How’s the back?
ONE GLORIOUS morning on the spectacular island of Mahe, Seychelles, the photographer was shooting a scenic picture when he spotted a boy in the distance, landing an enormous fish. It was half the boy's height. He did a close-up. It was stunning. As he returned to continue with the main shot I made this distant snapshot of the boy.
No connection whatever, except that it was on the same location; one morning, ridiculously early, I strolled along the silver sand before starting work and had the idea of paddling a little. Nothing strenuous, you know, and nothing risky, such as letting the water come above my ankles (you do have to watch water. Treacherous stuff - one absentminded moment and you can find yourself gurgling down there with the fishes.)
I took off my socks and let a small bubbling wavelet sweep over my toes, and back again. I went a little further out. I was up to my ankles, now, and confident. I walked, and swished the water a little. Not too much, of course. I didn't want to upset it. The water was pleasantly warm - seductive, really. I pondered on the subject of mermaids. They invited you into their presence, I've heard. What terrors might they employ once you were under their spell?
My answer came in the shape of an upturned, broken beer bottle, and I had trodden on it. The water swilling round my foot was red. Without too much howling and soppy business (mermaids love that sort of thing) I walked casually up the beach to my hut. The photographer, John Garrett, was pulling on his socks. He spotted me and asked if I was OK. I seemed to be limping. I reassured him that I had only trodden on a broken bottle and would just put a handkerchief round it. ADs are, on the whole, tender-hearted people; they don't like to disturb the photographer's peace of mind.
But he became bossy and I ended up in hospital with huge needles being thrust into me and smiling tanned faces explaining that tetanus was a nasty thing to have.
The following morning I got up at the normal time and dressed and wondered why John hadn't appeared. He was usually up before me, cleaning his lenses and fiddling with light metres and things. I stopped outside his hut and called. A groan came from within. I investigated. He was flat on his back.
'Paul, I've done my back in,' he growled. 'Sprain. Nothing much. Be up in a minute. How's the foot?'
After a few days of hobbling along, he wincing at back pains and I with foot pains, we both improved. Both foot and back grew more reasonable and work continued. But we developed a morning greeting. 'How's the foot?' he would say. 'How's the back?' I would reply. We made a happy couple, John and me.
I was moved to write this because, three days ago, I sprained my back. Standing and lying down are the only really comfortable positions. Sitting is OK for half an hour, but no longer. And getting up from the chair is sheer hell, with hot darts being thrown exactly at the spot where it hurts most. The days seem much longer.
And now, I have to get out of this chair.
Another ancestral home
When you've grown up in a semidetached, 1930s two-up, two-down house with a tiny back garden it comes as a bit of a shock when you're 20 and you're told you're about to live in an enormous palace. My RAF driver nodded sideways as we approached a tastefully flamboyant archway, indicating the top of the tower appearing above the Burmese shrubbery.
'This is where you'll be living,' he said. We were in Yangon, Myanmar, and it was the palace of Lim Chin Tsong.
I goggled. More and more became visible as we rounded a bend in the drive. You share the sight here; I am indebted to Mr Davey Lim, the great great grandson of Lim Chin Tsong, for giving me permission to use the picture. You can see websites about the palace by entering the name Lim Chin Tsong in Google.
Two magnificent doors formed the main entrance; the wide reception hall halted me in my eager stride. Vast, beautifully lit from windows all round us, some of them in stained glass. We walked up a very wide staircase, beautifully carved in teak, to what would be my bedroom. I reckoned that three of the rooms in my childhood home would have slotted in here nicely.
Life, for the few months I stayed here, was interesting. The whole site had been allocated to the RAF; the Japanese army had vacated the place only a matter of weeks before. One afternoon I peered down into one of their dugouts in the gardens and the air I breathed was redolent with the atmosphere of tension.
We were a maintenance unit. Aircraft equipment of all kinds came to us and the specialists among us dealt with whatever they were asked to investigate and put right. I dealt with cameras, aerial reconnaissance and gun cameras. But there was much spare time. I spotted a digger tractor in the yard one day and the engineer dealing with it asked me if I wanted to have a go. Driving it, that is. Digging would have been a little excessive. I climbed up, found the switch and started the thing. Gingerly, I discovered which was the clutch and which the brake. I had never driven anything and this was tremendous fun. I jerked happily round the yard and was soon managing a reasonably smooth gearchange. On one circuit I saw a snake sunning itself straight ahead. I steered over it and a chum of mine said afterwards that it was a Silver Krait - one of the deadliest. But unfortunately, said my chum, it was only the skin. They cheered me at dinner that night.
Up in the top storey of the octangular tower several of us keen on drawing started an art session, bringing in people from the town and working on portraits in line, watercolour and oils. I have to admit that the most popular model was a lovely girl who readily agreed to pose nude.
The time came to leave, and I was flown from Mingaladon airfield (now the international airport) to Calcutta and, after an equally eventful few months, home to England, with many stories to tell.
The MG Magnette ZB
W HAT a car! It sat on the drive outside my study window like a wellbred sheepdog, crouching, poised, waiting for its master’s call to action. She was the 1956 64hp Magnette ZB. Inside you found comfortable leather seating, superb steering, cornering like a dog after the rabbit. She would do 80mph with power to spare. Not that I can remember travelling at 80, but that’s what the experts tell me.
Many felt that she had broken tradition, losing the familiar sporty look, low-slung and roofless with headlights squatting on mudguards. Yet in the parking lot by the track she still fitted calmly into the sporty scene. She carried five of us round the country on many summer holidays, roof rack and boot loaded to bursting point with luggage and all the must-have paraphernalia of childhood.
Our two boys, whilst not exactly falling over themselves to do so, liked washing her. In the shot above they are assisted by our older son's friend from across the road. Our daughter was otherwise engaged upon, I feel sure, some household duty. A dutiful lot, our three.
I don’t remember breakdowns happening; the only incident I remember causing causing the furrowed brow was when I had visited my very elderly parents and taken them out for a spin. We stopped as near as possible to a coastal beauty spot, parking hard up against an ancient stone wall. I got out via the front passenger door, helped the parents get out and went with them for a gentle stroll down the hill to the beach area and had a lovely hour or two. We returned to the car, I flourishing my keys and preparing to help my parents get back in. But I came to an abrupt halt at the front passenger door by which I had exited and carefully set so that it locked when closed. It was, very naturally, as I had left it - locked from the inside.
I had never registered that the ZB passenger door handle is not blessed with a keyhole.
And, do you know, I cannot remember how we eventually got in.
Choirboys
To have sung in a very good church choir for several years has been, for me, one of the great delights of this life. Our choir was taught and conducted by a Choirmaster who was a born teacher; his manner and his technique were the chief reason for the choir’s excellence and for the subsequent invitations to sing the services in our land’s cathedrals during holiday months.
Sixteen men and roughly 30 boys attended weekly practice sessions in the little first-floor choir vestry above the main church - a not very beautiful Victorian brick building; the Choirmaster rehearsed the boys alone for about three-quarters of an hour and then we men would arrive. For fifteen minutes both men and boys practiced together. The boys then left and we men continued, sometimes for more than an hour.
We sang for both the morning and the evening services. In the mornings the vestry gradually filled with a buzzing crowd of men and boys creating an ocean of flapping blue cassocks being donned and white surplices being hoisted over heads, hair being combed and music books being collected from a cupboard.
Naturally, the boys cared nothing for the state of their hair. The Choirmaster’s constant efforts to make themselves tidy bore little fruit; one Sunday morning I took it upon myself to put things right with my own comb and as weeks went by they gradually took the thing for granted and bowed their head for my attention as I approached.
Watching them processing calmly and in perfect symmentry ahead of us, it was difficult to connect them with the same milling, chattering bunch of kids of a few moments before. Eyeing them from my position in the Decani stalls opposite I frequently caught sight of small breaks in form among the Cantoris trebles; the nudge that a boy would give his neighbour in reproof for a slight mistake or merely a sidelong glance and a pair of lowered eyebrows. Or possibly an amused smile.
Singing the services in our own church was satisfying enough; singing in the glorious, vast, deliciously-echoing space of a centuries-old cathedral was the ultimate prize, an experience that had the power to bring tears.
Stanley Sharpless: The Test
Sitting at my desk one morning in the new and exciting Technical Publications Department in the early 1950s, I looked up to see the chief editor coming over. He adopted what I was to discover was his favourite discussion position: feet wide apart, both elbows on the edge of my desk and his bottom pointing to the roof.
‘Just been in with Sharpless,’ he said. ‘And he wants to see you.’
Something lurched inside me. What had I done?
‘It's something about your job.’ The lurch came again, a bit higher up.
I had been in the department for about a fortnight, learning the job - writing instruction leaftlets for the company’s photographic materials and chemicals.
In his fairly impressive office Stanley Sharpless, Ad Manager and now famous for his comic lines, 'Cocoa coursing through their veins', motioned to me. 'Sit down, Paul.' He flicked a finger.
My mouth as dry as a dustbag, I sat down in the chair indicated and waited for the bad news. Through the open windows floated the growling of Kingsway traffic.
'I've had an idea,' he said. He straightened out a long strip of paper on his desk. 
Plain paper covered in pencil notes on both sides. It had been concertina'd into five or so folds to form a four-inch square. 'A lot of people just don't seem to understand how take a good picture. How to hold the camera, how to avoid sun-glare and blurring and so on. And I want a free leaflet to be available in every Kodak dealer's shop. In England and overseas. We’re going to call it TRAVEL TIPS BY KODAK so, ostensibly, it’s for people about to go on holiday. Here's a rough I've done.' He pushed the paper across the desk. 'Take it. Spend some time with it. I've scribbled the headings all the way through. And I want jolly little illustrations - watercolour sketches - dotted amongst the text. All right?’
He smiled as he said it, and it was a friendly smile.
As I went into my own office all five of the other authors were grinning at me. One of them couldn't suppress giggles.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
They broke into a little cheer. I gathered that the ‘Travel Tips by Kodak’ leaflet was by now famous - it had been discussed for weeks and was known as 'Stanley's Tips'. They’d all been waiting to see who got the job.
Over the next few weeks I finished it and, in the process, learned how to handle good-natured cracks about tips and travelling.