The Story of Piglet and Kanga

During my three years at the University of Warwick there were many happy milestones to mark that particular journey, but by far the most memorable for me was the night I read a bedtime story. Two attractive and nubile young ladies, all of nineteen years of age, (I was 45) were tucked up in their beds in their shared on campus accommodation. Both clutched their favourite teddies. One I recall named ‘Gorgeous’.

I was there by invitation and sat on one of the beds. I began reading the story of Piglet & Kanga from Winnie the Pooh. I haven’t had a more attentive audience since I read stories to my own children. As I turned the last page it came to my attention that I had ‘lost’ my audience – they were both fast asleep. I closed the book, crept out softly, closed the door and revelled in the sheer magic of a moment I was privileged to share and have never forgotten.

Mountain Men

A large greystone barn tucked away in a glen beneath Ben Nevis. A muddy, swollen river swirls silently alongside. Beneath the hayloft of the barn a long, narrow stable, the walls glistening with damp and condensation. A pressurised paraffin cooker roars like a jet engine on test, but emits a penetrating warmth and pleasant vapours that seduces the mind into a cosy, nostalgic mood. A rheumy-eyed carthorse watches sleepily from his manger at the end of the stable, grateful perhaps for the pleasant warmth on such a cold night. The talk is muted, broken occasionally by bursts of laughter. Now and then a figure will fetch another bottle of beer, or fry a tasty omelette sandwich, filling the stable with delicious smells of eggs, bacon, onion and cheese.

The talk rarely varied, always of tricky arêtes, corries, abseiling, glissading, taking shufti's on 'The Ben', dangerous climbs, beautiful climbs, names like Johnny Lees, John Brown, Hamish McInnis, of equipment, grampons, pitons, tragsitz, vibrams, nails, duvets and cagoules, of haufing, belaying, traversing and, just occasionally in a lighter vein, the 'birds' in the 'Fort' (girls in Fort William). Thus I sat, a privileged interloper, in an entirely new world where even the language was foreign, The world of mountain men, specifically the world of the RAF Kinloss mountain rescue team. There were nine RAF teams in all, six in Britain based at Kinloss, Morayshire; Leuchars, Fife; Leeming, Yorkshire; Valley, Anglesey; Stafford, Staffordshire; St Athen, Glamorganshire. Abroad there are three teams based at Aden, Hong Kong and Cyprus. Every man is a volunteer and performs his rescue duties apart from his normal job on the station. Although being a team member carries certain privileges and prestige the applicants are few and those who stay the course even fewer. A special breed of man is required to survive as a member. There is no pay for this job, the training courses are the toughest and most rigorous that could be devised and the members are expected to surrender every moment of their leave and spare time. Add to that the fact that the team is required to work in the filthiest weathers and that danger and death are constant companions one appreciates the smallness of the rewards. For two weeks over the Christmas period when the men would normally be on leave and home with their families the teams are on standby duty at their respective base camps, like Cameron's barn in Glen Nevis. Here they live as they do every weekend, training, eating, sleeping and ever ready for the almost inevitable call-out. The Christmas period seems to have a priority on accidents and fatalities. Due, it seems, mainly to two direct circumstances: University students are on holiday and are particularly prone to adopting the wildest climbing schemes. Linked with their lack of experience and lack of equipment the result is inevitably fatal. Secondly, every climb is graded from moderate to hard-severe and serious climbers must - to achieve experience and fulfillment - make those climbs in both summer and winter conditions. Despite their experience and preparedness all too frequently they are not conversant with the special hazards of the weather on the Scottish mountains weather that can change from gentle sunshine to raging blizzard within minutes, where exposure can kill in a matter of hours if a single false step doesn't kill you first. In bad weather on a mountain the choice is not a happy one - if you stay still you will die from exposure yet frequently you cannot see the next step in front of you and death is only a step away. Finally there is the utterly stupid climber who, like all good mountain men, leaves a note in the specially positioned boxes of exactly where he is going and his starting time and date, then halfway up change his mind and goes somewhere else. Injured or lost it may take the rescue teams as long as three weeks to find his body, simply because of his own misleading directions. In the main these are the general reasons for accidents on the mountains, but there are always the odd cases like the two drunks rescued from the top of Ben Nevis by the Kinlos team on New Years Eve. Both were very happy and singing loudly unknowing and uncaring that by morning they would have been dead from exposure. The Kinloss team, not to detract from the hazards faced by other teams, covers a particularly dangerous area reaching across the Scottish highlands from the Moray Firth to Skye and Strathy point to the North Western Cairngorms. The area includes some of the most hazardous climbs anywhere in the world, including Britain's highest peak, Ben Nevis and the snow covered slopes of the Cairngorms. The qualifications needed to enjoy these masochistic pleasures are few but stringent. A level head, a strong physique and above all a constant gnawing need to climb. 'Because it was there' is not a joke, it is deadly serious. Although the teams were formed as recently as 1942 they already have their legendary figures, like Sqd/Ldr Dave Dattner who led the Kinloss team. A man of tremendous charm, personality and courage. A man who insisted that every team member should be able to stitch open wounds and took a masochistic pleasure in slashing himself with a knife and making the members sew him up. Sqd/Ldr. Dattner, Sgt. Johnny Lees, C/T John Hines, it is men like these that have made the R.A.F. MRTs the smooth, efficient and tough units they are today. On a rescue when life is at stake the safety margin that allows for error is pushed to its very limits and the team must work as one man, their lives as well as the victims depend on their sped and skill. It is to their credit that despite the fantastic numbers of rescues that they have carried out they have only ever lost one man. Some would say that that was one too many, but they are usually the ones who have never been out with a mountain rescue team. The men themselves are curious in the odd mixture of intellects and temperaments, ranging across the full academic and social scene, frequently they meet on only one common ground, climbing, sufficient however to depend on each other for their lives. Their clothes and gear are always a mixture of RAF issue and any expensive personal items like duvets (quilted jackets) not issued by the RAF. The RAF equipment is sufficient - just. But when their comfort and lives depend on their equipment they prefer the best available, dipping deep into their own pockets to provide it. Hats are prized possessions; old, dirty, battered, ranging from Andy Cap's to deerstalkers. Local dances at Fort William or Kinlochleven are no longer surprised by the entrance of a couple of dozen men wearing heavy climbing boots, brightly coloured duvets, seaboot socks, scruffy sweaters and the hilarious hats. Local reaction is mixed with respect and gratitude from the middle and elder aged groups and resentment by the young males who too often lose girlfriends to team members. Very rarely is the resentment placed on a physical basis - on or off the hill the team is still a team, sufficient deterrent to anyone who has seen this tough, roughly shod, unit in action. Even as each man is different to his team mate thy are different within themselves. They work hard and with death as a constant reminder their play is that much more intense. These same men who would fight at the drop of a hat (probably for it) will tear their guts out to reach an injured man on the mountain. Conversely they will be as gentle as a lamb with a new member on the hill for the first time. Always keeping the pace down to that of the slowest without the slightest show of irritation or impatience, yet stupidity or irresponsibility on the mountain can earn you a ducking in the Loch or expulsion from the team. Expulsion is determined by the team, they simply refuse to go out with anyone they consider a liability. One eccentricity of the teams infrequent leisure is trophy hunting, this constitutes a major pastime. If it isn't embedded in concrete the team will remove it. The prize example is a rather grand, but tatty elephant's skull outside the natural history museum at Forres. This has disappeared so frequently that a rather bored curator now simply telephones RAF Kinloss and asks "Please may we have our head back." whereupon it is duly returned until the following weekend. The Daily Mail once ran a publicity stunt by having a man photographed selling their newspaper on top of Ben Nevis with a large Daily Mail banner in the background. They lost the banner, it adorns a wall in the Kinloss briefing hut. Their play is exuberant but harmless, their work dangerous but lifesaving. Every February the teams gather from all over the world to meet on Ben Nevis for the annual winter training courses in snow and ice climbing. Dedicated men gaining every ounce of skill and experience to make them more efficient at saving lives. Sitting in the warmth of Cameron's barn on Christmas night I asked the team why they preferred being here to being with their relatives and friends. The reply was unanimous - 'This is living, not sitting around sipping drinks with relatives I hardly know and playing musical chairs, besides – my mates are here.' Frederick Covins (1964)

The Long Walk

The wet, garishly lit streets held a warmth and friendliness that, momentarily, relieved his sense of impending doom. Mordan, he knew, would be waiting for him, lurking in mortal guise, ready to pounce and sink his deadly talons into his soft flesh. He watched the pale faces of the hurrying crowds, listened to their inconsequential chatter and the hiss of car tyres on the wet road; warm comforting sounds that helped to quell his rising fear. The crowds were beginning to thin out it was time to go. Hunching his wiry shoulders beneath the thin raincoat and narrowing his eyes into sharp, alert slits he set out on the long walk to his headquarters.

Where, he wondered, would Mordan strike? Here, in the crowded street? Or would he wait until he, the tightly wound agent, passed into the lonely darkness of Potters Road? The crowds, he noted, had entirely disappeared now; all safely behind their bolted doors he thought bitterly. With unfaltering step he sauntered into the deserted suburban street. Behind the sharp eyes and deceptively casual movements his heart hammered like a bass drum. A cat, black, sleek and shiny-eyed, leapt from the shadow of a privet hedge; his heart did a peculiar little flip and nearly stopped. Despite his outward calm, the fear grew and his pace quickened. It took a conscious effort to slow himself down; he must not let that evil monster see that he was afraid. He tried to whistle a casual tune, but his lips were dry and all he could manage was a nervous, tuneless, blowing of air. Deliberately, he veered outwards until he was walking in the centre of the road and as far as he could get from the dark, menacing shadows of the pavements. Here at least he would have some warning of Mordan’s attack. Only a few more yards to go. A dog growled softly and the hair prickled on the back of his neck. Like a blinding flash the thought exploded in his mind! The dog! Mordan’s devilish hound! Despite himself his legs broke into a run, with practiced ease he vaulted the low wall and dashed up the narrow pathway. His back slammed against the panelled door as he turned to face the darkness and his vile enemy. His fist rapped out the signal with frantic urgency. The measured footsteps beyond the door seemed to take an eternity. Suddenly the door gave against his pressure and light, warm, safe, light flooded across his swiftly composed features. “Hello,” said his mother, “Good film was it?”

Poetry 11

A Poem? Brain, brain, Gone away, Please come back Another day. Sometime next week Would be nice. In time to write Of men and mice An opus bright All readers to delight... (And other things – sigh - whatever).

Only People White candles, The Lord’s Prayer, Communion wafers Signify God. Black candles, The Lord’s Prayer backwards, Broken communion wafers Signify Satan But conjured up only in the mind Of a people needing The assurance and security To empower them In a ritualistic way. The brain is a dynamo, Producing energy in Measurable quantities. Many brains concentrated On the same thought Can magnify that power To influence external Dynamics and create A miracle! Or a corporate will, A National cohesiveness For good or evil. It could be called prayer, But in the end it is Only people. Good people, Evil people, Confused people.

The Wind And then I saw the wind, Rolling and rollicking it came. Billowing cheeks and pur-sed lips Blowing cobwebs from the brain. Trees in humble obeisance bowed. Grass and flowers lay flat. Sighing and soughing it came. Playing tricks with this and that. "I'll huff and I'll puff," said the wind, "And I'll blow your house down." But the isobars moved away slowly And the wind passed by with a frown. "I'll be back!" the wind whistled, As over its shoulder it glared, But the High that followed the Low Left the wind empty and unprepared.

Urban Pastoral Sightless. Sooty windows high In the people battery farms. Look down with empty eye At all the trees with open wounds, Set in concrete tombs, Pointing broken fingers to the sky. In the drizzle of the dawn Coughs asthmatically forlorn A rusty, patched-up car That lurches out to meet The rain swept tarmac street, Where the road to nowhere goes. And in the shadow of an alley A rusty banger lurks, Its battered shell defiled. Abandoned sans its works, But with half a tank of petrol To incinerate a child.

This Island This green and pleasant land Prescotted with traveller’s camps, Green belt estates to meet mythical targets, Landfill sites of buried toxic waste, Polluted streams and rivers with Industrial effluent. With global warming even The Thames Barrier is obsolete. Wither now this vanishing land?

Say When say is said And said is done, What’s left to say? Except well done.

Insects Two hundred million insects To each one of us! And we’re in charge? There’s a spider watching me From the top of my PC. SPLAT! 199,999,999 to go. We’re winning!

Me & Hitler
In 1943 I was at a school in Small Heath, Birmingham, sandwiched between two great factories; the BSA and Singer, both then given over to munitions and normally a twenty-minute trolley-bus ride from my home in Sheldon. On this one day the buses were not running, gossip was there had been a big raid during the night with the BSA as the target. It was with a light heart that I set out to walk to a school that could not possibly be there anymore (childish glee can sometimes be very cruel and unthinking). A vast vista of summer months without school made the long walk seem like a stroll down a lane.
Stepping over hosepipes, past fire-engines and the smouldering ruins of the Singer factory only endorsed my dreams of freedom from the restrictions of school. In the distance beyond the Singer works could be seen the smoke columns from the BSA. Arriving at what I fondly imagined to be the ruins of my school I was dismayed beyond belief to find it not only intact, but not even one pane of glass so much as cracked! This suddenly became personal between the Luftwaffe and me; I was convinced that Hitler himself had ordered his bombers to avoid hitting the school just to spite me. I have never forgiven him for that. Years later, when I started work in the advertising department of the BSA at the age of 14, I learnt the true extent of that raid. Later still, with a little time adjustment, I penned the following poem:
	In the plating shop at the BSA, Where men were feared to tread. The turbanned, rollered women worked Who filled us all with dread. Such tales we'd heard, of mystic rites, Of balls being blacked and awful sights Of peni into bottles fed. Then hosepipes littered the Coventry Road, From last night's German Raid. The BSA laid starkly low by death's sour scyth'ed blade. Five hundred souls lie buried there to this very day, And in the silent reach of night, Or so the watchmen say, You can hear the clank of a capstan crank And the shrilling drills at play. And if you listen very hard you'll hear the peal Of a young man's squeal As the women have him away.

Requiem for a Dying World

"The Earth and Nature will obey its own laws, let us learn what those laws are and learn to live with them instead of arrogantly trying to control them." Is this the end of living... or the beginning of survival? Download "Requiem for a Dying World" in Adobe Acrobat PDF format

Mr Brock

13 April 2000... 7.35am If nothing else happens today I've still had a fantastic experience: Being a creature of habit I drove to fetch the morning paper at 6.30am. Turning into the drive on my return I caught sight of something humping out of Coral & Des's garden (at the top of the drive). At first I thought it was a large cat or small dog, but when it stopped and turned to look at me I was stunned to find it was a very large Badger!

It turned and humped down the drive at a fast rate of knots and I followed in the car slowly. At that point I realised that it must be terrified at being pursued by this glowing eyed monster and promptly switched off the lights. Amazingly it slowed down. It crossed the grass at the entrance to our drive and disappeared through the hedge into our orchard. Hell! I thought, it's got its sett in our orchard! I drove past the orchard and couldn't see it. I figured it had gone to ground. I parked the car and walked towards the house. Then I saw it again trying to get through the gate. I stopped and so did the Badger. He then climbed onto the metal cellar doors and peered at me over the low ivy-clad wall. I talked to it in what I hoped was a low, soothing voice. Having peered into the stair-well of the cellar and decided it was too risky he obviously considered me the lesser threat and emerged slowly. Now seemingly reassured he ambled across the path and into the border alongside the wall. He followed the wall to the bottom of the garden, crossed the lawn and re-entered the orchard. Last I saw was Mr. Brock humping along the hedge on the field side and not being in too much of a hurry. Believe me, it made my day.

Additional Information: If you are interested in the the conservation and welfare of badgers and the protection of their setts and habitats then please visit The Badger Trust.

Dun-sur-Meuse

Just across the field that we’re parked in there’s a huge tent which holds, apart from the fattest lady I’ve ever seen, several other people, three magnificent alsatians, an obscure sort of black and white dog and a litter of alsatian pups. Judging from their condition and obedience (the dogs... idiot!) they are show dogs and the people breeders. I’m telling you this 'cos a fluffy little thing that passes for a dog, from another tent, went bouncing across the field towards the alsatian’s tent full of confidence and curiosity. The three alsatians simply stood up and barked. You’ve never seen a dog lose its curiosity so fast in all your life - it was going into reverse almost before it could turn around. It went into it’s own tent so fast it must have gone clean through the other side or straight up the tent pole - anyway, it hasn’t been seen since.

The motorhome is parked under two enormous willow trees in a lovely, shady spot. On the trees are some birds I’ve never seen before, some sort of tree-creeper 'cos they zip up and down the bark as if they were on elastic, sometimes travelling upside down on the branches to feed off something in the bark itself. They look a little like sparrows, but with more flecks of white. Just tuned in to the world service to find out what’s happening on the ferry front... what could be more English than sitting in a field, under a willow tree, listening to John Arlot! It’s a little difficult to equate with the eglise St.Marianne directly in my line of vision. What my sketch doesn’t show and should really if I wasn’t so lazy, is that this church is on top of a hill, the highest point around.

Apropos absolutely nothing at all, the bridge in the town was built by the American Fifth Division as a memorial to those who lost their lives establishing a bridgehead across the Meuse in WW11. Just as in WW1, Dun-sur-Meuse got hammered again in WW11 and the fact that the church of St.Marianne still stands is a tribute to absolutely no one at all. The fact that anything still stands in this part of the world is perhaps a tribute to man’s tenacity rather more than his common sense.

The church of St.Marianne at Dun-sur-Meuse

Met the fat lady with the alsation puppies, they’re great (the pups... fools!) She really is gianormous, if she fell on you there’d only be a strawberry jam stain to mark the spot. They all come from Dijon and they do breed alsations - see, told’y so.

Gosh, but it’s a burden being so clever. Whoops! a wasp. You know fag packets carry the warning ‘smoking can damage your health’? Well, in the wasp’s case it’s positively fatal co’s Maggie’s killed ‘undreds wiv ‘er little fag packet; she’s just about the deadliest killing machine around with her Gallagher’s Silk Cut patent wasp crusher. A bit worrying actually co’s she does it with such evident enjoyment - must remember not to hang around the windows.

To re-cap a moment; I’ve just worked out why, probably, I didn’t like the cathedral at Lausanne as much as I might have expected to...I think it was because it was so clean.

Architecturally it’s magnificent, but in their obsession with cleanliness they have sand-blasted the surfaces and removed not only the patina of age, but also the 800 years of worship that was imprinted into the stone. I believe, you see, that everything that happens is absorbed into the fabric of our surroundings, the stones, the walls etc. Which could explain why some houses are warm, friendly and welcoming, because they have absorbed only largely happy experiences, just as others are cold, hostile and unfriendly for the opposite reasons. Ultimately a church has an atmosphere of sanctity and peace because of the centuries of worship that is imprinted into its walls. And this despite the peccadilloes and transgressions of the clergy and their particular hypocrisy - it’s the worship of the people that has been taken in and which, in turn, is given out. In Lausanne they have scoured this out of the stone and the building is left just that, a building, its aura sand-blasted away.

You’re never going to believe this, but the people in the tent next door have brought their hens with them! I’ve heard of liking fresh eggs, but this is ridiculous. Alright, so the people with the alsations have got a bale of straw, that’s no reason to bring the whole bloody farmyard!

The bridge ("Le pont de Jambes") and castle at Namur

Homeward bound... Ever had that feeling ‘it’s Thursday so, it must have been Belgium’? Yesterday was a WOW! of a day: left Dun-sur-Meuse (about forty kilometres from the Belgium border) at 8am, crossed into Belgium at 9am, had a look around Buollion - beautiful town with a magnificent castle, cashed some money and then hit the road again. Dinat (fabulous place), Namur (even more so), skirted Brussels, Ghent and into Ostend at 4.15pm. Drove on to ferry at 5.15pm, arrived in England 9.30pm. Back home, after fish & chips, via what felt like 200 miles of the South Circular Road, at 3.15 am! Three countries and the English Channel in nineteen hours... bloody ‘ell!