Last night I finished reading ‘No Cloak, No Dagger’, by Benjamin Cowburn. 
Geoff Grandfield’s dramatic illustrations perfectly enhance the pages of this Folio Society edition of the author’s reminiscences of ‘Allied Spycraft in Occupied France’ during the Second World War.
The book is well written and without exaggeration records Cowburn’s experiences including being one of the first undercover agents parachuted into unoccupied France progressing to recruiting and organising people and projects. It reads like an adventure, although fraught with danger, carrying a surprising lack of the menace that is captured by the illustrator. Grandfield’s spare style with use of strong silhouettes, blocks of colour, and distorted perspective, manages to be rather more emotional. Not that that is in any way criticism of the writer whose fine detail certainly takes us into wartime France and the lives of those who endured it.
Perhaps it was the description of airborne drops in the book that kept my attention on the skies as I walked this morning down to the Village Green, up the footpath to Bull Lane, and back via Seamans Lane. Or if that’s too fanciful, maybe it was just the threat of further rain that caused me to peer aloft..
‘Little Thatch’ cottage is losing its straw. Even the family of decoy ducks has been stripped. I imagine that when the house was given its name that referred to the size of the building rather than the quantity of its covering.
Lowering storm clouds threatened to release their load. 
When stirred into action by an overhead helicopter, they began to do so.
This afternoon I scanned fifteen of my old negatives, and was able to date and place them in early 1981 at Gracedale Road SW16. Two, of Sam and me, were taken by Jessica. The others, of our son, were taken by me, all, I think, with my Olympus OM2.
Sam is pictured at the piano, which he did not pursue in later life;
on our bed; in a baby walker; and at a meal table, once eating and the rest of the time playing.
In this shot I appear to have been pointing something out to him. Perhaps it was a light bulb, for ‘gigh’ (light) was one of his very first words. He used this when he wanted you to lift him up so he could switch on the light.
Jessica and I bought the dining table in about 1975 from our old manager, Muriel Trapp. It now rests in the sitting room at Sigoules. It was pretty ancient when we bought it, and is rather more so now. I wonder whether there would be a market for it in a retro pub?
I really didn’t need to do much work on these pictures when putting them into iPhoto. No more than a little retouching. What was fascinating, however, was the face recognition facility. If the computer identifies a human face it invites you to enter it into the file. It often goes further than simply asking you for a name. It has a stab at the identity and gives you the option to confirm or deny. If you reject the suggestion you type in the name yourself and hopefully the machine gets it right next time.
In these pictures, my son Sam was only a few months younger than his own daughter Orlaigh is now. iPhoto therefore contains pictures of Orlaigh contemporary with these. By 
now you will have guessed that, time and again this afternoon I was asked ‘Is this Orlaigh?’ How about my Christmas present picture from the Thompson family?
(Anyone confused about personnel is referred to the family tree)
The last time we met our friends Geoff and Sheila Austin was to share a meal in Ringwood’s Curry Garden. By happy coincidence that is where Jackie and I were dining this evening when I received a text from Geoff offering Ashes jokes, all of which referred to England’s recent comprehensive defeat in Australia. We were flanked, in the restaurant, by couples on either side who happened to be English cricket fans. Those on my right were even in Sydney to witness one of the ignominious disasters for our team. As we were leaving I told this couple the one about the difference between the English batsmen and Cinderella. Jackie told me I should take Cinderella’s advice and know when to leave the ball.
The food, by the way, was as good as ever, and Kingfisher provided our liquid refreshment.
Tag: Olympus OM2
Residential History Continued
As stated yesterday, Jessica, Sam, Louisa, and I moved to Lindum House in Beacon Hill Road Newark, on 10th December 1987. This home was large enough for all the southern family members to come and stay, and they often did. 
Its large garden was a haven for children, as evidenced by this photograph from Louisa’s Birthday party in May 1989. The games were organised by Kate, a teenaged baby sitter. Sam gleefully advances in a T-shirt that for some reason I don’t remember sports my signature. Louisa sits a little behind and to his side. All the children in the photograph were regular visitors until the house was sold in 2006; some, as they grew older, would often stay overnight, particularly if they lived in villages outside the town and had socialised in it. By now I was using an Olympus OM2. I cannot find the negative so this reproduction is from a scanned print.
With Jessica’s death from multiple myeloma now a matter of time the house was sold in December of that year and I rented a flat in Hyde Park Square, SW London. The story of this three week fiasco is told in ‘Aaargh!’. Chesterton’s, clearly feeling they owed me something, provided me with a six month let in a house in Leinster Mews, just opposite Kensington Gardens. After this I had three years at 29 Sutherland Place, in the lounge of which I am seated in Alex Schneideman’s portrait featured in ‘Showstopper’.
By the summer of 2010, Jackie and I, now reunited, took a flat in The Ridgway SW19, a street in which I had dreamed of living throughout my childhood. This establishment is described in ‘A Professional Clean’.
P.S. I pressed Publish prematurely again. After a year in The Ridgway we moved, until Jackie’s retirement, to a quirky little 1930s flat in Links Avenue, Morden, which we left in November 2012 for Castle Malwood Lodge, in Minstead, Hampshire. We have the ground floor flat on the right hand corner of the photograph.
Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Birds on Jackie’s feeder are becoming braver. Today we were able to watch, through the kitchen window, a blackbird, a robin, and a long-tailed tit. It would probably be a good idea to clean the guano off the window before I take another photograph.
I had less luck with a woodpecker I heard at its work whilst I was walking the Shave Wood loop. When I backtracked to seek out this avian chippy its pecking ceased and I was unable to discern its whereabouts. I suspect it is of the lesser spotted variety.
In London Minstead a disinterested pony hitched to a trap found the opportunity to sample the hedgerow more fascinating than me. Its owner was content to watch the birdie and smile. She said many other similar photographs had been taken.
I believe photograph number 9 in the ‘through the ages’ series was taken in the late 1970s by Jessica in Gerard Street, Soho, probably during the Chinese New Year celebrations. We always attended these colourful occasions which took place a stone’s throw from our flat. I seem to have been having some problem with my camera. Whatever it was, it cannot have been as disastrous as the freezing of the shutter on my Olympus. That fault developed some ten or a dozen years later when I was the ‘official’ photographer at Jessica’s cousin Anthony and Geraldine’s wedding. When asked to perform this role for friends and family I am always afraid something will go wrong and they will have no record of their great day. The only time I ever did totally fail, on account of not loading the film properly, I was saved by my father-in-law Don Rivett who had shadowed me. I am grateful to Helen for recently being kind enough to remind me of this effort at her own wedding to Bill forty-odd years ago.
For Anthony and Geraldine’s wedding I had done my utmost to bring along a properly loaded piece of equipment in full working order. This involved numerous visits to a Newark camera shop whose owner was meant to be repairing my old Olympus; a final explosion of my own blue touch paper; a borrowed Pentax; and a brand new Canon belonging to the groom. The shutter had stuck rigidly about three or four months earlier. Every time I called in for the camera I was treated to a waffle. And I don’t even like them. The shop owner knew exactly when, why, and where I needed to be fully operational. It is not often, after all, I imagine, even a professional has a commission in Rugby school. One would have thought that should have carried some clout.
I was finally promised faithfully that I would have the camera on the morning of the wedding. Off I trotted, in my topper and morning suit, round the corner to the repair shop. No repair. That was when the sparks flew. ‘Well, you will just have to lend me one’, said I with my best calm, firm, yet menacing tone. A Pentax was promptly produced. I had a practice run with it in the garden, and all seemed well.
You have perhaps realised by now that this was in fact a poorly Pentax. I discovered that when having a further testing session in the hall at the school. It didn’t even have the decency to suffer from a different complaint. Yes, the shutter jammed.
Fortunately Anthony was on hand with his untried model. As he thrust it into my grasp I had a moment of panic. It looked digital. Anyway when I half-pressed the shutter with my own trembling digit, the Canon did things, but only took a picture when the button was fully depressed.
With Geraldine and her father emerging from a wedding limousine, there was no time to practice. I just had to click into action. The result was a first photo of the bride and her Dad out of focus and wonky; one walking down the aisle towards the eagerly waiting groom, out of focus but reasonably upright; and thereafter a set of probably the best wedding photos I have ever taken. I do hope Mr. Schnapps forgave me for the first two shots of his momentous occasion.
This evening we dined on chicken jalfrezi with peas pilou rice and Cobra beer.