Where there is cake there is hope…
… and there’s always cake! (Dean Koontz)
Firstborn couldn’t travel this year
But she knew there was nothing to fear
‘Cos her brother could make
Her dad’s birthday cake
And fill up his day with good cheer!
War, maps, art
A few years ago I posted a blog about the life of my great uncle, Harold Whidby Speight, and his service in the First World War.
I had mentioned that, aged 21, he was mobilised to Belgium as a sergeant with the 50th Northumbrian Division, arriving just in time for the second battle of Ypres (with neither gas mask nor steel helmet). I also mentioned that he painted in watercolour and, recently, I have come across an undated work of his at the intersection of graphic design, cartography, history and personal experience.
It is an example of ‘map art’ and represents his account of the second battle of Ypres. It’s in a rather fragile state and was torn in two at some point, but I’ve photographed it and included it below. (You’ll need to zoom in to see the detail.)
I think it’s rather impressive and worth restoring and preserving for the archives of the Durham Light Infantry (anyone know the number of TV’s The Repair Shop😆?).
My second post about Harold’s war time experience referenced his pay book and a poem that he’d copied into it in lieu of a short form will. The poem, The Steel of the DLI, was about the Division’s experience in early August 1915, a few months after the Second Battle of Ypres, when it fought to re-take the area around Hooge, and its costly heroics in holding Hooge Crater.
Although Harold’s artwork pre-dates the latter event it does, nevertheless, contain one reference to the crater in the roll of honour at upper right. Most of those named died on May 24 1915 (the penultimate day of the Second Battle of Ypres), but one named officer, Lieutenant Gilbert Talbot, is recorded as having died at Hooge Crater on 30 July. That was the day when the German army first used flame throwers (flammenwerfers). It must have added hugely to the terror felt by the opposing infantry. Talbot died leading his men in a counter attack following the flame thrower offensive.
Talbot was not directly linked to Harold; however, there is a clear motivation to his inclusion in Harold’s artwork. Talbot’s elder brother was an army chaplain who, along with others in December 1915, established a rest and recreational centre named Talbot House in honour of Gilbert. This became known Toc H based on the house’s initials (TH was represented as Toc Aitch in the radiotelephony phonetic alphabet of the time analogous to Tango Hotel in the modern International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet).
In 1920, Toc H developed into an international, inter-denominational Christian social service of which Harold was a member. One of its aims was to promote reconciliation, something that would have been close to Harold’s heart. (The organisation still exists as a voluntary movement.)
Postscript: The Hooge Crater was created by the detonation of a mine laid at the end of a 190-foot tunnel (dug by the 175 Tunnelling Company) on 19 July 1915 and was estimated to be 120 feet in diameter and 20 feet deep.
🎶…Leaving on a jet plane…🎶
Long story short, my 93 year old mother has been stranded at my sister’s home in Europe for the best part of a year due to Covid travel restrictions.
Brexit, of course, means that Brits cannot remain within the continent’s Schengen zone for more than 90 out of any 180 consecutive days, which is why it’s a surprise to me that the Matriarch has been allowed to stay post-Brexit for 218 days (and counting).
Anyway, she has now been ‘asked’ to leave by the end of August, which is why I’ll soon be travelling south from Aberdeen to meet her at Edinburgh airport, before taking her on to Kendal and assuming residence there myself for a couple of months (or more) to help her settle back in. Fortunately, recent relaxations in the Covid guidelines mean that she will no longer have to self-isolate for 10 days on her return, nor me with her.
All of which loosely (incredibly loosely) has inspired this…
There once was an expat felt thwarted
When his ‘leave to remain’ wasn’t sorted
And as things then got worse
He soon started to curse
The ba****ds that had him deported!
Postscript: Talk about ‘boomerang’ kids. Here’s me, retired yet soon to reoccupy my childhood bedroom whilst once again living with my mum. Je suis a boomerang boomer!
#WeAreScotland
June 20th is National Refugee Day. This opinion piece by Alf Dubs in the Graun points out that if the current policies of the UK government were extant in pre-WWII days, then thousands of Czech refugees, including those of the kindertransport, spirited away from the Nazi occupation by the actions of Doreen Warriner, Nicholas Winton and others would not have been saved. Sad, but true.
As one of the kindertransport children himself, Dubs credits the saving of their lives to the compassion of one man, Winton, and the humanity of the country.
Personally, I find it rather sad that Dubs remains unaware of the real driving force behind the exodus of the Czech refugees, Warriner, but that’s not nearly as sad as the loss of this country’s humanity, particularly as demonstrated by its current government.
Dubs may not have known of the wider history of the kindertransport, but you can read my take on the bigger picture from the perspective of my father and paternal grandparents pictured below, here.
… and to top it off, the grand-parental origins of my family comprise more than just a political refugee; they include a displaced person, an economic migrant and a geordie. #diverse
The sphere of influence
Spherocytosis, usually a hereditary condition, is one in which the proteins that are supposed to make your red blood cells (erythrocytes) form into biconcave discs are miscoded and, instead, ultimately result in smaller, spherical cells (spherocytes).
Spherocytes are broken down by the spleen much more readily than erythrocytes and this may lead to various issues including a haemolytic anaemia.
All of which is why I’m giving a shout-out to The Tall Child who has non-hereditary spherocytosis (his was a spontaneous case). Although not anaemic, his blood haemoglobin is at the low end of normal. Spherocytes are also known to offload oxygen to cells less efficiently than erythrocytes so, coupled to low haemoglobin levels, one consequence can be to become fatigued more easily. Despite that, over the course of nine weeks he has followed the UK NHS structured ‘couch-to-5K’ programme and, last week, he successfully hit the thirty minute run on target.
Well done Ben, that’s brilliant!
A young man with odd-shaped corpuscles
Once ran from Dundee o’er to Brussels.
He trained for the fray
On the couch-to-5K
Though it gave him some very sore muscles!
Let them eat cake…
… but it’s not only Christmas cake at this time of year…
There once was a bloke gave three cheers
For his daughter because, it appears,
She’d gone out of her way
To mark his birthday
And to bake him a cake with four tiers.
A family at war
I have previously written about the life and experiences of my great uncle Harold, a wounded survivor of the First World War who also volunteered in the Second World War in support of the D-Day landings (see here and here).
I also had three uncles who served in the Second World War; Tot, who died at sea, Jack, who survived the land war and Doug, the eldest of his siblings, an electrical engineer in a reserved occupation who was unable to volunteer for active service or to be conscripted.
Tot was the second oldest of the brothers and served as an engineering officer in the Merchant Navy as poor eyesight caused him to be rejected by the Royal Navy. In 1941 he broke his leg when ashore in the United States and, although permitted to recuperate there, he chose to travel home on his convoy vessel, the SS Empire Crossbill, as a supernumary Fourth Engineer.
Empire Crossbill was an American cargo ship built in 1919 as the West Amargosa and laid up in 1937. In 1940 she was transferred to the UK Ministry of War Transport and renamed the Empire Crossbill. After several successful crossings of the North Atlantic, she mustered in Cape Breton in August 1941 as part of Slow Convoy 42 bound for Liverpool.
SC42 was attacked by the Markgraf wolfpack of 14 German submarines that was on patrol southeast of Greenland. The attack extended over three night nights, 9-11 September. Empire Crossbill was torpedoed by U-82 east of Cape Farewell at 03.11 GMT on 11 September 1941 and sank with all hands: 38 crew, 10 gunners, and one passenger – Thomas Lang Forster, aged 23.
Of the 65 merchant vessels that comprised SC42, sixteen – almost one quarter of the convoy – were lost. U-82 was itself sunk with the loss of all 45 crew just a few months later on 6 February 1942, north of the Azores, having been depth charged by HMS Rochester and HMS Tamarisk. Its captain, Kapitänleutnant Siegfried Rollmann, was 27 – just four years older than Tot.
Jack, the youngest of the three brothers, survived the war having experienced both the Dunkirk evacuation and the D-Day landings.
Prior to the Dunkirk evacuation, he had been with 285 Battery, 72nd Field Regiment, Royal Artillery 50th Northumberland Division, a part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). His Division was one of the last to leave Dunkirk as it had been tasked to destroy any installations as the BEF retreated. Jack and his companions joined one of the last ships, if not the last, that departed Dunkirk. He landed at Margate on 2 June 1940.
As far as his family was concerned, Jack was missing in action, so it was a great relief to them that a telegram arrived from him on 3 June. No “Hello Mam, I’m fine”, but just one line asking her to ‘wire’ 10 shillings (50 pence) to him care of the General Post Office in Rugely Staffordshire!
The 50th Northumberland Division (and Jack) then went on to fight in the North African desert war with General Montgomery and landed on Sword beach on D-Day itself. He was on active service from the time of the BEF to VE Day.
Jack being Jack, he was almost court martialled on VE Day itself. He had been listening on the radio to Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s speech announcing the end of the war in Europe when a senior officer sent for him. He refused to attend the officer and told the messenger to go away saying that he was busy. Jack was subsequently escorted under armed guard to the officer’s room.
I don’t think the officer could have seen much action, certainly not compared to Jack, and on learning of his involvement at Dunkirk, in North Africa, and on D-Day, the officer absolved him of any offence. Many years later they were reunited on Breakfast TV in a segment to mark the 40th anniversary of VE Day and retold their story on air. (I have never watched breakfast TV apart from that one morning, but, unfortunately, despite viewing it from 6am until about 9.50, I never saw his contribution – my employer’s flexitime limit meant that I had to be clocked in by 10am and Jack’s contribution only came later – we had no video recorder at that time.)
NB. Some of the above is taken from archived records detailing the events mentioned, the rest is taken from the family matriarch’s tome ‘A European Family’ and archival material held by family members.
Postscript: This is Jack’s personal recollection of the D-Day landings…
Normandy
The journey we made from Portsmouth to Normandy in France was unforgettable. We travelled in a ‘Landing Craft Tank [L.C.T]’ and to some, the journey was a veritable nightmare. The transport consisted of very long barges, designed to carry eleven tanks, and acted like huge white whales; they would rise from the water towards the sky and then crash onto the sea again after each swell.
It was a welcome relief to land on Sword beach with the main assault troops of the 3rd British Infantry division. The tanks, which went straight into action, left first and at the same time the ramp was in about 15 feet of water.
We were a signal section, part of the advance signals H.Q. and were issued with only handcarts containing wireless equipment. We managed to get a line ashore and the carts, being waterfproof and containing air, floated just below the surface. During this time shells were falling closer and closer. The L.C.T. Captain bawling “Get the hell out of here”, added to the threatening atmosphere. Fortunately we made dry land with only one casualty and that was the barrage balloon we were painstakingly carrying for the beach defence. It was shot down!
We struggled over the beach and found some protection in a farm just inland from the French holiday resort of Lion-sur-mer. Some holiday! Leaving the wireless operators to set up their equipments, driver Morgan and I set about clearing up the area following the tank and infantry assault. My binoculars and watch had been damaged by the sea water but I was able to replace them with those of a German Officer who sadly had no further use of them.
One of our tasks was to search the sleeping quarters below the fortress which had been designed to keep us out. While a young Welsh soldier covered me with my revolver I found two young Germans cowering in the upper bunks. They were terrified and I had to drag them out as they were convinced they were going to be shot. They were no more than seventeen years old and begged us not to shoot them. Having survived the previous infantry attack when many of their comrades had been killed, they were relieved to find out that they were destined for prison camp and safety.
It was unfortunate that our D-Day objective, Caen, was not taken for a further two weeks due to the arrival of Rommel and his famous Panzer troops. They had come north in an attempt to hurl us back into the sea. Rommel must have been extremely unhappy when he realised that both the 3rd. and the 50th. Divisions of the British Army were the ones that prevented him from doing so because he knew that they were the last ones to leave Dunkirk in 1940.
Postscript: Since this was originally posted, I have been able to access some further documents relating to Tot. These are presented below:
(i) Tot looking resplendent in his Merchant Navy engineer’s uniform…
(ii) The families of the Empire Crossbill’s crew would have all received the following notification a few days after the vessel was sunk. It holds the forlorn hope that its crew may have been saved…
(iii) When it was known that no-one had survived the sinking, the families received the sympathies of King George VI…
(iv) Tot’s service medals accompanied by regrets that he never lived to receive them…
(v) Finally, a personal reminder. Tot’s business card…
Dr L Rouge, PhD
And in today’s news it was announced that Nottingham Trent University is to carry out a study on the effect of vehicular traffic on hedgehogs. Given the number of flattened specimens that litter the nation’s roads, I suspect someone might be in line for a PhD thesis that simply comprises a statement of the bleedin’ obvious!
I’m rather fond of hedgehogs because of a familial connection. You see my paternal grandmother was one. More precisely, she was a Ježek, that is she was born in what became the country of Czechoslovakia and her Czech surname translated into English as ‘hedgehog’.
They even brew hedgehog beer there, at the Pivovar Jihlava (Jihlava brewery). As a hedgehog is the symbol of Jihlava, a town found between Prague and Brno, its Ježek lager represents the soul of the brewery.
Another Ježek is the hedgehog in the cage, a Czech puzzle that comprises a small sphere with protruding spikes of various lengths contained within a cylinder perforated with holes of different sizes. The challenge posed by the puzzle is how to release the sphere (the hedgehog) from the cylinder (the cage).
The Trent research isn’t, of course, as trivial as the puzzle or even observing the effects of a 4×4 on an individual hedgehog, but a broader study on the cumulative impact of traffic-induced mortality on the demographics of localised hedgehog populations and whether there is a way to mitigate that through developments in road engineering (ie hedgehog tunnels) or by defining hedgehog-friendly ‘best practice’ in town and country planning. (According to the BBC news website, a study from 2016 estimated that around 100,000 hedgehogs are killed each year on UK roads.)
Nevertheless, rather than await the outcome of the academic research, here is my five-line thesis as a statement of the bleedin’ obvious that tells you all you need to know…
The impact on hedgehogs of traffic
Is to screw up their whole demographic
‘Cos a sickening SPLAT
Soon renders them flat
In a scene that is gruesomely graphic!
Will it qualify me for a PhD d’you think?
Postscript: The eagle-eyed will have noticed that the current ALAW and its predecessor, both have splat and flat as the rhyme in the third and fourth lines albeit in a different order. This purely coincidental and, as a former collegue once stated “Coincidences are the most paradoxical of things – they should never happen, but they always do!”.
On relationships going south…
Mid-february in Aberdeen is not the ideal time to have a new boiler installed. My strategy for dealing with the inevitable disruption and the loss of central heating and hot water was to order in some extra logs and coal.
Management’s solution, along with The Tall Child, was to book flights to Australia and leave me to it.
I’ll leave you to decide who was the wisest!
A chap was once given to wonder
If he’d made an almighty blunder,
‘Cos he stayed on his own
In a cold Scottish home
Whilst the others bu****ed-off Down Under!
HWS
I was apalled to see Nigel Farage wearing an over-sized poppy in the run-up to Rememberance Day. His were not the values that so many lost their lives for.
So, why not click on the headlines, below, for a reminder of the life of a man who served in two world wars, a peace-loving, true gentleman and internationalist; a man that was the polar opposite of those whom the Scottish actor Brian Cox has described as “The opportunistic clowns of Brexit, Gove, Johnson and the little Englander Farage and the feudalist Rees-Mogg”.