Beach Landing
As I believe I said once before, the black beaches of Iceland can make danger seem imminent. The black boulders are capable of having a sullen expression about them. Yet in sunshine the scene is a sparkling delight and even the boulders smile.
Jack Oakley and I were there on a photoshoot for the Kodak Calendar. Having landed at Reykjavik and rescued our gear and personal luggage from an entirely unrelated tour bus (another story) I decided it would be wise to do an aerial survey of the scene. We climbed aboard a delicate little Piper aircraft, possibly rubbing our hands in gleeful anticipation. All was right in this best of possible worlds.
But I found you should never count your chickens before you know where you’re going to land. We told the pilot we wanted to land near a beach. Near a beach, mind you. Just to get the feel of the place. He gave us an understanding smile and we took off. Five minutes later he pointed down to a long, thin, black beach edged by a cliff. He said he would land there.
It looked just about wide enough for a lawnmower. We thought he was winding us up. He was not. He went down. And of course the width of the beach increased considerably. But just as the wheels were about to hit the wet sand he seemed to entertain second thoughts and banged open the throttle. We surged and curved sickeningly away over the sea.
‘I’ll try that again,’ said the pilot.
Jack leaned forward and tapped his shoulder. ‘It really isn’t that important,’ he said. The pilot shrugged and said he often landed there as an air ambulance and although it was tricky it was possible. I joined Jack and said no, no, really, it didn’t really matter, really. I tried to swallow and failed. We were circling and lining up for the beach. We went lower. We cringed in our seats. Then we hit. We bounced from what felt like an explosion. We were about ten feet up.
Having bounced, the plane came down again gently and rolled to a stop.
A happy group of children ran from nowhere and watched us unstick ourselves from our seats and climb down. My knees were in shock. The children pestered the pilot to let them get in and sit in his seat. I think the only reason he let them do it was to give him something to do and steady his nerves. When the demonstration ended he walked back to the tail and, rather too carefully for my liking, crouched and examined the tailwheel.
Jack and I walked the length of the beach twice, pretending to make detailed observations of the surroundings. What we were actually doing was delaying the take-off for as long as possible.
______________________________________________
Text and illustration ©Paul Wigmore 2010
The Arms of Morpheus
I am a heavy sleeper. In the mornings, that is. Very pleasant. But it does give rise to unintended consequences such as missed appointments with the person who visits us to cut my toenails.
I was having one of these very deep and lovely sleeps one morning and woke to see a bearded man sitting on the bed next to mine and smiling broadly. This was disturbing on two counts; first, I have only one bed in my room. Second, this chap was a stranger.
But within seconds all was clear. I was not in my own room. I was in a West Midlands hotel and, for reasons I cannot remember, I was sharing the room with the Botanist David Bellamy, OBE. And having told you that I’d better tell you why or you'll be worrying. A magazine had commissioned me to take photographs of a ballet rehearsal in progress and David was there because the ballet was based on his book, The Queen’s Hidden Garden. Sir Malcolm Williamson was composing the music and, the following week, I drove down to his home and did a portrait.
Waking with a fright seems to be a habit of mine. It was entirely my own fault when it happened on board ship. I was sailing home from India on the SS Circassia. I discovered that
one could relax very comfortably indeed up on the open deck by sitting on the ship’s rail and leaning back against a stanchion and sideways against the ship’s hull. With the lifejacket as a pillow it was possible to slide the bottom forward slightly, lean back and find perfect bliss. Head and shoulder were prevented from falling overboard, as seen in the illustration. From the thighs down, however, there was no protection; they could slip sideways and turn one into a brief mention in the local paper. One evening I made the mistake of closing my eyes as the sun was setting over the Red Sea. When I woke it was dead of night. With the Red Sea some sixty feet below me, that was not to my taste.
The other on-board experience was not caused by any such stupidity and for that reason was more worrying. This time I was travelling in the opposite direction and on my way to some unknown RAF station in India. I had found a nice corner on the open deck where, in my sleeping-bag, I could comfortably sleep for the night. Something like sixty other men had chosen the same option. By late evening they were scattered everywhere, snoring happily. I slid down into my sleeping bag and went to sleep.
I woke in the morning to a glorious day of cloudless azure sky and a gentle breeze. It had been a wonderful sleep and I was ready for anything, especially the bacon and eggs. Then I sat up. What I discovered was just beyond reason: I was at the opposite end of the deck.
I must have sleep-walked my way there, stepping with astonishing precision between sleeping bodies. How I had avoided them I shall never know.
___________________________________________________
Text and illustration ©Paul Wigmore 2010
Crimes and questions
I still blush to think of my one appalling childhood crime. Mind you, I was never criminally inclined. I didn’t have the nerve for it. My brother tried very hard to guide me into evil ways but gave it up. I was too keen on drawing things. And, oddly enough, it was this passion for scribbling that led me to my major crime.
The Ramsgate aunts did once have reasonable grounds for doubting my total innocence. Staying with them one summer I was alone in their sitting room and enjoying myself at the family gramophone. It was the sort you had to wind up in order to make the turntable turn. My winding technique was brisk. I loved the smoothness of the feeling as the spring became tighter and tighter. I wondered just how tightly-wound I could make it. It decided to let me know the answer in an unkind way. The clutch gave way, sending the ebony handle flying backwards and cracking the back of my hand very smartly indeed. I remember the comforting arms of various aunts wrapped round me but got the distinct impression that I was not popular.
My father’s surprise entry into in my bedroom late one night ended in a well-remembered chat about the ways of the Devil, including the warning never to let a man put his hand on my knees. The next morning I examined my knees. They looked pretty much like all the other boys' knees. I could find nothing interesting about them. If anyone wanted to put their hand on them, they were welcome. The chat contained nothing by way of explanation. He would have been too deeply embarrassed.
One bit of terrorism I did find most attractive. Walking home from school one afternoon with a friend hesaid, 'Y'know the old house? Ivy and stuff? I was thinking - the windows. We could smash one. You and me - see who can smash it first!'
We turned from School Lane into Police Station Lane, gave the constable standing on the steps of the big red-brick building a cautious glance and crossed the main road to our usual short cut. It took us past the very old and derelict house. We picked up one stone each.
'Bags I go first!' he said, threw his stone and missed. I threw mine, and scored. We looked at each other. He grinned.
'What about it - smash the lot?'
I reminded him that we were in almost full view of the Police station. He shrugged, and smashed another window. We carried on until six sets of four jagged, gaping black holes stared back at us. The delight in doing something illegal gripped me. But then the scariness took hold. Supposing the police had spotted us? Would there be a knock at our front door? But the police seemed either to know nothing of it or were sympathetically inclined.
My brother and I had been given peashooters. He felt they had potential for something dangerous and said I should join him. I didn’t need persuasion. It did have a certain attraction. At the busy corner of our road and the main road we stood, peashooters hidden and a couple of dried peas on our tongues. An approaching red sports car attracted him. ‘Ready?’ he hissed.
‘Yes.’
‘Now!’
We shot a volley and saw one pea bounce off the driver's door. But the car was slowing and stopping. The driver was getting out and looking our way.
‘Run!’ yelled my brother.
We burst through our back gate and stood, waiting for Nemesis. But Nemesis, like the police, was not interested.
I reached my criminal nadir in our sitting room. My parents were out. I had been given a fountain pen. No other boy in my class at school had a fountain pen. One particular thing about it delighted me. If I let the nib touch the paper very lightly it produced the smallest possible dot. I did dotty drawings in imitation of the dotty newspaper photos.
I was standing at the deep windowsill and idly going through the contents of a flamboyant chocolate-and-gold biscuit tin where the family snapshots were kept. Mostly they were picnic groups and holiday pictures. Always, the snaps were of people, smiling at the camera. I thought how comical it would be, how my parents would laugh, if I did something that only I and my fountain pen could do. I spent a happy hour.
And that is why our snapshots now show family and friends still smiling but cross-eyed.
____________________________
And now for something completely different. I’m grateful to one of my readers who suggests that others might like some clarification of terms I used in ‘Wetting my pants’, Parts 1 and 2. She also suggests a comment on ‘photoshoots’ and their ranking in the importance of things generally. Here are some quick answers.
A ‘transparency’ is a photograph on colour film. But the term is widely used (as well as ‘slide’) to describe one frame of this film mounted in thin cardboard. The most popular kind is 2in (5cm) square, holding one 35mm transparency.
A ‘lightbox’ is the picture-editor's device. It is simply a wood or metal box containing a light source and a top surface of translucent glass. Transparencies laid on the glass may then be examined, usually through a magnifying glass, by means of the light from below.
Detailed descriptions of professional ‘photoshoots’ can, to the bystander, sound overblown. The making of photographs by professionals is an expensive and highly critical undertaking. In all commercial and educational fields, much can depend on the results being exactly right for purpose. The job is fraught with hazards that jeopardise success and this does tempt the diarist to make the most of the dramas, small and large.
________________________________________________________________
Text and illustration ©Paul Wigmore 2010
New Arrivals
As soon as someone on TV looks as if they’re about to be inoculated, I shudder and avert my gaze. I cannot bear it. So you will understand how I felt when I was asked to film a chap’s leg being amputated.
It was my own fault. We were comfortable in our first house and I was happily running a publications department in Surrey. But also I was beginning to feel that I really should be doing something more vitally useful for my fellow humans. A friend told me that a public relations person was badly needed in the Christian Medical College and Hospital in Ludhiana, Punjab. Bravely, my wife agreed that we should take it on. So, on March 11th, 1961 we boarded the SS Circassia for India and ultimately the college and hospital. Most obligingly, our eighteen-month-old son agreed to accompany us.
The sea voyage over, we had the rail journey to do. Bombay to Ludhiana. Thirty-six hours is a longish journey and a family’s luggage for a couple of years means a whole lot of luggage. Knowing that for the final hundred miles or so we would be sleeping we asked the Guard to wake us one hour before our 5am arrival at Ludhiana. He must have been greatly surprised when the train drew in to Ludhiana two hours early. Thus, it was only 3am when I woke to his very excited voice.
‘We are coming Ludhiana, sir, we are coming Ludhiana!’
Of course, we had done no packing or preparation of any sort. It was pandemonium. And, quite apart from that, a very small boy does not take kindly to being woken from his sleep amid the essentially noisy cramming of cases and cries of ‘Where’s my -? and ‘Have you got the -?’
We staggered out on to the platform and eventually stood, surrounded by 29 crates containing things like refrigerator, photographic and sound recording equipment and huge metal trunks. Naturally, our host was not there to meet us. Five minutes of thought and discussion ended with Barbara and small boy getting a horse-drawn taxi to the college while I protected the pile of all our worldly goods and waited for a college official of some sort to be awakened. I wondered if he or she would arrive in pyjamas and dressing gown. To my disappointment (it would have made a good story better) he, the Professor of Medicine, whilst full of apologies and stifling a yawn, did not.
The general idea was that I would create and edit an international news sheet, make films and slide presentations for overseas use, conduct visitors on a tour of the establishment and generally encourage voluntary donations by providing all fundraisers round the world with up-to-date information and pictures.
But, very sensibly, the Professor of Orthopaedics pounced on the idea of using my services to perform a useful teaching function. With movie film he could show his MBBS students how to amputate legs and things without them getting in his way in the theatre. So came the phone call, the trepidation and the job itself. Gowned and hooded, I was relieved to find that if you kept your eye firmly planted in the viewfinder and did not look at the real thing it didn’t hurt a bit. Shortly after that I was asked to film a hermaphrodite having things ‘tidied up’, as the Professor of Gynaecology gently put it. With my newly-adopted viewfinder technique to protect me, I managed it without fainting.
Looking back at the whole experience of working in a teaching hospital it is crammed with surprises like this. Beside the job of setting up the PR department I had to learn the technique of hosting tour groups from church-related organisations abroad. My initiation was quite charming. The group was all-American and they were on a fact-finding visit for their church. I met them as they arrived at the college. Their leader, a substantial lady with a parasol, swept through the group as though swimming through sharks and waved her parasol cheerily at me.
‘Sir, I don’t know your name,’ she said, gripping my hand, ‘but I know you’re an American and that’s just fine!’
Electricity failures were frequent in those days. Whenever it happened we would hear cries of 'Bijli bund! Bijli bund!' (Electricity's off!) echoing round the compound. Sunday church services, and the pipe organ in particular, were among the victims. It was a venerable instrument but capable of gorgeous sounds. It was, however, fully dependent upon a steady flow of the right stuff. If that failed during a hymn or Psalm, the effect was little short of comic. At one service I attended it happened just after the announcement of the first hymn. This sparked off the following verses; I made full use of the intriguing and poetic names of organ parts.
__________________________________________
Text and illustration ©Paul Wigmore 2010
Wetting my pants: 2
Continued from last week. Scroll down to read last week’s if you missed it.
In the small hours, I sweated. I knew that at last I had bitten off more than I could chew. Here was I, launching myself and the company into a PR disaster.
Daylight made things a bit better. I sat down at my desk, pushed the current advertising copy aside and did some roughs on the layout pad. I made myself think. I thought: what about twelve shots of a girl who has a white horse and who rides it through the countryside and along a wide beach with blue sea and sky? And maybe inject a couple of small children for a bit of a-ah?
Portugal, I thought, for dependable weather and good backgrounds, and Jack had done a lot of work there and knew the location well. Cascais was the place. I worked out twelve scenes and had long sessions with Jack.
I said nothing to him about my misgivings.
We did the presentation to a cluster of senior management, got it approved and went to Cascais. We started work. I had too much to organise to worry any more. Our Portuguese fixer/driver had worked with Jack before and he was wonderful. The Portuguese model-agency girl we had hired was great. The small boy and girl models from the same agency were happy and businesslike. Their chaperone always kept her distance and was a model of non-interference. The only member of the party to spoil things now and then was the horse. Very unpredictable, that horse. But then horses have always frightened me. It’s something to do with their height and the way they jerk and lift their head up and bring it down like a hammer. Underneath it you would be driven into the ground. John Betjeman once told me he didn’t like horses because they sting.
The children fought occasionally and became bored but were generally trouble-free, the girl rode well and looked wonderful against the sky as she cantered across the dunes. We had a mackerel sky for much of the time and Jack called on me to tell him when the sun was about to squirt through the next crack. Apart from that I made sure not to interfere. I had learned long ago always to keep well clear of the photographer. The picture is the photographer’s baby: the organisation is the art director’s, as well as keeping the whole shoot on the right track. Any chatting about ideas was done during sitting-back time.
We ate magnificently in Monte Estoril at ‘O Escondidinho’; it was the sort of small café where the proprietress picks her way across a floor cluttered with her babies, chickens and cats, puts a complimentary carafe of wine on your table and invites you to tell her what you think of it. Jack knew Maria well; he often worked in the area and ate there whenever possible. All thoughts of being on a hiding to nothing were drowned in the smoky haze and the heady wine. On the last evening as we waited for the meal to arrive I idly played with the little triangular pack of toothpicks on our table and studied the printing on the yellow-and-red label. Jack was watching. He got up and went over to Maria. She laughed and handed him something small. He came back, sat down, grinned, put it in my hand and closed my fingers over it. Maria was watching us.
‘Compliments of the establishment, Paul,’ he said. ‘A small memoir.’ It was an unopened pack of toothpicks, with the message on one side:
O ESCONDIDINHO
(cervejaria, mariscos, vines e commodious)
MONTE ESTORIL
I still have it.
Back at my lightbox Jack and I went through the transparencies. They were stunning. Then over the months came the long and complex business of production. Eventually, distribution began. A copy was handed to me at my desk. Gingerly, I slid it from its packing and took a look at the glossy cover. It seemed all right. I opened the January page and then the rest. Reproduction perfect. Nothing wrong. But what would the Distributors say?
Within ten days or so comments would be coming in from overseas and from our own professional customers and sales centres in the UK. When they came they were reasonable. No actual complaints. I began to wonder if perhaps I hadn’t made such a mess of things after all. And then one day Alan, the print production manager, came in and waved a letter at me. An expression on his face told me something was up. He was stroking his jaw as though reminding himself that he hadn’t shaved that morning.
‘Just arrived, Paul’ he muttered.
‘What is it?’ Something in my stomach fell with a thud.
He looked down at the letter. ‘Well, Paul. It’s like this. We sent (an overseas Distributor) their usual consignment but, um -’
‘But what? They’ve sent them back?’
‘No. They need more. Seems it’s unusually popular.’ He burst out laughing and floated the letter on to my desk. Dan and the rest of them joined in. I nearly threw something at him but picked up the phone instead and rang Jack.
Postscript
Years later, Jack wrote me a letter after returning from a holiday with his wife in Cascais and Monte Estoril. He said he had wanted to share some of the memories with her and took her along the sea road and up the alleyway to the little Escondidinho café. He wrote, ‘We shouldn’t have gone, Paul. D’you know what that café is now? I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a bloody video hire shop and Maria’s dead.’
Not long after that letter came I had an email from one of the copywriters who worked with me. He had the shattering news that Jack, after a short illness, had died. A dear man with a great heart and a talent to match.
______________________________________________
All text and illustration at top of page ©Paul Wigmore 2010