Baby Boris: all blond hair and dipped in ink

Stanley Johnson, the father of the London mayor, recalls the magical rural home where he grew up, how he left his new bride undressed in a hotel corridor and mistook his newborn son for an African-American

My mother was by nature an optimist. I remember being woken by her one night when I was about four years old. My father was a pilot in the RAF during the war and we were living in a little cottage near the runway at Chivenor in north Devon.

“Look, darling! Come quickly!” She hustled me to the window. “There is a wonderful bonfire on the runway! A plane has crashed and, quite soon, the depth charges will explode!” I can’t remember whether the depth charges did explode that night, but I recall the knock on the door the next morning. It was the RAF padre. He took off his hat. “Mrs Johnson? I’m afraid I’ve some bad news. Your husband . . .”

The spectacular plane crash we had witnessed had involved my father, returning home from trying to spot enemy U-boats. His Wellington bomber had clipped a telegraph pole and crashed on the runway. He had been severely burnt.

“The good news,” the padre continued, “is that your husband is still alive.” My mother thrust her chin out. “I didn’t doubt it for a moment.”

“Daddy’s crash” was one of the milestones of my childhood. He received extensive plastic surgery (and a DFC for extricating his crew from the burning plane) and spent the rest of his life with one leg 2in shorter than the other.

My parents bought a smallholding near Horsell in Surrey after the war. We kept livestock, including pigs and poultry. For a time, my father resumed his prewar life as a timber broker in the City, while trying to keep an eye on the animals at the same time. Each evening, on returning from London to Surrey, he would drive an old open Lancia Lambda around various restaurants in the Woking area collecting vegetable and other waste, which he would then boil in an iron vat and serve as swill to the pigs.

It frequently fell to us children to keep the fire going under the vat, by feeding it with logs and brushwood. Failure to do so, my father explained, meant the swill would not be properly cooked and the pigs would suffer. I remember one spectacular eruption when my father, returning home from the pub for Sunday lunch, discovered we had let the fire go out. He was an immensely strong man and for a moment it seemed as though he was going to pick up the entire dining-room table, laden as it was with crockery, cutlery and the Sunday roast, and hurl it across the room. In the event, he brought the carving knife hard down on the table, causing splinters to fly.

My mother had a fine sense of drama. Far from being disconcerted, she applauded. “Bravo, Johnny!” she exclaimed.

She later explained to us that my father had been in a bad mood not so much because of our lapses but because he couldn’t stand working in London. “He simply hates it,” she said.

While my father grew increasingly frustrated with a suburban existence, my brother and I went off to prep school in deepest Devon. It is entirely thanks to this that he was at last able to escape the life he loathed in London and, at the age of 40, take up an existence he had always longed for. The purchase in 1951 of West Nethercote, a 250-acre hill farm in west Somerset, has probably been the single most important determinant of my life and of the kind of person I am.

The White Horse, Bampton, was a pub where my parents would stay on their annual visit to see my brother and me at school. My father became friendly with the landlord, Mr Collacott. In the summer of 1951, soon after the parental appearance at sports day, Mr Collacott telephoned to say that an old boy called Stanley Blake had walked into the pub from his farm (10 miles as the crow flies, more by road) and in the course of a long evening had intimated that he was thinking of selling up.

Next day, my father took the day off from the unloved timber brokers, hopped on his Norton motorcycle and drove 200 miles to find out what Mr Blake’s intentions were. It turned out there was not just one Mr Blake. Stanley had a brother, Ernest, with whom he was not on speaking terms, though they not only shared the old partly medieval farmhouse, and worked the farm together; they even shared the same bed. There was also a Miss Blake, their sister, who did the housekeeping and who acted as an intermediary in the event that Stanley had, absolutely, to communicate with Ernest or vice versa.

My father always maintained that he knew from the first moment he turned off the Winsford–Exford road to follow the River Exe for two miles up the bumpy, potholed track to Nethercote that this was the place for him. I know how he must have felt. Even though I have now lived there for 57 years, I can still sense the magic every time I drive across the little bridge over the river to enter what for me is the most special valley in England, if not the world.

Our valley has become a treasure house of wildlife. Apart from the butterflies, we have loads of dormice, barn owls, heron, kingfishers, woodpeckers, buzzards and kestrels galore, not to speak of red deer, foxes, badgers and bats. Sometimes, our au pairs would complain about bats flying around in their bedrooms at night and even being tangled in their hair. Once I sought my mother’s advice. “Tell them to put a saucepan on their head when they go to bed!”

In 1959 I went up to Oxford. By the beginning of my third year, I had a fair number of undergraduate women friends. We tended to meet at the Cadena in the Cornmarket for tea, went to the cinema in Walton Street or concerts in the Sheldonian.

This was all very satisfactory. I was an innocent boy from Exmoor. I couldn’t help noticing, however, that some of my contemporaries at Exeter College had regular girlfriends with whom they were seen around college or in town. Bill Gissane on Staircase 5 had a devastatingly beautiful blonde ladyfriend called Zena, who would stretch herself languorously like a cat in the front quad after breakfast in his rooms.

Then there was an American called Brad Hosmer, who had rooms on Staircase 2. A serving member of the United States Air Force, he parked a Studebaker in the Turl and at weekends drove out to the USAF base at Brize Norton to keep up his flying hours. I would sometimes pass his latest comely squeeze on the stairs.

“What’s the secret, Brad?” I asked him. “Dead simple, Stan. Just find something you have in common.”

“What kind of thing are we talking about here, Brad?”

“Well, take apples,” Brad explained. “You meet a girl. First thing you do is ask her if she likes apples. Nine times out of 10, she’ll say, ‘Yes, I like apples’.”

“Then what?” I asked. “Then you say, ‘Hell! That’s amazing! I like apples too. Let’s go to bed!’ ” Soon after this conversation, I had to go to London for the day. On the train, on my way back, I found myself sitting opposite a very attractive young woman called Sarah, who was at Lady Margaret Hall (LMH). I had seen Sarah around the college, being squired by Chris, a lawyer in my year.

“How’s Chris, then?” I asked. “Fine, thanks.” The ice broken, we chatted away. Soon after the train had left Reading, I remembered Brad’s advice. Find some point of common interest. “Pretty awful place, Reading?” I nodded in the direction of the passing Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory. “Paris is much nicer, isn’t it? Do you like Paris?”

“Yes, I do like Paris!” “Hell!” I exclaimed. “I like Paris too! Why don’t we meet at Heathrow airport next Friday morning, catch a plane to Paris and spend the weekend there?”

In those days, the bus from Orly airport brought you to the terminus at Les Invalides. Sarah and I made our way along the Left Bank towards the Pont Saint-Michel. I left her sitting with her bag in a cafe on one of the little winding side streets. “You stay here,” I said. “I’ll go and find a place for us to stay.”

I probably sounded more confident than I actually felt. Sarah and I hadn’t discussed the “modalities” of our little expedition before setting off. When I found a suitable hotel, was I going to ask for two separate rooms? Or was I going to ask for one room, with two beds? Or one with a double bed?

When I found a sweet little hotel off the rue de l’Université, I decided to go for broke. “Une chambre double, s’il vous plait.” I handed over my passport.

“Et le passeport de madame?” “Madame a toujours son passeport.” “Il faut la chercher, monsieur.” I went back, feeling nervous, to fetch Sarah and her passport. What would happen, I wondered, when we returned and they realised we weren’t man and wife?

As it happened, my anxieties on this score proved wholly superfluous. I tried to retrace my steps to the Pont Saint-Michel, only to find myself hopelessly lost.

Fifteen years later, quite by chance, I met Sarah at a reception in Brussels. She still looked tremendously pretty. When she saw me, she gave a start, then smiled frostily: “Oh, hello! Whatever happened to you that day in Paris? I waited for ages but you never showed up!”

Soon after the disastrous trip to Paris, I met another student from LMH, Charlotte Fawcett. She wore a waistcoat made of rabbit fur and, in general, had a bohemian air about her. I managed not to make a mess of this relationship and we were married about eight months later.

We went potato-picking in Kent for our honeymoon. (It seemed a good idea at the time.) But we had a second honeymoon a few weeks later on the Queen Mary, bound for New York. I had been awarded a Harkness fellowship to travel and study in the United States.

On our first evening in New York, Charlotte and I celebrated our arrival in America by ordering room-service dinner at our hotel: jumbo prawns and giant T-bone steaks. When we had finished, I rang down to reception to tell them to pick up the trolley outside our room.

The trolley was so large and there was so much debris on it that Charlotte, who had undressed for bed, had to help me to manoeuvre it into the corridor. As she did so, the door to our room shut behind us.

“I’ll get another key from reception,” I said.

“Be quick! I’ve got no clothes on,” Charlotte urged.

I was quick but not quick enough. The man came for the trolley while Charlotte was still crouching behind it.

One of the requirements of my fellowship was that I should travel around the United States for at least three or four months. A few weeks after our arrival Charlotte realised she was pregnant. It seemed sensible to get some of the travelling done before the baby was born.

“Let’s head for Mexico!” I said. “Olé!” Charlotte replied. The Harkness rules said we weren’t allowed to take the car across the border, so we left it in Laredo, Texas, and caught the Greyhound bus south.

It took 20 hours to reach Mexico City. Charlotte was suffering from morning sickness and the altitude didn’t help. She didn’t welcome the prospect of the long ride back on the bus to the United States.

One night, a man called Boris Litwin and his wife invited us to their beautiful home in San Angel. Boris was a Russian who, like Trotsky, had come to live in Mexico. Trotsky had been murdered with an ice pick, but Boris was still going strong. His daughter, Barbara, was the girlfriend of one of my Exeter College friends.

At that first lunch, I mentioned to the Litwins that Charlotte and I were planning to return to the United States the way we had come. By Greyhound bus. All 20 hours of it, barring floods, earthquake, ambush or mechanical breakdowns. Boris didn’t say anything, but he looked accusingly at me. I knew what he was thinking.

Two days later the Litwins invited us again, this time for dinner. They showered us with presents. I remember a shawl, a wicker basket, a poncho for Charlotte and some silver ornaments.

Just as we were saying goodbye, overwhelmed by their generosity, Boris thrust two Mexico City–Laredo air tickets into our hands. “You can forget about the Greyhound bus now!” he told us.

It was Charlotte who, on the spur of the moment, came up with an idea for repaying his kindness. “If our baby is a boy,” she told him, as we gratefully accepted the tickets, “we’ll call him Boris!”

Our home in New York was a spacious loft in West 23rd Street. It contained a bath on stilts and a yellow out-of-tune piano with the motto “Vive La Fun!” painted glaringly on its lid. The lavatory, with a marble hand basin, was concealed from the rest of the room by some large abstract canvases.

Birdcages hung from the ceiling and soot crept in through the windows.

There was a terrace at the back populated by metallic sculptures. It was easy enough to climb up from street level. Once I woke to find a large black man standing over the bed. “I say,” I protested, “we’re trying to sleep. You wouldn’t mind leaving us alone, would you?”

Happily the man took the point and climbed back through the window onto the terrace. It was often too hot to sleep with the windows shut. Having the occasional unwanted visitor was a small price to pay.

On June 19, 1964, five months after we moved in, Charlotte gave birth to the long-anticipated baby in New York hospital, situated by the river around East 70th Street.

In those days there wasn’t so much pressure on expectant fathers to be present at the birth of their offspring. I had no objection in principle. Unfortunately, however, I missed the birth because I had stepped outside for a moment to get a pizza.

When I got back, I was told that the new baby was already safely wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the nursery in a cot, along with half a dozen other new arrivals. As I peered through the glass, I found it difficult to determine which our child was. The babies were lined up so that all I could see was the soles of their feet, which were uniformly black. Just for a moment I thought there had been a mix-up and somehow Charlotte had given birth to an African–American or Puerto Rican child. I asked a passing nurse for guidance.

“We dip the feet in ink to take their footprints as soon as they are born,” she explained. “We want to avoid mix-ups. You can’t use the babies’ fingerprints. Not when they’re newborn. They’re too soft.”

A few minutes later, another nurse entered the crèche, picked up one of the bundles and carried it along to a tearful but joyful Charlotte. I realised with relief, as she cradled the child, that all was in order. Even then the blond hair was unmistakable. We registered the baby with the US authorities, as well as with the British consulate, thus ensuring future dual citizenship. Next day, I wrote to Boris Litwin to tell him that the new arrival had weighed in at over 9lb and was doing well.

“We have named him Boris as we promised,” I wrote, “as a small gesture of recognition for your kindness to us in Mexico. The full name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.”

Mr and Mrs Litwin have died, but I am still in touch with their daughter, Barbara, who lives not far from us in London. The last time we met, she told me that every time she sees Boris Johnson on television or reads one of his articles (or presumably now hears a London mayoral pronouncement), she is reminded of her father.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5907448.ece

Britain's first WMD: An Elizabethan cannon that could punch a hole in solid oak

It may appear primitive, but this cannon marks the point when Britannia began to rule the waves. Britain's 'first weapon of mass destruction' was discovered on a warship that sank in the Channel in 1592. It could fire a cannonball at close to the speed of sound - fast enough to punch through the solid oak planks of an enemy galleon 100 yards away.

The extraordinary power of the 7ft 'Elizabethan supergun' was revealed when a replica was test-fired in a disused quarry.

Mensun Bound, a marine archaeologist at Oxford University, said: 'No gun of this type and period had ever been tested before and the results were surprising. 'Muzzle velocities were achieved that were almost the speed of sound and the shot that was fired was able to punch through 4in of oak with ease.

'The weapon was also remarkably accurate and was able to hit the target every time.
'In addition to round shot, different types of long shot were also found on the wreck, which were used for ripping through rigging, rending sails and killing and maiming people.'

The 90ft ship sank half a mile off Alderney while on its way to resupply English troops fighting in Brittany. Its wreck was discovered after a fisherman found a musket caught in his lines in 1977, but it took until last year for the three cannon on board to be retrieved.

Most interestingly to historians, all were built to an identical design. The shot recovered also had a uniform size to within a millimetre. This standardisation allowed the guns to fire at the same time, in a devastating manoeuvre that was key to the Royal Navy becoming the most powerful in the world.

Just four years earlier, the vessels fighting the Spanish Armada were still being armed with weaponry of different sizes, making loading and reloading slow and complicated.

Ships used gunfire merely to get close enough to the enemy for the crew to board and fight in hand-to-hand combat. By contrast, cannon with the same specifications could be loaded quickly and fired in unison, creating a deadly barrage that could pierce enemy hulls.

Mr Bound called the cannon the British military's first 'weapon of mass destruction'. He said: 'These guns represent the beginning of broadside warfare, in which fighting ships - as gun platforms - arranged themselves in line-ahead formation and delivered an entire battery of shot at the same time.

'England's navy made a giant leap forward in the way men fought at sea, years ahead of her enemies, one which was still being used to devastating effect by Nelson 200 years later.'





SOURCE

FRANK FIELD: I was sickened that some of Margaret Thatcher's own MPs hated her

A marvellous story from a very decent man. Field is an old-fashioned Labour man



Like most MPs, when I was first elected to Parliament in 1979 I was determined to do the best for my constituents. My arrival in Westminster coincided with Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power.

So when I needed to get something done for my Birkenhead constituency, it seemed obvious that the best way to do it was to lobby the most powerful person in the country on their behalf.

For some reason, Mrs Thatcher usually agreed to see me. We met frequently during her 11 years in Downing Street and our meetings were usually very formal. Quickly I would know if Mrs T, as I often called her, would agree to any of my requests. But I shall never forget our last two meetings in her final days in No 10.

On the first occasion, I had asked to see her to request more funding for the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead. This time, our meeting was not the usual formal affair. When she invited me in to her study I had never seen her so animated.
She had flown back that day from meeting President George Bush Snr in the US to discuss what to do about Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. Mrs Thatcher was adamant that the Allies must go to war with Saddam but Mr Bush was agonising over the decision.

Pacing around the room, she told me how she had urged him that military action was absolutely vital. Her whole being was consumed with energy as I pleaded with her to come and sit down and talk about Cammell Laird.

Eventually she said to me: ‘What is it that you want, Frank?’ I told her how important her overseas tours were in attracting inward investment. On her next trip would she please secure crucial investment for jobs in Birkenhead and provide a little more from the regional assistance fund?

‘Everybody depends on me,’ she said.

‘I know, but will you please make this commitment?’

‘Don’t worry, you’ll scoop the fund,’ she said.

Less than 48 hours later, I bumped into one of her Cabinet Ministers, David Hunt, who at the time was MP for the Wirral, next to my Birkenhead seat, who said: ‘I see you have been to see the Prime Minister.’

A Prime Ministerial minute had been written straight after her meeting with me and sent to the relevant secretaries of state and their permanent secretaries, instructing them to grant the additional funds. ‘What was the phrase Frank, “scooped”?’ he said.

There wasn’t much in her record as Education Secretary in Edward Heath’s Government to suggest she would be a great Prime Minister.

But when she entered No10 she understood she had to get control of the Whitehall machine – and not be bypassed by it, as had occurred with so many of her predecessors.

A few weeks after we discussed Cammell Laird, I saw her again at No. 10 and the atmosphere could not have been more different. It was the day she had to decide whether to resign. I recalled all the times she had delivered for me. When I saw how some of her own Conservative MPs hated her and called her ‘that woman’ it sickened me.

I had phoned No. 10 and asked for Peter Morrison, the Tory MP who was her Parliamentary Private Secretary and responsible for keeping in contact with her backbenchers. The voice on the switchboard said Sir Peter had gone home. Startled, I repeated: ‘Gone home?’ The switchboard lady was clearly as shocked as I was. ‘Yes, that was my reaction too,’ she said.

‘Is the Prime Minister there?’ I asked. The switchboard lady said: ‘I am not supposed to tell you, but yes, the Prime Minister has come home.’

‘I will come over to see her,’ I said. The voice said: ‘I think that would be a very good idea.’ The next time I heard that voice was seven years later when she put through a phone call from Tony Blair asking me to become a Minister in his Government.

That fateful day for Mrs Thatcher, I went to Downing Street and was shown into the waiting room, despite protests from staff who told me the Prime Minister was too busy to see me. I had taken some work with me and sat down making a few phone calls when in walked Norman Tebbit.

Norman asked: ‘Why have you come?’

‘I have come to tell her that she is finished,’ I said.

Norman told me I would see her shortly. A few minutes later, in came Mrs T. I guided her to her chair and sat beside her. The energy, so evident the last time we met, had ebbed away.

‘Why have you come?’ she asked.

‘I believe you are finished, Prime Minister.’

‘It is so unfair.’

‘I have not come to discuss fairness, Prime Minister. You cannot now go out on a top note, but you can go out on a high note. You must resign before you face the Commons again. Otherwise those Tory creeps will tear you apart in public.’

‘But it is so unfair. I have never lost them an election.’

Eventually, she agreed that she too thought she had no choice but to resign – but others were not saying it to her face. ‘Why have you come, Frank?’ she asked again.
‘Whenever I have asked you for help for Birkenhead you’ve tried to help. And I feel I owe it you.’

Only then did I notice that the door was still ajar and in a moment Norman was back in the room. He too was protecting her and I think he wanted to repeat what I had said.

‘When is Denis coming home?’ I enquired.

‘Oh, after 11.30,’ replied Mrs T.

‘Will you talk to him about what you are to do?’

‘Oh yes.’

She was briefly back to her old self as she explained how I would be smuggled out of the building so no one knew I had been there. ‘I have arranged for you to go out another way. You will be taken out into Whitehall, not through Downing Street.’

I saw her only once more as Prime Minister: her last appearance at the Dispatch Box she had dominated for a decade. Her voice was different – I guess it was because she was fighting back the tears.

Then Dennis Skinner threw her a lifeline by heckling her. ‘I am enjoying this,’ she said – and the temper of the speech changed. It was a parliamentary triumph.

The ranks of Tory MPs behind her cheered as if to cover their murderous intent. I watched her as I stood at the end of the Chamber and, when I caught her attention, I nodded my approval.

But I couldn’t help wondering whether I would ever see a Prime Minister who was more able in pushing through radical reforms. Two decades on, I am still waiting and wondering.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1151829/FRANK-FIELD-I-sickened-Margaret-Thatchers-MPs-hated-her.html

Russian attitudes among Russian Jews

Brooklyn's Russian-speaking, largely Jewish outpost -- provides an answer to many political problems facing Russia and the Middle East.

Jews from the former Soviet Union are probably the most successful immigrant community in the United States. Highly educated and urban, we came here in the 1970s and 1980s, when the number of foreign-born Americans was near an all-time low and the country still welcomed newcomers. We had the support of the U.S. Jewish community. No less important, we were given refugee status, which gave us access to additional benefits not available to other immigrants.

In the Soviet Union, we suffered the usual oppression of the totalitarian state, but this was exacerbated in our case by anti-Semitism -- both from the government and citizens at large. You'd expect us to love freedom and treasure democracy, protection for minority rights and other such niceties.

Not in the least. The fact that former Soviet Jews cast almost 85 percent of their votes for former President George W. Bush in 2004 and supported Senator John McCain by a substantial plurality last year is not the real issue, of course. More troubling, our community has begun to lean toward more racist, intolerant attitudes. It tends to dislike all dissidents and troublemakers, admires force and supports military solutions. And what I find most amazing, the Russian Jewish community is showing increasing intolerance and hatred toward immigrants who they fear are turning the civilized, white United States into a Third World country.

Does this sound familiar? It's those same post-Soviet attitudes that have infected Russia.

Even though Jews have been targets of anti-Semitic forgeries like the infamous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," I received countless e-mails from Russian Jews alleging that U.S. President Barack Obama is anything from a Muslim to the antichrist. Only a bit more than 10 percent of Russian speakers supported him.

In the United States, the Russian-speaking community is too small to matter, but in Israel former Soviets comprise almost 20 percent of the population. In Israel, they initially had a problem. Their far-right proclivities are rooted in the fear and loathing of the Arabs, love for the grandeur of Great Israel and predilection for extreme or military solutions. These views were shared by groups the Russian Israelis disliked, like the Sephardim and religious zealots.

Now, however, Russian Israelis have found their spokesman in Avigdor Lieberman. A marginal entity in 2003, his Israel Our Home party is now the third largest in the Knesset and the kingmaker of the next government.

This year's Israeli election -- and the attack on Gaza that preceded it -- was pivotal. Israel is feeling pressure to rein in its far right, even as the country as a whole moves further rightward.

A small state in a hostile region, Israel needs powerful patrons to survive. It came into existence when Stalin's Soviet Union voted for it in the United Nations, even as the West was ambivalent about the new Jewish state. Israel's next patron was France, and only around the 1967 Six-Day War did a close alliance with Washington develop.

Now, Israel is ideologically ripe to complete the circle. Lieberman has cited tactics employed by then-President Vladimir Putin against Chechnya as an example for handling Gaza. Why not? Russia's ideology and actions dovetail perfectly with the attitudes of Lieberman's voters. Lieberman once asserted that when democracy and Jewish values conflict, Jewish values must prevail.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1016/42/374565.htm

Adolf Hitler's table manners shocking: British intelligence report

After the Kujau fraud, one does rather wonder at the authenticity of this document. Its provenance would have to be thoroughly investigated before it is taken seriously. There are a number of points which are rather surprising



ADOLF Hitler's uncouth behaviour and shocking table manners appalled his wartime dining companions, according to a secret intelligence report discovered during a house clearance.

The papers, marked “Must be destroyed within 48 hours of reading”, include a psychological profile of the Nazi dictator based on the interrogation of one of his closest aides.

The aide, an officer who kept the appointments diary at Wolf's Lair, Hitler's military headquarters at Rastenburg in East Prussia, described how the Führer bit his nails during meals, gorged on cakes and was often lost in his own thoughts, paying little attention to the conversation around him. He also spoke about the rages that kept Hitler's senior officers in a state of constant terror.

The papers are part of an intelligence summary prepared as the war neared its end and are believed to have been saved by a British officer. They were found at a house in Britain and are to be sold at auction next month.

The unnamed German officer, a lieutenant colonel referred to as PW — prisoner of war — was based at Wolf's Lair for several months in 1943. He dined with Hitler at least 30 times and observed his daily routine. He told the Allies that Hitler would eat only vegetables and stewed fruit and banned smoking in his presence. His meals would be accompanied by one or two glasses of beer.

“Hitler eats rapidly, mechanically, for him food is merely an indispensable means of subsistence,” PW said. Conversation at the dinner table relaxed Hitler and stimulated his thoughts. When he spoke it was “in mellow baritone, without that raucous, unpleasant stridency of his public speeches”.

But the informant added: “At the table and in his speech he shows many facets of rather uncouth behaviour. He abstractedly bites his fingernails, he runs his index finger back and forth under his nose, and his table manners are little short of shocking.”

Although Hitler forswore meat and drank herbal tea in preference to coffee, the report said that he ate “prodigious amounts of cake”, which contributed to his “digestive disorder”.

The officer also gave an insight into Hitler's private life, saying that the dictator told companions that he had never married because he could not allow care for a family to interfere with his duty to the German nation.

He had female companions, including “a Miss Braun”, but it was generally believed that the relationships were platonic. The officer also dismissed as “rumours” speculation that Hitler had homosexual tendencies.

He told how Hitler threw “carpet-biting” tantrums. A major on night duty who failed to pass on a message confirming that the retreat from El Alamein had begun felt the full force of his wrath.

“When Hitler heard about this he threw one of his typical fits and greeted the major with the words, ‘If you say a word in your defence, I'll have you shot'. Then he raved on and finally demoted the major to private.

Hitler also had a profound belief in divine providence and his own destiny, encouraged when an assassin's bomb left him uninjured. The officer left Wolf's Lair convinced that the Führer was a madman.

Terry Charman, a senior historian at the Imperial War Museum, said: “It is a surprise to hear of Hitler drinking beer as it is generally believed he had given up alcohol in 1931. The description of the tantrum is typical.”

The auction will be on on March 5 and the papers are expected to fetch up to 1000 pounds.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25072203-2703,00.html

Styria no longer in the 'wrong' end of Austria

The Styria region is a little untouched gem. When the Iron Curtain fell it suddenly wasn't a place at the "wrong" end of Austria.



Sitting on my sunny terrace munching juicy peaches and looking out over a field of vibrant sunflowers at a temperature of over 30C, I could be in some romantic idyll in the suny south of Europe; in fact, I'm right at the heart of it.

This is the scene that greets me every harvest time here in Styria, southern Austria, my new home since my husband and I left our home in a small village on the Pelopponese in Greece in June 2005. Now, instead of harvesting olives in winter and enjoying our own olive oil, we harvest pumpkin seeds in autumn and press these to make pumpkin seed oil – not as good for cooking as the olive variety, but a delicious salad dressing.

Styria is a little untouched gem. When the Iron Curtain fell it suddenly wasn't a place at the "wrong" end of Austria, going nowhere except towards the Eastern Bloc, but a glorious land of world class spa resorts and medieval towns. There are award-winning boutique wineries where the wine is already sold out before it is even harvested, hiking trails round long extinct volcanoes – oh, and of course all those sunflower fields.

Styria is so unknown that on going into a travel agency in Scotland, my home country, during the move the travel agent looked at me rather strangely when I asked about flights, thinking I'd moved to Syria in the Middle East. They do both have one thing in common, though – their hospitality. When my parents visited for the first time, my neighbour Maria was up at the crack of dawn to bake doughnuts which she very kindly presented to us for breakfast.

My mum and dad were impressed and so was I. In fact we sometimes think we must look underfed as baskets of food regularly appear on our front step – juicy purple aubergines, home-made bread, apples and of course bottles of pumpkin seed oil.

So why Styria? My "Mann" is a Vorarlberger – from that part of Austria next to Switzerland and Liechtenstein that is terribly mountaineous, terribly built-up and terribly cold. So when hubby wished to return to his homeland for health reasons – he has bad kidneys and liver and the Greek hospitals didn't exactly inspire confidence should he ever need dialysis – I, having got used to the Mediterranean lifestyle and especially the sunshine, said: "OK but we need to come back to the sunniest part of Austria" – and this is it!

Temperatures can reach the high 30Cs in summer – in fact we once measured 43C – but there's enough rain in between to irrigate the crops, and the growing number of golf courses in the area. And, of course, fill the pool without feeling guilty about the farmer down the road who has no water for his goats. In summer the climate tends to be subtropical and in winter we can sometimes enjoy lunch on the terrace or just as easily celebrate a white Christmas!

One thing is for sure, though; your euro or pound goes a lot further here than in other, more well-known parts of Europe. Our local Gasthaus does a super two course lunchtime menu with salad for under six euros. However, by far the most atmospheric places to eat are the buschenschanken or wine taverns, conveniently located next to the vineyards so you can enjoy breathtaking views while you have a mile-long-sandwich covered in locally produced meats or cheeses and some fine wine for under five euros.

But you have to hurry as buschenschanken are only open as long as they have enough of their own wine to sell. Many have their own rooms to let and "Urlaub am Weinbauernhof" (living with the winemakers) is fast becoming a popular experience. What's even more interesting is the price. Our local, the Erlebnisbauernhof has apartments for two with kitchen, WC, bathroom, living and dining area, bedroom and use of sauna for €32 per night. That's not per person but per apartment and also includes use of a pool with views over the vineyards. Bed and breakfast in a private house or Gasthaus can be had from €16-30 per person per night.

My greatest fear about the weather has not materialised; in fact, I look forward to some rain to water the garden. This is a very rural area with picturesque villages on golden hillsides and people who have a close connection with the land. It seems almost everybody here is self-sufficient to some degree with many having pigs, hens, goats or hares in their back yards and a garden full of fresh organic veg.

Property is much cheaper than more well-known parts of the country and also comes with a lot more land and space. Agricultural lands sells for about three euros per square metre and building land for about €11. Friends of ours are selling their farmhouse, with around 7,000 square metres of land, for €127,000 (details on www.remax.at).

Our "new" neighbours are Slovenia to the south, a favourite haunt for super fish meals even cheaper than in Austria. In fact on the new motorway we are a mere two and a half hours' drive from the Venetian jewel of Piran on the Slovenian coast. About 90 minutes away is another jewel, this time in Croatia; if you can't make it to Vienna, Varasdin is a good second best.

You feel as though you could meet Franz Josef, the last Habsburg emperor, around any corner. The border with Hungary, and its excellent Sunday markets, is under an hour from here too, so its actually possible to experience four countries in one day. Not bad for the "wrong" end of Austria!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/4360950/Styria-no-longer-in-the-wrong-end-of-Austria.html

Captain extraordinary: Ivan Castro of the U.S. Special Forces

Some of the warriors of old are still with us

CAPT. IVAN CASTRO will tell you he's an ordinary man, basically. You may wish to disagree. He is an officer in the U.S. Special Forces, and blind. He was blinded while fighting in Iraq about two and a half years ago. He did not then leave the military. He persevered, to an astonishing degree. He has attracted interest all over the country, as well he might.

He was born in Hoboken, N.J. (same as Frank Sinatra), in 1967. His parents were from Puerto Rico. His dad was a cook and other things, and his mother was a factory worker and other things. How he got that interesting name, "Ivan Castro," he doesn't know. His sister's name is Olga! The family moved to Puerto Rico when he was twelve. He wanted to be a policeman, a fireman, a soldier--"something with action," as he says. He went to a military high school, and joined the Army when he was 20. He expected to stay for four years. He fought in the Gulf War-and continued in the military. "I had done so much in those four years," he says, "it just didn't make any sense for me to get out."

After the Gulf War, he was in Bosnia, Colombia, and other places. And then he was back in combat, this time in Afghanistan. He was a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne. In due course, he was in Iraq. It was in September 2006 that the mortar blast came. His injuries were extensive: his right eye gone, his left eye beyond repair, his lungs collapsed, etc. There is a long list of injuries and problems. "Believe it or not," he says, "we keep discovering things that are coming up-- injuries we weren't aware of."

I have come to see him in his office at Fort Bragg. He is a personable man, the kind who puts people at ease. There is also about him the air of command. He's the kind of soldier about whom people say, "Officer material." A white cane leans against the wall. On another wall is a picture of Captain Castro and his wife with President Bush. There is also a letter from Bush.

And Captain Castro has a specially equipped computer--one that reads him his e-mail, for example. He'll tell you, "I used to hunt and peck. But when you're blind, you can't do that. So I had to learn to type."

When that mortar round went off, "I was fighting to stay alive, fighting not to give up. That's all I remember. I knew I didn't want to die. I knew I wanted to come back to my wife and son." He was unconscious for six weeks. Then he woke up and began his recovery. His wife and mother-in-law never left his bedside.

After his surgeries and rehabilitation, the 82nd was "going to send me to the Warrior Transition Battalion"-that would ease the transition out of the military and into some other kind of life. He would begin life as a disabled vet. "But that was not my intent. My intent was to stay in the Army, to continue my service. I had been doing it for more than 18 years. Why should I give it up now?" (Others might have thought of reasons.)

He told Special Operations that "I wanted to serve as long as they gave me the opportunity, and I wanted to be productive. I didn't want to be sitting down licking envelopes and shredding paper." They agreed. His group commander said, "I'm going to treat you like everyone else, like every other captain here. And I'm going to expect a lot out of you"--which is what this captain wanted.

Why did he not simply give up, and slink away? "My mother, my dad: They were really hard workers. My mother was a survivor. They divorced when I was five, and she worked really hard for everything she had--and she taught me to work hard as well." Castro worked a lot as a kid, and "I was the man of the house. When something broke, I had to fix it. Had to figure it out." His military training made him tough, too: Ranger School, the Special Forces Qualification Course. Those are not cakewalks.

Also, he feels he has an example to set: for his peers, for the soldiers who were under his command. About those soldiers, he says, "They kind of look up to me. I can't let them down." There is the public to consider, too: "When I don my beret, and go out with my cane, people stop and stare." He can feel it. And "if you're a Special Forces Ranger, everyone expects more from you. You're never cold, you're never hungry, you're never tired."

Plus, "I got a son who's 15. I got bills to pay. I'm a husband. Just because I'm blind or injured doesn't mean I don't have to pay my mortgage or stuff like that." His wife, Evelyn, was a speech pathologist in a public-school system. Now she works with injured service members in an Army hospital. Castro describes her as his hero. For one thing, "she never expected to be married to a blind guy."

He also has laudatory words for military doctors and nurses: "We think about the soldiers that get hurt, and we don't think of the doctors and nurses who every day have to see the trauma and suffering that service members go through. It's tough on them. I'm pretty sure they have some post-traumatic stress as well."

Last year, Ivan Castro ran five marathons. (Best time: 4 hours, 11 minutes. He hopes to break the four-hour barrier this year.) He also did a triathlon. And climbed Grays Peak in Colorado (14,270 ft.). He lives life with gusto, whether running a marathon or visiting a museum: “I went to the Air Force Museum in Dayton. I didn’t see it with my eyes, but they let me put my hands on the aircraft. Incredible.” At Fort Bragg, he oversees the Spanish-language lab and carries out various administrative and logistical tasks, “making sure that soldiers are ready to deploy.”

He wanted to command an A-team, but “that wasn’t meant to be, so maybe, by taking this job here, I can clear somebody from having to do this job,” and let such a person “do the things that I wanted to do: go out and lead.” (Have you heard anything nobler than that lately?) “Right now, my main focus is what I can do to help other service members, and anyone else. It’s not about Ivan.”

He speaks before groups all over the country: various associations and organizations. He does a lot of teaching, too, particularly of those who face severe challenges, physical and mental. And he wants to accept no limitations. “If someone tells me I can’t do something, I have to keep myself from punching him in the nose. Instead of saying that I can’t do something, let’s figure out a way for me to do it.”

And how are his spirits? “I’m not going to lie to you: We all have our good times and bad times. I’m just like anyone else.” When the doctors told him he would never see again, “I was extremely, extremely bitter. I was at the point where I asked the Lord above, ‘Why me?’ I was bitter with the Lord, angry with the Lord.”

One day, “my wife came in and told me, ‘Ivan, if you could only see the hospital ward: You just don’t know how fortunate we are.’ It’s sad to say, but other service members have had to make a huge sacrifice. I have to be grateful for what I have, instead of dwelling on what I don’t have. I miss not seeing, I’m not going to lie to you. But I have two legs, two arms, I can talk, I can eat, I can laugh. I have my memory.”

Further, “I’m a military guy, and I speak in military terms: God has a mission for me. A plan, an operation.”

Castro has what he calls his “demons in the darkness,” or “demons in the closet.” And “the closet is my brain. I don’t see anything. I’m totally blind. I have no light perception. And when the demons want to take over, as soon as they try to, I try to keep them out. I think about all the things I’m grateful for: my wife, my son, the Lord above, His mission for me.” There are days “when I walk into the wall, both literally and figuratively. I try to take a step back and not get angry and figure out a way to go around things.”

And “you know the best thing about being blind?” (I couldn’t imagine what the answer would be.) “I saw for 39 years. So I was able to see the world for 39 years. I’ve traveled around the world. I saw the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good thing about now is: Everything is beautiful, in my mind. The grass is always green. There’s never graffiti on the walls. There’s no trash. Everybody looks good — everybody’s in shape, everybody’s a movie star or rock star.” And race is out the window: “There’s no brown, white, or black.”

A visit with Ivan Castro will teach you, or remind you, not to complain. It will remind you what a free people owes its warriors. And it will remind you to be in awe of those who do the awe-inspiring.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Captain+extraordinary%3a+Ivan+Castro+of+the+U.S.+Special+Forces.-a0192591468

Charm in perspective

By Mangal Kapoor



Who was the real Dai Llewellyn? As I read the obituaries last week of the self-styled “seducer of the valleys”, who died on Tuesday at the age of 62, my mind returned to our last meeting in November, when I went down to Kent and took him out from his hospice for the day.

He wanted to visit the place he called home, a cottage on the estate of his friend Patrick Meehan. As I drove, some half-remembered lines from Betjeman’s Song of a Nightclub Proprietress came to my head. “But now I’m broke and done for / What on earth was all the fun for? / For I’m old and ill and terrified and tight.”

Dai was suffering from cirrhosis, a brain tumour, prostate cancer and diabetes: he looked wistful as I recited. “That just about sums me up. Except, of course, I’m not broke. I am actually doing quite well at the moment.”

We had arrived. As the gravel crunched beneath my wheels, Meehan’s chauffeur came out with a message. The social security department had called, about Dai’s application for benefits. So the last myth about Dai Llewellyn, rich socialite, baronet and bon vivant, was blown.

Not that I had believed the legend. Not, at least, for a long time. We’d first met in the glorious Thatcherite era of the 1980s, when England seemingly first discovered champagne, and when anyone hungry for entry to the royal enclosure at Ascot racecourse needed to be sponsored by someone who’d been going there for 20 years. Dai was the apparent pinnacle of social London: an Old Etonian heir, good-looking, popular and generous – particularly to the hundreds of new plutocrats who sought an entrée into the world he represented.

Charm, connections, endless good cheer – Dai had them all, plus a grand house in Cadogan Square and a dashing younger brother who just happened to have been the lover of Princess Margaret. He never missed a chance to refer to his family’s ancestral mansion in Wales, nor did he let any rich person who aspired to the royal enclosure slip by. For a certain fee, or perhaps a very good deal on a car – say, 100% off the list price – there was always a way to get his new best friends signed in, to join the dukes, polo players and models at his lavish picnics in the racecourse car park.

It was not always clear where the money for the liveried butlers and Fortnum’s hampers came from: the Welsh coal mines that had made his family’s fortune, maybe, or rich Pakistanis, including those who were ever present at his parties. The rest of the cast at Cadogan Square changed repeatedly: Bubbles Rothermere and the Duchess of Argyll one week, the Maharajah of Baroda and the von Bismarcks the next.

Dai was busy promoting a new “über-exclusive lifestyle service”, called Club Royale. For a joining fee of £5,000, members would somehow whirl between Positano, Acapulco, St Moritz and St Tropez. There was a club HQ in Mayfair with a restaurant, disco and bar, and regular events would be organised, as well as automatic membership of every hunt, every racecourse and several smart clubs around the world. The friends I introduced included a Japanese heiress and a Dulwich businessman, plus a young wine merchant who was thrilled at the big orders that poured in. My chums complained that the club was not quite working, but I felt I had to be loyal to Dai, who had taken me up with enthusiasm, introducing me round town as the young man “with the marvellous laugh”. It was more difficult when I heard the wine merchant had never been paid.

Around the time of the inevitable, slightly messy demise of Club Royale, Dai’s fortunes dived when he lost a libel case against the former debutante and PR Liz Brewer, a bitter rival in the social introductions game. Although the court awarded damages, Brewer was thwarted by Dai’s lack of any identifiable fixed assets and his skill at moving house and keeping ahead of the bailiffs. Gradually Dai, once a staple of the gossip columns, faded from the public consciousness.

Not, of course, that this stopped him honing his magnificent raffish Old Etonian aristo act on the unwary and the easily charmed: he had in fact attended Eton for a few terms but was expelled and spent the rest of his schooldays at Milton Abbey, a minor public school catering for those of a more sporting than academic bent. As for the aura of wealth, he had certainly been brought up in comfort and his family were part of the Monmouthshire county set. But the ancestral fortunes had declined considerably since the Llewellyn acquisition of a baronetcy from Lloyd George, and eventually his parents sold their country house.

Undeterred, he continued to invite people down to Wales to stay there. Of course, he always had to cancel at the last minute, giving ever more baroque excuses, depending on the status of those he was letting down. I once warned him that some particularly keen Americans had bought new tweeds and a Welsh phrase book at Harrods for the occasion.

Some time after the Brewer debacle, I was working at the London Evening Standard and, thinking it would be fun to resurrect Dai, looked him up and dropped his name into a few amusing stories. In no time he was weaving his old myth-making magic on a wider public. Knowing his circumstances, I reeled with laughter as I read his boasts of “crossing the Atlantic in private planes and yacht-hopping while relaxing in Sardinia – Calle de Volpe”. Our mutual friend Lady Edith Foxwell and I joked that it was a misprint and that he had really said “sardines in Vauxhall”.

She and I set up a monthly social pictorial called Voila!, pitched somewhere between Tatler and Hello!. Dai came on board and insisted on employing only titled people. The Earl of Westmorland was the sporting editor; the Marquess of Bland-ford, the motoring correspondent.

Billed as the first magazine written by the aristocracy for the aristocracy, we were an overnight sensation – on television and in the newspapers every day, invited to every party. But when our advertising team sold ads for cash, Dai steered them towards barter, swapping ad space for free meals, champagne and exotic holidays: lovely for him; not so good for the balance sheet. In addition to this, Dai hijacked the company chequebook so that no one could keep track of things, although I was a founding shareholder. Had Dai planned to milk the magazine as a means to get free meals and holidays all along? Surely not.

In January 1994 I persuaded the Hon Jonathan Harmsworth, the son of Lord Rothermere, chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust, to buy Voila! for £150,000. It was a great deal for us, for although the magazine had a high profile and good sales, the rent was overdue, we had no assets and there was no money in the bank. Perversely, Dai blocked it, suggesting I hold out for £1m. Shortly afterwards the Lebanese publisher got fed up, closed the title and retired to Beirut. Dai acquired a lucrative sideline in writing syndicated articles blaming me for the collapse of Voila!.

Dai didn’t suffer long: he became the PR for the new Dorchester nightclub, succeeding one Major Brian Wright, uncle to the Duchess of York and former butler to the Duke of Devonshire. When I took a Greek shipowner there for a drink at Major Wright’s invitation, the major looked him up and down and said: “I must say you are very well dressed for one of your race.” His particular brand of charm was judged not quite suitable for the target clientele of the Dorchester, but Dai’s was and he landed a job perfectly suited to his particular genius, one that brought with it a Mayfair mews house. His twinkling eyes, green velvet smoking jacket and cries of “Darling! Wel-come!” made the Dorchester club so popular with the smart set that Annabel’s was virtually deserted for a few months.

He was now pushing 50 but women still found him irresistible. He had been so successful at creating his image as an amazing lover and rich heir to a title that, with his genuine warmth and charisma and his impressive array of friends, he seemed a very good catch.

By the mid1990s, however, his weight had ballooned, he was drinking too much and he admitted to dyeing his hair with bootblack – and yet women still threw themselves at him. He was particularly popular with older divorcees and Essex-girl types. I introduced him to a rich Persian friend: when their affair fizzled out, she ended up writing a book about gigolos. Therapy, perhaps. It was never published.

I recall a rich American with a mansion in Kensington and a Gloucestershire estate, who turned weak-kneed and starry-eyed over Dai as late as 2002. “My God!” she marvelled. “Just how did you get to meet people like that?” And of course, out of loyalty, I backed up Dai’s outrageous claims.

But people he visited in recent years said he would come for a weekend and stay three weeks, drinking the house dry. “ ‘I’ll replace it,’ Dai promised, turning up with a bottle of Tesco own-brand whisky after consuming several cases during his extended stay,” said one host. The truth was, he generally had nowhere else to go.

Meanwhile, the Dorchester club was losing its cachet. Dai eventually left, selling a story to The Sun about how he had busted a vice ring there. Secretly, many of his friends speculated that if the vice ring existed, he was running it. He lost the mews house but in characteristic style still gave the Mayfair address, Adams Row, as his own for many years.

Close friends were told he now had a “chic little pad in Soho”. He was the PR for an Italian restaurant, but when I dropped by for lunch, the owner said he was late and sent me to a lino-floored, neon-lit dormitory of bunk beds above Piccadilly Circus, which Dai shared with a large number of Italian waiters. He was furious to be seen there, but made light of it, saying his digs reminded him of his army days. We descended through a rabbit warren of corridors to the “meat rack”, the gay red-light district in the shadow of Eros’s statue, Dai desperately maintaining a jaunty air as if he were on a shoot at Blenheim Palace. I never told anyone else, but it was his home for some considerable time.

Salvation was on the horizon in the form of Deborah, a pretty Jewish divorcee. Dai proposed to her and moved into her house in St John’s Wood. She offered to pay all his gambling debts and even said he would not have to sleep with her (his famed sexual prowess was on the wane by now). But he suddenly announced via the gossip columns that he hardly knew her and had not proposed.

Deborah was devastated. Her father had a stroke and she suffered a breakdown. She told me that every time Dai looked out of her window towards Regent’s Park he thought to himself: “If only it were Sloane Square.”

She may have been right, but when he did have a rich lover in Sloane Square, he fluffed it. Lady Wilcox – who now sits in the House of Lords as Baroness Wilcox – was blonde, widowed and adoring and lived with him for years. She told me she ended their affair at the end of the 1980s when he interrupted a meeting with the governor of the Bank of England. Walking into her drawing room stark naked at noon, he demanded to know why there was “no f****** milk for my cornflakes”.

Eventually Dai found a home with his old friend Meehan, once the co-host of the famous picnics at Royal Ascot. Dai was allowed to use the idyllic cottage in the grounds of his Kent estate. Of course, when Meehan went away, Dai promptly moved into the main house and invited friends from London down to “his” country estate.

So here I was driving Dai from his hospice to see what had been his last refuge for perhaps the final time. Considering his condition, he was remarkably cheerful, swigging what he said was red wine from a plastic bottle. I suspected it was Ribena laced with morphine to control the pain. I had urged other friends to come down, and had even suggested a party in the hospice room, but such was the cynicism that Dai engendered by then that some joked he was feigning illness to get free accommodation, or as a publicity stunt. Even Meehan’s daughter, Nathalie, made cracks about the mice who had been stealing the whisky, and one of the staff hinted that Dai had borrowed money from him.

Dai gave instructions to Meehan’s chauffeur to renew his car tax for a year and said he would be back for Christmas. I realised it was important for him to believe he was not dying. As he went back to the hospice, saying goodbye to his cottage for the last time, he was rather sad to have lost his “lucky” cloth cap.

He turned to me. “Ninety per cent of the things between us are better left unsaid. But I have not been particularly proud of my behaviour all the time. If I do get that backdated disability benefit, you must come down again and I’ll spend it all on lunch with you.” I drove back to London. The party was over.

Source

Another account of Sir Dai here

It’s 1759 and all that ... or the history you never learnt at school

1066 is more famous, 1415 (the year of Agincourt) more Shakespearean and 1939 more globally significant. But there is another year whose impact on every area of British life is becoming ever more apparent: 1759.

Its legacy echoes through today’s headlines, with the collapse of the ceramics firm Waterford Wedgwood (founded 1759). The latest Guinness’ advertising campaign (“17:59. It’s Guinness time”) refers to the date when Arthur Guinness built a brewery for stout in Dublin.

One of the salient achievements of an extraordinary year will be celebrated at the British Museum, which opened 250 years ago today. The Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew were also new in 1759.

The most obvious advances were on the battlefield. There were British military successes around the globe in “the year of victories”.

The City was emerging as the financial centre of the world on the back of its importance to shipping and trade. And the first stirrings of the Industrial Revolution were encouraging Josiah Wedgwood and Arthur Guinness to begin building their empires.

The historian Frank McLynn, author of 1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the World, believes that the year should “be as well known in British history as 1066”, the year of the Norman Conquest. In comparison, Magna Carta in 1215 changed nothing, he said. Other armadas followed the one in 1588 that Drake and Raleigh destroyed. Trafalgar and Waterloo in 1805 and 1815 were great victories but, set against the broad sweep of developments in 1759, “changed little”.

So what forces meshed in Britain halfway through the 18th century to remould the world?

The German-speaking monarch George II had little to do with it. By 1759 he had withdrawn from the world. He died on his toilet a year later. Government was steered by William Pitt the Elder, who was loathed by the King, but had a visionary conviction that trade backed by naval superiority could make Britain a world power.

The combatants of the Seven Years War were all European (Britain and Prussia on one side, France, Russia and Austria on the other) but that year British forces won crucial victories in India, the Caribbean and North America as well as near Düsseldorf and off the coast of France. The best known was probably the taking of Quebec, secured by Major-General James Wolfe, who died in the battle.

The defeats that France suffered in 1759 were a significant contributor to the vast debts that led to the French Revolution 30 years later. They gave the East India Company a freer hand in India and also determined that the 13 British colonies in America felt safe enough from French conquest so that they could demand independence from the Crown.

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, sees the opening of his institution and Kew as “the first coherent intellectual response to globalisation”. The British Library and the Natural History Museum were also important. These were civic collections, not collections belonging to royalty or to universities.

“What you have, available for free for everybody for the first time, is the whole concept of the world: what’s grown, what’s been made, what’s been written and what’s been thought. This is the beginning of the whole notion of citizen access to information.”

The trusteeship structure of the British Museum, enabling government to fund the institution but not to control it, became the model not just for every museum in the English speaking world “but for the BBC, the Open University and the internet, because Tim Berners-Lee [the father of the world wide web] is so much part of this British tradition of free access.”

That was the year

— George and Martha Washington are married: a union that helps to beget the Union in North America

— Lacking a port in which to refit and resupply, the French Navy leaves the coast of India after a series of minor engagements with the British and never returns

— Robert Burns is born and will go on to inspire a uniquely Scottish literature. “Arise to deck our land!”

— Adam Smith publishes The Theory of Moral Sentiments, providing an ethical underpinning to his later work The Wealth of Nations

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5519484.ece

Simple, well-known names work best

Naming a child is, like most things in Britain, as much about class as it is about fashion. Unless you happen to be committed to one of those quaint but unpronounceable family names - St John, Princess Tiaamii - then baptising your progeny offers an unmissable (and sometimes unwitting) opportunity to display your social ambitions.

For many years those wishing to play down privilege have tended to use names such as Fred, Stan, Jake or Sam. These all perform equally well in the stands at Queens Park Rangers as they do on the fields of Eton, leaving more obvious middle and upper-class names such as Ptolemy and Orlando on the sidelines. Similarly, for the self-made man with a few leftover rough edges, Tamsin seems so much more tempting than Tracey.

The penchant for more traditional names is an interesting development. Elizabeth and William are both solid all-weather names, indicative of the sort of middle-class aspirations - a job, a stable home, not being a contestant on Big Brother - which have, in recent years, fallen out of favour. And so it seems that in times of trouble we turn to old certainties and trusted authority.

Besides, these are versatile names. They abbreviate well and can be shortened according to social requirements. If a William finds himself attending a large inner-city comprehensive, he can become Billy; if he gets himself into grammar school, he can be a Will. If he ends up an Oxford Don, he can style himself Willem, possibly with the addition of an intellectual initial. Will is both the name of the heir to the throne and of several reliably cool figures, such as the actor Will Smith and the musician Will.i.am, of the Black Eyed Peas. Ditto Elizabeth: Liz, Lizzy, Bess - it is the ultimate social chameleon.

In an uncertain world, we give names full of potential. And if you have recently received a visit from the stork and are casting around for inspiration, try applying this infallible test of a name's universality, taught to me by a friend from Sheffield. Does it work in the context of a cold, muddy football pitch? As in “Oi, Peregrine, you cloth-eared fool, fetch t' bloody ball”. Simple, but surprisingly effective.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5435373.ece

The story of the crystal apple -- and other Boris-isms

"London stands at a crossroads. Can this new Conservative mayor help the world's leading financial center weather the economic downturn, or will he be caught out? Can he persuade North Americans to come to this great city and spend their dollars? Can he deliver air-conditioning on the underground system for the first time in 150 years? Can he reduce bus crime, make transport safer, and simultaneously jump-start the frozen housing market? Yes, he can, my friends!"


"That's your blistering introductory paragraph, to get your piece off to a really flying start," says Boris Johnson. Behind schedule, just arrived at City Hall on his bike, London's mayor proposes to spare us the hassle of an interview and simply dictate this article for me. I've heard worse offers.

Until his surprise win last May, Mr. Johnson was one of Britain's best-known journalists. This half-parody of his former craft and new life in big-league politics manages to capture some of his challenges and give a taste of an inimitable style toned down, but hardly dulled, by the recent metamorphosis.

"I have to do things my way, otherwise I'd kind of explode," he says. "But . . . I'm afraid there are just times" -- here comes one of numerous playful jabs at the gray Scot at 10 Downing Street -- "when you have to be Gordon Brownian. You just got to, got to, got to."

Previously (in)famous because of a propensity for petty scandals and lively logorrhea, Mr. Johnson convinced enough voters he was serious to unseat London's cockney king, "Red Ken" Livingstone, the two-term incumbent and favorite -- "Mayor Leavingsoon," in Mr. Johnson's campaign shorthand.

Seven months in, here's the bigger surprise: Even detractors say Mr. Johnson is doing a good job. He's the most popular figure among Tory faithful (though not the party leadership) and by some accounts in the country as a whole. All of Britain knows him as Boris; close family use Al, from Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. If David Cameron stumbles in his bid to force Labour from power at the next election, Mr. Johnson -- the only Tory politician to win an executive post since 1992 -- would be the favorite to take over Margaret Thatcher's old party.

Days after his election, this all seemed highly improbable. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg stopped by, and there was a little mix-up over the customary gifts. Mr. Bloomberg gave the new London mayor a Tiffany & Company signature box with a crystal apple symbolizing New York City. In return he got a button-down dress shirt covered with a map of London's subway system from Mr. Johnson, who confessed it was an impromptu choice.

The mayors of the world's two financial capitals now claim to have a special relationship -- "very friendly relations," in Mr. Johnson's words. Is the gift episode forgotten, I wonder?

"I am a very proud user of his crystal apple. Where is his crystal apple?" Mr. Johnson looks around and comes up empty-handed. "Someone shot-putted it into the Thames. I don't know what happened to it. Very, very, very, very beautiful object. I'm very grateful to New York and its citizens for my crystal apple. And I'm a proud citizen of New York, a point I would not hesitate to remind you of." Mr. Johnson, mischievous smile and all, was born in Manhattan.

Back to serious matters. This autumn, when the financial system nearly collapsed, Mr. Johnson stood up to defend bankers. His was a rare voice. "Someone had to," he says. Financial services account for nearly a tenth of Britain's economy, far larger in London. Mr. Johnson says he approached Mayor Bloomberg with an idea: "Why don't we form an alliance against ill-thought regulation now, or mistakes we could make now that impede the financial sector, the Anglo-Saxon model, from developing in the future, and let's see if we could find some things in common."

The response? "I have to say I got a bum's rush there. His view was actually, for one reason or another, he didn't see much scope for cooperation. And the reality is that these two great metropolises. . . metropolaise. . ." -- the Oxford classics graduate, author of a survey of the Roman Empire, suddenly wants to stick the ending. "Metropoli?" chimes in his aide. "If it was Greek, it would be poleis," he says, ending the digression. The cities, in any case, "are in competition."

Created in 2000, the London mayor's job lacks the New York post's powers, which could hinder Mr. Johnson's ability to implement his campaign promises to cut into rising crime and ease transport headaches. So far, Mr. Johnson has managed the high expectations well.

In one of his first acts, he banned alcohol on public transport -- a Bloomberg-like act, I point out. "I'm by nature a libertarian," Mr. Johnson shoots back, "but I thought there was a general freedom that people ought to have to be able to sit on the Tube late at night without having some guy with a six pack of beer leering at them in a threatening way."

On the night before the ban went into effect, Londoners rung out the old tradition of boozing in transit with parties/protests on subway trains and buses. "Thousands of young people were hurling execration at my name," says the mayor. "I thought: This is fantastic. It took Margaret Thatcher 10 years before she had mobs of urban youth denouncing her."

In another headline-grabber, this past fall Mr. Johnson pressured out the Metropolitan Police chief, Sir Ian Blair. A favorite of Labour, Sir Ian was criticized by the right for turning a blind eye to Islamic hate preachers in London. Mr. Johnson took the politically risky move, but cited other reasons, and ducks questions about the terrorist threat in his town. "The best and most effective way of defusing the extremists is to engage and support the moderates," he offers -- a line that his journalist self might have dismissed with a neat word like bilge or pablum.

Municipal government would seem ill-suited to a man noted for a quick wit and a short attention span. But he acts the part, his own way. Mr. Johnson describes in some detail a tunnel planned under the Thames, which, he says, "is going to have a quite colossal bore" -- clearly the opening's too tempting not to take -- "a bore even more colossal than Gordon Brown himself."

Talking up the need for bigger apartments at the introduction of his new housing strategy, he says Londoners have grown too fat to live like Hobbits. He indulges his passion for cycling by seeking to make London friendlier to bikes -- for aesthetic green reasons, he says, to get people out of cars and fat burned off their bodies. Recently, he infuriated earnest greens by describing climate change as "a religion" in his weekly column. "Not all religions are bad!" he says. "Climate change might be the faith that supervenes and brings the human race together. Fear of the Sun God. . ." he adds, before trailing off in a chuckle.

Mr. Johnson won a safe Tory seat in Parliament in 2001 while keeping a foot in journalism. He looked finished in politics on numerous occasions. He is a walking Bartlett's of political incorrectness. A Boris campaign pitch: "Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3." On Portsmouth: "[A city of] drugs, obesity, underachievement and Labour MPs." On Liverpool, after a Liverpudlian was beheaded in Iraq: "Wallow[ing in] victim status . . . and their sense of shared tribal grievance about the rest of society."

On London hosting the 2012 Olympics, spoken while in Beijing this summer: "I say to the world: Ping Pong is coming home!" On his talent for gaffes (see entries above): "My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters." On himself: "Beneath the carefully constructed veneer of a blithering buffoon, there lurks a blithering buffoon."

The image of an upper-class Clown Prince from the fields of Eton made Mr. Johnson easy to like and to dismiss. But he is no shallow English toff. He excelled at school. Nor is his background as posh as his accent might suggest. On his parental side, Mr. Johnson is a second-generation immigrant; his great-grandfather was interior minister in the last Ottoman government. Throw in some Jewish ancestors and a direct lineage to King George II, and the image takes on new dimensions.

So, I ask him, are the gaffes now history? Mr. Johnson says flatly, "No," then extrapolates, "What is a gaffe? A gaffe is in the eye of the beholder." I offer Michael Kinsley's definition -- when a politician tells the truth -- and Mr. Johnson says, "Yeah, I would have thought one of the reasons I get elected is because people think I might accidentally blurt the thing they're thinking."

What's the biggest misconception about you? He turns to false flattery: "It's a brilliant question, it's a brilliantly devised, an elaborately constructed trap. I can see the stakes winking at me at the bottom of this leaf covered pit. . . . There are obviously plenty of criticisms that people make of me that I could individually try to demolish, but life's too short."

The Tories are no longer Mrs. Thatcher's party. After three consecutive drubbings in national elections, Mr. Cameron, a former ad man, has revived the party's fortunes, freshening up its image without resolving what these new Tories truly stand for. The party, says Mr. Johnson, is a "much broader, more generous operation," but some Thatcher bedrock principles remain. Such as, he says, standing by "people who are getting hit by high taxes, insecurity on the streets, crime that could be dispelled with a little bit of common sense."

I keep asking repeatedly -- as others do -- what else? Mr. Johnson never looks irritated, though he probably should be. At last, "Oh boy, you know what conservatism is. Do I have to describe it? A belief in the old ways of doing things and all that sort of jazz."

The next elections are due in 2010, perhaps sooner. In the fall of 2007, Prime Minister Brown raised expectations and then got cold feet on calling early elections. His popularity plummeted. Now he's back up in polls and so is speculation. On Mr. Johnson's desk sits a tabloid cover mooting a possible June 4 poll. I point to it.

"Bring it on!" says Mr. Johnson, lighting up. "My message to Gordon Brown through the Wall Street Journal is: You great big quivering gelatinous invertebrate jelly of indecision, you marched your troops up to the top of the hill in October of [2007]. Show us that you've got enough guts to have an election June 4. Gordon: Man or Mouse?!"

His press aide shakes her head, puts it in her hands and laughs. Boris Johnson is enjoying himself.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123094404164150567.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Nazi E-boat saved by military enthusiast

The last Nazi E-boat, which took part in an infamous raid during the Second World War, has been saved by a British military enthusiast.

Schnellboot-130, once the fastest vessel in the world, helped attack an Allied convoy off Slapton Sands, in Devon, in a battle in which nearly 1,000 Allied soldiers were killed.

On the night of April 27, 1944, the boat was one of nine German vessels patrolling the English Channel when they stumbled upon Operation Tiger, which was the rehearsal for the D-Day landings.

The convoy launched a raid and killed 946 Allied soldiers. Allied chiefs initially covered up the loss, keen to avoid the enemy becoming aware of what it had achieved or getting wind of any planned invasion of Europe.

After the war the Schnellboot was seized by the British and used to land spies behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War but was then left in a dockyard and eventually began to disintegrate.

Enthusiast Kevin Wheatcroft has now come to the rescue of the vessel.

Mr Wheatcroft, whose family owns the Donington Grand Prix museum, in Leicestershire, paid just £1 for the hulk but will now spend around £3 million restoring it.

He recently acquired the salvage rights on three sunken Schnellboots off the Danish coast and plans to bring up original parts to help the restoration.

The project will take up to five years after which it is hoped the vessel will become a floating museum and visitor attraction.

Mr Wheatcroft said: "I've always been fascinated with Schnellboots and she is one of the most famous.

"The intention is to return her to her original state and into a moving museum."

He added: "Over the years I have collected a lot of parts including engines, gun platforms, a complete radio and bridge equipment.

"I have acquired salvage rights on three Schnellboot wrecks off the Danish coast. They were sunk after the war in 1948 and 1949, so are not war graves.

"I hope to be able to get an armoured bridge, torpedo tubes and mine racks from the sunken ships.

S-130 was recently lifted from the water and a building will now be put up around her while the work is carried out a few miles along the coast from Slapton Sands.

The Schnellboots were small, fast and effective – and had been devised as a result of the Versailles restrictions set at the close of the First World War.

With the Germans banned from building large warships they embarked on an ingenious naval development programme, resulting in the Schnellboots.

The allies called them E-boats – the "E" standing for enemy.

They were propelled by three powerful Mercedes diesel engines and could travel at 55 knots, faster than any other naval vessel.

The boats had a wedge on the stern that prevented the bow from rising as it accelerated so the guns fired more accurately. That technology is today used on US destroyers.

Wyn Davies, a naval architect and maritime historian, said: "She is the last survivor of a hugely important class of warship that gave our coastal forces quite a headache.

"They introduced several new features, the most useful of which was the use of diesel engines to power them.

"This ended the need for stocking inflammable petrol on board.

"These craft formed the basis for post war development of similar vessels for most Nato navies."

Source

The world's most wonderful Peppercorn

Standing proudly in its sparkling new green livery, it is the ultimate big boy’s toy – the first steam locomotive built in more than 40 years.

And the privilege of getting it under way on its first official journey will go to Prince Charles.

Charles, whose investiture as Prince of Wales came months after the last steam train service was scrapped, has agreed to name – and drive – the Tornado steam engine at a special ceremony next year.



The Prince will ride on the footplate as the 105-ton engine pulls the Royal Train – with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall as a passenger – on its inaugural journey in February.

The engine, whose full title is Peppercorn Class A1 Pacific 60163 Tornado, was built for £3million following donations from thousands of enthusiasts.

Tornado was unveiled while undergoing tests last month and will go into active service on the East Coast Main Line, pulling ‘specials’. It will leave its home at the National Railway Museum in York for the Royal journey before embarking on a series of tours between York, Newcastle and London.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a man who often champions traditional architecture and farming methods, the Prince has an abiding passion for steam engines.

He makes sure that at least one of his public appearances each year involves riding or driving a steam locomotive. The Royal Train that took him and Camilla on their honeymoon at Balmoral was pulled by a steam engine.



The A1s were among the last steam engines to be withdrawn from service in favour of the more reliable but less romantic diesels.

British Rail scrapped them in 1966 and the final steam-powered journeys took place in November 1968, a few months before Charles’s investiture as the Prince of Wales.

No A1s survived, so in 1990 a group of railway enthusiasts began their project to build an engine from scratch. They set up the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust, asking supporters to donate the price of a pint of beer a week – £1.25 at the time – and slowly completed Tornado. After 18 years, the engine made its first run, of 120 yards, along track in a rail yard in Darlington on November 4.

It completed a further successful test run two weeks later, reaching 75mph between York and Newcastle.

Since the tests, Tornado has been given its new coat of Apple Green paint, the same shade as the first 30 A1s and the original colour of the Flying Scotsman.

Tornado will reach top speeds of up to 100mph with shorter ten-carriage trains.

Trust chairman Mark Allatt said: ‘The steam locomotive is the nearest thing Man has created to a living thing. You can’t turn it on. You can’t turn it off. You coax it along and it hisses and it bubbles and that is not like a modern machine.

‘A child when they first draw a picture of a train, they never draw diesel, they draw a steam engine. And that is what it is all about.’


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1094505/Its-new-steam-train-40-years--Charles-Prince-Rails-gets-drive.html

Rail Britannia: Newly found pictures reveal how train travel was once a glorious experience, not a shabby ordeal

The golden age of steam was never more glorious than during the heyday of the Great Western Railway. As these newly discovered photographs reveal, the everyday workings of God's Wonderful Railway (as it was dubbed) reveal a world of style, order and civility almost unimaginable to harassed commuters.

A waiter serves serves tea in a dining car in the Thirties when being a GWR employee was considered a prestigious job

Uniformed porters carrying bags, dining cars where you would actually want to eat and stations that seem more like temples than places of transit  -  all this is a world away from the crowded, ugly and noisy experience of train travel in Britain today.

It is a timely reminder that there was a time, a few decades back, when travel was a glamorous experience and where the passengers' comfort was paramount. This glimpse into a long-forgotten world would have remained lost and forgotten itself were it not for a tireless team of volunteers.

A Class 4 locomotive suspended from the ceiling in preparation for a valve fitting at Swindon Works in 1951

They pieced together the details of these pictures, which were discovered by chance when Swindon council acquired the old GWR workshops eight years ago. Piled up in scores of boxes, unlabelled and in disarray, was a pictorial treasure trove of GWR's heyday. It has taken thousands of hours of research by rail enthusiasts to sift through them and piece together the stories behind them for the Museum of the Great Western Railway in Swindon.

Holiday crowds waiting to board The Torbay Limted Express in 1926

'Our volunteers are retired railway workers, engineers and people who have knowledge of rail history,' says Elaine Arthurs, one of the curators. 'They set to work on the photographs and were able to provide details about each of the images.' What they discovered casts new light on the workings of this most remarkable of British railway companies, which operated lines linking London with the West Country, South-West England and South Wales. It was none other than the 19thcentury engineering genius Isambard Kingdom Brunel who had the vision that made this railway line the most advanced in the world at the time.

This publicity shot from the Thirties emphasises the style and cool sophistication of train travel at the time

Mooted by Bristol merchants concerned that they were losing port trade to Liverpool, the Great Western Railway company was founded in 1833. Brunel was appointed the company's engineer, and work commenced. The first stretch of line, from London Paddington to Maidenhead Bridge station, a distance of 22.5 miles, was opened on June 4, 1838. More lines followed, with Reading opening in March 1840, and Bath at the end of August. Brunel worked at a furious rate, and gave the line such engineering marvels as Paddington Station, the Chepstow Bridge and the Box Tunnel. By the early years of the 20th century, the GWR's links with Cornwall and Wales led to it being dubbed the Holiday Line.

GWR prided itself on being on the cutting edge of innovation with its vending machines

For a generation of holiday makers, the view from one of the two-tone chocolate and cream carriages provided their first glimpse of the south Wales countryside or the Devon and Cornish coast. The true stars of the company, however, were its steam engines. Magnificent, chrome, green and black creations, these powerful locomotives were at one point emerging from the heat and fury of the GWR workshop in Swindon at a rate of two a week. It was their efficiency that allowed the company to prosper, even during the height of the Great Depression, when a number of these photographs were taken.

Restaurant cars were introduced for first class passengers in 1896 and four years later for second class travellers. Here a chef prepares a meal in 1946

So popular was the railway that when the last steam engine, the Clun Castle, left Paddington on June 11, 1965, a crowd of well-wishers mobbed it. For the crowds that turned out that day and for the thousands of travellers who had graced the line over the years, many might have agreed with Robert Louis Stevenson when he remarked: 'I travel not to go anywhere, but to go . . . The great affair is to move.' Having experienced the romance of the GWR, for these commuters the journey was all.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1093975/Rail-Britannia-Newly-pictures-reveal-train-travel-glorious-experience-shabby-ordeal.html