my life – Page 3 – OZTHOUGHTS

I was in a hospital with a resistance fighter.

While living in Singapore, (I was about 10) I found myself in hospital with a Chinese resistance fighter, who had been condemned to death by the British government, and who was, apparently, in a really bad way of health, and so the British government felt that he was too ill to be executed!

He was in hospital to get him into good health and then the British would take him out and hang him!

As I spoke Chinese (I went to a Chinese school – that will be a subject of another post https://ozthoughtsblog.com/2016/02/03/more-colonial-life-singapore-again/) and his guard was a Sikh who didn’t speak a word of Chinese, so I found out what was planned for him and it has made a real impression on my ever since as a heartless example of how governments work.

He explained how the British had promised a bunch of Chinese to stay in the jungle as they were losing it to the Japanese and when the British came back (!) they would pay them handsomely to continue the struggle on their behalf.

So in due time, when the fortunes of war went around and the British came back to Malaysia, the Chinese came out of the jungle and went to the British to be paid……

But the British had no intention of paying them, and kept putting them off with all manner of excuses. So in the end, the Chinese simply went back into the jungle, and took up arms against the British Planters instead of the Japanese.

The Chinese Communists were not involved in the beginning, but quite quickly became involved, as part of their struggle against the British elsewhere.

It was a real introduction to the way governments work for me.

I work in a lunatic asylum – Briefly……

When I was a student, I worked in a number of odd places, summer jobs mostly, but the oddest one was probably a lunatic asylum that I worked in one holidays. I worked in it simply because I was offered money to do it to pay for my summer holiday – in Greece I imagine.

It was in a closed ward, so called because in order to get in I had to open two doors, one of which would only open when I had the other closed, so it was a case of a sort of airlock in order to get into the ward. Once I got into it, I was confronted with three rooms, one a bedroom, another a day room, and then a bathroom – oh, and there were two padded cells opening of the day room. These we were not able to use without doctors attending the patient telling us it was OK to bung him in the padded cells, but I have to say they were amazing for a short nap. They had padded floors, walls, and ceiling, oh, and a door too… Great places to have a kip!!

We had to deal with all sorts of problems in this space, from syphilis to Huntington’s disease and all sorts of other diseases. People suffering from the advanced form of syphilis were really objectionable, argumentative and generally unpleasant, whereas people suffering from Huntington’s Disease were really rather sad, as the disease followed a well known track and was inevitable. Once it has started it went on for a predictable path, and ended up with the patient going totally insane….. Horrible to see how it how it was with people who hadn’t progressed very far!

We were (obviously) confronted with death on a daily basis in that ward… (to see how I have dealt with corpses in my life, as I have often been confronted with death often https://wordpress.com/post/ozthoughtsblog.com/2529).

One patient I well remember was a Roman soldier, an officer I remember. He died one day, having gone to the lavatory at night, and slipped and fell, and broken his hip. If other people had this happen to them, they got all sorts of treatment, but lunatics didn’t. A doctor was called and he “prescribed” rest and a bag of sand (to keep his thigh in place), and that was that. Obviously he died in agony, as he wouldn’t stay still, and tried to get out of bed all day…. He died after several days, peacefully in his sleep, while I sat beside him. I used to ask him about his bunch of men everyday, and he was totally in that world, so he told me how it was with his soldiers, which he really saw in his mind…. He was another of those men who had been found wandering around a railway station, and no one had ever come forward to say who he was. This was the story of a lot of men there………. Lots of men.

I used to go along the corridors to get to my ward, and there I was confronted with mad women…. And I can tell you I was really grateful not to have to deal with them, as they seemed madder than the men….

I was much impressed by this job, as I have said, it was a really powerful experience. I was surrounded by death and madness on a daily basis, most of the men in my “Care” were insane in one or another way, and demonstrated it too. Most were amenable in general, and didn’t make waves in one or another way. I used to ask men who were suffering from “visions” to describe my hands to me…. And it was amazing! The way they described it to me was every time different. They used to say, about their palm “Blue paper with orange gaps…” I used to ask them to describe the same thing at once, and they said ” Now it is red with bloody bits”. Endlessly fascinating.

It was a fascinating job, and remarkable too…… I learnt so many life lessons doing that job. Probably the main one was that Death came for every one and that generally it was peaceful and calm – though not always!

Malaysia – My Experiences There…….

Our vision of Malaysia

Our experience of Malaysia was odd….. I had been there as a kid, well, I had lived in Singapore during the gorilla war there, and Singapore had changed out of recognition, so I didn’t recognise it any more, but Kuching, in Borneo, was familiar, as the houses there were, by and large, human sized, rather than skyscrapers, which is what they have become in Singapore – generally about three stories high, and that was that.

Kaula Lumpur, on the other hand was enormous! Huge buildings, including the famous double tower, which is……

Petronas Twin Towers

The one good thing about KL, as it is known by all the inhabitants of that huge city, is the network of walkways that go everywhere and on top of that, they are also airconditioned!!!! I wandered through this system frequently…. And loved it too. It was seriously the best way to get around KL.

View of inside walkway.

View of open part of walkway.

As it has shops and cafes inside it, it is not necessary to go outside if you want to get around in KL.

That amazing system aside, KL is a normal city, and in no way remarkable. We lived in a block of flats, in no way remarkable. I shall write about that soon.

Angola, my experience of that country at war and peace.

A burnt out village….. All to typical of Angola.

As we went to Angola, we had to get used to burnt out villages, and dead tanks happening all over the place, and the internal airports were a mass of dead fighter planes beside the runway.

A dead tank in the garden……. No gnomes!!

Also their were beautiful bits of country…….

We camped here…… Amazingly beautiful!!

But we were surrounded by the fact that Angola had just recently surfaced from a 30 year long civil war…. The roads were wide, as people tried to avoid landmines, which were planted in the middle of roads, and bridges were complicated as they all have landmines on them. I knew one of the deminers, who described land mines as the dog that didn’t bite. That is where I got malaria which was an amazing experience. (More about that in this post… https://wordpress.com/post/ozthoughtsblog.com/201).

Nathaniel, as a minesweeper. Facing the camera.

Landmines were mostly very/ small….. To inflict damage, but not to kill.

The other thing about Angola, was the rubbish! It was all over the place.

Disgusting………

By and large, Angola was fun to be in, landmines notwithstanding, and the rubbish, but it was really beautiful by and large, and the politics such as it was, was not a problem for us.

We Have Lived Together For Many Years…….

We have lived together for more than 50 years, so I can say, with a reasonably accurate statement, that we are suited to each other!

We started to live together in about 1970 while I was living in Upper Street in Islington, and we started to sleep together, but we didn’t get married until much later, to the disgust of our landlord then, who claimed that it would ruin our relationship – it didn’t! We worked in Interaction then, which was a group of people with an idea of Ed Burman, an American who looked just like Frank Zappa and behaved much like him too! For some info about Interaction, please follow this link. http://www.unfinishedhistories.com/history/companies/inter-action/

We worked in Interaction for about a year, I with theatre technique (we ran a number of theatres) and Lotty worked at office work. One desperately depressing work which we did, was to work in a remand home, which was supposed to be a “model” of good practice. But in fact it was truly awful! For a minor disobedience kids were locked up for 24 hours! And loads of kids were there who hadn’t committed any crimes, but simply were too much for the youth work people to handle. A terribly depressing place to work in! So I didn’t work in it for long! Others did, more strength to their elbows.

After this, I was Production Manager at the Roundhouse and Lotty worked in schools – as a teacher. A lot of what we did was based on our plans to head for Australia – to which end we bought a yacht in Spain (which a friend had told me about), and Lotty sailed it to England, and I drove home, the intention was to sail it to Australia but we ran into storms on sailing off to Australia, so we ended up in Holland, which we enjoyed and in which we had Jake (our son), who was diagnosed with internal problems, so we found that we would have to stay inc Holland for the immediate future. So we sold Mjojo, our sailing boat, and bought a commercial barge, the 120 ton Luxe Motor which we lived on for the next 24 years, only selling it when we moved to France….. More about this later.

We have lived in a number of countries together…. England, Holland, France, (Lotty lived in Switzerland) Angola, China, The Philippines, Malaysia, and finally, Australia! So, all in all, we have lived all over the world, and had fun in all of those countries.

And we are still happily together!

La Guillotine, My Experiences with this machine!

I came across this machine in Hanoi, while I was there. It was in a room in what was known as the Hanoi Hilton, a prison that had famously had one of the Presidential candidates while it was still a prison, John McCain. The whole experience of seeing the rooms they were held in was deeply disturbing, and then to find this machine, left over from the time that the French ruled in Vietnam. It was in a room, nearby the cells, and had been in use, horribly, during the French period, and later in the Vietnam period.

I was absolutely horrified at the idea that this machine was used to “punish” people.

Paradoxically, while I was building our house in Australia, I recreated a field of guilleteens. Actually, I built this for the posts that would hold the floor of our house up. So there were about 167 of them…..

So this is what it looked like!

So, this is my experience with Guillotines.

Some Curious Members Of My Family

On my father’s side I have the pleasure of having descended from a splendidly eccentric collection of odd-balls.

My Great Grandfather and Grandfather, who were Grant Duffs, were variously governors of the Bank of England, Honorary Colonels-in-Chief of that wonderful Scottish regiment, the Black Watch, oh, and also The Baron Monkswell, the current holder of that title being my cousin Gerard, who upon entering the House of Lords made it possible for a bunch of militant feminists to abseil into the chamber of the House of Commons during a sitting.

His father, Larry Collier – a splendid bloke who I was very fond of – was one of the very curious British things, a lord and a Communist, and only felt able to sit in the House of Lords as it gave him a chance to actively pursue his aims as a life long Communist. Well, like many British Communists, he left the Communist party in 1956 when the Russians violently invaded Hungary and suppressed the move of the Hungarians to move away from Communism.

He is also notable for his work in the ’30’s in helping refugees escape from Nazi Germany – by the simple expedient of marrying them, getting them to Britain, ensuring that they thus became British citizens, and then divorcing them. I gather he managed this a number of times. Trump would love him!

And my favourite, Granny Lilly as she was known in the family, was a wonderful woman, whom I had the good fortune to know before she died. She started out as a Lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria then became active in the fledgling British Communist party, where, as with most of her kids, she remained an active member until 1956, when much disillusioned, she left the party. One of her most notable feats was during a Communist International in Geneva in the ’20’s where it was solemnly decided that good Communists should support and practice free-love, she stood up and announced that she had been practicing this for years, and thought it was a splendid idea – this went down like a lead balloon with the others there, as they approved of the idea, but in reality, not the theory.

She was also notable for climbing a mountain in Crete with Bertrand Russell (an unlikely pair if there ever was one!), which was renamed in her honour by the Cretans as Mount Lilly, which I believe it still is called.

Furthermore, she chain smoked Woodbines, a very cheap and nasty cigarette, and used to stay in the Dorchester Hotel when in London, always taking a room that overlooked Park Lane, a very “posh” street in the centre of London. Here she used to wash her underwear and hang it out of the window over Park Lane to dry… A real no no as far as the hotel bosses were concerned, but no one dared to try and stop her doing this, as she was capable of being very much the Grand Dame at need.

A lovely, kind and superbly eccentric woman who was much loved by all who knew her – apart from the owners of the Dorchester perhaps.

Stange Ideas About The Past

Hi, to begin with I will talk about the past, by which I mean the past that I have experienced, not that one that you may have experienced. I have experienced no end of life, as I have been alive for about 81 years, so I have experienced war, several of them, and peace, many more of them, happily. I have lived in about 10 different countries, and have enjoyed life incredibly, so far!

One thing I have learnt in all of this living, there is no such thing as “my country, right or wrong”. All countries are the same, and all people all over the world are the same, occupied with raising their kids, and possibly doing their work…. So all such things as Flags, and Nationalities are a waste of space.

I have lived, so far, in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia (twice), and England, so I reckon that I speak from experience.

All I want to say, is that I firmly believe that all life is the same, and such things as nationalities are absurd, and National Anthems are totally idiotic – apart from ones that are good, musically. Most are pompous and silly songs praising a land, which is identical to another land. And a waste of space. I have two flags at home, one the Angolan Flag, and the other is the Chinese one… Not because I love those two countries but because I enjoyed living there, and had fun living in those two countries…. I also enjoyed my time in Holland, France, England, Australia, Singapore and all the other countries I have lived in – basically I have enjoyed my life and whichever country I was living in at the time. All of them!

Anyhow, that is my view of the world, accept it or not, who cares………….

My Tank Birthday….. A Really Good Surprise!!

A couple of years ago, my son contacted a guy who had a huge collection of tanks and armoured cars, and similar war-like machines, and arranged for me to spend a day there…… It was my birthday present!

So, we all went there, just south of Brisbane, and had a really good day with tanks and similar….

To start with, we explored the vehicles he had in a shed…. A vast number of military types of machines, ranging from motorbikes through to tanks and armoured personnel carriers, it was amazing such a collection!

To give you an idea of the scope of this collection!

My two grandsons happily sitting in a military jeep

And to finish it off….. a real tank ride!!!!! We are in the turret, my grandkids and me.

All in all, a real day to remember, and that will certainly be the case!! I was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of the tanks and other armoured vehicles and the fact that my son found that collection of armoured vehicles for us to visit. And that we got to ride in a real tank!!!! Such a treat! A real day to remember.

La Boite – Experiences with the Brisbane Roundhouse

I used to work in the Roundhouse in London, way back in the ’60’s of the last century (boy that makes me sound ancient!!!), and upon arriving in Brisbane I found work as a volunteer at the Brisbane Roundhouse, as an usher, rather than as a Production Manager (which was what I did at the Roundhouse in London (see other posts in this blog and my other blog, https://28061942.blogspot.com/).

It was amazing being back in another Roundhouse, and it was a great relief not to have the responsibility of being in charge, as I had been all my life – in the various things I did in my life – but simply just to turn up for work at the beginning of my shift, and then to stay until the end of my shift…… Easy really.

And not to have to rebuild the theatre when a new show came in, as we did in the London Roundhouse, simply think if it was in the round, or in a classical theatre thrust configuration. Actually, we ushers didn’t bother about that, we simply found it when we had our first shift – Stage hands built the scenery and configured the theatre each time…. We simply turned up and discovered what was what.

What was amazing about La Boite was that it was an experimental theatre, so shows that we put on there were more or less experimental, some more than others. Also, they held the annual Student Theatre shows there, which were interesting, but not necessarily good…… Student theatre is a big thing in Australian universities and much encouraged, but not necessarily good.

I worked in La Boite for about 6 years, and saw many interesting shows there, and then one day, we were all invited to a show, and we were fired! It seemed that they were in difficulties over the insurance which had to be paid for us all and so they had decided to get shot of us all……… Sad, but realistic.