..of two young ladies ( I am using the term ‘young’ loosely in the same way as you might describe the morals and ethics of the NSW Labor party) who rowed backwards below us for about an hour. The convention of rowing is that you face the blunt end (the stern) so that you can put your back into going forwards using the sharp end (the bow) to cleave the waters. This does have one disadvantage in that you cannot see where you are going but this is why you can you rotate your head on your neck. However the fear of the unknown was obviously too much and so they rowed backwards. By this I mean that they sat in the boat normally but used their efforts to ensure that the stern was advancing. A little odd.
Now there were other people who had mastered the standard mode of sculling and they dodged around the errant couple as the scudded around the surface like a water-boatman on acid. These exemplars of normalcy and efficiency made no impression and, for almost an hour, the dynamic duo flailed around below us with no high-pitched squeals of youthful laughter that might make one think that they knew what they were doing and actually having a good time.
Unlike the one of the more famous rowing expeditions described by the Reverend Dodgson. ‘Full many a year has slipped away from that ‘golden afternoon’ that gave thee birth, but I can call it up as clearly as if it were yesterday – the cloudless blue above, the watery mirror below, the boat drifting idly on its way, the tinkle of the drops that fell from the oars, as they waved so sleepily to and fro…..’
We know the Reverend Dodgson better as Lewis Carroll, and the day saw the beginning of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. However the weather for the day, July 4th 1862 , as reported by the London meteorological office, indicates that the weather was ‘cool and rather wet’.
Naturally the analogy of life and rowing reared its head like the Bishop’s Sunday Sermon. We row through life, putting our backs into it, having no idea where we are going. All we can see is the past stretching even further behind us.
And then our time is up and we give our boat back.
In fact I am sure that I either Dean Sullivan or Bishop Warren might have intoned that very phrase in the raspberry fruitiness much beloved of the Christchurch Anglican Church of the 1950’s.
We are our own past, a collection of memories and sensations that have coalesced into a human that other people address by a collection of random sounds that we have learnt to associate with conversation, insults or irrelevancy directed in our general direction.
This may include a name. I was asked the other night what name I would select if I could choose my own name and, after a moment’s pause, suggested that Field Marshall Rudd had a good ring to it. I would be too embarrassed to say that Cathedral Bell Rudd has a better ring to it. So I won’t.
Whomsoever you are, no matter how charismatic, talented, intelligent or interesting there is always somebody more fascinating, eccentric and startling than you. Politicians used to be able to muster the odd eccentric but now they have morphed into creatures from a science fiction movie – constantly shape-shifting before your very eyes into something that you might recognise, like or admire. And, therefore, vote for them. Henry Kissinger, probable war criminal and a master of self-deception once said that 90% of politicians give the remaining 10% a bad name. A better call than bombing Laos.
But, regrettably, most of the interesting people seem to have already shuffled off. As you get to a certain age you start reading the obituaries to ensure that you and your friends are still alive, but of late the reviews of lives passed away are remarkably prosaic and full of virtuous people.
I was reminded of what we are missing when searching through the archives of my computer to try and find a list of the roses in the garden and I came across this, apparently from ‘The Telegraph’.
Lieutenant-Colonel Digby Willoughby, (4 May 1934 – 27 February 2007) aged 72, was one of a two-man bobsleigh team that broke the world record in 1961; later he was an incomparable chief executive of the St Moritz Tobogganing Club for 24 years.
Willoughby was the epitome of an almost Wodehousian English gentleman; immaculate in appearance, occasionally crusty, but generous, loyal, fearless and gallant. Despite the growth of the club, he fiercely guarded its traditions, which he saw as part of the last truly amateur sport.
In his celebrated "death talks", as they were known, he would ask beginners to take a close look at the x-rays of his broken neck before committing themselves to hurtling headfirst down 1,200 metres of icy track at speeds that could reach 90 mph. "These bits of metal," he would point out to his increasingly apprehensive audience, "are the ones that connect my head to my shoulders."
From his eyrie in the control tower of the clubhouse, he would supervise the Run and praise, encourage or castigate the riders. Nor did spectators escape his unwinking vigilance. "Madam," he would roar, "you have a very pretty bottom, but would you please remove it from my Run. You might injure one of my riders."
Willoughby declared himself a pencil and paper man and professed complete ignorance of anything electronic, apart from the fax machine. Standards mattered to him, whether in behaviour, dress or grammar. He deplored many aspects of modernity, particularly baseball caps, mobile telephones and people who said "Cheers". All these attracted a blanket expression of censure, "Quite extraordinary behaviour!"
Willoughby took early retirement from the Army replete with a well-deserved Military Cross.
An audacious rider, he continued to win club trophies and in the process suffered some 50 falls at the notorious Shuttlecock bend and a broken neck. He was a munificent host, and invitations to his high-octane vodka parties, known as "Unmentionables", were greatly prized. Somehow he found time to become an expert cultivator of orchids, a keen gardener and a famous creator of curries.
He died the same week as Cecil Gysin, a Natural Sausage Casings Broker. The BBC said that for more than fifty years Cecil championed the use of sheep, pig and cattle guts against the more mass produced artificial sausage casings. He was a member of what is perhaps one of the world’s most obscure pressure groups, the International Natural Sausage Casings Association and, indeed, was chairman of its 1993 congress in Geneva. When not discussing the finer details of sausage production, Cecil was also an award winning short story writer, a keen skier and gardener and an accomplished dancer.
Where are their like now?