Sunday, January 6, 2008

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Dear Pete and Fellows,

At our time of life it is important to seek and cherish every little compensating thought that we can. An example: We have all passed 64 and I am sure that we are all still needed and fed which is more than can be said for one of the surviving perpetrators of that little 1960's ditty.

Another, though the comfort is a little cooler is that my sixteen year old youngster did not run away with a man from the Motor Trade; he is in the Music Business. So, That's All Right Then.

To compound the act. she waited until parents, grand mother and sister were all 800 miles away before telling us (by phone) that she was not at home with house sitters hosting a friend from Formosa as we thought but intended travelling to Greece with the New Love In Her Life. Rather unsportingly and I expect she will remind us of this in years to come, we asked her uncle, all twenty or so stone, shaven head and heavy boots to wrest her passport away from her. Well, one never knows what the water is like in these Foreign Parts.

Better safe than sorry.

Apart from that, we had an excellent time in France. Or Catalonia as we should call this region. Although very much within the mountain range and therefore much cooler than Perpignan, we were easily as warm as London, almost 90* F but rather more dry. Grass was uniformly yellow, though trees presumably had adapted and still had all their leaves.

The day following my younger's disclosure I was woken from my after lunch nap by the smell of smoke and shrieks from my elder daughter, Emily. Our garden is about thirty feet long, ending in a very low wall and gate which opens onto a communal park which effectively extends the gardens of the surrounding houses. Some residential roads in London are similarly arranged around Notting Hill. Ornamental trees, good lawn a pleasure to walk or sit.

Opposite our wall is a new house nearing completion. One of the builders had piled up spare timber and had set fire to it. Now, this time of the year, grass yellow and timber dry, there are few worse offences. Obviously the builder had travelled from many miles away where he probably lived in marshland. You may remember the forest fire which devastated much of the country just north of Perpignan a couple of years ago. The locals certainly do.

There are signs everywhere warning against fire. My daughter was over the wall and standing in front of the builder almost as soon as the first whiff of smoke appeared explaining this fact to him in Perfect English. He replied in Perfect French. I did not understand every word, but he made himself plain by chucking more timber on the blaze, sending a shower of sparks dangerously near the trees. Another resident appeared and repeated what Emily had said, but in French and complete with fist gestures. More people arrived, understandably worried, if the grass caught, the trees may well have followed. Le Canigou is surrounded by unbroken forest which could easily have gone up in smoke, quite apart from our houses. Grudgingly, the builder turned on a hose and made a show of dousing the flames, in fact it simply increased the smoke which now obscured the park. At that moment, two gendarmes appeared.

"Oh good," exclaimed Emily, "They have guns. Shoot him" she demanded, still in English. When this did not happen, she requested of the nearest French neighbour: "How do you say: Shoot him".

The policeman led the man to the front of the house, out of our sight. To Emily's obvious distress, he reappeared a few moments later, bullet hole free, but made a thorough job of dousing the fire. I gathered later that the police are empowered to demand spot fines for these offences and can be very persuasive. Anyway, this episode restored the faith in my daughters so cruelly shaken the previous day.

If you want any more and there is plenty.
Just ask
Neil

My Hols, Thursday, August 30, 2007 8:09 PM

Dear Fellows,

This is my fourth visit to France since the 1960's. Compared to those days( the 1960's of course) it is a different country in many little ways; some good, others not so good.

The good is the transport system, including the roads. Road humps are very very rare. Autorouts, (toll motorways) are very common; every page of the Michelin map shows at least one north-south autoroute, with accompanying Route National the former primary road, (which now acts as an A (toll free) road.) Adequate, but has more traffic and many junctions. We calculated that paying the toll more than made up for extra exasperation and increase in petrol consumption of stop start motoring.

The road system is about 20 years in advance of England.

The not so good is the prevalence of dirty diesel engines. If thoroughly flushed with flushing oil at the recommended intervals, the exhaust is not so smelly. As it is, instead of Galoise, the streets smell like a bus depot during a busy period.

I have actually been overdoing it for the past few weeks, so I did not really wake up until we reached Paris. Once again we circled Paris using the Route Peripatetic (the French equivalent of our M 25, though as far from the centre of Paris as Vauxhall is to London).

Paris cannot be compared to London, at least not to The Square Mile. Half of what people refer to as London is the neighbouring city of Westminster. Both of these city's are surrounded by umpteen small towns and villages.

Streatham, for example was, until just over a century ago, a north Surrey village.

Paris is now ringed by really rather dispiriting blocks of flats, the denizens of which were described by Nicholas Sarcozy in terms I will not repeat. The other Nicholas (Van Hoogstraten) would have probably agreed with him. Did not harm his presidential chances. I simply wonder what drives a man to uproot his family to live in what is, in effect, a prison within a foreign country.

The north half of France resembles south east England, rolling hills, occasional forests, that sort of thing. From mid France, the eastern side is dominated by the Massif Central, which needs no translation. Clearly this area was dramatically affected during the volcanic period. Not a safe place at all, in those days.

There are very few long valleys. Roads at ground level would be obliged to twist and turn all over the place, so the French have simply built viaducts, most are 50 or so yards long. I counted five along one stretch, under our and neighbouring roads.

The king of viaducts is, of course the one at Millau, built by Norman Foster and a French engineer: Michael Virlogeux.

Well worth driving through France just to enjoy looking at it. The statistics are astonishing; It is taller than the Eifel tower, just a little shorter (35 meters) than the Empire State building also, it is 2460 meters, over one and a half miles long. As a comparison; from Marble Arch, along Oxford Street to Centre Point, or Marble Arch to Charing Cross station. Nearer home, from Streatham Hill station to Brixton Underground. One Hell Of A Distance. Admit it.

Nearing the Millais Viaduct, we stopped for petrol. We had an unusually long wait, the driver of the car in front seemed to have vanished, we drove around him to reach a free pump just beside the cash kiosk, where I discovered a possible reason for the delay; the young lady at the till was of such beauty, almost rivalling that of my daughters. No, I will not apologise, which father does not consider his daughters as the most beautiful of women, almost rivalling their mother.

Whilst I was standing, regretting my mis-spent youth, I was elbowed aside by a burly lady who easily resembled an American footballer in full kit, with the mouth of a cheerleader, "A fishwife, if ever I have seen one, I mused"(and I have seen plenty)

Any doubt on this score was instantly dispersed by her letting fly a torrent of French (as in "Excuse my") at such a speed I couldn't keep up.

To my astonishment (and delight) my little Angel changed her appearance; her face was no longer cheerful optimism but outright fury "Wrath of God-On Stilts" would convey an idea. What she said was beyond me, but she was clearly responding in the same coin, with knobs on.

An approach not to be found in "The Employees Guide to Good Customer Relations", specifically chapter 10:"How to Win Over the difficult Client".

However it seemed to do the trick.

Over the years I have noticed that the observation: "A soft answer turneth away wrath..." (Proverbs 15:1) is only effective when dealing with those who are "Playing the Game" As also Jesus' comment on "Turning the other cheek". One might meet the chap who enjoys smiting cheeks; the more the better.

Clearly a Plan B should be somewhere to hand as was so ably demonstrated.

This brings to mind a report in last years Daily Telegraph of a desk sergeant in a South American country who was dealing, as best he could with a Member of the Public who had a real or imagined grievance. After a while a young policeman chanced into the outer office. Seeing his opportunity to take advantage of his tea (or tequila) break, the sergeant asked the Young Policeman to "Get rid of him", gesturing towards the "Member of the Public"

"Righto Guv" (or Latin American equivalent) responded the Young officer, who took the man firmly by the elbow, escorted him outside the building, withdrew his service revolver and shot him, dead.

Apparently the youngster was distressed when his executive action failed to meet with the unalloyed approval of his senior officers,
This action probably did not feature in the aforementioned manual either.

Plan B it may be, but rather more drastic than I would have recommended.

Is there more? I expect so
Neil

Michaelmas Term Lads, Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Dear Richard,

Our time was from 1952.

I think I served the longest of our group, taking another year in the 6th form to improve on my initially poor exam result, I left finally in 1960, with, I think ten O levels. Most on "the instalment plan". I also managed a couple of A's. I would have easily obtained a Scholarship level in Botany, however the school had stopped offering this "elitist" exam.

Dr Toms did not teach divinity, quite the reverse. He once assured us, when one of his better pupils, Len Strom, requested time off to attend a Jewish festival, that he regarded all Religious Observance as Hypocrisy. On the few occasions he conducted morning assembly, following the passing of Mr Dawes, he barely disguised his distaste for the whole business. Although he did not realise it, he was a devotee of The New Religion, the Religion which Dare Not Speak it's Name.

This reticence is not due to Shame, though that would be understandable, but through conceit, though, of course, this is not admitted or even suspected by the Communicant. The Name of the Religion is: Scientism.

It has Prophets, though, again not recognised as such. The best known is Charles Darwin. More recent ones include Arthur C Clark (The Future is Not What it Was, is one of his better quotes). There are scores of others, though lack of space prevents me....

Understandably, very few quantum physicists would be members of this church as they realise All Is Not As It Seems. Now, I have not strayed far from the point of Dr Harold Toms, I assure you.

The first occasion I sat in his laboratory, our regular teacher was away, I noticed the Periodic Table of the elements on a chart hung on his wall. I think I was about 15. Prior to this time, I had not given the material universe much thought, taking everything for granted. Here was a chart of breathtaking simplicity with a few glaring anomalies such as hydrogen oxide.

According to the pattern exhibited by the chart, this chemical should be a gas with a lower boiling point than its analogue, hydrogen sulphide and only exist as liquid at low temperature and under considerable pressure.

Common sense would lead one to expect a light gas combined with the very lightest gas to exist as a gas also. In fact, hydrogen oxide is known as water.

If the unusual property of water at normal temperatures was not enough. Consider what happens when it cools below 4*C. I did not dignify my revelation with anything as pompous as a divine plan, I did feel that there was more to the universe than could be explained by "A Big Bang".

I did tackle Toms with this subject a few years later. To him, of course, there was no mystery at all. Certainly no need or room for external intelligence. We left the discussion with the agreement that it was very lucky for us that hydrogen oxide behaved as it did.

I have written on Mr Alnwick, whose daughter visited me as a patient a couple of years ago. I will try and find the letter I wrote at the time.

Anyway I have written enough for today.
Neil

Michaelmas Term Lads. Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Neil

Many thanks for your birthday wishes. I imagine I am lucky to have had 14cards although several of them were for 4 year-olds with a badge to suit and with an 8 written in front of the 4! Especially good to have a phone call from my daughter in Adelaide supported by emails from my two grandsons there.

What memories you evoke in mentioning Dr Toms. I lived in Romola Road at Tulse Hill and every morning as I walked to and up Tulse Hill itself I would see Dr Toms get off a No.2 bus and set off in the same direction. He always wore a trilby hat and a long raincoat (without a belt) and carried an attache case - as we called them then. I had to look out for him in order to put my cap on! He was a really nice guy and as I remember taught science of one description or another - so I am interested in your reference to Religious Studies.
In my day that was the fief of one Rev Arthur Charles Digby French. I still have all my Journals (did they exist in your day?) and one comment of his was 'Does nothing apparently'!

Bearing in mind I was taliking about 1934 onwards it is apparent that Dr Toms went on for some time. Have I already told you (short term memory loss is part of old age!) that a few weeks ago I had a visit from a Douglas Roberts - Yates House 1939 - who I last met on Sunday mornings in 1938 at the Milk Bar in Streatham Hill? He brought me a copy of a School Photograph of 1937 and so far I have been able to name 42 boys and pretty well all the Masters.As I look at them now from left to right: Alnwick, Cushion, French, Pearce, Yates, Towler, Adair, unknown, Medley, Toms, Round, McMinn, Warren, Dawe, Pitson, Wilton, unknown, Herrick, Pack, Dark, White and 2 German Students/Assistant Masters named Herr Feller and Herr Vatter (should be an umlaut over the a).

I wonder how many were still around in your time - would I be right in pitching that around 1954-1958?

Richard

Michaelmas Term Lads, Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Dear Fellows,

The first few leaves have fallen and it is now quite dark at what I thought of as "cider time", when I would drink my first (!) glass under the evening sun after a day interfering with the garden.

Clearly we have entered Michaelmas Term. I intended celebrating by sending a photo of Dr Harold Toms. My wretched new machine will not allow me to mail this or any photo, as my old, out of date one did.

Dr Harold, our Deputy headmaster was probably, albeit passively, more responsible for my religious view of life than the Other Harold (Hippo).

On reflection, Harold and Harry are variants of a name which cannot be applied to the same person. Harry Toms? Harold Waddingham? See what I mean. In the case of Hippo, he could never have been a Harry.

On Ft.Lieut. Waddingham, successor to The Swine, I have quite a lot to write, probably knowing him better than most of our little group. Sorry, you will have to wait for this, "With breath that is bated" (H.Poirot).

Now, I have ten members recorded for Strand. Not far off a third of a class. However, we need a litle Roll Call. How is Ray? I do hope he is on the mend. If he is still taking note of my mail, he should know, for old times sake, that standing next to the Elephant and Castle shopping centre/roundabout, more or less opposite the space once occupied by his house, it is possible to see the London Eye without standing on tip toe.

Happy Birthday Richard.
Neil