Birds, Planes and Spying

As I was writing this blog - we heard a couple of very large bangs - and I thought someone next door was slamming doors. But we looked out the window and saw lots of black smoke and after ringing 999 we wandered down to see a Fedex Van completely gutted and windows breaking from a nearby house from the heat. We were pleased to see it wasn't a house but did wonder how many precious courier packages had been lost in the blaze.
Last Friday we bet most of the traffic out of Bristol and were pleased that we weren't heading towards Wales where they had had torrential rain and flooding with unfortunately fatal results. We drove to Stevenage which is quite an unremarkable place, built in the 60's or 70's, with huge shopping malls and apartment housing. The hotel we stayed in was 2 years old and very nice and so we enjoyed our stay particularly since we found the deal on the internet for £38 a night rather than the going rate advertised at £90. It pays to book ahead we decided whenever possible. Breakfast was quite fun as we watched from our window a car load of people arrive, and then at breakfast saw them come in to the dining room for the complementary breakfast (to those who had booked rooms rather than the general public). We surmised all through breakfast whether in fact they had gone for an early morning drive - but thought no - and then whether we would have the courage to go into a hotel for breakfast pretending we were staying there. At the end of breakfast we did note that 2 of the 7 went to the lift with room keys but the other 5 took off to the car - are we detectives or what?? I always remember the story of the elderly couple in Auckland who lived beside a funeral parlour - whenever there was funeral they would hop over for a cup of tea and some food!! Back to the car trip - it was unremarkable - we ate our picnic tea on the lawn of a service centre, passed a christmas tree farm, had few holdups and negotiated a roundabout with six little roundabouts circling around the larger inner circle and we didn't get lost once - can't say that for the rest of the weekend but definitely true for Friday night and very proud of it we are too!! We also noticed that when the radio had its broadcast of road closures, delays, works, accidents, floods etc every 30 minutes we knew where a number of roads were compared to other times eg Telford, M40, Shrewsbury, Brecon, M32, M4, M5 - we still have a long way to go before we know England well but we are getting there. On the Saturday we went our separate ways - Harry to the Duxford airshow and I to a number of different places which had nothing to do with aeroplanes but did have a bit of a theme about flying. Afterwards we ventured into Cambridge (which I had been to before but Harry hadn't) and we had the best Italian ever at a little restaurant called 'Ask' and then went to see Madame Butterfly put on by the Figaro Opera Society at the Sidney Sussex College Chapel (great show, but chapels aren't the best for short people and views and so I ended up standing in the place where the readings are made on the Sunday - higher than everyone else but at least I could see). Anyway, as normal I jump ahead and its back to Saturday. By the way the trees are telling us that autumn is just around the corner.

I started off in Wandlebury (try saying that fast - I just can't), and I wandered around the nature walk and ate berries from the side of the path (that incidentally wasn't muddy). I had read on the web that in Wandlebury there is a chalk slope of the Gogs (couldn't find them) and some wooded hills (found them). The place is apparently steeped in legend and has two circular banks with a ditch between them, the Wandlebury Ring. They enclose a space of about 1000 feet in diameter and are the remains of the fortification that dates back to the 5th century. I think if I had been in a plane, or hang glider, the rings etc might have been more apparent but to me they looked like little hillsides amongst a fairly flat environment. I think the bone of contention is that scientists say there is no scientific evidence of sun goddesses and chariots but many others believe that the rings do actually contain this evidence and could indicate a landing of a space machine many years ago. There are a number of people living in the old stable block, now made into apartments or holiday homes and of most significance to me was the one handed clock that stands above these building. The archway (which I couldn't go into because someone was filming two young girls who were wearing what looked like about 5 sheets each) is the grave of the Godolphin Arabian, the most famous of the the Arabian stallions brought to England and the great, great, great grand etc father of many other racehorses today. He died here in 1753 so you can imagine how many great's there should have been in that sentence.

Anyway, I wandered around the nature walk that took me around the ring, talked to a wild rabbit that ran up to my feet and viewed an old granary before heading onwards to the wild life reserve in Linton. There are so many of these reserves in England, all privately owned and all providing refuge to innocent animals that are either no longer wanted, smuggled into the country or so rare they have extended breeding programmes over the country and away from disasters in their own natural environment. Linton was established in 1972 as a centre for breeding wildlife and is home to about 250 animals and has a pretty nice environment for them with trees and gardens and even hanging baskets. This one was quite different in that it gave me insight into the rehoming of parrots and I saw some magnificent birds and animals I had only ever read about in books. The parrots have been given to the centre because the owners could not look after them any more or decided that they needed to be with other parrots. Some of them have been around human's so long that they do not know how to interact with other parrots, and it will take some time before they breed and mix with others. There was a notice that actually asked us visitors to talk to them so that they will feel more relaxed in their surroundings - but only if we felt comfortable in doing so (I had no difficulty as I found myself walking along saying 'hello' to a bird or 'aren't you pretty', or 'I haven't seen you before' etc - is that a sign of something?). Anyway, the notice went on to say that the birds also can have trouble flying - not really surprising that their flying wings are not fully operational after being in a cage or chained for so long. The 'humanised' birds are housed with babies as this provides an environment which is non-aggressive to the birds. There was also a Binturong from South Asia (I think he was hiding) but I liked the name, and had never seen one before so I stood for a while looking at a cage, for something, which may not have been there (I think every zoo has a few of those cages and the workers are secretly laughing to themselves about how long we stand and look - I keep waiting for someone to say to me 'you're on candid camera'). Anyway from the picture a Binturong looks a bit like an opossum as it has a long tail it uses to hang on to branches with as they gather their fruit but can also eat small birds and fish. Also saw some zebras - there were two types of mountain Zebra's from South Africa and I saw the Hartman's mountain zebra which has much wider white stripes than the Cape Mountain zebra - and I thought they all looked the same (I wonder which zebra has equal white and black stripes like the crossing?). There were
lots of big birds with beautifully colour beaks like the Blyth's Hornbill from South Asia, the Southern Ground Hornbill and the Toucan - a highlight for me as I have not seen them before they are magnificent with the red bills (Hornbills) and orange bills (Toucan). One of the hornbills followed me up and down the cage, and picked up some leaf mould - it looked as though it was trying to give me it as a present. Also watched the lemurs have an all fruit lunch - where the female ate all she could before letting the men in - the keepers did keep some for the men otherwise they would have starved in this female dominated society. Bananas were cut into rings and they put their tongue through the middle, ate all the soft bits and then threw away the rings. There were Maribou stalk - with that long sharp bill which looked quite lethal but looked at me for a while trying to figure out what I was saying and giant tortoises - that actually moved today and could walk almost as fast as me for short distances!! One tortoise had been brought from a shop in South Africa, smuggled into England for breeding. The owner discovered that it was so rare (100 in the wild) that he could not find a mate and so gave it to the wild life centre - I wonder if he got prosecuted? And finally the Tapir which has this really long upper lip which serves as a scoop for food and nose. Its main enemy is the jaguar and it hides in water - treading rather deep water they reckon up to 15 feet and with only its upper lip above water used as a snorkel.

My last stop for the day was Wimpole Hall and Gardens - a National Trust property built around the 1700's by the 2nd Earl of Radnor and gifted to the Trust in 1976 by the owner Mrs Elsie Bambridge. The hall, was simple in its decor reflecting the late 1800's and early 1900's style when it was last renovated and boasted a formal dutch garden and walled cottage garden full of sunflowers and dahlias and scarecrows. There was a folly (known as the Gothic Tower) and a farm that had thatched stables (didn't see this as I was too tired and went to the car for a cuppa). The hall is quite rare, in that it is no longer used as a private residence and so I could enjoy the grandeur of the upstairs and then wander downstairs to the cellar, where the laundry, kitchen, and staff quarters are still furnished like they used to be. Most spectacular was a deep red and gold canopy which hung from a golden ball as high as the ceiling over the bed. There was a deep bath (bit like a spa pool but only deeper) that took 3000 gallons to fill it (the servants must have been dismayed with the Lord or Lady ordered a bath) and a very old iron shower which you could draw water from the bath to use it.

Harry emerged from the airshow under the weight of 300 photos (that is more than 1 per minute during his visit I would like to say) which he enjoyed. It was quite nice to go back to an airfield and museum that was familiar as he didn't have to hang around so much in the hangars as he had seen them before except the one that housed with British aeroplanes including TSR2, Concorde, Sunderland and Shackleton. Highlights of the day were the flying displays that managed to skirt around the squalls of rain that occured intermittently in the afternoon. Unfortunately the Lancaster grounded for Technical issues, and the Hunter and the Gladiator didn't fly, and the weather prevented the 9 spitfires flying in a 3 VIC 3 formations (acronym doesn't stand for anything that we know of) but besides that he saw 2 Hurricanes and 3 Spitfires flying, a Sabre display which he couldn't photograph as everyone was trying to watch and hold umbrellas at the same time. A Hawker Nimrod flew and also a Me109, (Spanish with the Rolls Royce Merlin engine used in the Battle of Britain film) rather than the Daimler Benz 601 engine pursued by a Hurricane and a P40.

Sunday dawned cloudy and dry (Harry the weather forcaster said it would be a fine day because he went to the airshow the day before - he won't get a job in the weather service that's for sure). Anyway, we took off for Bletchley Park - the Home of the code breakers.

'Bletchley Park was occupied by the HQ of Britains cryptanalytic and signals intelligence organisation, the government code and cypher school, between August 1939 and March 1946. Here some of the best brains of Britain were pitted against the enemy's enciphered communications during the second world war. Their success forged for Britain a decisively powerful intelligence weapon which saved countless lives and helped significantly to shorten the war'.

It was once Britain's best kept secret (to keep the secret they gave the appearance of a working farm so post went out in small bags and were distributed to a number of post offices, and letters were sent addressed to PO Box 111, 222, 333 or 444) and today is home to the first computer museum and a range of exhibitions around the work of the decoders. It was Churchill weekend (and a number of workers during the war returned for the weekend) so we saw Churchill's Rolls Royce, a great exhibition of his political life and watched 2 old movies one on his political life during the war and the other on the state funeral in a little theatre a bit like Time Cinema in Lyall Bay. The house was originally owned by the Leons, a Jewish family, but when Herbert died his four children wanted to sell it (there is something to be said for the older son inheriting the property because at least the property is kept in the family and less likely to be sold and demolished). Anyway, it didn't reach its reserve price of £7000 and it never got sold, so used as the 'secret decoder' during the war. We saw the 1944 Colosseus Mark 2 - the second version of the first ever computer. The mission of the codebreakers was to crack Germany's coded communications such as those sent via the German Enigma machine. With odds of 158 million million million to one, Hitler believed that Enigma was unbreakable but the English (and Polish who had a major part to play) proved him wrong. We saw an enigma machine, the Lorenz - an even more complex cipher machine than the Enigma, and a fully operation bombe (see the video). Most of the workers (well over half) were women who boarded in the nearby towns. I can imagine that their work must have been so monotonous as they did the same thing every day not knowing why. A community atmosphere developed over time and their was rounders at lunch times (with a tennis ball and wooden stick), a drama club, tennis club and singing groups. It would be great to see it exhibited as a village rather than a whole lot of buildings boarded up and derelict but in reality that probably takes a bit too much money. But there is a story that I had heard before but never understood the full extent of their contribution. Its about pigeons another of those wonderful flying machines and their part in the war. At the outbreak of WW2 7000 pigeon owners asked 250,000 pigeons to help in the war effort. Pigeon lofts were built at RAF and army bases and mobile lofts were constructed so that they could mvoe easily over land. The birds were carried in watertight baskets and if the aircraft had to ditch in the sea a message was placed in a message container (on the pigeon's leg or was in a small pouch looped over their backs) and the pigeon flew back to its RAF base - a rescue attempt for the crew was then launched. They believe that thousand's of servicemen's lives were saved by the heroic birds that often flew in poor weather conditions or under fire. The pigeons also helped Resistance workers in France, Belgium and Holland where boxes of the birds were dropped by parachute. Germany, America, Canada also used the birds to send messages. In England, the Dicken medal (named after the founder of the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals) was awarded to 53 animals included 32 homing pigeons birds - often known as the animal VC. Some Dicken medal winners included:

• GI Joe - for flying 20 miles in 20 minutes ( top speed for a pigeon) and managed to warn an American bomb squadron not to bomb a town as a British army unit had already taken the town - saving 1000 lives


• Winkie - for delivering a message under exceptionally difficult conditions and so contributing to the rescue of an air crew while serving with the RAF in February 1942


• Beach Comber - for bringing the first news to England of the landing at Dieppe, under hazardous conditions in September 1942, while serving with the Canadian army


• Gustav - for delivering the first message from the Normandy Beaches from a ship off the beach-head while serving with the RAF on 6 June 1944


• Kenley Lass - for being the first pigeon to be used with success for secret communications from an Agent in enemy-occupied France while service with the NPS in October 1940


• Flying Dutchman - for successfully delivering messages from Agents in Holland on three occasions. He was missing on his fourth mission, while serving with the RAF in 1944

Some of Churchills famous quotes

• for those of us who like a cat nap after lunch 'I found I could add nearly 2 hours to my working day by going to bed for 1 hour after luncheon'


• 'it would be a great reform in politics if wisdom could be made to spread as rapidly as folly'


• 'time is a changeable ally'


• 'out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge'


• 'a fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject'


• 'if we are together nothing is impossible and if we are divided all will fail'