Trains

Posted on Jun 27, 2015 by cliverh

Trains

The interesting thing about trains is the view out of the window, unlike most other forms of mass transport.

Cars, buses and trams all have the same view as each other; ships have sea and ports, in planes you see the runways, a bit of sky and that’s it, but trains? Aah the esoteric view is all encompassing, if only briefly. Back gardens, industrial areas, city centres, the list is endless. Of course poets and artists through the ages have espoused the beauty of train travel from Benjamin to McKewan, from Christie to film noir. There is the romance of trains, the practicality, the usefulness. But most of all, there is the view. I read somewhere that going past a cricket match one never sees a ball actually bowled. I don’t how true is that apochropal story, but I have never witnessed one. You do however see lots of interesting things through a train window. Flashes of superb nature, families in back gardens, cars waiting at level crossings, and houses; council, estate, detached, stately, all manner of dwellings where people live. But where else could you see, albeit fleetingly, a microcosm of life as if witnessing it through TV screen. Sometimes you regret not being able to see more, but that is the appeal; you only see that glimpse at that time, surely a fast forward movie in glorious technicolour. The golfer addressing the ball, the boat on the canal, the traffic jam on the road underneath. So the journey is more interesting for that, because what happens inside the train is nowhere near as interesting unless you people watch. Its not like on a bus which usually involves shorter journeys, the train generally throws people together for sometimes hours on end. On one particular train trip we went from Melbourne to Sydney, the journey took 11 1/2 hours, but never felt like it. Paradoxically, the view on that trip was quite boring after a couple of hours, but the other occupants in the coach were interesting and engaging.

Train journeys are of course a bit more humdrum when they involve a commute to work. I did this for three years in the 80s when I travelled up to London and then via tube to my final destination. The drudgery of the daily commute doesn’t inspire anyone to converse with their fellow passengers, they all sit behind their newspapers (in my day), and presumably behind their tablet/phone/laptop today, although I have not had direct experience of commuting for many years. That is except when I was involved in travelling to the Excel for the Olympics, often quite early in the morning, and things hadn’t changed much in the intervening 22 years since I last travelled on a train at that time of the morning. The good part of travelling in my Olympic uniform though was that tourists and other Olympians would engage in conversation merely because I was so dressed. Would that happen if I was in ordinary clothes? The juries still out, but I would guess not. Other long journeys besides the Australian one have been ‘up North’ on the East coast line which also provided superb views. The British railway system has certainly improved in leaps and bounds in the years since I commuted, is this because or in spite of denationalisation? Again there might be some dispute about this, but my view is that the private companies have invested heavily in new stock, rails and stations and have probably improved our travelling experience more than if British Rail had stayed in government hands.

So the view from the train window exceeds all expectations as far as I’m concerned. A train journey is like having your own wide screen television with an ever changing scene, always fresh, always changing. Someone else is doing the driving, so you can snooze, read, eat, drink; whatever, and you will never take a wrong turn or have to do a U turn when you miss your exit. Sometimes the journey is all too short, but is always interesting despite this. Give me the train anytime.

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Melbourne Part 2

Posted on May 31, 2015 by cliverh

First of all apologies for the time lapse between part 1 and this one. Been a bit busy….

So we arrived back to good old blighty on 13th February and between the end of Part 1 and then we did a whole host of different stuff, including: Australian Open Tennis, T20 cricket, 10 days in FNQ (Far North Queensland), Lakes Entrance, Walhalla and loads of Melbourne.  I know it seems like a long time ago, but basically March for me was written off because of two chest infections and two lots of antibiotics, not a good time.

But back to Australia: After that first very hot weekend, Teresa and Kev planned a weekend away in Lakes Entrance which wa about 4 hours drive away. teresa had booked a small B&B via AirBnb (me neither!) and we made our preparations and started on our journey west of Melbourne.

The weather was lovely, quite hot and it was a long drive. We stopped off at a little town on

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the way and had coffee and cakes, yum yum!

The B&B was nice and near the town, about 10 minutes walk away, but very quiet. We did a bit of shopping at the local Coles (where else) to cook on the BBQ at the house. There was unusual sleeping arrangements there, it had one large room upstairs with beds at either end separated by a curtain: but it was only for one night so didn’t matter. There were beautiful views over the nearby lake which formed part of the system along the coast. We visited Raymond Island which is a haven for Koala bears and they are everywhere:

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From there having seen 90 mile beach (really) and the local town (a bit like Blackpool without the tower and warmer), we set off for Walhalla, which was the centre of the Victorian Gold Rush. This  was about 1.5 hours from Lakes Entrance:

An interesting journey, we got lost in the mountains, took wrong turnings and ended on a road to nowhere, which actually overshot the town, but we found it eventually. It’s been preserved to be like it was in the late 1800s. It was a fascinating place, people still lived in a lot of the homesteads and the original hotel is still operational. The mines were dug to extract the gold, but fizzled in the early 20th century:

It was a mazing place and we enjoyed a few hours there, driving home in the gathering gloom. I drove most of the way home in the Ford Falcon that Kevin had borrowed. Lovely car to drive made it all so effortless, it’s a pity that Ford will stop production at the end of this year, with the other indigenous manufacturer Holden stopping next year means that there will be no car production in the Australia for the first time in over 90 years. It was a lovely time we had with Teresa and Kev, and we arrived back tired and happy.

Our next ‘event’ was the Australian Open Tennis at the Melbourne Tennis Arenas. We went on the 2nd day and it was just a question of catching a tram there and turning up. Tickets were available on the door. A bit different from Wimbledon where you have to queue all day (like we did a couple of years ago) and then you get in at the end of the day. We had a nice day there, saw some tennis (although I’m not a great fan) and it was a tick-in-the-box experience. Nonetheless getting to the final where Andy Murray lost would have been a bit more of a challenge (we watched the match in a pub, much more convivial):

I’m more of a rugby and cricket man, but each to his own. Teresa and Kev enjoyed and so did Fran. Six months before we got to Australia this time we decided we wanted to go north to the Great Barrier Reef. So we booked flights and a hotel in Port Douglas from the UK to spend 10 days in Queensland or FNQ (Far North Queensland) as it it’s called north of Cairns. We caught the flight on the Wednesday morning. Teresa said just catch a cab on the road outside the flat. We walked out, Fran put her finger up and a cab from the other side of the road did a u turn and picked us up! Bargain, and he took us to Tullamarine (no I don’t know either) which is the main national and international airport for Melbourne. catching the flight was uneventful, but amazingly it shows how big Australia is because the flight to Cairns (with Australia’s equivalent of easyjet – JetStar) was 3½ hours!:

The difference in temperature and humidity in Cairns though was remarkable, with typical temps of 36°C and humidity of typically 95%. We had arranged a coach pickup from Cairns for the roughly one and a bit hour journey to Port Douglas. The journey along the coast was spectacular and reminded me of the Great Ocean Road in Victoria (see the blog about our last trip), but we got to Port Douglas, a small town on a peninsular:

We opted to stay at the Port Douglas Resort, which consisted of self-catering apartments surrounding a central pool and BBQ area. The kitchen was well equipped with everything you needed so it was nice to be able to cook some of your own food. After we arrived and dumped our cases we wandered into town which took a few minutes and got an ice-cream straight away, it was damn hot!  It’s basically a town built for tourism, there’s not much else in the way of industry although it was the centre of the local sugar beet industry, which is still going strong, and where most of the production was sent out by boat to places like Japan which liked the fine grain nature of the beet grown in the area.

The main reason for going up to FNQ though was to ‘do’ the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). But prior to this we had a trip up the Daintree river or inlet,which was a gentle paddle boat trip, to hopefully see crocodiles, but in the event we only saw the one, affectionately called Charlie by the amusing skipper of the boat who gave a running commentary.  Personally I think he was Charlies’ agent and got him to move when we were going past, and he did so on que.

That’s the skipper behind Fran.  The trip was very nice, but it showed that there were plenty of wrecked boats in the river, some abandoned, some deliberately sunk because of nefarious activities, some just neglected:

So after a week we came to main course after the hors deurs: The GBR trip. We booked to go on the whole day trip, 8.30am to 4.30pm including snacks, drinks and lunch. It was a fabulous day out, visiting three reefs Satellite, Batt and Tongue. We were on a snorkel only trip, because we’ve not done scuba, so it was a complete crowd of various levels of expertize in snorkelling. We were accompanied by two marine biologists, and three other crew so it was a very informative and interesting experience.

The boat, Fran taking a rest

The whole day was a real experience and is one of those box ticking ‘to do’ things on my bucket list. There is no feeling like looking under the water and seeing fish swim about. The reefs are also fascinating, we were told not to touch any part of the coral, because it is surprisingly fragile. And contrary to common belief coral should not be a bright colour, because that indicates that the coral is under stress; the healthy colour of coral is sort of browny grey all over. As can be seen above the coral we saw was in rude health. We didn’t see turtles or sharks so that was a bit disappointing ‘wrong time of the year’ apparently.

Fran with Sea Cucumber

Still we had a great time, but after 7 days we were getting stir crazy so hired a car for the last three. We travelled all over the are visiting the daintree rain forest, Tribulation Bay; where Capt. Cook landed initially saying ‘this is where all our trials and tribulations begin’. It was a bit of a tourist trail leading eventually up to Cookstown, which we didn’t go to because you could only get there in a 4×4, not the little Holden Sprint we had (Vauxhall Corsa in disguise). It did us well though and we explored up and down the coast, eventually leaving on the Saturday 31st January to head back to Cairns. We got there very early so decided to visit the Botanical Gardens, but towards the end of walking around the heavens opened, and when they open there, they OPEN! We sat in the car for a while looking at the rain, then drove to the airport, handed in the car, and sat looking at the rain in the departure lounge. We arrived back in Melbourne on the Saturday night, and got a taxi back to the apartment, to be met by Teresa and Kev.

The next 12 days were spent in and around Melbourne with many visits to the town and surround, including a walk from South Melbourne beach (after visiting the superb market)

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to St Kilda in 33°C! Needless to say we did it and it was a great experience to be walking along a beach in February in those temperatures. We also went to the St Kilda music festival which is a huge event, and it was another gloriously hot day, with all sorts of stalls, food and several stages showing many different genres of music. There was also the main pub on the beach, the Espy (The Esplanade) which seemed to be the hub of the whole event.  We went there before we went to Queensland and watched several bands there then.

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Other highlights of the whole trip included: The Melbourne Aquarium, The Eureka Tower, The Tram Dinner trip ( at night this time) , going round Albert Park, the F1 track which ran on 15th March, culminating in the opportunity to see Sting and Paul Simon in concert at The Rod Laver centre, where the tennis Open had been held just a few weeks before.

All in all then and fantastic trip, our 2nd, and it’s thanks and love to Teresa and Kevin for their great hospitality, kindness and putting themselves at their disposal that made this trip so memorial, and a perfect compliment to the first trip back in 2013. We hope to be back again really soon!

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Who to choose?

Posted on May 4, 2015 by cliverh

I’ve not thrown my hat into the ring regarding the General Election this Thursday, I’ve been watching the various parties vying for their policies to be voted in.

Actually the election will be decided by a small number of voters in my view: Those up to age 23 who weren’t old enough to vote at the last election, immigrants who now qualify to vote and the usual floating voter. The dyed-in-the-wool Labour or Conservative voter is not in the main going to change the way they vote with few exceptions, so the target audience for politicians rhetoric is the middle ground; those who change sides at every general election. But to me it doesn’t matter what promises each side make, they’re all after one thing: the obvious, getting into power. Nothing else matters but getting the keys to No 10, its a system of getting that 5 year stretch to enact their policies. Beyond that nothing else matters. Is this a good or bad thing? Well it is democracy and as Churchill said ‘democracy is the worse form of government; except for all the others’. Well that is fairly true now, with practically the only truly communist country left is North Korea. There are other nations with various firms of government, total dictatorship like North Korea and Saudi Arabia and suedo communism as in China and Russia. None of it means a thing of course, we’re British and we do things our way. It may not be right but it’s ours.

I often wonder why politicians want to do what they do. The usual answer is ‘to help people’ but they generally do anything but. Here’s a radical thought: why do we need politicians and political parties? Surely any competent administration could runs things quite effectively using commonsense instead of some misplaced sense of ‘doing the right thing’. Hey ho anyway my vote is with the current administration they’ve turn the recovery corner and whilst I don’t agree with all their policies, I’ll never forget that Labour spent all the money during their time; they can’t be trusted not to give everything away to buy votes. And the SNP? A joke who will NOT be running the country. Trust me I’m not a politician.

Anyway I’ll leave it to the actual poll which has just closed, now the count is on, with the prediction of a slight shortfall for the Conservatives. Well whatever the outcome I hope that the incoming government will be organised and get the country sorted out.

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Melbourne 2015 part 1

Posted on Jan 14, 2015 by cliverh

So the second trip to Australia to visit our daughter and son in law, Teresa and Kevin. Admittedly it’s only been 17 months since our last visit, but the pull of family means we were eager to get out there again.

The original plan was to be here at the same time as Kevin’s parents but that fell through. Because we had already booked our flights, we decided to go ahead with travelling out on 31st December to arrive on the first day of 2015. We travelled Etihad again, this time in the Airbus A380, introduced by the airline 3 days earlier: no worries then. An uneventful flight to Abu Dhabi for the first leg, followed by a frenzied run through the terminal instead of the promised 2 hour stopover because the aircraft was an hour late leaving Heathrow, and not much delay on the connecting flight. Still, at least they held it for us and slightly disappointedly it was ‘only’ a Boeing 777, but still a smooth flight landing early evening at Tullamarine, the international airport for Melbourne, to be greeted by the family and driven to their apartment in Northern Melbourne.

This time we arrived at the height of summer, whereas the last time was at the end of winter/ start of spring. The difference was very noticeable, with the weather being in the high 30°s, and with the jet lag making us feel tired, that first weekend was a bit of a blur. On the Sunday we went to meet up with their friends to go to a trampolining experience: it was fun but very tiring:

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We also visited Brighton beach the day before to watch Teresa and Kev play Frisbee:
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Brighton along with St Kilda and South Melbourne are some of the many beaches along the coast of the huge bay Port Philip Sound in which Melbourne sits. After the trampolining ‘experience’ we went to the highest point overlooking the city Bondura Park:
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Then we went up another hill (in Kevin’s borrowed car – thanks Gaspare), and walked around Mount Dandenong and Alfred Nichols memorial park:

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This was a beautiful place with many interesting views:

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We were feeling the heat, but this was not destined to last. Strangely although Victoria, Melbourne’s state, has the summer at this time of year, the weather can vary tremendously, from the aforementioned 40° to a ‘normal’ 20 – 25°, which is normal for night UK summer, nice!

We spent a lovely day on the beach at St Kilda:

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Another beautiful day, and there’s where we bought new sandals, pricey but very nice. To be continued…

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The Bliar legacy drags on…and Christmas

Posted on Dec 23, 2014 by cliverh

During the reign of President Tony Blair he extolled the virtues of university and wanted all school leavers to do a degree in whatever, including cerebral subjects like golf management, media studies, the history of art and probably basket weaving for all I know. Obviously the major scientific and educational subjects were being taken up, but fewer students were deemed bright enough for these so many took lesser degrees.

The upshot of all this further education has now come hone to roost as it was announced last week that this country is losing its practical tradesmen skills, mainly due to apprenticeship schemes being shelved. So we now have a nation of egg-heads who don’t know one end of a hammer from another. The effect of this has been, similarly to medical staff, is to encourage foreigners here to fill the gap. Hence we have many unemployed people with skills that are not always required, and a shortage of skilled tradesmen that we do need.  This is the fault of legions of politicians who are all too posh to wield a spanner or calculate volts drop and like Blair who think that if all school leavers go to  university they will create wealth. the trouble is that wealth is not created by moving money about, but this is old ground. Happily apprenticeships are on the increase, but as I saying to someone the other day, surely you’ve got the pay the minimum wage and then they are productive? The answer is yet he can’t afford to take on apprentices because financially it would cripple him. Hence most building sites now are filled  with European workers, while old codgers like me are retiring all the time, not passing on the skills that future generations need. It’s a vext question.

Christmas time, mistletoe and wine. Yet again the bombardment of all things Christmassy where ever you go. The trouble is all those perfect cookery programmes on TV make everything look perfect and is what everybody should be attaining at a certain point. Let’s face it Christmas has got about as much do with Christ and the birth of Jesus as Islamic State has to promoting the education of girls.  It’s now a strictly commercial time of the year, more and more every year. The problem is that most mouth breathers believe everything they see and spend their way stupidly into huge debt for the sake of Christmas. I even saw an advert today on TV about putting money aside for 2015!  What? Planning that far ahead to get into more debt? Ridiculous.  It won’t stop though, the Christmas commercial juggernaut will roll relentlessly on, it’s said that some businesses make 75% of their profits in December. Not all them Christmas based either, so what do they do the rest of the year? I’m glad I’m not in retail nor ever likely to be.  Christmas comes but once a year. That gawd for that.

 

 

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Black Friday?

Posted on Nov 29, 2014 by cliverh

As usual the United States export another useless tradition to our shores, this time it’s so called Black Friday. Apparently it comes the day after Thanksgiving (which hasn’t been adopted here – yet) and its when shoppers there go out to start their Christmas shopping and bargains are to be had.

Along with Halloween, this is an import we could do without and demonstrates yet again the part the media play in hyping these events. TV cameras were at big stores in London, Cardiff, Manchester etc to capture the disgusting scenes of people fighting over ‘bargains’. Maybe it should be called Black and Blue Friday? If the cameras hadn’t been there, would we care about it as much? The juries still out, but I couldn’t help noticing the number of people bursting through the store entrances. Are they supposed to be at work? Or they on benefits? Where were they from? Thank goodness I wasn’t there, in fact most normal people wouldn’t be and lower themselves to get into a scrap about securing a bargain. I hope those that bought these cheap TVs find that they are broken or not very good. That’ll teach them. They were probably bought wholesale by the stores at less than what they sold them for, so they are still on top.

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Life….

Posted on Nov 5, 2014 by cliverh

Gets tedious don’ it? Well so Hank Williams Jr wrote years ago, and as a country singer he knew what he was talking about. Mind you that title (and its lyrics) were pretty mild compared to some C&W songs like: I Changed Her Oil, She Changed My Life; I Don’t Know Whether To Kill Myself Or Go Bowling; I Fell In A Pile Of You And Got Love All Over Me; I Flushed You From The Toilets Of My Heart; I Keep Forgettin’ I Forgot About You; I Wanna Whip Your Cow etc. Google ‘funny Country and Western song titles’, there are loads.

Life throws up some funny occurrences, some are funny in the humourous sense and some in the funny peculiar sense. We all deal them in our own way, rightly or (sometimes in someone else’s eyes) wrongly but nonetheless we deal with them, or not. Life is never straightforward or follows a straight furrow, there’s always something to throw you off track. The curved ball, the unexpected occurrence, the object from left field. You name it, it happens. So how do you cope with things that don’t quite go according to how you think they should go? Financial impropriety, emotional upset,  illness, accident, career change, the usual triumvirate: birth; marriage; death, they can all happen at one or the same time. This is where strength of character comes in, some of us have it, some don’t, some act on the problem, others prevaricate often for good or imagined reasons. Most of us don’t do the right thing at the right time and that is a  human trait. The animal kingdom  have got it right, all their action and reaction is instinct, with some intelligence thrown in to show they have it, and to keep us guessing.

Watching David Attenborough the other night reminded me of a video I saw where two cats appeared to be ‘talking’ to each other while looking out of a window. There was a statement from one to the other (even turning its head) in response from the other and vice versa. It looked to all intents and purposes that they were having a cat conversation, although of course we mere humans can’t understand it. Going back to ‘Life Stories’, Attenborough’s latest TV series, there were African plains dogs and hyenas having a right old ding-ding fighting over kills and their carcasses. The dogs chased and killed Wildebeests, chewed lumps off them (while still alive) and the hyenas tried to scavenge the remainder, sometimes while the dogs were still at it.  It caused huge and ugly fights, but more importantly, there was conversations between the animals. They seem to warn their mates off when an attack was imminent, and have a group discussion when they were going to attack. Again, we humans can’t understand what they were saying, just like would consider our speech a foreign tongue. So do animals have a ‘language’?  Are there different dialects? Yes I know Dr Doolittle investigated this long ago, but it still may be possibility. Dolphins and some species of whale, both mammals, do ‘speak’, and many eminent scientists over the years have tried to determine what they say, and have made +some guesses at their conversations, but they are only guesses, and I bet if the dolphins could talk ‘human’ they’d be laughing up their sleeves (if they had any) at our attempts to decipher what they were saying. It will forever be a mystery.

So the politicians now think the majority are interested in the outcome of the general election in May 2015. No doubt it will be very interesting in as much as UKIP might be calling the shots, but personally I don’t think so. Let me explain why. The natural government of this country is conservative (with a small ‘c’). That’s not to decry Labour or the Lib Dems, but UKIP seem to think they have the upper hand. Not yet they don’t. It will take many years and more elections before UKIP are anywhere near being contenders to actually form a government, and even most dyed-in-the-wool Tories wouldn’t ever vote for the likes of Farage and co, mainly because they’re a one-trick pony and too near to Conservative policies, with only a fag paper between them. It will be interesting in May 15 to see how the scrap develops, but whatever the result, the outcome will still be the same: useless politicians who know nowt about nowt and make momentous decisions affecting millions. Not a good scenario, which ever party it is.

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Windsor

Posted on Oct 25, 2014 by cliverh

So with not much to do and a free day to do it in, we decided on a visit to Windsor (Berkshire, England that is not Ontario).

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Peascod St with Windsor Castle

Yes, yes I know its where the Queen lives (some of the time) but it’s also where my wife was born and raised and where we got married, but more of that later. We go there a couple of times a year, it’s not far and it’s magical at Christmas. This was a sunny early day, on the cusp of changing the clocks to urgh time. I say that because I HATE when the clocks go back, so depressing when it gets dark at 4.00pm. Any way I digress, generally we go to Windsor for the shops and the ambience despite the presence of tourists from well, everywhere really. I heard and saw many Japanese, German, Mexican, Chinese et al. The Americans are the funniest though; everyone must have heard at least one Yank saying: why did they build the castle so near the airport? Anyway on this occasion we just wanted to walk along the river, but first job is to find somewhere to park. It’s always been a problem in the town, especially on Saturdays, but we found someone waiting to get out in the station car park, and as an added bonus the driver offered me his ticket, valid until 23:59 that day (that’s one minute to midnight in non-24 clock speak), so that was free then. We strolled down past Eton Bridge and down to French Brothers boat trips. A trip down the river was suggested so we bought senior tickets (75pence reduction) for the 40 minute trip down to Boveney lock and back. Which brings me to the crux of this diatribe: The Hawker Hurricane, world war 2 fighter aircraft, of which the boat commentary mentions that a full sized replica of said aircraft is on the side of the river and is a tribute to Sir Sydney Camm, famous aircraft designer who was born and went to school in Windsor:

The long awaited full-size replica of a Battle of Britain Fighter aircraft has been erected in Windsor near the town’s popular Alexandra Gardens. Designed by Windsorian Sir Sydney Camm, the Hawker Hurricane was unveiled on the Thames promenade on Friday 20th July 2012. The cost of the memorial, which has been in planning since 2006 is being funded by developer contributions through the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. The council is in full support of the project as a fascinating, historical attraction for residents and visitors alike. (Thanks to the Sir Sydney Camm web page for the quote above).

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(My Photos)

Now the important thing about Camm is that he left school at 14, and with no formal scientific or technical training, went on the design iconic aircraft like the 20s Hart, the Hurricane, Hunter in 1951 and finally the Harrier jump jet in 1960. A master designer who was recognised with a CBE and a knighthood but never went to university or got a degree. Along with many modern entrepreneurs like Brandon or Sugar who never went beyond secondary school yet achieved greatness (arguably). My point is that educationalists and politicians have continually spouted that for anyone to get on, a degree is essential. I think Camm belies this entrenched view. There are many young people with natural ability who would fail in the normal course of education. Others like Brunel, Whittle, Cockerell were thought to be mad or dismissed, but were actually visionary. Fair Play to the councillors of Windsor though for getting the Hurricane replica erected.

The river trip commentary pointed out many aspects up river from Windsor bridge that Fran and I were unaware, for example the fact Eton College is the 2nd biggest landowner in the country because the well-off families of pupils donated land to the college in lieu of school fees. Also that Windsor race course is on an ‘island’, surrounded on three sides by the Thames.

The Congregational Church in William St (when it was being demolished in 1973):

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This was our wedding venue now since long gone, but still interesting in that the site is now a tax office. So a whistle stop tour around The Royal Borough of Windsor and Eton, its not all about the castle.

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The Annual Reunion

Posted on Oct 20, 2014 by cliverh

So it was reunion time with my old colleagues from my Royal Air Force squadron back in the day. 3(Fighter) Squadron is the oldest military flying unit in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth having been formed in May 1912 under the Royal Flying Corps; it became a Royal Air Force squadron on 1 April 1918 on the formation of that force.

A Squadron Association was formed in 1985 by Alan East who flew with the squadron in 50s, and rapidly built up to have 300+ members. In the heady, early days of the Association we used to get 100 – 150 at our annual reunions, but in the last few years this has tailed off and we’re now lucky if we get 20 in total, half of whom are wives of members. That’s the way of the world I guess, with the pressures of modern life, and it’s costs and of course our membership is getting older with not many newer younger members of the current operational squadron wanting to join the Association. But still, though we were few in number we still had a high old time, regaling each other with stories of the our time on the squadron, ribbing others with their indiscretions and err happy (as in overindulgence of alcoholic beverages) times. No, it’s not that getting drunk was a natural thing to happen, but we worked hard, and relaxed hard. My own personal time was in the mid seventies:The Cold War was at it’s height, tensions between the Iron Curtain and the Western Alliance was high, NATO was in the vanguard. We operated the Harrier jump jet, and the brief was to stop the red hordes from crossing over the East German border to invade the rest of Europe. It was a time of tension, and we maintained the Harrier Force along with other types in service at the time: Phantoms and helicopters to keep up the presence of a vital, coercive force ready to repel the commies. It never came to anything, Russian and East German jets used to buzz the borders occasionally and tanks would rumble up and down the borders. Berlin was in the middle of East Germany and was seemingly a normal Western city, although sharply divided. This had been the case since the erection of the Berlin wall in the 60s, but stretched back further than that to 1945 when Churchill said ‘An Iron Curtain has descended on Europe’. So the brief for over 30 years was the protection of the West, until Gorbachev put a stop to it all. The last RAF forces left Germany in the late 90s. But in our time in the 70s, it was quite frankly a bit like a three year holiday for most of us: we got extra pay for being there, petrol coupons, duty free cars, booze, fags and other goods, and the work although hard at times, was never threatening. So we did three and a half years in Germany and many, many friends who we are still close to 40 years later.

So to this weekend and the latest reunion. I am current Chairman of the Association having taken from someone who stood down after 2 years, he having taken over from the founder Alan East, who passed away 2 years ago. I have now been Chair for 5 years and it is my personal remit to keep the Association going, more for Alan’s memory and hard work than anything else. I maintain a webpage: and produce a thrice yearly newsletter for members only. I think there is an avid readership of both but I don’t get that much feedback so maybe I’m doing it wrong. This latest reunion included the last Officer Commanding 3(F) Squadron who has moved on to pastures new, but will join the Association as a member in his own right. There is a good liaison between the Association and the Squadron, based at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire and I hope this contact continues. We visit there several times a year for formal dinners, informal BBQs and open days to which we are invited. Our reunion was at the Bridge Hotel, Thrapston in Northamptonshire, thanks to them for putting on a great meal on Saturday night. I think everyone enjoyed the whole weekend, I certainly did. Future reunions are in doubt as it’s a voluntary effort to find a hotel, book and pray that everyone who says they are coming, turn up. I know I’ve organised 10 of them. Although we did have a special one in 2012, when the squadron celebrated it’s 100th birthday and there was a big bash at Coningsby to which many people came. Sadly the same numbers don’t ccome like they used to. Still I’m hopeful that we shall have a reunion next year, some people have already bandied a few ideas about so we’ll see what happens.

Thanks to all who made the effort this year and hope we can repeat it, with more people, next year. Bon Chance!

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What’s in a dress size?

Posted on Oct 8, 2014 by cliverh

Hey, I’m doing this from a male perspective, not as a cross-dresser I hasten to add. To those guys who either haven’t been shopping with a partner/wife or don’t do it, I have these words of advice: DON’T DO IT!

This is actually aimed at those chaps whose wife/partner (w/p) is NOT a size 12, petite, short or ‘average’; no it’s specifically aimed at w/p’s who are tall (over 5’9″), not thin (I’ll leave that for your assessment), and can’t find dresses, blouses, trousers or skirts which are a) the right length and b) fit. Now, referring to ‘normal’ dress size ladies i.e. up to size 12 say, they have a virtual smörgåsbord, a richness of choice that is the envy of their taller/larger sisters. If however the lady in question teeters on the cusp of say, a size 14-16, well in 90% of the available rack in the clothes shop has already gone; its a rule of thumb, that the most popular sizes have already been snatched by grateful shoppers who thank their lucky stars they got there early. All that’s usually left is the minute sizes 8-10, and the frankly tent-like size 22 and up. And this is very frustrating and upsetting for those w/p who would like to dress nicely (that’s all of them then), and want to feel that they look nice to boot. One of the main problems with tall ladies particularly is the length between neck and waist. Now, you would think this would be an easy thing to determine, get a lady who’s say 5’11” or over and take a measurement between neck and waist, simples. But dress designers and manufacturers seem to think that this measurement doesn’t change, whatever the dress size. A size 18 for example is one that tall ladies would choose to get the skirt length required (usually on or just below the knee), BUT this is not the case, the aforementioned neck to waist measurement doesn’t increase exponentially, and likewise the skirt length is usually mid calf or slightly lower, and if you don’t want to flash your legs off, it’s far too short. No, all the designers seem to do is to make the size horizontally wider without making it longer.

You may be asking: what the hell has all this got to do with me, a mere male? Ah dear reader there’s the rub; if you go out shopping with your w/p it’s got everything to do with you. There’s nowt more angry or frustrated than a tall/large lady trying to find a dress, skirt etc to fit, and you dear man have to be as supportive/comforting/uncritical as possible. Add to that the current trend for just about any colour (like the Ford Model T) as long as it’s black/white or white/black, is also a source of frustration. It doesn’t matter which shop/store you go to, they all seem to use the same designer/maker so that all the styles and colours (such as they are) are identical whether you are in M&S, Debenhams, Asda, Tesco et al. If black/white is so ‘on trend’ as it seems to be at the moment, there doesn’t seem to be many other colours to chose from, especially for those not in the first flush of youth. So black it is then, which in the past was reserved for funerals and formal dinner-dances. Now, black is THE colour of the age. That’s a pity for the same reasons as the size thing, black seems so drab.

So, guys who are planning to go clothes shopping with the tall w/p, take note: don’t force an opinion about what something looks like, let her take the lead; make the right noises at the appropriate time; offer suggestions within the acceptable limits, and finally if a purchase is made, pay for it. Yes I know but believe me it’ll keep the peace. A note to dress designers/buyers: don’t forget not all ladies are the same measurement from neck to waste; they do occasional like colours other than black, and please no ‘curtain material’, or large flowery patterns. Finally please, perlease, make the skirt length enough for the taller customer. Then produce more of them and you won’t get left with all the sizes you can’t sell, and nobody wants. I reproduce this link from the Daily Mail so you can tell my rant is also coming from a female perspective:

Janet’s Article

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