Hot Walls, Star Wells and Chish and Flips

Half Term brought Philippa, Chiff, Barney and Martha to Wansdyke Cottage for the start of what turned out to be a fortnight with a decidedly nautical flavour. ( I don’t know why that should be !)  This started with a visit to Bristol and Aunty Shelagh on a wet mizzly day when we took advantage of the opportunity to visit the SS Great Britain. We’ve always had an interest in the ship as Great Uncle John was the river pilot who brought it into Bristol after its long trip from the Falklands back in 1970. Completely refurbished, the ship makes a fascinating museum; the scale and ambition of the enterprise is mind-boggling, but we all felt very sorry for the passengers for what they had to put up with on their two month voyage to Australia. The bunks of even the first class passengers were so narrow I couldn’t see how they could even fit themselves in, and the communal conditions for the people in steerage looked appalling.

The weather on the following day was much better so some of us drove down to Portsmouth to get a taste of the sea. We ended up pic-nicking on the little beach below the Hot Walls, a favoured spot of old hardies who like to plunge into the probably icy and usually turbulent waters at the entrance to the harbour. We collected driftwood and basked in the sunshine that many think is the origin of the name, Hot Walls. Actually it’s due to the fact that cannonballs were heated for the guns once placed there in order to set fire to the sails and rigging of any hostile warships unwise enough to come into range. There was some thought that they might be used during the Spithead naval mutiny of 1797, but they weren’t. But no such drama that day; some ferries came in and out, a hovercraft roared across from the Isle of Wight and a little naval patrol boat passed by. After walking around Point and visiting the South Parade Pier, we had the obligatory ice creams, avoided dozens of presumably dead star fish, threw more stones into the sea and came home via Turf Hill in the New Forest after a long and very pleasant day, revisiting favourite haunts.

Shortly afterwards I flew to the US Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island. This is a spectacular place that we've always loved going to. Gracious 17th-19th Century clapboard houses, the oldest inn in the US, George Washington's church, every kind of nautical activity, the famous over-the-top-and-then-some 'summer cottages' of the wealthy and the very grand naval facilities of the NWC itself.  The NWC is a very impressive place full of very impressive people. Many of the key figures of the US Navy have made their mark on the place and on history in fact. I was shown round their facilities, archives and a splendid naval museum.  I did some seminars there for faculty members and the students of the Advanced Strategy Group which were fun - or at least I thought so. 

Afterwards ,as a special reward, I was also taken to lunch at a quintessentially American diner where  Cherry and I loved having breakfast. The service is immaculate, the food, while perhaps not the healthiest that the US has to offer, is guiltily enjoyable. In these days of Macdonald's and KFC, it's a rare survival and deserves to be 'gazetted' by the Newport Preservation Trust.

A rather more gracious lunch was provided by Professor John Hattendorf at the Newport Reading Room, a  Club which seems hardly have changed from the 19th Century. John and his wife Berit are long-term friends of ours; we were forever bumping into them at conferences around the world. And so home, via a particularly crowded flight from Boston.

Ruth and Simon came the weekend after I got back. The weather was glorious - much better than in Newport which had been enveloped in a chilly sea-mist all the time I was there. Highlight of their visit was an excursion to a little known  'star well' in a field near Chippenham. Apparently these are wells, or springs, where the salts in the water form into minute stars. We had little idea of what to look for but found the spring in question after a certain amount of squelching in the mud and sharp-eyed Ruth quickly spotted a star. Once identified, others appeared. Quite extraordinary.

Cherry would have loved all this, particularly Newport. I knew that she had started collecting 25 cent coins ('quarters') that showed all the states of the Union. I had thought of using up some of this great bag of coins while I was out there, but found I couldn't bear to, without first checking what she'd amassed. Simon and Ruth helped me sort them out; we found Cherry had managed to get 42 of the 50 states. So, of course, completing the collection has now gone on the agenda. We need: Alabama, California, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi and Missouri. Offers gratefully accepted ! Another of Cherry's charming little foibles was keeping us on our toes by deliberately inverting the syllables in words, thus 'fast-brek' and 'ding-puds',   the use of weird phrases like 'kipper-feet' and a made-up language all of her own, thus 'weebly' (meaning weak and feeble) 'go fleepies' (fall asleep) and 'soupings' - (soup) and of course the 'chish and flips' that ended the family day in Portsmouth. Recalling all these for the benefit of posterity has become a favourite family pastime.  And, finally, I can attest to the fact that Lee's in Devizes do 'chish and flips' better that they do in Newport, although if the 4th Street Diner had a go at them (which they don't) I'm sure they would give the home team a good run for their money.           

 

 

A little dabbling of toes

Back in June, when Cherry was still relatively hale and hearty, we visited the library of Salisbury Cathedral as part of a trip by the Wiltshire Historic Churches Trust. We both much enjoyed the afternoon - not least the cake and coffee in the refectory afterwards. But what really 'floated my boat' was being shown a random copy of a 17th Century naval book which had weirdly ended up in the collection. Henry Maydman's 'Naval Speculations.'  I was intrigued and made a mental note to come back and look at it properly one day.

This became relevant much later when I lost Cherry and started to wonder what I would do with the rest of my life without her. I suppose everybody faces this issue at some time or other. Keeping busy rather than sitting around and moping (which would be awfully easy to do)  seems to be generally recommended and I'm absolutely sure that Cherry would insist on my doing so. But keeping busy doing what ? Focussing on house and garden are the obvious options, (and can't be avoided entirely anyway) but they strike me as essentially solitary activities, and the same applies to family/house and to a lesser extent local, history.  I need people contact, however. So perhaps a mild resumption of academic activity-navies and all that - might that be the way to go ?

I was, though,concerned that trying to go back to normal business, even in moderation, might be too difficult and even painful in the absence of Cherry who used to do so much in the way of support. We were always thought of as a couple in the academic/naval round, even though Cherry would never attend any event in which I was speaking if she could possibly avoid it. She provided all the back-room support, visas, travel arrangements, planning, underway replenishment accommodation and starred in all social events, cocktail parties, dinners, cruises, spouse tours and other such social occasions, such that the first question people would ask me when I appeared anywhere was 'Where's your wife ?'

So I was a bit nervous about academic toe-dabbling and that's where Henry Mayman and his Naval Speculations came in. I decided to go and read him at the Cathedral, and so made the necessary arrangements. This turned out to be a challenging day - pouring rain, and I gathered from the failure of the traffic lights in much of Salisbury there was a widespread power failure. The Cathedral was closed. But the librarians had made special arrangements for me; I was met by a Friend and conducted to a little building in the Close where for some bizarre reason there was electricity, although the building was freezing cold. Oddly it was next to the Dean's residence, where my University friend Patrick Haworth used to live, and where Cherry and I had spent some entertaining hours. After all this, Henry Maydman really did deliver the goods. He was interesting and sometimes funny. I particularly enjoyed his likening the sensitivities of civil servants to criticism to an Italian resenting the attentions other men paid to his Mistress.

This was a success, then. The next step was to go to a conference and as it happened there was one on offer in London, at which I had been asked to speak some time ago. This didn’t start too well as on my way to the conference, which was being held in the grounds of Guy’s Hospital (part of the King's empire) I popped out of the London Bridge tube station and was startled and a little dismayed to find myself right by the entrance to the Shard. Dismayed because Cherry and I had visited the Shard as part of her ‘Bucket List’ three months earlier and that had been one of the only four occasions that she’d had a little heart-rending weep about her situation, though I never did quite know what had set it off. Anyhow on to Guys where everyone was very welcoming and sympathetic and all seemed well. To the extent, in fact, that I was invited to Rio by the Brazilian team there. I encountered the same mixture of welcome and sympathy from sometimes quite surprising people at an IISS seminar shortly after and was encouraged to find myself still genuinely interested in what was being talked about.

Singapore, though was going to be a different kettle of fish altogether, as the level of association with Cherry and the potential for being miserable simply because she wasn’t there would be much, much higher. She loved the place and developed a circle of friends on campus and in town and knew far more about the realities of living there than I did. And of course, there were poignant moments, from the word go. Compared to me, Cherry was always quite a slow walker – with the one exception of when she was getting off a plane as, kicking off the frustrations of sitting cooped up for hours on end and keen to get to Immigration first, she would set off like a long dog, weaving her way through the people in front - with me, some way behind, pulling along the hand cases, struggling to keep up while avoiding clipping other peoples’ ankles. But not this time....

The visit to Singapore started at the Marine Mandarin Hotel where the conference was; we must have stayed there perhaps ten times over the years. Everywhere there would be a memory. On the way I found myself engaging with the taxi-driver as she always did. ‘How long have you been a taxi-driver ? Where on the island are you from ?’ – and so on.  Later in the apartment there were more poignant moments as I unpacked the boxes of stuff that she had packed and re-organised the kitchenette just as she liked it.

 

The people I knew at the conference and later at the RSIS (the Rajaratnam School of International Studies of Nanyang Technological University) exhibited the same sympathetic welcome, or in a surprisingly few cases were shocked and disbelieving if they hadn’t heard the news before. So, almost from the start ,my feelings about this enterprise in academic dabbling were mixed, but the conclusion beginning to emerge through the mist of conflicting emotions was that at least a partially academic life still had its attractions.

         
I have found that I am still sufficiently interested in my subject to want to carry on with it at least to a degree. The limitations in this come from my also knowing that there are many other things I want, and in many cases need, to do, and no longer having Cherry in her supporting function there would, realistically, be much less time to do things in. The other big attractions of the academic life are that it means being with other people and, I suppose, the continuing prospects of travel.
 

I say ‘suppose' because travel can be mixed in its effect, and it certainly was in the case of this visit to Singapore. Changi is arguably the most efficient airport we’ve ever come across. Quite often the gap between getting out of the plane and into the taxi is just 30 minutes. Not this time !  For the first time I can ever remember there were long queues at Immigration, and then the baggage didn’t arrive for over an hour. When there’s thunder and lightning in Singapore, it can be pretty extreme and the Singaporeans being a cautious lot, suspend all baggage clearance when there’s lightning about. I must admit sitting around waiting, on a pile of plastic crates, tired, tousled and bleary-eyed after a long 13 hour flight, I did wonder what I was doing it all for and thought wistfully of the cat and a fire at home.

But in compensation for this, there was a pleasant afternoon by the pool at the Tanglin Club and the next day an enjoyable visit to the Asian Civilisations Museum, two of our favourite haunts. There might have been a few more excursions had I not in my inexperience bought far too much food from the local ‘Giant’ store on campus and so felt constrained to stay in the flat and eat as much of it as I could. In addition,  I am not used to eating alone in public and don’t like it, although undoubtedly will need to get accustomed to it. 

 

There was a sting in the tail of the visit. Outside the apartment there are some mail boxes that are often not used very much as the inhabitants are often quite temporary. On an impulse I decided to check ours there. Just two letters, both addressed to Cherry, nearly a year old; one was a receipt for the vast sum we had paid the Jurong Health for her hospital stay and treatment last March, the other a reminder from the Kinokuniya bookshop for her to renew her club membership. 'If only...',   I thought. Something similar happened at Morrisons the chemists when I went to collect my pills the day I got back to the UK. Someone had made a mistake ; the pills were all for Cherry. When I explained they were a bit late for that, the lady was so appalled and mortified that I had to comfort her rather than her me !