1.
Friday 9 May
Ursula and I drove from Jill Combermere’s
funeral in Berkshire to Paul Parsons’ home, Southfields, near Towcester,
arriving at about 6:30 pm. Everybody was gathering in a barn next door to
Paul‘s house and we quickly joined a briefing being given by Michael Shipster (ex-MI6)
re security; and separately by Anthony
White re accommodation and dinners along our route. I quickly found my
expectation, that I would meet Charlie Moubray, was correct. he and I traded
greetings and promised each other that was plenty to talk about and to catch
up, having not seen one another for 50 years. In fact, he was staying elsewhere
(not at Southfields) for Friday night so we didn’t get chatting until we
arrived in Gliwice, in Poland, on Sunday evening.
When all briefings and ‘hail fellow well
met’ had finished, we were ushered into Paul’s house, shown where we were going
to be sleeping on Friday night and made our way in the direction of a drink and
our dinner.
Before dinner I spent some time speaking
with John Errington who I was surprised to find lives very nearby to Ursula and
me in Gloucester; his home village is Compton Abbas. I also spoke with Lisa
Hainsworth who explained, her son Archie is a key man in Paul’s team and she
would be travelling as far as Lviv in the same car as Archie.
During dinner, I found myself in between
John Errington and Michael Shipster. Michael explained to me that he knows
Sarah and also knows Harry. He got to know Sarah through working at MI6 and
Harry because when he retired from MI6, he did some consulting work for Rolls
Royce. Michael is probably around 70 but pretty fit and active; he has three
adult children – two daughters who live in Hampstead and a 40 something
year-old son living somewhat off grid in South Wales. Michael’s wife died a few
years ago from a brain haemorrhage. Michael had not previously done one of
these runs to Ukraine but was introduced into the whole thing and to Paul, by
Raymond Oxford, (whose connection with Michael is that he used to work in the
British Embassy in Moscow).
2.
Sat 10 May (Southfields to Moods Hotel, 474
miles)
We set off pretty smoothly at 6:30 am, a
long line of cars meandering through country lanes in the direction of the M40.
On the M40 we drove to the M25, round London and down to Folkestone on the M20
(I think). Smooth and timely arrival at the tunnel and after half an hour we
were in Calais. Paul had cautioned re delays on the French side but this proved
not to be the case. We were soon in motion again driving past Dunkirk, through
Belgium and Holland, awash with road signs very reminiscent of ‘A Bridge too Far’,
and then across the Rhine and into Germany where we homed into our hotel, Moods,
in Dortmund.
At Moods Hotel, we checked into our room
and walked a quarter of a mile down the street to a second hotel where Anthony
White had booked a table for 27 for dinner, and where we sat down again. During
dinner, I found myself in between Robert Williamson (ex-Army I think) and Lisa
Hainsworth and sitting more or less opposite to Ursula. Both Lisa and Robert
very nice.
3.
Sun 11 May Moods Hotel to Diament Plaza, 573
miles)
After breakfast, we left the hotel
departing Dortmund and heading for hotel Diament Plaza Gliwice, in Poland.
One of the younger members of the group
(possibly Oleh) reminded me of the significance of Gliwice – it is the place
where the first shots in the second world war were fired in anger. In 1939, the
eastern border of Germany was much further to the east than it is today and
Gliwice was on the border between Germany and Poland; today the border is about
100 miles to the west of where it was then. The Germans faked up a border
incident in which a small number of German soldiers / border police, who were
manning a border post were attacked and killed by German soldiers masquerading
as Polish terrorists. The Germans were able to present this to the rest of the
world (especially to France and to Britain) as an incident that deserved
retribution in the form of moving large numbers of soldiers and tanks et cetera
into Poland. Hence the invasion of Poland began and a day or two later Britain
and France declared war on Germany.
The drive across Germany was very
significantly wooded – which looked attractive in the early spring
sunshine; in addition, forests of tall
windmills.
The hotel Diament Plaza in Gliwice turned
out to be quite old-fashioned; we kicked
off by walking to quite a pretty square a few hundred yards from the front door
of the hotel where we were able to sit down and have a few beers. Meanwhile,
while Ursula went off to have a look at some of the shops, I was able to start
chatting with Charlie Moubray; but not
to finish because we had to be back at the hotel by 7:30 pm for our dinner.
At dinner we were in two or three separate
dining rooms in the basement of the hotel. I was in one of them, sitting next to Charlie. His life story is that he left Eton (not very
happy there) and joined the Army;
finishing with the Army he had a spell in the City but didn’t enjoy it
and decided to re-invent himself completely, giving Cirencester Ag Coll a shot
before opting to become a prep school teacher at a school in Hemel
Hempstead. He had a very funny story
about life as a new boy in ACG, where he had a room next door to David. Quietly minding his own business one evening
he was startled out of his studies by a large bang and some kind of commotion
coming from next door. Charlie got up to
investigate, went into David’s room and found David with his face and hands
covered in black soot as a result of a failed effort by David to re-wire his
reading lamp.
Charlie remarked, he had reluctantly
returned to the OE 40th anniversary bash, about ten years ago and
had surprised himself by being very favourably impressed by the event itself
and the opportunity it provided to swap views about life with so many
contemporaries; he said he’d been
disappointed not to see David or Chris de Lotbiniere. The 50th anniversary is scheduled
to happen later this year and he wanted to encourage David to show up.
One of the things Charlie told me was that he
has roots in N Yorkshire. By a funny
chance, Val Worthington was a bridesmaid when his mother (not quite sure if
she’s still alive) was married!
4.
Mon 12 May (Diament Plaza Hotel to Leopolis, 271
miles)
Breakfast in the hotel and we exit the car
park just round the corner, next door. The drive through Poland was quite
uneventful. The border where we were crossing was one chosen by Paul, with the
help of Raymond Oxford, and seemed to be for non-freight traffic principally. I
guess it took about an hour and a half to get across and then we all crowded
under a big sign saying Ukraine for a photo shot. After that we had roughly two
hours’ drive onward through Ukraine to Lviv. Lviv is a pretty, Bohemian sort of
city. The centre has a lot of cobbled
streets and squares; the hotel we were
heading for is called Leopolis and for some reason we had to park some way away
from the hotel and then there was a short walk back. The rooms in the hotel
were spacious and comfortable; the floors were parquet, wooden. Anthony White
had (as usual) booked a table for 27 in a nearby restaurant and we all convened
there. I was sitting next to Paul Parsons and opposite Ian Wilson Strong and
was able to speak with both. Paul tried (not entirely convincingly) to explain
his motivation to do so many trips over and over again; this is the ninth time
that he led a convoy of people, supplies and vehicles from home to Ukraine[1].
Ian Wilson Strong joined the group today driving a white Mercedes transit van
especially adapted for the charity, I think called Metta, which does
rehabilitation for injured servicemen in the Carpathian mountains. Ian lives in Geneva and works for FIFA,
selling football media rights across the world.
5.
Tue 13 May
Today was our ‘rest day’ in Lviv – which
turned out to be pretty active. The kick-off was to visit a cemetery with about
2,000 graves in it. The graves are
adorned with yellow and blue Ukrainian flags and black and red flags for the OUN
(Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists)[2] and / or the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army[3]; and photographs of the occupants of the
graves smiling out to onlookers. At 9 am there was a minute’s silence to
commemorate the dead; this happened with a loudspeaker (I’m not quite sure
where) emitting a continuous – and loud, given we were in a wide open area,
ticking sound for about a minute.
After this we went on to the local hospital
and saw the operation of a local charity called Unbroken. The hospital and the charity were both very
impressive and appeared to be extremely well run. The patients in the hospital
were physically very far from unbroken: there were lots of people with missing
limbs, on crutches, in wheelchairs and in rehabilitation therapy. But the emphasis was on the unbroken-ness of
the mental side of the rehab. Most of
this activity seems to be funded by Lviv City Council.
After the hospital visit we proceeded on to
meet with Paul’s and Anthony‘s friend, Fr Vasili at his large church in Kyiv,
where Fr Vasili gave us lunch[4] - again,
all quite moving. After lunch we moved
outside into the car park where all of the vehicles were lined up and parked;
Fr Vasili came out with a bowl of holy water and an asperges sprinkler and
walked up and down sprinkling holy water onto the cars, blessing them.
With the trucks fully blessed and the
drivers having been given another ‘pin-drop’ destination to proceed to, we set
off for Lviv City Hall, which when we arrived there turned out to be very close
by to the Leopolis Hotel. At the City Hall
our objective was to be introduced to a team of Ukrainians working on the
design and production of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) to be used by the
Ukrainian army. We were shown a variety
of drones which mostly are flat, pancake shaped plastic devices with four up
and down propellors at the edge; the
across dimension is about 18”. Besides
these there were model aircraft, about three or four feet in length looking
like miniatures of F35 fighter jets;
also ‘glide bombs’ which are small gliders, launched from an aircraft that
are guided into a target where they detonate.
They all carry bombs like hand grenades or bigger to be dropped on enemy
targets. All of these drones are
controlled remotely, some wirelessly and some with a carbon fibre control line.
Having been shown round this sort of
‘factory show-room’ – in the middle of the City hall, we were ushered into a
presentation room, also in the City hall, where we were invited to listen to a
ppt presentation explaining aspects of the war and how Lviv City Council
contributes to the war effort. The
presentation was given (in English) by, I think, Yurii Lomikovskyi, and sitting
amongst us was Andriy Sadovyy, the Mayor of Lviv, who concluded proceedings by
handing out to each of us a ‘King Daniel of Galicia Coin’, along with a smart
tombstone certificate commemorating the same.
At the end of the presentation I collected a business card from Yurii
Lomikovskyi¸ saying he represents the Iron Ukrainian defence tech cluster – www.ironcluster.org.
After that we returned to the hotel ahead
of dinner, for which Anthony had booked us into a restaurant called The Madhouse.
On this occasion, I found myself sitting next to Colin Richmond Watson. Colin
has spent most of his life working in the city as a stockbroker; his cousin is
somebody whose name was familiar, Tony Richmond Watson, who was at Morgan
Grenfell (50 years ago). Colin’s main
interest in life, I think, is hunting. Colin
is returning home from Lviv tomorrow.
6.
Wed 14 May (Leopolis Hotel to Aristocrat in
Poltava, 558 miles)
We had an early start from the Leopolis
hotel heading for Kyiv and through Kyiv onwards to Poltava. We had been able to
park the cars in a secure parking zone right opposite the hotel, which was
convenient. Just before leaving, we were saying goodbye to all of those heading
back to UK from Lviv. This included Charlie Moubray, Colin Richmond Watson,
Gerald Howarth, and Raymond Oxford as well as Lisa Hainsworth, James Stewart
and the de Lisle father and son duo.
Kyiv, perhaps not surprisingly, turns out
to be a very large city; we drove into it from the west right through it, across
the Dnipro river and out the other side. There is very little by way of obvious
signs that there is a war going on. Traffic jams, traffic lights, cars
everywhere were the order of the day.
In due course we were out of the urban area
and heading towards Poltava. it began to become apparent that we were moving
east not only geographically but culturally as well; the signage on the roads changed and the
letters, or the alphabet used was more obviously Russian than western or
Ukrainian; the fields on either side of
the road became bigger and bigger; the villages through which we passed
appeared to be poorer than in western Ukraine; the villages seemed often to comprise a grass
verge on each side of the road behind which a fairly flimsy looking wall and behind that a garden (usually cultivated)
and small house – mostly a bungalow; cars
were rare; and at times we were obliged
to slow down to not much more than walking pace to navigate through potholes in
the road.
Eventually, we arrived in Poltava; for some
reason Anthony had not booked us in for dinner but we did seem to have room
reservations. Paul was quite sensitive that we should be parked about a block
or so away from the hotel. I think he was trying to make our arrival at the
hotel, unobtrusive. One way or another this seemed to work and several
Ukrainian soldiers appeared who were going to take ownership of some of the
vehicles (including Ursula’s and mine). So, we emptied out suitcases and
rubbish, leaving behind the boxes of medical and other supplies; sleeping bags and sleeping mats were taken
out the cars for use in Konotop / Sumy. The soldiers who had arrived had driven
about four hours to get to Poltava and were quite keen to do a quick turnaround
and set off back. Which they did.
We then went back indoors heading for a
slightly diminished in size dinner party. This was not before Ian Wilson Strong
had had a frightful panic thinking that he left his wallet at a petrol station
we had stopped at on the way in to Poltava. Luckily, it had just fallen out of
his wallet and was on the floor of his car (and his car was still with us!).
One of the people who had driven a car with
us from Lviv was Ihor, a brother of Oleh. Ihor, like Oleh, has three children
but lives in Lviv where he works as an IT engineer. Standing at the bar in the
dining room before dinner, I took the opportunity to ask him about the ongoing
war and politics in Ukraine. Unlike his brother Oleh, Ihor said that he had
voted for Zelensky in the elections seven years ago; would he vote for Zelensky
again? Probably yes. What did Ihor think would happen in Ukraine if an unjust
peace settlement were imposed? Would
there be a resistance movement that would rise up against an un unjust
settlement? [At this very moment, the news feeds were alive with the proposed
meeting in Istanbul between Vladimir Putin and Zelensky (which obviously never
quite happened and proved to be a damp squib).] Ihor answered the question
quite shrewdly, saying it would depend upon the nature of the situation that
prevailed; but it was plain from everything that we were seeing and all of the
people, especially the Ukrainian soldiers, that there’s a considerable will to
carry on resisting, at least before the imposition of a settlement.
I think this was the moment when Daria,
23-year-old Ukrainian lady who joined the Ukrainian army in March this year,
and Makar, 30-year-old second lieutenant, joined our group becoming our drivers
and guides. Daria speaks good English, has
been to university (I think, Kyiv) and has studied journalism / PR. Her job in the battalion she’s assigned to –
the same battalion as Makar, is to be press officer.
7.
Thur 15 May (Aristocrat Hotel to Konotop, 201
miles)
Setting off in the morning, Ursula and I
were in the Baines’s car. The changing in the countryside noted the day before
continued to become more noticeable: fewer cars, larger fields, poorer
villages; and very out of condition roads with big potholes everywhere.
At some point, in the afternoon I think, we
arrived at a checkpoint where we all stopped and Ukrainian soldiers, carrying
weapons, asked to look at our passports and enquire about the content of the
vehicles. This all took a little time; the
Ukrainian soldiers wanted to interview someone – one of us. Paul craftily nominated Ursula as the first
interviewee and she disappeared into the soldiers’ hut, where she stayed for
about ten minutes. I was beginning to
wonder what was going on and rather dreading a ten minute interview being
repeated a dozen times, but then Ursula emerged, Paul announced we were in the
clear and pretty soon we all moved on. The Ukrainians had been interested in Ursula’s
iPhone but failing to find any Russian names, addresses or contacts had become
bored and nodded her through.
Continuing along the roads between these
enormous fields we occasionally saw trench systems which the Ukrainian army had
constructed anticipating a future line of defence[5].
Michael Baines (ex-Army) commented that he thought little of them and that they
would be difficult to defend.
By and by we arrived in Konotop which
turned out to be a considerably smaller town than, say, Lviv and as we drove
into it, I did notice on the left a substantial building which looked as though
it had been hit by a pretty heavy bomb gouging out half of the 4 or 5 storey
front facade. At this point we were not using the WhatsApp Google Maps and
instead we were doing ‘follow my leader’ with one of the Ukrainian drivers in
the front most car.
We stopped on the edge of Konotop outside a
very unprepossessing building which we were told was the Konotop town museum
and round which we were about to be shown.
Daria and Makar were the key introducers. The museum itself was on the ground floor of
a three or four storey block and comprised about half a dozen rooms presented
as ‘galleries’. In the first was a
selection of about a dozen not very interesting water colour paintings that I
thought could have come from a local school.
The second was an exhibition of stuffed animals – a boar, a wolf,
eagles, etc like a micro natural history museum. The third, more convincingly an exhibition of
art, had as its prize exhibit a large size three panelled oil painting
depicting the battle of Konotop that took place in 1659, when the defending
Konotop citizens and army successfully repelled a much larger Russian
force. Pictures other than this one had
been taken away and stored elsewhere for protection in case Konotop were attacked
again by Russia. Two or three rooms
after this one were empty (all the goodies taken away to be stored in safety), then
there was a wooden bench once sat upon by a famous Ukrainian poet, Andrey
Kurkov, followed by a couple of rooms exhibiting objects to do with today’s war
(shell cases, etc). Overall, it was a
very quirky, out of the ordinary tour round a museum under the guidance of an
extremely enthusiastic curator who appeared to be, probably, in his late 20s. At the end he showed me into his office where
there was another painting of an Alpine scene;
very nice! And finally, I
accidentally barged into another office where there were two much older ladies who
presumably had something to do with the admin of the place.
After the museum, Ursula and I switched
into a car with Daria and Makar in the front passenger and driver seats. This
configuration took us out of Konotop and in due course into a forested area
which was the campsite for Makar and Daria and the Ukrainian soldiers in their
battalion[6].
At this point I had not been clear (in my
own mind) where we would be staying that night. I had thought that we might be
sleeping on the floor of the house where Makar was living. But it turned out
that we would be staying in an underground dugout / bunker constructed by these
Ukrainian soldiers; it was built to
accommodate about 20 inmates – which included Ursula and me; but there were only about six of us in there
that night. The campsite was strictly “dry“ so what we drank was mineral water
and or tea or coffee. Food rations, dished up from a kitchen area and served in
a tent, were not very appetising but quite filling. There were latrines, which I used and a place
to wash and have a shower, which I didn’t use, within walking distance. Before it became dark, we had a gathering
where there was a number of presentations made by the Ukrainian soldiers to us,
giving us flags and medals and various other things and then we were introduced
to their new “toy“ which was an enormous armoured vehicle, not offensively
armoured like a tank, but defensively and made to be used to deliver soldiers
to the front line. Basically, you could say it was something like a bus to carry
about 10 soldiers to the front, into battle; maybe Humvee is the word. Makar got himself into the driving seat,
started the engine and drove it out of the pit where it was kept, underneath a
camouflage net; we all climbed in and
over it, admiring it.
Security discipline in the camp was a
little unclear. We were not sure if we were allowed to use our iPhones, whether
we should switch them off and put them into the Faraday pouches, or something
else. It seemed that the soldiers were able to stay connected using Elon Musk “Starlink“
apparatus. Christopher Coleridge Cole
asked Daria for clarification as to could he or could he not use his iPhone?
Daria Replied saying yes he could and Michael Shipster remarked that what she
was saying was wrong (and certainly seemed to contradict the briefing he’d
given us before leaving England). So it
was all a bit confusing.
8.
Fri 16 May (Konotop to Sumy, 95 miles, and
a total, all the way from England of 2,172 miles)
After breakfast at the camp, we drove about
two hours to get to Sumy. The weather was fine and we arrived in an enormous
parking area in front of supermarkets and big warehouses, etc. It looked very
much like any other huge retail park that you see all the time in the UK. Makar
and Daria had brought us to this place to meet with other soldiers who were
taking on the remaining vehicles from us. This all happened and there was a lot
of ceremony, handing over the keys and the legal papers and the soldiers giving
to us more mementos and medals and Ukrainian flags. One of the mementos given
to Paul was a broken Russian drone that the soldiers had picked up; another was
a collection of personal papers including a passport the Ukrainians had
collected from a deceased Russian soldier who had been trying to attack the
Ukrainians. The personal papers included a letter written in Russian by the
dead man’s wife or girlfriend; Michael
Shipster was able to read the Russian letter and translate it for us; a sad
letter looking forward to the deceased man’s return home.
The Ukrainians left us with some Coca-Cola
and pizzas and drove us to the railway station where we were able to get on
board a train heading for Kyiv. Oleh
arranged for us to arrive to catch, as he thought, the train departing at 2:30
pm. It turned out this train actually was leaving at 2:50 pm. Quite lucky it
was later and not earlier! The train was quite a long one and we were assigned
compartments which were arranged as sleepers with six bunks per compartment. This was fine and we were able to spread out
amongst other compartments. We arrived in Kyiv at about 7:30 pm and made our
way to a restaurant again organised by Anthony White where the remainder of our
group, now about 16 in number allowing for a couple of Ukrainians, sat down for
dinner. I was next door to Ian Wilson
Strong, opposite Michael Shipster and Christopher Coleridge Cole and Callum Watt
on my right.
We got back onto a train leaving Kyiv for
Lviv at about 9:30 pm. More comfortable
sleepers than on the first train and just two of us (Ursula and me) in one
compartment.
9.
Sat 17 May
We arrived back in Lviv at about 6:30 am;
Anthony had arranged taxi transport to take us from the railway station to the
Polish border where we arrived an hour later, walked across the border, got
into another taxi and were driven to a nearby railway station, Przemysl, where
we had breakfast and bought tickets for Krakow, leaving at about 9:30 am.
On the train to Kraków Ursula, Christopher
and I sat down in a compartment with two Ukrainian ladies who happened both to
be called Natalia; they were both very
interested in hearing about our journey to Ukraine and grateful for our efforts
on their country’s behalf – very nice for us!
When conversation ran a bit dry I started
looking at the BBC News feed on my iPhone and immediately noticed a story
saying a mini bus carrying nine civilians had been bombed by Russian drone in a
town called Bilopillia, not far from Sumy. According to the BBC, this had
happened at about 6 am; our train from Sumi to Kyiv had gone through Bilopillia
railway station at about 4 pm the day before.
This was the news item: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0d31ydlg7o.
10.
Sun 18 May
We checked into Gródek hotel in Krakow and
had dinner that evening with Christopher and Belinda Coleridge Cole in a
restaurant in Kraków market Square.
11.
Mon 19 May
Ursula and I hit the tourist trail, visiting
Wieliczka Salt Mine (interesting but overcrowded tourist trap); and, that
afternoon Auschwitz Birkenau which was a very well worthwhile visit.
|
Date / time |
|
Booked? |
|
Fri 9 May (time 6.00
pm) Sat 10 May (ETD – 6.30 am) (time 14.30?) (time 19.30?) Sun 11 May After b’fast = 08.00 am After b’fast = 08.00 am 14.00 Wed 14 May After b’fast
(07.00 am) Dep 08.30 ETA 13.00 Dep 08.30 06.40 07.00 10.00 Train 08.45 dep Dep 15.35 |
Test drive
Mitsubishi L200 Open back, AF06 PZX Drinks at
Chateau Paul (Southfields House); followed by dinner and bed Depart Towcester, heading for Folkestone, 150 miles; ETA = dep + 3 to 4 hrs, so + / - 10.00 Arrive Folkestone to check in by 09.54 for 10.54 Chunnel crossing; ETD = 10.54 Dep Calais
and set off for Dortmund ETA + five hours and 458 km Arrive at Moods
Hotel, Dortmund Address: Westfalendamm 290, 44141 Dortmund, Phone:
+49
231 22810060; dinner at
Parkhotel; 7.5.25: checked ok w Booking.com. Dep Dortmund, heading for Hotel Diament Plaza Gliwice, Poland Hotel Diament Plaza; dinner at hotel; Tel: +48 32 721 70 00; 7.5.25: checked ok w Booking.com. Dep Hotel Diament Plaza, heading for Poland / Ukraine border crossing at Budomierz Arr at border
into Ukraine – (Budomierz), 4 ½ hrs and 373 km after leaving Hotel Diament
Plaza Dep Budomierz, heading for Leopolis Hotel, Teatrina Street, Lviv; activate Maya mobile on iPhone Arr Leopolis
Hotel, Lviv; ETA = 1 ½ hrs and 79 km
after leaving Budomierz; meet (via Ian
Wilson Young) one of the Metta team https://metta-ngo.com/en/main/
Leopolis Hotel (Tel: +380 322 959 500); 8.5.25: checked ok Day in Lviv delivering vehicles / aid; dinner at the Mad House Dinner at hotel in Poltava Poltava to
Konotop / Sumy Oblast Arr Konotop
at 13.00; afternoon and evening with
Makar or 25th Air Assault Battalion – handover five trucks Przemysl to Krakow
by train Visit (A) Auschwitz and (B) salt mine, cost Zl 1,090 = £225 |
€80
booked; Booking.com confirmation #:
4821249219 £49 via
booking.com (confirmation: 4735847459) Ryanair flight booked and paid (£160.56) |
Co-travellers
Including Ursula and myself there were 27 of
us driving from the UK; at various times we increased in numbers with Ukrainian
personnel popping in and out.
Robert Williamson: Robert was driving with Colin
Richmond Watson; I really only got to speak with Robert over dinner in
Dortmund. He is ex Army and seems like a pretty regular guy. Only driving as
far as Lviv. Colin Richmond Watson: I
was sitting more or less opposite to Colin end the dinner at Dortmund and I got
the opportunity to speak with him a couple of nights later in Lviv.; is a cousin of somebody who was at Morgan
Grenfell way back when, named Tony Richmond Watson. Colin lives in
Northamptonshire and his main interest seems to be hunting.
Michael and Ollie Baines: This is a father /
son duo; Michael is ex Army and I think about 74; his son Ollie his in his 40s
and is a musician / opera singer. Interestingly, Ollie seems to be the dominant
personality and, as Ursula pointed out, is a serious ‘Peacock’. Michael and Ollie came all the way out to Sumy.
Guy Brogden and Richard Close Smith: I never
really got to speak to either of these two.
Freddie Wootton and Callum Watt: These two are
of the same sort of age as Archie Hainsworth and are friends of Archie.
Christopher Coleridge Cole and Anthony White:
Christopher is I guess in his 70s, not very fit and has had two knee
replacement jobs; Anthony is a co-organiser of the whole project alongside Paul
Parsons. Christopher and Anthony are
cousins. Both came all the way to Sumy.
Paul Parsons and John Errington: Paul is the dynamo
behind the whole project and introduced to us by Ed Leigh who was a driver on
the Feb trip; John Errington is about
the same age as myself and as it happens lives in Compton Abbas only about 5
miles from us. Ursula discovered his wife has been quite unwell having had
cancer, then chemotherapy and then a stroke leaving her wheelchair bound.
Archie and Lisa Hainsworth: mother and son
duo; Archie is in his early 20s and a
key organiser of the project, along with Paul Parsons, Anthony White and Oleh Nayda.
In the first half of the journey, Archie
drove out with his mother, Lisa, in the
passenger seat but she returned home after Lviv.
Gerald Howarth and Raymond Oxford (the knight
and the Earl): both probably in their early 70s; Gerald is a former Tory MP,
having been Under Secretary for defence in one of the recent governments. Raymond Asquith is the Earl of Oxford and is
the great grandson of Herbert Asquith. both
returned home after reaching Lviv.
Oleh Nayda and Michael Shipster: Oleh is
Ukrainian and lives in Towcester, nearby to Paul Parsons. Oleh arrived here in
England in the Homes for Ukraine scheme. Oleh’s brother – I think called Ihor, who is an
IT person, and lives in Lviv drove with us on the Lviv – Poltava leg and appeared
with us for dinner in Poltava. Michael Shipster
is ex of MI6, knows Sarah, did some consulting work for Rolls Royce and through
that knows Harry; Interesting man. He
has two adult daughters living in Hampstead and a son living in Wales. His wife
died from a brain haemorrhage a few years ago.
Ed and Bertie de Lisle: another father and son
duo; I guess Ed is in his 40s and his father about 80. Bertie is Freddy de Lisle’s
uncle. They both went home after Lviv.
James Stewart: James is probably early 70s, has done
several of these journeys previously with Paul and I think was mainly driving
on his own. James had done several of
these trips in the past. James went home
after Lviv.
Charles Moubray and Matthew Atkin: Charlie is
about a year younger than me and was at Eton in our house. Charlie left Eton, joined the Army, had a shot
at working in the city and then became a history teacher at a school in
Hertfordshire called something like Locus College. He also has roots in North Yorkshire and said
that Val Worthington was a bridesmaid at his mother's wedding! Matthew Atkin I didn't really speak with.
Patrick Davidson Houston: is a former Brigadier in
the Army and probably in his early 70s.
He seems like a very nice chap and I spoke to him quite a bit on the
journey. He oscillates between living in
London and north Norfolk and knows, or knows of Henry Cator, etc.
Ian Wilson Young: Ian lives in Geneva, works for
FIFA, selling football media rights and joined the group with a specially
converted Mercedes Transit van for veteran rehabilitation in the Carpathian
mountains, when we arrived in Lviv.
Before leaving Paul’s home near Towcester on Saturday
morning, Paul gave us a briefing on security based on information supplied by
Michael Shipster (ex of MI6) – who was one of the drivers. This came in the form of two pages of written
advice regarding (A) use of mobile phones and (B) additional briefing points as
issued to UK medical teams.
Whether it was sensible or not to give us this briefing, it
was, frankly, pretty confusing and in practice and with hindsight,
useless. It sounded important because the
briefing was given to us in earnest by someone (Michael) who said he’d spoken
to a friend from the Foreign Office, so it was advice used in ‘real
circumstances’. It introduced a new idea
which was the ‘Faraday Pouch’, invented by Michael Faraday, presumably about
200 years ago which isolates an object – including a mobile phone, from ambient
electromagnetic radiation.
Although one can understand that mobile phones, whether
switched on or off, are constantly interacting with and are traceable by their
networks, no attempt was made to explain how the Faraday Pouch actually works (albeit,
it’s probably quite reasonable not to have tried to explain this). Two days later, (as highlighted in the
notes), we were in Lviv and we were issued with so-called ‘burner’ phones to be
used instead of our own iPhones. These
devices failed miserably and didn’t go any distance at all in the direction of
giving drivers crucial navigation guidance which we needed at all times as we
were driving; hence the burners were not
used and our iPhones continued in use at all times until we were being led by
Ukrainian army guides. Even whilst we
were staying in the Ukrainian army camp near Konotop, our Ukrainian hosts
didn’t discourage us from using iPhones;
and when one of our number explicitly asked Daria the junior officer for
guidance on this point she said it was quite all right to carry on using the
iPhones.
This conversation was overheard by me and Michael Shipster,
walking just behind Daria, and Michael remarked to me, ‘No, she’s got that
wrong!’ Along with all that, it was
completely unclear (to me) why a mobile phone switched on and being used to
receive music etc (and not inside a Faraday Pouch) would not be
detectable by its network – which is also part of the written advice.
At the end of the journey, back in England and at Paul’s
home in Towcester, Paul said to Ursula and me he was completely unconvinced by
the security recommendations given at the outset; and wouldn’t be repeating
them on the next trip (scheduled for September). Pretty confusing!
Nevertheless, here is the substance of the written guidance.
Use of mobile phones
Introduction
On our way to a warzone, our aim should be to draw as little
attention as possible to our convoy. If we use our mobiles as we do in the UK,
we will be creating a bright digital footprint that could be tracked along our
journey and into Ukraine. Even outside Ukraine during our journey, we should
keep this footprint to a minimum.
Outside Ukraine
While in convoy, use UK mobiles sparingly, with ‘mobile data’
and ‘location’ on, in order to:
·
Communicate when necessary with other convoy
drivers.
·
Navigate to designated stops.
·
Communicate briefly with family and friends.
You may use mobiles passively
(mobile data ‘off’, location ‘off’) in order to
·
Take photos.
·
Listen to audible books, podcasts and music.
When not using your UK mobile turn it off and put it in the
Faraday pouch.
Approaching the Poland-Ukraine border in convoy brackets
within 30 miles)
·
Turn your UK mobile off and put it in the
Farraday poach, except when essential for navigation.
Inside Ukraine
While in convoy UK mobiles should not be used actively (ie
with mobile data ‘on’ location ‘on’, at any time). In Lviv we will issue clean
mobiles with Ukraine Sim cards one per vehicle which will be used in convoy in
order to
·
Communicate when necessary with other convoy
drivers.
·
Navigate to designated Stops.
Do not use these phones to communicate with your family and
friends outside Ukraine at any time.
Provided your UK mobile is in passive mode (mobile data ‘off’,
location ‘off’, you may use it to
·
Take photos where appropriate but do not
photograph military or other sensitive sites.
·
Listen to audible books, podcasts and music
When not using your UK mobile phone, turn it off and put it
in the Faraday pouch.
Important
·
Do not access or post any messages about the
trip on social media at any time inside Ukraine and until every member of the
team has departed from Ukraine.
·
Do not include in messages posted from Ukraine
any details of our whereabouts, destination or activities or mention anyone in
the group by name.
·
The Russians are targeting UK phones in Ukraine
and in border areas. They are alert to British convoys entering the country
with supplies and may target them if they can locate them.
·
We need to keep our digital footprint to an
absolute minimum.
Additional briefing points (as issued to UK
medical teams operating in Ukraine) in May 2025
1.
Staying in hotels.
a.
Hotels often issue their own security advice.
b.
Make sure that you know where the nearest
shelter is and how to get there
c.
Prepare a ‘grab bag’ with essentials ready to
take with you containing
i. Passport
and ID
ii. Mobile
phone, charger, power bank, torch
iii. Water,
warm clothing
iv. Sensitive
documents and equipment
d.
Close all blinds and curtains after dark
2.
Air alert procedures
a.
Install and monitor the official alert app: https://alert.in.ua
b.
When an alert or Siren is issued take your grab
bag and go immediately to the nearest bomb shelter or Metro station and stay
there until the official all clear is announced.
c.
If you are unable to reach a shelter:
i. Indoors:
move to a windowless internal room sit below the window line and stay near an
internal wall.
ii. Outdoors:
lie flat and cover your head with your hands
iii. In
a vehicle pull over safely and stay low inside.
iv. Avoid
unidentified or suspicious objects.
v. Remain
in place for at least 10 minutes or until the sirens stop
3.
Curfews – Be familiar with curfew hours and
stick to them. Movement is prohibited
during curfew. Don’t get caught outside.
[1]
I think Paul may be rather addicted to it;
this view was supported by Belinda Coleridge Cole when we had dinner
with them in the restaurant in Krakow.
[4]
Sit down, three courses, for about 35!
[5]
The Russian-Ukrainian border is about 40 miles to the north of Konotop; and loops round to the north and east of
Sumy, about 20 to 25 miles distant.
Across the border is Russia’s Kursk province which was temporarily
occupied by the Ukrainian army last year and earlier this year. Front line fighting goes on in Kursk and to
the east of Sumy in the region known as Donetsk.
[6]
In very rough terms the battalion would have comprised about 800
soldiers; Makar, 30, is a 2nd
lieutenant and Daria a newly joined junior [press] officer. This battalion has been in active fighting
duties in Kursk recently and, we were told, has taken quite a few casualties.
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