When we stepped through the door I thought I had arrived in some celestial butcher's shop. There, in proud array, came cuts of beef which had been hung so long they came with a pension book. Sausages? Paddington sausage which is flavoured with marmalade, black pudding sausages - sausages in short with all the flavours of the Indies. HOME CURED back bacon, plus bacon steeped in molasses and ribs of beef like gargantuan dockers hooks. Opposite, a counter of gourmet gins and liqueurs of every conceivable fruitsweat. On again to sausage rolls where the flaky pastry struggles to contain the meat; home made pork pies in which only the jelly of pigs' trotters is permitted to bind the meat; and pastry fit to make teeth weep with joy. Lucious lasagne; home made steak and ale pie in which the ale would, in the words of Beaumont and Fletcher, "make a cat speak".
Did you mention cheese? TWENTY different varieties including Black Bomber and Snowdonia Bouncer. All meats are grown on the farm and locally slaughtered is the boast.
"Not ALL the meat," I carped, waving my stick at today's specials: haunch of crocodile, bear ragout, python steaks, emu, venison
etc."
"Look out of the window," advised a kindly butcher with cheeks of rosy red. "That's the crocodile house over there and you can
just see the emus behind the deer herd. I regret that we buy in python and bear which require special management skills."
And then I saw it. A tray of Barnsley Chops. Can there be a soul so dead it is a stranger to the Barnsley Chop? A palate so starved of joy it has never felt the caress of meat so sweet it could flavour cake? Surely not. The Barnsley Chop is lamb's stout response to a T Bone steak and in happier days it came with its own kidney, hanging coyly from its under belly. In Doncaster next to the pie and pea shops (another loss to civilisation) every butcher worth his saveloy offered Barnsley Chops.
But stay.....these are pale imitations of the Barnsley Chop. Where is the kidney? The Barnsley Chop does not come with kidneys, I am told. Heresy. No chop would be allowed to leave his mother's side unless accompanied by a kidney chaperone. I emailed a chum with whom I grazed many a Barnsley Chop, sluiced with quantities of Barnsley Bitter.
He wrote back: "Have had the same experience as you. The butcher sold me a Barnsley Chop and I wanted to know where the kidney was. 'No kidney in a Barnsley Chop," he said. And he was adamant. Some years earlier I had been to a restaurant in Barnsley (I think it was called Brookfield, or something similar) especially to have a Barnsley Chop. They claim to have originated 'the B-chop' dish and I remember there was a kidney on my plate. Very nice too. But when I got your note I asked the village butcher the question and he said no kidney in it. So I got in touch with the Barnsley restaurant today, spoke to the chef and he said no kidney in a B-chop. He said the dish had been originated from their kitchen many years ago. 'How come I had a kidney in my B-chop?' I asked. 'You probably had the B-chop dish which includes a kidney but it was not part of the chop.' he said."
Back to the Heavenly Butcher's shop where I threw the question open to the massed butchers. One older and wiser than the rest told me I was quite right. As I might have guessed, it's that pesky EC and "'elf and safety."
"Blame the Meat Inspectors," he told me. "They heartlessly separate kidney and chop in the abbatoir. It's the same with pork chop," he reminded me. "Always came with a full complement of kidney but no longer."
I suppose we are lucky they leave on the fat which protects it against snaw and blaw.
Can there be a more compelling reason for joining the clamour to leave that luckless body?
And while we are on the subject consider this:
Pythagoras' Theorem: 24 words
Archimedes' Principle: 67 words
Ten Commandments: 179 words
US Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words
US Constitution with all 27 Amendments: 7,818 words
EU regulations on the sale of cabbage: 26,911 words…
… Europe's Problems Summed Up!
Mind you, we are fighting back.
A Texas businessman decorated a 9-foot-tall tree last Christmas in the lobby of a JP Morgan Chase Bank branch as a favour to the manager. There were protests from On High and the branch manager was told the tree had to go. Wiser counsels have prevailed.
Chase has changed its policy for 2011 and will now allow branch banks to display Christmas trees in their lobbies.
Friends, we are slowly winning the "War on Christmas", says the businessman, but the work is not finished. We must continue to show retailers and national companies that "It's OK to say Merry Christmas." The local paper there is running a campaign offering Christmas protest buttons. Ideal with a Stetson and snakeskin boots.
Saturday, 8 October 2011
Saturday, 1 October 2011
King Tut and Queen Tut Tut
I am not writing to the Jockey Club, nor even the Guinness Book of Records, but the Ferret is claiming to everyone who will listen that I am the first man in history (here she usually adds ‘it would have to be a man’) to overdose on Furosemide, the well-known diuretic. My point is that I cannot make a claim because it was accidental and not carried out under supervision or in the presence of authorised time keepers under racing conditions. .
Anyway, I have things to ponder which are rather more worrying. I think I got the wrong blood in the transfusion of recent date. I think they filled my tank with the Rhesus Negative of Count Dracula. I haven’t slept for a week, I have gone off garlic sausages and I cannot see a window without wanting to fly through it. Either that or the man in the next hospital bed who howled all night was at my windpipe in the wee small hours of the morning. I have been on E-Bay but not an ounce of Transylvanian soil is to be had, even for ready money.
Talking of people eating, Julian Fellowes, the chap who wrote Downton, the TV series, enjoys nothing more than a quick snack on the hand that feeds him. He has had the grace to apologise for his latest rebuke of fans of the series who have pointed out anachronisms, but the sin remains.
Time, I think, for the hand to bite back. The whole wonderful series is based on a massive misconception. The eldest daughters of the landowning classes are not human beings: they are bargain tokens to be exchanged for land/money/rank. No horny young man would have attempted to seduce one when there were younger daughters on hand. True, there was a Turkish diplomatic mission in Britain at the time in which the play is set. The Ottoman Empire was crumbling. One of the Sultan’s personal guards, an Albanian, had declared Egypt an independent state. Two America missionaries started a literary society in Beirut where the only subject on the agenda was nationalism. There were secret societies by the dozen. The Sultan urgently needed an alliance with a Western power and England was the first choice. But for the intransigence of Churchill an alliance could have gone ahead and possibly World War One avoided.
There is no way a young diplomat would prejudice the outcome of those talks by seducing his host's unmarried eldest daughter.
A new chum of mine William Cross has just published a fascinating biography of Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon, who lived at Highclere at about that time. Now there is a lady crying out for a series. And that is not all she was crying out for.
She was fond of a Mellor Moment. When she felt the urge for horizontal gardening she had an arrangement with one of the gardeners at Highclere. She later told a friend how she would stand away from her desk in one of the windows and that was the signal to summon him. She was nothing if not ecumenical. Shortly after her marriage to the 5th Earl she began an affair with his best man, an Indian Prince.
Almina was the natural daughter of Alfred de Rothschild, who bought her an aristocratic husband, the earl, with a dowry of £400,000. The Prince, who was at Eton with the groom, came at no extra charge.
In fairness, Almina was a generous lady. As in the TV series, she established a hospital for wounded officers at Highclere. She was very strict. When she caught a nurse in bed with an officer in the Scots Guards the nurse was given a severe reprimand. She told her: “That sort of thing puts a severe strain on the patient’s heart and he might have died as a result.”
The hospital had a profitable sideline. Socialites could use it for abortions. No wonder the king sent along a gift of 120 bottles of port, sherry, claret and burgundy.
Anyone was fair game for Almira, even friends of her son. Her most public affair was with Colonel Ian Dennistoun, the husband of her best friend Dorothy, whom she stole and married. Almina insisted that she had sought permission from her husband to start the affair (he at the time was busy excavating the tomb of Pharaoh Tut).Dorothy responded by suing her ex-husband for £13,035 and 18 pence in alimony. In court she claimed he had made her sleep with General Sir John Cowans, the Quartermaster General of the British Army who was involved in a number of similar scandals and must have had a busy war. In return Cowans promoted her husband. The new Colonel wrote to her: “Oh girlie, I hate you using that lovely body of yours as a gift.”
The jury found for Dorothy but in a reserved judgement the Judge dismissed their findings. Despite winning, Almina was ruined by the publicity. Things went from bad to worse. When she died in Bristol in 1969 all Almina’s money had gone and she was renting a terraced house in a semi slum.
Now I reckon if Fellowes had used that for a plot it wouldn’t have mattered if the houses in Downton had been festooned in TV aerials. No one would have noticed.
Saturday, 24 September 2011
Sick Note
A bear however hard he tries/ Grows tubby without exercise/ He takes what exercise he can/By falling off the ottoman.
I do know how the bear feels. After a month of committed falling over onto various surfaces, I decided to consult the doctor. The NHS has a new miracle cure. By the time you get to see the doctor you're cured and when I went I felt fine. The doctor did not share my view. He said, 'You're dying again.' Apparently I was down to a blood count of six when it should have been 12. The practice phone was hot as he tried to contact a gastric surgeon and I was rushed into our new, as yet unpaid for, hospital in Peterborough for an immediate blood transfusion. That was two days ago and I'm still waiting.
Although the hospital seems reluctant to give me blood they are very enthusiastic about taking it. I have had half-hourly blood tests since I arrived. Now it's taking rather longer to find blood than it did to find the Constock Lode. I can't help wondering why they bother prospecting for more blood. Empty veins suggest I'm already dead. But they appear to be enjoying themselves so much it seems a pity to spoil their search.
I've suggested the nurse should grow her two side teeth and wear a cloak, that they might hire a bat on favourable terms or, alternatively, pour some blood in before they take any more out. I await their decision.
As always, the legions of nurses fluttering around my bed have been the soul of kindness and concern. The male nurse is currently on leave from Afghanistan where's he's a Queen Alexandra Nurse with the T.A. He has been twice blown up and once shot. Under the circumstances I am reluctant to complain. Food first class, doctors a delight.
The new hospital was built under the PFI scheme so we'll own it about the time the world ends. It is a monstrous waste of money. Though luxurious in the extreme – patients have their own alcoves or are in multi-purpose wards for four where each patient can be curtained off and each bed has a free TV – the waste of space stultifying.
Coming in, you enter a vast atrium in which you could rebuild classical Rome. It is lined with bookshops and cafes of every description. The nurses tell me the super-wide corridors are endless between departments and they feel as though they're walking 35 miles a day.
It is designed as a leisure centre rather than a place of caring for the sick.
Yours sincerely,
Dracula's Little Helper – and go easy on the garlic when reading this.
P.S. No flowers. Blood sausages appreciated.
PPS. Escape Committee Minute 24/11/11 FOR YOUR EYES ONLYSkidmore I , local acting sergeanr retired had his escape plan approved by the cttee at1300 hours. He will leave Stalag at his convenience by any means.Grounds for escape (Priority ONE); A Polish patient put in the next bed of Friday 23, howled incessantly until Sat 1200 hours which was very eunnerving for patient involved in blood transferrance. Nurses unable to quiet Polish patient who continued to howl in unknown tongue.. One nurse of Carribean extraction and pleasing contours asked at 2 am if he would like a piece of cake, a cure obviously much pracised by her in family emergency.. Polish patient demurred and continued to look longingly at Skidmore I, local acting sergeant (rtd)Committee approved temporary escape returning Monday am to keep appointment at Endoscopy Unit (Special Measures) where torture is arranged with internal photography; wearing hospital identity tag and pretending he has come from ward.(typed in heste.eat after reading)
Saturday, 17 September 2011
IS IT STILL 7/11
I am indebted to Lord Trefgarne who charged the discredited Libyan Government £940,000 for offering to organise a prison break for the Lockerbie Bomber. As I twitched my way through another sleepless night I thought how much I would have liked a slice of that to sprinkle on my porridge.
Then it struck me. President Obama could use the stratagem to pay America’s debt to its landlord, China. He should put in a bill to Al Qaeda for PR services publicising its successful terrorist campaign blowing up, or down, the Twin Towers; and I am going to suggest he puts in a bit extra for frightening the world with the threat that there was another terror attack on the way. It must be the ultimate PR coup to dominate the world’s Media agenda for a week with a ten-year-old story using old pictures to illustrate it. The possibilities are endless. Think of the money we could save by cancelling the entire defence budget. For the foreseeable future we are going to be fighting an endless world war with an enemy using hand guns and dynamite, the weapons their grandfathers used on the North West Frontier in the Flashman Wars.
It will be a relief to escape from our cells in cyberspace to an earlier more less demanding age. Alas, there is little chance of that happening.
This week I have been trying to plumb the workings of the new security cards being issued all over the world to customers of the Hong Kong Bank of China. Think of it... Small, plastic electronic cards issued by whom? The Bank of China. Made in China is an oxymoron. I have drawers filled with electronic plastic gadgets made in China, none of which work.
These security cards are something again. I have ruined two cards and sent three intelligent Pakistani call service youngsters scurrying to darkened rooms where they are now making endless objects of Origami. Fitfully.
The buttons you have to press are tiny. When I eventually got the hang of it the operator made a short, formal speech of congratulation. He may even have bowed, and I swear I heard a ripple of applause go round the call centre. The main problem is racial. My friend the mathematician Garho Tong estimates that I weigh as much as the average Chinese family. In consequence mine is not the slim, tapering finger of Fu Manchu. I overwhelm Oriental press buttons, never covering fewer than two. When my moving finger writes, the buttons move on to get out of the way, the numbers on the buttons being so small. I have more cataracts than Niagara and I am deaf to the Indian calls, love or otherwise, and in consequence can’t hear what the call centre is telling me.
This week I have posted to readers with some reluctance a clever method of bypassing those charming people in far off call centres. They are not methods I would employ myself. I am a devoted admirer of these Children of the Raj.
***********************************
Wales is a Limited Company run by a small group of families, however much the Welsh Government preens itself. Sinecures come in dynasties so it is no surprise to learn that Rhodri Talfan Davies has been appointed Controller BBC Wales, like his father and his grandfather before him. I worked for all three of them. I also worked for a cousin who ran the biggest publishers in the country.
Interviewing me was the first broadcasting job given to Rhodri’s father before his meteoric rise. Not an arduous job. The interview only lasted three minutes and the producer, clearly in no doubt which side of his bread sheltered the butter, insisted we have a rehearsal. When I said I had been speaking most of my life and had pretty well got the hang of it, he said, “It’s not for your benefit. If the interviewer doesn’t know what you are going to say he won’t know what to ask you next.”
Talfan had been getting work experience in Border TV where he was known as “ Gerry”. When he came to BBC Wales he was Geraint.
He brought a friend as his deputy who spent much of his time writing plays for the competition - ITV. So it was no surprise to learn that the new Talfan doesn’t even live in Wales.
Broadcasting chum Mike Flynn writes from Thailand:
“I wonder if you may have missed this milestone in Welsh media. Responding to ‘sniffy’ comments about a Talfan Davies dynasty, given that his father and grandfather both held top jobs at BBC Wales before him, Mr Davies said: “I don’t worry about it too much. Inevitably people may scratch their heads and say how is it that he can be appointed.......”
In fairness, the Talfan clan were a pleasure to work for. They didn’t interfere and spread their considerable charm where-e’er they walked, so does it matter that the BBC is a family business?
I hadn’t listened to the station for years but when I heard from Mike Flynn I tuned in. It was like listening to the Rosetta Stone. Its message hasn’t changed since grand-dad ran the shop. It is still largely a home for orphaned gramophone records. The presenters still have voices like cheap scent and the women aren’t much different either.
It’s a great puzzle. The Welsh are generally speaking the wittiest, funniest and sharpest of ‘this septic islanders’. They produce the best actors, the finest commentators and singers and the funniest writers. But even with two languages to go at, the nearest they have got to a decent programme in their broadcasting history was the wartime ”Welsh Rarebit” which cannot have taken a lot of thinking about.
The kindest thing to say about Radio Wales is that it isn’t as bad as Radio Cymru, the Welsh language barrel of laughs. Mind you, the Black Death wasn’t as bad as Radio Cymru. Its programmes, in a Welsh few of its listeners can understand, attract audiences so small it would be cheaper to send the actors round to act in their living rooms.
This is probably sour grapes because the times they are a-changing. Noel Whitcomb, the legendary Daily Mirror columnist was tested for writing ability the hard way. He was handed a clipping from the Lancet about a patient who was writing a letter in his bath with the ink bottle on the floor beside him. The soap slipped out of his hand and went scuttering along the floor. He stepped out of the bath to retrieve it, slipped on its trail and sat on the ink bottle which disappeared up the nearest orifice. Noel was told he would get a column if he could make that into a story usable in a family newspaper. My test for a column in the Sunday Pictorial was to sanitise a story about a customer who was castrated by a whore whose fees he disputed.
Johann Hari won a job as columnist on the Independent when he came down from university and wrote two features in the New Statesman. His subsequent work won him the Orwell Prize.
He has had to give it back after admitting embellishing quotations from other writer’s works, plagiarism and using a pseudonym to attack his critics.
A sackable offence ? Not really. He has been suspended for four months without pay. He will only get his job back if he takes a course (at his own expense) in journalism, including ethics, IN THE UNITED STATES - which merits a hollow laugh. He has had to promise in the meantime not to blog or tweet for the Independent.
In return he will be allowed to go back to work for the paper and the report on his conduct will not be published, as would be the case with any other miscreant.
And they say getting jobs in the Media isFriday, 9 September 2011
woodn't you know
Broadly speaking I am in favour of sex education.
Things were managed differently when I was a lad.I was told
I had come off a blackcurrant bush.Not very nice going through life
thinking you were adopted and your real mother was a shrub.
No whittling wood for me on the doorsteps of my childhood. I might
have been cutting up a cousin. As autumn approached each
year I waited in dread for my hair to turn gold and fall
at my feet. In the gardens of my youth pruning time was
an agony.
In the same way no-one has been able to convince me there
are no fairies, so I have never been able to shed - if you
will forgive the arboreal expression - a feeling that I am
part twig,though I reject with vigour allegations that I am a
chip off the old block.
When I got older I was introduced to the more conventional
forms of procreation but to be frank with you I think there
is more gravitas in the blackcurrant method. I had been
conditioned by my horticulturally obsessed mother to accept
the most bizarre explanations. No-one warned me that in real
life the position was absurd and the method improbable.
Not only that it did not always work.
Though in all honesty it worked more often than blackberrying,
an activty which had very sinister connotations in my childhood.
I was always surprised when two people went out to pick soft fruit,
three did not come back. My own efforts to provide myself with a brother
were a gloomy failure. I would select this fine bouncing bud
and place it in a matchbox lined with cotton wool. But alas,
nothing came of it. It was a pity. When the conventional
method was used the end product was never as well designed.
If a human being was a house, it would never get planning
permission. The waste disposal arrangments are at best
rudimentary. Look where the nose is. Right over the mouth.
Would you buy a house where the drainpipe is above the
front door?. And would it have been so difficult to make the
arms retractable? Have you ever met anyone who knows what to
do with his hands when not in use?. In Western dress there
are pockets, or you can stick themn out of the way by
clasping hands behind your back. But have you noticed? If
they don't hold tight to one another they come sneaking round
the front again, first chance they get.
And the feet. I asak you Is there anything in the whole of
nature that looks as silly as a foot? With toes hanging on
the end like a fringe? And another thing. They only bend one
way. Sheer waste. If you could turn them over you could
walk twice as far on them. Think how much easier sleep would
be if you could stack your arms and legs under the bed.
Entwining bedlothes would be a thing of the past. Why legs at
all? Wheels would have been much more convenient.
As to other functions I will only say the blackcurrant bush
has much to commend it. No mouth, therefore no toothache.
Eats through the feet and the leaves. None of those tiring
strolls to work up an appetite for lunch.
Some of us I regret are built even more oddly than most. I
was literally an all round reporter. I was as broad as I was long. The last TV series I made was a source of great embarrassment. Not to beat about the bush - and how that phrase strikes at the heart- where
other people go in at the waist, I went out for quite a
distance. People doubted the reality of my
body.
On radio you get used to the size phenomenum. The way
listeners invariably tell you in a disappointed tone;" You
are much taller on the radio". But what am I to do about the
lady who came up, patted me familiarly on the belt buckle
and asked; " Is that real or are you just wearing it on
tele?".
I ONLY PUT IT DOWN FOR A MINUTE
Like Louis 14th I blame God. When he was told he had lost yet another battle against the English he knew exactly at whose Pearly Gates to lay the blame.
"Sometimes" he said with a meaningful upward glare " I think God forgets what I have done for him"
I felt a touch of the Louise this week when someone had it away with my cromach.
????????????????
My cromach, C R O M A C H
It’s what officers in Highland Regiments carry when they go into battle.
Cromach. Shepherds’ Crook.
Don't ask. It used to puzzle me too. I mean when did you last see sheep on a battlefield,
What made things worse was that mine was cut for me by Hughie Bugail nigh on 40 years ago.
?????
BUGAIL is Welsh.It means shepherd.
Hughie Bugail was our Bobby in Wales. Technically that is..He was down on the books as a policeman but he spent most of his day tending the flock of sheep he kept on Marshes. Sheep that had become unbelievably rare but which had been bred back into respectable numbers. He also bred sheepdogs including a New Zealand strain, I kid you not, which ran over the backs of the flock. Hughie was as much a grin as anything else. There is a kind of rural Welshman who is built like a brick Ty Bach. You know what they are bred from when you look at their faces which are cut from steel and remind you in profile of Roman centurions. They have teeth like eisteddfod stones, huge and blindingly white.
Hughie's uniform bulged with laughter. I never knew him when he wasn’t smiling. Chuckles escaped round his silver uniform buttons, grins blew down his whistle.
If there was a happier man in Wales at that time he kept himself well hidden.
Not that he exported laughter. His sergeant in Bangor all the way up to his inspector in Llangefni, even as far as his Superintendant in Holyhead, well they winced at the sound of his name. That was because they couldn't put a face to it, they saw him so rarely.
I only saw him grim faced once and that was when we had the foot and mouth. Most farmers were delighted. They would have bought F and M off the back of a truck, the compensation from destroying sheep was so good. Not Hughie. He was devastated at the thought of putting down his rare breed. In those days I had a column in the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail with offshoots in Bangor, Holyhead and even distant Caernarfon. Oh I had power. Not a whist card remained unturned but I knew about it. I was the Recorder of Rotary, the Chronicler of the Band of Hope. So it is no wonder the Min of Ag quailed under the lash of my pen. Hughie’s flock was saved, it was, very likely, listed too and forever a stranger t the plastic window frame,
Hughie was so pleased he carved me a shepherd’s crook. I have treasured it for years and now I have lost it. There are some things about old age it is hard to bear because I cannot remember his telephone number to order another.
The problem is this;, as a Bugail the world knew of him, as a telephone listed policeman he is completely unknown ..
THERE WERE OTHER TOWERS................................
April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph as it had set out on a
Broadly speaking I am in favour of sex education.
Things were managed differently when I was a lad.I was told
I had come off a blackcurrant bush.Not very nice going through life
thinking you were adopted and your real mother was a shrub.
No whittling wood for me on the doorsteps of my childhood. I might
have been cutting up a cousin. As autumn approached each
year I waited in dread for my hair to turn gold and fall
at my feet. In the gardens of my youth pruning time was
an agony.
In the same way no-one has been able to convince me there
are no fairies, so I have never been able to shed - if you
will forgive the arboreal expression - a feeling that I am
part twig,though I reject with vigour allegations that I am a
chip off the old block.
When I got older I was introduced to the more conventional
forms of procreation but to be frank with you I think there
is more gravitas in the blackcurrant method. I had been
conditioned by my horticulturally obsesed mother to accept
the most bizarre explanations. No-one warned me that in real
life the position was absurd and the method improbable.
Not only that it did not always work.
Though in all honesty it worked more often than blackberrying,
an activty which had very sinister connotations in my childhood.
I was always surprised when two people went out to pick soft fruit,
three did not come back. My own efforts to provide myself with a brother
were a gloomy failure. I would select this fine bouncing bud
and place it in a matchbox lined with cotton wool. But alas,
nothing came of it. It was a pity. When the conventional
method was used the end product was never as well designed.
If a human being was a house, it would never get planning
permission. The waste disposal arrangments are at best
rudimentary. Look where the nose is. Right over the mouth.
Would you buy a house where the drainpipe is above the
front door?. And would it have been so difficult to make the
arms retractable? Have you ever met anyone who knows what to
do with his hands when not in use?. In Western dress there
are pockets, or you can stick themn out of the way by
clasping hands behind your back. But have you noticed? If
they don't hold tight to one another they come sneaking round
the front again, first chance they get.
And the feet. I asak you Is there anything in the whole of
nature that looks as silly as a foot? With toes hanging on
the end like a fringe? And another thing. They only bend one
way. Sheer waste. If you could turn them over you could
walk twice as far on them. Think how much easier sleep would
be if you could stack your arms and legs under the bed.
Entwining bedlothes would be a thing of the past. Why legs at
all? Wheels would have been much more convenient.
As to other functions I will only say the blackcurrant bush
has much to commend it. No mouth, therefore no toothache.
Eats through the feet and the leaves. None of those tiring
strolls to work up an appetite for lunch.
Some of us I regret are built even more oddly than most. I
was literally an all round reporter. I was as broad as I was long. The last TV series I made was a source of great embarrassment. Not to beat about the bush - and how that phrase strikes at the heart- where
other people go in at the waist, I went out for quite a
distance. People doubted the reality of my
body.
On radio you get used to the size phenomenum. The way
listeners invariably tell you in a disappointed tone;" You
are much taller on the radio". But what am I to do about the
lady who came up, patted me familiarly on the belt buckle
and asked; " Is that real or are you just wearing it on
tele?".
I ONLY PUT IT DOWN FOR A MINUTE
Like Louis 14th I blame God. When he was told he had lost yet another battle against the English he knew exactly at whose Pearly Gates to llay the blame.
"Sometimes" he said with a meaningful upward glare " I think God forgets what I have done for him"
I felt a touch of the Louise this week when someone had it away with my cromach.
????????????????
My cromach, C R O M A C H
It’s what officers in Highland Regiments carry when they go into battle.
Cromach. Shepherds’ Crook.
Don't ask. It used to puzzle me too. I mean when did you last see sheep on a battlefield,
What made things worse was that nine was cut for me by Hughie Bugail nigh on 40 years ago.
?????
BUGAIL is Welsh.It means shepherd.
Hughie Bugail was our Bobby in Wales. Technically that is..He was down on the books as a policeman but he spent most of his day tending the flock of sheep he kept on Marshes. Sheep that had become unbelievably rare but which had been bred back into respectable numbers. He also bred sheepdogs including a New Zealand strain, I kid you not, which ran over the backs of the flock. Hughie was as much a grin as anything else. There is a kind of rural Welshman who is built like a brick Ty Bach. You know what they are bred from when you lok at their faces which are cut from steel and remind you in profile of Roman centurions. They have teeth like eisteddfod stones, huge and blindingly white.
Hughie's uniform bulged with laughter. I never knew him when he wasn’t smiling. Chuckles escaped round his silver uniform buttons, grins blew down his whistle.
If there was a happier man in Wales at that time he kept himself well hidden.
Not that he exported laughter. His sergeant in Bangor all the way up to his inspector in Llangefni, even as far as his Superintendant in Holyhead, well they winced at the sound of his name. That was because they couldn't put a face to it, they saw him so rarely.
I only saw him grim faced once and that was when we had the foot and mouth. Most farmers were delighted. They would have bought F and M off the back of a truck, the compensation from destroying sheep was so good. Not Hughie. He was devastated at the thought of putting down his rare breed. In those days I had a column in the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail with offshoots in Bangor, Holyhead and even distant Caernarfon. Oh I had power. Not a whist card remained unturned but I knew about it. I was the Recorder of Rotary, the Chronicler of the Band of Hope. So it is no wonder the Min of Ag quailed under the lash of my pen. Hughie’s flock was saved, it was, very likely, listed too and forever a stranger t the plastic window frame,
Hughie was so pleased he carved me a shepherd’s crook. I have treasured it for years and now I have lost it. There are some things about old age it is hard to bear because I cannot remember his telephone number to order another.
The problem is this;, as a Bugail the world knew of him, as a telephone listed policeman he is completely unknown ..
PAUSE FOR THOUGHT
New data shows that children from countries such as Kazakhstan and Albania are more likely to pick up a book, newspaper or magazine on a daily basis than those from Britain. In a table based on the number of teenagers who read regularly, the UK was ranked 47th out of 65 nations, behind countries such as France, Australia, Italy, Canada and Singapore. The data, compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and reported on in the The Daily Telegraph, also showed that just four-in-ten 15-year-olds read for enjoyment outside school. Tests taken by students in 2009 showed teenagers from Kazakhstan, Albania, China and Thailand were keen readers, with over 90 per cent reading books, newspapers or magazines for pleasure.
...WELL YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT WILL COME IN HANDY. In Kazakhstan they talk of little else
THERE WERE OTHER TOWERS................................
April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph as it had set out on a
Broadly speaking I am in favour of sex education.
Things were managed differently when I was a lad.I was told
I had come off a blackcurrant bush.Not very nice going through life
thinking you were adopted and your real mother was a shrub.
No whittling wood for me on the doorsteps of my childhood. I might
have been cutting up a cousin. As autumn approached each
year I waited in dread for my hair to turn gold and fall
at my feet. In the gardens of my youth pruning time was
an agony.
In the same way no-one has been able to convince me there
are no fairies, so I have never been able to shed - if you
will forgive the arboreal expression - a feeling that I am
part twig,though I reject with vigour allegations that I am a
chip off the old block.
When I got older I was introduced to the more conventional
forms of procreation but to be frank with you I think there
is more gravitas in the blackcurrant method. I had been
conditioned by my horticulturally obsesed mother to accept
the most bizarre explanations. No-one warned me that in real
life the position was absurd and the method improbable.
Not only that it did not always work.
Though in all honesty it worked more often than blackberrying,
an activty which had very sinister connotations in my childhood.
I was always surprised when two people went out to pick soft fruit,
three did not come back. My own efforts to provide myself with a brother
were a gloomy failure. I would select this fine bouncing bud
and place it in a matchbox lined with cotton wool. But alas,
nothing came of it. It was a pity. When the conventional
method was used the end product was never as well designed.
If a human being was a house, it would never get planning
permission. The waste disposal arrangments are at best
rudimentary. Look where the nose is. Right over the mouth.
Would you buy a house where the drainpipe is above the
front door?. And would it have been so difficult to make the
arms retractable? Have you ever met anyone who knows what to
do with his hands when not in use?. In Western dress there
are pockets, or you can stick themn out of the way by
clasping hands behind your back. But have you noticed? If
they don't hold tight to one another they come sneaking round
the front again, first chance they get.
And the feet. I asak you Is there anything in the whole of
nature that looks as silly as a foot? With toes hanging on
the end like a fringe? And another thing. They only bend one
way. Sheer waste. If you could turn them over you could
walk twice as far on them. Think how much easier sleep would
be if you could stack your arms and legs under the bed.
Entwining bedlothes would be a thing of the past. Why legs at
all? Wheels would have been much more convenient.
As to other functions I will only say the blackcurrant bush
has much to commend it. No mouth, therefore no toothache.
Eats through the feet and the leaves. None of those tiring
strolls to work up an appetite for lunch.
Some of us I regret are built even more oddly than most. I
was literally an all round reporter. I was as broad as I was long. The last TV series I made was a source of great embarrassment. Not to beat about the bush - and how that phrase strikes at the heart- where
other people go in at the waist, I went out for quite a
distance. People doubted the reality of my
body.
On radio you get used to the size phenomenum. The way
listeners invariably tell you in a disappointed tone;" You
are much taller on the radio". But what am I to do about the
lady who came up, patted me familiarly on the belt buckle
and asked; " Is that real or are you just wearing it on
tele?".
I ONLY PUT IT DOWN FOR A MINUTE
Like Louis 14th I blame God. When he was told he had lost yet another battle against the English he knew exactly at whose Pearly Gates to llay the blame.
"Sometimes" he said with a meaningful upward glare " I think God forgets what I have done for him"
I felt a touch of the Louise this week when someone had it away with my cromach.
????????????????
My cromach, C R O M A C H
It’s what officers in Highland Regiments carry when they go into battle.
Cromach. Shepherds’ Crook.
Don't ask. It used to puzzle me too. I mean when did you last see sheep on a battlefield,
What made things worse was that nine was cut for me by Hughie Bugail nigh on 40 years ago.
?????
BUGAIL is Welsh.It means shepherd.
Hughie Bugail was our Bobby in Wales. Technically that is..He was down on the books as a policeman but he spent most of his day tending the flock of sheep he kept on Marshes. Sheep that had become unbelievably rare but which had been bred back into respectable numbers. He also bred sheepdogs including a New Zealand strain, I kid you not, which ran over the backs of the flock. Hughie was as much a grin as anything else. There is a kind of rural Welshman who is built like a brick Ty Bach. You know what they are bred from when you lok at their faces which are cut from steel and remind you in profile of Roman centurions. They have teeth like eisteddfod stones, huge and blindingly white.
Hughie's uniform bulged with laughter. I never knew him when he wasn’t smiling. Chuckles escaped round his silver uniform buttons, grins blew down his whistle.
If there was a happier man in Wales at that time he kept himself well hidden.
Not that he exported laughter. His sergeant in Bangor all the way up to his inspector in Llangefni, even as far as his Superintendant in Holyhead, well they winced at the sound of his name. That was because they couldn't put a face to it, they saw him so rarely.
I only saw him grim faced once and that was when we had the foot and mouth. Most farmers were delighted. They would have bought F and M off the back of a truck, the compensation from destroying sheep was so good. Not Hughie. He was devastated at the thought of putting down his rare breed. In those days I had a column in the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail with offshoots in Bangor, Holyhead and even distant Caernarfon. Oh I had power. Not a whist card remained unturned but I knew about it. I was the Recorder of Rotary, the Chronicler of the Band of Hope. So it is no wonder the Min of Ag quailed under the lash of my pen. Hughie’s flock was saved, it was, very likely, listed too and forever a stranger t the plastic window frame,
Hughie was so pleased he carved me a shepherd’s crook. I have treasured it for years and now I have lost it. There are some things about old age it is hard to bear because I cannot remember his telephone number to order another.
The problem is this;, as a Bugail the world knew of him, as a telephone listed policeman he is completely unknown ..
PAUSE FOR THOUGHT
New data shows that children from countries such as Kazakhstan and Albania are more likely to pick up a book, newspaper or magazine on a daily basis than those from Britain. In a table based on the number of teenagers who read regularly, the UK was ranked 47th out of 65 nations, behind countries such as France, Australia, Italy, Canada and Singapore. The data, compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and reported on in the The Daily Telegraph, also showed that just four-in-ten 15-year-olds read for enjoyment outside school. Tests taken by students in 2009 showed teenagers from Kazakhstan, Albania, China and Thailand were keen readers, with over 90 per cent reading books, newspapers or magazines for pleasure.
...WELL YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT WILL COME IN HANDY. In Kazakhstan they talk of little else
THERE WERE OTHER TOWERS................................
April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph as it had set out on a
Things were managed differently when I was a lad.I was told
I had come off a blackcurrant bush.Not very nice going through life
thinking you were adopted and your real mother was a shrub.
No whittling wood for me on the doorsteps of my childhood. I might
have been cutting up a cousin. As autumn approached each
year I waited in dread for my hair to turn gold and fall
at my feet. In the gardens of my youth pruning time was
an agony.
In the same way no-one has been able to convince me there
are no fairies, so I have never been able to shed - if you
will forgive the arboreal expression - a feeling that I am
part twig,though I reject with vigour allegations that I am a
chip off the old block.
When I got older I was introduced to the more conventional
forms of procreation but to be frank with you I think there
is more gravitas in the blackcurrant method. I had been
conditioned by my horticulturally obsessed mother to accept
the most bizarre explanations. No-one warned me that in real
life the position was absurd and the method improbable.
Not only that it did not always work.
Though in all honesty it worked more often than blackberrying,
an activty which had very sinister connotations in my childhood.
I was always surprised when two people went out to pick soft fruit,
three did not come back. My own efforts to provide myself with a brother
were a gloomy failure. I would select this fine bouncing bud
and place it in a matchbox lined with cotton wool. But alas,
nothing came of it. It was a pity. When the conventional
method was used the end product was never as well designed.
If a human being was a house, it would never get planning
permission. The waste disposal arrangments are at best
rudimentary. Look where the nose is. Right over the mouth.
Would you buy a house where the drainpipe is above the
front door?. And would it have been so difficult to make the
arms retractable? Have you ever met anyone who knows what to
do with his hands when not in use?. In Western dress there
are pockets, or you can stick themn out of the way by
clasping hands behind your back. But have you noticed? If
they don't hold tight to one another they come sneaking round
the front again, first chance they get.
And the feet. I asak you Is there anything in the whole of
nature that looks as silly as a foot? With toes hanging on
the end like a fringe? And another thing. They only bend one
way. Sheer waste. If you could turn them over you could
walk twice as far on them. Think how much easier sleep would
be if you could stack your arms and legs under the bed.
Entwining bedlothes would be a thing of the past. Why legs at
all? Wheels would have been much more convenient.
As to other functions I will only say the blackcurrant bush
has much to commend it. No mouth, therefore no toothache.
Eats through the feet and the leaves. None of those tiring
strolls to work up an appetite for lunch.
Some of us I regret are built even more oddly than most. I
was literally an all round reporter. I was as broad as I was long. The last TV series I made was a source of great embarrassment. Not to beat about the bush - and how that phrase strikes at the heart- where
other people go in at the waist, I went out for quite a
distance. People doubted the reality of my
body.
On radio you get used to the size phenomenum. The way
listeners invariably tell you in a disappointed tone;" You
are much taller on the radio". But what am I to do about the
lady who came up, patted me familiarly on the belt buckle
and asked; " Is that real or are you just wearing it on
tele?".
I ONLY PUT IT DOWN FOR A MINUTE
Like Louis 14th I blame God. When he was told he had lost yet another battle against the English he knew exactly at whose Pearly Gates to lay the blame.
"Sometimes" he said with a meaningful upward glare " I think God forgets what I have done for him"
I felt a touch of the Louise this week when someone had it away with my cromach.
????????????????
My cromach, C R O M A C H
It’s what officers in Highland Regiments carry when they go into battle.
Cromach. Shepherds’ Crook.
Don't ask. It used to puzzle me too. I mean when did you last see sheep on a battlefield,
What made things worse was that mine was cut for me by Hughie Bugail nigh on 40 years ago.
?????
BUGAIL is Welsh.It means shepherd.
Hughie Bugail was our Bobby in Wales. Technically that is..He was down on the books as a policeman but he spent most of his day tending the flock of sheep he kept on Marshes. Sheep that had become unbelievably rare but which had been bred back into respectable numbers. He also bred sheepdogs including a New Zealand strain, I kid you not, which ran over the backs of the flock. Hughie was as much a grin as anything else. There is a kind of rural Welshman who is built like a brick Ty Bach. You know what they are bred from when you look at their faces which are cut from steel and remind you in profile of Roman centurions. They have teeth like eisteddfod stones, huge and blindingly white.
Hughie's uniform bulged with laughter. I never knew him when he wasn’t smiling. Chuckles escaped round his silver uniform buttons, grins blew down his whistle.
If there was a happier man in Wales at that time he kept himself well hidden.
Not that he exported laughter. His sergeant in Bangor all the way up to his inspector in Llangefni, even as far as his Superintendant in Holyhead, well they winced at the sound of his name. That was because they couldn't put a face to it, they saw him so rarely.
I only saw him grim faced once and that was when we had the foot and mouth. Most farmers were delighted. They would have bought F and M off the back of a truck, the compensation from destroying sheep was so good. Not Hughie. He was devastated at the thought of putting down his rare breed. In those days I had a column in the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail with offshoots in Bangor, Holyhead and even distant Caernarfon. Oh I had power. Not a whist card remained unturned but I knew about it. I was the Recorder of Rotary, the Chronicler of the Band of Hope. So it is no wonder the Min of Ag quailed under the lash of my pen. Hughie’s flock was saved, it was, very likely, listed too and forever a stranger t the plastic window frame,
Hughie was so pleased he carved me a shepherd’s crook. I have treasured it for years and now I have lost it. There are some things about old age it is hard to bear because I cannot remember his telephone number to order another.
The problem is this;, as a Bugail the world knew of him, as a telephone listed policeman he is completely unknown ..
THERE WERE OTHER TOWERS................................
April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph as it had set out on a
Broadly speaking I am in favour of sex education.
Things were managed differently when I was a lad.I was told
I had come off a blackcurrant bush.Not very nice going through life
thinking you were adopted and your real mother was a shrub.
No whittling wood for me on the doorsteps of my childhood. I might
have been cutting up a cousin. As autumn approached each
year I waited in dread for my hair to turn gold and fall
at my feet. In the gardens of my youth pruning time was
an agony.
In the same way no-one has been able to convince me there
are no fairies, so I have never been able to shed - if you
will forgive the arboreal expression - a feeling that I am
part twig,though I reject with vigour allegations that I am a
chip off the old block.
When I got older I was introduced to the more conventional
forms of procreation but to be frank with you I think there
is more gravitas in the blackcurrant method. I had been
conditioned by my horticulturally obsesed mother to accept
the most bizarre explanations. No-one warned me that in real
life the position was absurd and the method improbable.
Not only that it did not always work.
Though in all honesty it worked more often than blackberrying,
an activty which had very sinister connotations in my childhood.
I was always surprised when two people went out to pick soft fruit,
three did not come back. My own efforts to provide myself with a brother
were a gloomy failure. I would select this fine bouncing bud
and place it in a matchbox lined with cotton wool. But alas,
nothing came of it. It was a pity. When the conventional
method was used the end product was never as well designed.
If a human being was a house, it would never get planning
permission. The waste disposal arrangments are at best
rudimentary. Look where the nose is. Right over the mouth.
Would you buy a house where the drainpipe is above the
front door?. And would it have been so difficult to make the
arms retractable? Have you ever met anyone who knows what to
do with his hands when not in use?. In Western dress there
are pockets, or you can stick themn out of the way by
clasping hands behind your back. But have you noticed? If
they don't hold tight to one another they come sneaking round
the front again, first chance they get.
And the feet. I asak you Is there anything in the whole of
nature that looks as silly as a foot? With toes hanging on
the end like a fringe? And another thing. They only bend one
way. Sheer waste. If you could turn them over you could
walk twice as far on them. Think how much easier sleep would
be if you could stack your arms and legs under the bed.
Entwining bedlothes would be a thing of the past. Why legs at
all? Wheels would have been much more convenient.
As to other functions I will only say the blackcurrant bush
has much to commend it. No mouth, therefore no toothache.
Eats through the feet and the leaves. None of those tiring
strolls to work up an appetite for lunch.
Some of us I regret are built even more oddly than most. I
was literally an all round reporter. I was as broad as I was long. The last TV series I made was a source of great embarrassment. Not to beat about the bush - and how that phrase strikes at the heart- where
other people go in at the waist, I went out for quite a
distance. People doubted the reality of my
body.
On radio you get used to the size phenomenum. The way
listeners invariably tell you in a disappointed tone;" You
are much taller on the radio". But what am I to do about the
lady who came up, patted me familiarly on the belt buckle
and asked; " Is that real or are you just wearing it on
tele?".
I ONLY PUT IT DOWN FOR A MINUTE
Like Louis 14th I blame God. When he was told he had lost yet another battle against the English he knew exactly at whose Pearly Gates to llay the blame.
"Sometimes" he said with a meaningful upward glare " I think God forgets what I have done for him"
I felt a touch of the Louise this week when someone had it away with my cromach.
????????????????
My cromach, C R O M A C H
It’s what officers in Highland Regiments carry when they go into battle.
Cromach. Shepherds’ Crook.
Don't ask. It used to puzzle me too. I mean when did you last see sheep on a battlefield,
What made things worse was that nine was cut for me by Hughie Bugail nigh on 40 years ago.
?????
BUGAIL is Welsh.It means shepherd.
Hughie Bugail was our Bobby in Wales. Technically that is..He was down on the books as a policeman but he spent most of his day tending the flock of sheep he kept on Marshes. Sheep that had become unbelievably rare but which had been bred back into respectable numbers. He also bred sheepdogs including a New Zealand strain, I kid you not, which ran over the backs of the flock. Hughie was as much a grin as anything else. There is a kind of rural Welshman who is built like a brick Ty Bach. You know what they are bred from when you lok at their faces which are cut from steel and remind you in profile of Roman centurions. They have teeth like eisteddfod stones, huge and blindingly white.
Hughie's uniform bulged with laughter. I never knew him when he wasn’t smiling. Chuckles escaped round his silver uniform buttons, grins blew down his whistle.
If there was a happier man in Wales at that time he kept himself well hidden.
Not that he exported laughter. His sergeant in Bangor all the way up to his inspector in Llangefni, even as far as his Superintendant in Holyhead, well they winced at the sound of his name. That was because they couldn't put a face to it, they saw him so rarely.
I only saw him grim faced once and that was when we had the foot and mouth. Most farmers were delighted. They would have bought F and M off the back of a truck, the compensation from destroying sheep was so good. Not Hughie. He was devastated at the thought of putting down his rare breed. In those days I had a column in the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail with offshoots in Bangor, Holyhead and even distant Caernarfon. Oh I had power. Not a whist card remained unturned but I knew about it. I was the Recorder of Rotary, the Chronicler of the Band of Hope. So it is no wonder the Min of Ag quailed under the lash of my pen. Hughie’s flock was saved, it was, very likely, listed too and forever a stranger t the plastic window frame,
Hughie was so pleased he carved me a shepherd’s crook. I have treasured it for years and now I have lost it. There are some things about old age it is hard to bear because I cannot remember his telephone number to order another.
The problem is this;, as a Bugail the world knew of him, as a telephone listed policeman he is completely unknown ..
PAUSE FOR THOUGHT
New data shows that children from countries such as Kazakhstan and Albania are more likely to pick up a book, newspaper or magazine on a daily basis than those from Britain. In a table based on the number of teenagers who read regularly, the UK was ranked 47th out of 65 nations, behind countries such as France, Australia, Italy, Canada and Singapore. The data, compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and reported on in the The Daily Telegraph, also showed that just four-in-ten 15-year-olds read for enjoyment outside school. Tests taken by students in 2009 showed teenagers from Kazakhstan, Albania, China and Thailand were keen readers, with over 90 per cent reading books, newspapers or magazines for pleasure.
...WELL YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT WILL COME IN HANDY. In Kazakhstan they talk of little else
THERE WERE OTHER TOWERS................................
April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph as it had set out on a
Broadly speaking I am in favour of sex education.
Things were managed differently when I was a lad.I was told
I had come off a blackcurrant bush.Not very nice going through life
thinking you were adopted and your real mother was a shrub.
No whittling wood for me on the doorsteps of my childhood. I might
have been cutting up a cousin. As autumn approached each
year I waited in dread for my hair to turn gold and fall
at my feet. In the gardens of my youth pruning time was
an agony.
In the same way no-one has been able to convince me there
are no fairies, so I have never been able to shed - if you
will forgive the arboreal expression - a feeling that I am
part twig,though I reject with vigour allegations that I am a
chip off the old block.
When I got older I was introduced to the more conventional
forms of procreation but to be frank with you I think there
is more gravitas in the blackcurrant method. I had been
conditioned by my horticulturally obsesed mother to accept
the most bizarre explanations. No-one warned me that in real
life the position was absurd and the method improbable.
Not only that it did not always work.
Though in all honesty it worked more often than blackberrying,
an activty which had very sinister connotations in my childhood.
I was always surprised when two people went out to pick soft fruit,
three did not come back. My own efforts to provide myself with a brother
were a gloomy failure. I would select this fine bouncing bud
and place it in a matchbox lined with cotton wool. But alas,
nothing came of it. It was a pity. When the conventional
method was used the end product was never as well designed.
If a human being was a house, it would never get planning
permission. The waste disposal arrangments are at best
rudimentary. Look where the nose is. Right over the mouth.
Would you buy a house where the drainpipe is above the
front door?. And would it have been so difficult to make the
arms retractable? Have you ever met anyone who knows what to
do with his hands when not in use?. In Western dress there
are pockets, or you can stick themn out of the way by
clasping hands behind your back. But have you noticed? If
they don't hold tight to one another they come sneaking round
the front again, first chance they get.
And the feet. I asak you Is there anything in the whole of
nature that looks as silly as a foot? With toes hanging on
the end like a fringe? And another thing. They only bend one
way. Sheer waste. If you could turn them over you could
walk twice as far on them. Think how much easier sleep would
be if you could stack your arms and legs under the bed.
Entwining bedlothes would be a thing of the past. Why legs at
all? Wheels would have been much more convenient.
As to other functions I will only say the blackcurrant bush
has much to commend it. No mouth, therefore no toothache.
Eats through the feet and the leaves. None of those tiring
strolls to work up an appetite for lunch.
Some of us I regret are built even more oddly than most. I
was literally an all round reporter. I was as broad as I was long. The last TV series I made was a source of great embarrassment. Not to beat about the bush - and how that phrase strikes at the heart- where
other people go in at the waist, I went out for quite a
distance. People doubted the reality of my
body.
On radio you get used to the size phenomenum. The way
listeners invariably tell you in a disappointed tone;" You
are much taller on the radio". But what am I to do about the
lady who came up, patted me familiarly on the belt buckle
and asked; " Is that real or are you just wearing it on
tele?".
I ONLY PUT IT DOWN FOR A MINUTE
Like Louis 14th I blame God. When he was told he had lost yet another battle against the English he knew exactly at whose Pearly Gates to llay the blame.
"Sometimes" he said with a meaningful upward glare " I think God forgets what I have done for him"
I felt a touch of the Louise this week when someone had it away with my cromach.
????????????????
My cromach, C R O M A C H
It’s what officers in Highland Regiments carry when they go into battle.
Cromach. Shepherds’ Crook.
Don't ask. It used to puzzle me too. I mean when did you last see sheep on a battlefield,
What made things worse was that nine was cut for me by Hughie Bugail nigh on 40 years ago.
?????
BUGAIL is Welsh.It means shepherd.
Hughie Bugail was our Bobby in Wales. Technically that is..He was down on the books as a policeman but he spent most of his day tending the flock of sheep he kept on Marshes. Sheep that had become unbelievably rare but which had been bred back into respectable numbers. He also bred sheepdogs including a New Zealand strain, I kid you not, which ran over the backs of the flock. Hughie was as much a grin as anything else. There is a kind of rural Welshman who is built like a brick Ty Bach. You know what they are bred from when you lok at their faces which are cut from steel and remind you in profile of Roman centurions. They have teeth like eisteddfod stones, huge and blindingly white.
Hughie's uniform bulged with laughter. I never knew him when he wasn’t smiling. Chuckles escaped round his silver uniform buttons, grins blew down his whistle.
If there was a happier man in Wales at that time he kept himself well hidden.
Not that he exported laughter. His sergeant in Bangor all the way up to his inspector in Llangefni, even as far as his Superintendant in Holyhead, well they winced at the sound of his name. That was because they couldn't put a face to it, they saw him so rarely.
I only saw him grim faced once and that was when we had the foot and mouth. Most farmers were delighted. They would have bought F and M off the back of a truck, the compensation from destroying sheep was so good. Not Hughie. He was devastated at the thought of putting down his rare breed. In those days I had a column in the Holyhead and Anglesey Mail with offshoots in Bangor, Holyhead and even distant Caernarfon. Oh I had power. Not a whist card remained unturned but I knew about it. I was the Recorder of Rotary, the Chronicler of the Band of Hope. So it is no wonder the Min of Ag quailed under the lash of my pen. Hughie’s flock was saved, it was, very likely, listed too and forever a stranger t the plastic window frame,
Hughie was so pleased he carved me a shepherd’s crook. I have treasured it for years and now I have lost it. There are some things about old age it is hard to bear because I cannot remember his telephone number to order another.
The problem is this;, as a Bugail the world knew of him, as a telephone listed policeman he is completely unknown ..
PAUSE FOR THOUGHT
New data shows that children from countries such as Kazakhstan and Albania are more likely to pick up a book, newspaper or magazine on a daily basis than those from Britain. In a table based on the number of teenagers who read regularly, the UK was ranked 47th out of 65 nations, behind countries such as France, Australia, Italy, Canada and Singapore. The data, compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and reported on in the The Daily Telegraph, also showed that just four-in-ten 15-year-olds read for enjoyment outside school. Tests taken by students in 2009 showed teenagers from Kazakhstan, Albania, China and Thailand were keen readers, with over 90 per cent reading books, newspapers or magazines for pleasure.
...WELL YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN IT WILL COME IN HANDY. In Kazakhstan they talk of little else
THERE WERE OTHER TOWERS................................
April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph April 1937, Guernica was the first city to be deliberately targeted for aerial bombing. Guernica was the ancient capital of the Basques - a group who had withstood the advances of the army since theSpanish Civil War begun in 1936. The region's resilient stand was punished by Franco when he allowed the unprotected city to be bombed by Hitler's air force.
In 1935, General Erich Luderndorff had published "The Total War" (Die Totale Krieg) in which he argued that modern war was all encompassing and that no-one could or should necessarily be spared by the military. He argued that civilians were combatants and should be treated accordingly. His ideas were backed up in Fascist Italy where General Giulio Douhet produced a pamphlet which stated that an army's advance might be suitably assisted by targeting civilians whose panic would severely hamper the ability of the enemy's army to mobilise itself. Such panic could be delivered by "air-delivered terror".
Franco's Nationalists had little air force power. But Nazi Germany was very keen to try out its developing Luftwaffe. Hitler had sent out to Spain his Condor Legion lead by Lieutenant Colonel Wolfram von Richthofen, cousin of the Red Baron of World War One.
It is said that it was Richthofen who selected Guernica as a target. As previously stated, the city had great importance to the Basques so it bombing would send a clear message of the military power of the Nationalists to the Republicans. The raid was also an experiment and Guernica had been untouched by the war up to April 1937. No-one knew what a bombing raid would do to a city. A damaged city or one that had been heavily involved in the civil warwould not give the same results as a city that was untouched.
The Condor Legion attacked in daylight and flew as low as 600 feet as it had no reason to fear any form of defence from the city. It was market day so the city centre was packed with people from the outlying area around Guernica. The first bombs fell on the city at 4.30 in the afternoon when the main square in the city centre was hit. The first target of the bombers was a main bridge that lead into the city. Apologists for the raid have stated that the Condor Legion had selected strategic targets and that the one failing of the raid was the Legion's inability to accurately hit targets from height. The bombers that came in after the first wave instinctively targeted the area already on fire -again, the city centre.
By the time the Condor Legion had left, the centre of Guernica was in ruins. 1,654 people were killed and 889 wounded. The world was horrified but Franco denied that the raid ever took place. He blamed the destruction of Guernica on those who defended it
The Condor Legion returned in triumph as it had set out on a
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)