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Sunday 30th November 2025 – WHEN I WENT …

… to bed last night, I was looking forward to a nice uninterrupted sleep all the way through to when Isabelle the Nurse would shake me awake by the shoulder when she comes in to sort out my legs.

And so waking up at 01:06 this morning was something of a disappointment.

It wasn’t as if I had gone to bed early either. It was well after 23:00 by the time that I’d finished everything that I needed to do and crawled in under the covers. Mind you, I fell asleep quite quickly with the kind of sense of relief that you have, knowing that a good sleep is just about the ideal solution for all known ills.

Anyway, as I said just now, I awoke at 01:06 and when I noticed the time, I was devastated. I was not expecting this at all. However, I was lucky in that I managed to go back to sleep quite quickly.

But only until 07:46 though. I might not have moved a muscle in the intervening period, but it was still not long enough to have really enjoyed it. What was worse was that I couldn’t go back to sleep afterwards.

In the end, round about 08:00, I gave it up as a bad job and arose from the Dead.

It would, of course, happen to be a day when Isabelle the Nurse decided to reorganise her round in order to give me more time to sleep, so she was rather put out to find me sitting at the kitchen table with my glass of hot ginger, honey and lemon drink.

She had something of a mumble about it, sorted out my feet and then went to carry on with the rest of her patients.

It took me about fifteen minutes to summon up the courage to rise from my chair in the kitchen in order to make my breakfast – coffee, porridge and home-made croissants from the batch that I had made last weekend.

While I was eating, I was reading more of Thomas Codrington’s ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN. I mentioned the other day that he had put me on the track of John Horsley’s BRITANNIA ROMANA. Codrington is not very impressed with Horsley’s interpretation of the Iter Britanniarum though, saying that "the way in which he dealt with the Itinerary distances is remarkable.".

Codrington talks about a Roman camp called Epiacum up on the northern edge of the Pennines. It’s described as "not rectangular but lozenge-shaped, with probably the most intricate system of defences of all the known Roman forts". So I had a little search around on an on-line aerial map, and what do you think ABOUT THIS? Isn’t it magnificent?

Back in here, I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. And I was surprised to find so much on there. We were trying to smuggle someone out of mainland Europe last night into the UK. We had something of a trial run at one of the border posts but it didn’t work very well because he had a kind of wrong attitude towards the Customs officers and it rather shattered his nerve somewhat. So rather than adapting his behaviour and comportment, he just sat there like a clam and refused to co-operate. We tried everything we could to cajole him to coming along and crossing the border but each time, he refused. When we told him to prepare himself a drink, he’d prepare a drink and then pass it to one of us instead of bringing it with him. In the end, full of frustration, we decided that we’d leave him and go back on our own. There was no point trying to force someone. But there was some kind of dispute at the border between him and one of our army officers. It seemed that the guy at one time had stolen the girlfriend of one of the army officers, and that was what made one of the army officers in our group rather bitter and terse with him.

This dream probably relates to some of the issues that the Secret Intelligence Service had with trying to bring out their agents from occupied Europe in World War II. They had many different escape routes, but going over on a ferry would have been novel, especially as no ferries ran during wartime.

There had been talk of a giant whale stalking people in London. Things came to a head when it appeared before a group of Year Two children, so Holmes and Watson set out on the trail. They waited until it was a foggy night and then took a boat, and rowed to a wharf where this school was. These two young boys who were rowing were telling them stories about it. They climbed out and went for a little walk themselves, and stopped to have a bag of chips each. They put their chips on their plates and were sitting there outside, waiting. Suddenly, out of the mist, the whale appeared. The first thing that it did was to launch itself at the plate of Sherlock Holmes. He quite simply cut a piece out of it with his knife and fork and ate it. That was basically at the end of the drama.

There have been dreams involving Holmes and Watson before, but this one was one of those surreal ones that has no explanation at all.

I was somewhere in France. There was a road down which I had driven hundreds if not thousands of times, only today, I found that I was walking down it. When I reached the top of the hill, I noticed that there was an old car just at the edge of the field with a sign pièces detaches written on it. I’d not noticed it before, so I went through into the field and at the back was a kind-of wood or coppice. There were probably about thirty or forty old cars scattered around there, and there was some kind of workshop. Someone came by and asked me what I wanted. I asked if it was OK if I were to have a look around. The guy told me to please myself, so I did. Eventually, someone came over to me to chat. He pointed to an old 1930s-type car that was there. He said “I don’t know what I’m going to do about this because the cylinder block has cracked”. He couldn’t find anyone to weld it because it was such a long crack. I asked him if he had thought about re-sleeving the bores and putting smaller pistons in. I thought that when he had an idea that I knew what I was talking about, he began to chat with me. I told him that I had one or two old cars andA TRACTION. He replied “we have four around here”. I noticed that there was one that was being restored and painted. I told him that I would give my right arm to have a Traction that was running but he didn’t really hit on anything like that. We had a long chat, and then I found myself driving back into town again afterwards. I wasn’t thinking, and I was following two cars. One was a Rolls-Royce and one was something else. I suddenly realised at some point that we were going the wrong way down a one-way street. I hoped that no-one was watching and that there were no cameras. Eventually, I found the supermarket and grabbed myself a plate of chips with some weird Indian accompaniment. I had to struggle to find a seat in the café but I did in the end, and the chips were nice. But these Indian things, I wasn’t all that impressed. I decided that I wasn’t going to eat them after I’d tried a couple. Then I looked at the time and it was almost 18:00, time that I was due home, so I had to hurry up and move on.

This dream reminds me of that time ON LONG ISLAND when I stopped at this warehouse where I’d seen an aeroplane parked outside. I spoke to the manager of the place who interrogated me on my knowledge of the history of early aviation and, satisfied that I knew my stuff, allowed me in to see their prize exhibits, including a replica of Lindbergh’s Spirit of St Louis and sit at the controls inside it.

The Indian meal reminds me of tea last night.

Going back to that dream about the abandoned cars, later on, I was driving around somewhere in the USA in a hilly area. I found a nice patch of green at the side of the road where I thought that I’d pull up and I could eat my sandwiches there. I noticed that there was a group of kids in the field at the side. They were all playing about. One of them came over to say “hello”. I had a little chat with her, and it turned out that she was in Year 6 and was going to High School soon. She was talking about her new English teacher, that he was always crying and becoming angry. I explained that not everyone is always very happy and in a good equilibrium. Sometimes, people are like that and you have to push the emotions aside and push on with what you are doing. Learning English is fun. We carried on chatting and we talked about sports. It turned out that she wasn’t American at all. She was from somewhere else. She was saying that one thing she hated about the Americans was how they blew themselves up into something that they weren’t. They were always showing off etc, and how she couldn’t really cope with it. I told her a story about one of my niece’s children who played sports. They were playing against some team from a High School on a Native American reservation. There was one young lad who was winning everything, and no-one knew why he was so good until a few days later when they checked the results and discovered that he was an Olympic champion in some kind of events. That was much more like the way that people should be. She agreed. Then, one of her friends came over and the three of us began to chat. I said how well they had done, that they had gone through elementary school so quickly and were nearly ready for the High School, and I hope that they’ll enjoy it. Then, the school bell rang and they had to leave. I said goodbye to them and “maybe I’ll see you again”. I drove off and back over the hills with this beautiful view in the distance of what was going on in the valley.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have a lot of time for kids. I think that they have a really raw deal in life. They have such a lot to say, much of which is interesting, yet no-one wants to listen to them

There was football next. Stranraer v Clydebank in the Scottish Cup. The third round was full of shocks and surprises, with many clubs being knocked out by lower-league opposition, such as Dumbarton losing 4-0 at home to West of Scotland League side Auchinleck Talbot, for example.

And we almost had another one here at Stranraer, where but for several slices of good fortune, the score could have been 2-1 to Clydebank rather than the 2-1 to Stranraer, as the match finished.

This afternoon, I tackled my Welsh homework and waded through it from start to finish. I just need to review one or two questions and then I can send it off.

While I was at it, I was chatting to my friend from Munich, but I had to abandon that because Rosemary rang with a computer issue and needed help. It was another one of those long conversations where we can talk for hours about nothing at all, but it made me late for my baking.

The loaf that I made looks to be excellent, and the pizza really was delicious. However, I could only eat half of it, so the other half will do for tea tomorrow. Based on the weight, I’m eating between about a third and a quarter of a pizza that I would have comfortably eaten six months ago.

While everything was cooking, I wrapped my two Christmas cakes in baking paper and tinfoil, and they are now cooling in the fridge ready for marzipanning next weekend.

So now, horribly late, I’m off to bed. Dialysis tomorrow, unfortunately, but at least I’m only out twice next week, which is a major improvement. I can get on and do things.

But before I go, seeing as we have been talking about Holmes and Watson … "well, one of us has" – ed … I was talking to Holmes not so long ago and I asked him how his crime investigations were going.
"Ohh, I’ve retired now" he told me. "It’s only the elderly who remember me and appreciate me. The young people don’t know me at all."
"So I suppose you’re really an Old People’s Holmes" I replied. "But do you keep up with the news from London?"
"Watson still lives there" he replied. "He keeps me up-to-date with the news."
"So he’s your ‘Watson in London’ then."

Monday 3rd September 2018 – AND THE ANSWER …

… to last night’s question was almost “back in Yellowknife” because we took off, did a circuit around the town and landed again. Apparently there was a “maintenance issue”. And even I could smell the exhaust fumes coming into the cabin.

And that’s because the plane that we are on is probably the oldest in which I have ever travelled (remember that the Avro Lancaster in Ontario
never left the ground).

You might think that this aeroplane here is a De Havilland DHC-7-103 Dash 7 registration number C-GUAT, and built as recently as 1978 but it’s actually the Vickers Vimy of Alcock and Brown recovered from the bog in Ireland specifically for the purpose of moving us on.

Piloted by Orville and Wilbur Wright, the flight attendant was Amelia Earhart and I had to move Charles Lindbergh’s sandwiches off my seat.

And that reminds me – who was first to fly the Atlantic non-stop?
“Mike Tyson”
“No, it was Allcock and Brown”
“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?”.

But returning to our moutons as they say around Quebec, I’m not sure whose idea it was for The Vanilla Queen to take me out at 23:30, long after we had all been tucked up in bed, to go to look for the Northern Lights.

We tramped miles but without very much success. A faint glimmer in the sky was all that we saw – nothing like the multi-coloured spectacular that you can see(but I have never seen at all) on occasion.

So we went back to the hotel.

The alarm call was due at 04:00 but I was wide awake at 02:35 – sleep issues again. And when I finally left my stinking pit I had a few things to do;

I’m not relying on coffee at the moment but I had a beautiful, warm shower instead. And not having unpacked my suitcase I was ready in moments.

A brief moment of hilarity when the shuttle bus collided with the canopy supports outside the hotel and knocked the brick fascia flying, and we were loaded and off to the airport.

First thing that I noticed in the departure lounge was a sign saying “First Aid Station” – and underneath it was a large flask of coffee with a collection of paper cups.

“How very appropriate” I thought. But as you might have expected, it was empty.

Our spirits were somewhat aroused when someone came to take it away, but dashed when it never returned. We are of course only a couple of hundred miles from the Arctici Circle and even the basic necessities of life here are luxuries

We’d been told that the earlier we arrived at the airport, the earlier we would leave, and so earlier we arrived we did. Our flight was due to depart at 06:15 but that was clearly a Spanish 06:15. Despite our early arrival it was in fact closer to 07:00 when we set off.

We did a lap or two around the airport and had a good view of the Mackenzie Highway underneath us – probably the nearest that I’ll ever come to it – and then we had to come back to Yellowknife Airport for repairs.

It would come as no surprise to learn that the interior of the plane is quite primitive.

We are told that it was originally owned by Air Greenland and the livery would bear that out, and so it’s probably outfitted for hunter/trappers, Inuit and komatik teams rather than commercial passengers.

Huskies, muskoxen and courreurs de bois would certainly be much more at home in here than the likes of us.

While I was wandering around in the aeroplane I also had a good look at the controls that the flight attendants would use in the passenger cabin.

We had rocker switches of the kind that you might have found in an up-market car of the early 1960s and a bakelite telephone that looked as if it dated from the 1950s.

Still, it’s one step up from baked bean tins and string, I suppose

Not only that – the on-board toilet is an Elsan chemical toilet – and I haven’t seen one of these fitted on board an aeroplane for centuries.

But we have to make the best of it. We were told (and I don’t doubt this for a moment) that we were lucky to find this plane for hire.

Mind you, after we had been flying for an hour or so the exhaust fumes in the cabin seemed to clear. Either that or I’d become accustomed to them.

And no special meal for me either. I’m not so much annoyed that I didn’t have my meal because this is rather an ad-hoc arrangement – but what annoyed me was that no-one had said anything about it. Had they done so, I could have made my own arrangements. I have stuff in my suitcase that I could have eaten.

One thing that was quite surprising was that we were given a visit to the controls. You don’t get that these days on a scheduled flight of course.

The captain was there rather nonchalantly looking at a video on his phone while the autopilot was doing the work. No idea where the co-pilot was.

This would have been an ideal moment for Strawberry Moose to have had a photo opportunity by taking over the controls. And he would have done well too because there is nothing hi-tech about this machine.

But he’s locked up in the hold with his bottle of whisky – and you can hear the sea shanties from here.

After all of this, I needed a coffee. And I wasn’t the only one either, with The Vanilla Queen making frantic coffee-like gesticulations.

But, quite unsurprisingly, we had run out. No more coffee at all and that filled me with even more dismay, gloom and foreboding, especially as we still had four hours of flight to go.

I settled down for a snooze instead, and I can’t say that I didn’t need it after all of my nocturnal ramblings.

Wherever it is that we are heading, we aren’t going to make it all in one go. These Dash-7 aeroplanes aren’t made for long-hail flights and the range is not what you might expect from a modern aeroplane.

We had to put down for refuelling and there’s a suitable airstrip at the foot of the Simpson Peninsula at a place called Pelly Bay

And I’m glad that I managed at least to reach Pelly Bay, because it is one of the most famous, if not controversial places in Arctic history. It was here in 1854 that the first definite news of the lost Franklin Expedition came to light.

When the British Government finally stirred its stumps to send relief expeditions to look for Franklin, they were all sent spectacularly in the wrong direction.

It was Doctor John Rae, with no connection to any of the expeditions but leading a surveying party on behalf of the Hudsons Bay Company, who on 21st April 1854 encountered a wandering band of Inuit carrying relics of Franklin’s expedition

They gave Rae an account of the final days of the sad remnants of Franklin’s expedition including graphic descriptions of cannibalism amongst the party.

Rae made his report accordingly, and which was picked up and published by The Times on 23rd October 1854. And for daring to suggest that White Men had deliberately stopped so low as to eat their fellow human beings, he was abused and shunned by Society.

However, subsequent expeditions that followed up the report of Rae found the observations of the Inuit to be perfectly correct. Modern re-examination of several remains has only served to substantiate the case.

We put down for fuel at Pelly’s Bay – otherwise known these days as Kugaaruk (the little stream) – at the western foot of the Simpson Peninsula.

This had been one of the potential sites for us to have been rescued, but it’s at the head of a bay and the north wind has blown a pile of pack ice down to jam up the entrance, so we’re having to go on elsewhere.

We could have waited here for the weather to clear but as you can see, there’s nowhere here to wait.

While the aeroplane was refuelling we had a wander around the airport terminal, such as it is.

There is nothing in the way of food or coffee here, and the queue for the two washrooms was enormously long. To such an extent that it took much longer for everyone to visit the bathroom than it did to fuel up the plane, and the plane had to wait for the passengers.

And a visit to the bathroom was necessary because the Elsan on the plane is now full and out of bounds.

There was a cargo aeroplane unloading, a Calm Air (whoever they are when they are at home, if they ever are) aeroplane C-FCRZ, whatever that might be, and I’ll check that when I can find a decent internet connection… “it’s an ATR 72-202(F)” – ed.

It had brought in a rather banal pile of supplies that were being taken away in the back of a pick-up truck.

This shows you the immediate supply difficulties of communities out here in the wilds of Arctic Canada and explains some of the high prices that you see.

Because, believe it or not, we are now beyond the Arctic Circle and I bent down and rubbed my hand through all of the gravel in celebration, because this kind of thing is important to me.

Once we were all ready we took off again again again.

Apparently our next stop is going to be Pond Inlet on Baffin Island, and we might even get there too because we did actually manage to take off again – and flew out over Pelly’s Bay and headed out north-west across Committee Bay – the stretch of water that separates the Boothia Peninsula and the Melville peninsula

And if anyone is in doubt about global warming, all they need to do is to look at my photographs of the area here, nice dry weather with no snow whatsoever, and then read the accounts of the 19th-Century explorers as they struggled through the ice and snowdrifts with man-hauled sledges at a similar time of year.

Way down below us, and we weren’t flying high (because you can’t in a Dash-7), over the Gulf of Boothia, we were starting to see icebergs in some of the bays down here.

These will have calved off the glaciers on the western coast of Greenland and taken north by the Gulf Stream

They will then have been picked up and then brought down here through the Prince Regent Inlet by the caprices of the Labrador Current.

It wasn’t long before we began to encounter floe ice. Not very substantial, it has to be admitted, but nevertheless it was there.

And from here it might not look as if it would stop a substantial ship, but we’d been shown a video of a ship being piloted through by an icebreaker, and how quickly the wind was blowing the ice back, closing in behind the icebreaker, making passage no more easy for the ship.

And this what what was causing us all of our problems.

At one point we flew over a strait that was very narrow and confined.

It conformed to all of the descriptions that I had read of Bellot Strait – the key to the North-West Passage. But of course we aren’t going that way. That’s further to the north up the Boothia Peninsula

It’s actually the Fury and Hecla Strait that we are flying over, between the Melville Peninsula and Baffin Island.

It’s not quite what I was hoping to see of course, and certainly not from the air, but it’s impressive all the same.

But 165 years ago we wouldn’t even have seen it at all, for we were now in, for Doctor Rae, uncharted territory.

His 1854 map of the area left the coastline and interior of this region totally unmarked. There wasn’t even guesswork or a rough estimation of whatever there might be around here.

Amongst the many claims to fame of Baffin Island, one of the things for which itis famous is its magnificent cliffs.

And we were treated to them in all their glory. You can really understand why the Norse and many other subsequent explorers had failed to set foot on this point, and why it remained uncharted even in the days of James Rae.

Who would want to climb right up there after a landfall that would in itself be very uncertain indeed?

Our pilot offered us a treat. He told us that there were several ways into Pond Inlet, and one of them was to circle around the mountains and come in up the channel – Eclipse Sound – that separates Baffin Island and Bylot Island.

And as we rounded the headland and were hit full force by the turbulence of a strong wind that was roaring up the cliffs and causing us to bounce around like a rubber ball,

I was reminded of the pilot of Air New Zealand Flight 901 who offered his passengers a scenic circuit of Mounts Erebus and Terror in similar conditions and circumstances in November 1979. Of the 257 people on board there were no survivors.

And I’m not sure about the wisdom of doing this with an overflowing Elsan either. I’m glad that I wasn’t sitting by the toilet door.

But we survived, which was just as well, and I’m glad that we came this way because our pilot spotted a rather large iceberg floating down the strait.

The pilot offered us a circuit of it so that we could photograph it, which was rather a tall order at such a low level in a rather elderly, creaking Dash-7 and I had a feeling that all of this was going to end in tears.

But circle it he did and we could see it in all its splendour and it looked magnificent.

As we approached the coastline, a cry went up from two different parts of the aeroplane.

Someone had seen what they reckoned would be the ship that was going to take us off on the next stage of our adventure (because, if you haven’t already guessed, this flight is merely the beginning).

However, on closer inspection it turned out to be a Russian cruise ship that was navigating the waters around here.

And The Vanilla Queen let out quite a cry too, and almost blew out my eardrums. She has a thing about narwhals and sure enough, there was a school of them swimming about below.

I wouldn’t recognise a narwhal if I were to trip over one in a floodlit football stadium, but by the time we came into land I think that everyone on the ship was a narwhal-spotting expert thanks to her.

And this is the beauty of travelling in a well-informed and well-educated group of diverse people.

So here we are then at Pond Inlet, or Mittimatalik as it is called these days. It’s on the North-East tip of Baffin Island, deep in the Arctic.

We have to have the obligatory photo of the airport of course, just to say that we finally arrived, even though this wasn’t anything like where we were supposed to be.

The Vanilla Queen wanted me to take one of her next to the sign – but that’s on her camera so you won’t get to see that.

The party that had been stuck on the ship for a couple of days waiting for us to relieve them gave us all a resounding cheer as we entered the terminal.

Whether it was to reward us for our perseverance or whether it was a cheer of relief that they could all now go home I really don’t know.

But it was totally unnecessary and rather overwhelming.

An ancient school bus – even more derelict than our aeroplane and that’s saying something, took us down to the waterline.

There’s no dock here and it wouldn’t ordinarily be a stopping point, but it’s ice-free and has an airport, and that’s so important when you are considering this kind of thing.

Instead, there was a fleet of inflatable zodiacs waiting to take us out into the Eclipse Strait.

While we were kitting ourselves out in our wet-weather gear, three little Inuit girls came to say hello to us and show us the little baby puppies that they had hidden inside their jackets to keep them warm.

As we were about to climb into the zodiacs, the wind shifted dramatically as it does in the Arctic, and we had to move a short distance down the coast and behind an outcrop of rocks to shelter.

And there we were treated to the sight of our ship.

She’s the Good Ship Ve … errr Ocean Endeavour and it’s quite clear, as we came closer and closer towards her that she is a former car ferry – with a welded rear drop-down door.

That makes her at least 25 years old if she was formerly an EU ship, as their commercial licences are usually withdrawn at that age.

The zodiac ride was exciting. The winds were such that we were thrown around on top of the waves and it was much more interesting that anything that you would pay for in an adventure park.

I was all for going back and doing it again.

While you admire a few more photos of Eclipse Sound, with Bylot Island in the background, let me tell you a few more things about the ship.

We were welcomed aboard by the reception staff, and then our floor steward took me to my room. it’s a tiny 4-berth cabin – and I do mean “tiny”.

There are two berths side by side, two fold-down booths above, a table and chair, a wardrobe and a tiny shower room with all mod-cons.

And I am on my own, which is just as well because I don’t do company as I’m sure that regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

Except for Strawberry Moose of course. And he’s quite happy with his bed anyway.

One day he’ll get to meet the rest of the passengers.

And of course, if the company is young, female and friendly. And then sleeping isn’t all that much of an issue, is it?

There was a reception organised for the passengers. And once more, there was nothing vegan on offer. I buttonholed the Captain and complained about the whole set-up.

The service manager came to meet me and he was most gracious in his apologies and told me that he would make it up to me. Would I like a complimentary bottle of wine?

He was most put-out when I mentioned that I didn’t drink.

As for the evening meal, I made myself known to the restaurant manager who comes from Budapest (so we had a good chat about Budapest and Hungary). He asked me all kinds of questions and we arranged that when there’s a set meal, I should speak to him and he would speak to the chef.

I ended up with lentil soup, a salad with bulghour and some kind of black beans, followed by fruit. That suited me fine.

We had a lifeboat drill and were introduced to the team. I made the acquaintance of a team member called Latonia who is a specialist in Labrador and the High Arctic and we had a chat.

And then I went off to take some photographs before we lost the light.

Not that that’s something over which anyone needs to lose much sleep, if you pardon the expression, because at this time of year at these attitudes, the light isn’t totally lost.

This photo was taken just before 23:00 and there is still some light left as you can see.

So now I’m alone in the bar writing up my notes.

I’ve taken Strawberry Moose for a good walk around in search of some exciting places for him to be photographed.

This was a likely spot, suitable for him to make his debut appearance on the ship.

After all, just like any important celebrity, he needs to spread his fame about.

Wednesday 6th September 2017 – THAT WAS SOMETHING …

… of a disturbed night last night. And I’ll tell you why in due course.

And it took the alarm to rouse me from my slumbers – and I was still there when Billy Cotton wailed out his reminder 15 minutes later.

Furthermore, I wasn’t in much of a state to do much when I awoke. Something of a difficult morning in fact.

Eventually I made it in for the inclusive breakfast. It wasn’t much of a breakfast either. It might have helped had I taken my soya milk in but I wasn’t thinking too much about that.

A little later I did manage to attack the blog and bring it up to date, as well as tidying up the room and making it look presentable. By 10:30 I was on my way.

Last night I’d made a little miscalculation. Grand Falls where I ended up was about 50 kms beyond where I wanted to me so I had to go all the way back.

I ended up back at Botwood – one of the towns that had been very high on my list of places in this part of the world, because it’s another place steeped in history of the kind that I appreciate.

The area was first officially visited in 1810 by an exploration party led by David Buchan

An early claim to fame is that it is the place of death of that last two known Beothuk natives.

had you come here even 50 years ago, the bay here would have been a hive of activity.

There were quays here and the railway brought wagon-loads of paper from the pulp mills at Grand Falls-Windsor and ore from the mines at Buchans.

But all of that has long-gone – the ore in 1984 and the paper in 2009. Nowadays they don’t have one ship per month in here.

And had you been here between 1937 and 1945 you wouldn’t have been able to move out there either.

For this was the raison d’etre of the town during this period.

It’s another one of these places that played a leading role in the development of Transatlantic flight, because the first commercial transatlantic passenger flights came into land right there.

The town, originally called Ship Cove and renamed Botwood after an early Minister, was originally tied to the sea as you might expect.

It developed a lumber business at the turn of the 20th Century and then, once the railway arrived, became a throving port.

But just after the First World War, the legendary airman Sidney Cotton – pioneer of modern aerial photography – chose Botwood as a base for his seaplane that he used for surveying and seal-spotting around the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts.

Charles Lindbergh, the “flying fool” was employed by Pan-American Airways to locate sites for the airline’s fledgling fleet of flying boats.

He and his wife flew into Botwood in 1933 having heard of Cotton’s base here. They surveyed the bay and approved its use as a base for flying boats.

As a result, Pan Am issued a contract with Boeing to develop a huge flying boat capable of flying the Atlantic, and the Boeing 314 “Clipper” was born.

In the meantime, BOAC had been doing research of its own into long-distance flight to link up the major cities of the Commonwealth. This led to the development of the “Short Empire” flying boat.

The two airlines co-operated in research for transatlantic flight, and in July 1937 the first several Transatlantic survey flights were made with the co-operation of both companies.

And in June 1939, the first regular commercial transatlantic passenger flights began. The route was Southampton – Foynes – Botwood and then either Montreal or New York.

During the Second World War, the “Empires” were requisitioned by the British military authorities and it was left to the “Clippers” and a few older Sikorsky S42 flying boats to continue the service.

In fact, somewhere out there in the area shown in one of the earlier photos, there’s a Sikorsky flying boat – a more modern VS44 named “Excalibur”.

On 3rd October 1942 she “bounced” on take-off and went under. 11 of the people on board were killed and, strange as it might be to mention it, the US military authorities are still even today searching for the bodies of the four people who are missing.

The area really came into its own during world War II.

This was when the concrete slipway was built (the big flying boats were loaded and unloaded by boat).

The British – and later the Canadian – government based a squadron of flying boats here that were used for anti-submarine defence around the north of the island.

That’s because the slow “Sydney Cape” or “SC” convoys used to assemble off Sydney and then sail up the Strait of Belle Isle and out around the north of the island.

German submarines were quite active in the area as you know from our previous discussions.

The port itself was protected by a couple of batteries of heavy artillery, of which the gunners passed what could only be a very boring war.

We actually have on display here a PBY flying boat – one of one of the types that was based here during the war.

This machine was taken out of service in the late 1980s and was donated by the Canadian Government to the town.

It’s official recognition as some kind of reminder or memorial to the role that the town played during the war in the fight against the submarines.

We talked about Excalibur a short while ago. Somewhere out there in the bay are twomore aircraft.

One of the military flying boats, a PBY Canso, crashed on landing in the bay on November 8, 1943 and seven people were killed.

A Hurricane, flying to Gander, ran out of fuel and attempted a landing on the ice. Unfortunately it broke throuh and sank, but the pilot was saved.

That out there was formerly an island. The “causeway” that links it to the mainland is an artificial causeway and dates from the Second World War.

The island itself is hollowed out and was used as a bunker or store for munitions and the like and there’s a whole series of entrances over there in the rock.

You might think that that’s enough wartime excitement for a small town like Botwood, but that’s far from the case

Probably the very first Act of War in North America took place here.

A German ore carrier, the Christoph V. Doornum was in dock here on the very day that War was declared, loading ore from Buchans to take back to Germany.

She was immediately seized by the local police, her crew arrested, and she was impressed into the British merchant fleet.

She didn’t last long though, being damaged beyond repair by a mine off Margate on 9th June 1940.

And so having “done” Botwood I drove back to Grand Falls for a look around. And there’s nothing that’s really any reminder of the importance of the town.

I did the final load of shopping (having to go into three shops before I could find a lettuce), fuelled up, and then hit the highway to drive non-stop to Deer Lake.

On my arrival I negotiated for myself another over-priced accommodation in a cabin – Lush’s cabins – in the mountains at Cormack, but not before I’d noticed another significant milestone.

Just down the road from my cabin, Strider passed over the 200,000 kilometres. So happy 200,000 kilometres, Strider.

The cabin that I’m in sleeps four and although it’s tired around the edges, it’s not too bad. Four people would have a really good time here I suppose.

All of the cooking gear is here and there’s a microwave too, so it’s potatoes, beans and bangers for tea tonight.

And then an early night because I’m whacked. In fact, I fell asleep speaking to someone on the internet.

At the start of tonight’s rubbish, I mentioned that I had had a disturbed night and that I would tell you why.

I went on a ramble last night – a ramble that lasted most of the night and I was out and about all over the place.

I started out in some kind of town – an old run-down type of place falling to pieces and I was looking for some documents for a driving test. Id been told where to go but I couldn’t remember so I accosted a local. He pointed out a few places but one was closed a few days ago and the other one had closed a few months ago. Everything was in such a derelict mess – just in fact rather like Calveley Airfield.
And then I came across a boy whom I knew who was trying to burn a load of papers – it was very important that all of these papers would be burnt. He’d put them in some kind of incinerator and closed the door but the conveyor belt wasn’t working. He was kicking a football against the door and all of a sudden there was a bang from inside the door – something like a paper bag bursting. We opened the door to see and saw the big box disappearing – the conveyor belt was now working – but there was still a load of paper, some bubble wrap and a few bits and pieces lying around. I told him that all of these needed to be removed as they had people’s addresses on them and they were visible, so he took some of the stuff and left the rest behind. The first thing that I noticed was a big file of mine about an insurance claim with my name and address clearly marked on it. I made him move it but he just took it out and dumped it on the side, which resulted in me having a huge “go” at him about this.
Round the corner was a public bar and I went in, and on the TV was England playing Norway at football. England conceded a goal after just 30 seconds. The goalkeeper for England was Viv Anderson – a full-back from the 1980s. Apparently the England goalkeeper had been injured in a previous match. This made me wonder why they didn’t have a reserve or anyone better than him because he was dreadful – running away from his goal after balls that he would never ever win. At the start of the second half Norway scored again straight away but for some reason it was disallowed. The Norway players were extremely unhappy about this. And by this time Anderson was playing like the full-back he was, rushing around over the pitch and leaving the goal empty and on a couple of occasions the other defenders had to dash back and kick balls off the line. Roy Hodgson was the England manager and he was giving vent to his feelings, but actually doing nothing about it.
By this time I was looking for somewhere to go for the toilet, but there was no toilet in this house where I was staying – just a bath and a sink. So I went out and about looking for one and couldn’t find one anywhere in the vicinity. I thought about nipping down a suitable dark alleyway but there people down there. There was a small park down the hill at the end of this football ground that might have done, but there were a couple of cars and people all around – so I just couldn’t get to go.
At this point, I awoke. and no surprises for guessing what I needed to do.

Back to bed – and who should appear in last night’s voyage but a girl whom I haven’t thought about in a long time and who is making her debut in my nocturnal rambles. Even when she was a young kid we all knew that she was going to be “something” and I can tell you a couple of stories about how we met up quite a few years later.

But going on from here, something came up that meant that I had to go to visit this house, and it was the home of her parents. I was rather embarrassed because it had been a good few years since I’d seen this girl and I was expecting her mother to make a few comments to me. But it seemed that she was suffering from dementia and was making quite a few comments to everyone. There were loads of people there, including her brother who was giving me the cold shoulder, and several people had bought their guitars with them. I was saying that it was a shame that I hadn’t come in my van because I would have had my bass with me. Then the girl appeared – blonde hair and thick-rimmed black glasses, nothing at all like she used to be and I had a hard time convincing myself that it was she (which it wasn’t of course).
From there I was back doing something with a guy I knew from Wandsworth who was now running a taxi company. He’d left a piece of paper on his desk about an old taxi run that he had done, giving the address of the street and which road to take to enter it – and “take a trailer”. A little later I was outside discussing this thing on the phone with someone else when he came on the tannoy that I was wasting my time as the job had been done last week (which I knew anyway and which wasn’t the point) and they had charged £54. I went off there to find out why the specific street to use had been mentioned, and found that the rest of the street was blocked off by a street party. I was in a bus and hordes of people climbed aboard just to chill out. When it was time o go I had to usher them all off – and do it two or three times too. And then we gathered up the waste into two large oil drums and started to burn it. They took off really well but one flared up and was in danger of setting alight some overhanging branches (we’d not been to careful) so we had to move it, flames and all. Another person tried to light a fire but was completely unsuccessful so we sent people off to look for more rubbish to add to his pile.

Saturday 5th October 2013 – I’M CLEARLY OUT OF PRACTICE …

… of sleeping on Motorway Service Areas because this was one of the worst nights sleeps that I’ve had. The constant noise kept me awake for most of the night and I finally gave up the attempt at about 06:30 and went nd fetched a coffee.

Off to my little storage area at Jarry to unload the Dodge, and I’m afraid that there, I binned the bed. As you know, because I’ve said before, the constant screwing and unscrewing has weakened the screw holes so that it no longer holds together and I’m in danger of dropping through it, and also because I bought a new and “proper” folding camp bed and mattress which is slightly narrower and slightly shorter, but a good couple of inches higher, and so has all kinds of better potential.

And woe is me. For if you remember, I found a superb car wash and valet service in Montreal in 2012 and I’m badgered if I can remember where it was. And the one that I found instead is, well, unsatisfactory and to such an extent that I took the car back to Jarry and gave it another go myself, and then vacuumed it out. Disappointing, you might say.

Words were said this evening too.

When I took the Dodge back to the Car Hire place, the attendant said, in a loud accusatory voice “you’ve damaged this car!”. Consequently he and I had a “frank exchange of views” which continued inside the Hire Company offices where I told them precisely what I thought about their staff abusing my good nature in doing them a favour by taking out a damaged car.

My bad humour persisted inside the airport terminal at what is laughingly called the “security check” when a security guard said to me “take your boots off”. When I told him to say “please” he repeated his demand. Consequently I told him exactly what I thought of his pig-ignorant attitude and when the chief of security came out with a couple of minions to find out what the commotion was, I told him about it too and I made sure that the other 500 or so passengers at the departure gate and the rest of the staff there knew about it too. I’m totally fed up of this aggressive, impolite and pig-ignorant attitude of people at these terminals and it’s high time that other passengers responded in kind as well. I ought to be leading a revolt against this kind of arrogant attitude – after all, my friends (yes, I do have more than one) tell me that I’m quite revolting.

This is our aeroplane that brought me back to Europe, and I’m not quite sure how because in my humble … "humble?" – ed … opinion a more derelict and decrepit reilc never took to the air before.

It’s an Airbus A330 C-GCTS and if you want my opinion, it was the aircraft rejected by Nungesser and Coli in favour of “The White Bird” for their unsuccessful Trans-Atlantic attempt from east to west in 1927. The seats were vinyl, rather like an old Ford Cortina mk III from the early 1970s and the seat-back of the seat in front of me was held on by a rather worn velcro. Added to that, I spent almost 7 hours on the most uncomfortable seat upon which I have ever sat and the most comfortable part of the journet was the five minutes or so that I spent on the elsan. Someone did make the suggestion that I had forgotten to move Charles Lindbergh’s sandwiches off the seat, but I was too busy watching the in-flight entertainment – three big central screens (no individual screens at all) showing films and contemporary news features (and wasn’t that a tragedy about the Titanic?). Well it was either that or listen to the music, featuring Glen Miller and his band, live, on their way to entertain the troops in Normandy.

Having said all of that however, Air Transat did remember my vegan meal and so there was a positive side to the journey. But hopefully, there won’t be any further issues impinging upon any subsequent voyage, and so I won’t have to put up with this kind of nonsense in the future. It’s bad enough having to deal with the security guards.

-3

Tuesday 7th June 2011 – HAVING LEFT DAVE’S …

… last night at something silly, I made it as far as Berwick-on-Tweed where I spent the night.

There’s a car pool place on the edge of town with a couple of discreet corners ideal for having a kip, and ideal for having a few other things too by the looks of it. Next morning, I even found a pair of tights on the ground.

We’ve been here before so we don’t have a photo but it’s a nice clean place with a washroom so there’s everything that you need to hand.

Once I’d organised myself properly I crossed the border into Scotland and headed off down the A1 in the direction of Edinburgh. On the by-pass, I kept my eyes peeled and eventually found the road that I needed.

Where I’ve come to is Rosslyn Chapel, which is situated in the village of … errr … Roslin, south of Edinburgh. The village of Rosslyn is somewhere else – New Zealand or the USA or somewhere.

Everyone will know the story behind Rosslyn Chapel because you’ve all read the Da Vinci Code and/or seen the film, and this is where the action takes place

But it’s not (necessarily) that which has brought me here.

As I said yesterday, something that cropped up in Canada last October was what had brought me here.

There have long been claims that Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney, Baron of Roslin and ancestor of the current owner of the Chapel, had visited North America 100 years before Columbus.

Of course, this is quite possible.

He held his title of Earl of Orkney in allegiance to King Haakon VI of Norway, gifted on 2 August 1379.
He is known to have been in Norway on many occasions
Norway certainly knew of the existence of the old Norse colonies in Greenland
In 1347 a boat loaded with timber from “Markland” (almost certainly the North American coast) made an error of navigation and fetched up in Iceland rather than Greenland. This would have inevitably become known to the Norwegians (Iceland was a Norwegian possession at the time)
Sinclair was said to be an intrepid seaman known for his curiosity

And from there we move into the realm of speculation.

Just because something is quite possible, that is far from saying that it is probable, or even likely.

Many people do however make such a claim and when we were in Nova Scotia last October we came across his alleged landing site. It’s no part of my story to pass any opinion on this. I’m having no part in any argument.

But the fervent supporters of the Sinclair North American landings pointed out that Rosslyn Chapel contains many carvings that can only be plants found only in North America and unknown in Europe until the 16th Century.

They say that seeing as how the Chapel was built in 1456 (which, incidentally is long after Sinclair’s death), it could only be because Sinclair had seen them on his travels.

Why I had come here was to see the carvings and persuade the authorities to allow me to photograph them – permission is not often given.

But I nearly didn’t go in at all now. There have been considerable complaints about the Chapel “cashing in” on the popularity of the Da Vinci Code and when they told me how much the admission would be, I nearly passed out on the spot.

Seeing me standing there open-mouthed, the woman on the cash desk reassured me “but it’s half-price for senior citizens”.

I wasn’t sure whether to thump her or to storm out in disgust but the parsimonist inside me got the better of my emotions. But I’m afraid my ego has touched rock-bottom now and I’m inconsolable.

It’s no wonder that the Chapel is undergoing repair. With the money that they must be raking in, they could cover the place in gold plate.

However, it’s an ill-wind that doesn’t blow anyone any good. I spent quite some time chatting to a tour guide about the Templars and Sinclair and all of this, and the upshot was that I was invited into the office to see the Director.

I imagine that people claiming to be serious visitors have to “pass the test” – something that happened to me in the USA in 1999 when I ended up sitting behind the controls in the cockpit of Lindbergh’s The Spirit of St Louis – or, at least, the famous “Warner Brothers” replica B159.

I was permitted to take a couple of photographs “for private study” and not for publication so unfortunately you can’t see them, and I was allowed to peruse the private papers of the Chapel.

Furthermore, the curator will photocopy all of those that I found interesting and e-mail them to me, and so I certainly had my money’s worth there.

And as for the photos?

The Director of the museum told me that people overlook the fact that the interior of the chapel was redesigned in the 1860s and its possible that the designs could date from then. The original plans for the Chapel have never been discovered.
Others have said that the designs are imply abstract forms
And me? Well, I’ve seen more convincing and realistic maize and pineapple carvings elsewhere

And don’t forget. Sinclair had been to Norway – and doubtless other parts of the Norwegian Empire too. Greenland was part of the Norwegian Empire. Travellers from Greenland had been to both North America and Iceland – which was part of the Norwegian Empire.

No-one – apart from Yours Truly of course – has ever mentioned the possibility that what Sinclair might have seen had been brought back from North America by a Greenlander and Sinclair had seen it elsewhere.

But before we leave the site, let me first remind you of my theory about churches and castles.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’ve drawn your attention … "on many occasions" – ed … to the superb “defensive” site of many churches, such as this one here.

I’ve said … "at great length" – ed … that in my opinion, these sites started out as fortress sites with a small chapel inside the fortress.

As the need for fortresses declined and as the population in the vicinity grew in number, the size of the fortress would decline and the church would become more important

Rosslyn Chapel is actually built on the site of what was formerly a fortified site

And as for the myths and legends? Make up your own mind. There’s been enough nonsense written about this place without me adding to it.

From Roslin I drove all the way back to Hexham to see how Dave was doing with his rewrite of the text for the pages of his website.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall my magnum opus about Riccarton Junction.

One thing that I was keen to do was to see the junction where the line for Hawick left the Newcastle-Carlisle line and the remains of the famous bridge over the Tyne.

That’s not too far from Hexham as it happens, and a lovely walk along the banks of the Tyne so with Dave acting as guide and navigator, off we set.

It didn’t take too long to track it down, but unfortunately, all traces of the railway junction have long-been obliterated.

That’s hardly a surprise since the line was closed in 1958.

After many vicissitudes we were eventually able to scramble up onto one of the piers where I was able to take several photos of the remains of the piers.

It wasn’t easy to see how they had been built, seeing as they were all swathed in sheaves of debris brought down by the river in spate.

You can imagine the force of the water that can roar down here when you see all of this

As you might (or might not) know, the death knell for the railway sounded on 6th August 1948, when this part of the country was hit by a devastating storm and torrential rain that lasted for 6 days.

A 7-foot tidal wave of water swept down the River Whiteadder, the River Tweed was recorded as being 17 feet above its usual water level

Much of the railway infrastructure was badly damaged – the East Coast main line between London and Ednburgh was so badly damaged that it took 11 weeks before it could reopen.

The Tyne did not escape and the Border Counties Bridge – which was never a particularly stable bridge, was badly damaged. Engineers affected a temporary repair but this really WAS only temporary and didn’t last too long.

And with the volume of traffic on the railway, which was never substantial, it was decided that it was not cost-effective to rebuild it.

Passenger services were withdrawn in 1956 but some kind of desultory freight service struggled on for a couple of years.

One thing that I noticed lying scattered around the site were all kinds of remains of cast iron.

Many railway bridges of this period were built out of cast-iron and we’ve seen plenty of remains on our travels.

All of this looks to me very much like what I would expect to see had I been looking for the remains of cast-iron bridge columns.And when I find the time, I’ll tell you how they were assembled

The rails were removed, the junction was erased, and the bridge was demolished.

And there are still several lumps of masonry lying around that could well have come from the bridge.

This looks pretty much like railway-bridge brickwork to me

Back at Dave’s house we started to proof-read Dave’s text that he had now finished but one thing led to another and with bouncing a few ideas around we ended up totally rewriting it.

Not that I am complaining by any means, but it was 05:30 and broad daylight when I finally left there.

Another task all done and dusted.

Monday 18th October 2010 – "KEEP OUT! I AM WORKING CAPE RACE!"

If ever 7 words changed the fate of so many people, it was “Keep Out, I am Working Cape Race”.

At the turn of the 20th Century Marconi perfected his radio transmission system and it had the potential to overwhelm the cable line that had been laid across the Atlantic many years before.

Although he had managed to transmit directly across the Atlantic from shore to shore, it wasn’t as yet a practical proposition to do it consistently and so he set up a station at Cape Race – the nearest to Europe – and another one at Valentia in Ireland – the nearest to North America.

He then put his operators, whose wages his company paid for, on board ships, with the promise to the shipping lines that they would receive and transmit important navigation information between ships with the aim of making the oceans a safer place. And it is a fact that losses and deaths in the important shipping lanes declined significantly.

However, the sinking of the Titanic stunned the world and at the subsequent public enquiry Marconi gave his evidence that seemed to confirm the instructions that had been issued to his employees concerning the priority that “navigational” messages were to receive

But as the enquiry unfolded, it became clear that Marconi had been … errrr… economical with the truth. What was really happening was that Marconi was using the ships to bounce messages across the Atlantic by radio. And when the Titanic came into the range of the radio station at Cape Race the radio operator started to transmit a battery of Marconi’s commercial messages that lasted for three hours.

During this period, the Californian had become embedded in the ice and as the radio operator of the Californian knew that the Titanic was on the same track as his ship but an hour or so behind, he tried to send an urgent message to the Titanic to give it a warning.

It was then that the operator on the Titanic cut him off with his curt message, and the ice warning never made it to the Titanic‘s captain. The fate of the Titanic was thereby sealed.

At the subsequent public enquiry the Chairman asked the radio operator of the Californian “I’m sure you didn’t mean to listen but could you say what character of messages the Titanic was transmitting?”
The operator replied “I’m sure that these messages were of a private nature”.

Now this is Trepassey Bay, with the town of Trepassey in the background. Trepassey Bay is only an hour or so from Cape Race and the town played an important part in the history of aviation.

If you ask most Americans who was the first to fly the Atlantic they would reply “Charles Lindbergh”. But in fact much to their surprise and to the surprise of many others, at least 91 people (maybe 92 if a mysterious stowaway is included, and maybe even 94 if the mysterious fate of a pair of Portuguese aviators is ever unravelled. They disappeared on a flight across the South Atlantic and were never found, but a raft made from parts of their aircraft was discovered washed up on a remote part of the coast of Brazil) crossed the Atlantic before the Flying Fool.

Most British people would reply “Alcock and Brown” – but to the surprise of many people, that’s not correct either. What Alcock and Brown actually achieved was the TOP flight across the Atlantic.

There was an earlier trans-Atlantic flight by a US Navy Pilot by the name of Albert Read. However his flight was a little different. It was in a seaplane along a route marked by a line of US Navy ships, he made several stops on the way, had a break in the Azores before starting again for Lisbon, and the two other seaplanes that accompanied him failed to make the journey.

Nevertheless it is the first trans-Atlantic crossing no matter by what standards you measure his flight, and it has never ever received the credit that it deserves. And of course he set off from Trepassey Bay in Newfoundland.

If you hunt around the town you might, if you are lucky, eventually find a little plaque to commemorate Read’s efforts.

As for Amelia Earhart, the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air and who set off from here (and she did not pilot the aeroplane, no matter who insists that she did. In her memoirs she states that “Schultz did all the flying … I was just baggage, like a sack of potatoes”), and the Marquis of Pinedo, who was first to fly the Atlantic in both directions and who set off from here on the return trip, there’s nothing at all.

So from Trepassey I went off to see Cape Race, seeing as I was here.

And I was lucky too. Although the place was closed up, someone had come by to collect the post and she allowed me to visit the museum. There are quite a few artefacts there from the time of the Titanic, and they were recovered on site.

When the Marconi station closed down, it was simply bulldozed into the earth with everything still inside. When the museum was proposed, the volunteers scavenged in the debris for the artefacts to exhibit.

This gentleman set the seal on my little trip, and gave me his seal of approval. Sitting there on his rock giving me a round of applause as I drove past him.

What with porcupines, moose and bear, and now seals coming along to mark my progezss, I’m having more than my fair share of wildlife. I’m disappointed that I haven’t seen Godzilla however.

And despite what you might be thinking, this is NOT a Ford Sierra.

This is actually a Merkur Sierra – for the Sierra and the Scorpio were exported to North America under the Merkur trade name. The experiment didn’t last very long at all and you will be very lucky to be able to find one these days. I couldn’t believe my luck.

So now I’ve found a little Bed and Breakfast on the edge of St John’s, and I am immensely happy that I bought that cheap little GPS in Windsor a few weeks ago – it’s more-than paid for itself just with tracking down these obscure places.

-1

Saturday 13th February 2010 – I must have been tired last night.

Crashing out for a couple of hours and then going to bed early and then sleeping through the cacophony that is my series of alarm clocks and not waking up until 10:24. At least I’m feeling better though today. I think it must be all of these bad nights of sleep catching up on me.

This morning that strange gold thing put in a brief appearance up in the sky so I quickly climbed up onto the roof and brushed off the solar panels. I caught a few amp-hours of sun before the heavens clouded over again. But I also dug Caliburn out of his snowdrift and went for a spin up the lane to see if I could get out. Good job I have my new snow tyres because I did manage to make the public highway with a little bit of luck and perseverence. A wise decision to get these tyres, I’ll tell you.

So with a little tidying up I came up here and carried on reading my book. It’s called The 91 before Lindberghand it details all of the successful Transatlantic air crossings before “The Flying Fool”. It’s a fascinating book, especially for me, because as you know I have quite an interest in historic aviation and on one occasion while poking around on an old industrial estate on Long Island I came across a replica of the “Spirit of St Louis” and I had the extreme pleasure of being able to sit at the controls.

Furthermore the book recounts the early airship developments for Transatlantic flight that took place at Atlantic City in New Jersey – another place that I have visited – and then goes on to talk about the legendary near-miss between an airship and a four-masted schooner at Barnegat Lighthouse, yet another one of my haunts.

After that, seeing as there was a gap in the snowfall I went into St Eloy to do some shopping and pick up some gas. I was going to say “nip” into St Eloy but in third gear at 25mph all the way then “nip” it was not. It was an awkward drive but I managed okay and I’m now stocked well up for whatever else this weather can throw at us.

In other news, it’s the 25th anniversary round about now of an event that could have got Nerina and yours truly five years inside without the option. We’d seen a house that we liked and so we put Gainsborough Road on sale and priced it for a quick conclusion. Unfortunately the owners of our dream house wouldn’t reduce the price by very much and the only offers we were getting for Gainsborough Road would have left us with a shortfall.

Now you might think that a mortgage or a bank loan would be the answer but we were both self-employed running my taxi business. And with taxi businesses being what they call “cash businesses” the cash had a tendency to … errr … evaporate long before it made its way into the accounts so the accounts only bore what might be described as “a passing resemblance” to the true state of affairs of our business. We could easily afford the kind of loan that we needed but the accounts didn’t seem to bear it out.

So what we did was that we scratched around for work – any kind of work at any price and it didn’t matter at all if we were never ever going to be paid to do it as long as it looked good on paper – and heaved it into the accounts of the taxi business. It vastly inflated our “recorded” turnover and made everything look so impressive. So much so that the Bank loved our figures and started to heave huge wads of cash at us.

Luckily – and I mean luckily – the chain collapsed. The house we were interested in was taken off the market and so we took mine off and handed the cash back. And why “luckily”? For the simple reason that going to dubious, if not spurious means to inflate your company’s turnover for the purpose of getting an additional loan from a bank or a building society almost inevitably guarantees you a one-way ticket to Shrewsbury nick (or in Nerina’s case, Styal) because sooner or later your little fraud and deception will be uncovered.

Running my taxi business for eight years taught me an awful lot and many of the things that I learnt I would have been better off not knowing. But then again what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and I had a few incredibly lucky escapes. When I realised all of the risks that I had been running it completely spoiled my appetite for nefarious activities and I certainly wouldn’t do it again. It’s not something that I would advise anyone else to do. If you need to go to these lengths to support your lifestyle then you need to change your lifestyle to one that you can support and if you can’t do that on your own then you need to find professional help.

-6

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Tag Archives: charles lindbergh

Sunday 30th November 2025 – WHEN I WENT …

Monday 3rd September 2018 – AND THE ANSWER …

Wednesday 6th September 2017 – THAT WAS SOMETHING …

Saturday 5th October 2013 – I’M CLEARLY OUT OF PRACTICE …

Tuesday 7th June 2011 – HAVING LEFT DAVE’S …

Monday 18th October 2010 – "KEEP OUT! I AM WORKING CAPE RACE!"

Saturday 13th February 2010 – I must have been tired last night.

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