Memories of my dad's war

Today is the 75^th anniversary of the D-Day landings that led to the liberation of France, Belgium and Holland and the ending of the World Wars of the 20^th Century.

My dad, Eric Rayner, didn’t hit the beaches on the first day. He put his boots on French soil (or rather sand) at Gold or Sword beach (I’m not certain which one) on D+a-day-or-so (again I’m not sure).

I should have talked more to my dad about his war, but mostly he was never particularly forthcoming. I have a job on my to-do list to properly research his war record but have not yet got around to it, so these are my memories of his memories. I wasn’t taking notes, so some of this needs to be verified.

The best time to get dad to talk was after a shared event. We watched the film The Longest Day with John Wayne and that gave some opportunity to ask questions (my dad didn’t think the film gave a particularly accurate account of D-Day). The best talk we had was when we visited him after we’d had a family holiday to Normandy. I wish I’d made a quick return trip with dad. The trouble is you think you’re all going to live forever and there will be time next year – not so!

I know my dad served in the Northumberland Fusiliers initially and was then transferred to the Middlesex Regiment (I don’t know if this was before or after D-Day). He was in a heavy machine gun (Vickers) and mortar group and drove universal carriers. He took a lot of interest in my Airfix models of Bren Carriers (another opportunity for a small boy to ask questions).

My dad and his comrades had been embarked on troop carrier some time ahead of D-Day, which was then postponed for a day due to bad weather. Of course, they didn’t know where they were going or when. His memory of this time was of seasickness. Lots of people were seasick. He said they’d been sitting out in the Bay of Biscay getting tossed around in the storm, they had to stay below decks and they were constantly frightened of being torpedoed by a U-boat.

I never got a Saving Private Ryan gritty reality of fighting from my dad, but he did talk about all the dead horses and cows, their bodies bloated by decomposition, that lay scattered among the fields of Normandy. I think he thought it particularly unjust that they were dragged into the conflict.

The only time I remember him talking about human bodies was when we came back from France. I had a large-scale map of where we’d been and he wanted to try to locate Hill 112, a fierce battle in the push to take Caen that had cost many lives. He said Hill 112 was a fortified strongpoint dominating a strategic crossroad. His group had been involved and they had moved through the battlefield the following day before the bodies had been removed. I think that brought home to them what might happen. We never did find Hill 112, but the battle is well documented and it’s one of those tasks I need to get around to.

Land mines were a constant fear and must have been an enormous stress. He did have a lot of respect for the Germans, including their landmines. There was one that they called a jumping jack, which flew up in the air before exploding, so it caused a number of non-fatal shrapnel wounds to a larger number of people (the thinking being that you can leave a dead man, but you have to look after a wounded man). There was also a mine placed in the road that wouldn’t go off when the first vehicle ran over it; it might take five or six. For drivers of lightly armoured universal carriers (like my dad) this would have been a constant fear. You didn’t only have to worry if you were the lead vehicle …

Dad was massively impressed by the scale of German fortifications. He couldn’t believe how they’d done so much in such a short time and what a waste it all was. If only all that effort had gone into a peaceful purpose.

The allied ‘weapon’ he was most impressed with was the self-heating soup. Troops were given tins of soup with a pull-string at the bottom. You pulled the string, which must have released a chemical into a compartment and heated up the soup above. He couldn’t understand why they weren’t made in the present day. I suppose that working on building sites after the war, he’d have seen a good use for that.

He spent some time after the invasion on the outskirts of Caen, which the Germans were determined to hold onto. Dad said there were huge warships in the Channel firing their 15in guns into the city. He said you’d see the flashes at night and then hear the sound of the guns – like lightning and thunder – you’d then hear the shell making an oscillating whistle as it passed overhead. In the daylight, he said it was fairly easy to see the shells in the air. The navy and air force were two areas where we had the edge on the Germans and rocket-firing ground attack aircraft like the Typhoon were a welcome sight.

He also witnessed the bombing of Caen by the RAF, raids which reduced this mediaeval city to ruins and, ironically, made it harder for the attacking troops trying to negotiate the rubble.

He’d spent some time outside Bayeux and was interested when we gave him an account of seeing the tapestry.

Being in a machine-gun company, he was interested in the pros and cons between the German Spandau and the British Vickers. The Spandau had a more rapid rate of fire, but was air-cooled. The barrel soon became white hot and would warp and jam if it wasn’t allowed to cool. The Germans would get around the problem by changing the barrel (which took just a few seconds) while the British Vickers had its barrel encased in a water jacket and could fire for extended periods, an hour or more when they wanted to lay down supressing fire. The water would be circulated into a separate reservoir in a can and the water would boil if they were firing for an hour or more. Dad’s mortars were single tubes and fairly small bombs. The Germans had a six-barrel Nebelwerfer mortar, which fired rocket-assisted bombs and which the allies called Moaning Minnies because of the wail they made. They were notable weapons for their theatrical noise, but I don’t think dad feared them like he did mines, regular mortars or 88mm guns.

He told me one story about a day they had just arrived in an orchard when they came under mortar fire. There had not been time to dig trenches so they hit the deck. Dad said that it was very scary because the bombs were exploding when they hit the tree branches and shrapnel was being blasted more widely as a result.

When the barrage finished, one man didn’t get up. Dad said there wasn’t a mark on his body, but a piece of shrapnel had gone up him bum and killed him. I don’t know if that is true.

Earlier in the war, dad had volunteered as a glider pilot, but hadn’t been accepted. I found it hard to think that my dad would have done such a crazy, dangerous thing. He said lots of his mates had volunteered. I’m quite glad he wasn’t chosen. There were heavy casualties among glider crews and they would have been among the first troops to land on D-Day.

The winter of 1944-45 was bitter cold and dad spent part of it in Belgium billeted with a family. They had a young daughter, whose company he enjoyed (I guess she was a similar age to his sister Joan). He said they were very grateful and although they didn’t have much food themselves (half Europe was starving) they insisted on giving their meat ration to the soldiers. Dad said he thought the meat was horse, it was as tough as old boots, but because of their sacrifice they had to eat it with gusto. I hope they were able to leave them some army rations.

Dad crossed the Rhine from Holland into Germany. It was very wide, he said, but he had no sense of what was happening. The allies had laid down smoke for days before and it was like a think smog when they went across. This memory was sparked by another Airfix model – the Buffalo amphibious troop carrier. He’d crossed the Rhine in a Buffalo.

As they got into Germany, they met more Germans. Once when entering a farm to make sure it was clear, they saw a trapdoor in the barn floor. They thought there might be troops inside and prized it open with bayonets with hand grenades ready. It was the farmer and his family who’d gone down there seeking safety. They were convinced the British would shoot them, that was the German propaganda.

Dad finished the war in Hamburg, a city where his grandfather had come from. Hamburg was a ruin, everything was rubble, but there was still a Woolworth’s sign clinging on to one of the shops.

Why I won't show Calamity Jane to my grandchildren

Film star Doris Day has died aged 97. Doris Day was my first love. I think Calamity Jane was the second film I saw, aged maybe six or seven. I was still getting over the trauma of Disney's Old Yeller, so Calamity Jane was a welcome cheer-me-up movie.

I absolutely loved it. I can still remember the joy of slapstick Indian pursuits of the stagecoach, the singing and dancing, the amazing change from dirty stagehand to beautiful woman. The songs – Deadwood Stage, I’ve Just Blown In From The Windy City and Take Me Back to The Black Hills – were indelibly planted in my head.

Of course, I saw it at the cinema, so there was just one shot at it. Years later, we got it on video to show to the children and they loved it too. They could also watch it again and again. My nephew Alex was addicted to it for months.

Times change, however, and when I got the DVD out (a DVD had replaced the video) with the idea of showing the grandchildren, I found myself watching it with 21^st century eyes.

It’s full of guns, threats and casual violence (not a great message), Calamity says things like “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” and the native Americans are shot indiscriminately. It's not the sort of message you should be giving children. You couldn’t make it nowadays, there’d be an outcry.

Times change and attitudes change (quite rightly), so I won’t be showing Calamity Jane to my grandchildren.

A step back in time in Rutland

We took a step back in time this week to visit a tiny Rutland village called Lyndon. It’s located just south of Manton and it’s on Google Maps, but there are few signposts and just a single-track road.

The village is a mixture of stone-built houses with either thatched roofs or Collyweston slate and the church is near the highest point surrounded by a small wood with some fine specimen trees, including a couple of sequoia, a Cypress of Lebanon and a Scots pine.

The village has only 70 dwellings, a population of around 100 and all but a handful of properties are owned by the Lyndon Estate. Here is a village organised in the manner that most villages would have been 100 or more years ago. The “lord of the manor” owned the lot, you paid your rent, you paid your respects and you probably worked for your landlord (or one of his mates).

We were there to visit the church, a trip organised by Peterborough U3A, and it’s a lovely little church, named after St Martin, patron saint of France and founder of the monastic movement. The church was built in the 13^th and early 14^th centuries and (like most churches) was restored during Victorian times. The tower is 14^th Century and still has large sections of the original mediaeval rendering intact.

Cat (above) and man (below) on the
south side of the church)

There are four large gargoyles incorporated into the drainage system from the nave roof. They look slightly out of proportion on a relatively small church. There’s a large cat (probably a lion) and a man on the south side and, on the north side, there’s a large eagle head (very nicely carved) and an arsehole with the drainpipe placed in the bum-hole. This is directly opposite the head of the man, so we have his head on the south side and his bottom on the north. That’s mediaeval humour for you!

Inside the church, there are other, crude carvings of faces which look like skulls or apes. The church is wonderfully light thanks to the clear glass windows. There’s just one small stained-glass window in the west wall of the tower which was installed during the Victorian renovation.

I liked the memorial from the First World War. It lists the 14 men from the village who went to war. None were killed in action, although one died later from his wounds. There’s a list of priests, starting with Magister Stephen de Sandwich in 1234, but ending at the Reformation when Henry VIII seized church property and Lyndon was incorporated into Peterborough Diocese.

We were offered a chance to go up the church tower, but it involved putting in place and climbing an old, heavy ladder into the bell loft and no-one took up the challenge. There are four bells, dating back to the reign of Elizabeth I, with a couple re-cast in the Victorian restoration. They can still be rung, and teams of bell-ringers visit the church from time to time.

Eagle (above) and arsehole (below) - mediaeval
humour at its best.

The font is 12^th century. It’s a square stone bowl with crudely carved animals around the outside. It was found buried in the churchyard during the Victorian restoration. There’s also part of a cross displayed in the west window of the south aisle, which was possibly part of the village cross that once stood by the crossroads. It’s been dated to 1130.

When the Victorian restoration took place, they installed pews, an organ and an alabaster pulpit – very unusual for a village church. There’s also alabaster reredos (altar screens) depicting the four evangelists in the centre and a couple of gruesome Old Testament Bible stories either side. There’s the Passover on the north side, with dead children lying everywhere, and Moses and the bronze snake on the south side. This story (from Numbers) is a warning to moaning minnies everywhere. The children of Israel are being led across the wilderness, they’re getting fed up of eating manna and have no idea where they’re going, so they do what anyone would do – complain about the lack of clarity from their leader and ask for a more varied diet. Jehovah responds by sending down poisonous snakes to bite them (which is a little harsh), but then gives Moses an antidote in the form of a metal snake which will cure snakebite if the victim looks upon it.

The evangelists – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – are depicted as a winged man with a book (Matthew), a winged lion (Mark), winged bull (Luke) and an eagle (which comes with wings as standard) for John.

Moses and the metal snake

The four evangelists

The angel of death. You know it's Egypt because
of the pyramids.

One of Lyndon’s famous sons was the squire Thomas Barker (1722-1809) who kept detailed, daily weather records from the age of 14 for the following 60-plus years. He recorded pressure, temperature, wind, rainfall and general weather conditions; but also nature’s changes – the seasonal appearance of leaves, flowers and birds; and the success and failure of his beehives and condition of livestock. In 1749 he described a tornado that struck Lyndon. The recordings survived and are now a valuable historic record for the study of climate change. Thomas is buried in the churchyard, but his grave has been lost.

I was chatting to the two women who served us with tea and coffee. I asked how they managed to keep things going in a village of just 100 people, it was hard enough in a village of 1,500 to find people to fill the various voluntary positions. They said that the three of them basically ran the church and there was a core of five people who did everything in the village that needed to be done.

They knew Thorney and one of them once had relatives farming in Thorney before going on to Whittlesey. Being of farming stock, they’d lost land when Rutland Water was flooded to create a reservoir. Two things grated – the poor price offered in compensation and the fact that, although you could see the lake from Lyndon, their water came via Severn Trent.

One lady was called Clare and it was clear from the minutes of the Parochial Church Council annual meeting (pinned outside) that she was Lady Clare Conant, resident of the manor house and owner of the village and surrounding land. The estate has been in the same family since the reign of Charles II (almost 400 years). Two brothers, wealthy sheep farmers from Harringworth, bought the estate and built two manor houses within sight of each other – one next to the church and the other on a high point about half a mile away. The houses are identical and they are smaller replicas of Thorpe Hall, the Carolean mansion house near Peterborough. The Conants are now in residence, but the family name is much changed over the generations – apparently, they were very bad at producing male children.

After tea and scones, Clare Conant took us for a walk around the village, including the garden of the manor house. It has some fine trees, a view toward Rutland Water and a bamboo and water garden, although the water wasn’t flowing. The village is very pretty. I had a look on the estate’s website and one of the thatched cottages – the Old Post Office (three bedrooms and one en-suite) was offered for £1,400 per month. That  would just about get you a one-bed flat in an OK part of London.

The only stained glass in the church

Crudely carved face in the south porch

Ski holiday in Arc 1950

Margaret and I in Arc 1950 with a view of Mont Blanc between our heads

Just back from a week in Arc 1950 with Margaret, Sam, Lucy, Arthur and Saoirse. It should have been the week that Arthur learned to ski, but instead of digging in his edges, Arthur dug in his heels and was not in co-operative mood.

He’s only just turned three and perhaps he’s a wee bit young to be skiing. I’m sure he could have done it, but he decided he didn’t want to and, with Arthur, there’s not a lot of hope persuading him once he’s made up his mind.

Sam had bought him a ski jacket, salopettes, reins and goggles and we hired boots, skis and a helmet when we were out there.

He is quite interested in skiing, but it all started to go wrong when we put his salopettes on. He didn’t like the feel of the material on his leg and that was that! He wouldn’t have his ski jacket on, he wouldn’t put his boots on (let alone his skis) and you’d think his ski helmet was full of wasps. When it came to the safety reins, we might have been trying to strangle him.

During the course of the week, we did manage a few small victories. It was like negotiating with the DUP over Brexit, and we compromised to the extent that he didn’t have to have his ski jacket on in the chalet. It would be put on outside and zipped up only half-way.

The salopettes seemed acceptable if he had trousers on underneath and so couldn’t feel the shiny material.

The chalet hosts (Henry and Chelsee – yes spelt with a double ee) gave us some moral support and persuaded Arthur that he should try his skis on. After a couple of days, we got them on in the house and he’d also try them outside but wouldn’t wear his helmet or reins.

Gosh, it was hard work! We did manage to take him up to Arc 2000 where there’s a magic carpet and learner slope. Sam took him down a couple of times (holding him between his legs) and once we let him go and he skied around 10 metres on his own.

It was a shame that the skiing didn’t grab him, he could certainly have done it, but maybe next year.

In other respects, it was a great week. The snow was crisp and deep and the weather sunny. In midweek, it snowed heavily one day and added a good 12 inches to the cover.

Arthur had real fun playing in the snow. We built a snowman and then knocked it down before any other kids did so, we threw a few snowballs, Arthur did a snow angel CLICK HERE and he had great fun crawling around on all fours in the deep snow. 

My skiing was successful by my standards. I fell over three times, skied around 20 to 25 miles in a morning or afternoon (between child-care duties) and really enjoyed some of the cruisy blues in the bowl above 2000. Now I’m 65, I get a reduced ski pass and have to pay €215 instead of €269.

Here’s me having a very gentle ski in the bowl above Arc 2000 CLICK HERE. There’s a fantastic view of Mont Blanc. 

On the last day, I went out with Sam and we skied down to Villaroger. The classic run in Arc is the Aiguille Rouge, which starts at the peak of the Aiguille Rouge at 3226m and runs down to Villaroger at 1200m. It’s a length of 16km and a descent of 2000m.

I’d done some of it a couple of years ago when Sam and Lucy were staying at Villaret and it hadn’t gone well. I was skiing down from above Arc 2000 on a fairly busy section but keeping control quite well when I hit a chunk of ice deposited where the pisting machine had not quite matched up its previous course. It was a famous comedy fall because I overtook Sam on my back, like a 15-stone turtle, but I did break my glasses and when we stopped at a café a little further down, I managed to push the lenses back in, but mixed them up so I had wonky vision until I realised what had happened and managed to sort them out that evening.

I’m a bit more practised these days and my technique is a little better, so Sam was sure I could do it and, besides, it would be a bit of an adventure.

It is good to have a destination for your skiing. I’ve enjoyed it when we’ve been across to La Plagne on the Vanoise Express cable car or down to Peisey-Vallandry at the other side of the mountain. We joined the Aiguille Rouge from the Lanchettes lift in Arc 2000. It’s a mix of red and blue runs, but the blues seem as steep as the reds in places and the snow was quite mounded during the afternoon, so I was at the limit of my skills.

Lower down, there’s the option to take a longer ski road rather than the steeper red, so I could go into cruise mode. I was happily doing this when the road crossed the red and I spotted a lone skier coming down fairly gingerly. His body language suggested he was way out of his comfort zone, but I didn’t think any more of it. I was cruising down when, suddenly, my ski wouldn’t turn and I found myself falling forwards. There were only two of us on this piste (Sam had skied ahead) but the chap had managed to ski into the back of me! I was lying in the snow and he was standing there leaning back on one pole and windmilling his left arm to try to regain balance.

I offered him a pole which he grabbed and pulled himself upright, then he did the same for me. He apologised and I said he should go ahead of me, which he did. I didn’t see him again, so he either skied into the forest or jumped straight on the lift at the bottom.

At Villaroger, the last section to the lift was the option of a short, but very steep section (heavily rutted) or a loop of ski road. I took the ski road, but halfway down the snow ran out and I misjudged my stop in the slush and skied onto a gravelly patch. My ski stopped and I carried on – my second tumble of the day. Thankfully, there was no-one to witness this one.

I’m glad I did it. Villaroger was one of those fails that you need to put right (like Renard) and it’s something to be able to complete a long, single run with such as fall in altitude. Perhaps, one day, I’ll do the black at the top.

In between skiing, I was helping out Margaret with child-care duties for Arthur and Saoirse. Saoirse is developing so fast. She’s just four months, but is looking around at everything, has enough core strength to pull herself forward in your arms and can move her head to her will. She’s starting to get some hand and eye co-ordination so she’s starting to grab things and pull them towards her mouth.

She likes to sit on your knee watching everything that’s going on; even better, she likes to be carried facing forward to get a better view. Best of all is to be stood up on the floor when she locks her legs and thinks she’s a fully-fledged toddler.

Here’s Saoirse enjoying some time on her feet CLICK HERE. She thinks she’s dancing, and Arthur is doing a great job of entertaining her. 

Babies seem to develop so fast at this age that I’m sure we saw her come on in the week we were with her. On a couple of days, I carried her in the sling, so we could take Arthur out to play in the snow. She goes to sleep fairly quickly and seems to quite like it.

It’s not so good for the carrier – I have to worry about the sun in her eyes, on her face or scalp, snow blowing in, getting too hot or too cold and whether the straps are rubbing her face. She also feels quite heavy after a couple of hours and you don’t want to sit down for long in case she wakes up. So, while Margaret and Arthur were sitting in a café in the sun, I was strolling around Arc 1950 until I was absolutely sure that she was asleep.

Actually, it’s rather nice to be cuddled up with my granddaughter and she gets lots of admiring looks and comments, especially when she’s in her white, fluffy suit. Generally, it’s other grandmothers, but I did get chatted up by one yummy mummy who thought she looked like a little polar bear. I can’t decide if Saoirse will be a redhead or a blonde. She’s got a covering of fine hair which looked ginger last time I saw her, but now appears to be lightening to blonde. Sam was blond when he was a toddler, but it gradually darkened as he got older.

It was also good to spend time with Arthur. We bought him a jigsaw (four puzzles in one box) which I thought would be in separate compartments, but it turned out they were all mixed up together. One was four pieces, one six, one eight and one 10, so the pieces were a little different in size. The first time he did it, I helped by sorting out the pieces (which wasn’t as simple as it sounds) and after that, he wanted to go it alone. At the end of the week, he was able to do all four, unaided, in 10 or 15 minutes.

Arthur studying the safety instructions.

His games are very imaginative. He wouldn’t have the ski reins anywhere near him, but he enjoyed playing with them. They were a crane, an anchor and a rescue rope; also a fishing line where we caught Big Bad Barry, a very snappy fish. He gets very frustrated when a game doesn’t work, but also engrossed in one as well. The reins had kept falling off the chair back when he wanted them to stay and I suggested we tie a knot. Did Arthur want me to show him how to tie a knot? No, he didn’t! But it will stop it falling off, I told him. Arthur gets furious at the supposed interference and dances with rage – being three must be a nightmare sometimes.

He made us laugh on the plane back to Gatwick. He was desperate to hear what the captain was saying and to listen to the recording of the safety instructions and was getting irate that other people were talking. Margaret gave him the safety instructions and he spent 20 studying it intently (looking quite comical in his pyjamas with dummy and cuddly toy). He was particularly interested in the oxygen masks.

News of grandchild no 5

Me siento un poco deprimido esta mañana. Tom, Lucy, Julia and Aureliano are on their way back to Ecuador after spending a couple of weeks with us.

I am writing this in bed at 7am in the morning and there’s no little moley under my duvet. The gang should be an hour or so from Mexico City, where they have a 10-hour stop-over before flying on to Quito. They will reach Quito around midnight GMT which should be 6pm in Ecuador.

Two weeks goes so fast, it seems only a day or so since I was picking them up from Heathrow. Margaret’s big worry was that they would have forgotten us, but Julia recognised me straight away and Aureliano, who was only one year old when he left, was also clearly excited.

Julia had been worried that we might have died, that Holly might have died, and that Margaret might have thrown away her things. Over the next couple of days, it was lovely to see her relax back into her English routine and to rediscover all her toys and possessions.

Julia has grown up a lot. Her language has come on (especially her Spanish), and she’s bigger and more independent. She left us in the midst of the terrible twos and she returned as a ‘threenager’, so there was the odd tantrum, especially towards the end of the holiday when I think she picked up on the general mood of depression (from us that they were going back and from Tom and Lucy the stress of a day-and-a-half cooped up in a plane).

Aureliano is more daring than Julia (he’d love to be able to jump) and he soon settled down into a routine. He’s only grumpy if he’s hungry, so if he starts to cry, give him some food. Aureliano speaks Spanish, but understands English even if he has few words. His vocabulary is mainly:

Teta – he wants breast milk
Nom-nom – he wants food
Chao – goodbye (accompanied by a wave)
Por favour – said in an especially pathetic voice when he wants breast milk and Lucy isn’t inclined.
Hello – which is pronounced the Spanish way, without an H and with a ‘yuh’ sound for the double L (eh-yo). This is also accompanied by a wave and is so incredibly cute.
His name for Julia is "oo-a".

He can also whistle (amazingly) and loves to sing and dance.

The big news that Tom and Lucy brought back was that they are going to have another baby. We will have a fifth grandchild. The baby (my bet is another boy) will be born in October and the plan is to return to the UK in September, about a month before the due date.

They will live with us for a while and then, depending upon visa requirements, they will either go back to Ecuador until September 2020 or get their own place in the UK. They want the child to be born in the UK, so he or she has a British passport (like the others). It’s relatively easy to get an Ecuadorian passport and citizenship, not so this inhospitable country.

So we have something to look forward to in the autumn, but back to this month …

Sadly, Aureliano picked up some kind of bug within a day of arriving. On Saturday, he was playing nicely in the garden when there were a couple of incidents. He was a bit slow going down the slide, so Julia gave him a shove and he crashed a little at the bottom; then he tripped on the uneven path and fell over. I think he was getting tired, but had I known him better, I would have realised something wasn’t quite right.

In the afternoon, we went to Springfields at Spalding, which is an out-of-town shopping area with playground. It was a bit of a cold, blowy day and both Aureliano and Julia were very grumpy when we tried to buy them shoes (normally it’s a real pleasure for Julia). We then went to the play area, which was OK, but Aureliano wasn’t really happy, despite doing his best to enjoy it.

Sad-looking Aureliano doing his best to enjoy the ride-on tractors
at Springfields in Spalding.

That evening, he vomited and went off his food and it took him three or four days to get over it. He’s a stoical little fellow, but we were all worried. Once he had recovered, he never stopped eating – he loves a boiled egg (or two) for breakfast and he loves fruit (grapes and kiwis were a big hit). Also, you can’t go far wrong with pasta and pesto.

Lucy is potty training him and he’s got it pretty well sewn up, although he does like to make the “poo face”, so there were a few false alarms.

We didn’t have anything planned for the holiday, so it was a bit of a muddle. Should we go to London? Should we try Center Parcs? In the end, we found a barn conversion for three days near Reepham in Norfolk and Max and Inna were able to join us.

The barn was rather nice, very spacious with underfloor heating, so it felt very comfortable and it was really well fitted out.

On Thursday, Tom, Lucy and Inna went to Norwich with Aureliano; Max stayed in to look after the dogs and Margaret and I took Julia to Roarr! – Norfolk’s very own dinosaur experience. Arthur loves Tamba Park on Jersey and I expected this to be a big hit.

It was a big hit in the wallet. They charged us £45 to get in, but we’d driven up to the place and I didn’t want Julia to think grandad was a skinflint, so I coughed up. On the way up the drive, there were strategically placed dinosaur models. I pointed them out to Julia and she said: “They’re only bones.”

I thought she was going to be singularly unimpressed, but once we’d paid and went through the door, there was a seven-foot dinosaur that moved its head and roared as we went past. Julia was terrified! Not a bit scared, she was absolutely terrified. We had to carry her past a couple of other models (silent ones thankfully) and took refuge in the indoor play area. This would have been a huge success had she not seen the velociraptor near the soft-play slide. She managed a snack and drink and a very quick play in the ball pit where the dinosaur couldn’t be seen.

We ventured out and she was interested in the mammoths, the Neanderthals and sabre-toothed tigers; she also enjoyed the mini zoo and the farm animals, but we had to leg it past the T-Rex on the way back. So Roarr! Wasn’t a roaring success. Lucy said later that Julia had been frightened of dinosaurs and she’d told them they were all dead so there was nothing to worry about – there were only bones left. I think she was happy with that explanation until the bones moved and roared.

It was windy and showery, not great weather for the beach, but Max and I took the dogs to Sheringham in the afternoon. I was hoping the tide would have been far enough out to expose the sandy beach, but it wasn’t, so we walked part-way to Weybourne on shingle. It’s hard going and the whippets were not too impressed.

On the beach at Sheringham - hard going on the shingle.

The barn came with Netflix and, that night, we watched Roma, a film that’s won loads of awards. It was very good – made me cry (which isn’t hard).

Chilling on the sofa.

It was still windy and showery on Friday. We all went to Hunstanton for a walk on the beach. Aureliano was excited to see the sea, but it was too cold and windy for the children, so they headed for Hunstanton town and we walked on the beach with the dogs. The whippets were much happier on sand than shingle and really got some speed up trying to catch redshank. They even had a short swim/paddle when they found themselves on the opposite side of a creek to us. Normally, they don’t like water (even paddling in puddles) but Ollie did once jump into the river at Toneham when he saw Holly swim across to the other side. I think he expected to be able to walk across and it was quite a shock when he couldn’t. He got out fine, but it took a while for the adrenalin to wear off. This time Archie managed to wade/plunge across the creek, but Ollie chose a deeper section and needed a few strokes. There was a slight panic in his stroke – they’re not water dogs. Tom took this video of us collecting shells on Hunstanton beach - click HERE. 

We all met up again and had lunch in a pub on the way back. They were very accommodating of dogs and children, so that was nice. The food was pretty good too and because I wasn’t driving, I allowed myself a couple of pints of Woodforde’s Wherry.

In the evening there were a couple of rounds of Catan, a board game. Lucy won both games (no surprises there – she’s as ruthless as ever).

It was a really nice break and a good place to stay. I found Reepham a bit pretentious (too many antique shops and fancy food stores) and it’s a nightmare to walk around because the main road through is fairly busy and the pavement disappears whenever the road narrows. It does have an interesting church (or churches). Two are built, end to end, so that it looks like one church with two towers. Why didn’t they build one big one? Who knows – God’s house has many rooms!

We had a nice drive back along the B-roads to King’s Lynn, Max headed back early because Inna had a baby shower and Tom & Co headed to Sheringham for a look around.

I had enjoyed reading Room on the Broom and Stick Man with Arthur and so I bought the books for Julia. She’s always loved books and it was interesting reading stick man to her; I could see that she was really worried that he might not get back to his family. She’s developed a level of understanding and empathy that wasn’t there previously.

Julia and her friend at music club

The weather picked up thankfully and the second week was much warmer and less windy. It meant the children could play outside, but the time flew by. Faz came up to see Tom, Lucy had to go to Cambridge for a day, Tom and Lucy spent a day in London and a day in Baldock, there was some last-minute shopping for Marmite, Yorkshire Tea and Ginger Nuts (essential supplies for Brits abroad).

It was nice to go back to Crowland soft play and to Thorney Park – two old favourites – and Margaret loved taking them back to Matthew Coates music sessions and to Play and Chat. Julia met a little girl at music that she’d not seen for a year. Margaret said they knew each other straight away and gave each other a huge hug.

We were amused by how much Aureliano loved the purple buggy. He wakes up around 6am, starving hungry, but needs a sleep at lunchtime. We found the buggy a perfect way to get him off to sleep. He loved being tucked in and wheeled around, there would be some contented singing for a while, then ZZZs.

I ran them all back to Heathrow on Friday for a 10.30pm flight home via Mexico City, where they had a 10-hour stop-over before heading on to Quito. It was the cheapest option and seems to have worked reasonably well. I hope the Ginger Nuts weren’t too crushed when they unpacked.

Aureliano will always have a snooze in the buggy

Catan at the Barn - Lucy won 2-0.

Books Read in 2019

The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane

This was a 65^th birthday present from Max and I found it quite a hard book to read (which is why it took me almost six months). I kept reading it and putting it down for a month until I finally finished it in early January.

Macfarlane poses the question: are there any truly wild places left in the British Isles? I guess that depends upon your definition of “wild”. There are some wild places in Thorney – my allotment until I took it over and the patch of land next door hasn’t been disturbed for 15 years.

So my definition of wild is probably much less rigorous than Macfarlane’s. He sets off to visit a list of places he has identified as fitting his definition and they include remote islands, coastal strips, bogs and mountains. The usual suspects are there – Rannoch Moor gets a chapter – and I found his writing in the first part of the book a little unconvincing. There didn’t seem to be a connection, he didn’t seem comfortable or happy in the places he wanted to experience.

He did seem to visit them during periods of extreme weather and there was a piece about spending the night on the summit of Ben Hope in the middle of winter, which sounded quite reckless (unless he was exaggerating his predicament). In the latter part of the book, he seemed more at ease with the “wild” environment he was visiting, but it was a lot less wild Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex coasts, lost holloways in the south-west … These were the more interesting bits, but then he’s off again trying to find an arctic hare in Derbyshire in the middle of a November storm.

I’m going to pass the book on to Sam who has been watching and enjoying the YouTube channel of a chap in North America who goes wild camping in the woods.

The Spanish Civil War by Antony Beevor

I knew very little about the Spanish Civil War, except that when I was little Franco was still something of a bogeyman. Spain (and Portugal too) was a place you didn’t want to visit – run by a fascist dictator, backward, dominated by the Catholic Church (and don’t forget what they did in 1588). My knowledge of Spain was limited to what we read in the Daily Herald – they killed bulls for fun, they threw donkeys off church towers, you could be arrested for wearing a bikini.

Later, I read Ernest Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls and then Laurie Lee’s As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and A Moment of War. Later still, I read a little about the Anarchist movement in Catalonia and I have been referring to events in the civil war during my Spanish lessons. Poets, composers and artists we may look at during lessons (such as Manuel de Falla) were greatly affected by the war. Falla, the greatest Spanish composer of the 20^th century, lived in exile after the war and refused to return to Spain despite being offered a generous pension by Franco. The Gipsy Kings were descendants of Basque gipsies, who were forced to flee to France after the Republicans lost the war.

Beevor’s writing is pretty much a factual, chronological narrative, and is easy to read; although the complicated pre-war politics and multitude of unfamiliar names do make you pause quite often and say: “who the heck is he and what side was he on?”

The background to the war is one of immense poverty in Spain, with industry (generally) and land (absolutely) in the ownership of a small, wealthy class. There was dissatisfaction with the monarchy, including a dispute over rightful succession, and dissatisfaction among the poorer classes with the Catholic church. A strong left wing movement - including socialists, communists and anarchists – had arisen (especially in the Basque and Catalan industrial areas) and to complicate things further, there was a desire for Catalan independence, while the Basque country largely was a semi-independent entity.

The Spanish ‘left’ was an unhappy coalition. The communists (some way from Stalinism) were the smaller party and not happy bedfellows with the socialists, while the anarchists, by definition, were not going to fit in anywhere. They wanted collectivism, no government, no money, no army … The fear of anarchy (it’s still a loaded word) led to a campaign of fake news against the movement across Europe. Catalonia in Spain was its strongest place and when allowed to, during the civil war, anarchists did run factories and farming in a pragmatic, efficient way. John Lewis and the RNLI, both held up as shining examples by many, are (you could argue) anarchist organisations.

The war started when the left won democratic elections in 1936. Leaders of the armed forces led a coup, which was only partly successful. The navy remained largely loyal and parts of the army also remained loyal. Franco emerged as the leader of the Nationalists and, helped by German and Italian military support, he finally won a bloody war that lasted three years.

Russia supported the Republicans, but did them no favours. Stalin basically took all the country’s gold reserves and gave them a few (no enough) weapons, but lots of communist advisors. His aim was to make the relatively small Spanish communist party the leader in government.

The role of Briatin, France and the USA was shameful. The British maintained neutrality, while providing Franco with considerable support; France wished to be more helpful but deferred to British policy for fear of upsetting its ally and the USA, led by a strong Catholic pressure group (including the Kennedy dynasty) also thwarted democratic government.

Had we supported the Republicans, some argue Hitler may have thought twice about launching the Second World War. At least, we would have had an ally against Fascism had WW2 still started.

The most shocking thing about the Spanish Civil War was its brutality. Franco said he’d reunite Spain even if he had to shoot half the Spaniards (and that’s pretty much what happened). His Moroccan mercenaries were ruthless murderers, rapists and pillagers of conquered territory, while Hitler and Mussolini used the war as a testing ground for weapons and tactics that would be employed during WW2 against France and Britain.

The bombing of Guernica is well documented, but Madrid and Barcelona (and many other cities) were carpet-bombed against the Geneva convention, civilian refugees were machine gunned by aeroplanes and weapons such a napalm were developed by the Germans. The causes of Basque and Catalan separatism were ruthlessly supressed, Castellano imposed across Spain and church attendance made more or less compulsory.

It’s extraordinary that all this happen only 80 years ago – one lifetime. What a mess Europe was in so recently and what a blessing that Spain, Portugal, Italy and Germany are now democratic governments working together within the EU. |What a shame that some elements, especially within the UK, now seek to pull out of this movement for peace, co-operation and unity.

A week in sunny Tenerife

Just back from a week in Tenerife with Sam, Lucy, Arthur and Saoirse. We stayed at the GF Victoria in Adeje and it was great weather – up in the high 20s and lots of sun.

We went to Adeje around this time last year and stayed at the Roca Nivaria. This year’s hotel, another five-star inclusive package, was better for Arthur as the swimming pools were more child-friendly and there were lots of them.

It’s great to have a sunny, warm week in winter. While we were away last year, we had a really chilly February with a bitter storm dubbed ‘The Beast from the East’ but February 2019 has been unseasonably warm with record temperatures recorded and lots of sun. There were bumble bees and butterflies in our garden in mid Feb and all the spring bulbs are well advanced.

I could have got a sun tan working at the allotment, but you never know these things when you book.

Holidays are quite expensive and here’s (roughly) what this one cost.

Hotel - £2,500
Drinks and extras - £350
Flights - £350
Hotel at Gatwick - £100
Parking - £50
Dog boarding kennels - £120
Taxi transfers - £50

It’s around £3,500, so not one of those holidays where it’s cheaper to live in Spain than it is in the UK. We also had Jason Robinson in to paint the stairs while we were away, so that was an extra £470 – my poor old bank balance!

In the Sky Bar before the grandchildren arrived.

The Victoria is really nice. The room was great – we were on the fifth floor – and there are glass lifts at various points. We had a balcony with views of the family and adults’ pools, also an Atlantic sunset, there was a lounge, separate bedroom, en-suite bathroom and additional shower/loo. Two TVs, tea and coffee, fridge, safe and lots of wardrobe space.

The hotel is modern and quite stylish, with two bars, two restaurants and lots of sports/play facilities.

We were supposed to arrive all together on the Saturday, but Sam’s holiday package went wrong when the airline taking them to Tenerife from Jersey went bust. There have been several small airlines bankrupted as we head towards Brexit. It’s probably not all Brexit’s fault, but it is a major contributing factor.

It meant that instead of getting there on Saturday, his holiday was now Monday to Monday and so we missed two days with the grandchildren.

We spent Saturday looking around the hotel (that took a while) and popping into the nearby shopping centre to buy a hat. I’d left my Panama at home (you always forget something). There’s a nice open-air bar on Planta Cinco where it says you can watch the sunset over the Atlantic. You can, but another pretty hotel with a little bell tower blocks the view of the orb disappearing into the water.

The hotel was very quiet – there were only four people in the bar and definitely no need to worry about finding a vacant sun-lounger. Breakfast and dinner were in the price (not lunch and not wine). We took meals in the restaurant on the ground floor, which was a help-yourself feast (if you wanted it to be). I had fillet steak three nights (cooked to order), pork steak another night and once I went Italian and had risotto followed by pizza. There was a choice of sweets (a little on the sickly side) and a good selection of cheese. Breakfasts (for me) were porridge or rice pudding, followed by fruit, nuts and yoghurt. I had scrambled eggs and toast on a couple of days.

There was entertainment in the ground-floor bar each night from 6am to 9pm. We saw a decent singer and a violinist; a mediocre rock band playing covers and a useless pianist. We quite enjoyed the acrobat troupe.

Chatting to artists and people in the bar, it’s amazing what a small word we have become. A singer was from the Czech Republic and she spoke English, Spanish and Russian (at least), the violinist was Hungarian and he’d lived in Ireland and Spain (where he’d met his Argentinian wife) before moving to the Canaries; waiting staff were from Morocco and Venezuela (among others) and guests were from UK, Austria, Russia and Scandinavia (among others). It’s such a shame that the EU’s freedom of movement, which can allow a Czech singer to work in the Canaries, is being lost. As the world gets smaller and more open, Little England is pulling up the drawbridge and saying “we don’t want to be part of this.”

Arthur had enjoyed the open-air play pool on the Fifth Floor. It was paddling-pool shallow and had lots of fun slides for toddlers. He’d been on all the toddler slides on Tuesday and also in the big family pool on the Second Floor level in the afternoon.

It was really encouraging because he was quite nervous about water last year. I bought him a bucket and water squirter and Sam got him some Paw Patrol arm-bands, so we thought he’d be well set for the week. However, on Wednesday, he didn’t want to go in the water and wasn’t interested in the slides. He was coaxed in, but wouldn’t do more than paddle or play with his bucket and squirter. Saoirse was taken for a dip and tolerated the wet, but was not really up for it. She seemed quite shocked and puzzled by the experience.

On Friday, Sam and I (in an effort to encourage Arthur) went on the two big water slides in the deep part of the fun pool. One was rather nice, but the other was a high, closed tube that turned you over like a bobsleigh and gave my sinuses a jet-wash when I plunged into the water. Arthur wasn’t inspired by our heroics.

Our trip home was good. We left the hotel at 9.30am, Tenerife South airport was busy, but our flight was on time and we landed at Gatwick around 4.45pm. We got through passport, baggage and customs pretty quickly and were lucky to find a car-park bus waiting at the stop.

Head-to-head with grandma.

The roads were really quiet and we were at Friar Tuck’s in Whittlesey at 7.50pm for two Senior Meal Deals.

Jason has done a nice job on the stairs and Holly was delighted to see me on Sunday morning. I think a spell in kennels does her good, it makes her appreciate what a cushy life she has!

After-dinner cocktails (and rum)

Jason has done a nice job on the stairs.