Frankly, I blame the manufacturer of the claret-coloured corduroy trousers. I had bought the rather daring aforementioned items in the Spring because I thought it was time to be a little more adventurous in my sartorial habits, and claret seemed a sophisticated colour. But I had hardly worn the trousers before what is laughably called Summer was upon us, and I reverted to chinos for the duration. As Autumn unfolded, the wine-coloured corduroys were unearthed from their stowage, found to be somewhat crumpled, and tossed into the dirty clothes bin for washing and ironing. As Head of Dhobying in the Shacklepin household I adopt a no-nonsense approach to my charges, for life is too short to discriminate or give preferential treatment to garments that go into the washing machine. True, I have learnt the odd lesson and suffered the lash for a few cockups: that time when I washed Jane’s underwear and tights with my workshop apron and floor mats springs to mind (she was picking sawdust and grit out of her brassieres and knickers for quite some time afterwards). I occasionally even remember to separate out woollen sweaters – Jane’s wearing of my shrunken ex-uniform seaman’s sweater acting as a useful reminder. Beyond that, I take no prisoners. And so, it came to pass, that our newly-bought white sheets and pillowcases, and Jane’s white floral nightdress, were bundled into the washing machine in loving communion with my claret-trousers. They went in white, but slightly soiled; they emerged clean and – well – a bit pink. Jane was not amused and my remark that a (slightly) pink nightdress for a girl was customary did not seem to help matters. Oh dear, in trouble again.
As predicted in the last blog, we spent an excellent three days in the Priory Hotel in Wareham, Dorset last month. Regular readers will recall that the hotel’s success in attracting the Shacklepins’ custom was that it did not welcome children or dogs, that it had an excellent reputation for friendliness and hospitality, and that it offered top-class cuisine. I am pleased to report that it met all expectations. The hotel is located in four acres of land on the banks of the River Frome at the site of the headquarters of the Viking chief, Guthrum, when he captured Wareham from the Saxons in 875AD. The building dates from 809 AD and has been, at various times, a nunnery and a monastery, making the hotel one of the oldest in Dorset. Naturally, the history of the place made the layout distinctly quirky and the hotel comprised several linked buildings around gardens and courtyards. We had a courtyard room on the ground floor, which was well-appointed, somewhat bijou, but all we could afford. Access to the main block was either across the external courtyard or, as Jane very cleverly discovered, internally via a series of twisting passageways that formed a bridge. As with all ancient buildings, floors tilted and creaked, landings went up and down, staircases abounded and public rooms were numerous; a printed plan, or a ball of string, would have been useful. We were absolutely delighted with our choice despite the fact that the weather was wet and we could not take advantage of the attractive gardens, one of which swept down to the riverside. Meals were taken in a cleverly and tastefully designed annex with huge picture windows that overlooked the garden. The staff were excellent: attentive, professional and friendly. The food was superb and of Michelin star quality, included in our package. Of course the whole set up cost us a few bob at £1,080 for three nights at half board, but seeing as how the dinner, if taken separately, would have cost £80 each a night, and the quality matched the price, we reckoned it was good value. You are permitted to prefer the Premier Inn and a meal at McDonalds or an all-inclusive seven-day package holiday to Benidorm if you wish – different ships, different long splices.
Of course, three nights in a place means only two days to actually explore, but we did our best to pack a lot in. Wareham stands on a peninsula on the oddly-named Isle of Purbeck. I say ‘oddly-named’ because a glance at a map will show you that the Isle of Purbeck is not an island at all, and never was. I assume the area got the name from the fact that the sea borders three sides of the peninsula and the fourth side is marsh, making the ‘island’ a natural fortification. Wareham and Poole lie at the root of the peninsula in the north east; Swanage at the tip, to the south east.
After exploring Wareham, one of Alfred the Great’s fortified burgh towns to keep out the Danes (fortified after Guthrum left) we took a bus to Corfe Castle, the impressive medieval ruin set high on a hill in the middle of the peninsula. The Norman castle is over 1,000 years old but was largely destroyed by that rascal, Oliver Cromwell, during the English Civil War because the castle’s then owner, Lady Mary Bankes, resisted the Parliamentarian siege while her husband was away fighting for the Royalists. Cromwell was a kindly soul, however, for he gave Lady Bankes the keys to her ruined castle after it had been blown up, as a token of her courage in resisting his attack (she later recovered the castle and her estates when Cromwell died and Charles II took the throne). I seem to recall from my history lessons that Corfe was also the place of assassination of the teenage Saxon king, King Edward in 878AD. He thought he would just pop in to see his stepmother, who lived at the castle, just to say ‘hello’ or whatever, but as he dismounted from his horse he was offered a cup of poisoned wine while someone slipped behind him and stabbed him to death. His stepmother wanted her son Ethelred, Edward’s half-brother, to have the throne you see, in what must be one of the earliest examples of ‘the wicked stepmother’. All that was before the present Norman stone castle was built, of course, but at the same site. The castle was well worth the visit, despite the climb to the top, for the views were outstanding and enough of the castle remained to appreciate the skill of its builders and the way of life of the castle occupants. Even the village of Corfe looked jolly nice in its ‘Olde Worlde’ way, though we did not experience it beyond the National Trust shop as time was short. We took the private steam train to Swanage and, there, embarked on a bracing walk to the headland in a half gale to look at the sea.
The next day found us at the Bovington Tank Museum for that cultural historic visit that I had promised Jane. I must say, I was very impressed. It is housed in a vast modern building with several distinct sections, each covering the various stages of the evolution of the tank. Claiming my veteran’s discount on entry, I was asked for the name of my regiment and evoked a raised eyebrow when I replied, ‘Royal Navy’. I pointed out that I was curious about tanks because the Royal Navy had none, unless you counted the ones that were full of diesel oil, aviation fuel and water (a witty remark that passed right over the head of the ex squaddie at the reception desk). Hall Number 1 covered the invention of the tank, the first being Little Willie and the second (inevitably) being Big Willie. The term ‘tank’ (in case you didn’t know) springs from the pseudonym allocated by the British government for security reasons during manufacture in World War I. The tank tracks were copied from the caterpillar tracks used by tractors in the USA, but initially they were not successful when cross-pollinated for Little Willie, and some further development work was required. Development of the tank as a whole came initially under the Admiralty, and the first crews were naval, but the Royal Navy did not wish to continue with the weapon and the project was passed to the British Army. Officers of the Royal Tank Regiment (as it became) carried – and still carry – knobbly Ash Plant walking sticks as part of their formal uniform to test for firm ground (and mines) in front of their tanks. I was deeply engrossed in all this detail and it was some time before I realised that Jane had, well, drifted away. Time passed by and I had graduated from World War I to the 1930s when, from behind a particularly large steel behemoth of that era, Jane appeared with the friendly greeting of,
“My God. Is that as far as you’ve got? I’ve just finished the 21st century and the Challenger II. What have you been doing?”
My explanation of the mechanism of the (literally) ground-breaking tank-track linkage that enabled tank development to proceed was not well received and I was encouraged to make better progress. We did complete Halls 2, 3 and all halls west, and the whole experience was excellent; but I couldn’t help feeling that Jane’s heart was not quite in it somehow – at the end she had retired to a convenient bench to play Words with Friends with her international chums on her iPhone. As we left for the car, I heard her mutter,
“Seen one tank, you’ve seen them all”. I despair.
Overall, Great; Tanks, huge and frightening; Restaurant, a bit basic; Man Factor, 10; Woman Factor, 2. Note to self: must return on my own or with a little friend who is not female.
I can hardly write a blog without commenting in a disinterested way about the US election. Wow, I’m not too sure many people expected that: Trump for president for another term. Not only did he win by Electoral College votes (a bit like how British Members of Parliament form a government), but also by the popular vote ie, taken across the whole of the USA, Trump won the most votes. Republicans are in the majority in Congress and I understand the party is likely to achieve a majority in the House of Representatives too. Many Democrats are, quite literally, in tears. My cousin in North Carolina is beside herself in despair, for (apparently) this is the end of civilisation as they know it. Can it be that bad? I have no idea, but one American cruise line is offering a four-year cruise around the world for those Democrats needing counselling, only returning to the USA when Trump’s presidency is over. That smacks of desperation if not hysteria.
I can empathise to some extent, for things are far from rosy on this side of the pond, where a new government has been in power for six months and is already making itself felt – and not, in my opinion, in a good way. We just have to live with the consequences of democracy and accept a majority verdict. I believe someone quite famous once said something like, “democracy is a good idea until the people elect the wrong person”.
The concept of free speech in Britain, epitomised by Speakers’ Corner in London where a citizen could speak as freely as they wished, has long gone. A woman preparing to commemorate Remembrance Sunday last week opened her door in the early morning to two policemen who told her that they were investigating a complaint about an alleged racist ‘tweet’ made by her over a year ago, which had subsequently been removed. Challenged, the police officers would not (or could not) reveal the nature of the ‘tweet’ or the name of her accuser (the correct term was ‘victim’, the officers told her). Unfortunately for the police, the woman visited turned out to be an award-winning journalist for a top UK newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, and she and the British press have reacted accordingly. The British police largely gave up pursuing thieves of bicycles, shoplifters and burglars long ago and they have a poor record for catching other felons, all because of a shortage of resources, but this particular constabulary could spare not one, but two police officers to visit a middle-aged woman on Remembrance Sunday at 0930 in the morning, when Britain was about to remember the sacrifice its armed forces made to defend – among other things – freedom of speech.
We have got ourselves in a right muddle with our well-meaning equality laws, for the definition of a racist remark is entirely at the discretion of the person who feels offended, or even a bystander who thinks someone else might be offended. In other words, if you think about it, anyone can make a complaint about anyone and the police are obliged to follow it up without assessing the validity of the complaint on common sense or any other grounds. That said, it all comes down to priorities of policing: it is far easier to pursue a middle-aged woman against whom there is a trivial year-old spurious, or possibly vexatious, complaint than it is to track down a rapist. Easy meat. As I write, Essex Police (for it was that constabulary) is digging in and determined to pursue the matter to the full extent of its powers, and we still do not know what was said or who the complainant was. Hmm: a police force on shaky ground, and with a not particularly impressive record, versus the British press – I wonder how that will work out?
Elsewhere, we have moved on from the British countryside being declared racist (because, apparently, not enough black or brown people visited it). Now, it seems, dogs are racist – at least in Wales – because a black woman has complained that she does not visit the Welsh countryside because she is afraid of the dogs that roam there: she wants to ban our little canine friends from the countryside so that Wales can keep a welcome in the hillsides and a welcome in the dales. Whoever she is, I expect she will want a ban on cows and sheep next.
It was a fitting day to say goodbye: sunny, no wind, a mild temperature for November, tide at slack water. As I stood on my quarterdeck for the last time I took the opportunity for a valedictory look around at the River Dart with its verdant Devonshire river banks, the sheep in the fields, the steam train puffing its way up to Paignton, and the bustle of the marina hotel still under construction. My eyes refocused on my modest command: still as trim as a new pin, her twin engines rumbling quietly, the Royal Naval Sailing Association’s jaunty burgee fluttering at her stubby mast. I thought of the great fun and adventures Jane and I had enjoyed onboard and the hopes I had had for the future. I shook my head: no point in looking back; one phase of life ends and another begins. Heaving a sigh, I hauled down the Blue Ensign for the last time and folded it carefully. Down came the burgee. Finally, I turned off both ignition switches and all was silent. I made my last entry in the log: 1500 – Finished With Main Engines. I might just as easily have written, ‘Finished with Boating’ for, yes, APPLETON RUM has been sold (subject to survey) and with her goes twenty two years of recreational boating. We left her in the tender hands of the boatyard crew who would lift her ready for her last repair under my ownership, that of replacing her port propeller shaft. In all likelihood, the ownership would formally transfer when that repair was complete, and the boat was still out of the water, the final stages of her buyer’s survey done. We would not see her again as owners. I patted her hull affectionately, Jane shed a tear, and – without looking back – we walked to the car, removed our lifejackets and drove away from Noss Marina for the final journey home.
Regular readers will recall that we put our thirty-three foot twin-screw motor yacht up for sale in May after it dawned on me that, in the event of my death, the small Royal Navy widow’s pension that I left would be insufficient for Jane to keep the boat in the marina, even for the short time it took Jane to sell her. Although not the trigger for my ‘light on the road to Damascus’ moment, my recent scare with prostate cancer served to underline my mortality. Boats are, in any case, very expensive to keep and APPLETON RUM had been dominating our accounts spreadsheet ever since we bought her. Increasingly we had no spare cash for holidays, luxuries or even major household repairs. No: she had to go. The yacht brokers were happy to take her on, but warned that the market was cool at the moment. We had a couple of viewings towards the end of the Summer, but then all went quiet and I genuinely expected to see no movement until next year or even longer. Then, out of the blue, a couple showed some interest in October. A sea trial and part survey followed. Before you could say ‘rum punch’ an offer was made, a price negotiated and a deal struck: I would complete the planned repair on the boat’s propeller shaft so that she was in tip-top condition for handing over; a hull survey would follow while she was out of the water and – if that went well – sale would complete. The new owner would keep APPLETON RUM in her existing berth until the present term ended in April. So – there you go, as the Americans say – twenty two years of boat ownership over at the stroke of a pen.
What on earth am I going to do to pass the time now?
18 November 2024
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 