So that was Spring (I think). Weeks and weeks of non-stop sunshine in April, nights a bit cool and the wind a bit fresh, but – on the whole – very promising; warm trousers, sweaters and shirts stowed away and Mrs S appearing with polished legs in skirts and sandals; and now it would appear that it is all over, and we have moved on to Winter without the inconvenient occurrence of Summer in between.
A cry of, “It’s raining!”, the other evening initiated a child-like rush to the window to look at this new phenomenon, like toddlers looking at snow for the first time on Christmas Eve, only to result in a derisory snort and the comment of,
“That’s not rain. Look at it! It’s barely wetting the ground”.
Be that as it may, the honeymoon is over and we are back to grey days, rain (of sorts) and cold. Jane is back in trousers and the central heating has been restored to its Winter temperature settings. Apparently Britain is shaping up for having endured the coldest April since 1961 despite the sunshine, and the forecast is for more cold weather to come. Bank Holiday in England must surely be approaching.
Before all this, and in the final days of sunshine last week, we hosted a cream tea in the garden for our two friends who live in the Big City, and what a glorious pleasure that turned out to be. Jane laid on cucumber sandwiches on white bread and smoked salmon sandwiches on wholemeal bread (crusts removed, naturally); there was home-baked fruit cake and home-baked lemon drizzle cake; and – finally – came the pièce de résistance: home-baked scones with clotted cream and home-made strawberry or plum jam. The whole banquet was washed down by large quantities of Twinings English Strong Breakfast tea, served in our best Royal Doulton bone china tea set. My goodness me: I bet you have put on two pounds just by reading all that; we, for our part, prepared for it all as best we could by eating a very small breakfast and skipping both luncheon and dinner on the day. Of course, it was a shocking indulgence, quite shocking. To think that the four of us just sat there and steadily demolished this vast calorie-laden treat while actually enjoying ourselves with sparkling conversation: surely we must have been breaking some law on the statute books that prevents any pleasure under the Covid regulations? But we weren’t: there are no laws – at present – to prevent us from simply pigging out and talking, though I am sure the present government would introduce one if they got to hear about our gluttony. Keep it to yourselves, eh?
The latest trivia in the press concerns the method of serving a cream tea. Clearly, some members of the public are desperate for relief from the news of Covid, terrorism and All Things Bad. The people of Cornwall are, allegedly, up in arms because of an advertisement by the supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s, depicting a scone served with, first, the clotted cream and then the strawberry jam on top of that. This was, apparently, sacrilege and – worse – a Devonian way of serving a cream tea; clearly, say the Cornish, the scone should have the jam on first, with the clotted cream on top of that. Social media was a hornet’s nest of complaints by the citizens of Curnow and Sainsbury’s was forced to apologise and withdraw the advertisement. Historically, cream tea, and clotted cream itself, were items that, at one time, you could only obtain in the West Country: you could not buy clotted cream in shops elsewhere, nor order the Full Monty at a café outside of Devonshire or Cornwall in the 1970s for example, though you could order Cornish or Devonshire clotted cream by post as a treat. Personally, I have always put the jam on first, then the cream, not knowing that that was “the Cornish way”; I thought Devonians did the same thing. I am not convinced that there is a right or wrong way to eat the stuff, but I now do wonder how the Queen eats hers. And now for the next argument: are those scones pronounced, “sconns” or “scoans”? I’m all for “sconns”, myself, and so is Jane, so it must be right.
Vying with the Great Cream Tea debate we have the ongoing saga of the Decoration of Boris’s Flat. The incumbent prime minister (PM) is provided with a grace-and-favour flat on the top floor of Number 10 Downing Street (though he or she still has to pay for utilities and the Council Tax). Since the days of Tony Blair, who had children, the practice has been for the PM to live in the (larger) flat above the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s house, Number 11, though this is now a bit odd as the current Chancellor has more children than the PM. Each PM is allocated £30,000 annually from public funds to decorate and furnish the flat to their personal taste. Boris’s fiancée, who lives with him, did not like the style of the flat when they moved in and so set about hiring an exclusive interior designer to revamp the place. The result, which looks like a cross between an Indian restaurant and a bordello, is alleged to have cost as much as £80,000 using wallpaper at £840 a roll. The row is about who paid for the work: the tax payer, the Conservative Party, a Party donor, or Boris himself? Ultimately, it would appear that the PM paid the bill, but the debate is about whether other agencies paid initially. My personal view is that the decoration and furnishing are a travesty of good taste and exceptionally poor value for money; I have not spent £30,000 in decorating my four-bedroomed detached house in all the time I have lived here, let alone in a year, so that amount seems awfully generous for a flat, whether Grade 2 Listed or not. I also have reservations regarding an unelected person, a consort who is not even the PM’s wife, having a say in expenditure on public property. However, if we, the public, or I, a Conservative Party member, did not pay for the work then the whole affair does not bother me greatly. The Electoral Commission is investigating the matter, however, and it could result in a serious fine or, indeed, man overboard. Incidentally, to put it all into context, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, living in the smaller flat above No 10 with his wife and two children, refurnished and redecorated that apartment entirely at his own expense.
Coincidentally, this year is the 300th anniversary of the office of prime minister – the “first among equals”. The incumbent also holds the older title of First Lord of The Treasury, which is the title inscribed on the letterbox of No 10 Downing Street. Sir Robert Walpole is considered to be the first person to hold the title. The house as the official residence of the British prime minister stems from Walpole’s time, when King George II presented the property to Walpole personally, and the latter declined the gift in favour of it being the official residence and office for prime ministers in perpetuity. He moved in in 1730. The building originally was of somewhat gimcrack construction and it has had to be under-pinned, propped up or internally rebuilt several times since. At times the property was distinctly seedy and, over the years, not all prime ministers chose to live there; however it has been occupied by British prime ministers continuously since the start of the 20th century. The black exterior was initially thought to be original, but was later discovered to be of yellow brick, the black exterior being centuries of grime and soot. The present building façade has had to be painted black after cleaning in order to maintain the historic appearance. The prime minister’s flat is, of course, but a small part of a building that houses the principal offices of state of the United Kingdom. Internally, the building is much bigger than one would think, being interlinked with other buildings and the Cabinet Office in Whitehall. Happy anniversary (office of) prime minister, 1721 – 2021.
It’s all happening here. Last week, in the nearby county of Wiltshire, a group of builders were excavating a garden in an old house in Heytesbury to build a soak-away to improve drainage, when they found some bones. No problem with that, they thought: probably animal bones from when the garden used to be a field. So they kept on digging – until they found a human skull. Oh dear. Much tumult and shouting ensued, followed by the arrival of Wiltshire Police diverted from their normal activity of investigating cattle rustling, badger baiting, turnip theft and illegal picnics during Covid. More excavation revealed the remains of five people, two of them infants and it was all building up nicely into an episode of Midsomer Murders until the pathologist and archeologists had a look at the skeletons. Panic over: they were old bones (phew!), probably from the 14th century (fascinating!), and almost certainly from an old plague pit, being victims of the Black Death (what!). I understand the bones are being carbon dated to confirm their provenance, then I presume that they will be reburied somewhere in a suitably sensitive and religious manner. Jane thought that they should just have been tossed back into the hole to form part of the soak-away and when I suggested that, perhaps, the house owners might not be too comfortable with that solution, she remarked,
“Well, the bones have been there for centuries. Leaving them there a bit longer should be no problem”.
I worry about that woman sometimes.
Burials in private gardens are permitted in Britain provided due process is observed. I am a bit dubious of the practice, myself, as I would have thought a grave in the garden would seriously deter buyers when you came to sell your house. Jane and I were bimbling through the New Forest a few years ago and came across a lovely little village in the middle of nowhere. We wandered through the village churchyard and stumbled (as we seem to have got into the habit of doing – Blog 85), entirely by chance, on the grave of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes. The grave was well-tended by devotees, with fresh flowers, and a curved pipe in reference to his fictional detective. I looked up the grave later, wondering what Doyle’s association with the village was, and found that he had died in Crowborough, East Sussex in 1930. He was buried vertically in his own garden, next to his garden shed, such orientation being by his own request as a reference to his belief in Spiritualism. About twenty years later, Doyle’s house was sold and his body was disinterred; one can imagine the innocent potential new house owners looking around the property with the estate agent and rubbing their hands,
“Oh, what a delightful house, and such a pretty garden. By the way, what’s that mound of flowers and lump of masonry that looks like a headstone over by the shed…?”
Anyway, in the 1950s Doyle’s body was exhumed from Sussex and reinterred in the churchyard of Minstead in Hampshire, where we found the grave; this time the body was laid in the conventional horizontal position. His wife was buried next to him, Minstead being her birthplace The Church of England was a bit dubious about the reinterment, Doyle being a Spiritualist and therefore not, strictly, a Christian; the Church apparently compromised on its principles by burying him on the very edge of the churchyard. It is amazing what you find when you bimble around a churchyard.
There is little to report on the Covid front in England. Infections, deaths and hospital admissions are still dropping, and the inoculation programme is still going well (people in their early forties are now being called forward). About two thirds of the UK adult population have now received at least their first vaccination. The number of daily deaths is now so small, and the pattern so irregular, that it is easier and more scientific to examine only weekly deaths, which stand at 153. In Barsetshire we have had no Covid-related deaths or hospital admissions for several weeks. The restrictions continue without change from the government’s plan, however: 17 May is the next milestone, when restaurants, pubs and other venues can open for indoor activity. Jane and I are set to receive our second jab on Saturday at the racecourse on the edge of the Big City, completing our course of immunisation (though a booster to tackle virus variants has been mooted for September). These final stages of the “Covid Emergence Plan” seem to be really dragging on, with (as I write) seventeen days to 17 May and fifty two very long interminable days to supposed lifting of all restrictions on 21 June. I say “supposed” because this milestone does not include the removal of social distancing or the requirement to wear face coverings. Some local councils have been recruiting “Covid Marshals” for work after July, implying that hired thugs, zealots and busybodies, oozing virtue and wearing fluorescent tabards, will be patrolling our streets armed with canes until next year at least. Thank heavens I take a disinterested and even-handed view of this situation, that’s what I say.
It was a surprise, last week in Dartmouth, to encounter two policemen strolling along the Embankment. I don’t think I have ever seen a policeman in Dartmouth before, but they seemed to be enjoying the sunshine and we gave them a puzzled smile and wished them a “Good Day”, which was reciprocated. We crossed the road and, blow me, there were another three of them. Clearly Devon and Cornwall Constabulary had decided to have an “away day” for the staff, or possibly there had been a lot of bloodshed in Roly’s Fudge Pantry earlier in the day; we were quite dumbfounded. Later, however, we discovered the reason for the relatively heavy police presence: it was the Passing Out Parade at the BRITANNIA Royal Naval College and Boris, the Prime Minister, was in attendance. I thought the geographical link between five policemen on Dartmouth Embankment and Boris at the College, half way up the nearby hill, was a bit tenuous if something were to happen, but maybe the ceremony was over and the constabulary were enjoying a bit of down-time before returning to patrolling the fleshpots of Torquay.
It is always nice to see a policeman or, as I should now say these days, a police officer as, like our Armed Forces, women are fully integrated into the strength now. Sadly, it is such a rare occurrence, particularly on foot. I am old enough to remember a time when every bobby had a beat and his ubiquitous presence, wearing his distinctive helmet, was always reassuring. Moreover, the law was enforced quite rigorously: it was not uncommon to be woken up during the night, for example, and told to switch on the parking lights of your car parked in the street (a requirement then) or for a boy on a bicycle to be stopped for riding on the pavement. True, the response time to emergencies was probably not as good in the 1950s and 1960s as it is now: the police in the past had no personal radios or mobile phones and stayed in touch with the police station by means of carefully placed police telephone boxes, as seen in Dr Who. Alarms were raised by whistle and each constable was armed with a truncheon. It all makes you wonder how they managed, looking back, but there were – of course – more police officers on the strength then, and the public were, in general, more conformist and law-abiding. Now, the policeman’s helmet has almost disappeared as headgear in England and most wear flat caps like they do in Scotland; the smart tunic has definitely disappeared and all officers are burdened with a heavy anti-stab vest and a utility belt bearing all manner of equipment from radio to pepper spray; the truncheon has become a telescopic baton, used quite effectively on the back of the leg of a resisting suspect. Some specially trained officers in limited situations are armed too, either with pistols or Heckler & Koch assault rifles – a sign of the times; these officers always look sinister, like storm troopers from a Star Wars film. I acknowledge that we have to move with the times and accept the result of risk assessment, but I do wonder why some police officers are allowed to look like criminals themselves: shaven heads and visible tattoos (and that is just on the women) appear to be common in some counties, if documentaries on the television are to be believed. Fortunately, here in sleepy Barsetshire our police are still quite normal in appearance, and long may it remain so. A job that was never easy is considerably harder in the 21st century because of the increasing freedoms that all democratic countries enjoy. It is not a job I would care to do, and the police force has my respect accordingly. Incidentally, we are no longer supposed to use the term “police force” any more; it is the “police service”, because the term force is considered too aggressive. Too much money spent on PR there, and not enough on police on the streets if you ask me. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
The police in other countries seem to have a different relationship with their public than here in Britain, where our constables “police by consent”. A friend of mine told me, for example, that in France “the police are not your friend”, and I understand the constabulary are not popular in Australia either. My (civilian) boss in the Ministry of Defence was on a duty visit to Washington (in the USA, not Co Durham) many years ago and was kindly offered accommodation for the week in his host’s house. My boss was very partial to smoking cheroots, but it was an indulgence that he obviously could not enjoy in the house, so he went out into the street for a smoke and a stroll. When he came back indoors, his host said something like,
“Hello, where have you been? I didn’t hear you go out”.
“Oh, I’ve just been out for a smoke and a stroll”
“Oh God. You haven’t have you? We don’t do that here. The police will be around”.
Sure enough, five minutes later a squad car with flashing lights and whooping siren duly appeared in the street. A neighbour had reported a suspicious man prowling the neighbourhood and actually walking. I suppose on the plus side, my boss wasn’t shot and the Washington PD were very nice about it when all was explained to them, though he did hear one officer say, as he got back into his car,
“Crazy Limeys”.
Thinking of that comment about armed police officers made me reflect on the (inevitable) reservations we have for anyone armed with a gun, official or otherwise. I remember my father telling me of an instance on his ship during WW2, when he was an Able Seaman. The sailors at that time all slept and ate in the communal fo’c’sle and conditions were quite primitive. Unlike sailors in the Royal Navy, Merchant Navy sailors did not sleep on hammocks, but their bedding was in some ways worse as it comprised a palliasse bought in the home port at the sailors’ own expense, and ditched at the end of a two or three-year voyage. Heating in the fo’c’sle was provided by a single pot-bellied coke stove, personal hygiene was undertaken using a bucket filled with hot water from the galley, and food was transported across the upper deck from the same galley, often containing a generous quantity of seawater. Paradoxically, the food was wholesome, usually well-cooked, and generous – the rations being laid down in law by the Board of Trade. The quality of drinking water was not, however, always good. Stored in a deep tank and pumped up by hand, often rationed, the drinking water could be rusty and barely potable. It was the quality of the drinking water in a particular ship that led to the incident that my father described. Several complaints had been made to the Mate and the Captain about the water but, seemingly, no improvement was forthcoming; perhaps the structural state of the ancient ship prevented anything useful from being done. Anyway, a colleague of my father’s came offshore drunk one night and expressed the intention, in the fo’c’sle, of going to see the Captain to complain about the water there and then. He stomped off to the midships accommodation, banged on the door of the cuddy, burst in, and belaboured the Captain in no uncertain terms, culminating in him punching the Captain in the face. Help was summoned and the sailor was dragged off to sleep it off, appearing at Captain’s Table the next day for severe punishment (fined five shillings, I dare say). You would think that this incident would have calmed things down, to have provided an opportunity for sober reflection in the fo’c’sle and consideration for an alternative way of doing things. It was not to be, however. At the next port, virtually the same thing happened: the same man came offshore drunk; he declared the intention of sorting out the Captain once and for all and duly stomped off again. After that, however, things took a different turn. The man reappeared in the fo’c’sle ten minutes later, as sober as a judge and shaking like a leaf. Curious, the sailors asked him what had happened. It transpired that he had marched over to the midships accommodation, banged on the cuddy door as before, and burst in – as before. Then stopped. Sitting at his desk in his swivel chair was the Captain. He swung around to face the door and in his hand was a large revolver, pointing at the sailor. He pulled back the hammer with a large audible click.
“Yes?”, he said.
“Nothing Captain”, said the sailor, and shot out backwards faster than he came in.
As Clint Eastwood says in that film, Dirty Harry, “Are you feeling lucky today?” That sailor certainly wasn’t.
Having commented in Blog 89 on the exile of The Tomato Plant to the shed, I am sorry to have to report that my exultation was short lived: it has reappeared in the Garden Control Tower (aka the conservatory) and its dominant verdant presence now lurks in the corner as we eat breakfast. I am not quite sure how I was persuaded, not only to permit this return from deportation, but to be a party to humping the damned thing in. I think the cream tea we had last week may secretly have been part of the softening-up process. Either way, the triffid is back indoors and cluttering up an already crowded Breakfast Room, the bamboo lounging chairs having been shoved into the other corner and being no longer available for lounging. Asked for how long this anarchy would continue, Jane replied,
“Until it gets warm enough to put the plant outside”.
Here for the duration, then.
30 April 2021
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 