Tag Archives: sidney cotton

Thursday 12th September 2024 – I CAN’T EVER FORGET …

… my friend’s daughter who, on being told that what she was going through for the first time at 11 years old was what she’ll be going through every four weeks for the next forty years, stormed upstairs in a fury and slammed her bedroom door in a fit of pre-teen angst .

And now I know exactly how she must have been feeling, after having gone through what I’ve gone through today and knowing that I’ll be doing it three times per week for the rest of my life.

They said that it would make me feel better, but I’m hardly running around like a spring chicken right now.

“It takes time” they tell me, but how much time do I have?

Not enough last night, apparently. I eschewed a trip out around Central Scotland with one of my groundhopping friends and was in bed relatively early. And asleep quite quickly too, which seems to be becoming a habit these days.

However I awoke not long after 06:00, and couldn’t go back to sleep. By 06:45 I had totally given up the idea and was so wide awake that I arose from the Dead a good 15 minutes before the alarm, not something that happens every day.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and scrub up, changed my undies and washed the previous pair in the sink. I must keep on top of things otherwise it will all let go and I’ll have no idea where I am.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. There was an athletics meeting taking place, a World Championships of some description. I was working as a driver. At one stage I had three people in my car, a couple of girls and a guy taking them from one place to another venue. One of them was actually talking about staying illegally in the UK because he had no passport or his passport had expired. The story he was telling was how he was staying with his aunt and how she had left sounded so fishy that it was unbelievable, the type that you hear every day from thousands of people, exactly the same. He was asking about going to Canada and whether he’s receive asylum there. The Canadian girl was very suspicious and was giving very guarded answers. It was all extremely complicated. When I reached my destination I unloaded my three passengers and stayed to listen to the news. They were talking about them on the radio saying that they’d absolutely loused up the first leg of their athletics tournament and so they had been sent away somewhere off-campus to a private room out of the way of the media where they could rebuild their confidence etc ready for the second round of the event. The radio was saying how this was a good thing to do in the circumstances of these three people. But I was listening to these stories and was just extremely suspicious about them all. I was sure that there was far more to it than just a simple “take them out of the public eye for a couple of hours”. It was one of the most suspicious things that I’ve ever encountered

And believe me, in my life I have encountered a great many suspicious things. I have had something of a chequered life in a couple of previous existences and one of these days I might actually say something about it. However, I have to be mindful of the fact that the UK is one of these countries that has a very minimal Statute of Limitations.

And then we were discussing the situation at Celtic where the manager had left, a new manager had come in and there was a lot of turbulence around there with players openly talking about leaving the club. One of them was interviewed on TV and was discussing it. It turns out that another one was released over twelve months ago and has yet to find a new club. I said “surely he can find a job working on a building site or something like that and play part-time to keep fit. I could find him a job tomorrow”. I told him of a job that I knew was going. Whoever it was to whom I was talking was some elative of his and said “I want him much fitter than that. He’s 29”. The discussion continued and it was extremely interesting that I’d dreamed that Rodgers had left Celtic and they had a new foreign manager

So why would I be interested in Brendan Rodgers and Glasgow Celtic? It’s not the usual kind of topic that is forever on my mind. Not at all.

The nurse came in to see me later to apply my puttees (which fell down later). She gave me the copies of my prescriptions that she’d photocopied and also gave me some other paperwork that the clinic wants to see. She wanted to tell me what was going to happen but I didn’t want to know.

My faithful cleaner had been past too and dropped off the unused injections for me to take. Apparently they put a blood-thinning product in the mix when I’m being dialysed so they’ll start with my injections, so as to use them up

After everyone had left, I made breakfast and read my book on ROMANS IN BRITAIN.

We’re discussing Roman Roads at the moment but I’m thinking about the camps at Caersws and Caerhun that we’ve seen on those aerial maps.

When our author was writing his book, it was 1923, a long time before the advent of aerial photography and aerial mapping, something pioneered by Sidney Cotton (inventor of the “Sidcot” flying suit), whose steps we stood in IN NEWFOUNDLAND, when he came to the UK in the late 1930s.

So we can see these things quite clearly thanks to Cotton and those who followed in his footsteps … "or vapour trail" – ed …, but these people in 1923 when they were writing these books had no idea of aerial photography, so what they were able to discover and identify is really quite astonishing.

After breakfast I had to telephone the bank in Belgium. There have been payment issues with a card and I ned to check. But it wasn’t any use. According to the bank they don’t have any marker at all on the card and it should work fine.

We shall see.

What was left of the morning was spent backing up the big computer onto the memory stick on my keyring, and I ran out of time because the taxi came early for me.

There was someone else to pick up and then off we set, two passengers and the taxi driver from Hell, to Avranches. If they give me a blood pressure test as soon as we arrive they’ll have a shock.

When we arrived, there I was struggling along on my crutches so they took me to the cubicle the farthest away from the door.

They slapped a few anaesthetic patches on my arm and then we went through a pile of paperwork and forms. Then they gave me an injection and I closed my eyes as they did what they had to.

All I did was to lie there in bed. They had all the windows open and the air conditioning going full tilt and I was freezing. So much so that I couldn’t concentrate on any work at all – and that’s something that I’ll have to sort out.

Instead I read the report of Colonel Carrington about life at Fort Phil Kearny, which was permanently under siege by the native Americans and the site of which WE VISITED IN 2019. Now THAT’s what I call an interesting document.

There were also times when I drifted away with the fairies and on one of my little trips Roxanne came to see me and I remember distinctly kissing her cheek.

They eventually uncoupled me and I had to wait around for half an hour while they checked that the joint would close correctly. And FINALLY I could go to the bathroom – and not before time. And with my puttees around my ankles.

There were three taxi drivers waiting in the foyer so I asked "who’s drawn the short straw?" and one driver knew exactly what I meant.

We had another person and so the return trip home, much more sedately this time, went via the Centre Normandy to drop him off.

My cleaner was waiting but she stood and watched as I hauled myself up the stairs without help. It’s a struggle, but it works.

There’s no bread so I made another loaf. And in a wild fit of enthusiasm I made a jam roly-poly.

That was easy – make half a bread mix, after it’s risen, roll it out flat and rectangular, coat it with Jacqueline’s lovely home-made jam, sprinkle some desiccated coconut and raisins, and then roll it up, sprinkle with icing sugar and bake it in the other side of the oven while the loaf is a-doing.

While all that was going on I made tea – a burger from what’s left of the European Burger Mountain with pasta and veg done in tomato sauce

But now I’m off to bed and I’ll tell you tomorrow how the bread and roly poly have come out.

However, I started this entry today talking about repetitive tasks. And that reminds me of a Trades Union meeting that I attended years ago to discuss new work proposals
"We have agreed" said a negotiator "a 10% pay-rise, an extra week’s holiday, a Christmas bonus, and as from now on, we only have to work on Wednesdays"
"What?" howled a discontented voice. "Every bloody Wednesday?"

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Friday 9th June 2023 – I HAVEN’T ‘ARF …

… done a lot today. And I don’t know where all this energy has come from.

It certainly didn’t come from any rest that I might have had because I didn’t have very much of that. I spent most of the night tossing and turning and trying to make myself comfortable

Even worse, there was nothing on the dictaphone. That was really disappointing. As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have said in the past … “and on more than one occasion too” – ed … that what goes on during the night is usually much more exciting than anything that ever happens to me during the day.

However, when the alarm went off I was deep in the depths of sleep and once more, it took quite an effort to raise myself from the dead.

After the meds and checking the mails and messages I sat down to work.

As regular readers of this rubbish will recall, Friday is usually the day that I walk into town for a little shopping. But not today because I really didn’t feel very much at all like it.

So what have I been doing today then?

I’ve been in Newfoundland again on my Canada 2017 journey. This morning I was hunting down stuff about the first commercial transatlantic flights with the Sikorsky S42; Boeing 314 Clipper and the Short Empire flying boats.

And then discussing the submarine and aircraft battles off the coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Another name cropped up too – that of Sidney Cotton, inventor of the Sidcot flying suit in World War I and the guy who was responsible for the first aerial surveys of Newfoundland.

And in the late 1930s when he was joyriding in his aeroplane over Central Europe with his succession of teenage female “friends”, it transpired when Frederick Winterbottom published the memoirs of MI6 in 1974 that Cotton was secretly taking aerial photographs of every German military installation he could find.

As an aside, Winterbottom’s book is one of the most interesting that i’ve ever read. It was he who told the world about Turing and Ultra, and explained that the reason why its existence was never disclosed until then was that one country, believed to be Albania, was still using it thinking that it was unbreakable.

This afternoon I’ve been clambering over the wreckage of a 440-tonne steamer in the Strait of Belle Isle. There are plenty of wrecks along that coast and on our travels we’ve seen plenty.

They could never take away the scrap because there were no roads in that part of the world until comparatively recently. Newfoundland and Labrador didn’t actually become part of Canada until 1949. Prior to that they were a British colony and starved of resources just like any other colony.

The most interesting wreck on that coast that we saw though is that of HMS Raleigh. That was a cruiser that ran aground at Point Amour in 1922 and sat on the rocks for 4 years as a hazard. In the end they decided to remove it by force and calculated how much explosive they would need to break it into pieces and remove it by sea.

However they forgot about the ammunition still on board and as a result there are bits of her scattered all over the cliffs and the grass on top

That was where I met that lady who looked at the car I’d come in and asked me“have you just driven around the Trans-Labrador Highway in THA?”

And I replied “It’s not the car that counts, it’s the driver. And for my next journey I’m going to cross the Atlantic on a motor bike.”

However, as Kenneth Williams and Alfred Hitchcock will tell you, “it’s a waste of time telling jokes to foreigners”.

The physiotherapist came to see me this afternoon. He’s spoken to the nerve specialist whom I’m to see in a few days time. And it is as I suspected – that the problems are more-than-likely caused by the cancer that is slowly eating its way through my body and there’s not much that anyone can do about it.

And so I’ll just have to grin and bear it

Tea tonight was sausage, beans and chips. And what started that off was when I was going through my notes about Canada 2017, I spent that particular night in a wooden hut on a hillside where there was a microwave, and I had some potatoes, sausage and beans in the back of Strider to I treated myself. And that set my mouth a-watering.

Most of that trip was spent with the slow cooker and porridge for breakfast, whatever I could find for lunch, and pasta, a tin of mixed vey and a tin of soup also in the slow cooker in the evening. Slow cookers don’t draw much current so an inverter wired into Strider’s alternator heated up the cooker when needed.

Tomorrow I’m going to be brave, even though I don’t feel like it, and go to see what is about in the shops. I’ll just go to LeClerc I reckon, not to Noz as I don’t want to fall over on the car park again.

And then I’ll carry on with my notes. If I keep going like this I should be across the Strait of Belle Isle on the elderly MV Apollo, which is now beneath the waves in the Gulf of St Lawrence, but I’ll be somewhere up the coast of Labrador.

If I’m lucky

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