Raymond Lowry - cartoonist

When I was at boarding school in 1970, I used to enjoy the cartoons of Raymond Lowry whose works frequently appeared in Punch and other magazines. I started a small collection of cuttings and even summoned up the courage to write to Mr Lowry. I received a very nice handwritten reply, thanking me for my interest and pointing out that I could find other examples of his work in Mayfair and Penthouse magazines. As these were the girlie mags of the day, I obviously had to take up his suggestion in the name of research.
Mr Lowry also enclosed four original cartoons which, he said, for one reason or another had never been published. I've now removed them from my website, so you'll have to ask me nicely if you'd like to see them!

French Leave

Well there's a turn up. Giving Spain a brief miss, in June we had a week's holiday in France. We drove down to the Loire Valley visiting Tours, Saumur, Poitiers and numerous Chateaux, following in the footsteps of royalty from Eleanor of Aquitaine to Edward VIII. We also spent some time in the Dordogne before journeying further south to within an hour's drive of the Pyrenees. And then all the way back again. Ellie has penned a few notes for the other website which you can find here:
Gerry & Ellie's Holiday in France, June 2007.

G'Day Possums

G'Day mate! Thanks for dropping in. Strewth, that was a bonzer weekend and no mistake! I must have got a bit stonkered as it's taken me a while to write this. Me and the missus were invited to a rip snorter of a party a few weekends back – the nuptials of young whippersnapper Simon and his new Sheila, Jo. Or his new Joey, Sheila - something like that. It was held in a big old shack in one of our older colonial outposts, quite a trek into the outback in fact. Crackin. On arrival we hit the obligatory bar, where the obligatory pom was serving red plonk from dinky little bottles in even dinkier glasses. Serves me right for not ordering the amber nectar I suppose. At least that came in a proper tinnie. Then it was time for the formal stuff. Pretty little sheila played the didgeridoo, elder Sis' read out some Abo poetry, then father of the bride sang Waltzing Matilda - A Capella no less. No messin with these guys. "And now you may kiss the bride" says the preacherman - but Simon wouldn't let any of us horny guys get a look in. Play Fair mate!

It had been raining cats and dogs all day, but the sun came out for the photos. How we laughed as the bossman barked his orders while his pretty little sheila assistant took the actual pictures. I bet he gets the cheque though. Evening tucker was good - a pound and a half of prime Aussie beef, washed down with copious quantities of red falling over liquid. Not a vegemite sanger in sight, but you can't have everything eh possums? I also found one of these little boomerangs. I tried chucking it away but, well you know. Her indoors got a little spoon, but it got a bit sticky stirring the coffee. After the tucker, we hit the dance floor and I showed the rest of them how dancing is done in these parts. Then it was time to bail out and hit the road back to the digs. Well, hooroo cobbers. Time to throw another yabbie on the barbie…..

Hands across the seas

I was playing around with Google Maps and decided to ask for directions to Washington, as we haven't visited for a little while. I was impressed by Google's software that suggested a pretty route going via France, but not too keen on the instruction "Swim across the Atlantic 3462 miles". Google's little joke no doubt. Pity they hadn't a route from London to Sydney.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&hl=en&saddr=London&daddr=Washington&layer=&sll=53.098145,-2.443696&sspn=12.073163,29.619141&ie=UTF8&z=3&om=1

Nobel Square

Just when I'm getting fed up with work and moaning that I've had no overseas trips since 2005, I get asked to pop overseas for a few days to attend a conference - in Capetown!

Now you'll already know my affinity for South Africa (of if not, have a look at http://www.turpin.demon.co.uk/Africa_2002.html) so I didn't take much persuading, even if it was hard to leave Ellie at home (but not that difficult - all it took was a promise for us both to go back again next year!). Travelling overnight, I arrived Monday and left Thursday, which must go down as one of my shortest trips to another hemisphere, but it was still rewarding. The first two days were hard work and, being based in the City area by the conference centre, I could hardly see Table Mountain for hotel blocks -I might have been in Canary Wharf for all I could see of Capetown. But after a hectic working Wednesday morning, our hosts took us out for the afternoon - to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned. Apart from seeing the prison and other grim sights, we also had a talk from one of his fellow prisoners - which was an amazing experience but depressing nonetheless. I had a free day on Thursday, so took the opportunity to visit the city centre and then walked to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront. It was very much as I remembered from 2002 with lots of shops, restaurants and bars - and a bit too touristy in some areas. But I did come across this new memorial, which had been erected in 2005 to honour South Africa's four Nobel Peace laureates: the late Chief Albert Luthuli, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former president FW de Klerk and of course Nelson Mandela. And that's Table Mountain in the background of course. Just to prove I was there!

Some old haunts

While we were in Spain, we went for a drive up to Los Barrios to see the incinerator (honest!) then took the back road to Estacion de San Roque. The storks were in their nests as usual, perched atop the electricity pylons along the railway track and across the fields. The pylons are cunningly designed to encourage their nest building, so it's a common sight here.

We also went for a late afternoon stroll along the beach, where we took these pictures. I think I'll make this my 'seashells' year.

Happy New Year!!

OK, so it's the 13th January and nearer to Chinese New Year than our old one. But we did only get home last weekend and there's been no time to write up the blog, what with work, ironing and all those other things that didn't get done while we were away. Anyway, here's a couple of piccies from our New Year celebration. It was also a bit of a house warming, being held in our new flat in Spain. Mary, Tony, John, Jan, Kirsty, Kelly and Becky all helped us see in the New Year and, shortly after midnight, stepped out onto the balcony to watch the firework displays. Thankfully it didn't collapse under us all. Ellie took the first picture, so here's one of her. Don't you think the woman on the telly looks a wee bit jealous?




Wanna see some more about the flat? Click here!

Remembrance Day

During family history research into my maternal (Sams) and paternal (Turpin) ancestry, I made an interesting but ultimately tragic discovery. I thought I'd share it with you.









At the beginning of 1860, both the Sams and Turpin families celebrated the birth of baby girls. Both were given the same names, popular at the time.
Elizabeth Ann Sams was born in Southminster, Essex - sister of my Great Grandfather Ernest Sams. Just down the road in Steeple, Elizabeth Ann Turpin was born - sister of my Great Grandfather William Turpin.

Elizabeth Sams grew up and married into the Skeats family, farmers in Tillingham. They had several children, the oldest boy being Arthur William Skeats.
Elizabeth Turpin grew up and married into the Monk family, farmers in Althorne and Creeksea. Elizabeth's brother in law - George - married and moved to Canewdon where he had a son, Oswald Frank Monk.

As war loomed, Arthur Skeats and Oswald Monk both gave up farming and joined the Royal Navy. They both rose to the rank of Stoker 1st Class. In the early days of World War One, Arthur was posted to HMS Cressy, Oswald to HMS Hogue. On 22nd September 1914, they both died. Patrolling the Dutch coast with HMS Aboukir, their vessels were attacked by a flotilla of German U boats. Aboukir was sunk first. Thinking it had struck a mine, Cressy and Hogue turned to assist, putting out boats to pick up survivors. Too late, they saw the tell tale sign of periscopes. Hogue was struck next, sinking in a matter of minutes. Finally, three torpedoes were fired at Cressy. One missed but others struck the starboard side and the boiler room. Cressy sank after about twenty minutes, shortly before 8am. The incident was one of the Royal Navy's worst losses. Although about 800 survived, 60 officers and 1400 crew were killed that morning.

The Turpin Dynasty

Remember my posting on Great Uncle Pharaoh in February? Well I've carried on the family research and corroborated findings with Parish Records at the Essex Records Office. I've created a separate homepage showing the Turpin Line back to the late eighteenth century. You can view it at http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/t/u/r/Gerald-W-Turpin/. I'll upload something similar for the Sams side shortly.

Roger Wilco

Last Christmas, Ellie surprised me with a gift voucher from 'Into the Blue' to take an hour's flying lesson. I put it away in the drawer for a few months, waiting for the weather to warm up and to stand a reasonable chance of a good day. Finally I booked a session with the Solent School of Aviation in Bournemouth. I have to admit I wasn't expecting too much - but it turned out to be a fabulous experience. Seated in a twin-seater Robin 200 next to my pilot, I was initially surprised to see that the controls looked more like those found on an old Morris Minor than a sleek aircraft. There was even something that looked like a choke, but turned out to be the throttle. I kept my feet well away from the rudder pedals - just in case - as we took off at hardly any speed at all, but soon found ourselves cruising at 1800 feet. Looking down, it was easy to make out the coastline as we flew over Sandbanks and Brownsea Island near Poole, then headed west to Portland Bill. I then took control of the joystick and started flying. The original request was to simply keep it flying in a straight line, whilst maintaining constant altitude. That was pretty easy, so I then started executing a few turns- a few degrees at first, and then more and more. The 'trim' was obviously set so that I wasn't going to crash the thing, although I did wonder what would happen if I just pulled back and aimed for the sky. Obviously getting bored, my instructor asked if I'd fancy flying through the clouds, so he climbed to 3600 feet and skirted around a few fluffy bits. After a few minutes of that, he started looking for a nice dark cloud that we could fly into and 'get lost'. He wanted to demonstrate how disorientating it is to fly inside a heavy cloud. He's right! Anyway, after playing a bit more in the clouds, I flew us back to Hengistbury Head. There's apparently a nudist beach there, but we just flew low over the bay to buzz the windsurfers. Then the instructor took us back to Bournemouth, where I was warned there'd be a bumpy landing due to high crosswinds. Unfortunately, he executed a perfect landing, dropping one wing slightly so that the wheel on that side touched a moment earlier than the other to compensate for the drift (crab) caused by the wind. Wish I could have tried that! As we manoeuvred from the runway to park up, we saw a Thompson holiday jet landing behind us, bouncing onto the runway with nowhere near the same control. So did I enjoy it - you bet! Would I take more lessons? - Not really. As a hobby, it's very expensive and hundreds of hours have to be put in to qualify. But given the money I wouldn't dismiss it. And just to have had the experience was great. Activity vouchers as I had can be obtained through http://www.intotheblue.co.uk/. There's a choice of flying schools around the country, but I haven't looked too closely at the web site - I dread to think what Ellie paid!