Oxford Parkruns - By Kit Villiers

As I live close to Cutteslowe Park, one of two Parkrun venues in Oxford, I always leave it to the last minute before dashing over to the start line; in fact by last Saturday I'd done this last minute rush 99 times, and the organisers asked me if I was going to show up next week for my 100th run, to which I, rather wittily I thought, responded that I'd be too shy to have to step out in front of 200 or so other runners to get my fancy new 100th run t-shirt, and would come again on my 101st.

Anyway what I wanted to say is that on this particular Saturday  - and it has taken me the 3 years since Oxford Parkrun began to reach the dizzy heights of being almost a centenarian - while I was chatting to a couple of cronies just before the start, I suddenly caught sight of a familiar face. And yes, you've guessed it - it was Sam, late of OISE Oxford office fame, and who I think were her two flatmates. All had chosen this chilly November day to make their Parkrun debuts. I had been joking with Sam for ages (i.e. virtually the whole of the 3 years) about running Parkrun - after all she lives even nearer than I do - but 9am has to date proved a little too early for her and her household. It transpired though that this time an alarm had been set and the three athletes from Jackson Road were - at last-  assembled on the start line, ready for the 'off'.

For people who don't know, Parkrun is a relatively recent phenomenon. It began in a London Park a few years ago, and the format is so simple. Runs are always in a park, they're always 5k in length and always start at 9am. I believe this means local time, so runners in Melbourne will have long finished before we even think about starting in the old country. The other feature is that it's free: you just get a bar-code which gets clicked as you finish and so there's no nonsense about wearing numbers either. And it's very welcoming. We always give new runners a welcoming clap, and of course this time this included Sam and co., together with quite a few others. After the run Cutteslowe Park's kiosk is now open for a coffee (this is quite a new feature as the number of participants has gradually built up - I suppose 200 runners means quite a bit of potential business).

Although a few fast people show up, a really nice aspect is that nobody can be too slow for Parkrun. We have a lady who simply walks all the way, and we all give her a clap when she finishes. There is a tail-runner who always brings up the rear, and makes sure nobody gets lost.

Parkrun is apparently the 'in' thing at the moment - everybody is doing it. A second venue opened up in Oxford, at Harcourt Hill, only a few weeks ago, and there are runs at Abingdon-on-Thames and other nearby towns too. Each Parkrun depends on volunteers. These include timekeepers and marshals, as well as the tail-runner.

And how did Sam and co get on? I think the 3 of them were all safely back home in Jackson Road before I crossed the finish line.....

Christmas Letters

I'll have to leave my account of my voyage along the coast of Japan of so many years ago for a bit as I've been a bit preoccupied over the last few days in gathering the various bits of ammunition you need for my annual Christmas card assault on the post office. OK, I know it's a bit early to be in full Christmas mode, but I've just got to get on with at least the overseas lot to be in time, or so they tell me. Actually it's sod's law: if you think you'll save money by sending the cards by sea they in fact send them by air and they're far too early, but if you dally then 10-to-1 they'll be late. You can't win.

I've got the cards (with the usual nautical flavour) and amended last year's stick-on label list by deleting the sadly deceased, the people whose cards were returned last Christmas with remarks such as "Not at this address" or "Return to sender", and those I've managed to fall out with during the last 12 months. Very few seem to get added - perhaps I'm  too old to get any new friends.... The one thing I haven't got yet are the stamps. This is firstly because they are now so expensive that I'll need to discuss overdraft terms with my bank manager first, and secondly because the suggestion has been made that I enclose a typed Christmas letter this year giving all the family news. You know the kind of thing. "Little Frederick won the top scholarship to Eton in September and Fiona continues to represent England at beach volley-ball following her gold medal at the last Olympics..." Have you noticed how brilliant other people's offspring always are? It's quite sickening.

Anyway, if I do decide to go down this particular route, the additional weight of the said letters will make the postal bill even more astronomical.

Although I have to admit quite a high proportion of people who send cards to me enclose letters, I've resisted sending Christmas letters up to now. This is why.

In the first place I'm too disorganised to get them done in time, and this isn't helped by the fact that my printer seems to have packed up. Secondly have I really done anything so exciting that all my friends and relations can't wait to read about it? Well, of course, as avid readers of this blog may recall, I did run in the Angkor Wat Half Marathon last year; but that's nearly a year ago now. That's another of the problems - that race was actually before last Christmas, but run after I sent my 2013 cards. So it's pretty historic now. Of course, if you have a large family you can fill up the page (most people seem to write about an A4 page) with their doings. "Dad's turnip won first prize at the local fete in July" or "Mavis and Bert are planning to come over to England in February - they hope to come and see you when they're back in the old country." The trouble with this is on the one hand you wrack your brains trying to remember who on earth Mavis and Bert are, and do you want to see them anyway?

Anyway I haven't got any kids to my knowledge, and even if I had I don't suppose they would get up to anything too exciting. While penning that, it suddenly occurs to me that you rarely read any bad news in these letters. I've never seen, for example: "Despite trying to turn over a new leaf, regrettably Ernestine will be enjoying her Xmas in prison yet again, this time for fraud, embezzlement and working for a large bank." Perhaps this kind of news isn't regarded as suitable for the season of goodwill.

You get other problems when trying to compose a letter which suits all recipients. You would baffle your friends in America, for example, by mentioning the test match, but perhaps a bigger problem is that not all the addressees know all (or any of) your relatives or other people you might like to mention. I receive one letter each year from an old colleague from the Japan days who can't even agree on his own name: we all knew him as Paul, but it turns out that the folk in his home always called him John. So he has to sign his Christmas letters "John/Paul."

As you can see, in short I'm not totally convinced that I'll be changing the habits of a lifetime and penning a letter for Christmas 2014. 

'Japan at Last!' - By Kit Villiers

We finally arrived at Haneda Airport, Tokyo, at about 2am after what turned out to be a 6 hour delay in Hong Kong. In those days of prehistoric communications we'd failed to notify Robin Pocock, who'd been designated to meet us, of our late arrival, and he didn't therefore welcome us with exactly open arms when we finally emerged at the old Haneda Airport terminal building at something like 3am.

We were to stay for what remained of that first night in the New Grand Hotel, Yokohama. As we drove through the silent streets my fears were somewhat confirmed as nothing whatsoever was written in English; there was nothing even in western script. Robin warned us that we were so late getting to our rooms that we'd probably enjoy a sweaty night as the air-conditioning would soon go off. I'm not sure quite why. It's possible that the hotel wanted to save money and thought nobody would notice if they went to bed at a normal hour. Of course if he hadn't told us this I wouldn't have given it a thought as I was so tired. But as it was I found myself wide-awake waiting for the dreaded switch-off  moment and hardly slept at all - not the best start to my new career!


The year was...well I won't tell you exactly, but it was precisely 100 years after the Meiji Restoration. That is, 100 years after the Emperor, who had been dozing for a couple of centuries in Kyoto, the old capital, found himself recalled to 'power' in Tokyo when the Shogun proved unable to deal with the sudden invasion of 'foreign devils' who had penetrated Japan's isolation about 15 years earlier.

One of the first things the Japanese did was to isolate the foreigners into three what might best be called compounds, the most important of which were on the sites of what have become Kobe and Yokohama. It is perhaps no coincidence that these two small settlements of 100 years ago have grown into two of the world's major ports, and hence P & O, together with other old British companies such as HSBC and Jardine Matheson, still kept their Japan head offices in Yokohama a hundred years later even though with the opening up of Japan after the 2nd World War everyone else was moving into what had become the world's biggest and most vibrant city, Tokyo.

Japan was a strange mixture of old and new. John Farmer, the other newcomer and I, were told we'd never find the office and that we'd be picked up at 9am sharp by the office driver. "He'll be late, I'll bet you" said John, who had had experience of the Third World. He was wrong - the driver came spot on time. That was the first surprise; the second was that that Japan had no street names! No wonder we wouldn't have been able to find the office. Addresses without street names were very strange, and appeared to be based on a system of concentric circles. Taxi drivers never seemed to know where they were going, and I found later that you had to give them a map to have any chance of getting anywhere; even then you never really knew if you hadn't gone wrong. "Was that really the 4th turning on the right?" you would wonder. Without a street reference you had no way to check. On the other hand if you liked Bach or Mozart it was quite pleasant getting lost - taxi drivers seemed to love western classical music and played it all the time. Mind you, even in those days you could clock up quite a taxi fare so you didn't dare relax too much.

Anyway the driver knew where the office was, and so began our new life. The staff bowed deeply to the 2 new expat managers, although I was a bit disappointed that nobody was wearing a kimono. John was assigned to some frightfully important position in Yokohama almost immediately, while I was to be transferred to Kobe, and next time I'll relate how I got there. Meantime I was stay in the hotel: John told me later the street name thing bugged him for days: he and his wife could never find their house without help, and goodness knows how they coped with shopping. There was almost nothing recognisable in the shops, and, incredibly polite and charming as the shop assistants were, nobody spoke English.  I expect a few other of the British wives were roped in to help. We had around 6 British managers in Yokohama and 2 in Kobe, out of a staff of several hundred.

I'm sure you're wandering what happened to the poor old Shogun. He was called Mr Tokugawa and the Tokugawa Shogunate had ruled Japan for centuries. I'm sure in most 'emerging'  countries there would have been bloodshed at this sudden change of regime, but not in Japan: apparently the Shogun just quietly retired to private life. Took a house in the suburbs, I expect, and lived happily ever after....

Japan At Last! by Kit Villiers

We finally arrived at Haneda Airport, Tokyo, at about 2am after what turned out to be a 6 hour delay in Hong Kong. In those days of prehistoric communications we'd failed to notify Robin Pocock, who'd been designated to meet us, of our late arrival, and he didn't therefore welcome us with exactly open arms when we finally emerged at the old Haneda Airport terminal building at something like 3am.

We were to stay for what remained of that first night in the New Grand Hotel, Yokohama. As we drove through the silent streets my fears were somewhat confirmed as nothing whatsoever was written in English; there was nothing even in western script. Robin warned us that we were so late getting to our rooms that we'd probably enjoy a sweaty night as the air-conditioning would soon go off. I'm not sure quite why. It's possible that the hotel wanted to save money and thought nobody would notice if they went to bed at a normal hour. Of course if he hadn't told us this I wouldn't have given it a thought as I was so tired. But as it was I found myself wide-awake waiting for the dreaded switch-off  moment and hardly slept at all - not the best start to my new career!

The year was...well I won't tell you exactly, but it was precisely 100 years after the Meiji Restoration. That is, 100 years after the Emperor, who had been dozing for a couple of centuries in Kyoto, the old capital, found himself recalled to 'power' in Tokyo when the Shogun proved unable to deal with the sudden invasion of 'foreign devils' who had penetrated Japan's isolation about 15 years earlier.

One of the first things the Japanese did was to isolate the foreigners into three what might best be called compounds, the most important of which were on the sites of what have become Kobe and Yokohama. It is perhaps no coincidence that these two small settlements of 100 years ago have grown into two of the world's major ports, and hence P & O, together with other old British companies such as HSBC and Jardine Matheson, still kept their Japan head offices in Yokohama a hundred years later even though with the opening up of Japan after the 2nd World War everyone else was moving into what had become the world's biggest and most vibrant city, Tokyo.

Japan was a strange mixture of old and new. John Farmer, the other newcomer and I, were told we'd never find the office and that we'd be picked up at 9am sharp by the office driver. "He'll be late, I'll bet you" said John, who had had experience of the Third World. He was wrong - the driver came spot on time. That was the first surprise; the second was that that Japan had no street names! No wonder we wouldn't have been able to find the office. Addresses without street names were very strange, and appeared to be based on a system of concentric circles. Taxi drivers never seemed to know where they were going, and I found later that you had to give them a map to have any chance of getting anywhere; even then you never really knew if you hadn't gone wrong. "Was that really the 4th turning on the right?" you would wonder. Without a street reference you had no way to check. On the other hand if you liked Bach or Mozart it was quite pleasant getting lost - taxi drivers seemed to love western classical music and played it all the time. Mind you, even in those days you could clock up quite a taxi fare so you didn't dare relax too much.

Anyway the driver knew where the office was, and so began our new life. The staff bowed deeply to the 2 new expat managers, although I was a bit disappointed that nobody was wearing a kimono. John was assigned to some frightfully important position in Yokohama almost immediately, while I was to be transferred to Kobe, and next time I'll relate how I got there. Meantime I was stay in the hotel: John told me later the street name thing bugged him for days: he and his wife could never find their house without help, and goodness knows how they coped with shopping. There was almost nothing recognisable in the shops, and, incredibly polite and charming as the shop assistants were, nobody spoke English.  I expect a few other of the British wives were roped in to help. We had around 6 British managers in Yokohama and 2 in Kobe, out of a staff of several hundred. 

I'm sure you're wandering what happened to the poor old Shogun. He was called Mr Tokugawa and the Tokugawa Shogunate had ruled Japan for centuries. I'm sure in most 'emerging'  countries there would have been bloodshed at this sudden change of regime, but not in Japan: apparently the Shogun just quietly retired to private life. Took a house in the suburbs, I expect, and lived happily ever after.

'Japan Here We Come!' - by Kit Villiers

After the odd false start post university, I'd managed to land a job with P & O. P & O, or, more properly, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, was a British shipping company based in London. At that time it was supposedly the largest shipping company in the world. I was to join a few other 'student princes' as a Management Trainee. After about a year in Head Office learning the ropes, we would be sent to work in one of the overseas branches. There were, we were told, three possibilities - Bombay, Hong Kong or Japan. You could do a full tour of duty (could be as long as 3 years) in any one of these three, or you could do a year or two in one and then get transferred to one of the others.

A student prince was a graduate entrant. These were the days when industry was only just beginning to employ graduates, and looking back on it I think one reason we were packed off overseas is that P & O really weren't sure quite what to do with us. After all we were pretty useless compared with a contemporary who had immersed himself (female executives hadn't been heard of in those days) in the shipping world from the age of 18. If we were safely ensconced thousands of miles away we could be given a little authority without causing too much offence, and could then swan back to London as a great authority on Asian trade.

Looking back on it, I would have been fired long before anywhere near completing that one year in London. We weren't going to be there long enough to get stuck into a real job, so all we did was look over people's shoulders - the 'people' were mostly middle-aged men who seemed to find it difficult to explain what they were doing or why. It was frightfully boring - for us, I mean - although some of the old codgers looked pretty bored too.... But luckily during just my second week, as I was yawning my way through a file winningly entitled "Far East - Persian Gulf Conference liftings by discharge port" or some such, I was summoned to the boss's office and told to pack my bags. Somebody had resigned in Calcutta, and, after a bit of re-jigging I was needed in Japan - just as soon as I could get a work visa.

That really concentrated the mind. Now that the time had come, did I really want to go? Japan was a country I knew virtually nothing about: Hong Kong was British and India had been, and English was (I assumed) widely used in both, whereas in Japan they just used those little squiggles to write with, didn't they?  "You'll love it when you get there", opined the middle-aged manager, grabbing back his precious file. "All you expats do is sit around the pool in the country club, occasionally saying hullo to a ship's captain - the real work is done by London, of course." He suddenly seemed quite human - or was he just glad to see the back of me?

A few days later, clutching my precious visa, I was at Heathrow, checking in for the BA Tokyo flight with a young chap, John Farmer, who was also headed for P & O Japan; he was no student prince, and although little older than me, he gave the impression of having knocked around a bit. The flight was uneventful until part of a wing fell off: my theory was that we had gently scraped the top of one of Hong Kong's skyscrapers as we made that very hairy landing at the old airport there. Anyway we were stuck until they fixed it. The practical John said we'd better tell our colleague in Tokyo that we were delayed. He and his wife went off to try to do that while I managed to spend a fascinating hour wandering around the crowded colourful streets behind the airport. Apart from the blinding heat and the poverty all I can clearly remember is seeing a very old Chinese man coming out of a crumbling apartment block wearing pyjamas and carrying a bird in a cage. My first look at Asia! My gosh, I thought, if this is so-called British Hong Kong (of course I saw no other European in my wanderings) what can Japan be like?

To find out, see the next amazing episode!

The 4.50 from Paddington - by Kit Villiers

As I'm sure you all know, this is the title of one of Agatha Christie's murder mysteries. Miss Marple's friend catches the 4.50pm train from Paddington Station to some fictional place in the country. It's winter and it's dark outside. The friend, an old lady like Miss Marple, is travelling alone.  She's quietly reading. Gradually she becomes aware that the 4.50 is slowly overtaking another passenger train. She can see the passengers eating, chatting or snoozing as she passes each compartment of the other train. In those days you had first class compartments with six seats (3 opposite 3) and third class with eight (4 opposite 4). None of these open plan coaches you get nowadays. So if you were lucky and the train wasn't crowded you could get a whole compartment to yourself, as had the friend.

After a little while the old lady gets a bit bored of eavesdropping on the humdrum lives of her fellow travellers opposite, and goes back to her 'Woman's Own'. But then the two trains start to run at the same speed. Something makes her look up. In the compartment exactly opposite her something not at all humdrum is taking place. There are two people there, and there seems to be a struggle going on. A very violent struggle. The old lady slowly realises that what she is witnessing is a man strangling a woman. Just as the woman slumps down obviously dead the other train starts to slow and the old lady sees no more.

After witnessing this terrible real-life melodrama, the old lady is then faced with the problem of what to do about it. I don't recall if she considers pulling the alarm cord: anyway she certainly tells the guard. Naturally he doesn't believe her. And when she gets to the fictional town where she is to stay with Miss Marple, neither she nor Miss Marple can persuade the local police to take it seriously either.

To cut a long story short, Miss Marple with the help of the railway timetable first works out where the body was thrown out of the train, and of course later she discovers who the victim was and who bumped her off.

What interested me was that my father and I several times had a similar experience to Miss Marple's friend. Well, to be honest witnessing a murder we didn't, but everything else seemed to fit. My father often spent the day in London. In those steam-train days we lived in a village called Leafield, near Witney, and our nearest station was Finstock, or Finstock Halt as it was called then. Occasionally I was taken to London as a treat. We always caught the 4.40 back as this went on past Oxford, stopping at Finstock Halt. There was another train though, the 4.45, also for Oxford. Although this was an express train, it was no good for us as we would have to change somewhere to get home. Every time we took this journey the two trains somewhere around Reading would run along together. I remember my father telling me it was because the two drivers wanted to have a chat. When the trains were going exactly the same speed you had the illusion that they'd both stopped. This was always a big thrill for a small child - the highlight of what otherwise seemed an interminable journey.

I'm sure Agatha Christie must have made the same journey, and what would be more natural on a dark night for somebody with her imagination to build one of her murder mysteries around it.

OK, I know there's a 5 or 10 minute difference, but I'm not going to let that spoil a good yarn....

HSBC: The Shanghai Connection - by Kit Villiers

As promised a couple of weeks back, here is a little background on how 'Shanghai' got into the title of what is now Britain's biggest bank.

You'll recall that the full name of HSBC is the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. The Hong Kong bit is clear enough: Hong Kong was a British colony from 1841 to 1997, and its main bank, almost a central bank, was (and still is) the Hong Kong Bank, or simply 'The Bank' for those that live there. As Jeremy Paxman pointed out in his 'Empire' series, the Bank's history has not always been totally untainted, the colony's early days being mixed up with the Opium Wars and other dark deals in which the Bank was doubtless inevitably intertwined....

But Shanghai? China was never anybody's colony: but for a large part of the 19th century it got pushed around by the European powers and might as well have been. In particular the Europeans forced concessions on China, the most obvious being the occupation of large parts of two of its main trading cities of Canton (near Hong Kong) and Shanghai, China's largest city. Even today one can see remnants of the old 'French concession', while the waterfront still has the old warehouses and offices of what were chiefly British interests.

In Hong Kong the Bank has rehoused itself in a modern skyscraper, but in Shanghai the buildings on the waterfront, the 'Bund', are in a kind of time warp; when I visited a couple of years back, I was told that the old (joint, with Hong Kong) HSBC head office was an exact replica of the building in Hong Kong. I did eventually find it, but I think it must be several generations older than its counterpart as I didn't recognise it at first at all. It looked pretty forlorn, and in fact the whole of the Bund is now overshadowed by the ultra modern developments in Pudong, on the other side of the river. Perhaps the Chinese want to show how much better they do things than the old European traders did in olden (i.e. pre-Communist) times.

I could well imagine that pre-1949 the Shanghai branch must have been as important as the Hong Kong one, but of course business nose-dived when the Mao regime took power and capitalism was discredited. But the powers that be in the Bank (mostly Scots, I believe) have always hankered after old glories, and hoped that Shanghai would recover its old profitable ways. They decided to try to stick it out, and keep Shanghai open until better times came round again. A skeleton staff was kept on, including one or two expat British officers.

Although quiet, things weren't too bad until the Cultural Revolution. Most foreigners fled China when that began, but the Bank was forced to keep at least one expat there or face being closed down completely. During the height of the Cultural Revolution this man was a friend of mine, one Tim Cotton. I asked him what life was like in those dark days. "Pretty grim", he said. "Mostly it was plain boring. There was no business, your Chinese friends were always in danger of being denounced and food was scarce. It was a strange feeling, being in one of the world's great cities, but being almost the only non-Chinese, and being surrounded (if you went out) by millions of glassy-eyed screaming locals wearing Chairman Mao suits and just staring at you as if you'd come from Mars". Luckily after a bit he discovered that Standard Chartered Bank were in the same position, and he spent the evenings with his opposite number: deadly rivals in Hong Kong, but thrown together by adversity in China. Whether they could get hold of the excellent Tsing Tao beer in those days or just had to content themselves with playing chess I'm not sure.

And how about today? Shanghai is of course thriving, and no doubt HSBC with it. But HSBC is just one of many international banks there, and it's only in Hong Kong and in the UK where it's the biggest kid on the block.

Evensong - By Kit Villiers

Just as in the previous 900 or so Octobers, Oxford University is back for another academic year. Full term (Michaelmas term that is - not Christmas term as everywhere else - Oxford always has to be different) commenced on 12th October, and one of the many activities which has begun again is college chapel. Perhaps surprisingly in this secular age all 38 major colleges are not only nominally still Christian establishments but maintain Anglican (Church of England) chapels, complete with resident chaplain (like a priest or rector in a local church), and, usually, a choir.

 

Finding out which colleges invite the public to Evensong (generally the main church service held in chapel, normally around 6pm) is a subtle ploy not only for those who like to listen to good music but are frustrated that the beautiful ancient colleges are so often closed to the public: at least they can't stop you going in to pray! Seriously though, most of the colleges do welcome visitors to Evensong, whatever your religion or lack of it.

 

Here are a few pointers.

 

The 2014/15 University of Oxford Pocket Diary (a must have for anyone living here I would say) now lists 5 colleges - as well as the University Church - in its 'Times of Services' section. Three of these have always been there, the colleges with the so-called 'professional' choirs. These three, Christ Church, Magdalen and New College differ chiefly from the others in that they still maintain a male only tradition. Boy trebles sing the high bits instead of sopranos, who are usually female undergraduates in the other college choirs. Even these three have developed quite differently over the centuries....

 

Christ Church's chapel doubles up as Oxford's Cathedral; this is a big advantage for OISE as it means our students can listen to Evensong there almost every night of the year, while Magdalen and New College have services only during the University's (extremely short) terms. Careful though! As nobody can sing 365 nights a year, Christ Church runs a 'B' team in the vacations - you might not get the proper choir at all.

 

Magdalen is notable in that all the male voices are so-called 'Academical Clerks', i.e. they are all undergraduates with music scholarships. It's also notable in that the school that provides the choirboys, Magdalen College School, is these days almost as famous as the college. It's a secondary school as well as primary, and, judging by A level results, one of the best in the country.

 

The oldest is New College, founded in 1379. The founder, William of Wykeham, also established New College School in the same year to provide the choristers, and services have been sung - in term time - ever since. Unlike Magdalen the male voices were all professionals, called Lay Clerks, until recent times; now though about half are Academical Clerks. New College probably rates highest in ability - or is it just the wonderful acoustics?  In any event a father of a current chorister told me the other day that the standard of music was so high that he feels he is at a concert rather than a church service. A sort of back-handed compliment, I suppose!

 

The other two colleges are Merton and The Queen's College. The latter has choral evensong at 6.15pm in term time on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, while Merton's evening services are on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. I know Merton has been expanding its choir's scope and activities a lot in recent years, and of course they've got a lot going for them with that wonderful chapel which has now held services for almost 750 years. Merton is now the Evensong of choice for my brother when he comes visiting from Devon, even though he went to New College School as a boy.

 

Finally I wouldn't write off the other colleges just because they are not in the diary: Worcester College for example runs two choirs, one with all students and one 'borrowing' the boys from Christ Church Cathedral School, and the public is welcome to all of their services.

HSBC and the Hong Kong Demonstrations: The Perspective of a Former Resident - by Kit Villiers

I used to live in Hong Kong; my final years there coincided with the last Governor, Chris Patten, now the Chancellor of Oxford University, somewhat desperately attempting to introduce a bit of democracy to this British colony before the hand-over to China in 1997.

So naturally I've been following the recent demonstrations in Hong Kong with great interest. I'm not going to comment on the larger political issues, but one thing I've noticed is that whenever the press report on something that one knows a little about, they often get it wrong, at least, irritatingly, on details. The worst example I've heard in the Hong Kong saga so far was one reporter, who sounded Chinese but perhaps wasn't, who said: "and now the demonstrations are spreading to the island of Kowloon!"

Well, Kowloon isn't an island; it's a densely populated peninsula on the mainland. I must admit though, that for your average outsider, the term "Hong Kong" is a bit confusing: "Hong Kong" is the name of the whole territory (former colony), i.e. Kowloon, the New Territories and various islands. But one of these islands, the main one, where most demonstrations have been taking place, is also called Hong Kong. This island contains both the main business area ('Central') and the government offices.

Exactly where on the 'Island' the demonstrators were or are has also been confusingly reported. The reporters often refer to the 'Central Business District' and say the aim is to disrupt HK as a financial centre, but at other times the emphasis seems to be on disrupting the government itself, and getting the Chief Executive to resign (the two areas are different).

To sort out this this conundrum (and to check whether the bank was still operational and my measly savings still in place) I called my friend in HSBC. "Oh, we've hardly been affected - the demonstrators haven't really bothered us at all, and we've all been at our desks as usual all along".

I should explain that HSBC is of course the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, and while (after taking over the Midland Bank) its Head Office might technically now be in London, the bank's major operations and profits remain in the Far East. It was to the Hong Kong head office in Central that my call was directed.

I must say I was a bit surprised - as well as personally relieved - to hear my friend's response. If I was a demonstrator and wanted to make a bit of a splash in that money making place (by the way another bit of annoying reporting is to call Hong Kong a 'city'; in neither sense of the word is that true: even HK island is only 26% built on, while you can hike for hours in other parts and never see a soul) I think I would target big business, Hong Kong's raison-d'etre. And you can't get much bigger than HSBC. Not only does it dominate the local banking scene, it even prints the local money - along now with the Bank of China. In a real sense HSBC symbolizes Hong Kong, its right in front of you when you get out of the Star Ferry and tourists are constantly being told by their guides that HSBC's head office in Central is the world's most expensive building.....

And how about the 'Shanghai' part, I hear you ask. Well that of course became a victim of the Communist revolution, but that's another story...

Out of Africa (cont.)

Many of you will no doubt recall my piece about my voyage from Liverpool to West Africa during my 'gap' year. I think I reached the point of arrival at our first African port, Bathurst in Gambia. Would you like to hear more about those malaria infested shores? Don't all answer at once.....

While you're pondering this, i.e. wondering how you can politely point out that you've heard quite enough of the Dark Continent, I thought I'd tell you about a small incident that occurred when we finally returned to Liverpool, some seven weeks after departure.

Well, as we sailed up the Mersey on that sunny day, we all lined up at the Purser's office to get paid off and I came away, as I recall, with some £22/10/3, after deductions for bar-bills, laundry, etc. I carefully stowed this untold wealth into my wallet, grabbed my sea-bag and, as soon as we'd docked, headed for the gangway, waving a fond farewell to my shipmates. I planned to walk to Lime Street and get the first train home to Oxford.

Almost immediately I reached the dockside, I fell in with this young(ish) man, who seemed to be heading my way. "Just signed off this ship, have you?" he said, eyeing my sun-tan and sea-bag. "Me too" he went on ungrammatically, "Third Engineer from SS Carterton here, just in from Recife" (or somewhere, I don't rightly recall now). I'm just heading for the station - my bag's already there". I glanced back and sure enough there was the "Carterton", berthed astern of my vessel. The bloke seemed genuine enough: it was a lovely day and I was euphoric at the prospect of getting home at last.

The upshot was that, naturally enough, we set off together; in fact, since my new friend had nothing, he even carried my bag for a bit. We were great pals by the time we reached Lime Street.  It seemed that the Oxford train was going from platform 1, and we headed there first.  Jim - I think that was his name - seemed a little vague about exactly where he was headed. "I just need to clear my bag from Left Luggage", he said. "Trouble is all my money's in it. Could you lend me ten bob? The bag's just over there" (pointing vaguely). "I'll be back in a jiffy".

Of course I handed over a ten shilling note from my hard earned wages. It was a long platform, and he was soon a dot in the distance. Leave happy and content to be alive and well on that sunny morning as I was, I still didn't realise I'd been 'had'; it was only when my friend reached the end of the platform, and glanced back, did it dawn on me that he was never coming back. I kicked myself. Ten shillings was a lot of money in those days, or so it seemed. All the way back to Oxford I wondered how I'd been so easily taken in, and what I'd tell my father. Jim probably wasn't from the 'Carterton' at all, and he would have guessed I would have money as I came ashore from a cargo vessel which had obviously come in from foreign parts.

An expensive lesson, but at least I wasn't mugged (not that that word existed in those days), and I had the bulk of my earnings still. Also I ran into a bit of luck in Oxford, almost immediately landing a job adding up A level marks in the Examination Schools, but that's another story....

"The Perfect Host Family"

The house was quite a long way out of town, and served by a very infrequent bus service. There was a bed, and a loo. Apart from that there was a wash basin, but very little else. Certainly nothing by way of a shower or a bath. Nothing was ever said about meals.

What student would put up with this? Well, I did, in Lyon ('Lions' we called it, in true British fashion). I had to offer a language to enter the Diplomatic Service, and French seemed the only possibility. I'd done it at school for around 8 years, and one - not surprisingly - wasn't allowed to offer dead languages like Latin and Greek in the exam. The idea apparently was that one was supposed to demonstrate 'potential'  - i.e. an ability to learn a foreign language. So, having decided that I'd meet too many other English speakers in Paris, I enrolled at the University of Lyon for an English course. Unluckily at school I had always been bottom of the class in French, being spectacularly feeble in the spoken language.

On arrival in Lyon I had managed (with some difficulty) to locate the accommodation officer at the university. Not being used to the French queuing system I stood back modestly and was amongst the last to be seen. Perhaps that was one reason I ended up in such a dump. Perhaps another reason was that the woman (the officer) gabbled away in her own tongue and I caught hardly a word. She gave me the address and mumbled something about Bus route 4, but luckily another British student was going in the same direction and dropped me off, otherwise I'd still be wandering around Lyon to this day.

The meals situation soon resolved itself in not perhaps the most satisfactory fashion. It seemed the family was going to provide nothing: not only that, I was told  - even I caught the word "Non" - that I couldn't eat in the house, and that a crumb left on the floor would result in the direst of penalties. Lunch and dinner were available in a sort of enormous student canteen. I particularly recall the French non-queuing system: I along with 1,000 others would arrive about an hour early and all try to push to the front. It was quite amiable; the French clearly regarded this non-queuing as part of the fun of being a student. I saw the same people - the hungriest ones presumably - day after day, and we got quite pally despite my severe linguistic limitations. When we finally rushed in we got served with a metal tray, nearly always with 'steak', which I presume was horsemeat.

Luckily for me I got one decent meal a week. I was asked to teach  English conversation to an 18 year old French boy 1 hour a week. Not having done my TEFL course at this point I'm sure I was a dreadful teacher. But the lessons were in his home, and the boy's mother produced an excellent dinner, although rather richer than I was used to, and certainly a lot richer than the student fare.

In England I was used to eating breakfast, and I wondered how to resolve this serious lack in France. Not having the money to find a restaurant every morning all I could manage was to purchase a baguette each morning at the local boulangerie and munch it during my interminable wait for a bus.

The family, who seemed very keen not to get to know their strange English guest in any way at all, permitted me one bath a week. I would like to have gone on the odd jog, but the lack of a shower made this out of the question. So I investigated sports as offered by the university. There were only 2. Fencing wasn't for me and that left rugby, but the bureaucracy defeated me: 6 photos, a doctor's certificate, buying boots, etc. - it was all too much, and anyway there were only about 2 games per term.

I remained amongst the great unwashed...to cap a dismal episode I also learnt no French and never got into the Diplomatic Corps!

Luckily for our students, OISE Oxford prides itself on the high quality of our host family accommodation. Quite unlike the hosts from my episode, our families are keen to engage with students and embrace the opportunity for cross cultural learning, and they provide breakfast and dinner!

A novel approach to Christ Church Meadow

Did you know that you can get into Christ Church - well, more specifically into the the Memorial Gardens - without going through that big gate in St Aldate's? At any time of day or night? No? Well, I'll tell you how, or at least I'll tell you how we did it many years ago (i.e. way back in the last century, when I was a student).

Some time in the 1960s my mate Bill, the (self-appointed) captain of the University canoe club and I got hold of 2 kayaks and paddled up stream from Folly Bridge to the rather cunningly concealed entrance to the Trill Mill stream. I'm not quite sure what gave Bill the idea in the first place, or how he even knew such a stream existed. It's possible that he'd heard that T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) had managed the feat about 60 years earlier, when he was an undergraduate at Jesus College.

He (Bill, that is) had done a little research. "It could be a bit narrow and twisty, so we'd better take 2 boats - and we'd better each take at least a couple of torches" he'd said at the planning stage a few days earlier. "I've also no idea how strong the current might be....it could be a bit tricky if we have to go back and we can't turn around." With those encouraging words I almost dropped out, but I suppose the bravado of youth won through, although another somewhat sobering thought did occur to me - what if we got separated? That might have been a tad worrying, at least for a sensitive chap such as myself. After all, it was going to be pitch dark. I refrained from voicing this particular concern to Bill who seemed determined to press ahead come what may.

As I recall it, the entrance was on the right, somewhere near Oxford Castle. I doubt if I could find it today; anyway, according to another friend who went through the tunnel few years after me as a stunt for Radio Oxford, the entrance is now blocked off. We went in, Bill in the lead and me somewhat apprehensively a little astern. At first it wasn't too bad, but it soon got so dark that I could make out Bill's boat only with my torch. Even then I occasionally thought I'd lost him when he negotiated the odd bend. I seemed to be able to touch the roof and the walls pretty easily. This reassured me slightly until another slight concern hit me - what if it gets even narrower and we get wedged in?

We were rather vague as to where exactly we went. We rather hoped we would go under Carfax, although how we would know it if we did, we didn't know. Suddenly there was a dim light overhead: it turned out to be a drain cover, and there were traffic noises. Suddenly somebody walked over the drain. I remember a sense of relief  - we were no longer alone in the world. Well, perhaps it was Carfax, but we found out later it's more likely that we had been crossing under St Aldate's, probably near Alice's shop.

In fact our voyage ended relatively soon after the drain cover incident. A dim light showed ahead: eventually we emerged, blinking in the unaccustomed light, into that little pool that separates the tunnel exit from the bridge in the Memorial Gardens which all the tourists on their way to visit Christ Church now must cross, gawping at the (Harry Potter) hall to their left as they do so.

We had one remaining problem. That little pool has pretty steep sides; even if we could have clambered out, wrecking the flowers as we did so, there was no way that we could have got the canoes out. There was nothing for it but to continue down to the Thames, hoping we weren't accosted by the Dean or someone for trespassing.

One final point of interest. The 'Oxford Mail' carried an article a couple of years ago claiming that Lawrence had discovered an ancient Victorian era punt in the tunnel, complete with 3 dead students, no doubt with boaters and blazers, who'd supposedly got stuck years earlier. This I'm assured can't be true: the stream is far too narrow for a punt. Good story though!

Running in Oxford - Part 3

I've left East Oxford until last. I'm defining E Oxford as anywhere east of Magdalen Bridge; as this is home to some 60% of Oxford's residents, it's last but certainly not least.

Let's start by following the left hand fork at the Plain (just east of the bridge); this winds through St Clement's which at first sight looks unpromising for the would-be jogger, but just as you get to the foot of the hill leading up to Oxford Brookes and Headington a vista of parks opens up before you on both sides of the road: on the left is Headington Hill Park and on the right is South Park. If you want to be under the trees and enjoy a bit of exclusion I'd go for the former; South Park on the other hand is much more open and has splendid views back over the dreaming spires. You also won't be alone there - the university train there in the winter as do Headington Road Runners. Both of these parks are suitable for hill training, if you like that sort of thing.

Neither of the other 2 roads leading off the Plain (Cowley Road and Iffley Road) are quite so alluring for runners, at least not for those who like solitude or green pastures. Florence Park (between the two) is fine once you get there, but you need to go further out to get to perhaps the best running locally. I'm referring to Shotover Country Park; this is reached by following Old Road to the end, at the top of the hill. Old Road was the original road to London. Be warned though - you've got quite a climb to get to into the park at all... no wonder they abandoned this route to the capital in favour of the A40! Anyway, once you've arrived at Shotover the options are plentiful and the running as challenging as you want. There are different coloured trails of varying lengths. In fact I would recommend following one of these as otherwise it's pretty easy to get lost as it's quite a big place. Plenty of blackberries around too - or there will be shortly.

If you're in the Iffley Road there is a nice loop for runners to follow, made famous by the so-called Teddy Hall Relays, the largest mid-week road relay race in the country. It starts at the University athletics track (where Sir Roger Bannister was the first man to run one mile in under 4 minutes) which is just off the Iffley Road. Run south along the Iffley Road, turning down Meadow Lane and then following through the fields to Donnington Bridge; cross the Thames here, and turn right along the tow-path following the river upstream to Folly Bridge (you'll see the 'Head of the River' pub opposite). Run over the bridge and into Christ Church Meadow at the back of the pub. Exit the meadow in Rose Lane, turn right and it's a simple run back to Iffley Road across Magdalen Bridge.

If you are further out along the Iffley Road, in Rose Hill or Iffley Village, then try to make your way to Iffley lock; there's plenty of good running there along the Thames, both up or downstream.

Good luck and stay fit!

Running in Oxford - Part 2

I've been trying to describe where visitors to Oxford (such as our students) might find nice places to run after slaving away on the present continuous all day, and I've already made a few suggestions for people living or staying in North Oxford or the City Centre. By the way we sometimes get a very famous jogger in the City Centre, and that's Bill Clinton who does his jogging (complete with bodyguards) from the Randolph Hotel when he's in town - but I'm sorry I can't tell you exactly where he goes. Perhaps we could discreetly follow him and his entourage next time!

WEST OXFORD

Again I would recommend Port Meadow if you're not too far out of town; just follow the path beside the various Thames bridges to the north of Botley Road and you should get there, or you can go along Binsey Lane, which is also off the Botley Road to the north, not so far from Oxford Station. After the excitement of seeing the OISE head office you can stop off for raspberries at the 'Pick Your Own' at Medley Manor Farm, or a drink at the Perch; but as I said last time if you run around the whole Meadow (i.e. via the Trout Inn) it's quite a way back to West Oxford via Wolvercote.

If you are further out there is Cumnor Hill to exercise the lungs, or, especially if you would like to see the dreaming spires, head for Raleigh Park. This used to be a famous viewing point in the 19th century, but now you have to look over the industrial buildings of Osney to see the ancient towers and spires of the University. Incidentally, talking of views, the view of St Barnabas Church and the University beyond from Port Meadow have sadly been affected by the erection by the University itself (of all people) of those ghastly flats near Oxford Station.

SOUTH OXFORD

If you're anywhere near the River Thames then there is a convenient access point to the tow-path at Folly Bridge. The tow-path is an ancient track beside the river which has fairly recently been made into a proper footpath all the way to London, if you head downstream. You first follow the river along towards Iffley Lock, passing the college boathouses and various canoe and rowing clubs. In fact it's a hive of activity until you get downstream of the lock when you very suddenly find yourself in deep countryside. If you're very fit you can run to the attractive old town of Abingdon, but then you've got to get back again so it might be better to put your feet up and go by Salter's Steamers which do regular trips from Folly Bridge.

Upstream along the tow-path is also an attractive run these days; what used to be a rather scruffy part of Oxford has now been renovated and it's quite fun following the various twists of the river to Botley Road and beyond.

The main park in South Oxford is Hinksey Park; this has lots of paths and trails and is off the Abingdon Road not far south of Folly Bridge. It's got one great advantage if this warm weather continues: it's got a swimming pool!

If you are a little further out of town on the south side of the city, I would strongly recommend Boar's Hill; this provides tremendous views over the ancient university and is the spot where the poet Matthew Arnold coined the phrase "dreaming spires".

I'll cover East Oxford next time and meanwhile good luck with your running!

Japanese Women & Life Employment

"Excuse me, but is your company employing any female graduates this year?"

I turned round and beside me on the platform at one of Tokyo's larger stations was a young woman, smartly dressed but looking frankly a bit desperate. I was a bit surprised as normally young women in Japan did not accost total strangers. I suppose my business suit and general air of having just got out of the office caused her to overcome her normal scruples. It seemed she had just graduated from a good university in Tokyo, but despite trying several companies, hadn't had a sniff of an offer of a job of any kind -  and 1 April was only a few days away!  Looking back on it, I now realise that another reason she might have singled me out was so that she could show off her ability in conversational English.

Unfortunately I had to tell her that compared with the 60 office ladies we'd taken in 1993, Mitsui OSK was going to take none at all in April 1994 (and only 60 men compared with 80 the previous year). I also said that I understood that with the bursting of Japan's 'bubble economy' other companies were probably in the same boat.

It seemed as if women were the first to feel the recession, especially perhaps the better educated ones. But, despite the problems of my platform friend, I had already noted some improvement in the lot of the working woman compared with my earlier spell of working in Japan. This had been in the 1960s and 1970s - some 20 years earlier. In the earlier period girls were expected to marry at 25, and at that point they were also expected to stop working. Hence the female workforce experienced a total turnover every 3 years (if they started as graduates at age 22,  perhaps 5 years if they started at 20 after 'junior college' - a 2 year kind of finishing school).

What they did in the office in my earlier spell in Japan was also very limited. They were secretaries, accounts clerks and receptionists. Generally they were expected to leap up and serve tea to their bosses, especially when - a frequent occurrence in Japan - visitors dropped in bowing deeply and proffering business cards. The girls were supposed to smile sweetly with their eyes cast demurely downwards. They never worked late, and never joined their male colleagues in a drink after work. They had recently been termed 'office ladies', having before that been called (rather unfortunately) 'business girls'. Strangely these terms were always in English.

So how about the 1990s? As said in my earlier blog, the age of marriage has risen, but more important, women don't now leave their jobs automatically on marriage. I also noticed in Mitsui that when we went out for a drink after work some of the more daring ladies did now join, although they were less likely to catch the midnight train back home to Yokohama so drunk that they lay over 3 seats and forget to get out at their destination.

Although in the 1990s women still occupied few positions of responsibility, they sometimes managed to get into a kind of niche. The Mitsui 'jogging club'  - which met on the first Tuesday of each month and ran one lap around the Imperial Palace (5k) was headed up by a Miss Suzuki, a 45 year old office lady in the passenger department. The male runners seemed to have no problem in deferring to her in matters athletic, even if they outranked her in the office.

In short, even in the 1990s women still had a pretty raw deal; they still weren't employed for life, and those that hung around to middle age - like Miss Suzuki - were something of an embarrassment as they were unlikely ever to get promoted to a 'man's' job.

My impression is that today things have moved on. I don't think a Japanese firm would have sent a young woman executive for language training at OISE in the 1990s, and certainly not in the 1970s.

Life Employment in Japan - A Personal View

"What we can't understand about you, Villiers-san, is how rootless your life seems to be. You came here from Hongkong, and before the law you were in logistics, and before that we don't even know - London was it?..." said Tanaka-san, my boss, during coffee break one day.

 

From a Japanese perspective I understood exactly what he meant. This was the 1990s and I was in Tokyo working in the legal department of a big Japanese company, Mitsui OSK, the shipping arm of the Mitsui group. Although technically split up by General MacArthur during the Occupation of Japan after the Second World War, Japanese corporate life was still dominated by these conglomerates. Mitsubishi had a bank, a trading company, the world's largest shipping company and so on, and Mitsui was much the same.

 

Apart from me, everybody (the men anyway) in the legal department was there for life; or, at least they were in the company for life, possibly changing department from time to time.

 

What did this mean? It meant that all my Japanese colleagues (and that was 99 % of the total in our building of 1000 odd staff) had been employed directly from university and would stay with Mitsui until retirement (this had been age 55, but shortly before had been increased to 60). University courses were 4 years and ended in March. All 'new faces' - whether they were starting with Mitsui, Toyota, Toshiba or other large company, started work on 1 April, when they were all 22. Mitsui OSK took 80 such young men (and 60 girls as 'office ladies) the year I was there. Accommodation for single 'salarymen' (and increasingly for office ladies too) was offered; I recall our personnel manager telling me that with people marrying later these 'dormitories' were being used for longer and longer. He also said that the company had had to revise their requirements for female staff. Instead of working from 22 to 25 (when they married and left) as before, ladies were staying on to nearer 28, so he needed to recruit only half.

 

 In return for a guaranteed job they (from our western viewpoint) gave up an awful lot for the company. For instance they would take virtually no holidays, apparently considering that it would be unfair on their colleagues if they were away. They also worked very long hours. Time in the office seemed to bear little relationship to how busy they were. My time there coincided with the start of the 20 year relative decline in the Japanese economy, so rather than working all the salarymen spent their evenings ringing their hands about the company's uncertain future prospects. I went home, or to the gym.

 

In Mitsui the first significant date after entry into the company was after 15 years and 3 months. At that precise point (1 July in the relevant year) all these (by then) 37 year olds got an inkling as to their future. Some were really promoted to assistant manager - like my friend Mr Tanaka - while others were slightly sidelined, very possibly being assigned to the famous 'seat by the window', i.e. without much future prospect. Amazingly though, according to Mr Tanaka, who was about 38 at the time of our little chat, his less successful colleagues were compensated by getting a larger pay rise than he did to make up for their loss of face. They still didn't take the hint and leave.

 

Although the life employment system seems to be somewhat rigid and inefficient, and in any event is slowly disappearing as Japan continues its long depression, one can say it has certain plus points. Firstly of course company loyalty, and secondly an ability for a company to use the skills of its younger staff. Older managers who can't handle computers do not fear being fired or being overtaken by younger whizz-kids, while the whizz-kids, are not afraid of making suggestions for improvements.

 

On a final note, I'm sure stress levels are reduced under a life-employment system - and perhaps this is one reason (apart from diet) for Japanese longevity. It's a pity it's on the way out!

Gap year 1960s style - Part 2

What my two new friends proposed was a night out on the town. The suggestion doesn't seem that newsworthy now, but having come straight from boarding school, it seemed a novel and slightly daring idea at the time. My memories now were the incredible care they took with their hair (Brylcream was the rage then) and their easy familiarity with the girl behind the bar - "That'll be 3 more pints, please, luv."

 

Soon enough we were at sea, leaving the rain and Toxteth (famous for riots around 20 years later) in favour of the Irish Sea. Our cabin was now full as we'd been joined by an engineering cadet. I had my first inkling as to on board hierarchies (or should that be prejudices?). My two mates from the pub  - remember they were deck (i.e. navigation) cadets - looked down on this poor lad; it seemed throughout the ship that deck officers (in their own opinion at least) were superior to engineers, on the grounds, I believe, that the latter were a recent development, coming in only after the days of sail.

 

One of my jobs was to organise the passengers' 'sports'. Although primarily a cargo vessel, we had about 60 cabins, and were carrying a miscellaneous bunch, chiefly colonial servants and their families returning to work in West Africa, plus oilmen and a few wealthier Africans. I particularly remember Senator Asemoto, from recently independent Nigeria, who entered the deck quoits and seemed to be allowed to win on account of his age and stature. The other sports were the somewhat more active deck tennis and ping-pong. While safely tied up at the dockside, most passengers signed up for all three, and I spent my first hours in the office happily making various draws, including match times, etc.

 

Unfortunately all my plans came to naught:  even in ordinary conditions the Irish Sea can be fairly rough, and table tennis, even with the table bolted to the deck, became quite challenging; but worse than this the passengers almost all failed to keep to my meticulous time-table. I would go along to Mrs Robinson in Cabin E4, knock on the door and shout out that she was supposed to be on the promenade deck for her match: "Go away!" she would groan, "I'm sea-sick!"

 

My main task though was to assist the Chief Officer, who was in charge of all cargo activities. Prior to arrival at Freetown (it got better once in port), this proved somewhat tedious work, involving drawing up stowage plans, getting books ready for the tally-clerks to use at discharge, etc. Soon I was in trouble: the 2nd and 3rd Officers were keen on bridge and asked me to make up a regular four (I forget who the other was). The only time neither officer was on watch was 12 - 4pm, but that was exactly when I was supposed to be working. Of course, finding my work particularly boring at the time, I weakly agreed; inevitably I was found out and given a severe reprimand by the Purser.

 

Apart from that, the sun was out by this time, and life was slipping into a pleasant enough routine: I was regularly thrashed at deck golf by my cabin-mates, but enjoying the pool which we shared with the passengers and helping to arrange film evenings, etc.

 

Finally from the mast-head came the familiar call: "Land Ho!" At last my first sight of Africa.....

Gap Year 1960s style

Another hook poised in mid-air, carrying a bundle of what I'd now learnt to call 'general cargo' - i.e. miscellaneous boxes and cartons containing heaven knows what.  Directions were shouted and the sling slowly descended into the depths of hold no 5 of the SS 'Capetown Castle'.  Far below, the Liverpool stevedores grabbed it and stowed the boxes into various corners and recesses of the cavern-like hold.   It was painfully slow going; a ship's hold is gigantic, or so it seemed to a greenhorn 19 year old, just out of school. I'd been on a passenger ship before, and enjoyed it, but watching the almost imperceptible loading of this great cargo ship (she was to take about 2 weeks to load at Liverpool and then go to Avonmouth and Rotterdam, as I recall) wasn't really a lot of fun. I suppose she sank slightly with the weight of the newly loaded cargo every day, but you wouldn't know it.

I huddled further into my anorak; Toxteth dock in Liverpool wasn't the warmest place to be on a bleak March day. I shivered.  I've still got 5 hours to go, I thought. Not for the first time I wondered whether my gap year plan (a voyage or two as a cadet purser in Elder Dempster Lines to West Africa) was such a great idea. Of course, it hadn't been my idea at all: my father knew a director of the line, and thought no doubt that such an experience would soon knock the public school cockiness out of me.

The plan had been that I was to arrive in Liverpool a week or so before my ship sailed, and during that time try to glean something about international shipping and trade. So for the past few days I had been assigned to a foreman of some kind, and had been trying to see how a ship was loaded and with what. I lost tremendous face with my naïve questions - they must have put me down as a very ignorant southerner - and a bit too posh too, no doubt.  I noted that prior to loading the cargo seemed to be piled into stacks labelled 'CT, EL, PE and DB'. When I asked what this meant the foreman, looking at me witheringly, said: "Capetown, East London, Port Elizabeth and Durban, of course! Don't they teach you anything at school?" I cringed and wished I hadn't attended a school which considered geography not 'academic' enough to be merit being taught at all. 

I did glean a little bit about stowage despite being bored rigid most of the time. As Durban was the 'discharge' last port, cargo for that destination, I learnt, should be stowed at the bottom to avoid expensive shifting later on. That was called 'overstowage' apparently.  "Why not simply assign one hold to each destination?" I queried brightly of a tally-clerk.  This produced another withering look. "No good, chum. For a start, she'd buckle after PE if only one hold was full - too much stress on the hull; you've got to keep her trimmed all the time. That's what's called 'keeping an even keel'," he explained. "And another thing - you've got to put the heavy stuff at the bottom - you can't have those eggs for Durban stowed under that bulldozer for E London, now can you?" I saw the force of that and reflected not for the first time how little I knew, and how poorly prepared for real life I seemed to be with my history A levels and coming second in the 800 metres (or half mile as we called it then). 

At last 5pm came and I wandered along the quay to the MV 'Tarkwa', the cargo/passenger liner to which the director had in his wisdom assigned me. We were to sail for Sierra Leone in a couple of days. There's nothing worse than being on a ship between voyages. I seemed to be the only crew member so far on board, and I ate my meals surrounded by stores and a bevy of people (all men) who all seemed too busy with their own little jobs (electricians, engineers, carpenters, watchmen, cleaners ,etc., preparing the ship for sea) to engage in conversation with me....I can't remember now why I was there at all - perhaps it was cheaper than putting me in an hotel.

What I seem to have written so far seems a) not to have got me very far either on my voyage or through my gap year
and b) to have painted a very depressing picture of life in the docks.

However, things now started to improve rapidly. After dinner I was leaning over the taff-rail rather depressed (it was drizzling and Toxteth, as I had already discovered, didn't seem that exciting a place, night or day)  when two new blokes came up the gangway; they were carrying sea-bags and seemed friendly and about my age. They seemed to know their way about, and made straight for the 'Apprentices'  cabin. There were 4 berths there, and only mine was occupied (I never did find out the difference between a cadet and an apprentice). I hurried after them and introduced myself. "Oh hi, nice to meet you, we'll just grab these 2 berths by the porthole" said the taller one. "and then let's....."

To find out what we got up to in Liverpool and more about sunny West Africa, tune in for the next thrilling episode.....

Swans on the River Cherwell - Kit Villiers

"What's that white thing?" I said to myself as I peered through our rather less than kempt bushes which are supposed to shield us from the river. I meandered somewhat further down the garden. "Oh, only a swan," my thoughts continued as I rounded the bushes. But wait a minute; what was that grey smudge beside it? In fact there are as we speak a brace of swans - presumably a couple - and two tiny cygnets treating the bottom of our garden as their home. The cygnets looked as though they'd only just been born. "Why are they not in their nest?" I wondered.

 

My first thought was that the family had decided on our garden as a sort of second home. After all, they've got a great view up or down stream, and they are right by the entrance to the backwater which forms the island at Sunnymead if they want an alternative bit of water to swim about in.  The attraction of this spot seemed to be confirmed on my second visit to inspect the family when I'd seen the parents grabbing bits of willow and piling them on the lawn. But then the house-building appeared to stop.  Lack of planning permission? Certainly we would object - messy things, swans, even without a nest!  But then I realised that a more likely explanation is that they've been flooded out of their original home - after all, the river has risen a couple of feet with all the rain we had last week. In fact I was surprised to see that people are still punting when I was cycling near the Vicky Arms shortly after I made my swan discovery.

 

So, presumably until the young get a bit bigger, or until the river drops and they buzz off back home again, we've got (as birds go) some fairly large neighbours, or perhaps that should be uninvited guests? Am I supposed to tell the Queen? She does own them, after all.  Certainly we'd better not harm them, otherwise she will not be amused. I wonder what the punishment is?

 

One problem is mowing the lawn. This is a job it's a bit difficult to do quietly. I have gone as close as I dare, and the parents just stare at me warily. They don't budge though, and I'm wondering if I can mow a little closer. Or perhaps wait until they go off for their morning constitutional? They do go off for the odd paddle, but never when I'm there poised with the lawn-mower...So in short the lower lawn still looks a bit of a mess.

 

I'm not anti-swan, mind you. A few years ago we did have a proper nest and together with our neighbours witnessed 8 eggs hatched:  they even sent an Oxford Mail photographer along. But that family were on a sort of promontory amongst the weeds and nettles, not scrunching up our lawn! Other wildlife includes mallards, terns and Canada geese, and we had a large heron the other day. I keep a constant look-out for water voles, but I suppose they've gone for ever as I haven't seen one for years. Some say this is because some mink escaped into the river, but I haven't seen one of those either for some years.

 

So it's all go on the banks of the Cherwell. Watch this space for further developments.

Cricket - Apartheid Fashion

Another 25 hour day of endless blue sea and sky stretched ahead, with nothing more exciting in prospect than the Captain's Cocktail Party on the quarterdeck at 6 bells, following a spot of deck tennis with that bunch of pleasant Australian girls I'd met at the Syndicated Quiz the evening before, if one felt so inclined. 6 days out of Fremantle and life on board had settled into a very pleasant routine.

 

Following a large buffet breakfast (one always seems to be so hungry at sea), I was lounging in a deck-chair idly perusing the ship's newspaper when I became aware of a chap glued to a transistor radio nearby. Faintly irritated at the crackling, I politely enquired as to what was apparently absorbing my sun-tanned neighbour. "Aw, don't you know, mate, the Capetown Test has just started, and the South Africans have won the toss and decided to bat."

 

"Oh really?" I tried to show interest.

 

"The ship'll be alongside in Capetown before the last day, and me and a few of the blokes from 'C' deck are thinking of grabbing a cab and nipping along to watch," my new friend continued enthusiastically but somewhat ungrammatically. Although I wasn't really bothered who won - the test appeared to be between S. Africa and Australia - the Aussie's remark had given me an idea. I would try and get to Newlands, but it would I thought be a lot more interesting to travel on public transport.  

 

A few days later I strolled down the gangway and boarded the bus for Capetown station. It appeared that Newlands, Capetown's sports stadium, was a bit out of town and S. African Railways was the way to go. The bus journey was pretty uneventful: the ship's Purser had told me that whites could sit anywhere, but that other races had to sit in the rear half. I did less well on the train: in short I had a Gandhi experience except in reverse, and, unlike Gandhi, I didn't argue: I realised too late that compartments alternated between black and white, and I naturally got in the wrong one....After the guard put me right, the compartment I ended up in was occupied by a large white man. I was about to tell him of my mistake when he unfurled his paper. It was in Afrikaans. Somehow the words somehow stuck in my throat. I can't quite recall the reasons for my hesitation (it's a long time ago), but I had read that the Boer War lived on in the minds of some, and that some Afrikaners resented the fact that English speakers never bothered to learn their language.

 

I had no problems identifying the whites only entrance to the ground. I'd like to be able to confirm that it really was true that the non-whites tended to support the opposition, but when I strolled along to the partition they all went silent. I now think that they must have thought I was a policeman, as in general the 2 groups sat as far as possible from each other and I felt a bit of a fool stuck in a kind of no-man's land.

 

I'm afraid I also can't recall who won: but as it turned out this S. Africa/ Australia match has gone down in history as it was one of the last games S. Africa played before the sporting ban, inspired by protesters led by Peter Hain and others, put a stop to it all. So I was present when a little bit of history was made.