On the road again...

OK it wasn't a big road trip but it certainly felt like quite a bit of driving.  Maybe its England and the size of the roads.  In the US when you drive, it seems there are acres of room to do everything.  In England things seem to be much closer together.  Certainly cars have got bigger over time, this is a global phenomenon not necessarily a UK one but on UK roads, it stands out more.

This time though we figured we needed a big car capable of holding 7 people and their luggage for the to-ing and fro-ing we had planned and from the usual Kayak search, out came Sixt (see link here).

Who, you may ask?  They are a German firm that is expanding globally.  We'd hired a car from them in Miami once -- what, you ask?  Why didn't you use Silvercar?  The best car hire firm bar none.  Well, they hadn't opened up in Miami at that point but they have now, so I will be headed in their direction for any further times.  But Sixt are expanding in the UK whilst Silvercar is not (yet) -- they just opened in Chicago so are getting a little nearer.  And they were fantastic too.  Sixt, I mean.  Very helpful and polite both in and out and the vehicle they rented us was just terrific too.

It was a VW (of course) 9-seater.  And it was great to drive... once you got the hang of its length.  It was knocked about a bit at each front sides and trying to get out of the car park at the airport, nearly took out a couple of posts people put up to stop drivers trying to cut corners!  But I did manage to not add to the scrapes.

So the rental was another great experience.  Now I know of 2 great car hire firms: first Silvercar, second Sixt.  The rest are nowhere by comparison.  Sorry guys!

I already posted about Dover Castle but want to add something about the A2 as it passes through the Blackheath.

I've driven this road dozens of times over the years always going to or from London.  It's not a quick route past here as the traffic build up gets pretty heavy and have never turned either left or right at the lights in the middle of the heath.  I've never had reason to.  On the right is residential, on the left is a long wall (heading towards London this is).  The reason I mention it is that before eating lunch in Greenwich we took a brief detour (courtesy of duelling GPS' gone mad -- at that time we were working off our Garmin and Indy's iPhone using the Google Maps App) that wasn't altogether under control. Looking for the O2 Arena, the machines directed us along ever narrower streets until we came out into the open... and hit the traffic lights in the middle of this heath!  But along the way, we had also passed signs for Greenwich Park and the Royal Observatory so thought that we should turn around and take a look.

Docklands in the middle, the City to the left and the Millenium Dome, now O2 Arena to the right.  In the foreground the magnificent maritime museum.  This is where the horse trials were held in the 2012 Olympics!  Who could do this in an hour?  It would take a week at least to simply scratch the surface...

It turned out to be behind this long wall bounding the edge of Blackheath that I'd driven past dozens of times over the years without realizing.

We weren't able to spend too much time as lunch beckoned in an hour or so but it looks a magical place that I want to return to and spend a day in!

If you beat me, do please tell me about it.  I want to stand on the Meridian, one leg either side!!

The 24-hour clock was right!

Changing Times

When I landed at Gatwick last week and collected the hire car to drive to Canterbury where our trip really started, I believed that drunk driving was prevalent but had been stomped on harshly by police worldwide, certainly in England.  It's not a subject at the forefront of my mind but what kicked it all off was seeing the first road sign on the M20 saying "Drug Driving Can Kill".  I chuckled inwardly in a rather superior fashion as I thought it was a spelling mistake and mentioned this to Indy who was with me.

Boy, did I get an education.

I thought that it was the large numbers of trucks with eastern European and beyond number plates on them whose drivers took benzedrine or the equivalent to help them stay awake and able to drive for hours at a stretch.  Not so, for if you google "drug driving", you will find that in Australia it is more prevalent than drunk driving and that earlier in 2015 in the UK new laws had been put in place enabling police to stop cars and not necessarily breathalyse the driver, but do roadside tests for a whole list of banned substances like cocaine and cannabis.

But it was what Indy said that pulled back my ears.

He said that the UK is now the drug capital of Europe so he wasn't surprised at the roadsign then went on to say that here the drugs of choice were less smokable but more chemical than in the US, which is the other way around apparently.  Also many of the chemicals of choice are 'legal highs' which are even more dangerous as they are constructs by ex-students looking to pay off their student loans in a more profitable way than flipping hamburgers as jobs for new graduates are so few and far between.

These legal highs are basically chemicals and compounds that are freely available that with a little chemistry can synthesize other drugs such as ecstasy.  The authorities are banning them as fast as they can but these chemist-entrepreneurs are staying one step ahead by adding a new compound to the mix each time.

Trouble is these new synthetics have side effects that nobody has been able to gauge which is contributing to the higher incidence of mental disorders such as schizophrenia ...

Bloody hell!

So if student loans are waived, will all this stop?

Food, food and more food

When you go to a Chinese banquet there are certain definites:

1) 10 courses -- and not nouvelle cuisine courses either.  These are substantial!

2) Soup at some point, maybe shark fin or bird's nest although these days shark fin is something of an endangered species dish.  Maybe not endangered but the thought of sharks swimming around without a dorsal fin isn't that popular these days.

3) Long life noodles to finish -- a certain kind of veggie noodles that are deep fried and insanely good and which finish off the banquet, just when you most need it!

The event was Viv's mum Anna's 80th birthday party and was held at the China Boulevard restaurant in the newly gentrified Wandsworth, in the midst of new flats by the Thames just next to Wandsworth Bridge and the Ship pub if you want some precise instructions on how to get there. It was really good so going back wouldn't be a hardship!

The guests were from Anna's life and was a nice chance to have Indy, Ali and Anton in the same room at the same time of course along with Viv and I.  Most others were Anna's co-travelers and MJ victims but there were some people from the old Hong Kong days too.  So a nice bunch to catch up with.  Particularly nice was seeing Farida and Pervez after 20 years or so (according to Pervez who droned on and on about this so he's probably right).  Farida was Viv's school friend and had been matron of honour at our wedding and we'd been on holiday with them pre-children too so it was lovely to see them again and reflect how easy it is to lose contact and the time just slips by...

In the days before selfies...

But the food just kept on coming!

The lobster course

And the event just kept on going too for as soon as the food ended, impromptu MJ tables sprung up whilst the rest of us just kept on chatting and partying.  At 9 or 10 pm more food came out for a late night snack before calling it quits.  I annoyingly didn't pick up a copy of the menu but remember a wonderful steamed fish playing quite a part in the late night proceedings.

And to prove we could, on the way back we stopped off at Anna's favourite restaurant in Greenwich for lots and lots of dim sum!

I felt like a roly poly pudding at the end of it all!

Castling

England in June is pretty nice.  Probably the best time of the year weather wise as it is starting to get warm and the people are coming out from under their winter clothing and probably seeing sun for the first time since... well this time last year pretty much.

We were heading to England with the full family for Viv's mum's 80th birthday party at a Chinese restaurant in Wandsworth, a Chinese banquet with 10 courses... a traditional number.  I'd not been to Wandsworth for more than 30 years and to say the least when last I visited, it was a bit of a dump.  These days though with all the gentrification of the City, I was sure I'd be surprised.

But that was a couple of days hence.  In the meantime was some castling!  Dover Castle in fact.

Pharos to the right, Church/Castle to the left

And what a castle it is!  The earliest part is Roman -- a lighthouse (or Pharos) on top of the hill overlooking Dover Harbour.  It must have been in existence even back then as the commentary suggested it was a beacon (along with another on the western approaches) to guide Roman galleys to safe moorings within the harbour.

Next came the Jutes (the Saxons were in a different part of the country, more north and west in Essex, Middlesex and Sussex) who built the first castle around the local church (no really, around as in the church is the inside of the castle) as a defence against the Vikings but obviously the Normans couldn't stand for that and stomped them and built a real castle, rather like they did around the rest of the country.

When you consider strategic location, this really is it with Dover Harbour just under the castle and only 21 miles away from our oldest enemy, France.  It was a clear day so we could see the French coast and imagine why this castle has been the single longest operational castle in Great Britain.  Everything went through Dover and still it looks it still does as the ferries were continuous throughout the day.

It is the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta this year and so up and down the country there are events that attempt to 'put things in perspective' for people today.  Throughout the day inside the main part of the castle were such events for this was the place where all the activity leading up to Magna Carta and beyond took place.  King John was here for ages as he was fighting in France... not against the French it should be added but his various brothers.  He had 3 brothers all of whom didn't get on and all of whom wanted to be King of all the various legacy parts of Henry II's vast possessions.  The upshot of all this fighting of course was that nobody really won (except the French) and back home the Barons got sick of John's activities and themselves rebelled.  Caught betwixt and between (sort of) John had no alternative but to sign the Great Charter.  However he had the last laugh by reneging on it immediately after the invading French left in 1216.

The Keep or specifically King's Hall inside the Keep

But the point of this was that in one of the chambers was an 'actor' portraying King John sitting and talking to a group of tourists like me describing how bad a deal it was for the common people as along with the other 'freedoms' supposedly gained by the 'people', it actually enshrined in law perpetual sefdom for anyone who wasn't a 'free man'.  A free man was someone who owned a certain amount of property... yes you guessed it, the barons!  So whilst it gave them certain 'freedoms' it also took away everyone else's in their entirety.

So much for Magna Carta then!  But as 'King John' said, the document did receive very many revisions in later years thankfully which gives us the common law we enjoy today.

This was cheesy to be sure, but King John was a very good choice as he was both knowledgable and able to debate certain points with any rebellious tourist who wanted to take him on.  And there were enough to keep it interesting for a good long while.  Strange though that the loudest who professed herself to be an unbeliever (in God that is, very trendy these days in England) felt uncomfortable when King John suggested she would be burned as a heretic and that she was lucky to have been born 900 years too late for that to become a reality.

We weren't able to go into the tunnels under the hill where extensive barracks had been dug going back to medieval times and from which in WWII the local Naval commander, Admiral Ramsey, coordinated the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940.  It must have been an amazing sight.  All those large and little ships criss crossing the Channel under continuous attack from the German navy and airforce bringing back 338,000 soldiers of the BEF and French armies.

If only Churchill had turned his hand around, how much more appropriate it would be at times like this

It makes you shudder to think what could have happened if the German army had broken through in France.  Life would be very different today.

We wandered around the castle walls, examined the old 11th, 12th and 13th century fortifications (the castle became obsolete with the advent of cannons) and towards the end of the day 2 Spitfies in D-Day markings of black and white stripes flew sedately past I imagine to some flying show of some sort.  Flying low and seemingly quite slowly, it seems odd to think it was my Dad and his 'few' comrades who flew those in the Battle of Britain which stopped the Germans for the first time and encouraged them to go somewhere else.  Yet again, thanks Dad.

Dad and his 'little friend'

What a castle though.  I want to go back.  To think I lived within 10 miles of this place for 5 years and scorned the very idea of going to Dover Castle.  What was I thinking?

And afterwards we checked out the white cliffs.  Whoa!

The First Freedom Fighters...

It doesn't really matter where you are in the world so long as you look deeply enough, for everywhere and everyone has a story.  Sometimes you just have to look for it.  So last weekend when we heard about a Bermuda Historical Society sponsored boat trip around the islands in the Great Sound, we just had to go.

View from the hill on Long Island over Marshall's Island and the Sound

Moreover the guide was a friend's husband, Andy, whose passion seems to have become the more obscure bits of Bermuda history and in particular the part played by Bermuda in the Boer War 1899-1902.

One of the only things I know about my grandad is that he served in the Boer War but as he died in WWI in early 1915 before my mum was born and could ask about it, I know nothing about it (or him actually -- not even his name).  So I've always had an interest.

The tour started at Albuoy's Point and went slowly through the islands turning around at Morgan's Point (formerly Morgan's Island and Tucker's Island respectively) before wending our way through Hawkins Island, into Paradise Lakes and to the destination -- the Boer POW camp on Long Island.

The creek in Morgan's Island where today a new resort is being built.  In 1775 it was the scene of the Gunpowder plot when Mr. Morgan stole some powder from the Redcoats and shipped it through here to the Rebels in the US... who promptly wasted it.  That bit isn't the romantic part of the story though!

The stories were great.  Every island had at least one.  Take Darrell's Island for instance.  In the 17th through 19th centuries, the islands had one similarity -- they were used to house inhabitants who had one of the fell diseases that periodically culled the population.  Things like yellow fever, small pox, leprosy, and any number of other wonderful ailments.  One particular outbreak of yellow fever killed one-third of the population of Bermuda.  Thank goodness that's all over.

Memorial on Ports Island for the 14 members of the crew of a French naval vessel who died of yellow fever in the 1850's. The shape of the memorial is traditional French freemasonry symbolism apparently.  

And then in 1795, the Royal Navy asked for the assistance of one of the local pilots named Gilbert Darrell who showed the way through the reefs for the first time into the Great Sound.  As a reward Gilbert was freed and had an island named after him (he must have been a slave).  Initially the Navy thought about building the main base on a combination of Hawkins, Nelly's, Hinson's and Darrell's Islands but in 1807 rethought things and plumped for Ireland Island, then a far away region in the island.

However these other islands weren't going to be left alone for long for the nascent Empire fought a LOT of wars and soon found the need to house a LOT of POW's.  Where better than a speck in the middle of the ocean?  Nobody was ever going to escape.  And so Bermuda's islands became military prisons starting with 1,400 or so Americans in the 1812-14 War and moving forward therefrom.

It was the Boer War though that had the most POW's following 2 years of generally miserable warfare (from the British side that is) that had degenerated into guerilla warfare that suited the Boers far more.  So the British responded with a scorched earth policy of burning all farms and imprisoning all Afrikaans (and their sympathizers) in 'concentration camps' in South Africa.  Conditions were apparently dreadful so 28,000 died in these camps but the menfolk of fighting age were sent 2,000 miles away to other bits of the Empire including Bermuda.

History buffs on Long Island

Ultimately more than 4,000 POW's ended up in Bermuda starting in 1900 housed on a variety of islands but split up according to their status.  There were the 'hands uppers' who'd surrendered and probably would have pledged allegiance to the Crown if asked... but they were sent to Bermuda too.  Then there were the 'bitter enders', those who'd fight on until the end and would not surrender.  After the end of the war in 1902, only 4 bitter enders refused to pledge allegiance and stayed in Bermuda until 1925, 1926, 1927 and 1928 respectively... they all died here.  There were also young boys who were housed alone and then a mixture of POW's in communal camps.  All were administered from Ports Island.

Amazingly only 35 POW's died in captivity with each buried in the cemetary on Long Island next to the traditional yellow fever cemetery.  It is beautifully maintained (or was on the day we visited).  It is well worth a visit.

The yellow fever memorial on Long Island 

Back in the late 1980's still in the time of apartheid, a human rights group organised a conference in Bermuda and invited all South African political parties including the then government and the ANC, then banned and mainly living in exile outside South Africa.  Andy was in Special Branch and organized security for the trip and one of the excursions was to this POW camp.  One of the ANC leaders (one whose name I don't remember but was Nelson Mandela's number 2) told Andy that he had to come and give respect to the first freedom fighters of his country.  I hadn't thought of it that way before. Nicely put.

Andy doing his thing at the Boer POW memorial

But credit to Andy.  His dedication to Bermuda history and in particular this little part of it has made him something of a celebrity on the topic in South Africa where he has given presentations and led discussions on this particular aspect of our mutual history.

Back to the other stories.

Darrell's Island was the flying boat landing place and depot for the island serving New York for Pan American and the old Imperial Airways (forerunner of British Airways).

The flying boat terminal on Darrell's Island

During WWII Churchill met Roosevelt (FDR) for a conference and brought the battleship, HMS Duke of York, with him.  However he flew here on a flying boat and enjoyed it so much that he decided he'd fly back to England on the same plane instead of taking the battleship/safer route.  Flying at 190 mph for 3,200 miles in a plane with a 3,400 mile capacity may to some seem reckless but to Churchill, it was par for the course even though the Luftwaffe chased him for a while and the RAF thought he was an intruder and therefore fair game.  History shows he came through it all thankfully.

German POW's in both wars were housed in Bermuda too although those in WWII weren't housed on any of the islands.  They were housed on the US Naval Annex which was the old Morgan's/Tucker's Islands joined together by the 1940's US engineers.  The locals tell stories of waving to the POW's as they passed by on the train.  They didn't usually stay long though until U-505.

In June 1944 some US navy vessels captured U-505 off the coast of Senegal in West Africa and discovered when they stopped the crew from scuttling the U-boat that it had the newest version of the Enigma coding machine together with an up to date code book.  Because this needed to be kept a secret from the Germans, the US vessels towed U-505 to Bermuda, some 2,000 miles, where they became an official secret for 7 months until the entire Atlantic U-boat fleet was first disclosed and then destroyed (by January 1945) at which point the POW's were transferred to official camps.  The captain however was badly injured in the action, losing a leg, so stayed behind a while longer convalescing until he was well enough to be moved.  When he left in February 1945, he became the last POW ever to be housed in Bermuda.

In the words of Michael Caine, not many people know that.

A New Dawn

We were in England only 4 days yet this is my 4th blog post of the trip, this one nothing really to do with me.  Its just that from the moment we touched down we were immersed in the result of the amazing General Election.

May 7th had been election day in Bermuda too, but for the Corporations of Hamilton and St. George. But in England it was the real thing and what an election it was for after 5 years of Coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, every poll suggested this one would be even more of a mixed bag.  The Tories would get 280-290, Labour a few less, the Scottish Nationalists would probably get most of Scotland and the rest would be shared around.  That meant no single majority and the probable need for either of the Tories or Labour to deal with at least 2 of the other groupings.

History shows that the pundits got it completely wrong!

The Tories won on their own whilst Labour and the Lib-Dems were hammered.  With the SNP winning 56 out of 59 seats in Scotland, this is likely to mean tough times ahead in Parliament for all parties.

But what joy in those smarty pants pollsters with all the technology and clever questions getting it so wrong.  Much of the drive from Gatwick to Birmingham was spent listening to these pundits trying to explain how it hadn't been their fault rather the electorate who didn't answer the questions properly.  But most of the rest was spent listening to the left leaning BBC enable ex-Labour MP's in explaining how they lost (not their fault nor Ed Milliband's) and how disastrous the next 5 years would be under the Tories.

The right leaning newspapers however gleefully reported the demise of every party but the Tories and the SNP going over in glowing, tiny detail how Milliband's menhir, Ed Balls' arrogance and Nigel Clegg's perfidy had ended up biting them in the backside.

What surprised me though was to hear so many people say that the result was the end of democracy in Britain.  But then again that was the BBC asking the 'right' people.  If they'd asked the 'wrong' people, the answer would have been different.  At least everyone had the chance to vote.  Its nobody's fault that it didn't turn out how everyone wanted.  Someone always has to lose after all.  Ask Nigel Farage. UKIP had 3 times as many votes as the SNP but only won 1 seat, not 56.  That's the Westminster System for you.

Milliband, Clegg and Cameron at the VE+70 service at the Cenotaph.  Perfect timing!

What was it Churchill said?  "Democracy is the worst form of government ... apart from all the others".

Warwick, Bermuda or Warwick, England...?

We only had one full day between the wedding and moving on so decided to spend it in Warwick, a charming old town or in particular Warwick Castle which everyone we'd spoken to had said was very beautiful and more importantly in good condition.

Warwick is pretty much in the middle -- if you can really call it that given the country's unruly shape -- of the country.  It is in the old kingdom called Mercia and in the early 10th century was the dividing line between the unruly Vikings to the North and the Saxons to the South.

The Vikings had touched down on Lindisfarne off the Northumbrian coast in the late 8th century and had returned to terrorise and ultimately colonise the country ever since.  At this point in time, the Saxons were hanging on for grim death after the death of King Alfred but his daughter Ethelfleda stepped up in this neck of the woods and built the first encampment -- you couldn't really call it a castle in those days but it was effective enough for the Vikings.

Not so for the even more unruly and rather more effective and determined (and very nasty) Normans for after Hastings in 1068 the bas***d set up shop in Warwick (this was William I's nickname by the way.  Not something you said to his face of course but you certainly thought it).

William I was in the process of 'harrying the north' -- i.e. massacring, looting and generally being thoroughly unpleasant and violent -- and felt he needed to build a series of fortified castles around the country to control his new realm.  Warwick therefore became a real castle with the traditional Motte and Bailie structure -- you can still see the Mound upon which the Motte was built (the Keep in modern parlance).  The entire area was surrounded by wooden stakes which in the absence of cannons did the job pretty well.

A while later William realised Warwick wasn't so strategically smart after all so he created the Earldom of Warwick (one of his comrades named Henry de Newburgh) and moved to London... rather like so many did to seek their fortunes after him.

The family held onto the castle and title for 5 generations and started to get a stony demeanor during which it endured several sieges -- some successful -- but the market town outside grew and thrived not least due to it becoming a centre for jousting.

The Kingmaker's horse in the Great Hall

The family ran out of male heirs in 1242 and it wasn't until 1268 when the interim earls -- useless to a man according to our guide -- were succeeded by William de Beauchamp, a good earl whose family would stay in charge for 181 years.

The de Beauchamps were enormously clever, brave, lucky, connected and immensely wealthy -- our guide said that due to the 100 Years War early victories for the English and consequent ransoming of wealthy French nobles captured along the way, Thomas and later Richard of the same name became the wealthiest men in England with a fortune equivalent to GBP34 billion... which they used to build the castle in the shape of how it is today.

Their line rather petered out though and the earldom passed to a son-in-law, Richard Neville, in 1449.

This was the kingmaker!

He was quite simply the most powerful man in the country able to both crown and remove a king (either Henry VI or Edward IV) as he felt.  Yes, he changed sides a couple of times but with reason.  He'd crowned Edward IV but the new king decided to marry someone Neville didn't like -- and with good reason for the lady in question was married and had children of her own.  The Kingmaker wanted Edward to make a good marriage and secure the line with some heirs of his own but Edward just went ahead and did it.  So Neville took him prisoner and recrowned Henry VI... sadly only for just over a month as Edward's supporters were able to raise an army and defeat him rather rudely at the Battle of Barnet in 1471.  Neville was also rather unfortunately hacked to pieces in the process with the vengeful Edward (a Yorkist) taking the castle and lands for his own.

Skip a few kings and Henry VII came to the throne launching the Tudor dynasty which continued the vengeful ways for over 100 years ignoring the castle to the point where it was starting to fall down at which point in 1604, the new king James I now of England gave the castle as a bribe to someone he wanted to impress named Fulke Greville.

Fortunately Fulke loved the place and rebuilt virtually everything to an amazing standard including the private apartments and gardens we enjoy today.  His successor survived a Royalist siege in 1642 during the Civil War and after Charles II's restoration redid the entire place and turned it into the best party place in the entire country -- if our guide is to be believed.

Canaletto was commissioned to paint the Castle in 1742 -- not bad either!

The Grevilles were great collectors of art, military paraphernalia and endless other stuff until they realised they had to pay for it, so in 1815 they opened the castle to tourists -- the first castle to do this in the country (and probably the world).

It was death duties that finally did for the Grevilles who finally sold up (to the Tussaud Group) in 1978 with the current earl moving to Perth in Australia to make a fortune and declare he wouldn't return to England until the tax regime changed.  I think he won't be returning any time soon!

Gorgeous castle though.  Mind you I left feeling we had just had more of an 'experience' than a historical visit by the time we left several hours later.

PS -- the dungeon visit was well worth it.

PPS -- Most of the family were buried in a church called St. Mary's Church in Warwick.  We have always lived in Warwick since we've been in Bermuda and the local Anglican parish church is St. Mary's Church in Warwick.  Coincidence??