place to live in Switzerland.  She asked the local village schoolmaster to help her and together they found a place that suited her.  She returned to London to get her things, but on the way home she remembered that she had not noticed a bathroom in the new place, or as she called it, a water closet.  So when she arrived in London she wrote to the schoolmaster to inquire about a water closet in her place.  Being somewhat embarrassed to ask about this, she decided to just use the abbreviation W.C. rather than spell out the words.  When the schoolmaster received her letter he was puzzled by the initials W.C., never dreaming that she was referring to a bathroom.  So he went to the local minister to see if he knew what a W.C. was.  Of course, the minister thought it stood for the Wesleyan Church.  So the schoolmaster wrote this reply to the English lady.

Dear Madam,

The W.C. is situated nine miles from the house in the center of a beautiful grove of trees.  It is capable of holding 350 people at a time and is open on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday of each week.  A large number of folks attend during the summer months, so it is suggested you go early, although there is plenty of standing room.  Some folks like to take their lunch and make a day of it, especially on Thursday when there is organ accompaniment.  The acoustics are very good and everyone can hear the slightest sound.

It may be of interest to you to know that my daughter was married in our W.C. and it was there she met her husband.

We hope you will be here in time for our bazaar to be held very soon.  The proceeds will go toward the purchase of plush seats for our W.C., which the folks agree are a long-felt need, as the present seats all have holes in them.

My wife is rather delicate; therefore, she cannot attend regularly.  It has been six months since the last time she went.  Naturally, it pains her very much not to be able to go more often. I shall close now with the desire to accommodate you in every way possible, and I will be happy to save you a seat down front or near the door, whichever you prefer.

Sincerely,

          Alfred Schmidt

Schoolmaster”

PC 47 Loo Paper

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It was Mark Twain who observed that travel broadens the mind; you don’t have to go far, however, even the local streets are full of rich pickings, if you care to look! I thought my own mind fairly broad, but it’s been stretched further by our recent North America travels, experiencing other places and other cultures. So when I encountered the thinnest, no, I really mean thinnest, loo paper in my life in Seattle, I thought this could be the subject of another PC ….. although it might need a little delicate handling ….. know what I mean? And if you had a rather prudish upbringing, maybe it’s best not to read any further!!

When I refer to ‘loo’ paper I encompass all the various descriptions of the genre; ‘toilet’ paper, ‘lavatory’ paper (very old fashioned maybe) …. and now the word ‘tissue’ is common-place. In France they refer to loo paper as PQ (a contraction of ‘papier cul’- ‘cul’ meaning ‘bum’ or ‘arse’); in German it’s ‘klopapier’ and in Portuguese ‘papel higiênico’. A couple of hundred years ago you might only have had the option of using some torn grass or old newspaper, but now the options are endless. The manufacturers of the ubiquitous ‘Wipes’, available for every cleaning job, have even developed the ‘toilet wipe’, which is ‘flushable’. Oh! Joy!

Back in the days of a less sensitive nation, in Britain there was ‘Jeyes Toilet Tissue’. Jeyes is now synonymous with cleaning products that get around the U-Bend but back then …. here was a cardboard pack of folded sheets of hard paper. The paper was a light brown in colour. It was neither absorbent nor comfortable; fortunately we have moved on. All loo paper used to be white, then coloured bathroom suites came into vogue and the manufacturers made a fortune in making loo paper that matched the various colours on offer – Avocardo, Peach etc. And we all know Andrex’s playful little puppy …… to advertise loo paper! I’m sorry, I simply do not see the connection here; what is the association between a sweet, soft, cuddly, youngster, having fun …. and wiping your bum?

If you worked for Her Majesty, as I did during my time in the British Army, we had ‘Government Issue’ loo paper; like the Jeyes stuff, but on every sheet it said ‘Government Issue’! If you were not a fan of a particular Government, the joke was obvious! And the ration that came in the ‘field pack’ had three small sheets per day; the common thought was ‘one up, one down, one polish’!

In Waitrose, an upmarket British supermarket, you can buy ‘Bathroom Tissue’ scented/coated in Aloe Vera, Jojoba or Cashmere. Do you sniff it before you use it, or do you really appreciate the difference in texture ……. by touching it? The mind boggles! In Yukon Territories, Canada, in a small place called Carmacks, a tourist emporium had a stack of loo paper wrapped as ‘Up North Toilet Paper’!?

The large, round container with a commercial-sized roll means less checking for cleaning staff , but have you ever found that the ‘free’ end is somewhere inside, almost stuck to the whole roll, and getting the free end usable takes forever? The ‘Seattle’ loo paper I think was designed for two (or more?) uses. The first is obvious, but the second? Well, it could easily have been used for tracing paper, it was so thin. And actually very difficult to take off the roll if the end was not obvious; a little like cling film/kitchen wrap when the effing end is completely invisible/undiscoverable!

One of the loos I use regularly (no pun intended!) is in our Bikram Studio complex. The overhead light is motion-activated (I’m sorry, this is just the way it comes to mind) which is fine unless you sit for longer than the timer allows – and the light goes off ….. and stays off until your flailing arms get noticed. In the Riverside Cottages we stayed in in Fairbanks, Alaska, they went one better, or worse! The shower/loo room had a timer for both light and extractor fan, and was customer-operated before you went in and locked the door. Well, here’s a conundrum. How long do you set it for before you enter? Get it wrong and you might end up in the dark, with your knickers around your ankles and …….

Bikram Yoga is practised in a studio where at least two walls have floor to ceiling mirrors. That’s fine, as part of the practice is to observed one’s half-hearted attempts to get into a certain posture; ‘must do better’, the voice in my head is often shouting! But in Brazil I encountered a mirrored wall …. in the loo! Aaaggghhhhh! The first time I used it, I was only wearing my Bikram shorts, ready for the session that would started shortly. After a minute or so sitting down, I suddenly looked to the right and ……. saw ……. well, Rodin’s Thinker is good to contemplate …… this sight was not! It sure hurried up my visit.

Recently I went into a loo, a rather narrow little room, sat down, did what I wanted to do, and then looked for the loo paper. After about 30 seconds, I located the roll, behind my shoulder. I almost dislocated said shoulder in trying to release a few sheets of paper; should I put my arm under my shoulder or above? Eventually the only way was to physically swivel on the loo seat through about 160°.

I don’t think we British have really got into using a Bidet, but I can understand its raison d’être! In an imagined nightmare scenario, you use the bidet ….. and look for a towel. There isn’t one! OK! There are probably some paper towels somewhere ….. but then you realise that in the C21st paper towels have been replaced by a Dyson Hot Air drier, fixed up on the wall. Success in the subsequent physical gymnastics required might guarantee you a place in the 2016 Olympics!!

Very mundane musings for a summer afternoon!

Richard 14 August 2015                                          richardyates24@gmail.com

PC 512 Does it Matter?

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Talk about choosing a title for some weekly scribbles with the opportunity to range far and wide! Maybe I should simply focus on personal issues like, for instance: ‘Do you insist on the loo seat being left down?’ OK! Immediately we are divided between those of you who call the ‘water closet’ the loo and those who call it the toilet! Or you might be confused and use the term ‘lavatory’ which, if I was being pedantic, is ‘a fixed basin with running water’ but can be used to refer to the whole room with a toilet (aka loo) and basin. We had a lunch party last week and the loo seat and lid were left up, left down, just the lid up ….. despite us having one of those soft closure lids! (Note 1) I hope our guests smiled when they saw that we buy our loo paper from ‘Who Gives a Crap’!

Doesn’t matter, does it, what you call it? And sitting down with friends for lunch, it doesn’t matter whether you call the piece of material to protect your clothes a napkin or a serviette, does it? Providing it’s material not paper!

It doesn’t matter how you perform a yoga posture – we are all different mentally and physically and no one should make any judgments. It simply does not matter – until the ego taps you on the shoulder and asks why you haven’t…..! And if you believe that the practice of yoga, hot or not, could be ego-free, try it yourself. You might even encounter a group ego!

Recently there have been television crime dramas based in Bristol and Belfast, hot on the tails of one about Brighton’s police force and how they cope with the mayhem that others see as ‘having a night out’! The latest Belfast series covers migration in Northern Ireland, overlaying the still-simmering religious divide.

It reminded me of the current ‘stand-off’ between Northern Ireland’s Orange Order (Note 2) and the people of Drumcree. As Max Hastings, writing in The Times, says: ‘The Orange Order wants to demonstrate its claimed legal entitlement to stage a sectarian march through an overwhelmingly nationalist housing estate in Drumcree.’ It mattered in 1857 when a government report stated: ‘The Orange system celebrates its festivals …. which lead to violence, outrage, religious animosities, hatred between classes and, too often, bloodshed and loss of life.’ Nothing seems to have changed in over a century and to those of us who live in Great Britain it’s anachronistic in the extreme. Surely time to abandon such wilful provocations as the Drumcree march and realise how much this would matter for the greater good?

Last month one of my postcards was titled ‘Communication’ and this month we have had another example of poor communication …… and it matters. The British Museum in London is exhibiting the Bayeux tapestry for the first time since it left these shores for France in 1080 …. and the 70m long display has attracted thousands of people wishing to view it. The exhibition has presumably been years in the planning, but no one seemed to anticipate the potential number of visitors. Long queues developed, not helped by people staying too long in front of the exhibit – clearly not allowed or imagined! They could have installed a moving walkway which would have helped.

But the lack of communication was obvious when early this month they had to close the exhibit to the public as they were hosting some corporate event. These things don’t happen overnight ….. so why didn’t they block out entrance to the public months ago? Some people travelled a long distance only to be told they would get a refund of the ticket – but no recognition that the British Museum’s poor organisation and communication had led to other nugatory travel and hotel expenses. Reminded me of the Hotel Fasano in Rio de Janeiro. There had been no warning that, during our short stay, the roof-top swimming pool would be closed for a corporate event. We the poor public are second best to corporate money. But timely communication would have helped.

I did come across a new item some months ago and thought ‘good for you’. Having been through the difficulties and agony of divorce, I was interested in the story about a woman whose second divorce cost both her and her husband £80k. It prompted her to start offering divorcing couples a cheaper option than the adversarial one that lines the pockets of solicitors and lawyers. She had clearance from SRA, but lawyers with a vested interest in the current system complained and she was up before a judge for offering unqualified advice; she could have gone to prison! Financial reductions in the state-funded Legal Aid budget have reduced the number of cases it can support from 180,000 to 10,000. The judge recognised there had to be a better way for Joe & Jill Public to access affordable legal advice and suggested she continue. A victory for common sense.

And, of course, it matters when you buy a bunch of fresh Basil and two days later it looks like the flopped ears of a hare. Last week I thought there must be a better way of keeping it fresh. The solution is to place it in a container with a little water, and a plastic bag over the top, essentially creating a little moist greenhouse. The last leaf was as fresh as the first.

And in the wider context of life, nothing really matters, however much we agonise about this and that.

Richard 9th October 2026

Hove

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Note 1 I hadn’t intended to mention this, but I scribbled about loo paper in August 2015 (PC 47) and followed that postcard with one about ‘The Loo’, with the famous Mr Crapper, in November that year (PC 54). I could email these to you as they are time-expired on WordPress.

Note 2 After King William of Orange (King William III) who invaded and secured Ireland for the Protestant crown by defeating the Catholic King James II in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

PC 507 In The Hope Café Again

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We came back from a fortnight in Estoril in Portugal on Wednesday. I have written before about Estoril (PC 454 in August 2025) and am reminded on my morning walk through Estoril and Monte Estoril that ‘it has been home to numerous royal families and celebrities, is one of the most expensive places to live in Portugal and the Iberian Peninsula and is home to a sizeable foreign community.’  It’s sad to sense that so many of these enormous houses are empty, have that unlived-in feel about them, maybe a second or even third home, at a time when ordinary folk struggle to afford somewhere, anywhere to live.

As always, it’s good to come home, providing of course ‘home’ meets your needs and your wants. For Celina and me, our large apartment in Hove ticks many boxes; spacious, high ceilings, dual aspect, modern insulation and the sea is two minutes away. We thank our lucky stars that in the unusually warm weather we have had this summer, our bedrooms are downstairs, in what might be described as ‘lower ground’. They are about 3C cooler than our living room! William and Stefano are renting the apartment above us in Amber House. One day in desperation they asked whether we had a fan! A neighbour kindly lent them her two.

After the delivery of our Waitrose shopping, I popped into The Hope Café mid-afternoon yesterday to catch up with Sami, who I hadn’t seen since mid-June. Amazing where the time goes huh! I joined Sami at a table, having got a double espresso from Josh, who’d asked whether I knew anyone who they could hire, as Libby is finally going to retire.

“Do you?” asked Sami.

“No one springs to mind and this is a difficult time of the year, what with the new Academic Year, a new school for some, others to university or Sixth Form College. Lots of people already committed.”

“I liked your last postcard, Richard, (PC 506 Be the Person you want to be) and that final paragraph when you said ……. let me look at my WhatsApp ….. here we are: ‘We are social animals; we want to fit in, not brave it out, not branch out, be the odd one out. But understanding ourselves better, our extraversion or introversion, the degree we engage/need to engage with others, with our families and with friends, or preferring our own company ….’

We all find ourselves not being who we want to be, presenting an untrue image, hiding behind a façade, and I found this from some psychologist:

‘Some people call it a division between the ‘original self’ and a ‘pseudo self’. A person exhibiting a ‘false self’ occurs when other people’s expectations override the spontaneous expression of the ‘true self’. The ‘false self’ is a kind of masquerade, a self that is presented to the world, a ‘social self’. Not the true, private self, the one ‘inside’.’”

“I am pleased …… and I assume I am talking to the true self, Sami, not some cardboard cutout?! Haven’t seen you since I completed my two linked wooden spoons, have I?”

“You showed me the enormous one you made for your daughter from a discarded scaffolding plank, but this is something else?”

“I had the idea I could fashion two spoons from one plank, the loop at the end of each linked. Once the idea got embedded, I thought long and hard about how I would carve that; this is how they look:

To get there I made a model out of some plasticine; hadn’t bought that for decades although you can still find it! Eventually I got to this point ….

 Then spent some time thinking about how to untie the knot, as it were; slowly but surely managed to separate them. Some wood filler, stain and wax and we’ve ended up with exactly what I imagined!

“Wow! They’re amazing Richard. Well done you! By the way, I know you read a lot when you’re in Estoril ….. and before you tell me about your stand-out book, I need to tell you about mine. I’ve caught your habit of glancing through the newspapers’ obituary column and found that a chap called Philip Caputo had died.

“Who? What was his claim to fame?

“He was an American author and journalist, best known for his best-selling memoir of his experiences during the Vietnam War, ‘A Rumour of War’. In 1973 he was part of a writing team that won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on election fraud in Chicago. You had written a couple of postcards (PCs 493 and 494) about your stepfather’s deployment to Malaya in 1945 as part of Force 136 and I was curious as to Caputo’s time in Vietnam; I ordered his book and finished it a couple of weeks ago.”

“Wasn’t that the first modern war that the USA lost?”

“Yup! And they left with their tail between their legs, their departure from Saigon (renamed Ho Chi Minh City) in 1975 reduced to a rout.

Caputo had been a Marine Second Lieutenant in Da Nang Province in 1965 for just over a year and his memoir is widely regarded as a classic in the literature of war, being compared to ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ (Note 1) What I found fascinating was his ability to describe the rigours of jungle warfare in every gruesome and human detail. For instance, the Marines were provided with three sheets of loo paper ….

“The British Army had the same, part of a one’s field ration pack, except ours was made of that hard, unabsorbent, paper. The common saying was: ‘One up, one down and one polish’! Sorry, I interrupted you, Sami.”

“That’s OK. Caputo described how you could never get your arse clean, most soldiers suffered from permanent Diarrhoea, and how you lived and fought in the rain, covered in leaches and being bitten by mosquitoes. He also observed what fighting, kill or be killed, does to the human soul.”

(To be continued ….)

Richard 4th September 2026

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 A semi-autobiographical novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War!1, billed by some as ‘the greatest war novel of all time’.

PC 503 The Lanes and North Laine, Brighton

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My parents moved from Bath to Sussex in the mid-1950s and eventually settled in the village of Balcombe, twenty miles north of Brighton. Given the paucity of excitement in the nearest town, Haywards Heath, apart from the Perrymount Cinema which showed up-to-date films (Note 1), it was inevitable that Brighton provided more interest. There were regular trips to the Theatre Royal on New Road (Note 2) …..

…… to watch pre-London plays. Today, seventy years later, it presents comedy, musicals, cabaret and children’s entertainment. We also went to the annual Christmas ‘Ice Spectactual’ at the rink at the bottom of West Street. The steam train from Balcombe took 20 minutes … in the summer holidays a day on the beach involved the train from Balcombe then a walk down to the beaches of Hove, always less crowded that those immediately south of the railway station.

My brother and me, circa 1958

It’s the same today; day trippers heading straight down to the sea, hugger mugger on the beach with others, while a little walk West would give them more space!

I think the most interesting parts of the city, apart from the Royal Pavilion, built between 1815 and 1822, are the North Laine, at one time Brighton’s worst slum – a laine was an open plain divided into sections for farming – and The Lanes. The latter are essentially located in what was the village of Brighthelmstone, bounded by West Street, North Street, East Street and the sea on its southern edge.

We have to thank King George IV who, as the Prince of Wales, first came to Brighton in 1783 and put the town on the map, establishing its first ‘Season’. He later commissioned the Royal Pavilion and his annual visits encouraged a building spree that defines Brighton’s architectural character today. Georgian buildings such as the Old Ship Hotel (circa 1794) rub shoulders with whitewashed Regency and early Victorian townhouses.

The Lanes are a delightful collection of little streets and pedestrianised squares, often linked by twittens. A twitten is an old Sussex-dialect word for a narrow path or alleyway, which serve as short cuts. From North Street running south into The Lanes is Meeting House Lane, a twitten said to be haunted by the ghost of a nun who was walled up alive after eloping with a soldier. There’s another good example of a twitten just up from our yoga studio, which is situated in the old Rabbi’s house behind the synagogue on Middle Street.

Yoga In The Lanes’ entrance to the left of the Synagogue

Ship Street Gardens features C19th cottages and a famous fig tree and links Middle Street with Ship Street.

Whilst both The Lanes and the North Laine have many independent shops, The Lanes has a greater preponderance of chain outlets, such as Penhaligon’s, Molton Brown, Lush, Russell & Bromley, Loake, and Flying Tiger.

It is also well known for its jewellers and antique shops, fashion boutiques, cafés and restaurants, including The Ivy and its Asian sister.

English’s of Brighton, the city’s famous seafood restaurant on East Street, is located in three former fishermen’s cottages. Reviewers highlight the fresh rock oysters as a ‘must try’. The city’s Town Hall is located on Bartholomew Road and is where Celina and I got married on 20th August 2016. The building also houses the Old Police Cells museum.

You could easily while away an afternoon, drifting from a coffee house such as Café Coho, exploring Meeting House Lane, Brighton Place, Market Square, winding down its narrow lanes, ….. stopping and being surprised at, for example, The Duck House!

To access the North Laines you cross busy North Street, up New Street with the theatre opposite Pavillion Gardens and a glimpse of the Royal Pavillion, on past The Brighton Museum & Art Gallery and the Brighton Dome, once the Prince Regent’s stables and now a venue for concerts, dance shows, and plays and the headquarters of the Brighton Festival. Here you find a patchwork of small streets lined with quirky shops, drawing crowds of locals and tourists alike.

When I wanted someone to fashion two little loops of leather, I went to Clever with Leather in a basement workshop on Tidy Street.

Writing of leather, if you are fastidious about not using animal products, you could buy some shoes or boots from The Vegetarian Shoe shop on Gardner Street.

After wearing contact lenses for decades, the removal of my cataracts meant I could indulge in some funky reading glasses. Bromptons Opticians, further up on Gardner Street, has just such frames, but I needed a second mortgage to buy these:

Having a sweet tooth, I get drawn to Caramella on Kensington Gardens where you can buy old-fashioned confectionary. Fancy a humbug or Sherbert Lemons or do you prefer liquorice; the latter in many shapes and lengths and, if you ask nicely, you can pick and choose your favourite ‘Liquorice All Sorts’ – for me the little pink and blue buttons!

On Trafalgar Street you can find just the right hat for you, assisted by knowledgeable staff who know about face shapes, and can advise accordingly.

Every city suffers from Grafitti and Brighton is no different, but this mural on Bond Street is surely in a class of its own.

Brighton has just celebrated Pride and I am reminded yet again how inclusive this city is, quite extraordinary! There is a tangible acceptance of people being who they want to be, and no one bats an eyelid, apart from visitors unused to such genuine displays of confidence. I saw these women walking up Gardner Street and thought ‘why not?’

The Lanes and North Laines are so worth a visit!

Richard 7th August 2026

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS If you come to Brighton don’t forget to say hello to the European Herring Gull, otherwise known as: “Oi!” as it swoops down on your fish ‘n chips.

PPS Brighton is 9,219kms (5,729 miles) from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Note 1 Opened in 1936, it had a little dance hall and a café, as well as the auditorium for screening films. You could smoke in the rear rows! It closed in 1972 and the building demolished in 1984.

Note 2 It had opened in 1807.

PC 499 Évora, Portugal

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Évora in the centre, Lisbon to its west.

A snippet cut from The Times’ Travel Section over a year ago says that ‘Portugal’s south-central Alentejo (note 1) region is an underrated spot for fine red wine and ‘porco preto’, that’s pork from acorn-fed black pigs. The walled city of Évora is a charming base from which to explore. Between outings to hilltop Monsaraz and along the Alentejo Wine Route, queue to try that pork inside Botequim de Mouraria or to scoff typically simple local dishes such as dogfish soup at rustic Fialho. Évora also has temples and a skull-filled Chapel of Bones to explore, while its markets offer ewe’s milk cheese.’

The DK Guide adds: “The town rose to prominence under the Romans and flourished throughout the Middle Ages as a centre of learning and the arts. It was a popular residence of Portugues kings but fell out of favour after Spain’s annexation of Portugal in 1580. Its influence waned further when the Jesuit university closed in the 18th century.”  Today in the C21st, students once again throng the streets, joined by visitors to this UNESCO World Heritage Site.

So, we went! Évora is about an hour’s drive east of Lisbon; by noon the temperature had reached 39C and it was baking! We had rooms in the Pousada dos Lóios, a hotel converted from the old Monastery of St John the Evangelist, which had been founded in 1485. Today the hotel’s bedrooms are the old ‘cells’ of ‘Cónegas Regrantes’ – although my little suite suggested there was a little luxury permitted!

Our first lunch was in a small restaurant, Luar de Janeiro, somewhere in the maze of tiny streets below the hotel.

I am not a fan of Alentejo food, or most Portuguese food for that matter, but I had to try the little ham, but not its accompaniment of goat, cheese and garlic rice.

Near our hotel stood the Roman Temple, thought to have been built in the 2nd or 3rd century AD.

In daylight it’s a glorious reminder of the deep history evident on the European continent. By night it’s altogether different; more ethereal.

The nearby square has some marble sculpture. I thought this was interesting:

I didn’t find out its creator and wasn’t sure whether the crack splitting it in two was intentional or not!

Some of the shops nestling down Évora’s little narrow streets sell cork products, for the Alentejo region in Portugal is the world’s largest producer of cork; for example, 30 million corks for the wine industry, per day. Hats, bags, purses, waterproofs, those cork mats for the kitchen and even a cork postcard!

Cork trees cover some 7000 sq kms of Portugal. Harvesting cork is a skilled business; mature trees have their bark stripped off every ten years or so, leaving the exposed wood raw and red. 

Most shops shut during the heat of the afternoon but the guide had highlighted a C16th church, the Igreja da Graça, on the top of which are ‘four muscular figures supporting globes. They are quaintly nicknamed Os Meninos’ (The Children). Despite the temperature, (Note 2) I had to go and have a look. The church is undergoing a major restoration and is covered in plastic sheeting. Fortunately, the authorities had stuck a photograph of what it looks like on the outside and I was able to identify Os Meninos; sort of ‘boys will be boys’?

You can make out the four old men, two left and two on the right

Later, back in the wonderfully cool hotel, we had dinner. I chose the ‘stewed peas and Alentejo tomatoes’ as a starter …. more out of curiosity than anything else, although when Nuno the waiter asked whether I wanted the poached egg with it, I was slightly nonplussed; I declined. However, I was completely gobsmacked to be served a bowl of lukewarm soup, complete with bits of pork!

‘Lost in Translation’

I am seriously not one to take photographs of what I am eating although this … took the biscuit! Their ‘orange pie’ for dessert was not a pie!

Beside the C15th church of São Francisco sits the Capela dos Ossos.

The largest and oldest ‘Chapel of Bones’ in Portugal, built in the first half of the C17th, is a space ‘that can only be understood within the context of the Catholic spirituality that originated it.’  The chapel holds the skeletal remains of some 5000 monks and others associated with the church … and has a rather strange invitation at its entrance: ‘Nos ossos que aqui estamos pelos vossos esperamos’ (‘we bones that are here await yours’)

I found it very, very odd, strangely mesmeric, these skulls and bones artistically laid out. I can imagine the chat between those who created it: ‘José, have you got a small skull, just need one to fill a hole?’ or ‘Carlos, do I place the leg bones in a fan shape, or shortest to longest?’ – just seeing them as pieces in some macabre display.

European walled cities have always held a fascination for me, be it St Malo in the northwestern corner of France, Dubrovnik in Croatia or Kotor in Montenegro. Carcassonne in southern France remains on my bucket list.

In Évora fragments remain of the inner Roman walls, whilst the C14th outer wall is very much in evidence, made in the 1640s into a major fortification. 

Water was carried into the town by the aqueduct, built between 1531 and 1537.

Today it’s used by the local water company to pipe water into the town; some 9kms of the old aqueduct still survive. Finally, you remember that marble sculpture near the hotel? With the sunset behind it ….

…. it reminded me of the lines from the song ‘As Time Goes By’ by Louis Armstrong ……. ‘a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, the fundamental things apply, as time goes by.’  

Évora? Enchanting!

Richard 10th July 2026

Hove

www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

Note 1 The Romans valued this land ‘beyond the Tagus’ – além Tejo – for its wheatfields; grain was exported all over their empire.

Note 2 Only ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun’ wrote Sir Noel Coward (1899 – 1973)