Archive for the 'Life' Category

News from Hamstershire

Published
by
Frank
on April 10, 2011
in Life
. 0 Comments

News from Hamstershire

I’m not the only writer in the family. My granddaughter Amy (8) wrote this story for a Radio Two young writers competition. Entries will be pruned to the last fifty at the end of this month. Move over Grandpa, the younger generation coming through…

Heroic Hamsters!

I would like to tell you about what happened to a team of three hamsters last Tuesday. The hamsters’ names are Harry, Hattie and Haggis. Harry (the leader) is dark brown with a light brown tummy. He is the one with the brainwaves and was the first to arrive at Mill Cottage. Hattie (the only girl in the group) is a shiny gold with a pale gold tummy.

She was the second to arrive at Mill Cottage, and she feels for animals the most. Haggis (the Scottish hamster) is a bright orange and wears a tartan kilt. He was last to arrive at Mill Cottage and has a funny Scottish accent. They live in Hamstershire.

It was a snowy Tuesday. Haggis was humming his favourite tune with Harriet dancing to it and Harry was daydreaming when the butterfly with the microphone head started to beep.“South Pole” it beeped and then faded away. They waited in silence for it to say how to find the South Pole but nothing happened. “It’s run out of battery” Harry said. “How will we know where to go?” “I know” squeaked Hattie, “follow that snowflake!”

The snowflake flew into a book marked “South Pole” and disappeared.“What should we do now?” asked Haggis. “Follow it” said Hattie, “obviously.” “Into the Hamster Mobile!” squeaked Harry. They followed the snowflake and zoomed through the book to the South Pole.“Aahh look” said Hattie in a dreamy voice. “A baby penguin and its mother.” “Oh no!” squeaked Haggis. “Look over there!”

Harry and Hattie looked with terror at the cracking ice. A second later the baby penguin was stuck on an iceberg.To their horror the iceberg started to melt. “Mama, Mama!” cried the baby penguin.“Baby!” cried the mother.

Just then Hattie noticed a frozen log and tried to move it. “Help me” she squeaked, and they tried with all of their might to move the log but it didn’t even budge. The mother noticed their struggles and came to help. With all their team work they managed to push the frozen log onto the iceberg. The baby penguin waddled along the log, just as the iceberg melted.

As the mother said thank you for the one millionth time and the baby was waving goodbye, Hattie was feeling very proud of herself for finally being the one with the ideas, not Harry. Haggis was still waving at the baby penguin when he realised the other two had gone, so he waved his last wave then scampered off to find them. They were waiting for him in the Hamster Mobile. “Come on!” shouted Harry. “We were waiting for ages!” agreed Hattie. “I’m coming, I’m coming” puffed Haggis. He climbed into the Hamster Mobile then they zoomed back through the book and landed on the playhouse. They all slid off the roof and into their cage at exactly the same time and Hattie giggled. Haggis started to hum his favourite song, Hattie danced to it and Harry daydreamed.

By Amy Anderson, aged 8 years

FLYING A SHACK

Published
by
Frank
on October 22, 2010
in Fyling, Life and WWII
. 0 Comments

This seems to be turning into something of an aviation blog but after an agency reunion that unluckily I couldn’t attend I’ve been in touch with fellow one-time Burson-Marsteller director Ray Palin who sent me this interesting picture taken recently at the old RAF station at St Mawgan, Cornwall.

It was there that Ray was an electronic officer with 201 Squadron flying Shackletons. Here he is at St Mawgan ‘ about fifty years after my time’ in front of the tribute machine at a recent Shack reunion.
Ray Palin
Ray’s view now? ‘ Did we really fly in those crates?’ And adds, tongue in cheek: ‘ Where did we get such men?’ Any other old Shack hands out there?

F For Fake

Published
by
Frank
on September 20, 2010
in Life and Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Someone asked me the other day if I’d fought in the Battle of Britain.

Flattering in one way but not in another; that would put me in my late eighties. But it made me realise that I’ve got to an age where you can claim pretty well anything and nobody will contradict you. Frank Barnard - PilotTake this photograph for example. Does it:

a) show the youthful student pilot after going solo on a Tiger Moth during World War Two (note the authentic Sidcot suit, helmet and Mk VIII goggles)

b) ditto during National Service in the 1950s before progressing to Hawker Hunters and taking on MIGs in Korea

c) shooting a line at Rochester Airport in 1957?

The answer is c). I was nineteen at the time, the age of many pilots who fought the Luftwaffe in 1940. A newspaper reporter named Gordon Anckorn, who worked for the Sevenoaks Chronicle (I was on the Kent Messenger), was a qualified pilot and took me up several times in the Tiger. Stunts over the Thames Estuary, ‘you have control’ and so on. But somehow (and ironically as it turned out) I never took it up. I didn’t fly again for years, and then in commercial airlines.

During my two years in the RAF the only aircraft I saw were the dummy fighters at the station gates. But looking at this image, that unlined face, this kid quite prepared to experience the most violent aerobatics Gordon could perform without a thought for personal safety makes you realise (if it needs saying again) how tragically young many of those pilots were seventy years ago, before they’d barely got a grasp on life. Everything seems a cliche at the moment, given the exhaustive programming about the Few but, like all cliches, there is of course an essential truth that should not, must not be forgotten.

By the way, I met Gordon at the Farnborough Air Show years later and he asked: ‘ Do you remember that time in the Tiger when we got lost in fog over the Thames Estuary and we were running low on fuel?’ I did not because he had neglected to tell me at the time, unaware and snug in the forward cockpit thinking I was Biggles. How close we can come to disaster without realising it; a sobering reflection on how it was for too many young pilots who never knew what hit them…

What odds?

Published
by
Frank
on July 30, 2010
in Life
. 1 Comment

A week ago we watched a DVD of the excellent 1999 TV adaptation of Dickens’ David Copperfield. It had been standing on a bookshelf unviewed for years. One of the strongest performances, among many, was by Clare Holman as a waspish character named Rosa Dartle; Ms Holman better known these days for her appearances in Inspector Morse and Lewis.

The next day a car stopped at the end of our drive; it seemed someone might be lost. Jan, already in the garden, went to help. Turned out the couple in the car had heard our house might be for sale, so they were invited in. At which point I recognised the woman as Clare Holman, aka Rosa Dartle from the Dickens serial we had viewed only hours before.

Hence, the title of this blog. Her husband, by the way, turned out to be the distinguished stage director Howard Davies, of National Theatre, RSC and Warehouse Theatre fame, who has worked with many famous names: Kevin Spacey, Daniel Craig, David Suchet, Francesca Annis and of course Clare Holman herself; the list goes on. To be candid we were somewhat awed to be in the presence of such prodigious talent. But I did suggest to Ms Holman that if they were interested in buying the house we hoped she would not assume the character of Rosa Dartle. And if that doesn’t mean much to you, watch the DVD.