Aden Old Photos 6: Me

There comes a point where one's past cannot be denied. Yes, I was a sweet fresh-faced kid. Yes, I was in the Cubs. Yes, we went to church. I imagine the Cub uniform was worn for a special reason. Anyhow, I think these photos of me in Cub uniform were taken outside the Church of the Rock which I think was Methodist and the priest was Padre Hurl (not sure of the spelling).

My parents tended to pick-and-mix when it came to religion, not that I am sure either of them were deeply religious.

These remaining photos are probably Christmas photos. On the first one (taken in our living/dining room), where I am wearing a strange straw hat, heaven knows why. Above my head I can see our old Christmas lights trailing down. We didn't have Christmas trees as far as I can remember. They weren't exactly growing in abundance in the area. I do remember the pyjamas I was wearing (isn't it amazing the rubbish information we retain?). They were blue or green or turquoise - somewhere in that colour range - and nothing like the heavy things I wore back in Britain. I am also wearing the Aden regulation flip flops all kids wore! The thong part between the toes and the lower part of the sole was only either red or blue. I don't remember any other colours. In the second photo my parents' bedroom is in an unusual state of upheaval. The largest box I am pretty sure was for my mother's Braun food user she got in Aden. It lasted her a very long time.

Aden Old Photos 5: Fiat

In Aden we had two cars, the first was a Fiat 500 and this was replaced by a Fiat 600 if memory serves me right. The reason for the exchanging was due to some complex matter whereby a member of the services could buy a car and if it had been held for so long then tax wouldn't be due upon returning to Britain (or something like that - at any rate, it was a legitimised tax dodge!).

The photograph is a rarity as it is my father at the wheel. The camera that recorded our life was his and nearly all photos were taken by him. The shadow at the bottom of the frame is my mother's!

Aden Old Photos 4: Ships at anchor

I make no apology for continuing until this reel of 36 photos is exhausted!

This next pair are reminders of the glory days of Aden as an active harbour. On the web there are many stories of when the liners were at anchor the shop owners would open their shutters any time of day or night and sell their goods at, ahem, "bargain" prices! We saw military and civil vessels of all kinds. I am pleased I have these two photos. The first is the SS Oriana (I have been advised via a posting elsewhere on the web), and the second is the Royal Yacht Britannia.

Now it's time to nail my colours to the mast.

I was stunned when it was announced Britannia was to be decommissioned. As a child of a service family it meant to me Britain was renouncing her naval ambitions. Britannia was never a vessel of naval aggression, but her very existence was a symbol (something politicians never understand, it seems to me) of Britain's belief in her naval forces.

That was under a Labour government. This was trumped by the Conservative policy of depriving the British Navy of any aircraft carriers.

I accept all the austerity talk has to be talked, and the politicians have done a fine job of it. I also accept the need for certain types of vessels changes over time, but Ark Royal was sea worthy. The politicians said we wouldn't need to worry about not having a carrier. Within months the politicians were proved wrong, in my opinion. I would argue that militarily, supporting the civilians in Libya (and I am not going to argue the moral rights and wrongs) would have been better served from a carrier.

Just in case you think I am a child of Empire and miss its existence and believe in British military supremacy (a fallacy if ever there were one), I would like to put you right on that. Britain is no longer an important country. Britain is a small country (and always has been) whose history was of Empire, but where is it now? We have dismantled it.

Just like the Venetian, Dutch and Portuguese glory days, Britain's place in the world has been eclipsed (or usurped?) by greater and younger powers. It's sad but true. And if you replace the world Britain for England in a few places, the sad truth is even more obvious.

This line of thought is leading off into other areas which I don't think I will explore here. Maybe another time when I have more time and can marshall my thoughts better.

Aden Old Photos 3: Tug-of-war

These photos mean absolutely nothing to me. The camera belonged to my father. I may have been allowed to use it once or twice in my childhood, and I do mean that.

Hold it.

Press the shutter.

Give it back.

Wait for ages for the film to come back and hope to goodness I hadn't chopped off heads, etc.

Well this tug-of-war game was meaningful at the time, I guess. From memory alone, I am guessing this was taken somewhere at R.A.F. Khormaksar.

Aden Old Photos 2: KOSB

These photos are obviously of something important. I assume from the kilts and bagpipes this must be a group of Scots. There is the larger banner, what is that all about? On the smaller banner I can make out the initials KOSB which I presume must be the King's Own Scottish Borderers. 

From the web (Google helped me a lot here) I found out "From 1962 to February 1964 it was on internal security operations in Aden. In May 1964 it was recalled to Aden in aid of the Federal army, which was fighting Yemeni insurgents in the Radfan Mountains." (Source http://www.kosb.co.uk/20thcentury.htm). As we left Aden in April 1964 these photos must be from the 62-64 posting.

Was this a practice run by the Pipes and Drums for their departure? Surely it can't have been the real thing with the banners and they are marching over a football pitch.

Aden Old Photos 1: The Cubs

While having lunch with my cousin last year (2011), she commented I am about the only constant in her life other than her immediate family. This started a sequence of thoughts which made me realise that my father's overseas postings meant there were extended periods she would have known nothing about me beyond Christmas cards and maybe letters from my parents to hers. So I decided to write a small recollection of my time in Aden for her. I intend to post it here, eventually.

The memories I had were aided by the discovery of a reel of old black and white negatives( which is the worse for wear). Although I have already posted these on Flickr, I thought it might be interesting to post them here as well.

I was member of the 14th Aden Cubs. We must have been a pretty unique bunch of kids as we were Sea Scouts and Cubs. I have two identifiers as 14th Aden (Hood) and 14th Aden (Rodney). I am guessing these were the names of the sixes I was in.

I have absolutely no idea what these photos are all about, and apart from my mother (the lady with the sunglasses in the last photo) I don't vividly remember anybody else. Some of the other boys look familiar. Who are you? Where are you now?

Venetian Musings 1 - The First Visit (1980s) and Musings on Today

Of all the places in the world that appeal to me islands and island communities have a special appeal. Venice, made up of many small islands, appeals more than most.

I have been visiting Italy and especially Venice since 2004 after an initial visit at Christmas some time in the 1980s. Then, Venice was deserted. Hardly any tourists were there, and as a consequence not all restaurants and museums were open.

On our first day Venice seemed to be hardly open at all but that all changed in an instant. I can still recall the moment as though it were yesterday that suddenly a mass of predominantly young people entered the Piazza San Marco. Venetian men paraded like peacocks, each checking out the others to ensure the woman on their arm and the clothes they wore were better than any of the others. Every evening was the same, no matter what, they always appeared. This, like so much else in Venice, is now either invisible or relegated to the past.

We saw two people of some fame from back home, Dick Taverne (a politician) and Alan Hacker (a clarinettist).

Our visit to Murano was memorably wet. The afternoon of Christmas eve was spent sitting in glorious sunshine at the Giardini Pubblici, Christmas Day was grey and overcast and below zero for most of the day. Most evenings (and other times of the day) were expensively spent in Caffè Florian. We walked the streets getting lost, finding ourselves in closed courtyards, walking along a street only to find it ended at a canal, a tradition we still keep up!

Since then, Venice changed and continues to change. La Serenissima is still a wonderful old lady (like so many of the old Venetian ladies in their grand fur coats). She is permanently on display, warts and all. Age may not have been kind, but, nonetheless, she overcomes the challenge and matures.

There is a darker side, but this is an ailment of modern life and not the fault of the Republic. For some time Italy has been plagued by handbag salesmen. They sell on the street. They disappear whenever the police appear. They hide their faces when a camera is raised in their direction. I let you draw your own conclusions from these observations.

They have now been joined by other new pestilences. One sits alongside of camera tripod and sunglass salesmen. Another, more randomly spread out has a gloopy mess that when thrown to the ground splats out into a flat blob and then miraculously regains its spherical shape. Heaven only knows what filth these gather when constantly thrown on Venetian streets. The final group is mainly in the Piazza San Marco, sellers of a toy that gets catapulted in the air and falls down. The gimmick of this pestilence is only apparent as it is sold at night. The toy is fluorescent.

"True" Venetians - even those forced into residential exile on the mainland- are still, as were their predecessors, merchants. They never undersell anything, and one must learn to sort the verbal wheat from the chaff. The influx of the foreign salesmen (I have never seen woman selling any of these goods) is a plague, like so many plagues Venice has suffered. There is little enthusiasm to eradicate these new plagues, not even with quack remedies.