John Tysoe is a former British aerospace engineer and retired professor of thermodynamics at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. In addition to his previous book, Nuts and Bolts: Chronicles of a Wayward Engineer, he has written numerous magazine articles concerning his yachting adventures and hobbies (scale models of historic boats and airplanes) and several hundred highly informed, highly charged letters and articles waging war against the ills that beset man in the name of “progress”—from such things as “sanitary” landfill sites, wholesale sea pollution and big-money development in his beloved British Virgin Islands, to—most especially—the politically motivated lie of global warming.

As a recent amputee, he has also become a force in encouraging others like himself not only to face the inevitable but to do so with courage, a sense of humour, and continued enthusiasm for embracing life.

John can be contacted by email: [email protected] or by snail mail: 1260 Old School Road, Cheltenham ON L7C 3L7 ON THE FRONT COVER:

Top:

This orange Tiger Moth is the last one I flew, in New Zealand. (The one on the cover of my earlier book, Nuts and Bolts, was the first one I ever flew, in England in the early 1940s.)

Bottom:

de Loose Mongoose, our favourite beach bar in Trellis Bay, British Virgin Islands. Sweeping Up the Bits

Further Chronicles of a Wayward Engineer

John Tysoe

Griffon Abbeye Press Toronto Canada By the same author: Nuts and Bolts: Chronicles of a Wayward Engineer

Published in Canada by Touchnaught an imprint of Griffon Abbeye Press Toronto Canada

Contact us at: [email protected]

ISBN 978-0-9810781-1-3

© John Tysoe 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Printed and bound in Canada by Ball Media Corporation 422 Grey Street Brantford Ontario N3S 4X8 www.ballmedia.com I dedicate this book to the memory of my wife, Inge. I cannot imagine what my life would have been if I had never met her, but it would most certainly not have been as interesting;

And to my daughter Margaret who, having seen me safely through one book, was actually prepared to undergo the same experience again, no doubt hoping that I had become more computer literate meanwhile;

And to the memory of Marlene, a good friend of Inge and myself, whose first words upon scanning the draft of my first book were, “When are you going to start the next?” Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.

So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain Contents

Introduction / 9 Chapter 1: New Zealand and Back / 11 Chapter 2: University Beginnings / 22 Chapter 3: Travels in Germany / 31 Chapter 4: Avro Revisited / 42 Chapter 5: England Reminiscences / 51 Chapter 6: Canadian Capers / 65 Chapter 7: Tales of the BVI / 74 Chapter 8: Slings and Arrows / 107 Chapter 9: Summing Up / 122

Introduction

aving unloaded the responsibility for my first book onto the shoulders of others, I was enjoying a pint H of Boddington’s Pub Ale on the deck, watching the flowers blooming and the dandelions growing. The only thing disturbing the peace was the constant buzzing in my head of Marlene’s question, “When are you going to start the next one?” I was doing my best to ignore this, but then there occurred a local event which took me right back to 1973 and a month spent in New Zealand, which somehow I had neglected even to mention in Nuts and Bolts. Our local town council, admittedly not the brightest stars in the galaxy, had decided to fire three office cleaners in order to save money. The inevitable result, which could have been foreseen by the average ten-year-old, was that CUPE, the Canadian Union of Public Employees—one of the most powerful unions in Canada—went ape, stirring up enough trouble to make the French Revolution look like a tea party at the local vicarage. “And what,” I hear you cry, “has this to do with your engineering career?” If you really want to know, buy this book and find out. As Ruskin once said, “If a book is worth reading, it’s worth buying.” John Tysoe Cheltenham, Ontario June 2010

Chapter 1: New Zealand and Back

ne day in the spring of 2009, having finished my first book of memoirs, Nuts and Bolts: Chronicles of a O Wayward Engineer, and seen it on its way into the uncharted territory of printing and publishing, I was stooging around giving the brain a rest when the local paper informed me that the Caledon council had fired three office cleaners “as an economy measure”. I don’t know about you, but this kind of thing makes me sick. I am as far removed from being a socialist as it is possible to get, but this business of picking on the most humble of your employees, to further your own agenda, sucks. Predictably, the cleaners’ union was immediately up in arms, staging a large rally outside the town hall, and making it clear that worse was to follow. As I write, the council has not yet had the sense to back down, but it cannot be too long. The whole business took me right back to 1973, when I spent a month in New Zealand, a fact which is not even mentioned in Nuts and Bolts. I remain totally mystified by this omission; it was not just a holiday jolly, but a significant part of my career. It happened this way: I had been an engineering instructor at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto for some five years when they took on a new president to replace Fred Jorgenson, who had retired. He was Don Mordell, from McGill, a prestigious university in Montreal. Don was formerly a chief engineer at Rolls-Royce, although it has to be said that there are a lot of chief engineers at R-R (all chiefs and no Indians, as someone 11 Sweeping Up the Bits

Department naturally had high hopes for his administration. I had asked the chairman if I could meet with Mordell as a representative of the department to put some of our concerns to him. I attempted to put across the importance of the assessment of a student's lab report by the instructor, as a point of contact between someone with many years of experience and someone who was just starting out. He tossed this out as a side issue. “Oh, graduate students can do that sort of thing.” I knew then that I had lost. There were no graduate students! We did not have a post-diploma course! Our guys just grabbed their diplomas and shot out to try and get a job. I reported failure to the chairman, and after that things went bad very quickly. Mordell embarked upon an economy campaign, no doubt seeking to make a name for himself as an efficient administrator. Ha! He hired as consultants the firm of Price Waterhouse—may thistles grow on the graves of their ancestors—a name which will stink in my nostrils from here to eternity. Their first move was to lay off a number of cleaners and janitors. That, at least, was the plan, but it got nowhere because the entire cleaning and janitorial staff barricaded themselves in a whole floor of the newly constructed Jorgenson Hall. After a few days' standoff, the victims having the support of the entire Ryerson community, Mordell was forced to back down. His consultants then turned their attention to the teaching staff, proposing to get rid of the most expensive faculty members. This would have included me, not because of my superior qualifications (I was near the bottom of that ladder, with my humble pass degree), but because of my seniority in terms of experience. Plus, I would no doubt have been near the top of any such chop list, having upset quite a few of the brass already. At the time, I was working with Roy Anthony, a visiting technical college instructor from New Zealand, who was on a fact-finding tour of North American centres of learning, with a view to setting up his own lab back home. He was most interested in what I had to show him, and we became good friends, to the extent that I invited him home, and was 12 New Zealand and Back

unwise enough to challenge him to a game of table tennis, at which I think I am pretty good. After he had turned me inside out and hung me out to dry, he said that perhaps he should have mentioned at the start that he was the current New Zealand champion. Oh well—win some, lose some. When Mordell’s hatchet-men started their pogrom, I asked Roy if he thought there would be a place for me at any of the New Zealand institutes that he knew of. Certainly, he said, they would jump at the chance—in fact, Hamilton Tech was looking for someone like me at the moment. He wrote me a letter of introduction, which I sent to Hamilton Tech together with a letter saying that I proposed to be in New Zealand in the next few weeks, and would appreciate the opportunity of meeting with them. Back came a friendly letter asking me to notify them of my arrival, upon which they would arrange for an interview at my convenience. Inge went along with it: after all, it was she who had hauled me over to Canada, and who had looked forward to Australia, except that the cancellation of Blue Streak had put the kybosh on that. The main point was that I had never been fired, or laid off, and I was not going to start now. If I was to leave Ryerson, I wanted it to be my idea, not theirs. Doing the usual sums, it appeared that, although I would be getting half my Canadian salary in New Zealand, everything cost only half as much, and that, with what we could get for our house in Canada, we could buy a New Zealand house outright, so there would be no mortgage to worry about. I left Toronto at eight in the evening on Saturday, June 2, and arrived in Auckland at five in the morning, New Zealand time, on Monday, June 4, having lost the third of June somewhere along the line. The day before my departure, the Ryerson brass had announced officially that they would be laying off one hundred instructors, without giving any useful information, such as who they would be...giving the victims all summer to seek alternatives. It looked as though I was making my move just in time. Some historical notes on the trip might be of interest. The first leg was from Toronto to Los Angeles via Air Canada on a DC-8. For the first time I had to pass through a 13 Sweeping Up the Bits

bomb detector, was offered a choice between smoking and non-smoking, and could buy a beer on a Canadian airliner. Upon arrival at LAX we were not allowed to leave the plane for a long time, as we were “waiting for an American customs officer”. As I noted at the time, this was all part of the cold war between the United States and Canada, which included the U.S. refusing to accept Canadian money. Why should I have to put up with this “processing” when I had no intention of visiting America? I have repeatedly pointed out that every European airport has a transit lounge, where people who just want to change planes can go and have a drink, buy a paper, make a phone call…oh, never mind. And yet this imbecilic practice continues, and people put up with it. Well, that was my last tilt at that particular windmill; if you don't like it, just turn to the comics section. Finally, in the small hours, we took off in a Pan-Am Boeing 707 for Tahiti. Somewhere along the route my feet swelled up like balloons. I had taken my shoes off for comfort, and could not get them on again. Inge had mentioned this when telling me about her trip to Jamaica, so I was able to take advantage of her experience. I strolled up and down for an hour or so, and gradually my feet returned to normal. When we arrived at Papeete, I was hoping there might be a long-enough stopover for me to grab a taxi and take a quick look at Gauguin’s cottage. Some hopes! The whole place was stiff with unpleasant-looking bloody-minded French marines swinging submachine guns. It turned out that the French were about to conduct an atom bomb test on nearby Mururoa Atoll, and nobody was going to interfere with it. So, after kicking the tires and refuelling, off we went on the last six hours to Auckland. It looked a very pleasant place from the air, lush green landscape surrounded by clear blue water. A friendly official took a cursory glance at my travel documents and pronounced them “good as gold”. I was met by Roy’s wife, who took me to their home in Titirangi, a few miles south. She very kindly offered the use of her car, to complete my business and then to have a look round New Zealand. 14 New Zealand and Back

I telephoned the Hamilton people, who sounded very pleased to hear from me, and said they could see me the next day. Upon arrival at the Waikato Technical Institute I was met by a group of friendly people including the president, the others being in charge of the usual departments, civil, mechanical, electrical, and of course a large agricultural department. It was apparent from the start that they wanted me on board, which made things a lot easier. They intended to start something in the area of refrigeration and air conditioning, which they thought would suit me very well. In my turn, knowing that New Zealand had gone over to the metric system, I generated a spirited discussion by informing them that the only commercially available charts, tables of properties and so forth in this area came from the United States, which still used the Imperial system, and which I used in my courses, because the firms which hired my graduates used them also. The ensuing good-natured ding-dong lasted the rest of the morning, when a compromise was reached. They would agree to my doing it my way at first, provided that I would undertake to switch to metric data sheets as and when they became available. There followed a very fine lunch, after which I was given a tour of the Institute. I chatted with some of the committee, thereby finding out more about New Zealand than you ever could by studying a travel brochure. Commenting on the pleasing layout of Hamilton, I was informed that the city fathers had drawn a circle on the map and said, “This is as far as the city goes. Anyone else who wants to build can go and start somewhere else.” This struck me as an eminently sensible way to go, although unfortunately it’s too late to arrest the ghastly urban sprawl of, say, London, or Toronto, or almost any other place you care to name. Regarding housing, it seemed that many houses were assembled from factory-built units, and could be modified according to circumstances. Thus, you could start with a one-bedroom bungalow, and, as your fortunes improved, kids started arriving and so forth, rooms could be added. Those that I inspected were very nicely done. 15 Sweeping Up the Bits

One interesting fact I learned was that the country’s balance of payments was tightly controlled by the government. The amount paid for imports was never allowed to exceed the income from exports; any vessel bringing imports which would upset this balance was not allowed to dock until the balance was restored. My admiration for the New Zealander’s way of doing things was soon to be knocked for six, but we'll get to that. I visited a couple of real estate agents, and inspected a few houses, which all seemed to be good buys. Yes, they could keep me informed of properties on the market. Yes, I could wire them an offer from Canada. (Note to readers born after computers were invented: “Wire” is shorthand for sending a teleg ram, an obsolete for m of communication...oh, never mind.) I then carried on to Wellington, the capital. There I arranged an interview with someone in the Ministry of Health, who assured me that there were plenty of openings for someone with Inge's qualifications and experience, and gave me the necessary application forms. On the way back to Titirangi I spotted an aerodrome, and went to investigate. There, in the flight line, stood a Tiger Moth. Unable to resist the temptation, I wandered into the flight office, showed them my private pilot’s license, and asked if there was any chance of a trip in their Tiger. “Certainly. Have to check you out, of course, and it will take a fortnight for those wombats in Wellington to send us the authorization to let you have it solo, but you're welcome.” They rustled up a Sidcot suit and headset, and a friendly chap who was willing to occupy the front cockpit. I told him what he wanted to know, and he didn’t do a thing the whole time, although I had the feeling that he would have jumped on me if I did anything to upset him. I was in a time warp, straight back to 1944. No radio, thank God. A grass airfield, a signals area and wind sock, a chap in a hut with an Aldis lamp, and that was it. Arriving at what I saw as the best starting point, I essayed a little humour. “Are your straps tight?” “Get stuffed,” he responded. Upon getting a green from the hut, I took off. 16 New Zealand and Back

It was wonderful to feel the slipstream on my face again, and that moment when all the bumping and shaking ceased, as the wheels left the ground, was itself worth travelling halfway round the world for. I climbed on a northerly heading, and on reaching 3,000 feet asked the guy in front if it would be all right to fly over Auckland harbour. “Don’t see why not,” was the reply. It was fascinating. Cargo ships from all over the world were loading and unloading. Yachts cruised on the blue waters. Not a cloud in the sky. I decided to push my luck. “Okay for a few manoeuvres?” “Be my guest.” I added a thousand feet to the altitude, at the same time positioning the Tiger over Titirangi. My companion seemed to be enjoying the ride; his elbows were resting on the cockpit sides, and he was snapping pictures. I started with my favourite, a stall turn. This embodies the well-known Tysoe principle of the most enjoyment for the least work. Nose high in the air, full rudder just before she stalls. Sliding gently sideways, throttled right back. You can hear the canvas thrumming and the wires singing. Then a full-throttle zoom back to…well, not exactly the height we started from, but it’s been a long time. This elicited the only conversation started from the front. “Lovely.” I did a loop, by which time my companion’s powers of conversation seemed to have run out. He just gave me a thumbs-up, and carried on snapping pictures. After ten minutes of this, he broke into my time warp. “Sorry, we have to go back now. I have a date at eleven.” Back at the airfield, he indicated where he would like the landing run to finish. By this time I was in a state which I have heard described as “exalted”. Don’t laugh—it’s probably happened to you at some stage. I made the best three-point landing ever, and came to rest exactly at the spot he had indicated. “Not bad, after eight years, wouldn’t you say?” “Good as gold. Thanks for the ride. Very nice.” I set off towards Titirangi, and the end of my New Zealand tour, feeling VERY pleased with myself. 17 Sweeping Up the Bits

On the way, I stopped to fill up the car, check the oil and whatnot. I had been using travellers’ cheques to pay for this kind of thing, but this time something was definitely wrong. Oh, blast it. After such a successful trip, a row with a gas station attendant. “It can’t possibly be this much,” I said. He looked at me with sympathy. “Where’ve you been, mate? Hadn’t you heard the bludgers have fudged the exchange rate?” He gave me his paper, which I took to the next pub up the road and browsed through over a pint. That was it then—game over. All our calculations shot to hell. The whole business was now absolutely economically impossible. Obviously I had to get back to Canada as quickly as possible, and start making alternative arrangements. I explained my situation to Ms. Anthony, and she was very good at helping me to transfer my return ticket to a flight the following day. Tahiti was still stuffed with French marines, from which I deduced that they hadn't yet managed to make their Lautenboomer go off. What a lark, I thought, if they couldn’t get it to work. Los Angeles was socked in by fog, so we were diverted to San Francisco. There being no direct flight from there to Toronto, we had to go via Chicago, thus committing me to a situation I would never have agreed to, had I the choice. Being dumped into the world’s busiest airport on the busiest day of the week was not my idea of good planning. When we were aboard the Toronto-bound DC-10 they couldn’t get the door closed, so there went another hour or two while they rustled up another DC-10. At long last I arrived back home, receiving a great welcome. I presented Inge with a pendant in the form of a jade head of Kon-Tiki, which now reposes in my drawer of memories. The kids were glad to see me, and had all sorts of offerings. My favourite was a poster saying “Welcome back, Dad, from Kiwi-Land”. I have it still, somewhere. I told them all about what had happened, and resolved to sniff around Ryerson to check up on things, before burning my boats. A day or two later I visited the Hotbed of Learning, chatting to anyone I could find. Apparently it was all over. Mordell was gone, amid a cloud of threatened lawsuits and 18 New Zealand and Back

general uproar, and things were back to normal. While in town, I picked up the most recent New Zealand paper and took it home to read. I sent a telegram to the Hamilton Tech people, explaining the economic situation, regretting that I would be unable to join them, and thanking them for their courtesy. I wrote Ms. Anthony a long letter, thanking her for her hospitality and enclosing some pictures of our life in Canada. I then got stuck into the paper, which held me with a kind of morbid fascination. On the way back from Wellington to Auckland, I had driven across a bridge at a place called Bulls, which two days later had collapsed into the raging torrent beneath, taking a bus with it. The main road took me quite close to Mount Ngauruhoe, one of New Zealand’s two active volcanoes. A few days later it had erupted, causing some traffic problems. To cap it all, a Pan American Boeing 707, taking off from Papeete, had crashed into the sea, with only one survivor. Coming home early seems to have been a wise move. In retrospect, I’m glad the New Zealand project came to nothing. It would have been fine for me; a good proportion of the population seemed to consist of Brits who, returning from the War, had jumped ship in New Zealand, determined not to return to the life they had led in pre-War Britain. But—it would have been no good for Inge. Similar in many respects to Australia, women were Sheilas whose functions were to bake scones in the kitchen, have babies, and let the men get on with running things. She wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. Several other subsequent happenings confirmed this conclusion. It seems to me that the rot started when England joined the European Common Market, as it was then called. Her traditional trade ties with Commonwealth countries were weakened: in particular, the effect on imports of agricultural products from New Zealand had a very adverse effect upon their economy. I recall the Kiwis’ hostility at the time; they considered it a big double-cross, particularly in view of the effort they had put into supporting us in both world wars. I don't blame them one bit. They didn’t waste too much time crying into 19 Sweeping Up the Bits

their beer, however, and I gather that the country is now stuffed full of Japanese electronic factories, so I don’t think I would like to live there anyway. Another factor which has really screwed them up is their adoption of the idiotic proportional representation system of voting in elections. This is touted by the lunatic fringe of ignorant pressure groups as an example of progress in the development of democracy, but my information is that most of the population are fed up with it, and want a referendum to return to the ordinary, sensible system. To sum up the New Zealand experience: interesting, but no cigar. Besides, it is rather a long way away.

One of the last surviving kiwis

20 Above: ZK - A1A, the Tiger Moth I flew during my New Zealand trip.

Below: Mount Ngauruhoe, in New Zealand, my first view of an active volcano. Chapter 2: University Beginnings

aving established, to my satisfaction at least, a reasonably convincing excuse for writing a sequel to H my first book, it seems only fair to provide new readers with an idea of what it is all about. Nuts and Bolts described an engineering career which started shortly after World War II, and finished just as the computer age was getting into its stride. Upon reading the finished product, it was apparent to me that a lot of stuff had been left out, quite apart from the New Zealand excursion. Also, I have now been retired for nearly half as long as I was working—a fact which must be making the pension people gnash their teeth in fury—and I have been by no means idle during this period. My engineering life really began while still at school, when I rebelled against the future which had apparently been mapped out for me, namely a scholarship to some artsy Oxford college followed by a career in the diplomatic service, or some such nonsense. The reason for my rebellion was a deep-seated hatred of Latin and the man who taught it—a lethal combination. I managed to convince the head of the Engineering Department at Nottingham University that I would be a suitable candidate for an engineering degree. Unfortunately, I was not so successful in convincing the examiners. After my first disastrous attempt at part one, I was turfed out. In the interim I had learned to fly with the University Air Squadron, and was accordingly absorbed into the Royal Air Force. The European war having just finished, there was nothing for me 22 University Beginnings

to do except hope that my demob number would come up before I was sent to the Far East, because that was most definitely not what I had in mind. However, as may be remembered, our American cousins provided the elegant solution to that problem, and after a couple of wasted years I was able to finish my studies and start earning money. My academic struggles were discussed at length in my previous book. Here I would like to mention some of the things which left me with pleasant memories, and enabled me to maintain my determination to succeed, despite the inability of many of the teaching staff to generate any level of interest. There was a thriving Engineering Society, run by a dedicated group of enthusiasts who worked hard to arrange events of great interest. Prominent in my memory is a lecture by Frank Whittle at the Nottingham Institute of Mechanical Engineers. He was brilliant, well-spoken and easy to understand, with a wonderfully dry sense of humour. I will never forget his description of a problem with an early W-1 reverse-flow jet engine on the test stand, when it blew up and “a bit of red-hot turbine blade whizzed past my ear”. And he told us of an aerobatic display he was giving at a South African air show, when his engine stopped and he had to force-land in the middle of the airfield, describing the incident as “the piston engine’s revenge”. I went on all the field trips arranged by the Engineering Society, many of which I still recall with pleasure. When we visited Hadfield’s Steel Company in Sheffield, they were working on the propeller shaft of the battleship Vanguard. During sea trials there had been excessive vibration in the transmission, and this enormous thing, which filled the whole of the machine shop, had been sent back to the makers for modification. I found that this process was in the hands of one of our profs, Professor Pope, who, back at the University, had the unrewarding task of trying to teach me about vibrations. He never did get his tongue wrapped round my name, which is really just basic Anglo-Saxon. All the time I was there, he referred to me as “Toysoy”. Once I had the temerity to ask him to explain one of his more abstruse observations, and will not forget in a hurry his 23 Sweeping Up the Bits

almost hysterical response: “I don’t mind repeating things, but I will not do it for someone who IS ALWAYS LOOKING OUT OF THE WINDOW.” Anyway, back to the Vanguard prop shaft. They were cutting grooves here and there, and reducing the odd diameter by a small amount, according to an impressive-looking schedule he had given them. It wasn’t until a few years later that I found out what a con-game this really is. The theory of vibrations, I discovered, was a fairly straightforward matter. All he was doing was altering the whirling speed of the shaft so that it didn’t coincide with the required speed of rotation. The grooves, diameter reductions and whatnot could have been anywhere. It was very impressive at the time. While at Hadfield’s, we also saw a Bessemer converter in action, producing steel from the basic iron ore, and an awe- inspiring sight it was. Interesting in another way was a visit to the firm of Ruston Bucyrus, in Lincolnshire. They made the 400 rpm Ruston oil engine with the huge flywheel, found in heat engines labs around the world. Some twenty years in the future, I was to have the same thing in my own heat engines lab in Canada, but who could have foreseen that? To the best of my knowledge, it is still being made in India. But this was not the main object of my attention at the time. I was fascinated by a large model in the entrance foyer of a thing called a dragline excavator. There was a control cabin sitting on what looked like a pontoon. From the front end extended two articulated arms, with what can only be described as claws at their ends. At the back was an arm carrying an excavator bucket. It was powered by an electric motor, and sat in a large tray of sand. When switched on, the arms would reach forward, the claws would dig in, and the whole thing was pulled forward while the rear bucket scooped out a trench. It would obviously be very useful in desert countries, where most of the world’s oil is. Not being in that line of business, I had no way of following it up, and often wonder what happened to it. The Dry Plate Battery Company, of Bakewell, Derbyshire, provided interest of yet another kind. This time it was not so much the product: if you’ve seen one battery you’ve seen 24 University Beginnings

them all. But the factory itself was a charming nineteenth- century structure situated on a millrace. Its entire power was supplied by an enormous waterwheel rotating at about ten rpm. At the other end, via a system of wooden gears, a generator spun round at 1700 rpm, or whatever the number is. (Regular readers will already know that electrical technology is not my strong suit.) This system had been in operation for around a hundred years, and it was obvious that management was well aware that visitors came to see the waterwheel, rather than whatever it was they were making. This kind of thing, I think, gives one a sense of proportion. Another trip was to see Jaguar Cars, which at the time was riding high. Proud workmen were putting the finishing touches to the year’s 24-hour Le Mans race team entry. Highly tuned engines were bellowing on test stands. There was a long waiting list for their sports cars. Looking back on this, it is almost impossible to accept that, in the not-too- distant future, due to a combination of incompetent management and bloody-minded trade unionism, Jaguar would suffer the ultimate degradation of being sold to Ford. To round off with a totally happy field trip: Bass and Worthington’s Brewery, at Burton-on-Trent, was our excellent host. There, we were shown all stages of the brewing process, and upon reaching the penultimate stage, where the golden fluid flows along a duct prior to being watered down to satisfy the po-faced customs and excise narks who infest places like this, we were issued with small ladles, and invited to have a taste. Marvellous! Only, I don’t think I would have wanted another ladle-full…. One of my most pleasant memories of university life was the end-of-year party organized by the Engineering Society. They would take over the whole of the saloon bar of the White Hart Pub in downtown Nottingham, and there we would carouse from opening time until the landlord finally threw us out. At these parties I learned a lot of songs which stood me in good stead many years later, when I became a teacher of engineering. We had plenty of practice too, since these ditties were performed on the bus all the way to and from our various field trips. 25 Sweeping Up the Bits

I joined the group running the Society by volunteering to take over the Society magazine, which was put out at the end of term. This made me quite popular, since nobody else wanted the job, and it gave me the inside track on everything that went on in the University. One of my duties was to propose the vote of thanks to visitors at the Society’s formal dinner, held at the end of the academic year, to honour various dignitaries, and such professors as were not universally hated. I often wondered what those who were not invited thought about the whole thing, although I didn’t lose any sleep over the matter. Looking back over my career, it seems that I got most of my kicks by taking on projects that nobody else wanted to touch. Such jobs were not too difficult to find in the area of thermodynamics, since most people seemed to regard refrigeration, gas dynamics, air conditioning and so forth as a black art. In point of fact, the whole business was fairly straightforward once you got stuck into it, but I didn’t tell that to anyone, because half the fun was in having access to the whole machine, from nose to tail, with nobody being too sure what I was actually doing. In my earlier book, I made some unkind remarks about some of the teaching staff being unable to generate any interest in their subject. This related to the morning’s theoretical sessions. Most of the afternoons were spent in the drawing office, where we each had our own drawing board, and worked on various projects, mostly supervised by J. G. Rolinson, A.M.I. Mech.E, whose influence I recall with gratitude. His subject was called, rather loosely, “Mechanical Engineering”, and he used it to give us a realistic view on life in general, and an engineering career in particular. Here is an example of each: “The infinite universal perversity of inanimate matter” and Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne He travels the fastest who travels alone. 26 University Beginnings

I have seen the second attributed to Rudyard Kipling, which is fine by me, although it did not apply in my case. Without Inge, I don’t think I would have travelled anywhere. I’m not too sure where Gehenna is, but I know who to ask. As for the first, he hit it smack on the nose, and no one who has ever kicked their car or thumped the side of their TV set in impotent fury would, I think, demur. These, however, are side issues. The most important thing he did was to give me the self-confidence, and, if I may modestly say so, the skill, to produce my own drawings, to the future consternation of a few chief draughtsmen. I recall weeks spent on the design of a steam engine: I was in the middle of a rather involved sectional view of the valve chest when Rolinson wandered in and stood there looking at it for a minute or two. Taking his corncob pipe from his mouth, he inverted it and tapped out the ash all over my drawing. He then fished out an enormous red pencil and drew a number of lines. Not a word was said, nor was one needed. He patted me on the shoulder and went over to look at someone else’s work. I put a lot of thought and effort into the next incarnation of that drawing. When he next came round, he took a quick look at it, made one or two suggestions, and chatted with me for five minutes. I found that, in his world, only three engineering materials were worth considering: they were cast iron, mild steel, and gun metal. Everything else was “compressed dried horse manure”. One of the people in my class, a fellow called Gregson, really wanted to read Philosophy, but was in Engineering because it was at the time a reserved occupation, and he was hoping to stall off his call-up until the war was over. He had some interesting views on what we were doing, one of which stands out in the memory: “a culpable manifestation of the folly of human endeavour”. Another chap I met during our interminable games of whist in the students’ lounge was studying Quantum Mechanics. I remember he had a rather wild look in his eyes, and his hair stuck out like spikes. One of his memorable remarks regarding the structure of matter was that it was composed of fundamental particles which were “occasional 27 Sweeping Up the Bits

vacancies in an infinitude of unoccupied negative-energy levels”. Well, he’s entitled to his opinion, I suppose. This was in the mid-1940s, when there were about six fundamental particles, which were enough to enable the design of the atom bombs which finished WWII. Now there are getting on for two hundred, and we don’t seem any the wiser. All I can say is, I think mine was a more honest trade. The head of the Mathematics Department was Professor V. da Sola Pinto who, I had heard, was an expert on Robin Hood, Nottingham’s famous historical hero. In my capacity as editor of the Engineering Society magazine, I wangled an interview with him, hoping to turn the conversation in my direction before he found out how little I knew about mathematics. It didn’t turn out like that at all. The first thing I saw upon entering his office was a blackboard covered with mathematical symbols. This, it transpired, was the work of Albert Einstein, who had visited him at one time. It was apparent that he could barely understand it himself, and was as anxious as I to change the subject. The board had been sprayed with that stuff artists use to preserve their charcoal sketches and things like that, so the whole thing is probably still there. We had an amiable chat about Robin Hood, but he didn’t know much more about it than I did. Maybe he had not seen as many Errol Flynn movies. Anyway, suitably embellished by my fertile imagination, the interview made a good article for the magazine. When Squadron Leader Robbie Hewitt moved in as Commanding Officer of the University Air Squadron, he altered things to make the headquarters more like a social club than an Air Ministry barracks. A bar was put into the anteroom, and, recognizing natural talent when he saw it, he put me in charge of it. A couple of rooms were converted to accommodate resident students, and I was the first to move in. I shared the room with Rowland W. It was the week of the University Rag, when groups of students would roam the streets, getting drunk, singing bawdy songs, making daft speeches in front of prominent buildings, 28 University Beginnings

and in general letting off steam, but not doing any harm to anyone. One evening Rowland didn’t show up. I waited for him until midnight, then hit the sack. Late the following evening he shambled in, pasty faced and obviously loaded, and cajoled me into getting him a beer. It turned out that he had spent the previous evening in jail, having been arrested for painting a huge hammer and sickle on the bust of Sir Jesse Boot, the first Baron Trent, which decorated the forecourt of the Nottingham City Hall. Boot had made his fortune from Boots Cash Chemists Ltd, and had endowed Nottingham University. The only problem was that the silly old bugger had stipulated in his endowment that there was to be no alcohol on the premises, which tended to make us a laughing stock among visiting athletic teams and such. Over time, everyone got to live with it; visiting teams knew they had to bring their own refreshments, and we in our turn smuggled the stuff in. There were no snot-nosed security guards snooping around trying to enforce such a stupid regulation. Nevertheless, it still rankled, and Rowland had got in with a bunch of artsies who had devised this brilliant lark. When they were let out the next day, they were issued with cleaning materials and told to remove the offending graffiti, which had taken them all day. Rowland and I graduated at the same time, and went our separate ways. He elected to take the three-month jet conversion course which would guarantee him a permanent commission in the RAF. I had turned this down, deciding that my time in the Meteor had convinced me that this type of flying was not for me. Two of my friends had been killed. But Rowland got through to his final wings test. Being Rowland, he had tied one on the previous evening, and had a bit of a hangover when taking off with his examiner, a florid-faced naval lieutenant commander. At some point, the sailor had told him to do a diving turn to the left, and he had started one to the right, whereupon the Navy took over, landed the Meteor, walked away without saying a word, and scrubbed him. I never heard about him again, but I’m sure he made a good career somewhere—most probably in sales. 29 Nottingham University Engineering Society, 1950

I was editor of the Society magazine. Here I am sandwiched between Prof. Ch. Bulleid (on my left) and Prof. J. A. Pope, who later put up with me. A psychologist would have a good time analyzing the various expressions. In front is John Wiseman, whose hobbies were restoring steam engines and ringing the bells of Melton Mowbray church. Chapter 3: Travels in Germany

fter Inge and I were married, I made several trips to Germany, staying with her parents at their home in A Brake (pronounced Brarker, approximately), a small town on the estuary of the river Weser. Usually we travelled together, but the first time I was on my own, Inge having gone on ahead. Most of the details of that trip linger in the memory. I travelled on the ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland, and there, as instructed, boarded the Harz Mountains Express to Bremen, where I would be met for the final trip by road. It did not take me too long to realize that the train stopped at every lamppost en route to Bremen. I got to wondering what a Bummelzug (slow train) would be like. But, unlikely as it may seem, the trip was actually one of the most enjoyable train rides I have experienced. Whenever the train pulled into a station of any size, there would be the hotdog vendors, pushing their carts up and down the platform, while the enthusiastic passengers placed their orders. The train would not dream of departing until the last passenger had been served. These were no ordinary hotdogs—they were genuine Frankfurters, nearly a foot long, served with a huge pile of mustard which has been my favourite ever since (when I can get it), Düsseldorfer Löwensenf. My compartment gradually filled with plump, friendly German Hausfraus, laden with shopping. One had a bird in a huge cage, another a tiny little dachshund, which sat on her lap contentedly munching whatever it was she was feeding it. 31 Sweeping Up the Bits

They talked incessantly, always including me in their conversations, and when they discovered that I was an Englishman, but was nevertheless keeping my end up in German, they were all over me. It seemed that this did not happen very often. They wanted to know all about me, and when they found out that I was married to a German girl, and was visiting her parents, I think it made their day. They were full of advice on how to handle German fathers-in-law, how to avoid being cheated by waiters…stuff like that. The journey ended all too soon, and we parted amid a deluge of good wishes. It was a wonderful experience, and I have never forgotten it. When I disembarked at Bremen, there was Inge with Vati—her father—whom I had previously met briefly in the transit lounge of Manchester airport, when he was en route to Canada to buy some machinery. The first thing they did, no doubt at Inge’s behest, was to escort me to a nearby restaurant and treat me to a cup of Jacobs Kaffee, about which she had been telling me ever since we first started courting in earnest. I was then taken to see the large statue of Roland, a German knight of old, in the main square, after which a short drive took us to Vati’s home in Brake, where I received a great welcome. It had been a fairly busy day, and I was glad to be able to drop into a dreamless slumber, followed by waking up the next day to the sound of someone shouting something in the street outside. Inge rendered this as “bimmelly-bimmelly-bim-GRANATE!” It was a chap selling shrimp from one of those pedal-driven iceboxes that I remembered from my schooldays—but those had been selling ice cream, and had “Stop me and buy one” in large letters. The shrimp carts were followed by someone selling those marvellous German rolls they call Brötchen, straight out of the oven. What a pleasant start to the day. I knew that the village of Bad Zwischenahn was just up the road, because I knew about the wartime airfield where the Me 163 Komet rocket fighter was developed and put into service, and it seemed a good idea to have a wander round. My request for a visit was greeted with enthusiasm, and I found out why when we made our first stop, which was a 32 Travels in Germany

lovely old pub. The people were very friendly, and the walls were hung with large sides of smoked ham, of which Vati ordered a generous cut. I started asking around about the airfield, but was not getting very far. One of the problems was that I had a little difficulty understanding some of the things they were saying, so I enlisted Vati’s help. He explained that he himself, being from Prussia, spoke hoch Deutsch (high German, equivalent to King’s English), the kind I had learned at school, which accounted for how well we got on together with conversation. North German peasants, he went on, spoke what he scathingly referred to as platt Deutsch (flat German) which he had learned to live with. Then there was sud Deutsch (south German), which he seemed to regard as somewhat lower on the evolutionary scale than the average Englishman regards Brummigam, or Geordie, and finished with Bavarian German, which is intelligible only to a Bavarian, as I discovered later on when trying to order a beer in a Munich pub, without an escort. Anyway, Vati started asking around, and it turned out that the villagers did not know much about the airfield. This was apparently because security had been very strict, but he also received the impression that there had been threats from the Gestapo and people like that, so the locals had collectively “tuned out”. He had picked up one or two bits of tittle-tattle about rocket trails, loud explosions and great clouds of smoke, and I knew what that was all about. A subsequent drive round the area failed to reveal any trace of an airfield. I found similar situations in other areas as I travelled around Germany, with Inge’s patient assistance. One such situation occurred during another visit, when Vati had allowed us to use his car for a few days, and I persuaded Inge to take me in the general direction of Brunswick, where I hoped to find something relating to the main wartime high-speed research centre at a place called Völkenrode. I had heard about this from a friend, Geoff Armstrong, who was the Normalair project engineer when I was at Avro doing the Blue Steel inertia navigator temperature control system. He told me about going there just after the War, for the Ministry, to inspect the place where the swept-back wing was invented to delay the onset of 33 Sweeping Up the Bits

compressibility effects. Even today, sixty years later, you don't see too many high-speed aircraft without swept-back wings. I tell you, if Hitler had given these boys their head, instead of making them hang bombs under everything, we would have had to work a lot harder to win. These reflections aside, the whole mission was fruitless because, although I was certain that we were within a mile or two of the place Geoff had described, we couldn’t even find a village of that name, and the locals knew nothing about it—or said they didn’t. What a shame; they could at least have made a museum out of it. After all, it was an honourable occupation. Post- war trauma, I suppose. Anyway, a nice try. I had more success on another trip, when we drove to the Austrian Alps, and the town of Obersalzberg. This time I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I had once met an ex- Bomber Command pilot who had been on that token raid on Hitler's house and blown it flat, just to show there was no ill feeling, so he told me exactly where it was. Pity they were just too late, because by that time the bastard was holed up in his Berlin bunker. Just as well I had the information; otherwise it would have been impossible to find. We had to leave the car at the roadside and force our way through some undergrowth to reach the flat top of a small plateau. There we found the remains of a large concrete pad, cracked and broken up in places, already half reclaimed by the surrounding forest. As I stood in the middle of this, an indescribable feeling of the sweep of history swept over me, together with a wave of infinite sadness. Finally, Inge dragged me away, and we continued towards the city of Salzburg, where a Mozart festival was in progress. A little further up the road we spotted a strange- looking coffee shop, in the form of an arched structure half underground. I knew this to be the Gestapo torture chamber, but figured that by now Inge had had der Schnauze voll (a bellyful), so we continued on our way. Many years later, I heard that a five-star hotel had been built on the site, which I thought was entrepreneurship in rather doubtful taste…but let that pass. 34 Travels in Germany

Easily the most enjoyable trip was when Inge drove me along the road that runs along the west bank of the river Rhine, stopping at every vineyard so that I could sample the new vintage, she taking a discrete sip from my glass. Stupendous! Who needs to keep wine for ten years before drinking it? Not me! Not with Rhinewein! Along the way, Inge showed me the Lorelei rock, where the siren sat combing her golden hair with a golden comb, while singing a song which lured mariners on to the rocks. One of the most interesting excursions took us into East Germany. I didn’t think much of the idea, but Inge (who could be rather wilful at times) wanted to look up a friend who lived in the eastern zone of Berlin. At the border, we had to pay five marks for visas, and were warned not to leave the road under any circumstances. On the road to Berlin, we could see Russian tanks manoeuvring in the fields. Everything looked run down and decrepit. Finally we arrived in the Berlin suburb of Spandau, and soon located Ruth’s apartment, where there was a great happy reunion. Ruth and Inge had become friends when both were nursing at Mount Vernon hospital, north of London. Ruth had fallen in love with an East German, and had returned to her native land to be with him. That’s what I call really true love—I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in such a horrible, depressing dump, but of course I didn’t say so. Just down the road was the prison in which the mentally deranged Rudolf Hess, sometime Deputy Fuhrer, was rotting out his last days—the only one in the prison—because the Russians would not agree to his release. Anyway, Ruth seemed quite happy with her lot, and Inge was very glad to see her. At last we made our way to the frontier post, where we were informed that an exit visa was required. This just pushed me over the top. I had already had quite enough of East Germany, and this was the last straw. I demanded to see whoever was in charge, and was escorted downstairs. Poor Inge—she must have thought she had seen the last of me. I was facing a desk, behind which sat a dead ringer for the Japanese war criminal Tojo, complete with green uniform and a battery of coloured telephones. I waved my British 35 Sweeping Up the Bits

passport under his nose and complained that I had not been informed of this upon entering, and what if I had not enough money? Would they put me in a concentration camp? And on and on. He waited for me to run down, held out his hand, and said, “Five marks, bitte.” In view of all the green-uniformed goons standing around caressing submachine guns, I thought it best to throw the money on the table and storm out. Inge was very pleased, not to say relieved, when I emerged and we continued our journey. It was nice to be back in Brake, but when Inge told Vati where we had been he nearly had a fit. After he calmed down, I started on my thoughts about East Germans, but he cut me off short. “Aber John, sie sind noch Deutscher.” (But John, they are still Germans). I have mentioned elsewhere that he was one of nature’s gentlemen, and it was not difficult to translate his comment into basic English, which would have been, “Shut up! Mind your own business and let us sort this out between ourselves.” “Sorry, Vati. Won't do it again.” One more of life’s lessons learnt. Another time, I bummed an invitation for a visit with my friend Neil. Whilst working in the Rocket Design Office at the de Havilland Engine Company, we had struck up a friendship which has lasted to this day. The idea was to take his Mini over on the car ferry, and, using Brake as our base, to drive to the Ruhr and take a look at the Mohne dam. The accommodation problem was solved when Vati arranged for us to stay at the Brake Seemannsheim (Seaman’s Home). This was done through his works manager, Horst Jerzembeck, a former officer in the German Merchant Marine, who was married to Inge’s younger sister, Sigrun. We arrived at Ostend, complete with Mini, and as far as I am concerned, it is the fundamental orifice of the universe. If it were ever to stop raining, or if the sun were ever to come out, it might be quite a nice town, but we were not afforded that luxury. We set off in the pouring rain along the dead straight, desolate road, being already totally fed up with Belgium (shades of things to come!). They, however, had the first strike. 36 Travels in Germany

As we were getting near the German border, the windscreen wiper motor burned out. There being no sign of human habitation along that ghastly road, and with the rain easing off, we decided to get as far as Germany, where some proper help might be found. We stopped at the first town we came to, and sought out a likely-looking garage. I had been thinking about this along the way, and tried out one of my better made-up words. I explained to the friendly mechanic on duty that we needed a Windschutzscheibe Waschenmotor. Fortunately, he got the idea, removed the offending item, wandered into the back, and emerged a few minutes later with an almost identical unit which, by dint of a little fiddling, he fitted to the Mini. So, up yours, Belgium. In due course we arrived in Brake, where we were given the usual great welcome and hospitality before being shown to our berths in the Seaman’s Home. The following day we were shown round the many points of interest, and were entertained to supper at the Muller household. It was there that Vati introduced us to the German approach to beer drinking. First, you take this shot glass containing an evil-looking, oily fluid called Doppelkorn, and toss it back in one gulp. On no account do you sip it, or it will burn out the roof of your mouth, or blow your head off. Immediately afterwards, you put out the fire with a large swig of beer, enjoying the rest of the beer at leisure, until it becomes time to repeat the process. Truth to tell, I don’t have too clear a recollection of this part of the visit. Perhaps Neil may have better recall, although I seem to remember him remarking next day that he didn’t know how we got back to our digs. We set off to the Ruhr—“Happy Valley” to many ex- Bomber Command aircrews—and eventually found ourselves in the parking lot adjacent to the Mohne dam. There were lots of tourists milling around, and it was certainly a very pleasant area. Knowing exactly what we were looking for, we strolled nonchalantly along the top of the dam, scrutinizing the masonry. They had made a first-class job of fixing it, and we had to look long and hard to detect the slightly lighter texture of the replacement material. When we were halfway across it started 37 Sweeping Up the Bits

to rain, and everyone scampered for cover. Not us, however. We stiff-upper-lip Englishmen continued our casual inspection, fortunately reaching the other side before the deluge, if 617 Squadron will pardon the liberty. There, we found a bar, a coffee shop, and a newsagent, purveying, among other things, postcards of the dam the morning after, just like miniatures of the big picture hanging in Barnes Wallis’s office. The things some people will do to make a buck. We spent the night at a local hostelry, and came down the next day to find that the car had been broken into and ransacked. Neil did a quick inventory, and the only thing which appeared to be missing was his exposure meter. Meanwhile the police had been summoned, in the shape of a surly constable who spoke platt Deutsch, so I could understand about every third word. I think he was telling me that this kind of thing happened every night, and was perpetrated by drunken English soldiers, who he plainly regarded as the scum of the earth, and did we want to lay charges? Fortunately, Neil did not want to kick up a fuss, otherwise I think we would have been there yet. We were not too far away from the Eifel Mountains, and that was our next stop, where we paid the price of admission for the chance to drive round the Nürburgring, my third favourite racetrack (after Silverstone and Monaco). This was a very enjoyable ride, for me at any rate. I often wonder what Neil thought about it—he was going like stink, concentrating on the hairpins and the sharply banked curves, the so-called “carousels”. I think it took us about twenty minutes to get round, as compared with the nine minutes or so of Stirling Moss, the acknowledged “Ringmeister”. What a shame that the Wimps Club (beg pardon, the Grand Prix Drivers Association) decided it was too dangerous, and moved the German Grand Prix to some place called Hockenheim. I don’t know where that is and, frankly, I don't give a damn. Whilst on this Formula One hate session, I should mention that this is being written on the weekend of the last British Grand Prix to be held at Silverstone, after which the Monaco race will be the only one to hold any interest for me. 38 Travels in Germany

Perhaps I shall switch to watching European football—at least it’s interesting, even if it’s only reruns that friends tape for me, since I’m not on cable TV. One more memory of touring Germany with Neil, and then I must move on. One day we found ourselves at the Oppenheim Wine Festival. Oppenheim is a small town on the Rhine, and the festival is to celebrate the current vintage. It is perhaps not as well known as Nierstein, a few miles to the north, which has carved itself an impregnable market niche with its Niersteiner Spätlese (late harvest wine)—to my taste the nicest wine ever made. However, when you are sampling the latest vintage anything goes, and they are all marvellous. We arrived early enough to secure a table on the veranda of a pub looking out on the town square, and spent most of the day there, munching sausages and sauerkraut, sampling the wine, and watching the festival develop. I vaguely remember, as through an alcoholic haze, Neil’s eyeballs getting missile lock on a strolling woman who, it must be admitted, bore more than a passing resemblance to Marlene Dietrich. Over the years, Inge took me on several visits to places she knew would interest me. Nearest to home, there was a conservation area within which was a lake called the Dümmer, a bit south of Bremen. Once a year, the locals had a festival called Der Dümmer Brennt. In this, gasoline was poured on to the surface and ignited. The whole lake went up in a sheet of flame which lasted well into the evening, while everyone drank and danced and generally made merry. Further south, we toured the Black Forest, and Inge showed me her father’s birthplace, in a village called Buggingen. Overnight accommodation was in one of the many charming Old World guest houses with which the region was liberally endowed. I had heard that gangs of “Werewolves” (Nazis who had escaped the round-up) roamed the area, but we didn’t see any, so I guess they had all been got rid of by that time. Down to Germany’s southern extremity, we found ourselves in the town of Immenstadt, overlooking the Bodensee (Lake Constance). Just to the east was Friedrichshafen, where the Graf Zeppelin and the Dornier 39 Sweeping Up the Bits

Do-X 12-engined flying boat started their careers. After a long and hectic day, we had settled down nicely in our room when, at around midnight, an oom-pah band started up, and from then until the wee small hours the building shook to the thumping of boots, and the raucous shouts of the drinking songs. I sometimes think it would have been fun to go down and join in, but…one has to make one’s choices in these matters, and we had made ours. Now, a couple of fond memories of Vati. We were in a pub once, and had ordered beer, with a glass of wine for Inge. The barman had six of those cylindrical glasses on a turntable. He opened a tap, and swooshed beer into the first glass, which immediately filled with foam, leaving a small residue of liquid at the bottom. He then repeated the process with all the other glasses as they rotated under the tap, and carried on doing this as the level of liquid gradually rose. I said to Inge, “Why doesn’t the silly bugger pour it slowly down the side, like they do in England?” “Just shut up and enjoy it,” she hissed. The beer came, and Vati whipped out his pocket rule, measured the height of the head, turned to me triumphantly and said, “Was ist dass fur eine Blume? Eins comma funf centimeter!” (How’s that for a head? One and a half centimetres!”) In retrospect, it didn’t take the barman any longer than if he’d filled them individually and carefully. Something new every day. Another time, Vati presented me with a couple of bottles of his house wine, called Dexheimer Doktor, as a going-away gift. He ordered two crates of this a year, from a small local vineyard run as a hobby by a doctor friend of his. It was quite the nicest wine I have ever tasted. As he handed the bottles over, he said, “Remember, John, the Germans make the best white wine in the world, and the worst red. Don’t you ever let me catch you drinking German red wine!” I was rather surprised, several years later, to see in English wine shops row upon row of “Dexheimer Doktor” wine, from which I assumed that the good doctor was making a bit on the side by selling his labels. Following, no doubt, in the footsteps of Liebfraumilch, a modest-sized vineyard, of which 40 Travels in Germany

it was once said that they made 20 million bottles a year, of which 30 million were exported to England. It was certainly not the wine I had grown to love. Quite pleasant, but just the usual run-of-the-mill blended stuff.

41 Chapter 4: Avro Revisited

y time with Avro included two vacation apprenticeships, and a hectic four years with their Weapons Research Division (WRD) at the cMompany airfield, working on the Blue Steel stand-off missile. During this time, I was able to poke my nose into things which were no concern of mine, but—hey—it behooves a man to find out where his company’s going… wouldn’t you agree? One of my earliest recollections is of a visit by the Shah of Persia who, I gathered, was there to place an order for some Shackletons, which were going through the factory at the time. Why a place like Persia would require long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft baffled my imagination. The Shackleton was basically a Lincoln wing, beefed up to take four 2,000-hp-plus Rolls-Royce Griffon engines driving contra-props, grafted on to a large fuselage equipped for 24- hour patrols, and the power of the slipstream had to be seen to be believed. I once saw one doing a pre-takeoff engine run- up at the end of the runway bordering on a country road. A farm labourer was riding his bike past, and the blast from the props blew him and his bike right across the road. Anyway, there was the Shah, resplendent in his comic- opera air force uniform, and it was funny to see the brass kow-towing to him, while the average Englishman regarded him as a trumped-up Persian twit who had been put in by the C.I.A. after they had staged a palace coup to get rid of Mossadeq, the mad cleric (the first of the few?) who had nationalized the oilfields, and thus got really up the nose of the Americans. I was told he had his own personal Hawker 42 Avro Revisited

Hurricane. I knew for certain that he was in the bad books of the United Nations because of the way his secret police (SAVAK, I think the bullying thugs were called) oppressed the population. In response he famously retorted, “When the Persians start behaving like Swedes, I will start behaving like the King of Sweden.” While thinking in terms of comic opera, the case of the Sundstrand constant-speed drive system comes to mind. This system had been ordered from the Sundstrand company to power the electrical system of the Vulcan Mark II, which was quite different from that of the earlier versions, for reasons I can’t explain, not being very good at electricity. What I did know was that the first unit was anxiously awaited, being the only outstanding item before the Mark II could commence test flying. There were acrimonious exchanges between the firms, Sundstrand insisting they had sent it, Avro saying “Where to?” and so forth. Then one day a cleaning lady phoned the managing director asking when this huge crate was going to be removed from her store room because there was hardly any room for her buckets, mops and stuff, and she was getting fed up with it. Sure enough, it was the first prototype of the constant-speed drive unit, and had been there for nearly a month. It turned out that the delivery driver, having been directed to the back of the main building, had asked the first person he saw where he could offload the crate. This chap, being a cleaner, indicated an open store room, and said, “Put it in there for the time being—it’ll be all right there.” To my great regret, I never met the chief designer, Roy Chadwick, but I met plenty of people who knew him, and listened to many tales about him. There was one common thread running through all the accounts, so it probably has some basis in fact. Like most successful chief designers, he was inclined to be irascible, self-centred and intolerant, and as far as I’m concerned, anyone who can produce something like the Lancaster is fully entitled to be so disposed. He would, so the story goes, wander round the drawing office scrutinizing everyone’s work, and if he saw something he didn’t like, he would fire the unfortunate draughtsman on the spot. So, the chap would stay at home the next day, and then 43 Sweeping Up the Bits

turn up again, and nobody said anything—it was all part of the scene. Another Avro tale, this one true in parts, probably apocryphal in others, concerns the Manchester bomber. As is widely known, it was close to a total disaster, and yet morphed into the Lancaster, one of the finest warplanes ever built. This tale concerns the first flight. After what seemed an unusually long takeoff run, they were swanning around at altitude when the pilot found, to his consternation, that he could hardly hold it in the air under control at a speed not far short of 200 mph. The flaps ameliorated this condition to some extent, so, being a test pilot, he brought the machine in at a speed never before seen at Woodford, put it down on the numbers, and managed to stop in time, whereupon a young chap just recently arrived in the flight test department opened the escape hatch, jumped down on to the ground, ran like mad to the airfield boundary, and was never seen again. The buzz doing the rounds was that Chadwick had got the wing incidence wrong, but I could not imagine how a chap like that could make such a basic error. I prefer to put it down to a manufacturing error, or, more probably, a drawing office error (I refer the reader to my previous book, where I devote some time to giving my opinion on drawing office procedures). One more Manchester tale, then we’ll move right along. Harris, in charge of Bomber Command at the time, came to inspect the mock-up, and made a remark that went into the local folklore, to the effect that the company would do well to remember that, when aircrew are jumping out of the escape hatch, they are usually wearing parachutes. This would be an appropriate point at which to discuss the cancellation by the Canadian government of the Arrow supersonic interceptor, under development by Avro Canada, a machine of which we were extremely proud, and the news sent a shock wave through the whole place. The only information we had was the official press releases, which were the usual meaningless claptrap, and which nobody believed for a moment. It wasn't until many years later, after we had emigrated to Canada, that I became acquainted with some of the people who had been intimately 44 Avro Revisited

involved in the catastrophe, and discovered what had actually happened. It will become apparent why the official history resorted to obfuscation and b.s., but what really surprised me was that, although I have read everything that was ever written about the affair, I have never seen anything remotely connected with the actual events. It should be made clear at the start that Diefenbaker, the Prime Minister at the time, was a loud-mouthed, ignorant, drunken demagogue. Not that this makes him much different from some other “rulers” I have had to put up with in my long and varied career, but he stands out because of his achievement in turning the fourth-ranking industrial nation into a banana republic overnight. It seems necessary at this point to provide some justification for my rather harsh character assessment, so, with the usual apologies to readers who followed the affair as closely as I did, here is my analysis: One of the dafter reasons given by the government for the cancellation was that the machine was already obsolete because the strategic situation had changed; the threat was no longer enemy supersonic bombers, but missiles coming in over the Pole. Therefore, Canada would fulfil its obligation as a partner in NORAD (North American Air Defence) by purchasing Boeing-built Bomarc missiles. Now, as anyone with the slightest knowledge of the subject is aware, one missile can never be made to hit another, any more than you would try to stop a rifle bullet by firing a rifle at it. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War by fooling the Russians into believing that the U.S. had such a system, with the result that many people think it actually exists. Well, it doesn’t, it never did, and it never will. The whole point of the Bomarc was that it had a nuclear warhead up front. The idea was to detonate this ahead of the incoming missile, which would fly into the fireball, and then…que sera, sera. This arrangement suited the Americans very well, since the fallout from a double nuclear explosion somewhere over the Arctic would all land in Canada. There was also the added attraction that the Arrow, already widely regarded as one of the finest warplanes ever built, would cease to be a serious competitor to the American domination of the military aircraft industry. But the Canucks 45 Sweeping Up the Bits

had them all fooled, when they ordered the Bomarc, but without the nuclear warhead, thereby nullifying the whole object of the exercise, and leaving Canada defenceless. Also, I think, proving my contention that Diefenbaker was not fit to run a fish and chip shop, never mind Canada. To get to the point, some time after the successful first flight, with Jan Zurakowski nudging it towards its Mach 2 design speed, Dief, after one of his usual liquid lunches, barged in on Crawford Gordon, the managing director, and commenced a drunken torrent of abuse about cost overruns, delays and so forth. Gordon had him escorted off the premises, and next day the cancellation was announced. There you are—simple as that. With the Arrow went a whole ancillary industry—systems specialists, component manufacturers and so forth, together with thousands of engineers, most of whom headed south. “The best thing that ever happened to the American space programme,” as one NASA official remarked. In July of 2009 I attended an open day styled “Wings and Wheels”, put on by the Toronto Aerospace Museum at their premises on Downsview airfield, formerly the site of de Havilland Canada. The main attraction for me was a full-size replica of the Arrow, incorporating an actual nose section which somehow managed to escape the scrap merchant’s cutting tools. Talking about that, there is a legend that the second prototype took off the morning after the cancellation for an unknown destination, and is still out there, in a barn somewhere. I know it sounds like wishful thinking on the part of a group of enthusiasts, and yet, there is the testimony of June Callwood, one of the most respected names in Canadian aviation journalism, who covered the whole project for the Toronto Globe and Mail from start to finish. Her house was in line with the Malton runway, and she reported being woken up that morning by a sound which could only have been made by one aircraft in the world. Well, take this story as you wish but, if you ever read about it being found, have the goodness to tell everyone that you read about it here first. Having admired the replica, I then inspected a Lancaster which they were rebuilding. This too has an interesting history. During WWII, Victory Aircraft was set up at Malton 46 Avro Revisited

to build Lancasters with Packard-Merlin engines. This was in fact the start of Avro Canada. At the end of the war, one of the Lancasters was presented to the City of Toronto, which erected it on a plinth near the exhibition grounds, on the lakefront. It was one of the first things I wanted to see upon arriving in Canada, and a very fine, stirring sight it made. Years later, it had been vandalized by the spineless, gutless freaks who were infesting Canada, and the city reluctantly decided it would have to be removed. I don’t know what this country will do when the Russians come over the hill—I really don’t. Anyway, the aforementioned enthusiasts got together and moved it to a temporary location, until they received official approval to occupy the Downsview premises, when they started the restoration work. I was able to get a more intimate view of the structure than I ever managed when working my vacation apprenticeships in the 1940s. Then, I was constantly chivvied away by harassed foremen, determined to meet their production quotas; now I could study the whole assembled structure, with half the skin missing. Totally absorbed in memories of days gone by, I was awoken out of my reverie an announcement: “The MiG-15 is about to take off.” The WHAT??? I went outside, and sure enough, there was a real live MiG- 15 as encountered in the Korean war, decorated with red stars. Where do these chaps get this stuff? Further up the flight line was a thing I had never seen before, again red star spangled, which turned out to be an L- 29—an advanced trainer built in the Czech Republic for the Russian air force. Later I read in an English newspaper of someone in my home town who had one in his back garden, for the kids to play in. I have to say that my favourite on the flight line was an immaculately restored Meyers OTW biplane trainer, 102 of which were built in the ’30s and ’40s. It seems that many of these are still flying in the States. And finally: I have included, at the end of this chapter, a personal memoir which I was fortunate in acquiring, by Mr. 47 Sweeping Up the Bits

Lorne Cox, who worked at Avro from 1947 to 1961, two years after Black Friday. I was particularly interested in his account of modifying Lancasters and transporting them from Malton to Downsview, before Highway 401 was thought of. I have a picture of a white-painted Lancaster in the markings of the French Navy. It must be said that perhaps Mr. Cox sometimes goes a bit over the top, as when he describes a malfunction of the Iroquois engine on the B-47 test bed as the engine “blowing apart”. If that had been the case, they could hardly have repaired it in two weeks! Also, it seems a bit harsh to describe an Arrow belly-landing as a “catastrophe”. Nitpicking apart, this is a fascinating glimpse into the history of Avro Canada. To round off these Avro reminiscences, I should mention an essay by Gerry Barbour, serialized in Pre-Flight, a publication of the Aerospace Heritage Foundation of Canada, detailing the events surrounding the cancellation of the Arrow. Written in an informal manner, with a subtle blend of humour and a loathing of Prime Minister Diefenbaker, he describes a plan he concocted to steal the last Arrow before the scrap merchants could get their hands on it. Whether he was pulling our legs I cannot make up my mind, but in any case he was pre-empted when someone flew it away (according to my information). Be that as it may, a lot of people believe that the last Arrow, RL 204, reposes in a barn somewhere in Ontario. I hope they are right.

Lorne Cox at A.V. ROE In 1947, after being mustered out of the Navy, I returned to Malton to work at AVRO Aircraft Limited (Canada). AVRO had bought out Victory Aircraft, where I had worked before the War. Everything seemed to have changed while I was away. The production bays were crammed with Lancaster bombers, Lockheed Loadstars, and other wartime aircraft. We overhauled and modified them for peacetime military use and a few Lancs were prepared for Trans-Canada Air Lines (now Air Canada). 48 Avro Revisited

In 1948, we had a contract to overhaul RCAF B-25 bombers which had been stored in western Canada since the War. At the time, “hitchhiking” on planes back East to the repair centre in Toronto was common for military personnel and employees. One Grey Cup season, a few Air Force guys from the west caught a flight to Malton, hoping to “hitch” another flight to the game in Ottawa. The plane belly-flopped landing on the runway and they were forced to crawl out of the damaged aircraft. As I remember, they decided to take a bus the rest of the way to the game. In the early 1950s, the Lancaster was being forced out of major production bays to 5-Hangar which had been used in World War II. This was a terrific place to work. The whole crew became buddies, not just coworkers. We would celebrate each others’ birthdays and chum around after hours and on weekends. I'll never forget Earl Scott playing his fiddle on the 5-Hangar front lawn at lunchtime on the night shift. Lancasters were still flying in from the west. They were always de-fueled before being transferred to 5-Hangar. There was always enough gasoline left in the tanks that when we disassembled them, we salvaged enough to top up our personal cars' gas tanks. Later on, AVRO started transferring Lancasters from Malton to DeHavilland at Downsview. Their wings were removed and they were towed behind 18-wheeler cabs across the northwest of Toronto. The engineers had to enhance bridges over the railways and the small rivers along the way to accommodate the huge planes' bodies. I was selected for the last 10 or 12 trips to ride on top of the planes, controlling the brakes up and down the hills and valleys. Even without the wings they were a formidable challenge on the small town roads of the times. We completed the last Lanc in 1954. I was transferred to the “CF-100 Modification, Repair, and Overhaul” department. I supervised repairs, final assembly, fuel flows, engine runs, and flight testing. We also contracted our services with other carriers and the RCAF. In 1957, AVRO borrowed a B-47 aircraft from the United States Air Force to test their new Iroquois engine. 49 Sweeping Up the Bits

The engine proved to be exceptional. It was capable of propelling the aircraft with only one engine. However, after several tests, the Iroquois blew apart in flight. The plane managed to land safely. Because the plane was so bust, management felt they would have to subcontract an outside company and get a quote on rebuilding the Iroquois. Their quote was $500,000 and six months to complete. After some consideration, management assigned the work to us with a two-week deadline. Everyone on the floor worked night and day and finished it in two weeks and two days. No one in management seemed to be disappointed that we were two days past their deadline. The first Arrow, RL-201, crashed on landing on June 11, 1958. I was assigned to oversee all repairs and given a schedule of six months to have it flight ready. After extraordinary dedication, long hours and teamwork, we made it. When the second Arrow, RL-202, suffered a similar catastrophe on November 11, we immediately went to work, now with some hard-earned experience. After three months and nine days, we finished the job in the morning of February 20, 1959. Ironically, a short time later, at 11 a.m. of the very same day, the plant’s PA system announced that the Arrow had been cancelled and all employees should leave the building. We all left the building. The following Sunday, February 22, I was called back and reinstated at my old job at a reduced rate of pay to help complete AVRO’s ongoing contracts for the CF-100 as well as accommodate new clients’ short-term agreements. I worked there until 1961. My work life after 1961 included boat building assembler, Orenda engines overhaul mechanic. I worked at DeHavilland Aircraft, Douglas Aircraft, McDonnell- Douglas both in Malton, Ontario and Long Beach, California, until I retired in 1984. I remain indebted to all those fine crafts-people and good friends who supported me throughout my career.

50 Chapter 5: England Reminiscences

uring my stint at Vickers-Armstrongs working on the TSR-2, we lived for three memorable years in D Bankside Cottage, which was a tied cottage—that is, the occupants lived rent-free in return for the man doing such work on the grounds as he was told to do, and the woman cleaning in the big house. This was entirely Inge’s idea—I would never have thought of it in a million years. As she was no doubt hoping, the couple in the big house were quite gratified (and probably a little surprised) to have their advert answered by an engineer and a nurse. We hit it off immediately, and formed lifelong friendships. All this is covered in my earlier book; now I want to tell you about our neighbour. Ted worked at Vickers Research, an offshoot of the aircraft company. He was an expert in plastics, from fibreglass to Plexiglas, and had a small boat company in the nearby town of Godalming, where he produced a 22-foot day-sailer called the Tricorn, designed by Illingworth and Primrose—at the time one of England's most famous yacht design firms, based, I believe, in the Isle of Wight. We became friends, had a few drinks together, I fixed his car a couple of times, and he told me about the project he was working on at Vickers—the production of a cylinder made of quarter-inch Plexiglas, eleven inches diameter and twenty-two inches long. This was the basis of an oxygen chamber, into which a newborn baby could be placed, if it had not acquired the breathing reflex—“blue babies”, they were called. 51 Sweeping Up the Bits

The fabrication of this cylinder required very close control of the temperature; it had taken him some time to deter mine the exact temperature, and devise a system for controlling it to close limits. During this time, he had produced a number of rejects, and showed us one. It looked very attractive, having developed bubbles very similar to frosted glass, but varying in size, getting smaller along the length. They were using it as a table lamp, with a small bulb inside, and the effect was spectacular. Inge fell in love with it, whereupon he produced a similar item, and offered it as a gift. I have it still. Can’t be too many of those in the boutiques. From where we lived, we could just see the sun reflected off the waters of the English Channel—about sixty miles away. One day there was a great storm in the Channel, and the following morning Ted came round and said he'd had a phone call from an irate shopkeeper in Chichester, asking if he would kindly remove his boat from the chap’s shop window. Ted explained that he kept a Tricorn in Chichester harbour as a demonstrator, and apparently the gale had blown it halfway up Chichester High Street and into the shop front. He asked if I would be willing to go down with him to help. Regular readers will not be surprised at my prompt acceptance, realizing that this kind of thing is just up my alleyway. Without more ado, we hitched up his boat trailer and made our way down to Chichester. What a mess! Ted went in to make his peace with the shopkeeper, and he must have done a good job, because they both came out laughing, and we all went for a friendly pint at a nearby pub. They told me they had been joshing about what the insurance companies and the traffic police would have to say about the whole thing. It was a matter of an hour or two to winch the Tricorn from the shop window and on to the trailer, after which we 52 England Reminiscences

went straight home, Ted having decided that he could fix the amazingly slight damage in his garage. On the way back, he mentioned that he had another Tricorn in a shed at Chichester harbour, which he had been repairing for a customer. It would be ready in a couple of days, and would I be interested in crewing with him to sail it down to Salcombe, to return it to its rightful owner? I suppose it could be said that’s when my sailing career started. It was a wonderful few days. We cruised down the Channel with a nice fair wind. On the way, Ted told me how he had performed capsizing tests on the Tricorn, necessary to get it licensed for production, without even getting his feet wet. He waited for a nice strong wind, lashed the boom down tight, and turned broadside on to the wind. Over she went in a jiffy, while he scrambled up on to the bottom. There, he grabbed the centreboard and heaved until the hull rotated and the mast and sail came up on the other side, whereupon he grabbed a rigging line and pulled the whole thing upright, simultaneously letting the mainsail fly so that the process wouldn’t repeat itself. This lesson stood me in good stead many years later. We anchored in Salcombe Bay, amidst a group of yachts of all descriptions, all with live-aboards who were busy cooking supper. The heavenly aroma of steak, onions, curry, fish’n chips and whatnot drifted across the bay. Afterwards, they all started singing old traditional songs: “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum...”; “Green grow the rushes-o”; “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. Ted was well known there, and they came in their dinghies to say hello. After a memorable visit, he scrounged a ride for us back to Chichester, and on the final leg of our homeward journey he posed me a problem which turned out to be quite a challenge. He had been pondering the problem of a small sailboat, close hauled, being suddenly hit by a strong gust right on the beam. Unless the skipper was unusually quick, or lucky, the usual result was that the boat would be “knocked down”—that is, blown over on to its side until the sails were in the water. This did, in fact, happen to me many years later...but that’s another story. 53 Sweeping Up the Bits

His idea was to make the mast flexible to the extent that, if hit by a sudden overload, it would bend sufficiently to spill the air out of the sail, instead of allowing it to knock the boat down. He asked me if I could design such a mast, so that he could make it and try it out. I told him I would look into it. I got from him a sketch of the layout he had in mind. He intended to try it out first on a sailing dinghy, and thought that a deflection of about a foot in the worst case would do the job. I asked him what the worst case was. He gave me his toothy grin, and said that fortunately he hadn’t encountered it yet. As from one Englishman to another, I understood him completely. Translated, he was saying, “Just get on with it, and stop asking damn-fool questions.” Well, I wasn’t getting paid for it, but you didn’t often get the chance to design something and have it built and tested without endless arguments with the brass, so I got on with it. Obviously it would be made of fibreglass, because it tapered in diameter, and the wall thickness decreased along the length. Also, Ted was going to make it from fibreglass anyway. I procured a chart giving wind pressure per square foot for various wind speeds and heights above sea level. Then I picked my own worst case, by reference to the Beaufort wind scale. I think it was “strong breeze”, just one below “gale”, reasoning that no one but an idiot would be out in a dinghy in a gale. From Ted’s sketch of the sail, I constructed a loading diagram for a beam built in at one end, or “encastre cantilever” as we had to call it to pass exams. Then, out came Roark’s Formulas for Stress and Strain, one of the four books which I had on my desk throughout my engineering career. I was rather disappointed to find nothing to do with tapered cantilevers of varying wall thickness, but I guess you can’t have everything. So, I did it the hard way. Looking back to a procedure I picked up from a chap in the D. H. Engine Company for stressing turbine blades, I divided the mast into ten equal lengths, each assumed to have a constant wall thickness. The idea is that you assume a stress at the fixed end, then work your way to the free end, and if the stress there is zero, you have obviously got it right. If not, you start again with a different assumption. It took me about 54 England Reminiscences

a week, by which time I was getting a bit fed up with the whole business, so I drew up what I had calculated to be the correct design, turned it over to Ted, and thought no more about it. About a month later, he came round one evening, flashed me his toothy grin, and said, “You ought to go back to school. It only deflected eleven and a half inches.” Now, I am the first to admit that this was a sheer fluke, and in any case it didn’t really matter in the long run, because you don't see too many sailboats with flexible masts around. Shortly after this, we had to move on, and I never heard from him again, but the exercise gave me valuable insights into making fibreglass masts, which I used many years later when I actually built a complete fibreglass dinghy. While living in Bankside Cottage, we were invited to a party at the big house, where Peggy introduced me to Ms. Taylor, a handsome South African lady, and within a minute we were chatting about, of all things, racing cars. She invited me round to meet her husband, and when I got there I found myself shaking hands with none other than Geoff Taylor, a name to conjure with in pre-war racing circles. Designer, constructor and driver of the Alta racing car, he held the lap record for the Mountain Circuit at Brooklands, and still does, funnily enough. With war looming, just after he set the record, the Mountain Circuit was demolished, as part of the plan to move Vickers- Armstrongs in there to build Wellington bombers. I had been briefed that he’d had a stroke a few years ago, and was, shall we say, a bit disconnected, although he did have lucid spells, of which I was fortunate enough to experience a couple. He was a charming host, and took me down the garden to a shed, which he opened, and there stood the first prototype Alta, untouched since the day it was wheeled in there after his last race. Unfortunately I could not determine when that was; when it came to the car he was quite coherent, but rather fuzzy on past events, people and so forth. He raised the engine covers for me, and I gloated over my first view of a real Alta engine in its rightful setting. 55 Sweeping Up the Bits

I was aware that he had made the whole thing himself—engine, supercharger, car. When motor racing started up again after the war, Alta engines were much sought-after items. Stirling Moss started out in Formula Three, and I think his car was a Cooper-Alta, but be kind to me if I got that wrong. My priceless collection of Motor Sport magazines was in the one crate of my immigrant’s effects that didn’t make it to Canada, so I have to go on memory, and it was a long time ago. But here I was, chatting with the man who did it all, yet unable to unlock the past. Well, I was already lucky beyond the bounds of reasonable expectation. I resolved to push my luck to the limit. I have always been interested in finding out how engineers did their work before my time, so I asked him, tentatively, if he had a record of his calculations that I might be allowed to look at. He pondered this for a bit, and I had a horrible feeling that I might have upset him. Then, a smile broke out, and he started to chuckle. The chuckle turned into a laugh, and before long he was laughing uproariously. At that moment his wife came along to announce that luncheon was ready, and from that time on I could do no wrong. I was probably the first person to have made him laugh like that for a long time. There's probably an engineering lesson there, if only I could figure out what it might be. Geoff ’s wife told me that if I was interested in working on the car to get it going again, I could have it. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! Boy, would I ever be cock-of-the- walk in motoring circles, with a car like that to drive around in. I would be welcome any time to work on it, and I lost no time in getting started. It didn’t take too long to find that the engine was solid. Glued together by a 20-year deposit of Castrol-R racing oil, no doubt. I wrote to the Castrol company explaining the situation, and got a very nice letter back recommending something-or-other, which I bought and poured through the plug holes and anywhere else I could get at. While this was doing its stuff, I bought plugs, a heavy- duty battery and some coils of electric wire, and started work on the somewhat decayed wiring. 56 England Reminiscences

When Ms. Taylor found that I was doing this, she insisted upon paying for everything. “T’were churlish to demur,” as an earlier poet once remarked, but around this time vague misgivings were starting to make themselves known. I was beginning to feel a bit boxed in—and to realize that the driving force was my romantic illusion of restoring this magnificent machine to its former glory. No doubt there were many people out there who would have sold their children into slavery to be in my position, but for me a bit of realism was creeping in. I had no idea that we would eventually move to Canada, but, considering the many moves we had already made, plus the growing feeling that my days at Vickers were numbered, it was becoming increasingly obvious that the car would be a millstone around my neck. Then, just as some common sense was beginning to creep into my thought processes, Peter V., a friend of long standing, found out what I was doing and wanted to be part of the action. In my previous book, I discussed our long friendship in some detail, so for now I will just say that I could have done without any outside influences while trying to make up my mind. As it turned out, circumstances forced our move eastward shortly after, and I heard no more about it until many years later, in Canada. During our stay in Bankside Cottage, one of our main attractions was a derelict building halfway up Pitch Hill, not noticeable by the casual passer-by, being well set back and largely overgrown. Built in the once-popular fake Italian style, with fancy columns and all that, it was supposed to be the place where the Duke of Windsor and that American tart for whom he gave up the British Empire used to have their dirty weekends, before the abdication crisis set in. I think it was called Summerfold. It was surrounded by azaleas, one of Inge’s favourite flowers, and we went up there often to gather a bunch to brighten our table. Another enjoyable activity was an early morning walk in the woods to gather Boletus edulis—large creepy-looking mushrooms averaging five inches in diameter, which made a wonderful meal when handled properly: stewed very slowly in their own juice with a dash of pepper and sour cream. We 57 Sweeping Up the Bits

had to make an early start; because by half past seven, horsemen would come galloping through the woods flat out, kicking up great clods of earth and mushrooms.... When the cancellation of the TSR-2 brought to an end our time in Surrey, my next stop was Delaney Gallay in Essex, as project engineer on automotive air conditioning systems. This phase of my career is described in detail in Nuts and Bolts, but one other interesting aspect of this time was my visit to the MIRA (Motor Industry Research Association) proving ground, situated on a disused wartime bomber airfield. There was a high-speed test track, and a row of buildings containing various facilities—dynamometers, climate testing, vibration testing and so forth. I was sent there with the company’s Ford Cortina, to evaluate the air conditioning system they were proposing for it. One great thing about this was that I had charge of the vehicle for a couple of weeks, and I took Inge out in it on every possible occasion. She said, “I want one,” and I still remember it with pleasure, as a sprightly, pleasant car to drive. However, back to work.... Upon arrival at MIRA, I drove the car into the climate test cell, ready for some hot and cold temperature plots in the morning, and then went exploring. In the next test cell there was the first Mustang in England. I couldn’t believe my luck. It was still on the secret list, so to speak, being prepared for its grand debut, and I knew there were motoring journalists hanging around the fence, hoping to grab a telephoto shot if it came out on the track, who would give their eyeteeth to be standing where I was. I made friends with the chap who was in charge of it, and he showed me round. I was greatly impressed, and still consider it to be one of the best cars to come out of America. It has certainly stood the test of time, which is more than can be said for some Ford cars I have known. Still thinking about Delaney Gallay, I remember one Friday afternoon when about half the drawing office staff quit, only to turn up again the following Monday as 58 England Reminiscences

consultants. At first I didn’t believe this, and after being assured that it was true, I regarded it as yet another proof of the self-evident proposition that administrators were a bunch of useless jerks, incapable of doing a proper job, although this absolute lunacy was going a bit far, even for them I would ask the reader to bear in mind that this was the mid-sixties, and the concept was still quite new. What I was witnessing was, of course, the beginning of the end of career- oriented employment. As I went deeper into it, I realized that it was a win-win situation for both management and employees. The management was free of the crippling overhead of social security benefits and the associated b.s., and could therefore afford to be more generous with salaries and such, while the employees would have a lot more of their own money to spend, being relieved of the enormous salary deductions forced on them for pension plans, medical plans and so forth. The flip side of the coin was that they now had no security on retirement other than that which they arranged for themselves, and the management didn't have to fire anyone: they just “failed to renew the contract”. When you’re young, full of beans, in love, doing well, and the sap’s still rising, pensions and retirement planning is not at the forefront of your thoughts. I have to confess that I never even thought about it until I had been teaching engineering at Ryerson for a few years, and suddenly realized that fate had dealt me a hand which I would never have dreamed possible. The future was secure, and I had the time to work on some dream fulfilment. In the early days, I have a vivid memory of walking into the bank on the first business day of the new year, to be greeted by the manager: “Good morning, Mr. Tysoe, and congratulations on being our first customer of the new year. Have you thought about making your will?” I stood there transfixed for a few seconds, then turned around and walked out. I went to the next bank up the street and transferred my account there, which turned out to be one of the best moves I ever made. The manager was a friend of the best lawyer I ever knew, who helped me to obtain a settlement when I had to abandon my last attempt to start my 59 Sweeping Up the Bits

own company, and also gave me a good start when we emigrated to Canada, as described in my earlier book. Searching through the archives, I found a picture of one of several gadgets I had dreamed up at the behest of my friend Peter V., when we were both hoping to hit on something that would make our fortune. I called it the Hydra-Wisk: it was a water-driven food mixer, which was to do everything, from hooking dough (low rpm) to blending fruit and veggie mixes and such. As to why anyone would want such a thing, the memory is rather vague here; let’s just say it sounded a good idea at the time, or, more likely, Peter convinced me that this was the case.

Starting with research into the average household water supply pressure, I designed a Pelton Wheel turbine, which seemed to be the appropriate configuration. High pressure water is passed through an orifice, emerging as a high speed jet at atmospheric pressure. This jet impinges on twin “buckets”, where it splits into two, both halves being turned through 180 degrees. The reaction to the change of momentum produced by this turn-around provides the driving force. I made such a turbine wheel from bits of moulded plastic glued together, and was quite pleasantly surprised at the power it delivered, particularly the ease with which it handled dough, which I had my doubts about. 60 England Reminiscences

I had been warned that the slightest drop of water would ruin the dough, so I spent some time on the design of a labyrinth shaft seal. This is where you give the water a hard time getting past the shaft, and, just when it thinks it's succeeded, it drops through a hole and rejoins the rest of the exhaust stream. Mine worked well, so I completed the whole unit and handed it over to Peter, to see if he could flog it. I lost touch for a time, other matters having intervened. In due course we re-established contact, and he told me he’d had to abandon the project until he could meet with me, since he no longer had a demonstrator. I asked what had happened to it, and it turned out that he had sawn it in half so that he could measure the diameter of the orifice. I could have spit. Well, that was the end of all the Mickey Mouse projects. I resolved to concentrate on stuff that mattered from then on. Looking back on my rather spotty university career, I often recall my early days with the University Air Squadron, which occupied most of my attention, to the detriment of my studies. After my first solo, it did not take too long to accumulate enough hours as pilot in command to qualify for a private pilot’s licence. There was just the question of the cross-country flight, which had to be a certain distance, and be monitored at the turning point. The C/O was very helpful here; for some reason he thought it was a good idea. He told me I could take one of the Squadron aircraft for the day, and called in a favour from a friend who commanded RAF Wittering, which was just the right distance away. On the appointed day I set out, into adverse circumstances, as I was soon to discover. Overnight it had snowed, and the whole landscape looked different. Also, the forecast wind was totally wrong (so what else is new?). Instead of a stiff headwind, it was a stiff tailwind. I couldn’t identify any of my carefully thought out checkpoints, so I had no way of knowing that my ground speed was about 20 mph faster than I had used to mark my time/distance checks on the map. When the time came that I should have been over RAF Wittering, there was just a white wilderness, with a potty- looking airfield to one side. Well, thank goodness for that, anyway. I decided to pay it a visit to find out where I was. 61 Sweeping Up the Bits

Executing a pretty three-pointer in front of the main building, I wandered in to make the acquaintance of some very friendly types who, while obviously not expecting a visit from an RAF aircraft, nevertheless offered me every assistance. I was at Stansted Mountfitchet, which wasn’t even shown on my map. Now, of course, it is London’s third airport. Time marches on! They gave me the correct wind, as measured by them, which made me feel a bit better for having made such a colossal balls- up. They helped me plot a course to Wittering, and even telephoned ahead to say I had made an emergency landing due to shortage of fuel, and would be there in half an hour (just in case the C/O decided to check up on me). On arriving in Wittering I was completely awestruck. Instead of the grass airfield I remembered as a turning point from various cross-country training exercises, there was the biggest runway I had ever seen, and standing by a large hangar was a Vickers Valiant, the first of the V-bombers, the spearhead of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. I felt like a tiny cog in a vast machine. They were very good. They phoned my C/O and told him I was running a bit late because of an inaccurate forecast wind, and gave him my approximate ETA. That took care of the flying side, but there remained the written exam. My instructor, Paul Cash, who had sent me on my first solo, was also an accredited Royal Aero Club examiner, so he and I sat down one afternoon with a huge stack of books to see whether we could hack it. Paul opened the sealed envelope with a flourish and we set to work. Some of it was straightforward enough: What is standard atmospheric pressure? What is the reciprocal of a bearing of 270? and so forth. Some required a few minutes’ research: At what height should captive balloons be moored? for instance. It took most of the afternoon to produce a fairly plausible exam paper, which Paul sealed up and mailed to the examining board. This resulted in a Royal Aero Club Aviator’s Certificate, which was then sent to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, who issued the Private Pilot’s Licence. I had a lot of fun with that--including meeting Inge. One last thought on this licence business. One of my first acts on arriving in Canada was to take my documents to the appropriate department in Toronto, and ask to be issued with a 62 England Reminiscences

Canadian licence, which I had understood to be automatic. However—story of my life—some desk-bound troglodyte had just issued an order saying that overseas applicants must take a flight test. Well, just another hoop to jump through. I joined the Brampton Flying Club, and booked an appointment for a flight test. I started the engine, and, while waiting for the temperatures and pressures to settle down, switched off each magneto in turn. The examiner turned to me and said, “What did you do that for?” in a hostile manner. Surprised, and a bit miffed, I said, “Dead-cut check, of course.” Here, with the usual apologies to readers who are familiar with all this, I should explain that, prior to takeoff, it is customary to run-up the engine to about 1700 rpm, and switch off the magnetos in turn. If the rpm changes by more than about seventy, this is an indication that one of the magnetos is on its way out, and the aircraft should be declared unserviceable until it is fixed. In the RAF we were taught to do this check shortly after start-up, to make sure that both magnetos were functioning, on the principle that it was better to have the engine stop gently from idling, rather than stop with a large bang from 1700 rpm—the kind of thing that could break the crankshaft. In this spirit of mutual animosity we went through the test, and he couldn’t find anything else wrong, so it turned out well in the end, and prepared me mentally for any other such stupid differences of opinion that might come my way in my new life in Canada.

63 Above: The first Ford Mustang, 1964. I was parked next to the first one in England, in the testing cells at the Motor Industry Research Association.

Below: Another great memory from my years in the UK This is “Babs”, the Leyland-Thomas Special, here restored by enthusiasts, in which Parry Thomas broke the Land Speed Record on Pendine Sands, Wales, in the 1920s. I saw it in an exhibition at the foot of Mount Snowdon. Chapter 6: Canadian Capers

aving run out of options in England, we decided to H emigrate to Canada. This was facilitated by my securing a job as Cryogenics Project Engineer with de Havilland Aircraft of Canada, Special Products and Applied Research Division (later SPAR Aerospace, later goodness knows what) following an interview with John D. MacNaughton. He obligingly raised all the questions on which I had been briefed by my friend Neil a week or two earlier. This got us off to a good start in the country of our choice, which had in fact been the goal of many enterprising Brits since the War. The job lasted less than two years, during which time we settled nicely into our new life, and I managed to pick up a commendation from the Department of Defence, for work on a diving computer for the Navy. It also led smoothly into the final phase of my working life, which was teaching engineering at the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto. Quite recently, I read in my Professional Engineering journal that J. D. MacNaughton had been awarded the Order of Canada, the highest civilian award the country has to offer. So, JD, wherever you are, I salute you—and thanks for the job. Once I was established at Ryerson, I joined ASHRAE (The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers), and proceeded to form a student chapter, for which they sent me a certificate of commendation. I put one of the best graduating class 65 Sweeping Up the Bits

students in charge of it, and assisted him in arranging visits to places like Carrier, Trane, York and so forth. Every year, ASHRAE sent me one of their guide and data books. There were four of these, covering various aspects, each being updated every four years. The interest level in the subject increased—which was, of course, one of the main objects—and some keen types obtained summer jobs at these firms, such that they could graduate on Friday afternoon and move into their waiting desk on Monday morning. The whole thing was going very well indeed, but it was too good to last. Along came the Ozone Layer thing. It must have been around this time that my outlook on environmentalists changed from irritation to hatred, which has been getting worse ever since, as I see them joining hands with the banks to wreck the world’s economy with their half- baked self-serving agendas. At first I couldn’t believe that some hack “professor” from some back-street California university could come up with such a blatant piece of codswallop. To even suggest that Freon vapour could rise into the stratosphere and react with the ozone particles to chew a great hole in the protective ozone layer, thus exposing us to death-dealing cosmic radiation, struck me as so far out as to be dismissed without a second’s thought by anyone who knew anything about it, and who gave a damn about the others anyway? I was soon to find out, because the whole world absorbed this junk-science gone stark raving mad. Even the barmaid at my favourite pub in the Virgin Islands took to lecturing me on how CFCs were destroying the earth, while she was pouring me a glass of bitter, which had been chilled by a Freon refrigerator under her counter. Watching with mounting horror the whole world starting to spout this drivel, I waited in vain for a reaction from ASHRAE. Surely they would put a stop to it. Having just read Michael Crichton's State of Fear—in my opinion one of the best treatises ever written about the adverse effect of junk science on the study of earth’s climatology—I was very interested in his theory that governments needed something to keep their people in a constant state of fear, in order to be able to govern with sufficient authority. When the Cold War 66 Canadian Capers

finally finished, this ozone layer thing must have been seen as a godsend. Crichton was actually writing about global warming, but don’t get me started on that or we’ll be here all evening. Let’s just say that the ozone thing was an elegant precursor, culminating as it did in the ludicrous Montreal Protocol, which outlawed Freon, thus setting back for decades the economies and possible advancements in medical care for developing countries which were just beginning to reap the benefits of refrigeration and air conditioning. When finally responses started to come in from ASHRAE, it was apparent that they were not interested in taking sides. All they did was to issue proposed regulations for the disposal of stocks of Freon, and suchlike meaningless crap. I wrote them a nasty letter saying that I was ashamed of them for not using their influence to oppose all this nonsense. I asked them the question that I have asked all the saints and sages ever since, without ever receiving an intelligent answer. How does Freon vapour, which is heavier than air, get up to the stratosphere to do its dirty work? Their response was to get one of their tame physicists to write me a three-page letter, lecturing me as if I were a first- year student, and invoking, among other things, Dalton’s Law of Partial Pressures. New readers may be surprised to learn that this got right up my nose. Seasoned ones are probably wondering how I have managed to contain myself thus far. Stick around—it gets better. I wrote him a real stinker, asking him who he thought he was talking to, telling him that Dalton’s Law had nothing to do with it, and so on. Unfortunately I don’t seem to have a copy of this, which is a shame, because it was one of my best efforts. I never heard from them again. One might say they got into a sulk, picked up their bat and ball and went home. Years later I found out the true story, which I think you will find interesting. One fine day I met Arthur, a preacher who was officiating at my son’s wedding. We became friends, a friendship which has endured over the years. Although we had different viewpoints on many topics, nevertheless we enjoyed our spirited discussions on pretty well anything, and still do. Around the time I am presently writing about, Arthur 67 Sweeping Up the Bits

invited me to a meeting to discuss the perennial hot-button issue of Evolutionism vs. Creationism. Since I believe in neither, it promised to be interesting.... All right then, at the back, you have a question? What DO I believe in? Might as well get that out of the way first, I suppose. Please be advised that I am as keen as the next man to find out what it’s all about. Unfortunately, due no doubt to some character defect, I am unable to accept either explanation currently on offer. I find Creationism totally incredible, mainly because it has to be “interpreted”, and I have to have faith. But faith in what? If any interpreting has to be done, I want it to be by me. And, I do not believe in the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection, which puts me at odds with all the other Christians, since these seem to be the foundation of the whole thing. As for evolution, when I see the self-serving Leakey family forever assembling yet another ancestor of Homo sapiens from a pig’s toenail so as to keep their grants coming in, I cannot help being a bit doubtful. Here are a couple of examples from my perspective: I don’t think the giraffe grew a long neck because it wanted to eat the leaves at the top of the tree. I think it eats the leaves at the top of the tree because it has a long neck. There once was a brainy baboon Who breathed down a lengthy bassoon, For said he, “It appears that in billions of years I will certainly hit on a tune.” The discussion was lively and well-informed. People had obviously been thinking about the points they intended to make, expressed themselves clearly, then waited for a response. Just the three things I think are necessary for a civilized discussion. I decided to join in, to see what the effect would be. Attracting the attention of the chap running the meeting, I said that the Theory of Evolution was against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and was therefore to me inadmissible. Rather to my surprise his eyes lit up, and he 68 Canadian Capers

asked if I could enlarge on that a little. I started by giving what is usually accepted as the basic statement of the Law, but as cheered up by Flanders and Swann’s rendering: Heat won’t go from a colder to a hotter, You can try it if you like, but you’d far better notta. This lightened the tone, so I pressed on with an alternative way of expressing it: “Left to themselves, things go from bad to worse.” This, I said, dashed the hopes of anyone sitting outside a scrap yard, certain that if he waited long enough, a hurricane would blow through and push a Boeing 747 out of the door. By then I certainly had their attention, so I rounded off with a quick mention of Paley’s watch and the human eye, as generally accepted examples of things which could not possibly have been created by blind chance, no matter how many billions of years you allow. The chap in charge thanked me, and asked if it would be possible to discuss this further with me after the meeting. Arthur agreed to stick around for a while; all the time he had a sly smile going, and I’m sure he had been secretly hoping that something like this would happen. It turned out that this chap had been an industrial chemist working for Du Pont, and since this company had invented Freon refrigerants I asked him for his views on the ozone layer business. I told him my thoughts on the matter, and said I was sure that something funny was going on, but I couldn’t figure out what it was, so he told me. It seems that their patents on Freon-12, the world’s most widely used refrigerant, were due to run out, which would have posed a threat to their market dominance, so they had rented the aforementioned American professor to provide a scientific theory proving that Freon molecules were reacting with ozone particles to strip the earth of its protective layer. This would then force everyone to go to new refrigerants which did not contain the deadly molecules, on which they had been working for some time. This made eminent good sense to me, and, as we have seen, it worked only too well. 69 Sweeping Up the Bits

All was not totally lost, however. Next time down in the Virgin Islands I asked my pal who runs the local refrigeration business how he was getting on with the new refrigerants. “What new refrigerants?” was his response. He went on to explain that Freon-12 was still being made in places like Brazil and Indonesia, and imported in unmarked cylinders. In any case, the Islands were too poor to be able to afford the large expense involved in obtaining all the new equipment which would be required to handle the change. A classic example of civilization continuing to progress, despite the best efforts of the environmentalists to wreck it. Around the time that Mazda was introducing its new Wankel-engined car with a great fanfare of trumpets, a local radio station called Ryerson to see if there was someone they could have a five-minute chat with about the new engine, which they seemed to think was on a par with the Second Coming. The chairman fingered me for the job, so I spent some time boning up on the state of the art. When the interviewer came through, as I expected he started straight away on the exhaust pollution aspect, noting that the press were reporting that the car had lower emissions than a comparable piston-engined vehicle. I told him there was no reason to suppose that a Wankel engine would be cleaner than its piston counterpart. They both operated on the four-stroke cycle, albeit with radically different mechanical arrangements. The point about the Wankel was that it was a very compact power unit, so there was much more room under the hood for anti-pollution devices. I went on to say that the main problem was likely to be with the vanes at the rotor tips, which in my opinion had not yet been developed to a sufficiently reliable stage. I don’t think this was the kind of thing he’d been looking for, so hard luck. I asked him when the interview was to be broadcast, and he promised to let me know, but he never did. I don’t suppose it ever was. It may be recalled that the introduction of the Wankel- engined Mazda was a far from auspicious occasion. There were frequent reports of the cars breaking down all over the 70 Canadian Capers

place. I don’t know how it finally turned out, and frankly, I don’t give a damn. On the teaching side, as I got to know the students better I found that several of them were involved in the motor racing scene, often acting as pit crews for the John Player Team Lotus when they were racing locally. Also around this time I met Jerry, just out from England, a friend of a friend, in the refrigeration business. We soon found that we had a common interest in motor racing, and after several discussions zeroed in on the idea of obtaining a cheap second-hand Austin-Healey Sprite, bringing it up to competition standard, and racing it at Mosport (our local track). This was mainly my idea, since the department chairman had already done a similar thing in England, and had many helpful suggestions. At the time he was building a Lotus Club 7 from a kit. As is always the case with such matters, the news of my project spread like wildfire through the student body, and before long I was approached by someone who had a buddy who wanted to sell his Sprite, which had given up the ghost, and get a motor bike. He wanted fifty dollars for it, which seemed about right. Some students helped me to tow it to my place, where it was installed in the barn in our back yard. Work had started when Jerry encountered a snag. At a nurses’ dance one night, he managed to put a Filipina nurse in the family way, so, being an Englishman, he “did the decent thing” and married her. In due course the kid arrived, and inevitably became a regular visitor, since the wife had to keep on working. One day we were doing something to the engine when the kid crawled out of its basket, made for the tray where we had all the valves, collets, springs and whatnot lined up in order, and turned it upside down, scattering the contents all over the barn floor. So—the fact had to be faced that the project was no longer a practical proposition. Nice try, chaps.

71 Sweeping Up the Bits

Tysoe vs. The Administration: Below is a letter I sent to my department chairman at Ryerson, after having been forced, against my violent protests, to allow someone from outside to fit an invention to my pet Lotus engine, which burnt it out.

To: Mr. S. Molder March 7th, 1977 From: J. C. Tysoe

The Use and Abuse of Thermo Lab Equipment

During a recent inspection, it was found that the exhaust valves on the Lotus engine were burnt out. This can only be the result of the engine being operated at air/fuel ratios as high as 18/1 during last year's development running on the intake manifold heat exchanger proposal. If asked, I could have volunteered, without charge, the information that lean mixtures burn out exhaust valves. My youngest daughter is also aware of this fact. Thus, the Lotus engine is the second victim of amateur tinkering with instructional equipment, the first being the gas turbine, which required a lot of work after suffering a fourth-year project. The purpose of this note is to point out that equipment in the Thermo lab is designed for instructing students on basic principles, not as a convenience for a steady stream of mad inventors to try out their half-baked ideas. Admittedly the Lotus engine rig, embodying as it does the latest state of the art in engine testing, is a tempting thing to flog around the industry. It is, however, a difficult thing to keep serviceable, and needs handling with respect by experienced, competent people. If it is, in fact, to be used for other than instructional purposes, I suggest it be removed in toto and placed in some remote spot so that, when it finally blows up, it won't kill me or my students. Meanwhile, we would have to be provided with the standard, dreary Ford side valve engine rig found in heat engines labs the world over. Personally, I would regard this as a poor reward for a lot of effort, but of course, as I have been repeatedly reminded, it is not my engine. As long as it stays in the Thermo lab, however, I must insist that it is used only for instructional purposes.

72 Canadian Capers

One day at Ryerson, a memo flew out of The Tower informing us that a Gender Parity Department had been set up, instructing us to, in future, use gender-neutral words in our communications. This, you may be surprised to hear, was like waving a red cape in front of a bull. So I wrote the following memo to “The Forum”, the administration’s newsletter, with copies to all my colleagues in the Engineering Department:

To: Forum From: John Tysoe For the attention of the MANAGER OF MANUSCRIPTS GENDER PARITY. MAN! WHAT A MANGLED MANIFESTO! STILL, MANNERS MAKETH MAN, AND I MANAGED TO MANIPULATE MY MANIFOLD MANNERISMS AS MANFULLY AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE TO ELIMANATE ANY EMANATION OF MALE- DOMANATED MANUSCRIPTS ON A PERMANENT BASIS, AND THUS SATISFY THE MANIA FOR MANY MANDATES IN THE MANAGEMENT. Merry Christmas, chaps.

73 Chapter 7: Tales of the BVI

uring the last few years of my tenure at Ryerson, I took advantage of their offer to put me on a “half D pay for half workload” basis, which meant that we could spend the winters on our boat in the British Virgin Islands. Down there we lived on the barter system. I fixed people’s refrigeration systems and taught a course at the local community college, while Inge taught computing skills. In return, things like dockage charges were waived, and with rum at three dollars a bottle, everything worked out well. And Ryerson got what they wanted, which was to keep me out of the way as much as possible; my humble pass degree was lowering the tone of the place, just when they were fighting to obtain university status. It was during such a winter sojourn that I had a ringside seat for one of the most bizarre episodes in the history of boat chartering. A firm called 3 Boys made their money by chartering houseboats on the inland waterways of Canada. Some of my Canadian readers may remember them. One day they announced that they had ordered a fleet of houseboats specially to equip a company they were starting in the BVI. These were being built in Vancouver, and would be transported to a suitable embarkation point on the longest train in the history of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This duly happened, and I was tied up in Nanny Cay harbour when they arrived, on the decks of some merchant ships, and were lowered into the water at the dock the company had rented. They made a most unlikely sight, rather like a row of houses that had accidentally slipped into the sea. 74 Tales of the BVI

Two days later, the first slipped its moorings and made for the open sea. To get out of Nanny Cay, you had to pass through the main harbour, where my boat was tied up, then execute a 180-degree dogleg into the buoyed channel, and so away. It was immediately obvious that there was a problem. As it made its way through the main harbour, the houseboat bumped into several of the moored yachts. When it reached the Inge II it gave my transom boarding ladder a sideswipe, wrecking it beyond repair. To get round the dogleg it bounced off more boats, and by the time it reached the channel it must have done several thousands of dollars worth of damage. There was no directional stability at all, and the boat was out of control. The harbourmaster wouldn’t let it back in until three power boats arrived to nurse it to its dock. In an attempt to fix the problem, it was decided to have a steel keel welded to the underside of the hull, and to fit a much-enlarged rudder. This task was given to Jack Pearce, a retired Royal Navy petty officer, who operated a floating machine shop, and was always available for everything from fixing a broken propeller shaft out at sea to fabricating something for your boat at the dockside. I was glad to see him get the job—he must have made enough dough to retire. I had previously had a run-in with Jack about a stainless steel water tank which I had asked him to make and install. When I returned the following year he hadn’t even started it. I know you won’t believe this, but I lost my temper with him. He waited until I had run out of steam, then said, “Look, mate—I was a Petty Officer in the Navy, and nothing you say to me—NOTHING—will make the slightest difference.” Two days later the job was done. I paid him on the spot, apologized, bought him a beer, and we finished up the best of friends. A few years later I heard that he had retired and gone to live in Puerto Rico, up in the mountains near a place called Arecibo, where they have that huge radio telescope. The tank itself was a long-overdue replacement for the existing water system, which consisted of three bag tanks connected by an intricate network of plastic pipes and shutoff valves. I had long forgotten the thought processes behind such a Rube Goldberg arrangement, which had always been a pain in the butt. Jack’s single tank occupied the whole volume 75 Sweeping Up the Bits

of the main bilge compartment, where had once resided the gasoline engine fitted to earlier models of the H-38, it could hold as much water as the three bag tanks, was much easier to keep clean, and could be removed bodily in about five minutes, so that the insurance examiner could inspect the keel bolts during his annual nitpicking expedition. Talking about that, one of the proudest moments of my engineering career was when this chap couldn’t find a single thing wrong. Even the emergency flares were up-to-date. The head honcho of the insurance company wrote me a letter of congratulation, which I still have, saying he couldn't recall this ever happening before. But I seem to be digressing, so...back to 3 Boys: In due course all the houseboats were fitted out with the new keels and rudders, so they could at least get in and out without doing any more damage, and operations began. However, the idea never caught on, and the reason was not hard to find. They were about as seaworthy as a coal barge in a hurricane. It would be difficult to imagine a less suitable craft for the job. I think they were lucky not to have any disasters. Inevitably, one day the entire management vanished into thin air, leaving behind thousands in unpaid dockage fees and employee wages and social security benefit payments, and taking all the charterers’ deposits and anything else that wasn’t screwed to the floor. This kind of thing has happened several times before in the BVI. The government seized the houseboats and chained them all up, and that was the last I saw of them. I imagine that, finally, they would have been towed out to some remote spot and sunk, to form the basis for a new coral reef. Sic Transit Gloria 3-Boys! This might be a good spot at which to mention my last encounter with ASHRAE. As previously related, I had a big bust-up with them over the ozone layer thing, but while this was going on I was still a member of the local chapter in Mississauga, and attended their monthly meetings at a nearby hotel. It was not a particularly inspiring outfit, and I soon came to realize that I would get nowhere by raising the ozone issue. For the most part I just sat there in bored silence, toying with the bland food and trying to tune out the buzz of 76 Tales of the BVI

the local businessmen yammering on about their last holiday in the Maldives or whatever. The situation was enlivened from time to time by chats with the chairman, an amiable fellow who appreciated good conversation as much as I do. He was very interested to learn of my wintering in the BVI, and wondered whether I would be interested in assisting him with a research project. He had been asked to asses the thermodynamic performance of a thing called a thermo-electric cooler, and thought it would be a prime wheeze for me to take it and use it in the tropics when next I was down there. With the usual apologies to readers who know all about this stuff, perhaps a word or two of explanation would be appropriate here. In the technology of temperature measurement, one approach is the thermocouple. This utilizes the so-called Seebeck Effect. If two dissimilar wires are joined at the ends, one end is kept at a constant temperature and the other is subjected to a variable temperature. An electrical circuit is generated, the strength of which can be measured by a suitable instrument. This can be calibrated directly in degrees. The reverse of the Seebeck Effect is the Peltier Effect. If a voltage is applied across the two junctions, and one end is heated up, the other will cool down. Some genius thought up the idea of putting the cold junction inside an insulated box, thus creating an electric cooler. Brilliant, yes? Well, it works fine in the lab, when you’re dealing with micro-amp currents and temperature differences of a degree or two. Whether it would be able to keep a box of beer cool in the Caribbean remained to be seen. I took the thing down, and it became obvious after a few days that it was completely useless. I tried everything I could think of. I took temperature distribution measurements in case it was something to do with air circulation. I pre-cooled it by filling it with ice cubes, then timed the rate of warm-up, with and without the machine switched on. Nothing. In the end I was so fed up with it that I pitched it over the side. As I watched it disappear into the depths, it occurred to me that the thing didn’t even belong to me; I was supposed to be taking part in a research project. Oh, well—I wouldn’t be 77 Sweeping Up the Bits

seeing them again, so what the hell. As a footnote, I was flabbergasted to see, quite recently, a thermo-electric cooler advertised in someone’s catalogue. As P. T. Barnum once remarked, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” When we became firmly established in Tortola, the usual procedure upon arriving for the winter season was to spend the first day checking out the boat, stocking up with food, drinks, ice and so forth, then sailing round to Trellis Bay, at the northern end of the island, anchoring, and enjoying a few months of il dolce vita. This particular year, however, the boat threw a curve at me which gave me a hard time for a few days—not the sort of thing we went down for. Every day or two we ran the engine for about twenty minutes, to keep the batteries charged. This particular year, however, we ran into trouble shortly after arriving. Less than three minutes after starting, the engine coolant temperature gauge became firmly pegged in the red, and I had to shut down very quickly. Donning my face mask and grabbing a screwdriver, I slipped over the side to clear out the seawater intake slots (see diagram), but there were no signs of any obstruction. Puzzled, I then unscrewed the seacock on top of the drive unit. There was a small spurt of water, which stopped almost immediately. I poked a long piece of thin wire down the hole, which resulted in another short spurt of seawater. Readers with a fair amount of motoring experience will probably recognize what was happening. A small piece of rust detaches itself from the side of the fuel tank, and drifts slowly towards the fuel outlet connection. When it gets there, it sits on top of the hole, whereupon the engine stops. There are three things you can do. One is to disconnect the carburettor inlet pipe and blow down it, which will probably get you a few more miles. Another is to take the tank out and have it steam-cleaned. The third is to buy a new tank. In the present case, there was no obvious explanation, because the seawater inlet slots were incapable of passing anything big enough to clog the seacock. I was just about resigned to sailing back to base, requesting a tow to the 78 Tales of the BVI

boatyard, hauling out and stripping the whole damned cooling system, when Inge poured me a drink and persuaded me to have one more try. It seemed I had one more shot in the locker, which your average motorist doesn’t have. At the time, I was still able to go around fixing refrigeration systems, so I always had a 20- pound tank of Freon-12. I connected this to the seacock outlet and blew a great blast of vapour at 80 pounds per square inch into it. There was a lot of screeching, hissing, bubbling and whatnot—the water at the stern of the Inge II boiled up in a frenzy as the vapour shot out of the intake slots in high-speed jets, and to hell with the ozone layer. I kept this up until frost formed on the tank, waited until the tumult had died down, and had a close look at the seacock outlet. A tiny wisp of something had appeared. I got hold of it with the pliers and started to pull. Gradually a fish’s fin emerged, and I could see a much-battered body following. “It’s a bloody fish!” I screamed. Pausing for reflection, it seemed quite possible that, if I kept on tugging, the thing might tear in half, leaving half in there. At this point Inge took over. Half an hour later she called me to see the mangled remains of a fish about the size of a sardine. “A perfect breech birth,” she announced. “I haven’t lost my touch.”

Diagram of the seawater intake slots I still couldn't help wondering how it had got in there in the first place, and the only thing I could think of was that it had been sucked in while still an egg, and grown up in there. This then gave rise to the second question—were there any more in there? However, it seemed most unlikely that any 79 Sweeping Up the Bits

living thing could have survived that blast of Freon, and we were certainly never troubled by such an occurrence again. This was not, however, to be the end of our engine problems. Another time, Margaret came down with her son Christopher and her husband, for a visit which was enjoyed by all. They had travelled on a direct flight from Toronto to St. Thomas in the U. S. Virgin Islands, so the journey had to be completed on the ferry from St. Thomas to Tortola, in the BVI. On the day of their return, it had been agreed that we would sail them to the ferry terminal. We set off nice and early. There was a strong wind blowing straight into Trellis Bay, and the sea was more frisky than I had seen it for some time. All this meant to me was that we were to be treated to a spanking downwind sail, to round off the visit. We were halfway out of Trellis Bay when I sensed that all was not as it should be. I looked around me, and realized that, although we had been motoring for ten minutes, we had made hardly any progress. Heck, I hadn’t thought the wind was as strong as that. I opened the throttle fully; it did nothing to advance our progress, and also I started to smell burning. I recognized that smell right enough, as of clutch linings burning out. Have to move fast now, baby. I went back into the bay, anchored, loaded our visitors into the dinghy and took them right to the western extremity of the bay, about five minutes’ walk from the airport. There was the usual line of taxis, so I made for one I recognized as having been friendly before, gave him a handsome tip, and asked him to be sure to get my guests to the ferry terminal in time to catch the...whenever it was. Their problems were over. Mine were just beginning. This time I was most definitely going to sail back to base, grab a tow to the boatyard, and haul out. What a drag. We managed to accomplish this the same day. Then, at last, a piece of luck came our way. Parts and Power Ltd., the local engine shop, had acquired a new man called Wycliff to run the diesel section. I never found out whether Wycliff was his first or last name, but boy! did he ever know his diesels. 80 Tales of the BVI

Next morning the engine was out of the boat, the transmission was lying in pieces on his workbench, and he was negotiating with someone on the phone about the urgent delivery of a Volvo Saildrive clutch assembly, part number so-and-so. By the weekend it was all done. Not only that, but the whole engine had been cleaned and re-sprayed Volvo green, and he had given me a new set of engine mounting pads (I’ll go into that next). We had lost less than a week of our precious holiday, and I was a very happy camper. Talking about engine mountings, when we were first commissioning the boat at Port Credit, the engine quit on me just after I had cast off to go for a chug around the harbour. Fortunately, my friend on the dock managed to throw me a line and pull me back in, thus preventing any close encounters of the worst kind, but we then spent one of the most miserable days of my life—tracking down the air bubbles which had obviously found their way into the fuel system, and were causing the engine to stop as they reached the injectors. To do this, we had to crack every joint in the system in turn, then pressurize the fuel with the injector jerk pump manual lever, making sure that only a fuel spray emerged. At the end of the day, everything in the engine compartment was saturated with diesel fuel, including us, and the engine mounting blocks. The engine sat on four of these, which were made from a rubberized compound. Unbeknown to us, this soaking in diesel fuel had started a softening process in the rubber, although you would have thought...oh, well, never mind. The effect of this was first felt along the Erie Barge Canal, en route to the river Hudson, New York and Bermuda. We found ourselves limited to 1500 rpm; above this a loud banging would start at the back. There was nothing we could do about it, so we had to live with it until the boat reached the BVI. When everyone was settled in, I went out with Vic, one of the intrepid crew, round the corner to a secluded spot called Savannah Bay. There, we anchored in the crystal clear water with about a foot of lovely silver sand under our keel, and went over the side to investigate. It didn’t take long. 81 Sweeping Up the Bits

The propeller was a two-blader, and both blade tips were rolled back, rather reminiscent of those pictures of shot- down Me 109s in the Battle of Britain, which had made belly landings in cornfields and had the prop blades bent backwards. Just forward of the propeller, the hull showed a series of grooves. Experimentally, I grasped the saildrive leg and pulled. I could move it half an inch without really trying. Okay—so the engine mounting had gone soft. Well—that could be attended to in due course. For now, we went down again with hacksaws and sawed an inch off each blade tip. I still have my tip, where it adorns a knot board, and I think Vic still has his. Good job it wasn’t one of those bronze propellers! Along the shore of Trellis Bay, our winter anchorage, were several small businesses, including our favourite beach bar, de Loose Mongoose, and Flukes, the art studio of Roger and Ruth Ellis (“If it looks good, it’s a Fluke”). We soon became good friends with the Ellises. They made a reasonably good living, especially at the height of the tourist season, visitors being attracted to their original, graphic and colourful posters, maps, pictures and so on. One day, having started to find out a bit about me, Roger cautiously approached the subject of refrigeration. No sense denying it, so he told me about a do-it-yourself kit for a refrigeration system said to be suitable for a yacht his size, which he had bought, but had not even started yet, because he couldn't understand a word of the instructions. Would I be interested in installing it for him? Not exactly my favourite way of spending a day in the tropics, but I agreed to give it a try. He sure as heck wouldn't get any help from anyone else down here. Since I stopped teaching at the community college, nobody had taken up the course, and my friend Dick Morris, who ran the local refrigeration supply company, had already told me that he wouldn’t touch marine refrigeration systems with a ten-foot barge pole, because they were badly designed, badly engineered, and underdeveloped. Ad so, one fine day, I found myself sitting in the cockpit of Roger’s boat, surrounded by cardboard boxes, with Inge 82 Tales of the BVI

providing welcome, if sometimes distracting, assistance. She kept me supplied with rum-and-ginger, unpacked the boxes, laid out the instruction sheets in page order, and generally made the job go with a swing. It looked straightforward enough at first glance. All the components, connecting pipes and so on were pre-charged with Freon, and oil where necessary. You just screwed then all together and pressed the start button. Piece of cake. I could see a few problems in the case of someone who knew nothing about refrigeration. First, he would have difficulty with some of the terminology involved. In fact, as I read through the instruction sheets, I came to the conclusion that they were designed as a guide for a qualified serviceman. Do it yourself—ha! There was also the danger than anyone deciding to go ahead anyway, while not appreciating the vital importance of a completely leak-proof system, and the small total amount of charge, could easily lose enough to incapacitate the system, either by fumbling around with the connections, or not tightening them enough. In any case, a new system should always have a proper leak test prior to starting up. This is NOT best done with soapy water. Freon being a standard leak-search fluid in many industrial applications, it will outwit most primitive methods, and requires a sophisticated instrument capable of picking up microscopic amounts. I had such an instrument in my kit, which, together with my Freon cylinder, made me fairly confident of success, despite not having done anything like this before. Also, I was developing an insight into why pleasure-boat refrigeration systems had acquired such a negative image. By about the middle of the afternoon I was finished, and by the time the owners returned for the evening, the cold cabinet was getting quite chilly, and the water in the ice tray was congealing nicely. They were highly delighted, and after the question of payment had been dismissed by me, I hit the jackpot when he poured me a pint of Ruddles Rutland Bitter. It was certainly one of the best pints I had ever tasted, and I asked him about it. He ordered it by the case, he said, from a small brewery in the County of Rutland, itself the smallest county in England. 83 Sweeping Up the Bits

Now, I knew that Britain had just undergone one of those daft, and as far as I could see, completely unnecessary, government reorganizations in which some counties had their names changed, while others, such as Rutland, were thought to be too small and insignificant to bother with, so they were just absorbed into the next county. Roger told me that this did not sit well with the citizens, who simply ignored it, and carried on using their existing addresses, until the whole of the revamped communications system was on the verge of collapse. At this point they screwed some kind of concession out of the government, allowing them to use their traditional addresses. I liked that story. Mention of Dick Morris above, made me think of the time when a grandiose administration building was erected on the waterfront by order of the government, and Dick was called in as a consultant to assess the design of the air conditioning system. He put in such an adverse report that they threw him off the job, and went ahead with it anyway. A year or two after it opened, the staff started to complain about the atmosphere inside the building, and the rate of absenteeism increased sharply. I mentioned to Dick that the symptoms reminded me of an episode of Legionnaires’ Disease which was front-page news in the States a few years previously, and was attributed to mould growth in the area of the cooling towers of the air conditioning system. Dick agreed with me. He had a friend who was an expert in tropical diseases, and who somehow managed to get onto the roof. Knowing exactly what he was looking for, this chap soon collected a rich harvest of moulds from the timbers supporting the cooling towers, analysed them, and found some pretty deadly stuff. Meanwhile, the press had got wind of the affair, and Dick leaked the result of his findings to an investigative reporter, so that the government, which had been denying that a problem existed, had to take action. The last thing I heard, they were in the process of engaging an American firm to strip out the whole system and replace it, at a truly enormous cost. I lost touch with the whole business after that, but was forcibly reminded of it a couple of weeks ago, when the BVI Beacon, the local paper to which I still subscribe, arrived, 84 Tales of the BVI

bearing on its front page a story about problems at the administration building. Staff were refusing to enter, many had become ill, complaints were being received in increasing numbers by the government and the press...I couldn’t believe my eyes! What on earth had they been doing for the last ten years? Rhetorical question, really. Anyway, they are up to the neck in it, now, to the tune of several millions of dollars. I shall follow the ensuing happenings with a detached cynicism. One episode of BVI history firmly enshrined in my memory is that of the Beef Island bridge. Beef Island is essentially part of Tortola, but separated from the main island by a few hundred yards of water. It was inconvenient for frequent commuters, who had to take a small boat across, but not important enough to warrant a bridge. Not, that is, until Alan Cobham, surveying the Territory to determine the best site for an airport, concluded that Beef Island was the only area having suitable terrain. This led to the construction of the Queen Elizabeth II bridge, which was ceremonially opened by Her Majesty in the early fifties. It was a single track bridge, with two spans which could be raised to allow the passage of sailboats. In the centre of the span was placed an eight by four sheet of plywood, and the rule of the road was that, for two cars coming in opposite directions, the one which got to the plywood first had right of way. A fifty-cent toll was charged, and was collected by an old age pensioner sitting in a small hut, holding out a half coconut shell on the end of a long pole. My favourite story about this bridge concerns the annual Round Tortola Race, in which yachts set out from a given start line and sail right around the island. Looking at the map, it can be seen that if, instead of going right round Beef Island, you cut through the channel, you can emerge from the other side

85 Sweeping Up the Bits

ahead of the rest of the field, and enjoy a nice relaxing sail to an easy win. This, of course, depends upon getting the bridge open. Legend has it that Dr. Robin Tattersall, a popular surgeon and a keen sailor, one year made an arrangement with the chap in charge of the bridge to open it as he was approaching, which was duly done, and he won the race. The problem, so the story goes, was that they couldn’t get the bridge back down, and had to send for a firm of engineers to force the issue, after which it was never operated again. So, what started as a harmless Saturday afternoon prank turned into a major row, with investigations and so forth, but since nobody could be found to testify as to what actually happened, it died down. All I know for certain is that it is still being discussed in bars and yacht clubs. My best friend down there assured me the whole thing was a load of codswallop, but I incline to the view of that American newspaper tycoon—Hearst, was it?—who said, “When truth interferes with legend, print the legend.” So—take it or leave it. Inevitably, it became apparent that a proper two-lane bridge was required, to cope with the increasing traffic to and from the airport. It was quite out of the question to have any kind of opening mechanism, so the bridge would have to be capable of passing any foreseeable boating traffic. It would be built alongside the existing QE II bridge, which would then be dismantled and re-erected as a monument at some appropriate place. A contract was placed with an American construction company which, with typical Yankee zeal, got stuck into the job. Pontoons appeared, laden with cranes, earth-moving equipment, great stacks of material and so forth. Piles were driven on both banks. Everything seemed to be going well. At the time, I was staying with Emmett and Ruth, the aforementioned best friends, whose house was right next to the bridge. Nobody had the faintest idea what the new bridge would look like, so one evening, having distilled a bit of sense from the vast amount of wild rumours that were circulating, I drew a sketch of what I thought it would look like. Next day Emmett took me to the airport, introduced me to an Australian friend who was the project engineer for 86 Tales of the BVI

airport development, and had me show him my sketch. He was, of course, kept informed of the progress of the bridge, and had no problem with showing me their drawing of the complete structure. I have to say it resembled my sketch quite closely! After a promising start, things began to go wrong. Work was stopped, most probably due to a contract dispute, this being the usual cause of such happenings. The months dragged by, and finally the contractor lost his patience, towed all his equipment away to a more viable project, and sued the government for two million dollars, citing lost revenue due to his idle equipment. After a long, bitter and totally unnecessary struggle, the government paid up, work recommenced, eventually the bridge was finished, and very nice it looked. I attended the opening ceremony, and was treated to the spectacle of the Chief Minister and the head of the construction firm being nice to each other. But the saga was not yet over. The bridge could not be used, because the access road had not been built. This was because nobody had bothered to check who owned the land on which it would be situated. The owner, realizing he had them by the—er—throat, screwed them right royally, and once again the government was forced to back down and pay up. An essential preliminary was to blast away the side of a hill, which was duly done, but no attempt was made to provide a retaining wall for the resulting cliffside. Emmett told me later that it had rained for a week; a large boulder had detached itself from the top of the cut and rolled down the hill, coming to rest about six feet away from his house. And so the new bridge was opened for traffic. Contrary to the government’s original undertaking to dismantle the old QE II bridge and re-erect it somewhere as a historic monument, it was just towed away and sunk in the middle of the channel. Recently I received a letter from the editor of the BVI Beacon asking if I, as a valued contributor (!) would care to write a piece for their forthcoming 25th anniversary issue. This is what I sent: 87 Sweeping Up the Bits

My first visit to the BVI was in 1978, the last in 2004, so I can claim to have been an observer of the changes that have occurred during the life of the Beacon. If I were to sum this up in one paragraph, it would be to note that, when I first arrived, the prosperity of the BVI was due to the charterboat industry, and when I left for the last time the major activity was offshore financial operations. Now, the administration seems to be worried that the world's financial experts, desperate to get us out of a worldwide meltdown, have placed the Territory on a “grey list”. What on earth do they expect when your pages contain columns of companies with weird names declaring “voluntary liquidation”? In my opinion, the government would be wise to review its policy and get back to its original foundations, based upon nature's gift of the world's finest sailboat cruising waters. I was at the opening of the Road Reef Marina back in the 1980s, when Ralph O'Neal stated that the reason for giving expatriates a hard time with work permits, trade licences and so forth, was to give the locals an advantage. If only this mindset could be overcome I am sure that everyone would benefit. The BVI is home to many expatriates who are experts in all sorts of skills—running companies, infrastructure projects, civil aviation, engineering, you name it—who would be only too willing to help the progress of their chosen country, but on a level playing field. I had one try, running for two years a refrigeration course at the then new Community College, but received such brusque treatment that I abandoned it. Any criticisms I make are intended to be constructive attempts to prevent a country I love from making the 88 Tales of the BVI

same mistakes I have seen all too often in other places. On this basis, I would like to put forward some suggestions regarding the next 25 years. In my opinion, the biggest problem facing the BVI is traffic. I have previously written pointing out that this is due to there being too many vehicles. I have referred to how Bermuda has avoided falling into this trap by limiting the total number of vehicles allowed on the island. Public transport is urgently required. And please, you either have roundabouts OR traffic lights! The worst thing to have happened, in my view, is the advent of cruise ships. I cannot imagine a less suitable destination for these. I was there when the decision was made, and my impression was that the whole population was against the idea. The golf course/five star hotel would, I think, be a similar disaster, and my fondest hope is that it will sink without trace. The BVI is a brutal place to get to. One of the main reasons that airlines hesitate to serve the Territory is, and always has been, the lack of proper refuelling facilities at the airport. And the recent proposals for modifying the Virgin Gorda airport to meet international standards are beyond belief. Air BVI pilots accomplished the dreaded crosswind landings with consummate grace and skill in their Islander aircraft. It would be helpful to give the runway a proper tarmac surface, to discourage the management from closing it down for resurfacing halfway through the Christmas holiday period. In my view, the government should take over the ferry services, since the owners, it seems to me, apparently can do as they like, and do not provide the best service to the public. Wishing you all the best for the future. 89 Sweeping Up the Bits

When the time came that we were able to spend the whole winter down in the BVI, I was able to find out a lot more about the place. One day in the library I discovered the autobiography of Sir Alan Cobham, entitled A Time to Fly. Wondering what on earth it was doing there, I took it back to the boat and became completely engrossed. I knew about him in England, having had dealings with his company, Flight Refuelling Ltd., but never expected to pick up his trail again in the BVI. The last part of the book is devoted to his activities there, and set me off on a fascinating investigation. He describes how he was retained by the governor to advise on the location and design of an airport, the results of his work being still in use. He started the first ferry service between Tortola and St. Thomas, the main island of the neighbouring U.S. Virgin Islands. He started a small business making and selling fizzy drinks. He obtained an import licence for Land Rovers—a vehicle eminently suitable for the terrain. This answered a question which had been puzzling me for some time, namely how to account for the large number of clapped-out Land Rovers to be found all over the island. You have to bear in mind that, at the time of which I am speaking, most of the Islanders were riding around on donkeys, and there were hardly any roads. The West Indian’s approach to cars, and indeed most other forms of engineering, was, and still is, to use it until it needs some work doing to keep it going, then abandon it and get something else. This outlook was particularly apparent in the case of aircraft. When we first started to travel to the BVI on a regular basis, I was delighted to find that the last leg of the journey, from Puerto Rico to Tortola, was done in a Dakota, burnished silver, with Air BVI emblazoned along the fuselage in bold blue letters, and the BVI ensign painted on the rudder. This (to me) highly desirable state of affairs lasted several years, until one day the Dakotas disappeared, being replaced by Avro 748s, painted in a revolting pattern of greens and browns. I recalled that Avro had decided to go in for a Dakota replacement at the time when I was working there on the Blue Steel stand-off missile, but I never expected to see it in 90 Tales of the BVI

the Caribbean. It was a highly competitive market, and sales were sluggish at first, so Avro, with their various military connections, managed to sell it to RAF Transport Command under the name Andover, by installing a rear loading ramp suitable for loading vehicles, dropping paratroops and so forth. This, plus a South American sales tour, made the project commercially viable. Bob and Dianne Pope (introduced in Nuts and Bolts) were our first visitors to sample the new aircraft, which was flown by the first woman pilot to be employed by the airline. Bob said he had got along famously with her, but then I would have expected nothing less. Nevertheless, the whole Air BVI business was beginning to puzzle me, because none of it made sense. Why, for instance, would anyone get rid of a fleet of Dakotas with many more years of useful life left in them, particularly in favour of such a relatively expensive machine as the “Big Avro”? However, everything was shortly to be revealed. At the start of our boat project, the idea had been to get it down to Virgin Gorda, the second largest island in the BVI group, where the Caribbean headquarters of the North- South Yacht Corporation was situated. This was the firm from which the boat kit had been purchased, on the understanding that they would charter it out for us until we were ready to live aboard. Ha! Oh, well, that's another story. The point at present is that Virgin Gorda airport consists of a 2,000-foot strip of crushed coral laid along the only straight bit of shore on the island. Thus the wind is always either on-shore or off-shore, so that every takeoff and landing is crosswind. The Dakota got us as far as Tortola, and the final five-minute leg was done in a nine-seat Britten-Norman Islander. I remember seeing the first public showing of this aircraft at a Farnborough show, and if ever an aeroplane fulfilled its design requirements to perfection, this was it. Not until events caused us to move to Tortola did we get to know one of the Islander pilots, and my curiosity about the strange goings-on at Air BVI was satisfied. This chap, whom everyone referred to as Captain Cave, was a soft- 91 Sweeping Up the Bits

spoken, laid-back Canadian who would bring his guitar into de Loose Mongoose, our beach bar in Trellis Bay, in the evenings. He sang sea shanties, airmen’s songs, pop favourites—anything to match the mood. He could do this because night operations were not allowed from Virgin Gorda. We became friendly, and I made it known that I was a pilot, hoping that he might like to talk a bit of shop. He told me that the Dakotas had reached their 5,000 hour overhaul limit, at which point they have to be stripped down and inspected in order for their registration to continue. Since there were no local people capable of doing this, Air BVI had just got rid of them, and chartered a replacement fleet of Avro 748s from Air Quebec. Remember what I said earlier about Land Rovers? The tragedy of the BVI is that many of its expat citizens are good at this sort of thing, and would be only too willing to help, but are pigmentally challenged (i.e. white), and are not given the chance. This is supposedly to prevent them from taking jobs away from the locals, whereas all the locals want to do is mindless, menial jobs—cleaning boats in the boatyard—until they have made enough to pay for their habit, then go and play in some rap group in the evening. It seems to me that, unless they can get rid of their collective chip on the shoulder about slavery, this state of affairs will continue indefinitely. Regarding the refuelling business, Cave told me about the man who owned the only piece of land suitable for a tank farm, and had a sweetheart deal with American Airlines to supply them with fuel from a tanker truck. Once we had gotten into a firm winter routine in Trellis Bay, we began to get the feel of the place, and one thing we noticed was that many charter boats anchored overnight and then left the next morning, having spent the evening at The Last Resort. It seemed a shame that they should spend so little time in the vibrant community along the shore of the bay that was waiting to be explored. We also noticed a dinghy chugging around the fleet, driven by a girl who was selling cheap gimcrack jewellery, 92 Tales of the BVI

and this gave us an idea. The Flukes produced a nice little map of the shore and the places along it, and we thought it might be a good idea to spread these round the fleet. They agreed, so we acquired a stack of these and motored around the fleet, handing them out and chatting about the various places to anyone interested. The reaction was interesting. As soon as they found we were not selling something, they would usually invite us aboard for a drink. One evening we were enjoying a rum-and-ginger aboard a charterboat when the girl flogging the jewellery motored up to the other side. When she saw us she was thunderstruck. “What are YOU doing here???” “Just trying to help, dear. Look—your place is on here.” The crew were obviously delighted to hear what we had to say. Stuff like this doesn’t get mentioned in charterboat briefing rooms. “It’s Tuesday, so this must be Trellis Bay. Tomorrow you will be in North Sound....” I think we gave quite a few people a new slant on the whole business, and besides it was fun, and we met a lot of nice people. One time, Roger at the Flukes told me that some customers came in saying they had been directed there by “that charming Canadian couple”. They liked everything they saw, spent a lot of money, and said that, not only were they coming back next year, but would tell their friends about it. Makes you feel good, a thing like that.

Trying out the sailing rig I built for our first dinghy. 93 Above: Inge shows off a knotboard, one of her many hobbies.

Below: Outside de Loose Mongoose The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, (in)famous author of the controversial Baby Boomers' bible, Baby and Child Care, here with the new generation at a party in the BVI, and below as our sometime neighbour aboard his boat Carapace. Sweeping Up the Bits

One day the whole area was abuzz with rumour. Some very important personage was on the way. Princess Di, having just done her infamous TV interview with that wog, as the last step in her campaign to bring down the British monarchy, had disappeared to destinations unknown. Her entourage sprinkled fairy dust all around, to make the paparazzi believe she was a guest of Richard Branson, who had bought Necker Island, just north of us, and was known to use it for entertaining the world’s movers and shakers. This worked quite well for the media, but among us locals the bush telegraph spread the rumour that she was actually coming to Tortola. Anyway, lookouts were posted all around the government dock, which had been cleared of everything. The jetty was stiff with security guards, and I could see some of the government top brass pacing nervously to and fro. Some had even managed to find a tie. I got as close to the government dock as I dared, skulking behind a bush with my telephoto lens ready to go. In due course the patrol vessel St. Ursula, the pride of the BVI fleet, could be seen rounding the headland into the bay. At that precise moment a trimaran flying the French flag swept round the other entrance and made straight for the government dock, its deck lined with gaily-dressed French sailors, each holding a mooring line. The place went ape! The security goons, police and various officials jumped up and down making shoo-ing gestures, and a jeep loaded with police skidded on to the dock. A police speedboat roared up to the astonished Frenchman and made fast towing lines, with which they proceeded to tow the offending ship out to sea, probably to torpedo it and sink it in deep water. Well, at least I never heard what happened to them, but I’m certain they never again booked a holiday in the BVI. Just in time the dock was restored to order. St. Ursula tied up, a hastily assembled band struck up the national anthem, and who should disembark but Princess Diana herself, complete with two kids and the usual bunch of ladies-in- waiting, and, of course, a pile of suitcases. After the official welcome, she got into a waiting car and was swept away. 96 Tales of the BVI

Well, good for her, I thought. The spin doctors at Buck House had put out such a clever trail of misinformation that they had the paparazzi chasing all over hell’s half acre, and she had given them the slip! I had not seen any sign of photographers, so it’s quite possible that my pictures are the only ones of the o c c a s i o n . I ’ v e included them with the thought that my readers might amuse themselves trying to identify the various personages.

Above: The French trimaran being shooed away at the approach of the St. Ursula.

Below: Diana and her entourage embarking.

97 Readers of Nuts and Bolts may recall the demise of our roller reefing systems for the mainsail and jib. They seemed a good idea in Canada, but promptly corroded and seized up in the salt air of the Caribbean. Here is an electron microscope scan of a ball-race from the jib system (by Hymatic engineering, courtesy of Neil), which I had promised to show my loyal readers, if it ever came to light. And bottom centre is the initial sketch for a replacement reefing system for the mainsail, called “lazy jacks”, designed and produced by our remarkable man about Tortola, Barney Crook, who was our long-time manager for the Inge II. Tales of the BVI

The time came, inevitably, when Inge and I had slowed down to the point where we could no longer be sure of being able to cope with living aboard and sailing the Inge II in all conditions. Selling her was a wrench, but realistically there was no alternative. Fortunately she went to a good home, in the person of Bill Bailey, a marine surveyor, and ever since he has been winning races with her, or sometimes coming in second. [As I write this, however, he has just come in fifth in the Spring Regatta, which leads me to suppose that the time has come for him to haul out and scrape the bottom. I hope she will regain her rightful place in next year’s races.] I recall one amusing incident from the sale. Bill, having changed the name from Inge II to Second Nature ( his previous boat having been called Nature’s Way), wanted to register the boat in Road Harbour BVI, and asked if I would kindly get in touch with my local Canadian Coastguard unit requesting them to remove the name Inge II from their registry. I wrote to them, and received in return a bizarre letter from some po-faced loser, informing me that the only way a vessel could be removed from the registry was if it sank. With abject apologies, I sent this useless piece of pompous bureaucratic bumf to Bill, asking for advice. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Thanks for the info.” A week later, the job was done. It turned out that, in the course of his career, Bill had become friendly with coastguard officers throughout North America, including the chap who was in charge of the Toronto division. I heard later that he had telephoned this man, and the conversation had gone something like this: “Come on, Tony—stop bullshitting me. Just strike the thing off, will you? What’s your problem?” I think I must have got this from Bill’s dad, who is a friend of Emmett, and who always starts pouring a gin and tonic when he sees me coming. I asked him if he could arrange with Bill to take my transom board off and let me have it. This was duly done, and the board now adorns my hallway, in pride of place. I had carved it from a teak off-cut found in Emmett’s workshop during one of our house- sitting visits, and am very proud of it. 99 Sweeping Up the Bits

By the time I retired in 1992 we had made many friends in the BVI, so that long after we sold the Inge II our visits continued, and I was able to take part in the life of the Islands. Ruth and Emmett in particular would invite us to house-sit for them while they went swanning all over the globe, which was always a pleasure. Or, quite often, Inge would greet me at the breakfast table with, “Well, Tysoe, for your information I have booked us in at de Loose Mongoose from _____ to _____.” One person who was always pleased to see me was Trish Bailey, an obsessive Australian charter yacht skipper who ran a local organization dedicated to the prevention of “development” in the BVI. She was always asking me to write letters backing her up, and one particularly fierce campaign was directed against the proposal for a golf course, five-star hotel and mega-yacht marina. One of my better letters in the BVI Beacon (Feb. 12, 2004) included the sentence, “Anyone who suffers the torment of the awful travelling and the totally dysfunctional BVI immigration department just to play a round of golf must be off his trolley.”As you can see, the paper had the nerve to edit this to “out of his or her skull”, whereupon I went up in a sheet of flame, so they never tried that again. This is it: Returning for my annual holiday to my favourite place on earth, I was distressed to learn of the insane proposal to build a five-star hotel (or guest house, depending upon which paper you read), together with a golf course, just behind de Loose Mongoose on Trellis Bay. It appears that, with one or two brilliant exceptions, the government doesn't know what is going on, and the developers are, as usual, pressing hard. What I do know for certain, because I am privileged to have them as friends, is that there are several people who have an in-depth knowledge of the area and its ecology, and they are making many valid points, to which neither side seems to be listening. 100 Tales of the BVI

I know it's none of my business, but I'm making it my business anyway, not to criticize destructively but because I love the place so much. Three points, then: First, I read that a temporary ban has been imposed on the trucking of dirt to the wetlands. Nevertheless, every time I go somewhere in my car I am chased by huge trucks carrying dirt towards the wetlands. Second, who is running this country? The government or the developers? Third, anyone who comes here to play a round of golf must be out of his or her skull. This is boating country, not golf country. I cannot imagine a less suitable place to have a golf course! As an aside, in Canada one of the dirtier political tricks is that a government which knows its time is up makes secret deals with its cronies containing huge cancellation clauses so that the next government can do nothing about them, despite election promises made in good faith. I'm just trying to help.

Anyway, more than ten years later the thing is still bogged down in the courts, and I think it will finally be thrown out. Another insane thing to attract my attention was the proposal to establish a rocket range on the neighbouring island of Anguilla. This was the idea of an American oil baron, Andrew Beal, who wanted to launch geosynchronous satellites from somewhere near the equator, using rockets fuelled by hydrogen peroxide. That did it! I was on my home turf. I announced my credentials, and proceeded to list the deadly dangers involved in handling the stuff, together with the number of project cancellations because nobody in the Services 101 Sweeping Up the Bits

wanted to touch it. I urged the citizens of the surrounding territories to rise up against this monstrous proposal...and so forth, as you can see from my letter below (BVI Beacon, July 1999): Beal's rockets are not as safe as they sound I see from your June 24 issue that Beal is still threatening to build a rocket launch site on Sombrero. I have visited the BVI regularly, every year for the past 20 years, and have been following this affair with great interest. Up to now I have seen no informed comment, and, as an engineer with some experience in the design and operation of rocket motors using HTP and kerosene as propellants, would like to rectify this omission. HTP (high test peroxide) is an 87 percent solution of hydrogen peroxide in water. When brought into contact with almost any material, it decomposes violently into steam and oxygen. When used in conjunction with kerosene in a rocket, the exhaust products are carbon dioxide and water vapour, neither of which is environmentally hazardous. Thus, any attempt to defeat this insane project on the basis of environmental analysis can be refuted by any first- year engineering student. The real problem is the awful danger. Bear in mind that the Americans have been firing rockets into space ever since the war, yet they still have spectacular blow-ups, and their firing range is the whole Atlantic Ocean! A malfunctioning Beal rocket could cause a disaster to any of the closely spaced Caribbean islands. If a person is unfortunate enough to become spattered with HTP, he or she will die a very unpleasant death unless this is washed off within seconds, using copious amounts of water. 102 Tales of the BVI

I would not like to be on the same island as an HTP tank farm. A study of the history of space flights will not reveal a single instance of HTP being used. Anyone who feels inclined not to oppose this project should first witness a rocket firing, experience the sensation of having his head squeezed in a vice, and feel the ground shake and tremble beneath his feet. Rockets are not suitable playthings for amateur tinkerers. In my opinion, the only reason Beal is trying to go to Anguilla is that the States will have nothing to do with him, and he believes that the amiable, easy-going Anguillans will have no idea what they are letting themselves in for. I have written to the BVI government among similar lines, urging officials to do their utmost to send Beal packing, but not towards me, please.

Leaving it there, we returned to Canada, and shortly after received a phone call from a lady on St. Croix, the southernmost island in the group. Apparently, the governor had been conned into agreeing to have an HTP tank farm. This lady ran a group similar to Trish Bailey’s; they had read my letters, and wondered whether I would write them a piece for a bulletin they were putting out. “With pleasure,” I said, and then, “Don’t get me wrong, but how on earth did you get my number?” Turns out they look up and called every Tysoe they could find until they arrived at my number. In any case, the reaction to Beal was telling, because they were forced to scrap the project and the company ceased operations the following year. While they largely blamed NASA for unfairly cornering the market, the consensus it was the reaction from the Islanders that was the kiss of death. Proving yet again that determined citizens can have a say and make it count.

103 Sweeping Up the Bits

And finally, a word on an encroaching monstrosity in what was one of the world’s last unspoiled paradises for yachtsmen. In the BVI StandPoint, 3 June, 2004: Since 1978 we have spent all our vacation time and disposable income in the BVI. for ten years we lived on our boat half the year, and have many friends there, one of whom sends up a great package of StandPoints from time to time. I have just finished a pleasant browse through the latest batch, up to May 4, and was particularly interested in comments made by Sarah Hanmer in her letter of April 2, “Concerns about Cane Garden Bay,” together with your article of April 16, “Manage deh ting.” During our quarter-century of enjoying the BVI we have seen some developments which boded ill for the future—traffic gridlock, increased violent crime and so forth—but the worst by far has been the advent of the cruise ships. How this was allowed to happen blows my mind. Of all the totally unsuitable cruise ship destinations, the BVI has to head the list (which is why we chose you in the first place!) As I recall, when the project was first mooted, the entire population was against it. I have seen cruise ships tied up at the terminal, dumping their entire load of sewage into the harbour, an act which must be worth a few million in punitive damages plus cleanup costs plus, I would have thought, the banning of that line from ever entering BVI territorial waters again. I have seen them drive up on to remote beaches which I have known and loved. I have seen them drop their enormous anchors right on to the coral. And I have seen their brain-dead passengers wandering around in a daze, wondering how they got landed in such a dump with nothing to do.

104 Tales of the BVI

My favourite definition of a cruise ship I read in Forbes FYI magazine: “The cruise ship is the present- day equivalent of the old Eskimo ice floe. The old and useless are put on it and pushed off, to drift away into the unknown and hopefully not come back.” Don't you think that the cruise ship terminal would make an excellent mega-yacht marina? Now there's a bunch of millionaires who would pump a lot of dough into the economy, and you'd hardly know they were there, except that the BVI would suddenly become the mega-yacht centre of the Caribbean. These observations are made in a spirit of constructive criticism, and I really hope they are received as such. We both love the BVI, but we don't like the way things are going at present.

Overleaf: Full circle. Top, our first Caribbean Sunset, Barbados, 1978; middle, our first BVI sunset, Virgin Gorda, 1979; bottom, our Golden Wedding anniversary, 2004.

105

Chapter 8: Slings and Arrows

Being some farewell messages to various organizations

e had been anticipating the approach of my retirement with a certain amount of trepidation, W not being too sure how things would work out, and it was very encouraging to find that, boat-less as we now were, we would still be able to visit the BVI. The next hazard was whether we would have enough money to get by. Inge had taken the earliest possible retirement, having been promoted to an administrative position which she disliked almost as much as I do, from her previous job as Head Nurse, which she loved. So, she had been on half pension for some time. As for me, I had been on Voluntary Reduced Workload (Half Pay for Half Work) for several years, which had enabled us to spend our winters swanning around the Caribbean instead of my teaching the winter term at Ryerson, so I, too, was retiring on half pension. Anyone with a bean-counting mentality would no doubt think we were mad, and indeed I often thought so myself. Well, now the moment of truth was upon us. After we had been enjoying our retirement for a few months, it became apparent that nothing had changed. I still have no idea how this could be, and if you can explain it, please keep it to yourself, because I don't really want to know. The whole thing reminds me of the parable of the aerodynamicist and the bumblebee, when the former, after years of research, informed the bee that he was sorry, but his 107 Sweeping Up the Bits

theory showed that it was quite impossible for the bee to fly. However, since the bee didn’t understand the theory, it just went ahead and flew. Having disposed of our two main worries, I resolved to tackle some of the issues which had been bothering me, particularly by injecting, as I have through the years, some engineering commonsense into the fray. My first target was Ontario Hydro. Perhaps a word of explanation might be appropriate here, for my non-Canadian readers. This was the organization responsible for the reliable supply of economically-priced electrical energy to the province of Ontario. Ha! So, I hear you ask, what has this to do with water? Well, at the turn of the last century, most of Ontario's electricity requirements were supplied by hydroelectric power stations at Niagara Falls and suchlike places. When Sir Adam Beck started up the Niagara Falls station, and went on to “electrify Ontario”, if you’ll pardon the expression, it was with the purest of motives, as mentioned above. Gradually, however, it morphed into a hierarchy. The people originally in charge would hand their jobs to their sons, who in turn...etc. Finally it became what it is today—a vast network of nepotism, favouritism, sinecure appointments for clapped-out politicians and so forth. The management became less and less competent, the cost of electricity continued to climb, and finally the kiss of death was put on the whole thing by the hated Premier Mike Harris and his so-called “commonsense revolution”. He split it into a number of separate groups, each responsible for its own particular area. By the time he’d finished, there was hardly anyone who knew an amp from a volt in charge of anything. Up to now this had been interesting research, but then they hit me personally, by sending me a bill for $650 shortly after I returned from winter in the Caribbean. I phoned the Customer Service Department, and asked them if they would kindly check to make sure they hadn’t confused me with some local factory or something. No, everything was in order, I was assured by the unhelpful, sardonic woman at the other end. She added—probably the most unwise thing she had ever 108 Slings and Arrows

done—“Obviously you must have used the energy, so you should pay for it.” Well, that was that. I had been through channels, weighed them in the balance, and found them wanting. My next call was to the chief engineer of the local depot. I informed him that I had a serious complaint against his department, and was coming to see him the next morning. I hoped he would be there to meet me, since I was sure that, as one professional engineer to another, we could sort out the matter amicably between us, rather than having to drag in all the useless top-hamper of know-nothing politicians. He got the message, and next day I was escorted through to his office, where he was waiting, with the mandatory cup of coffee, and a pile of papers, presumably related to my case. I opened the bowling by saying that I could not possibly have used this much electricity in a month, particularly as I had been out of the country for some time, therefore there was obviously something very wrong with their billing system, and I was not even discussing the matter of payment until the cause had been discovered and rectified. So there. His response turned the whole thing on its head. It appears, he said, that they had estimated my bill. I sat there stunned, like a poleaxed steer. “You did WHAT???” I cannot recall ever having been subjected to such a conversation-stopping gambit. When somebody throws a curve like that at mevee, it paralyzes my thought processes. The remainder of my points just blew away on the wind. You cannot argue with a thing like that. If these people say that’s what you owe them, and you don’t pay, they cut off your electricity. I told him I would pay the amount in three monthly instalments, after which I would complain to the highest level about this “estimating”, and do my best to have it abolished, as I had never before heard of such an astonishing practice, so utterly devoid of any kind of sense, logic, business ethic or any other kind of proper relationship between customer and supplier. On my way out, I advised him to get rid of his customer relations department, which I categorized as totally useless, if not actually harmful. He seemed relieved that he had got off so lightly. 109 Sweeping Up the Bits

When I finally locked horns with the top Hydro brass, I was informed that it was necessary to estimate a certain percentage of bills, otherwise, Caledon being such a widespread and sparsely populated region, they would have had to employ a disproportionately large number of meter- readers. Hm. Pleading poverty, were they? I filed that one away for possible future use, and was pondering my next move when they hit me again, this time about the electric water heater I had inherited with the house, and which was rented from them. In view of the high and rising cost of electricity, I had decided to replace every piece of electrical equipment with its gas-powered equivalent. Already the electric heat pump had been replaced by the latest Carrier high-efficiency gas furnace, for which I had engaged the services of a local propane company, who had installed a two-tank system, and kept me supplied ever since, with the utmost reliability. The immediate results had been a dramatic improvement in the heating of the house, and an equally dramatic drop in my hydro bill. And don’t get me started on electric heat pumps, or we'll be here all night. So, one day I called them, told them I would be disconnecting my water heater the next day and would leave it in the driveway for them to pick up, and would they please delete the rental from my bill as from tomorrow’s date. In a, by now, familiar scenario, the unpleasant woman at the other end said something to knock my brain sideways. “There will be a $400 disconnection charge.” I was mentally prepared to have some kind of curve thrown at me, so when it came, I was able to recover sufficiently to say, “Don’t be daft—I already told you I am disconnecting the thing myself, so just come and take it away, or I’ll leave it out for the garbage.” “Well—it’s our policy.” The reader might be interested in the procedure I have found to be effective when dealing with imbeciles like this. The first thing I did was to pay the charge. Never leave yourself open to being found guilty of violating some legal or technical regulation, or the bastards will jump in there and hang you out to dry. 110 Slings and Arrows

Having done this, I embarked upon a long and vicious campaign to recover the money. It started with letters to the heads of the local and provincial Hydro departments, the wording of which made it quite clear that I was out to get them, by whatever means, but would stop immediately upon receipt of a complete refund. It got as far as my provincial MP and the Minister of Energy, with copies to the local and national press, before they backed off. It should be mentioned that one of the legacies inherited by the present-day Hydro was a thing called the debt retirement charge, which is added to the bill. I have an inside track on this. It seems that some idiot signed a 30-year fixed price contract for uranium, just shortly before the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl disasters turned world opinion against nuclear power stations and the price of uranium fell drastically, leaving Hydro landed with an enormous debt. Bad luck? Some may say, although it should be remembered that Napoleon selected his generals, not on account of their accomplishments on the field of battle, but whether they were lucky. Besides which, several other ominous signs were starting to appear. Ontarians were becoming increasingly fed up with the rate at which Canada’s first generation of nuclear power stations were having to be shut down for major repairs, some having already been out of commission for years, with no sign as to when they might be back on line. There comes a time when “bad luck” has to be replaced with “stupidity”, and certainly nothing that Hydro has said or done since I arrived in Canada has made any kind of sense. Now, piling lunacy on lunacy, they had started to shut down the coal-fired stations in humble submission to environmentalist pressure groups, without making any provision for replacing their generating capacity. I made my pitch on this topic, in the form of letters to members of parliament, ministers of energy, premiers, and local and national newspapers. It occurred to me that the purpose of this book might best be served by quoting some of these, which now follow. 111 Sweeping Up the Bits

To John Tory, Leader of the Opposition, Ontario Legislature Re: Ontario Energy As a retired Professional Engineer with a lifetime of work in the fields of Power Generation and Environmental Control, I think I have earned the right to be heard on this most important matter. Since arriving in Canada in the mid sixties, I have watched with dismay the deterioration of Ontario Hydro, due to disastrous political decisions and gross mismanagement, but the antics of the present government are really the last straw. First, they were elected on the basis of shutting down all the coal-fired generating stations by the year after next, without a single mention of how to replace the lost generating capacity. Then they announce that they have no intention of even trying to fix the mothballed nuclear plants. Now, they have appointed as Energy Minister a pregnant woman who is expecting twins in October, and so will likely be out of action for the following year. All this in the face of uncontrolled population growth, primarily resulting from uncontrolled immigration, coupled with diminishing generating capacity. Surely there is SOMETHING the opposition can do to put a stop to this madness? I have a suggestion: France is the only country which has made a complete success of its nuclear power programme. If a competent Canadian engineer could be sent over there (NOT a bunch of freeloading politicians out for a jolly on the Riviera, nor even an American consultant), he would find that their electrical energy requirements are supplied by fifty-odd nuclear 112 Slings and Arrows

power plants, all identical, and if they need another one, they just move in and build it, without all the time-consuming environmental assessment nonsense. I'm sure they would gladly sell us their technology; the money would certainly be better spent than in giving failed, kicked-out chief executives multi-million dollar golden handshakes.

The letter finished: “Today Ontario stands on the brink of the abyss. Tomorrow it will take a step forward.” There being no response, I sent the letter again a month later, with a sarcastic little footnote to the effect that, if he ever got around to reading it, I would be interested in his views on the matter. A copy also went to the Premier of Ontario. Then the responses started to come in; none of them very helpful, as expected, but it’s a start. Around this time, I was sent a government pamphlet entitled “Our Energy, Our Future”, to which I replied in some detail, with copies to those previously mentioned, since it seemed to be a good opportunity to kick-start a rational debate, which was really only what I was trying to do: Assuming we are all agreed that the future of Ontario depends entirely upon the reliable supply of economically priced electrical energy, I would submit that, as things stand at the moment, this does not seem likely to happen. It seems to me that the situation has already reached the emergency stage, and is not likely to be sorted out by fiddling with windmills, solar panels and so forth. The only practical solution, in my view, is to commence immediately the construction of enough nuclear power stations to cope with the demand for the foreseeable future. I would point out that France is the only country to have made a complete success of its nuclear power programme: over 80 percent of its electrical energy is supplied by over 50 nuclear power stations. 113 Sweeping Up the Bits

My suggestion is for the government to send a team of engineers to France to study their system. If their report bears out my contention, then I am sure the French would be pleased to sell us their technology and, I would hope, be contracted to build the stations. I realize that this thinking will be branded as treason in some circles, but would submit that the time for nationalistic posturing is over. It has to be said that neither the Americans nor the Russians nor the Canadians have shown themselves particularly adept at designing, developing and building nuclear power plants, whereas the French have. Your pamphlet cites long development time and cost overruns as points against nuclear power. My proposal would eliminate these. Regarding the other proposals mentioned in your pamphlet: CONSERVATION is of course a good thing, but is not a solution to the problem, and should be eliminated from the discussion. ENVIRONMENTALISM is a luxury which can be afforded only by prosperous countries with healthy economies, a status which Ontario is in danger of losing if it is continuously obstructed by environmentalist pressure groups like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, in its efforts to solve the energy problem. This, too, should be eliminated from the discussion. WIND POWER is a gimmick which can never contribute more than a small percentage to the solution. Personally, I do not relish the thought of living in a country covered with windmills. The cure is worse than the disease. SOLAR POWER is fine for the Middle East and California.

114 Slings and Arrows

COAL There must be a REALLY serious discussion about this. I consider it the height of irresponsibility to undertake to close down all the coal-fired stations without mentioning what will replace them. Nowhere have I seen a rational technical discussion on advances in the technology of exhaust gas scrubbing, “clean coal” and so on. NATURAL GAS is a basket case, which in my opinion should be avoided at all costs. Finally, I find it rather strange that the province of Quebec sells hydroelectric power, generated by the James Bay project subsidized by Canadian taxpayers, to the Americans, while Ontario undergoes power outages under extreme conditions. I am familiar with such technical discussion as has taken place, and am not impressed. The main excuse seems to be a lack of transmission lines, which I find totally inexcusable.

One happening I read about drove me to such a paroxysm of hysterical laughter that I couldn’t restrain myself from writing to my federal MP, as follows: Dear Mr. Tilson: Re: Kyoto May I draw your attention to the enclosed article which appeared recently in the National Post. As you will see, Alberta's power utility, having invested heavily in windmills, now has to build a huge power station. It seems they have discovered that the wind does not blow all the time, and their increasing dependence on wind power has led to a lack of reliability in the power supply grid. Normally I would not presume to take up your time with this kind of topic, but in view of your recent 115 Sweeping Up the Bits

communication regarding windmills, solar energy and so on, plus my misgivings that the next government of this country will be elected by a population knowing nothing of the subject, who appear to have been collectively brainwashed by a lunatic fringe of Kyotophiles, forces me to submit an alternative perspective. Contrary to Kyotophile propaganda, it is NOT correct to say that most of the world's scientists accept that there is global warming which is due to human activity. A large number of respectable climatologists and others who know something about it hold the view, as do I, that earth is subject to cyclic variations in climate, for reasons which nobody understands, and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. I really do wish that the government would get on with running the country, and stop wasting time and money on this environmental nonsense.

Interestingly enough, the poorest responses were from the readers of my Professional Engineering bimonthly magazine. Here at least I had hoped to start some sort of intelligent technical discussion going, but found to my dismay that all they seemed capable of was setting up a straw man and knocking him over, together with a bit of character assassination. I led off with a roundhouse right, so there could be no doubt that I was fed up with them for going along with all the bullshit, instead of using their considerable political clout to lead an informed debate. I was quite pleased that they printed it, because it was rather different from the usual politically correct, often boring, letters which normally grace their columns. It appeared with the heading “Our Pragmatic Approach”: It is disappointing to see that the official journal of the engineering profession in Ontario has decided to side with the catastrophists on this most contentious issue. The March/April issue (“Engineers and Climate Change: What you need to know”) claims to focus on 116 Slings and Arrows

climate change, whereas it is actually about global warming, a term not used very much nowadays because it is regarded by increasing numbers of thinking people as irrelevant, and a colossal bore. Yet again, we can see the same old dogmatic assertions, starting with the editorial quote: “World leaders need to recognize that climate change is the single most important long-term issue that the planet faces.” It seems to me that terrorist attacks on civilization are much more important, with dirty atom bombs in suitcases, anthrax in the reservoirs, airliners crashing into skyscrapers and so forth. Also, two million children die every year from polluted drinking water, not to mention the accelerating spread of AIDS. One of the contributors says there is no doubt that climate change is happening. Fair enough—it always has. But he then goes on to say that what's happening now is different from naturally occurring phenomena, and is caused by human activities, which is the rallying cry of the global warming experts. However, a considerable number of highly qualified, respected professionals hold views similar to mine, that global warming is a myth sponsored by self-serving politicians and fringe environmentalist pressure groups, having no basis in reliable, testable facts. In this connection I would refer you to Michael Crichton's book State of Fear which, in addition to being a great yarn, presents all the pro and con arguments in clear, understandable prose. The narrative is backed up by page after page of actual scientific data, and twenty pages of references, a pleasant change from the usual hysterical claptrap associated with the subject. Finally, my disappointment stems mainly from the feeling that one should expect a more pragmatic approach from an engineer. For example, as dwellers 117 Sweeping Up the Bits

in Canada, I fail to see how you can believe that things are getting warmer! Secondly, what is the point of subscribing to the ludicrous Kyoto protocol, when the United States, the biggest polluter of all, ignores it? Thirdly, although the juju men cannot reliably tell us if it is going to rain tomorrow, they are quite prepared to tell us what will happen 100 years from now.

The response, as indicated at the beginning, was not what I had hoped for. I am quoting some extracts, together with my comments, if any, in parentheses: I never expected to read such unsubstantiated rubbish in Engineering Dimensions, and by an engineer of all people! Mr. Tysoe hopes for a pragmatic approach and proceeds to rant about his perceived lack of evidence for global warming, without any facts to illustrate or justify his head-in- the-sand views—just that it's a colossal bore, and that Canadians couldn't believe the earth is warming, presumably because we have cold winters. [The fact that something cannot be proved untrue, does not make it true – Bertrand Russell.] Concerns about the future make me shiver when our suspicions about global climate change start coming from Michael Crichton books. [This is one of the straw men I was talking about.] …endless discussion that global climate change is not a “reliable, testable fact”. It never will be, but I cannot take the risk of telling my children that I did not do anything because it was not a proven fact…. [Well, I can, and bollocks to the environment.]

Another chap seems to be half on my side: The catastrophic problems in our world go well beyond these concerns. The respondents to 118 Slings and Arrows

“Letters” should read “A Short History of Progress” by Ronald Wright, a national best seller. The theme of the book demonstrates humanity's ability to destroy earlier civilizations due to our inability to curtail our 'needs'. It addresses overpopulation, dwindling land for food supply, loss of greenery, near exhaustion of fossil resources, air and water pollution and, of course, global warming. The notes and bibliography are extensive, and I defy the reader not to feel very worried as he sees the direction we are going in. [I have read it. These things have all ACTUALLY HAPPENED. The present topic under discussion is a figment of the imagination. What a pity he put in that last bit about 'defying the reader....' So, he doesn't QUITE have the courage of his convictions. Still, nice try.]

And so I did my best to start a rational debate on topics which I consider of primary importance with regard to the future of our country. Sufficient, at any rate, for me to be able to convince myself that I had “gone down with all guns firing and all flags flying”, having found that you cannot discuss anything with people whose minds are set in cement. Just as I was beginning to think that nothing much else was likely to happen, Mother Nature took a swipe at me, and I lost my left leg. It should be admitted that, having reached the designated threescore and ten some twelve years ago, I have been running on extended warranty since then. Around that time, Nature indicated that my advancing years were gearing up to take their toll. This took the form of a right hip replacement, which I didn't think worth mentioning, since it was such a straightforward matter. Nevertheless, perhaps a few words would be in order at this point. For several months my right leg had been hurting; the chiropractor said he didn't know what was going on, and would I mind if he took an x-ray. This was done, and he couldn’t interpret it, so he sent it to a friend who was an expert at this kind of thing. He said that my right hip joint was badly corroded, most likely by arthritis, and a hip joint replacement was recommended. 119 Sweeping Up the Bits

This gave me the screamers, because I had heard tales that the operation was a bloody, hit-and-miss affair, with only a 70 percent probability of success, and it did not appeal to me one bit. On our next visit to the BVI, we called on Ruth and Emmett, who had a guest, Marjorie, over from England. I was told that she had recently received a hip joint replacement, and Ruth thought I should meet her. While I was enjoying a drink with Emmett on the veranda, I heard them coming down the stairs. Ruth was saying, “I want you to meet our friend John, who needs a hip replacement, but doesn’t want to do it.” Her companion replied, “Well, he’s a bloody fool then.” When they came into view, Marjorie lit into me, saying how much she now enjoyed walking the Downs, there was nothing to it... “Hey, give me a break,” I protested. “I’ve only been thinking about it for five minutes.” Later in the week I met a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, who also had had a hip joint replacement, and told me that he could now kick a football right over to the Last Resort, there was nothing to it...and so on. With this encouragement, upon returning to Canada I visited a recommended surgeon, who did nothing but hip joint replacements. He sent me for an x-ray, took one look at it, whistled between his teeth, and asked his receptionist if they could fit me in on the first of next month. And so it was done. No muss, no fuss, five days in hospital, throw the crutches away after six weeks, never had a day’s trouble with it. And just to be rid of the pain! Once it set off the metal detector at St. Thomas airport, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. A large buxom Negress started to scan me with her magic wand, while I was explaining about the hip. “Would you like me to show you?” I asked, and started to pull my pants down. She gave a loud giggle, and waved me through. Fast forward to about a year ago (early 2009). A small wound on my lower left leg was taking its own sweet time healing—as indeed did all sores, scratches and whatnot on my legs, although everywhere else healed reasonably quickly. I put bandaids on, and it was beginning to heal when another one appeared beside it, for no reason that I could see. I put a bigger bandaid on, 120 Slings and Arrows

at which point a third one appeared, so two bandaids were now required. By the time the fourth one appeared, I started to worry, and went to the doctor. As usual, he took my blood pressure, and wrote me up some medication. Meanwhile, those damned sores, or ulcers as the doctors call them, were getting bigger. Test followed test. All the specialists insisted that I must have diabetes, because it was the only thing they knew that could cause this. I strenuously denied this, pointing to the results of a year of continuous monitoring, during which I had been consistently in the middle of the safe range. I know now that the whole thing was due to poor circulation, and the only way to get them to heal was to improve this. At the time, a by-pass operation would have been a possibility, but by the time they thought of that, it was too late. The ulcers had become infected, and the infection was spreading upwards. It was essential to do something fast, so I told them to get rid of it, which they did the next day. Fortunately, the stump healed quickly, circulation being good above the knee, and within a short time I was fitted with an artificial leg, which I am rapidly learning to use. So—it won’t be too long before I summon the gang to witness my impersonation of Long John Silver, cardboard parrot on shoulder, stomping around singing: Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. Most importantly, I am free of the chronic, debilitating pain which tormented me for most of last year.

121 Chapter 9: Summing Up

o sweep up the last of the bits, here is Tysoe once again T on administration: I could make all its windy vanity Gasp itself out on the table. Fare you well. I did not choose my calling; but at least I did refrain from being an administrator. Follow-up on global warming: Just as I thought I had shot my bolt with the Professional Engineers Association, they ran a lengthy feature in the bimonthly journal announcing that they had decided to play a part in dealing with the question of Global Warming. Fair enough—I had been urging this for years. However, their approach got right up my nose. They were proposing to introduce regulations making it mandatory for engineers to take into account the predictions of the lunatic fringe of environmentalist demagogues, which of course was the exact opposite of what I had been fighting for, to inject an element of commonsense into the debate. To add fuel to the flames, their opening statement included: “Although an engineering regulator can’t choose sides in evaluating global warming science...” This was really too much. I wrote them an irate letter, and rather to my surprise received, a few days later, a very nice personal letter from the editor: 122 Summing Up

Dear John, What would we do without you? Thanks very much for leading off the climate change debate, round 2. Your letter will be in the next issue. All the best, Jennifer

This is the letter:

Here we go again. Although an engineering regulator can't choose sides in evaluating global warming science...” Why on earth not? Surely the function of a regulator is to choose sides. Otherwise, what is he regulating? In my view, it should be the function of PEO to use our considerable political clout to inject some engineering commonsense into the ill-informed, hysterical rants of lunatic fringe environmentalists like Suzuki and Gore. For example, we could advise against the education system requirement for the now totally discredited “An Inconvenient Truth” to be required study, and instead give our school students a good scientific education, so that they can make up their own minds. As I read your introductory article, my depression increased. The Canadian Academy of Engineering found that “A majority of scientists agree that earth's climate has already been affected by human activity—” THIS IS A DAMNED LIE! As Bertrand Russell pointed out decades ago:

123 Sweeping Up the Bits

The fact that something cannot be proved untrue does not make it true, a proposition which is amply demonstrated by the fortunes of bookmakers. If we are now reduced to inviting people like Smitherman to our meetings, then we are truly lost. Then we have Swanson, who says: “Uncertainties in climate change science are no excuse for inaction.” What with the world's economic system verging on collapse, and terrorists making atom bombs, no wonder self-serving politicians and their hangers-on are promoting action in areas where they cannot be proved wrong for 100 years, whereas if they start messing with the world's economy the results would be seen next year. Let us be part of the solution, not the problem.

It will be interesting to see if anything useful emerges from “Round Two”, but I’m not holding my breath. I am reminded of one of Benjamin Franklin’s many thought-provoking insights: “A lie spreads around the world overnight, before the truth even gets out of bed.”

124 Summing Up

Some Final Thoughts on Education: Rummaging through my archives, I found the following magazine article written in December 1998, when everyone was starting to worry about what computers would do when the year 2000 arrived. Remember the Y2K panic?

The world became totally dependant upon computers about 25 years ago. At the time they were all programmed to show dates giving the last two digits of the year, assuming that the first two would be 19 and, presumably, would remain so for ever. And this was only 25 years ago! Just how stupid can the human race get? (This is a rhetorical question). Now it is catching up with them. What is going to happen when the year 00 shows up on the computer? Nobody seems to know, except that most fear it will think that the year is actually 1900. So what? One thing I can think of is that the computer of a jet airliner flying at 40,000 feet may, at 0001 hrs on January 1st 2000 decide that the engines are 100 years overdue for their 500 hour inspection, and shut them down. It depends upon what little tiny instructions were buried in the programme all those years ago, by people who have long since retired, or died, or what-have-you. I don't think there will be many people flying in airliners on December 31 1999. And what about the banks? I have already made up my mind to draw out such money as I may possess, and stuff it into a sock under the bed. What a trial that will be for the banks, if everyone decides to do the same. One solution I have just read about is given by the government of Kenya, which has appointed a commission to enquire into the problem and make recommendations. The commission has been given 18 months to file its report….

125 Sweeping Up the Bits

Another one comes from an English think tank, whose conclusion is that it will cost 31 billion pounds to sort out the problem. For this money, they say, every man, woman and child in England could be given a Y2K compliant computer, and you just throw the existing ones away. Sounds cost-effective to me. Getting on to the subject of education, presumably if this can be improved, such a problem as Y2K may not recur. We all know that the graduates of our present- day school systems are illiterate and without the basic mathematical skills necessary to survive in today's society. The same could be said about the big brains who are running the world these days—the financial gurus who regulate the functioning of every country through their stock exchanges, their finance ministers, their multinational corporations and the rest of the codswallop. So—the world is teetering on the edge of financial disaster and heading for the biggest slump of all time after two decades of “bull markets” based upon nothing except the greed and ignorance of speculators; what do the men in charge do? They raise (or lower—does it matter?) their interest rates by a quarter of one per cent. I ask you—what world crisis is going to be solved by fudging numbers by a quarter of one percent? If they were to eliminate the damned things altogether, or increase them by an order of magnitude, and wait to see what happens, I could see some sense in it, but—a quarter of one percent? Give me a break! More and more am I convinced that engineers should run the world. At least we have a realistic outlook on things.

126 Summing Up

On the topic of education, Neil passed this along, highly a propos to a Professor of Thermodynamics. It is a student’s profound answer to a bonus question on a chemistry midterm, posted on the Internet by his U. of Washington professor: Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)? [Most of the students wrote proofs using Boyle's Law or some variant. This student received the only A for his answer.] First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate that souls are moving into Hell and the rate they are leaving. I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. As for how many souls are entering Hell: most religions state that if you are not a member of their faith, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one religion and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities: 1) If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose. 2) If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year, that “it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you”, and take into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having an affair with her, then (2) above cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and will not freeze over. 127 Sweeping Up the Bits

And a last word that I wish had come from our Canadian leaders: I give you Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister of Australia, regarding the announcement that Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT.

“Take it or leave it. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.

This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom.

We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, LEARN THE LANGUAGE.

Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right-wing political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture. We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.

128 Summing Up

This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whinging and griping about our flag, our Pledge, our Christian beliefs, or our Way of Life, I highly encourage you to take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, THE RIGHT TO LEAVE.

If you aren't happy here, then LEAVE. We didn't ask you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.”

As I write this, France is working on implementing a law to ban the burqa, which “is an offence to our culture”. President Sarkozy made this statement: “This is an issue of a woman’s freedom and dignity. This is not a religious symbol. It is a sign of subservience; it is a sign of lowering. I want to say solemnly, the burqa is not welcome in France.” My dear wife would have applauded loudly. When is Canada going to get a similar spine in these matters?

A note on the following scrapbook of published clippings, letters to the editor, etc.: Astute readers will note the occasional lack of dates or names of the publishing papers (although they fall into a fairly select category anyway). Had I known fifty or so years ago that I would one day actually collect them into a memoir, I would have been much more careful with my filing system. The thing is, I was kept a bit busy earning a living, emigrating, building boats, etc. etc. I hope that my understanding readers will nevertheless enjoy the show, credits or no...JCT

129 A Scrapbook of Slings and Arrows

First, one of my early campaigns, a full-blooded go at GARBAGE DUMPS, starting with this letter to the editor of the Mississauga News:

I had a quiet giggle at your editorial of Feb. 11th where you say “We have slowly come to the realization that taking valuable land and turning it into a giant garbage pit is an expensive and inefficient process”.

You speak for yourself, please. I have realized this all my life and see it as the greatest problem facing the human race. It is a matter of public record that, at the 1974 hearings on the Britannia garbage dump (oops, sorry—sanitary landfill site), I stood up and compared the proposers of this monstrous thing to barnyard cats, scraping a hole, depositing their excreta therein, filling it up, and moving on.

If you raise anything to a sufficiently high temperature it will burn. The resulting heat can be used to generate electrical energy to drive our electric toothbrushes and suchlike. The technology is already available in little old Denmark, of all places, but don't tell our leaders, or they will want to have a junket there at our expense.

What I wish is that our leaders would stop pandering to ill-informed, stupid, selfish pressure groups, stop pouring my hard-earned tax dollars into endless public enquiries, and let the engineers get on with the job. We have developed the beginnings of a social conscience since the industrial revolution, and we know a lot more about the matter than do “concerned citizens groups”.

“A little learning is a dang'rous thing Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.” Next, this to Erv Macyntyre, General Manager of the NDP's Interim Waste Authority (14 June, 1993):

I am a professional engineer, and am writing because I am not satisfied that certain aspects of your waste management policy have received proper engineering consideration. Will you please respond to each of my numbered points:

1. There seems to be a widespread belief that, once buried, garbage will decompose and be reabsorbed into the earth's crust after sufficient time has elapsed. This is not the case. Test excavations done in the U.S. on landfill sites 50 years old reveal that no change has taken place. The newspapers could still be read, and the hot dogs, steaks etc. were unchanged (although I would not like to eat them). The reason is that no oxygen can get to the garbage, therefore there is no oxidation, and consequently no decomposition. In other words, the stuff is there FOREVER! What a legacy to leave our descendants. Anyone not frightened by this thought must be totally stupid.

2. I have spoken to farmers who have lived in this area for generations, long before garbage collections were invented, and they never had any problems. Anything they did not eat or use on the farm was burned. I can remember my childhood, when milk was brought round by the milkman and poured from a large churn into our jug. Mother had her own shopping basket, and any leftovers were burned. Nowadays, people generate mountains of garbage as if there were no tomorrow, and then moan to the government to do something about it. The only sensible solution is to stop generating such huge amounts of garbage in the first place, and then the irreducible minimum should be incinerated.

/2 Erv Macyntyre continued...

3. When I speak of incineration, I am speaking of up-to-date co-generation plants using garbage as fuel, and generating power and useful heat. At least 300 such plants are in operation at present. Any rational discussion along these lines has been blocked by closed-minded government officials under the influence of poor advice and so-called “concerned citizens groups” led by ignorant lawyers purveying what has been termed “junk science in the courtroom”.

The main objection appears to be the fear that deadly chemicals will be released into the atmosphere by such plants. This is not so, when properly designed equipment is used. the facts are as follows:

The earth's atmosphere contains traces of almost all the chemicals known to man. If anyone wants to say “there is so-and-so in the atmosphere we are testing”, no competent engineer with experience in this area would dare to contradict, because he know that, if you spend enough money, you can find anything in the earth's atmosphere. The vital questions of course are “How much?” and “Is this bad?” The technology of incineration is well known. Equipment is available. It is not necessary to send a deputation of our leaders on a taxpayer- subsidized jaunt “to see how they do it in Denmark” (which happens to be one of the leaders in this field). 4. I understand that the province of Ontario has a unique opportunity for an interim solution while such co-generation equipment is being set up. I refer to the abandoned mine workings at Kirkland Lake. The facts seem to be that the residents have no objections, and there is no technical reason why this interim solution could not be adopted.

If there is, I would like to be informed. If not, then I can only say that the government's refusal to consider the proposal is irresponsible. This was followed up with a word to the Premier of Ontario (22 September, 1993):

Re: Garbage Dumps

I have written to your interim wast authority, your minister of the environment, and my MPP on this subject, without receiving any acknowledgment. I now write to you in the hope that you will ask your minister to respond.

The substance of my letter is that, as a professional engineer, I feel that the correct solution to the waste management problem is to utilize up-to-date, properly engineered co- generation plants fuelled by garbage and producing useful power and heat. Many such plants are successfully operating throughout the world.

Nowhere have I seen any rational discussion on this matter during the whole procedure culminating in the proposal for yet another dump to despoil the countryside of rural Southern Ontario.

I must insist upon being given either the technical reasons for the complete rejection of any discussion on the subject, or an undertaking that a serious investigation be initiated on the above lines. Please acknowledge receipt of this letter, and ask your minister of the environment to respond to my previous communication. All of this culminated with a mention in the Legislature by my favourite political figure, David Tilson:

David Tilson, MPP – Keeping In Touch Spring 1994 Excerpts from Hansard

Wednesday 29 September, 1993 BILL 26, ENVIRONMENTAL BILL OF RIGHTS – STATEMENT

Mr. David Tilson (Dufferin-Peel):

The member for Durham West has made some excellent points on the problems of environment in this province and this country. The difficulty I have with what he's saying in relationship to Bill 26 is that many of the things he wants to talk about, whether it be incineration, really can't be talked about by people in this province, specifically if you're looking at the problems in Durham, the superdump that's going to be put in Durham.

I have a resident from Cheltenham who has been trying to communicate with not only Mr. McIntyre but the Minister of Environment since last June, to talk about the very thing that you're talking about in this House, and that's the subject of incineration. Of course, the minister will say: “No, Bill 143, we're not going to talk about incineration. We're ruling that out. We're not even going to debate it in this House.”

/2 Tilson continued...

There's not going to be an opportunity to debate it, notwithstanding the fact that the member for Durham East stood up and made some comments against incineration. That's his right, but there are also other sides to a debate. I have, in the time I've been in this place, which isn't as long as he has, yet to hear that.

Here's a member, Mr. John Tysoe from Cheltenham, who has written me, and I, in turn, have written Mr. McIntyre and the minister. I want them to respond to his very good questions on the topic of incineration. I mean, you may be right, but at least let's have an opportunity to discuss it. Bill 26 says, “No, we're not going to deal with that because that's the superdumps. We have an Interim Waste Authority. No, you can't talk about the hydro lines that are going to go through our farming communities; we've got Hydro and other people who are going to look after that.” You can't deal with it, so what teeth has the bill of rights? What teeth does the bill or rights have? Is the bill of rights going to give Mr. Tysoe the right to go and complain about the superdump in his riding, or individuals in your riding? The answer is NO.

Some miscellaneous slings...

Express [UK], July 1999 Thrown out

While sympathising with the Kennedy family in their latest bereavement, I should like to set the record straight regarding their unsavoury patriarch, “Ambassador” Joe. President Roosevelt did not recall him; Mr. Churchill threw him out. Express [UK] Banger race

Reading Cross-Bencher in last week's edition, I was surprised to see West Bridgford described as Nottingham's “Gin'n Jag Belt”. Having been born and raised there, I think perhaps “Beer'n Banger Belt” might be more appropriate. As for Ken Clarke, I am hoping to see him replaced by someone who is interested in my home town, and who will tell Europe to get stuffed.

On winter air travel in Canada:

To the Federal Minister of Transport, Jan. 25, 1999

I applaud your anger at the horrible performance of Toronto International Airport during the recent snowstorm, and assure you that it is much less than my own. You do not, however, need an official enquiry to find out what went wrong, for I can tell you. The main reason for the breakdown was the totally incompetent handling of the arrangements for de-icing aircraft wings prior to departure. As long ago as 1980 I sat in an airliner for over an hour waiting for departure clearance because “they had run out of de-icing fluid”. It seems that nothing has changed, except to get worse.

I heard on the radio a while ago that someone had given Air Canada permission to de-ice its own aircraft. Who, pray tell, was de-icing them before? It seems to me that this most important function is run by a man and a boy, with inadequate equipment and no proper organization.

What continues to amaze me is that, in Canada, it snows every winter, and has done since time began, but you STILL cannot cope with it! On the mangled introduction of the metric system:

Dr. Thevenard writes with wit and style about a subject close to my heart, namely Canada's great misfortune in having the metric system rammed down its throat by ignorant bureaucrats, instead of being phased in logically by responsible engineers. Why else do you suppose we have to buy 453.6 grams of butter (mercifully rounded up to 454) rather than half a kilo? On metric-day all the gas station tire gauges were reconfigured to read in kilopascals, causing great confusion until it was altered shortly afterward to pounds per square inch. Weather forecasters, having predicted 2.54 centimetres of snow, are beginning to add coyly, “That's about an inch.” As for Dr. Thevenard's problem with paper, he should think himself lucky. We cannot even find out where to buy A4 paper. Did he bring his own stock with him?

Something about old gunslingers:

Express [UK] Bar Talk

I enjoyed Laura Kibby's review of Nigel Rees's Dictionary of Catchphrases, and would like to offer a small amendment. Regarding “You talkin' to me?” I mention Shane, in my view the definitive Western, which appeared 23 years before Robert de Niro's 1976 utterance. Reformed gunslinger Shane (Alan Ladd) befriends a homesteader (Van Heflin) and goes into the saloon to order a soda pop. Chris Galloway, a thug hired by cattle rancher Reiker to run the sod- busters off the range, tells him to get to the back of the store “with the women”. In one of the most spine-chilling bits of acting I have ever seen, Shane turns to him and says: “You talkin' to me?” Then he and his homesteader friend take the saloon to pieces in the best bar-room brawl of all time. And the newer variety of gunslingers...

Express [UK] Time to relax

Now the tumult has died down, there is a tendency to criticize the Americans for using the fear of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to serve their own interests. Consider this: At the close of play, the Aussies discovered 51 jet fighters hidden behind a sand dune. The troops got within a few hundred yards before the planes were spotted. If three squadrons of aircraft can be hidden behind a sand dune, how much easier is it to hide stockpiles of missiles, gas shells or whatever, in a million square miles of desert? In all probability the stuff, if it exists, will never be found, but at least it has been neutralized. If the next rogue on the list were now to be bombed back into the Stone Age and occupied, maybe the rest of the clowns would realize that the game is up, and the best thing might be to relax and enjoy life.

Taking threats seriously

May I respond briefly to your recent editorial “Unprecedented challenge for Ontario justice system”. Vivid in my memory is a comment made by a Holocaust survivor. His urgent advice to his grandson was: “If someone says they are going to kill you, please believe them.” Did not Saddam Hussein strut the world stage boasting that he would wipe out the West with his weapons of mass destruction? Yet no one mentions this when debating the morality of the Iraq war. If someone threatened to behead me, I would want to chop theirs off first, never mind letting them out on bail! A wink at our political system:

Caledon Citizen Election reflection

I thought I was being frightfully funny when I predicted the PC party would fire David Tilson so the unelected Ernie Eves could be parachuted in to take over the province. Never in my worst nightmares did I really believe they would stoop so low. Tilson is, or rather was, the finest elected representative it has been my privilege to know in over six decades of political awareness. Unlike most of his colleagues he is a gentleman, as shown by his dignified acceptance of the situation. According to your article, “...Eves explained why he chose this riding...” He chose it! For how long is the electorate going to put up with this kind of political boondoggling? Why didn't he take over Harris's riding? My fondest hope is that the Conservative party will follow its federal counterpart into oblivion, never to return. wouldn't it be a scream if Eves lost? The NDP, as much as I detest their stupid socialist dogma, is the only party so far to make the totally disastrous Hydro privatization program an election issue. Caledon Citizen, Nov. 2003 Low voter turnout noted

Thirty-two per cent! Do you call that an election? And Ward 2 — my ward — had the dubious distinction of being at the bottom of the list with a voter turnout of 28.43%. This is the lowest voter turnout in my long experience of elections, and is totally disgusting. Clearly, this town is run by a hard core of environmentalists, who want to save the world by not putting salt on the roads in winter, and making sure I don't attack more than 20% of my dandelions in the summer. I await with trepidation the next idiotic bylaw to be railroaded through. They will probably want to paint the whole town green, except of course for the bits covered by unrestricted urban sprawl, bigger and better Wal-Marts and wider and faster expressways. Since I am obviously one of the very tiny minority who would like to see things left just as they are, maybe I should accept the inevitable, relax and enjoy it!

And they ran true to form, as you will see from this letter, written to Premier Ernie Eves, and printed in the Citizen:

Double-bind situation

I am writing to you in the first instance so that you are aware of my concern. I request that you direct a copy of this letter to your minister of the environment, from whom I would appreciate a response.

Continued... Double-bind continued...

Caledon council has just passed a bylaw regulating how we homeowners treat our properties to control dandelions, ants and so forth. Sociologists call this a “double bind situation”. On the one hand I am prosecuted if I fail to control the dandelions on my lawn, and on the other I may be prosecuted if I inadvertently contravene some arcane regulation. After retirement, I came to live in rural southern Ontario, hoping to enjoy my remaining years in peace and quiet. I request protection from the antics of this council, who are obviously under t h e i n f l u e n c e o f l u n a t i c f r i n g e environmentalists, whose sole contribution is to alienate large numbers of people to the very concept of environment.

And this...

Caledon Citizen, Jan 05 Fortification rules confusing

When contemplating the different writing styles required, as between fiction and non-fiction, some philosopher once observed: “Why bother to write fiction when real life is so much more bizarre than anyone could dream up?” I was reminded of this when reading of the latest monster to emerge from the deliberations of the Caledon town council. I refer of course to the declaration that it is now illegal to install anti-burglar fittings in one's house, because they might prevent police and firefighters from breaking in. Well, I don't know that I really want police and firefighters to break into my house.

Continued... Fortification rules continued...

On my next trip to Canadian Tire, after loading up with enough pesticides to treat 20% of my dandelions, I intend to purchase enough iron bars to make my house proof against any onslaught by police or firefighters. If I get the engineering right, they may also keep out the odd burglar, which would at least save me from being jailed for beating the burglar up. Oh dear, what a world we live in. I often wonder what world the Caledon Town council lives in.

Letter to the editor reflecting on an article in the Citizen, May 25, 2005, on four listings on eBay for authentic human souls, ranging in price from 99 cents to about $50. “Before you laugh, they will all likely sell.” The author began by quoting Robert Louis Stevenson: “Everyone lives by selling something.”

Many thanks for your piece on Online Entrepreneurs (May 25). It occurs to me, with reference to one of the items for sale on eBay, that the enclosed stanza from the Rubayat of Omar Khayyam needed only one word changing, and that slightly, to bring it bang up-to-date (“sell” was “spell” in the 11th century):

I sent my Soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that after-life to sell: And by and by my Soul return'd to me, And answer'd “I myself am Heav'n and Hell.” Next up, a taste of my ongoing skirmishes with Canada Post, because of their recanting on rural mail delivery:

To the Hon. David Tilson, QC, MP, Jan. 16, 2008

I regret having to bring up this subject again, I really thought that your much-appreciated efforts on our behalf had resulted in the Federal Government giving them 12 months to restore normal mail delivery. It now appears that their response is to spend five years and a lot of money to “asses rural delivery”, I have seen this process in action in my neighbourhood, and it is not pretty.

I would be the first to admit that driving around in the Canadian winter delivering mail is not a job for wimps and sissies. If the Canada Post workers are afraid to go out in the snow. I suggest they be given employment more suitable for their undoubted talents. Cleaning the latrines in Camp Borden springs to mind.

May I refer you to the immortal motto engraved on the facade of the New York General Post Office in 1913:

NEITHER SNOW, NOR RAIN, NOR HEAT, NOR GLOOM OF NIGHT STAYS THESE COURIERS FROM THE SWIFT COMPLETION OF THEIR APPOINTED ROUNDS

I would also mention the brave, courageous, dedicated people whose motto was “The Mail Must Go Through” – starting with the Pony Express, followed by heroic air mail pioneers like Lindbergh, Saint-Exupéry and many others.

These Canada Post troglodytes are a disgrace to an honourable profession. Can they please be got rid of, and replaced by a Company of Honour? And to L. Cannon, Minister of Transport etc. 18 Apri, 2008:

On March 3 my MP Mr. Tilson sent you a letter asking you to respond to me regarding my concerns about rural mail handling in Caledon. In case the letter was lost in the post, I am taking the liberty of informing you myself of the facts.

During the past three years Canada Post has, by persisting in its desperately flawed attempt to apply urban procedures to rural areas, made a shambles of mail handling here in Caledon. Some time ago your government extracted from them an undertaking to restore traditional rural mail services to Caledon within 18 months. The next thing I heard was that they had embarked upon a five-year programme costing millions to “assess rural mail boxes”, whatever that means.

All the explanations I have seen to date for this extraordinary behaviour have been nonsense. If you do not feel called upon to discuss this with me rationally, please do not waste my time with the usual “Dear John” letter thanking me for sharing my concerns etc. I know the wording by heart.

My proposed solution has always been to get rid of Canada Post, and replace it by a firm — possibly a consortium of courier firms — handling the mail on a contractual basis, and responsible to a minister. It seems to me that Canada Post is a totally dysfunctional organization, responsible to nobody, and out of control, but is at the same time some kind of sacred cow which nobody wishes to confront.

Well, I am confronting it. Thoughts on Britain selling out to the Muslims: To [email protected]

So—the Labour Party has finally reached its Nirvana, by destroying the Britain I have loved. What I utterly fail to understand is why Her Majesty allowed herself to be bullied by that two-faced, fork-tongued, lying scum into signing away the country whose faith, last time I checked, she was supposed to defend. And to Belgium, of all places. Does NOBODY remember what they did to us in the war? Will the last one out please turn off the lights.

Regarding the “Unravelled Mystery” of Glenn Miller's Disappearance in 1944: To the Features Editor, Express [UK], Dec. 2001

I see the Guardian reports that a documentary to be shown on Channel 4 on New Year's Eve claims to have “unravelled the mystery of Miller's disappearance” while on a flight from England to France in December 1944. His plane, they say, was blown up by bombs jettisoned from Lancasters into the Channel. I hate to rain on their parade, but must point out that this theory was first mentioned in an article by Roy Nesbit in “The Aeroplane Monthly” of February 1987, nearly fifteen years ago. Personally, I think the truth is more prosaic. The plane took off in fog, flying low over the Channel, and the pilot wasn't very good at it.

P.S. I know you don't like considering long letters, so this is simply in case anyone there is interested in the opinions of an ex-aviator. /2 Glenn Miller continued...

According to an article in the Toronto Star, the whole documentary rests on “a recently uncovered amateur film interview” with Lancaster navigator Fred Shaw, who “saw the bombs hit a Noorduyn Norseman”. Shaw is clearly shooting a line. First, as mentioned in my letter, the flight took place in conditions of poor visibility, so he wouldn't have been able to see Miller's plane anyway. Second, if there had been a break in the weather and he had seen the plane, I'm sure the Lancs wouldn't have dumped their bombs on it! Third, only very few RAF people would be able to tell a Norseman (an obscure Canadian bush plane) from a distance of ten feet, never mind ten thousand! Pull the other one, Fred, it's got bells on. Incidentally, Nesbit's research included a fellow pilot's opinion of pilot “Nipper” Morgan's ability, i.e., “not highly proficient at instrument flying”.

From: [email protected] To: John Tysoe Subject: Glenn Miller Date: Sat. 22 Dec 2001

Dear John,

Excellent stuff. I hope to use more than the brief opening part of your letter. That thing about keeping letters short is to discourage the ravers, ranters and illiterate nutcases who bombard me with yards of incomprehensible drivel. Sometimes it works! I will pass you letter to the Daily Express, too.

Happy Christmas and a great New Year, from Steve Wood, Features Editor Summing Up

As my final sweeping up, I wrote this addendum about my experience of weeks in a rehabilitation centre for amputees, learning to live again as a monopod. I offer it with the hope that it will be a warning and possibly of benefit to anyone who must undergo a lengthy stay in hospital.

THE HOSPITAL PATIENT’S SURVIVAL MANUAL I have nothing but praise for the technical staff—surgeons, doctors, physiotherapy instructors and such. For the rest of it, there are some aspects which make the difference between a comfortable stay and a constant succession of frustrations and irritations. Here are some: The coldest room: On my first day I was struck by how cold the room was. Against the wall stood a fan/coil unit, from which issued a stream of cold air. This was January, in Canada! I immediately complained, and the front desk said they would look into it, but nothing was done, so I adopted Plan B, which was to ask for extra blankets. I kept on doing this until finally one of the nurses lost her temper and literally threw the blanket at me, saying it was the last one they had. Finally, I got a roll of duct tape from home and taped up all the outlets, which seemed to help a bit. The “bedside” light: This was a strip light in the ceiling. From the switch hung a cord whose free end was looped around the bed rail, giving an angle of pull of 30 degrees, although it was obviously intended to have a straight downward pull. There was no way I could operate the switch from the bed, so I had to call a nurse every time I wanted it switched on or off. Finally they sent in an “electrician”, who pulled the cord down, said “it’s working okay”, and was on his way out when I yelled at him, “I didn’t get you up here to tell me it’s okay—I got you here 147 Sweeping Up the Bits

to FIX it!” He left anyway, and I heard him say to someone outside, “The guy in there has a problem.” The TV: My heart sank when the chap in the next bed imported a TV, which was on for most of the day, forcing me to listen to endless mind-numbing moronic quiz shows like Wheel of Fortune, “It’s a Deal” and so on, complete with screaming audiences—well, I’m sure you know the things I mean, and maybe like them, whereas I hate, loathe, despise and abominate them. Takes all sorts. Shortly after this started, my daughter Margaret was told to leave, since visiting hours were over, and “it wouldn’t be fair to the other room occupants” for us to disturb them with our conversation. So, next time the TV went on, I complained to the duty nurse, who told him to turn it off, and get a headset for it, if he wished to keep it in there. This created an unpleasant atmosphere in the room for a while, until I told them about Margaret, which I think made them understand my point of view. The Patient’s Story of the Terribly Strange Bed: I have experienced many hospital beds during the last few months, but the one I was given at the rehab centre was the stupidest, daftest artefact I have ever encountered. It had a life of its own. All day and all night it puffed and wheezed and groaned, and the part on which I was lying heaved up and down all the time. I have never been more uncomfortable. I cannot begin to understand the thought processes of someone who could dream up such an idiotic machine. And please don’t tell me—I don’t want to know! The stairs: The six steps leading up to my front door were becoming a bit of a nuisance. The instructors wanted to teach me their way of getting up steps, which was backside first. Halfway up on the first exercise I realized that this was not for me, and told them so. I explained that it was irrelevant anyway, since 148 Summing Up

there was now a ramp over the steps at home, and there were no other steps in the house. I then excused myself, went back to my room and telephoned my very handy friend Peter, asking him to build a ramp over the front steps. “Ready by Tuesday,” he said. When the doctors lit into me about it, I told them: a) I found the backside-first method dangerous and exhausting. b) I was quite capable of going up stairs forwards. c) In any case it was no longer relevant since I had caused a ramp to be built over the front door steps, and there were no other steps in the house. They saw the humorous side, and dropped the matter. Probably didn’t get too much of this kind of thing. Nursing Highlights: One night at two a.m. I was awoken by a tight-beam flashlight being shone straight at my eyes. Try it sometime—it’s a bit terrifying. Also, it does nothing for the quality of life to have one’s blood pressure taken halfway through eating breakfast.

ENDPIECE: On a more cheerful topic, I was quite chuffed to read a half- decent review of my earlier book, written by some scribbler for a local magazine. All right, he has his tongue firmly in cheek, but that’s only in keeping with my own attitude. Might as well end this on a high note:

149 BOOK REVIEW

Nuts and Bolts: Chronicles of a Wayward Engineer (Upyours Press Inc., 23.50 Sterl.)

Reviewed by R. H. Barrelle-Ffoulinge, aviation correspondent of the Cheltenham Chatterbox

Let me say right away that Messrs Upyours can usually be relied upon to give us a “rattling good yarn” (to quote an eminent high court judge), and this book, purporting to be the autobiography of an aircraft engineer, certainly keeps up the tradition.

Sub-titled “Chronicles of a Wayward Engineer”, the book, says the writer, provides “a worm's-eye view of the golden age of the British aircraft industry”. His definition of this “golden age” seems to be from the time he joined it to the time he was displaced by the progress of science. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that he gives an entertaining account of events during this period. Perhaps a little too entertaining in places. Being vaguely familiar with some of the events he covers, some of my old doubts and misgivings were awakened. If half of what these people say, who were intimately engaged in this business, were true, it is difficult to see how anything ever got done. Indeed, the author conveys the impression of a four- cornered battle between himself, the company brass (particularly chief draughtsmen), the ministry, and some outside suppliers.

Despite his boast that he was never fired or laid off, he did manage to move around quite a lot, usually due to the cancellation of the project he was working on. In view of the controversial nature of the book, there is plenty of scope for a detractor to point the finger of blame in his direction, given his liking for lunch in a pub (where, he claims, some of his better ideas originated), his refusal to work overtime unless paid for it, his tendency to ignore the “conventional wisdom” and go his own way, and all the other signs of individuality which make some people nervous. On the other hand, from what little I know of the times he writes about, he seems to have made some good calls. The Blue Steel inertia navigator temperature control and warhead heating systems, the SR-53 APU, the TSR-2 landing gear, the Victor ECM cooling system and others spring to mind.

Also, I think he could have saved Frigidaire from some of their grief if there had been someone prepared to listen to him. I was thinking particularly of the Hunter elevator assembly jig fiasco, where they had ordered two port jigs instead of one port and one starboard, because his chief had refused to allow him to explain the Hawker design office practice. And, of course, the 1/16 drill farce.

I was having a pint with him before starting this review, and he said that, as far as he was concerned, General Motors had been incompetently managed ever since he had known them. In the context of today's world financial collapse, with GM at the head of the bailout queue, personally he wouldn't give them a plugged nickel until they had purged themselves of everyone who had anything to do with any of the management decisions over the last half century. He was about to start on their unions, at which point I thought it best to drink up and depart.

It is quite easy to see how his hatred of meetings developed, and how he managed to mess up nearly all those he attended, either by walking out or being thrown out. His only successful meeting, as he relates in the book, was one in which he was the chairman. His seemingly draconian rules were accepted with good grace by the members, and enabled the business to be completed within the allotted time span, in a friendly fashion.

I would mention two in particular. No member was allowed to speak for more than three minutes, and the meeting finished precisely at the scheduled time, no matter what. If anything remained to be done, another meeting would be called. I cannot help thinking that, if his methods were applied to all meetings, a lot more would get done. It does, of course, depend upon a strong chairman exercising absolute control, which upsets a lot of people. His view on this, he told me, in what Bob always referred to as his “silver-tongued oratory” ” was that “in this case they are more than welcome to stay away”.

In order to prevent this review from committing the cardinal sin of being longer than the book it is reviewing, I had better close by expressing a twinge of regret that we shall not see his like again. As we were finishing the last pint, he said he wouldn't last five minutes in today's engineering environment. In his day, if he got fed up he could leave, take a couple of months off, and get another job when the money ran low, usually with an increase in status and salary. In fact, he said, the only way you could get a raise was to go to another firm, which struck him as daft (and me, too). Then came the crowning disaster; the slide rule and the drawing board became obsolete, almost overnight it seemed, and every engineer had a computer work station on his desk.

I think he was correct in his assessment that he “got out just in time”. The end of an era indeed.

Nuts and Bolts: Chronicles of a Wayward Engineer is available from Griffon Abbeye Press: [email protected] Please enquire regarding prices and shipping rates.

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. C. S. Lewis