Merry Christmas one and all. It is now Christmas Eve and, if our Christmas is not turning out quite as jolly as we are used to, then let us make the most of what we have. Reasons to be cheerful: vaccines against Covid 19 have been found and a programme of immunisation is under way; we have avoided the office party; we have saved masses of money on dining out, holidays and commuting; we have learned to appreciate our friends and their company more than ever; our houses are the cleanest they have ever been; those of us who hate the enforced company and bonhomie of Christmas have had their wishes fulfilled; a whole new genre of computer-borne humour has emerged; and, last but not least, the winter solstice has passed and so our days (in the northern hemisphere) are getting longer and it will soon be summer. We are not over the hump by any means, but there is a glimmer of light on the horizon, so let us make the most of the situation and try to celebrate Christmas in a special way. Jane and I will still be setting the polished Queen Anne table in the dining room with the traditional place settings, the candles and the best silver, and we will be dressing smartly, as we always do on Christmas Day; Jane may even forego her plimsolls for twelve hours and wear a smart pair of high heels. There may only be two of us, but our friends will be with us mind and in spirit. I include my modest readership among our friends and so we will drink a toast to both of you too, wherever you may be, on the day.
There will just be the two of us for Christmas this year, of course, because the UK government has been forced to withdraw its relaxation of a five-day window, free of Covid restrictions, when families could meet. I knew it was all too good to be true. As it happens, we had no social plans for Christmas Day, but we had hoped to entertain friends for luncheon just before Christmas, and to have drinks with neighbours on Christmas Eve. That has all gone by the board and the country has been plunged into a fresh series of restrictions by the latest developments.
Last Saturday, 19 December, the Prime Minister announced that Christmas was now going to be (more or less) cancelled in the UK because of a “mutant strain” of covid in London and the South East that is “out of control” and 70% more contagious than the existing virus. Fortunately, the new mutation is no more dangerous than the existing strain, but it does spread more rapidly. Predictably, after the announcement on Saturday night there erupted a Gadarene Swine evacuation of the capital, with queues at railway stations and roads crowded, as people tried to leave before midnight. Heaven knows where they went, for in many counties the hotels are shut. As of midnight on 19 December, London and the Home Counties were plunged into a new, stricter, Tier 4: essentially, a complete lockdown. They must not leave home; they must not leave the region; they can entertain no-one. Of course, they can exercise and buy food, but that is about it: forget the five-day Christmas relaxation. The remaining tiers in England can now meet only two other households on Christmas Day only and guests cannot stay overnight. The situation is broadly the same in the rest of the UK, as Scotland, Wales and Northern Island have – for once – followed suit. It was further announced on 23 December that, immediately after midnight on Christmas Day, several other regions in southern England will also be placed into the new Tier 4 and some other regions increased in readiness. The regions currently in Tier 1 will move into Tier 2 or 3.
The method of announcing the changes on Saturday, with its alarmist talk of “mutant” and “out of control” could, perhaps, have been less histrionic. There was a knock-on effect, which I rather suspect the British government did not anticipate: mainland Europe immediately closed its borders to all forms of traffic and freight from Britain, with several other countries following suit. Eire even refused to receive British post. Lorries, the majority driven by continental European drivers, were stuck in the Channel ports or the approach roads pending drivers obtaining a negative virus test result. It was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction (lifted 48 hours later) from our continental cousins as, in fact, the new strain of virus first came to light in October and will not be unique to Britain: there have been reports of it from Australia, Denmark and Brazil. Only the British government was rash enough to declare a sort of ownership and flag the thing up as a new hazard: a new bogie to be terrified by. Just to add to this sorry state of affairs, a third strain of Covid has also been detected in South Africa and one case has been found in Britain. Anyone arriving from South Africa recently is required to quarantine.
When I had viral pneumonia back in the year 1979, I was seriously ill in hospital for a while and unable to take up my next appointment to HMS CAROUSEL. I remember telephoning the Officers’ Appointer to tell him the bad news that I would be unable to fly out to Malta to join the ship as planned, and mentioned what the ward Sister had told me, very soberly, that morning: that the virus I had was ‘plasma toxic’.
“Whooa..”, he said. There was a pause.
“Er, what does that mean?”
“I don’t know, but it sounds terrifying”.
“Quite”.
I was thinking of that conversation as I listened to the Prime Minister describe the new mutant strain of Covid. “Mutant”: disfigured gargoyle-like creatures with three arms; fluorescent rabbits with glowing eyes; bizarre Japanese tortoises with superhuman powers. Whooa. Bad choice of words, Prime Minister, accurate though they may have been. By the way, I still don’t know what ‘plasma toxic’ means, but I know an unarguable technical phrase when I hear one.
Ever the pessimists, Britons had anticipated an increase in Covid restrictions after Christmas, but the government having to advance their implementation, after the promise of a five-day respite over the festive season, has confounded many. Those who did intend to take advantage of the easing of the rules had bought in extra food or made travel arrangements. There are now many families throughout the land with enormous turkeys, several hams, bushels of assorted winter vegetables and several Marks & Spencer Deluxe Puddings with only two people to eat it all. It may be that not many people were going to have visitors at Christmas anyway after the previous dire warnings, but that is not the point; for those who did plan to meet, the news has been a logistical disaster. At least they will have plenty to eat for the next few months.
The number of positive outcomes to tests has, indeed, increased rapidly in the south east of England, and daily deaths for the UK as a whole have started to rise slowly, currently standing at 744 in the last 24 hours. We are clearly heading for a third peak of infections – all aboard for the rollercoaster. Lockdowns seem to be the only response to this epidemic until enough people have been immunised, but they are – at best – a palliative. At the beginning of this epidemic in March, Germany was praised mightily for its efficient and rapid Teutonic response to the virus, and its approach was held up by the British press as the model that we should all have followed. The Czech Republic was similarly praised for its very strict early lockdown in March. This time around, both of those countries have suffered far more deaths in the second peak than in the first. At the end of the day, no country has produced what might be regarded as the perfect response to Covid 19. Might there be an argument that we will never achieve herd immunity if we keep locking ourselves away? Perhaps some of us should let ourselves catch the virus to build up a resistance in the community. You go first.
In the UK we have heard little about the seven emergency temporary hospitals set up to cope with Covid victims: the so-called “Nightingale Hospitals”. The whole idea of the initial lockdown in March was to buy time while the authorities built up PPE and an infrastructure to cope with the anticipated influx of Covid patients. That has been achieved, but only Exeter Nightingale hospital is currently being used as intended, with Manchester used for non-Covid patients. The five others are still vacant. I suspect the problem is that there may be insufficient staff to man the temporary hospitals, but at least the beds are there if the worst comes to the worst.
On a more positive note, my sister-in-law (aged 89) has had her first vaccination with no serious side effects, and two elderly friends here in Melbury received their injections earlier this week. As of 21 December, half a million people in the UK had received their first vaccinations. The other type of vaccine, the Oxford/Astra/Zeneca version, has been submitted for approval for use and we await the outcome: being easier to store, and being produced separately, that vaccine should enhance the immunisation programme significantly if approved.
The armed forces took charge of the creation of the Nightingale hospitals and they were praised for their efficiency. They are also increasingly being utilised for other aspects of tackling the pandemic, and some 14,000 personnel are on standby to assist local authorities as required. When all else fails and the rest of the country cannot cope or is hobbled by strikes, the armed forces are always there to pick up the pieces. I always remember that, in the late 1970s and – again – at the start of this century, there were national firemen’s strikes and the armed forces were called in to provide emergency cover as best they could. Forces personnel were not allowed to drive the existing modern fire appliances; instead they had to use ancient fire engines called Green Goddesses, mothballed from the 1950s from the days when the country had a Civil Defence Force to cope with nuclear attack. The vehicles (green in colour, hence the name) had manual gearboxes without synchromesh and no modern equipment; you could tell when they were coming by the grinding of gear changes, the stuttering engines, the stop-start progress, and the pitiful ringing of a handbell (no EYORE siren). Watching a Green Goddess go past was like watching a film of the Keystone Cops. I recall that, in 1977, one naval-manned Green Goddess was called out by an old lady whose cat had become stuck up a tree. After a fraught journey, the team arrived on scene and the matelots duly managed to rescue kitty and restore the animal to the old lady. Delighted, the old dear invited the fire engine crew into her house for a cup of tea and a piece of cake which, they accepted with alacrity. Suitably refreshed, and basking in wholesome praise, they returned to their fire engine, waved a fond farewell to the grateful old lady, and promptly drove over her cat as they departed down the drive.
Talk of illness and epidemics reminds me that, in the early days of my career, having an accident or becoming ill while on leave away from a naval port required the implementation of a complicated procedure. You could not simply pop into the local GP surgery or hospital to be treated, given a Sick Note or (heaven forfend!) self-certify your illness. Instead, you had to visit the local Admiralty Surgeon & Agent (found from the telephone directory) for treatment. If the problem was so bad that you were laid low, then the doctor had to give you a note stating that you were not fit to travel. Note the last two words in italics, as they are important. Fundamentally, the Service did not trust civilian doctors: only a naval doctor was qualified to say whether you were fit to do your duty or not. Presumably it considered the civilian medical profession to be a bunch of charlatans and quacksalvers, though – of course – that was the very pool from which naval doctors were recruited. As an example of this, a chap I knew broke a leg in a climbing accident in Snowdonia and was laid up at a friend’s house in a small town in Wales to convalesce. Apart from having his leg in plaster he was quite comfortable and being well looked after by the females in his friend’s family. The Navy wasn’t having any of that, however: they sent a naval ambulance all the way into deepest Wales to bring him back and put him in a proper naval hospital, and he had a very uncomfortable and painful journey back. Can’t trust these civvies. Nowadays, the Admiralty Surgeon & Agent scheme is long gone, but I would guess that the sickness certification criterion is exactly the same.
A further example of the peculiarities of the naval medical system may be found from my days when I was studying engineering for four years at the Naval Engineering College in Plymouth. We worked an odd quasi-university routine: although lectures were compulsory, we wore uniform, lived in the wardroom, had naval duties, and worked on Saturday mornings, we also occasionally had free periods or tutorials in the afternoons and played sport on Wednesday afternoons. It was delightfully relaxed and laid back provided you were academically inclined and could cope accordingly. As I have mentioned in earlier blogs, this could lead you to forget that you were still, fundamentally, part of a disciplined service. I remember a chum of mine at college who was married and lived in a naval married quarter in Plymouth. He woke up one morning feeling a little fragile and decided that he would not go into college that day, so he telephoned the wardroom hall porter and ‘called in sick’. About two hours later he was sitting in his living room, reading the newspaper with his feet up and a cup of coffee by his side, when the room grew a little darker. He looked out of the window and saw, just pulling up outside, a large white ambulance with a big red cross and “ROYAL NAVY” on the side. Out of one door stepped a naval Surgeon Lieutenant in full dress uniform, and out of the other stepped the driver, a Medical Assistant in full ‘square rig’, carrying the medical bag. They had come to see my chum. He immediately tossed the paper to one side, shot upstairs, stripped off his clothes, and threw himself into bed just in time to receive the visitors. I imagine they found him to be a little hot and feverish.
The hot news is that, just as the drawbridge was about to be pulled up, a breakthrough has been made in Brexit negotiations and a trade deal has finally been agreed with the European Union. Cynical soul that I am, I wonder what part of my birthright has been sold to achieve this goal, but I withhold judgement for now. Whatever, the discussions have been a long drawn out battle and all credit to the negotiators for their tremendous efforts. More details later, I dare say.
After Christmas, brace yourselves for the next hot topic in Britain: the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List. Lists of those elevated to the peerage, knighted or otherwise honoured will be published and – throughout the land – we will be grumbling over our breakfast toast and marmalade as to which buffoon, actor, footballer, guitar player or other perceived undeserving character has acquired the title “Lord”, “Sir” or “Dame”. Next blog, perhaps.
Christmas is a time for The Ghost Story. I have never seen a ghost myself, but several warships in my career were reputed to be haunted, sometimes by a figure related to previous war service (in an old ship), or a suicide onboard. A very good friend of mine, who was a submariner, did see one in a modern warship. He was not one for making up stories, so I have no reason to doubt the veracity of his account. He was serving in a nuclear submarine and the boat was dived somewhere under the Arctic Ocean, on patrol during the Cold War. It was in the middle of the night and he was the Engineer Officer of the Watch in the Machinery Control Room with about six other men, keeping watch over the nuclear reactor and monitoring the propulsion machinery. When a ship or submarine is on passage, there are no changes in speed to cope with and it can all become rather mundane just sitting there with little to do except look at the machinery gauges (and you usually hope it stays that way). The Machinery Control Room crew were chatting away amiably and monitoring the reactor control panel automatically, when a figure in green overalls walked past the door and on into the main turbine room. They all saw the figure, and they each looked askance at each other. You see, in the Royal Navy, engineer officers wear white overalls and all ratings wear blue overalls. Only dockyard maties wear green overalls, and the nearest dockyard was some 2,000 miles away. A mechanic was immediately despatched into the turbine room to track down the intruder but, although he searched the entire compartment, no-one was found; there was no other way out except past the Machinery Control Room. The crew was somewhat nonplussed as to what to do. Nuclear watchkeepers are highly trained and monitored carefully for obvious reasons: a report to the Captain or the authorities that seven of them had seen a ghost would likely have resulted in them being led, very gently, ashore to a safe hospital with bars on the windows. At the very least they would have been relieved of their duties and, heaven forbid, lost their Submarine Pay (a supplement to the standard naval pay). So they decided to say nothing to anyone. Later, after the boat had returned to base, my friend made a few enquiries about the submarine’s history. He discovered that, during a previous refit, the watertight compartment where the sighting took place was being pressure tested, but a heavy watertight door was not clipped shut properly. As the test pressure was increased the securing clip gave way and the watertight door flipped violently open, hitting a dockyard worker and crushing his head against the boat’s side. He was killed. Was the mysterious figure in green overalls the ghost of the unfortunate dockyard worker? Who can say?
It is a short blog this week as I have to polish the silver and trim the candle wicks for Christmas Day. There has also been talk of me blackening the range and scrubbing the kitchen floor for the festivities. So, I leave you with the words of Tiny Tim:
“God bless us, every one”
24 December 2020
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 
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