James Bond at Christmas

Back by popular request, I wrote this a few years ago now but in the fictional World of Bond nothing goes out of date.It revolves around a local hotel which has been advertising, amongst its seasonal events what they call a 'James Bond Christmas'. 

Here goes...........

Commander Bond lay under the duvet cover. The distant sounding of church bells reminded him that this was indeed Christmas Day.

He had got in at about 9.30pm from yet another of  'M's festive gatherings. It had not been that exciting. He had returned alone. Moneypenny had gone home even earlier, after all she was an old lady and no fun. M's quiche had made him a bit bilious and the dry martini's had not been enough to quell the acidity in his stomach.

He let one go under the heavy winter tog rated bedding and casually wafted it away into the gradually increasing natural light of his flat.

What to do for Christmas Day?

He swung a leg out, feeling for the thick pile of the carpet. Pulling his heavy built form upright he found that his Onesie had ridden up during the night with some constriction of his lower abdomen. It was a legitimate reason for a prolonged scratch and re-arrangement of his undercarriage.

The flat was cold and he cursed not mastering the central heating thermostat in the twenty years and more of his occupation. He had no time for manuals. 'Q' had been kind enough to show him the settings for instantaneous hot water and radiator heating. They had been very similar to the afterburner controls on Little Nelly. A nasty and expensive quarterly gas bill had been the consequence of a degree of confusion on one occasion.

A light, healthy breakfast appealed to him. Those long sessions at the Casino in recent years had ruined his physique .He had contracted and only just recovered from a nasty virus from , he suspected, the sampled contents of a small bowl of mint imperials at the coat-check counter near the toilets in Monte Carlo.

He was disappointed by the contents of the fridge. The orange juice was 'with bits' which he had bought from M&S without checking. He infinitely preferred smooth. No yoghurt, no bran or porridge oats so he settled for a lump of cheese and half a packet of cream crackers. The Onesie successfully captured any fragments of the flaky Lancashire and biscuit crumbs in its thick, luxurious velour giving the faux tiger-skin print the appearance of a dandruff outbreak.

Living the life of a bachelor, out of the normal hours of his regimented and disciplined professional assassin duties, the living room was a tip.

He stumbled over a collection of take-away cartons,pizza boxes and discarded clothing-disappointingly all his. A pint glass full of the discarded shells of pistachio's fell and rolled across the parquet floor gradually decanting its contents. A few well place martial arts kicks cleared the rest of the debris under the DFS corner suite and Ikea wall unit. The DVD's would have to be sorted later from an unruly pile. The movie of 27 Dresses at the top caused him to pause and recall how he had enjoyed the plot and sentiment of such a well structured and acted rom-com.

As Commander Bond dragged the Dyson bagless around the room he made an instinctive check for any signs of intrusion whilst he had been at M's reception. Trip wires and carefully adhered strands of his chest hair were still in situ. It was disappointing not to be the subject of any nefarious intentions during the holiday season. How was he expected to keep his hand in?

The number of Christmas cards on the mantelpiece was well down this year. This was, he mused a combination of how convincing his manufactured death had been earlier in the year resulting in many deletions by Facebook friends and the trend amongst fellow assasins to have to kill each other.

The unsigned, oversized padded card depicting an alpine scene was definitely from that rascal Blofeld. He had a decent sense of humour under that serious visage of world dominating villainy.

The morning passed quickly. Feeling peckish after his exertions of a man's comprehension of cleaning and hoovering he chipped away at the slab of ice which had consumed his freezer compartment and recovered a couple of ready-meals which would do nicely for his Christmas dinner. The combination of Tikka Massala and Hot Pot was novel but palatable. Dessert was a bit more of a challenge but the Angel Delight was soon whisked into a firm peak that briefly and erotically reminded him of past conquests.

The controllers at the 'Licenced to Kill' desk deep in the MI5 building received a message from Bond on the restricted scrambled channel and they duly sent him the TV listings for the rest of the day . He did not expect HM The Queen to expand on their skydiving antics into the Olympic Stadium in her traditional address to the nation. He knew she had enjoyed it on an altogether private level by her whoops and screams and covert and playful cupping of his groin on the descent through the late July sky over London.

Next he knew, it was dark outside the flat. He had dozed off, sprawled across the settee, and with a dribble of spittle running down his chin, a faint essence of butterscotch discernible. Annoyingly he had missed the blockbuster film and no-one had availed him of the operational details of the i-player.

The Strictly Christmas offering thrilled him for the rest of the evening. He would never be asked to participate on the dance floor because of the intricacies of his professional lifestyle.This was a major regret.  His enjoyment of Downton Abbey had been tempered by his instinctive identification of access and escape routes in the stately home and the best place to set off a diversionary explosion for maximum mayhem amongst the sinister looking below stairs staff, all ex KGB without doubt. Lady Mary was definitely a deep cover operative, for sure.

The latter part of the day was now dragging. The invitations to a 'Christmas At Home' from a selection of gangsters, sociopaths and the criminally insane remained on his antique escritoire, opened but not responded to. A threat of menace and a long monologue about blah, blah, ransom, blah, blah, extortion, blah, blah, gold reserves and the prospect of a scorching of nether regions by a high powered laser was now of some attraction when in the past it had just been part and parcel of the job.

It was a pity that he had not forged better links with those he had collaborated with on his missions. That Felix Leiter was a personable chap but obviously had problems of self image based on his frequently radical changes in appearance and skin colour.

He poured himself a Baileys over ice (chipped flakes from the freezer compartment) and gorged himself to the point of being nauseous on the After Eights, a raffle prize at 'M's with the proceeds going to support the families of disavowed agents.

James Bond contemplated starting a diplomatic incident to alleviate his boredom. A convincing non-nuclear conflagration of the Home Counties was well within his capabilities from just the contents of his lock up garage in Twickenham.  His life story, auctioned to the tabloids would keep him in the style in which the public perceived him to exist.

In reality and out of abject loneliness he found that crying himself to sleep on Christmas night was a form of light and therapeutic relief. 

As always, he firmly believed that it would be so much better next year....,,,,,,,

Return to Bedford Falls

One of my seasonal favourites. Thought I would show it again just to get in the Festive mood.....

It's a wonderful film and yet, as with most works of genius it was not recognised in its own time. Perhaps its sentiment in 1946 was too nice for a world emerging from war and austerity. It has at it's root laudable themes of brooding unhappiness , selfless service to the community, heartless business and contemplation of suicide and not that many pitch battles, bombing missions, beach assaults and no notable explosions which were otherwise popular movie features of the period.  It represented a return of humanity and values that had been sacrificed or as the lead character, George Bailey, played by James Stewart remarks 'all is fair in love and war'.

I am of course referring to the Frank Capra movie of "It's a Wonderful Life"

It's a regular event in our family to watch the DVD in the run-up to Christmas. It does rank and climbs the poll every year as the best Christmas film of all time although my son still contends that Die Hard (1) would be hard to be pushed off top spot. Recently , a re-digitised and colour version was released but to really appreciate the heart warming emotions it has to be seen in original black and white. The movie does impact in all its glory on a small domestic TV screen, especially when cocooned in a duvet on the sofa and surrounded by loved ones. In the privacy of my own home I will be a bit misty eyed by about 30 minutes into the running time and completely useless and blubbering for the duration. I issue a spoiler alert at this stage but you must, if not familiar with the film, just watch it, wrapped up, with family or close friends and keep some tissues up your sleeves.

It's a rare privilege therefore, some 66 years after the release of the film, to get an opportunity to see it on the big screen in a cinema. It is something altogether different to contemplate being seen crying in a public auditorium. In my favour the screening was in a town some distance away from my home and so there was a low to acceptable risk of bumping into a friend or acquaintance. I had mentioned to colleagues and just passers by in the street, in the preceding weeks, that this was on the cards but was very careful not to divulge the location, day, date and time. I was astounded by the number of blank expressions from those with no knowledge of the film although the enthusiastic reminiscences from the majority did outweigh those poor unfortunate and unfulfilled souls.

It's a small cinema, one of the very few still surviving in a market place setting in a commuter town. The nearest multiplex would be around 20 miles away in the nearest cities which will have helped it to persist. I would willingly have paid more than the £4 admission charge which did include a glass of sherry and a micro-mince pie. Forget your deep and plushly upholstered back massaging, centrally heated and wired for sound luxury seating and just get comfortable if you can in a blue cloth wrapped bucket. Not much chance of being seduced into a sleep for the duration which is all good. I have often paid £12.50 to Odeon , Vue and Cineworld Cinemas ostensibly for a film but actually for a fitfull drift in and out of consciousness in that luxuriant heavy eyed feeling. Most blockbuster films are a mystery to me in terms of the main plot as I am only awake for the very beginning and the final chaotic few frames, usually involving silhouetted figures and a sunset.

It's an exciting moment when the lights dim and the big screen lights up into action. The quality of the film was fantastic although I may have been secretly disappointed that there were no bromide-brown blobs, dancing string-like blemishes or curses from the projection room over scorched and melting celluloid. I was immediately transported back in time as though at a small town Premiere of It's a Wonderful Life. The lack of legroom to a baby boomer like myself would not have constituted a problem to a post war audience in the UK, what with emaciation from many years of rationing, staple food deficiences and premature curvature of the legs from rickets.

It's a revelation to see the drama unfold on the big screen. Although I have seen the movie at least annually for the last decade or so the super sized images added a completely fresh dimension and it was as though I was seeing it for the first time. In close-up and at 4metres full on,  the facial expressions of James Stewart are even more magnificent and as for the lead actress, Donna Reed, well she's got a very good complexion and skin tone which is not always apparent on my Sony TV at home. There was a warning on the advertising poster of mild violence for the more sensitive in the audience. In the context of the film and it's era it was acceptable, or so it was portrayed, to slap around shop staff, throw stones at houses, verbally abuse primary school teachers, drink drive and make mad and violent love- you know the sort, fully clothed, no actual physical contact and with both feet on the ground to get past the Film Censors.

It's a therapeutic sound to hear a large group of people laugh and weep at alternate moments but generally in unison. I had just about got acclimatised to the seat when the film finished. Where had the time gone? As the audience reluctantly got up to go and in rather harsh lighting it was normal service resumed in human interaction or the lack of it. We all, me included, kept our heads down for fear of showing a weakness in our tear streamed faces. The waste bin at the exit was nearly full of damp Kleenex when I reached it and coaxed out the soggy contents of my left sleeve. A few small family groups lingered and reassured each other in quite a public display of fondness which was both nice and a bit cringey in equal proportions.

It's a funny thing but on the pavement outside, in the minus one degree of a mid December night in a Yorkshire town it felt a bit like the Bedford Falls of the film. It was not so long ago that there had been, like in the film, a run on the bank. There will be many that we know personally who feel trapped in their current lives when in their carefree youth they had magnificent plans to travel and undertake adventures. We all will have felt a degree of despair, anxiety and depression at some time. It is ultimately important , however to remind ourselves that we all contribute in some way to the lives of those around us whether through supporting our families and friends or just through a kind word or deed to a complete stranger.

It's in our power to make it a really wonderful life. Get busy.

The Invisible Woman of Walmington on Sea

Elizabeth Mainwaring (pronounced Mannering) was the wife of George, the Captain of the fictional Home Guard of Walmington on Sea as depicted in the 1968 to 1977 comedy classic- Dad’s Army. 

For all of the long running and still repeated episodes Elizabeth remained as an unseen character at the end of a phone conversation, heard moving about upstairs at her home, at best as a vague shadow or in the bulging shape of someone on the top bunk in the bomb shelter. 

Her influence over her husband and as a consequence his subsequent moods, attitudes and behaviour in relation to the members of the Platoon was nevertheless tangible and an important undercurrent to the adventures and antics of the principal characters. 

The writers, Perry and Croft did invent a back story for Elizabeth to give her depth and as an explanation for some of her later unconventional or illogical outbursts and acts. 

These regularly ran within the main scripted dialogues.

For example, Captain Mainwaring surprised everyone in his ability to play the bagpipes which he attributed to spending his honeymoon on a remote Scottish Island where there was nothing else to do. 

In conversation with the haughty and foppish Sergeant Wilson, Mainwaring tells him about his wife’s fondness for silent movies but only because she was so shocked to hear a character on a film speak a line that she refused to return to any cinema. 

Her regular criticism of George is attributed to a privileged fictional upbringing as the daughter of a Suffragan Bishop and that she and her family believe that she married below her own social standing.

George is very hard done by as he has attained the heady heights for a provincial town of Bank Manager through working hard at his education and banking exams. He does have her best interests at heart however and strives to provide goods and services even though these sometimes go against his own morals and sense of citizenship, especially in wartime. 

This is particularly evident in his turning a blind eye to contraband from the black marketeer spiv Private Walker or gifts such as an extra portion of sausages or offal from the good natured Corporal Jones, the town butcher. Mainwaring also sourced scarce items through the Black Marketeer, Private Walker. He excitedly phoned his wife at home on Walmington 92 with news of mature cheddar only to be underwhelmed by her response. 

He is also protective of Elizabeth in saying that she had led a sheltered life in not even trying tomato sauce before she met him and a fondness shows through in his referring to her as the little woman and alluding to a blissful married life. 

His selflessness is to be admired as Elizabeth’s reclusive nature will have impeded any upward mobility that George may have hoped for within the hierarchy of the Bank at a time when socialising and hospitality were an essential part of getting ahead in commerce. The actuality of his domestic situation will have been behind his complete lack of hesitation in putting himself forward, uncharacteristically pushily, as leader of the Local Defence Volunteers, or as they became known, the Home Guard. 

Mrs Mainwaring’s persona is achieved, in her very obvious absence, by clever writing by which we assume that she is a larger than life woman ( described as being a bit bigger in physical dimensions that the effervescent Mrs Fox- a friend of Jonesy), a bit handy with her fists with George suffering a black eye in a hushed up domestic incident and always making an excuse on the grounds of health or fear of being bombed so as not to participate in the social functions of the platoon family.

One visualisation, conjured up in my mind, of the mysterious Elizabeth is of her in a siren suit, a sort of one piece flight or boiler suit so much trademark attire of Winston Churchill when out and about visiting his blitz affected countrymen and women. Unfortunately this produces the startling image of a character part Michelin Man and part Gas Engineer and hardly flattering.

Jokes at her expense are regularly inserted into the dialogue such as her not having left the house at 23 Lime Crescent,  “since Munich” or when George, excited at having obtained some scarce cheese rang Elizabeth to say that he might have a surprise for her that evening. This double entendre meant that he ended up eating the delicacy with Sergeant Wilson in the Vicar’s Office. 

Gradually we come to the realisation that she is always to be an elusive figure but then are shocked, as is George,  by revelations such as her playing the role of Lady Godiva on horseback riding through Walmington on Sea to raise funds for a Spitfire fighter plane. 

It is not all one way traffic in terms of who obviously wears the trousers in the Mainwaring household as in one series episode George has a platonic tea room and station platform liaison with one of the new female recruits to the platoon but is mindful of his married status and upholding his position of responsibility in the bank and town. 

There is an underlying melancholy to the relationship between George and Elizabeth but it works so very well in the cleverly woven story lines and characterisations that have made Dad’s Army such a loved bit of British television. 

Telegram Boys in Hull in the wartime years

It is really amazing how a simple passing conversation on the street can bring forth a lot of wonderful personal nostalgia and local history facts. 

Rummaging about in the boot of my car on a residential street in my home city of Hull I saw an elderly gentleman making his way carefully along a wintry wet and icy pavement. I had almost come a cropper that same morning in not appreciating a patch of black ice as I walked across a street and so passed on my experience to the cautious pedestrian. 

At the age of 94 he was still very mobile, excepting the challenging weather conditions, and dismissed my concerns in a kindly but authoritative manner. He qualified this by mentioning that he was no stranger to adversity as in 1943 in Hull, very much on the front line of Luftwaffe Attacks ,he was a Telegram Messenger or Boy Messenger which exposed him to hostile action in conveying, by bike, sometimes urgent but also mundane communications from the Post Office to business and private citizen recipients. 

That will have been quite a role for him as a 14 year old but as part of a cohort of 60 Hull Messengers in smart uniforms and very aware of representing the auspicious and much respected HM Post Office.

Although a junior position it had to be very disciplined and as well as the uniform there was a rigid code of conduct and on arriving for a shift there was an inspection for smart turnout with the sanction of being sent home if not up to the expected high standards. 

In wartime many Messenger Boys had initially to provide their own bicycles and quite a lucrative income could be gained from a 4 penny a mile allowance before being provided with an official mode of transport. 

A typical weekly wage was fifteen shillings and eightpence equating in modern money to 78 pence. 

The Messengers worked three different shifts starting at 8am, 8.30am and 10am on a seven day week and working through to around 8pm in the evening. The Messenger Boy ranks were very important as the majority of the able bodied men were recruited into the fighting ranks leaving an aged demographic of working Postmen supported by women on the rounds and in the sorting offices. 

In the war years few people had telephones and so Telegrams were a quick means of communication. In the heyday of telegrams in the 1930's an average of 65 million were delivered although on a loss making basis for the Post Office estimated at £1million annually. 

The cost of a telegram was sixpence (6d) for 9 words and a penny for each additional word. This included the address and text but very abbreviated so save cost to the sender. A good local knowledge amongst the Telegram Boys was therefore essential. 

Greetings Telegrams were in a pale blue envelope and the message printed or, in smaller Post Offices, actually hand written by an employee. 

The Code of Practice on delivery was for the Messenger Boy to only hand over to the addressee and not simply push the Telegram through the letterbox or leave with anyone else. It was then a case of waiting for the telegram to be read and asking if there was a reply and acting on that. A card could be left for a failed delivery but it was necessary to leave and come back another time with the message. 

The Rule Book, often carried around whilst on Duty, forbade accepting gifts or gratuities but tips were graciously received anyway. 

In Hull a main destination for Telegrams was companies trading and operating on the Docks and Quays onto the Humber Estuary serving the North Sea trade and beyond. The extensive complex of docks were key targets for enemy aerial bombing and so the Boy Messengers ran the risk of injury or death.

There were also risks from dock traffic on the road and the maze of freight railway lines which had to be crossed on a daily basis. 

A Telegram delivered to a residential address was quite an event sparking curiosity and intrigue amongst nosey neighbours. There was also the on going battling with dogs who found great sport in chasing, cornering and biting a Telegram Boy. 

As a fourteen year old my pavement acquaintance will have seen a lot of city life, not all of it wholesome and moral. 

There was also quit an emotional aspect particularly where the contents of a Telegram were bad or sad news. 

In Wartime the Telegram Service was used by the War Office to inform families of those killed in action, lost at sea or taken as a Prisoner of War. 

Many Messenger Boys continued to be employed after the war and progressed to the roles of Junior Postmen and then full time adult employees. At the age of 16 it was necessary to sit a Civil Service Exam which was quite wide ranging but basically was to establish competency in the three R’s of reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic for continued employment. 

In parting on the pavement the old gentleman brought out from his wallet a black and white photograph of him in his Messenger Boy uniform. 

As he headed to the bus stop on the main road he appeared to have a new spring in his step after availing me of part of his life story.

(inspired by a brief pavement exchange on Hotham Road North and supplemented by the memoirs of John Vickers sourced from 1993 BBC WW2 Peoples at War)

Hull Trawlers. Fortune and Fates of War

This is the first new piece of writing for some time on the Hull Maritime Theme which I find very fascinating. 

It is a testament to the engineering quality and durability of Hull based Trawlers that many were requisitioned by the Admiralty for service in the Second World War as Auxiliary Support vessels. 

One such Trawler was Lady Shirley with the original trawler number H411. 

She was just one of the prolific output of the Beverley, East Yorkshire shipbuilders of Cook, Welton and Gemmell and was completed in 1937 for Jutland Amalgamated Trawlers Limited of Hull just a short trip along the river from that great Maritime Port City. 

The outbreak of hostilities in 1939 saw Lady Shirley, now with the HMT designation and number T464 equipped with armaments including a 4 inch deck gun, machine guns and depth charges. 

In February 1940 whilst on patrol in the Firth of Tay, Scotland she was strafed by enemy raiding aircraft but not as the man focus of their intentions in what was a busy shipping lane. 

Lady Shirley was typical of the Cook, Welton and Gemmell pedigree at 177 tons, 164 feet in length and with a top speed of 12 knots. Her principal wartime role was patrol and support for Convoys and reconnaissance aircraft and by 1941 she was operating out of Gibraltar in the very militarily active waters of the Atlantic and Western Mediterranean. 

The crew were not re-purposed Hull Trawlermen but Royal Naval Patrol Service Ratings. The total on- board compliment was 33 under an Australian, Lieutenant Commander A H Calloway.

Meanwhile, on a fast converging course was the German U Boat U-111. 

Built in Bremen in 1940 the submarine was quickly into service and on its first active service foray in May 1941 the U-111 ranged widely from the Faroe Islands and Iceland claiming the sinking of two convoy ships and damaging of another contributing around 20000 tons to the fast accelerating Merchant losses on the perilous North Atlantic supply routes. 

Amongst other U-Boats there was the targeting of Convoy 12 HX126 off Greenland although the Captain, William Kleinschmidt, was thwarted in further kills by the activities of competing submarines in what was, for the Kriegsmarine, a successful campaign. 

When other U Boats were recalled to their base in Lorient, France for replenishment of armaments, supplies and crews or given fresh orders to relocate the role of U-111 was as a spotter for the battleships Bismarck and Prinz Eugen as they sought out and sank HMS Hood. 

It must have been a tragic sight, subsequently for U-111 to help look for survivors of the Bismarck after the Royal Navy hunted down and sank the major threat in the following weeks. 

In July 1941 the inaugural mission ended with a return to base and much welcome shore leave and maintenance, To acknowledge the action of U-111 in northern waters the conning tower was decorated with a polar bear and iceberg motif.

By all accounts U-111 had been an effective weapon and this will have been much exploited by Nazi Propaganda in the portrayal of the great morale and efficiency of its naval forces. 

However, there was a degree of disquiet amongst the crew with criticism of Captain Kleinschmidt being, at 34 years, too old for his command. The usual U-Boat deployment was 43 crew but for the second mission, this time in the theatre of war in tropical waters, there were 52 on board of whom only 5 had any previous experience of action. Conditions will, at best have been cramped and claustrophobic with the additional contingent. The excessively high casualty rate amongst U boat crews, to reach 75% by the end of the U Boat campaign,  will have been well known. This did not augur well for the appetite to fight and morale, unlike the propaganda portrayal, was likely to be low.

The Lady Shirley and U-111 came up against each other on Thursday 9^th October 1941 in the Atlantic just to the south west of Tenerife.

Cruising on the surface, Captain Kleinschmidt, mistook the smokestack and superstructure of Lady Shirley for a stricken vessel separated from a convoy formation and not therefore a perceived immediate threat. 

At the same time the masthead lookout aboard the armed Trawler saw the distinctive conning tower of a U-Boat and in an aggressive action Lieutenant Commander Calloway headed for the enemy position.

Kleinschmidt ordered a rapid evasive dive but not enough to avoid the depth charges from Lady Shirley and with a now panicking crew and taking on water he decided to surface and confront the ship directly. 

The deck gun and machine guns on Lady Shirley were quickly causing damage although return fire from the German crew killed Seamen Pizzey, a side gunner. 

U-111 received several hits and the death of Kleinschmidt and 7 others in the gun battle caused the submarine crew to signal they wanted to surrender. The 44 survivors, now in the water as U-111 sank beneath the waves, were rescued. 

When seeing the actual smaller size, crew numbers and lesser firepower of Lady Shirley two senior German officers tried to organise a plan to storm and take the Trawler and head for the neutral Spain. 

The demoralised and defeated crew had no compulsion to continue the battle even though they could not believe they had succumbed to an inferior foe. Although U-111 did sink this was not from the initial depth charge attack and so the emergency surfacing might not have been necessary. 

As always, in a conflict there is a footnote.

Just two months after the action the Lady Shirley was on an operation in the Straits of Gibraltar. 

Whilst on patrol with another Cook, Welton and Gemmell built vessel, St Nectan (incidentally resuming work as a trawler until 1967) there was a prolonged squall. 

After the storm had passed it was found that Lady Shirley had disappeared without a trace with the loss of Calloway and all crew members.

There was a reported claim by an active submarine, the U-374 that they had torpedoed the armed trawler although this could not be substantiated as the U Boat was lost shortly after and no validation of the sinking was possible.. 

It was suspected that Lady Shirley had been sabotaged through a time bomb placed on board, whilst in Gibraltar Dockyard, by a Spanish Agent for the Nazis

The heroism of Calloway and his crew had resulted in the first time that prisoners of war had been captured from a U-Boat in the South Atlantic. The U-111 was the first submarine to be lost in that theatre of war..

 Calloway received a Distinguished Service Order Medal for the action. 

                                The photograph is of Lady Shirley in what could be Gibraltar

Arcticulation on a weather front

The wind from the North, from the far Arctic reaches brought some snow to our part of the UK today. 

We do pretty well to escape the worst excesses of typical wintry weather on the mid-eastern side of England and I think that today’s intermittent flurries were only the second throughout the whole of 2023. 

It has been a welcome change to have normal seasonal temperatures after much of the autumn and winter so far having attained double figures. 

That critical air temperature of 1 degree Celsius was persistent through the daylight hours today and the snow just kept coming, then quickly thawing or turning to slush before the process repeated itself with some regularity. 

The light dusting of snow on pavements and parked vehicles was enough to remind me of some of my favourite jokes and stories from this seasonal weather. 

One is about a conversation between an Eskimo father and his son whilst they are sitting around cosily in an ice block igloo away from the harsh chill of the winds and the relentless white-out of their natural environment. 

It is quality time in which the senior member of an Eskimo family can pass down wisdom and practical advice learned the hard way and indeed carrying on the traditions and practices of a proud and resourceful race. 

Story telling is a major part of the inheritance skills with the dramatic recounting of epic struggles against the elements and of course the wildlife who feature culturally and as an essential ingredient in the requirements of survival. 

The Eskimo is not an aggressive character by nature as there is an essential co-existence with their fellow inhabitants as dictated by some of the most inhospitable and unforgiving terrain in the world. That is apart from having to be a ruthless hunter and to be prepared to make life or death decisions. 

In the flickering light of a whale oil lantern (although in reality likely to be conventional lighting from a petrol generator) the father teaches his son about all manner of things that will prove useful in their chosen lifestyle. 

I like to think that one piece of wisdom would be, of course, never eat yellow snow. 

The igloo resonates from the booming of a deep winter storm. 

Shadows flicker magically across the smooth dome of the ceiling and chase around its perimeter as has been the case for millenia. It is as if generations of ancestors are visiting at that time and partaking in the rituals and customs. 

As the perpetual night above the Arctic Circle continues the teachings of the father come around to how a young Eskimo hunter should behave for his own honour and for that of his family and particular tribal group. 

It is a case of self discipline, care of his own person and those who depend upon him when he himself becomes head of the igloo and main bread or rather blubber-winner. 

The father delivers the lectures with humour and gravity as each subject demands but captures wholeheartedly the attention and concentration of his young protégé. As they bond in that igloo, representing the extent of their wintry world, the father imparts the greatest single piece of advice, that being to always be upstanding and fight your corner. 

At that point and in a bit of a state of confusion the son looks enquires “What is a corner?”

Just one more. 

The remotest habitats amongst Antarctica are now within the itinerary of tour companies who offer an educational cruise with on board tuition about that continent and time on the ice shelf itself. 

There are climatologists, naturalists, ecologists and a whole host of experts on hand to answer any question from the guests. 

On one landing party an elderly participant tried repeatedly to catch the attention of the guide, an expert on the creatures who inhabit Antarctica. 

Eventually she managed to voice her query on the subject of the penguins in a large colony. 

Could she ask what was the difference between the white penguins and the black penguins. 

The expert gave it some careful thought before answering “the white penguins are walking towards you and………………”