collar bone

Dear everyone

I went to the doctor today Wednesday 26 March and I have to go back in 4 weeks time to see if it has got any better. Very boring!

Lots of Love |Granny,Mum,Mother in-lawXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOOOOOOOOOOOO
Comments
 Alice
Though it may be boring for you, the few people I have told are all incredibly impressed that my granny broke her collarbone skiing! I hope it heals quickly and I look forward to seeing you the weekend after next.
xx
Posted by: Alice | March 31, 2008 at 10:37 AM

Trevors birthday

Trevor started his birthday celebrations on Friday afternoon at the Egg rolling race on Primrose hill. It is silly but fun. Gavin and I went there to join in. There are various competitions, including egg rolling, egg and spoon 3 legged relay race, egg decorating and egg golf. Ruth made some lovely decorated eggs.

The Keeling team, won the 3 legged relay race. Ruth and Trevor were in it, luckily I was in another team, I was rubbish. Alice, Ryan, Jude and Lizzie were all there too and in good form. We retired to the pub afterwards with lots of their friends. Happy birthday dear Trevor was sung lustily several times.

I'm feeling quite tired today  ....
Comments
 Alice
The Easter egg roll was great fun, it was great to see you, George, Ruth and Trevor. Barry Egg White rocked (see picture!). Will definitely do it again next year - Go Team Keeling!!
Posted by: Alice | March 24, 2008 at 08:33 PM

Apropos Barbar and diaries

I have just read a brief history of EMI Records, entitled 'A Voice to Remember'. This booklet was supplied as part of a record set that I bought years ago. I picked it out recently as a result of needing to dry a lot of my LP covers which had got wet in the barn during recent storms. On the inside cover the narrative starts 'The first gramophone arrived in London under the arm of an American lawyer called William Barry Owen. Sent by the machine's sponsors to seek capital for launching the gramophone in Europe, Owen encountered difficulty and reluctace before he met Trevor Williams, a Lincoln's Inn solicitor aged thirty-eight'....Williams was unmistakenly interested....Trevor Williams - against the advice of colleagues in the City - put together a small syndicate among his family and friends. And so in April 1898 The Gramophone Company was formed. A year later an artist called Francis Barraud came to the new offices with his painting of a little dog peering into a gramophone and this image was adopted as the company's logo.

In 1931 The Gramophone Company merged with Columbia records to form a new grouping called Electric & Musical Industries Ltd or EMI. At this time the company invested in new recording studios at premises they had recently bought in Abbey Road, St.John's Wood. In the booklet there are some letters written by TW and photos of him with his colleagues. One shows them all standing in their suits, coats and top hats, with TW wrapped up in a bearskin coat, driving hat and goggles 'as betokened his mode of transport that morning' and his motoring enthusiasm.

For any of the younger readers of this fine blog, Trevor Williams was Barbar's Dad.

Tales of a 50th birthday

Thank you all for your kind messages of support for my birthday!

The usual questions about what feels different on being 50 were of course asked by various jokers in Rattlesden. Not much, but I do find I totter a bit more on having a drink or two. Perhaps the key to this is to develop a Grandpa shuffle keeping the feet in contact with the ground at all times.

I braved up to having a party in our local pub, Camilla providing a mini banquet. Poppy cleverly engineered some free time after a successful show in London at the weekend and joined us. Thirty or so local friends came and everyone had a bit more to drink than usual - so my totter went unnoticed under the circumstances.

I'm not sure how many of you know, perhaps everyone given the grapevine, but I've not been well the last three months. But I had a good day yesterday and I think I'm over the worst and looking forward to being back to normal.

Lots of love of love, David.
Comments
glad to hear that your passing of age wasn't too painful. lots of love xxx
Posted by: Ruth | March 21, 2008 at 12:42 PM

Onwards and upwards!
Posted by: Tom | March 20, 2008 at 01:10 PM

Barbar's diaries - I remember, I remember

Barbar (Barbara Gibbs) was Granny's mother. She was born November 15th 1900 and finished writing a diary in 1980. She died about 1982. I remember the funeral service. Carolyn and I took Ruth along in a push chair and Ruth bawled the church down. I haven't read all these diaries yet, they rested in a drawer of mine for years. But I have read some now. I cried at the death of Arthur (Barbar's husband). I gasped at her first first encounter with a 'wireless' in 1923. I laughed when I read that "Simon, called Henry, ... looks like a holy relic being carried across the lawn." And more, I won't spoil it.

Many thanks to Brenda, who works at Corbett Keeling for Simon and Jim. Brenda scanned all 240 pages in.  Click here to download.

Comments
Christine Wallace
I have just been looking at parts of Barbara's diary because names popped up.
I thought you might be interested to know that Buffy Williams-Ellis has an excellent website under her married name Baer - see "elizabethbaertextiles.com". Her family still know her as Buff. If you haven't already contacted her I'm sure she would be very interested. Her uncle was Clough Williams-Ellis (on page 27).
Posted by: Christine Wallace | August 01, 2011 at 05:27 PM

 George
1. Does anybody know who has the Orpen portrait (Chapter 7, p76.)? It's probably in the Hudson family somewhere. [I heard that it is at Bill and Cherry Palmer's house. GK 2017]
2) For that matter, does anybody know the Hudson's family contacts. Cousins should be told about the availability of the diary.
3) In Chapter 7 I read about the founding of HMV. Barbar says her father and Mr Eldridge R Johnson started it. (http://www.hmv.co.uk "HMV's very first store was officially opened in July 1921 by the celebrated British composer, Sir Edward Elgar on London's Oxford Street.") I boasted about this at school to a chap called Ponsonby. He was older than I was and immediately said that HIS great grandfather had started HMV. I felt crushed.
Posted by: George | March 17, 2008 at 01:31 PM

Why is the moon so high?

Grandpa phoned me this evening to find out why the moon is so high. He has noticed that he can't see it out of the sitting room window any more. He had already phoned Simon (busy) and David "Haven't got the faintest". I gave him a hand waving answer. But promised to deliver before I saw him this Friday. Michael and Joseph had just left back for London, Marco was still here with his friend Guiseppe. The weekend was winding down. So I typed "why is the moon higher in the sky" into Google. The third article down was this. Apparently the maximal elevation of the moon goes in an 18.6 year cycle. Chances of Grandpa reading this: 10%. So I will have to give a full report on Friday evening. It includes things like this:

δ = 23.5 sin θ + 5 sin(θ + 180°) = 23.5 sin θ - 5 sin θ = 18.5 sin θ

I'm sure he's up for it. :-)
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10 Albert Place

Anyone want to move nearer home? You've just missed an opportunity as they've completed on the above - at a cool 8.75 million!
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Shaken not stirred

I have sometimes got into serious discussions with Germans about whether dry martinis should be shaken or stirred. They insist that DMs should be stirred not shaken. 1) It doesn't even sound right 2) It's a cocktail shaker, not a cocktail stirrer 3) I always shake my dry martinis 4) James Bond has his shaken not stirred. We always part after such a discussion dazed and confused. At last I have discovered the reason for their error. I met a German cocktail barman the other night and we got round to discussing dry martinis. He told me that, in the early James Bond films, they were dubbing 'shaken not stirred' (geschüttelt nicht gerührt in German) and they couldn't make it synch with 007's lips. They realized that gerührt nicht geschüttelt would fit much better and, they thought, it's not a huge difference whether you shake or stir the thing. Little did they know what enormous cultural significance a dry martini has. Ever since, the poor Germans have been pathetically stirring their dry martinis.
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ski-ing with the very old

January 2008

Every day has been different. Sun, snow, rain, off-piste, on-piste, and onpiste offpiste. Philippe provides us with everything!

Jim, Emma, Issie, Polly, Joshua and Rosie enlivened our first few days dramatically.  We loved it, they loved it. We breakfasted, lunched and dined together.  Joshua made an excellent wine waiter, but surprise, surprise, Jim never organised a race. I think that Rosie would have  beaten her grandmother. We had the luxury of guides for them, Flo the first day, and six month pregnant Stephanie the second. I admired Stephanie’s coat so much that Philippe offered to get me one in Albertville. It is excellent. Long, totally waterproof and smart. It is great to wear out in the pouring English rain . Now they are gone and we start at ten and are home by four, except when I carelessly left my bag in the restaurant 2 lifts away in Val Thorens. It was a cold day and Mike and I waited like the two old birds we are at the top of the three carriage Funitel Bouquetin in the lee of the operators cabin and fortunately in the sun.

We are getting masses of off-piste ski-ing, Mike is finding it easier, and I am benefitting from learning how to side slip properly. But goodness me, I come back in the evening totally worn out!

A new restaurant has opened in St Martin, not only does it serve very good food, but the owners have built it over their farm, so that you look down from the dining-room on to the cows, sheep and goats in their winter quarters. There are up-to-date milking machines and a dairy where cheese is made. The farmer was very friendly but I couldn’t understand all that he said.

One Sunday we had to wait for the lifts to open before we could ski down to St.Martin for Mass. But what a treat awaited us! New snow, freshly groomed pistes, and the mountain to ourselves. We were down in ten minutes and in heaps of time having been worried as we waited that we might be late.

One evening I tricked Mike into going down the top of the Mauduit without me ; it was as I expected, Philippe said they were faster without me.

Once while ski-ing off-piste Philippe did a somersault over a rock, and on another occasion he was demonstrating a turn to Mike who then performed the turn immaculately, and was below Philippe who then proceeded to demonstrate again for my benefit. He caught his ski on a stone and fell on top of Mike! For me it was the biggest laugh ever. It was all over so quickly there was no time to worry about injuries.

The weather was all over the place, and once we had a complete day of rest with wind and snow outdoors and warmth and bed indoors. Very welcome.
Comment:
What a wonderful description of your hols. It is brilliant that you and Dad still have so much fun in the Alps. Keep going, you are an example to us all!
Posted by: Tom | February 13, 2008 at 09:23 AM

Tom's post

Mum and Dad were in Somerset yesterday to attend the funeral of Sue Petri. She died recently, aged 79. Sue was married to David Petri who was Dad's cousin and Dad had been David's best man. M & D had travelled here by train from Newbury where they had been staying with Cherry and Bill.

Arthur recently ran a 3500m race having been entered by his school with the chance to be selected for a Somerset running team. There were other children up to 21 months older than him. He finished 21st out of 45 and missed qualifying by two places. Next week he is off to France for a week, to stay with some French friends of ours during half term.

Edward was in a seven-a-side, inter-school rugby tournament last weekend. They got to the finals and at full time it was a draw. So they played sudden death and sadly lost that. He has also recently been awarded an academic scholarship in anticipation of his move to senior school in 2010.

Imogen is the fastest girl in her year. She took part in her year's cross-country race and finished third, behind a couple of very speedy boys. She has taken up the flute this term, in addition to the piano so it feels as though she has quite a lot on her plate.

Flora's first tooth fell out the other day. She does not need to compete in any races or serious sports yet. Sadly she dropped her tooth and it fell under the floorboards.

ski-ing with the very old

We had a great time but I feel all of my 78 years. Jim and family made us feel a bit younger, but I was surprised and disappointed that we didn't organise a race. I think Rosie would have beaten her grandmother. There was every sort of weather so every day was different including one when we stayed indoors all day for fog, rain and snow. We all fell, including Philippe who took Mike down with him. Fortunately no hurts so none of us could stop laughing.

january ski-ing @ 78

Dad and I had a great time. We went out every day bar one, when it was foggy and windy. The weather was different every day, which meant we had plenty of easy off piste, and practice sideslipping over ice, and we improved at both. But I ski slower and slower , and I was sorry Jim never organised a race because Rosie would have beaten me, which I hope would have pleased her.

Thailand travels

I've been off in Thailand for 3 weeks. You can still be a hippy even when you're over 50. In fact, you probably get more like a hippy the older you get. We'll be welcoming David to the club this year. I spent about 10 days in Bangkok, and the rest on a quiet little island called Ko Samet. Bangkok is very busy and pretty hot even in winter. Thats one of the main reasons I went of course, to top up my sun tan and get over those winter blues. I also go there to spend some time with my friends Jeremy and Sam. I first met Jeremy in London in 1994. Sam more recently. Jeremy retired from 9-5 life in his late 30s. I have always taken him as a role model. Sam is a very amusing relic from an imperial past. He

Sam and Jeremy

regards all foreigners, especially Germans, with suspicion, bur often overcomes this disadvantage and makes unusual friends. Here's a picture of them in Khao San Road. Khao San Road is a traveller's destination. It has hotels for about £5 a night and the people going in and out looked quite clean and satisifed. Sam (on the left) was making a reservation for a nephew who will be travelling out there in his gap year. Jeremy and I returned there one night. I ate a fried locust and we drank JD and cokes from buckets. It's a party street.

Ko Samet is a relatively unspoilt island, it’s a 2,000 Bhat taxi ride and 1,000 Bhat speed boat ride from Bangkok (1,000 Baht ~ £70). You can go by bus and ferry if you're alone or on a budget. The day we arrived I had forgotten about the mosquitoes. I sat drinking with Sam and guy called Dominic in the evening on the beach. My legs were bitten so badly that they felt like my mouth after a very hot curry.

We stay at Tubtim. The sandy beach is about 20-100m wide depending on time and tide. My cabin is a further 50m from the sea, among the trees. Tubtim has a restaurant / bar, shop, 50 tables on the beach for diners and about 50 1-6 person bungalows among the trees. The food is good and the staff are cheeky and charming. We sit around all day at our table under our tree eating, drinking, gossiping,

Ruth and Nat

with the occasional break for a swim, sun-bathing or walk. Sometimes we talk to other visitors. We met Thais, British, German, Norwegians, French, Belgians, Canadians and more. It is extremely relaxing. When we left I was quite sad.

Its a 10 hour flight out and a 13 hour flight back to Bangkok. Thats a long time. I did not suffer any jet lag mainly due to an excellent party at Ruth's on the Saturday I returned. She was late for it (not the first time!) but we managed to find shelter with her neighbour until she got home. Trevor, Nat boy and girl and others of their friends were there. It was great! Thanks Ruth.

Back in Berlin I have just about finished sorting out the post etc when I was struck down with flu, or something like it. Welcome back to Northern Europe! But at least its a democracy with a relateively free press. We hope. Having  spent a few delirious days in bed I think I'm back in action.

And finally: DONT FORGET GRANNY'S BIRTHDAY ON THE 24TH!!!!!

Ladycross School Song

I was down at Jacobs, and was in the loo by the pink bathroom, and saw this song on the wall, and it evoked memories from over forty years ago. Hopefully, it will bring back memories for some of my brothers. Sadly my skills don't include music notation, which is available on the back of the copy should anyone wish to play it. (Preferably on the adjacent piano rather than the loo!!!!)

Ladycross Laudes

Quam jucundum vocibus sonoris
Aedem Crucis resonare
Vurginis quae coeli sub praesidio
Omnem docet sapientiam

Fiat nobis haec salutis signum
Fiat lux aeternitatis
Nobis haec per cursum sit tutamen
Dum stet carina in portu incolumis
            Quam jucundum, etc.

Sicut omnes militant atheletae
Unus autem fert coronam;
Nostrum quisque in Artibus praesceptis
Victor laudari certet omnium
            Quam jucundum, etc.

Ergo, pueri, Pertonet per mundum
Christiani Vox Exempli
Ut in coelis vita perfruamer
Patris aeterna amplexi brachia
            Quam jucundum, etc.

Virginem precemur dolorosam
Filiumquetriumpantem
Ut, redemptos Morte, nos dignetur
Pater illuminare Spritu.
            Quam jucundum, etc.

Sweet it is to celebrate with praises
Ladycross, our Alma Mater,
Which protected of the Queen of Heaven,
Teaches us wisdom, human and divine.

May this cross of safety be the standard
This the torch of life eternal
This to guide our course with the certain beacon
Till harboured safe our ship in port shall rest

Ours the boys o’er other schools to triumph;
Ours to gain the power of prowess;
Life throughout in ever-present danger
Ours to exalt our Mother and He son
Ladycrucians let lives re-echo

With example’s pealing thunder;
So rest forever life enjoying
Safe in the embrace of God’s eternal arms

Pray we now our Mother of Queen and Sorrow,

Pray our Father that our souls are ransomed
Pray we now are souls once ransomed
Shine with the Paraclete’s resplendent light.

E.A.R.

Multitasking Granny

Hi Guys

Just to let you know that you have a multitasking Mum/Granny. She is doing the blog while making pancakes for lunch.

Dad/Grampa is worried that we won't get lunch, and wireless mouse will be served instead!!!!!

BENIGHTED GRANNY

Robert is helping me while I cook pancakes.

How Trevor nearly died

That'll be how Trevor the older nearly died and this is probably not the only occasion when he nearly died. I imagine that he came close to it several times when he drove round on that big motorbike. Anyway, this occurred when I was about 18, so Trevor must have been about 20 (1973 - ancient history!) and we had just learnt to hang-glide. The sport was in its infancy then. The machines we were flying had a glide angle at best of about 1 in 5 (you go 1m down for every 5m that you go forwards). The flying speed was about 18-28 mph. (As a comparison, proper gliders have glide angles better than 1 in 50, so a hang-glider flies like a brick). In order to stay airborne we looked for a steep hill with the wind blowing on to it at between 18 and 28 mph. If it was a bit stronger, you would just go backwards which could be quite dangerous. Well actually the whole thing was very dangerous, but also a huge thrill.

That summer we decided to go on a hang-gliding holiday and explore the hills of Devon and Cornwall. Trevor had a London black cab at the time, and he drove it down with the hang-gliders on the roof and me in the back like a lord. Soon we found some deserted cliffs on the North coast of Devon. The wind was blowing straight off the sea. We stood on the edge of the cliff, where the wind seemed fairly calm, and stuck our hands out over the edge. The wind was rushing up the face of the cliff and your hand was nearly blown away. It seemed ideal. We set up or hang-gliders in the relatively calm air at the top of the cliff. It fell on me to go first. This had its pros and cons. Pro: you have somebody to help you off; con: you’re the guinea pig. When you go over the edge the nose of the glider will get lifted first. You need to be very quick otherwise you risk doing a somersault.

Off I went and I immediately shot up like a rocket. I flew around for a bit while I half got over my adrenalin rush. Hang gliding is the most terrific rush. I was about to get another different sort of rush. It was very easy to fly and the view was magnificent. Then I had a look around for Trevor. I checked the top of the cliff and the flying zone around me. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I was beginning to think that he had flown away somewhere. I heard a faint cry through the howling wind. I still couldn’t see him. Then I saw him, with his hang-glider, pinned to the cliff face about 20 meters from the top. If the wind had suddenly dropped, he and his glider would have tumbled down the cliff to the rocks 200m below.

I knew I couldn’t land on the cliff top because of the wind rotor effect, so I flew down as quickly as I could and landed on the beach by the lapping waves. There I had a dilemma. Should I abandon my precious glider and help Trevor as quickly as possible or should I dismantle it a bit and move it to safety? I could see Trevor clearly and he seemed to be firmly stuck where he had crashed. So I very

quickly made my glider secure and ran up the beach. There was a building there with a few people in it and my arrival on the beach had caused a bit of a stir. They emerged from the building and I babbled fairly incoherently at them and pointed at Trevor, stuck on the cliff. Luckily they were level headed folk, they had a long rope and a few of them started to run up a small path to the top of the cliff. I returned to my glider and made it properly safe, then I followed the men up the cliff path and arrived at the top puffing and wheezing. The men had already got a two ropes down to Trevor. They pulled him up on one and the wrecked hang-glider on the other. By that time there was a helicopter buzzing rather uselessly above us and an ambulance and police arrived. Trevor was carted off to hospital and I cleared up his crumpled hang-glider. A couple of hours later I drove his taxi to the hospital (he never let me drive it before – hee hee), stopped to buy some whisky on the way and found him looking pretty chirpy and unscathed on a bed. We were allowed to leave the hospital in a couple of hours and we abandoned the holiday. Well, we only had one hang-glider so it was getting pointless.

I have described all this from my point of view. My understanding of Trevor’s take off and crash is that he didn’t go off the cliff fast or straight enough. This is understandable, he had nobody to help him and the hang-glider was being buffeted about by the gusty wind. As he took off one wing of the hang-glider got lifted more than the other and the glider went into an uncontrollable turn, while still moving forward. Very quickly it was going straight at the cliff and bang!

I still get guilty about my procrastination on the beach. I have discussed it with Trevor and he thinks I did the right thing. What a sport he is!

The first picture is a bit of a fake. It is of me about 20 years later flying a different hang-glider in a different country.

Granny's computer

Robert has shown the greatest amount of patience and got me this far. He goes back to London to-night so look-out all of you for cries of help. Love to you all Mum.

Mum and Dad are on the blog

Mum has just phoned me to ask how to post a message on the brothers' blog, since Rob has just set them ( I think Mum AND DAD!!) properly on the net. I successfully explained the process to Mum and she was very pleased.

Then she asked me to let everyone know that she is connected and that all messages must be CLEAN. I immediately told her that the first rule of the blog, created and laid down by the mighty George was that all messages must be clean in case G & G read them. So she said the second rule is that all messages must be spelt correctly, so I assured her that a very high standard of spelling, grammar and punctuation had so far been maintained.

Finally she asked me to inform the world that her new email address is grannyandgrampa@gmail.com

I hope I've got all of that right.

This weekend I have moved out of the bedsit on the ground floor, back into my refurb-ed office. The wind is howling outside and I am in shirtsleeves feeling perfectly normal. What a change!

i before e except after c

a few days with mum and dad

Mum and Dad came to stay in Somerset with us from Wednesday to Saturday last week. We invited them to stay in the local hotel since we are still camping on the ground floor while our first floor refurbishment continues. Mum was quite keen to join in the camping experience and sleep in the dormitory with the children but luckily Dad prevailed on her to stay in comfort at the Walnut Tree Hotel. They had just spent a great weekend at Jacobs with George and co.

They were both in great form and enjoyed fitting into our upside down lives for a few days. Mum came to watch Imo in a hockey match in which she was captain of the team. Now M&D are in Germany.

I am glad to say that our building work has definitely got some light showing at the end of the tunnel. The heating was switched on last week. Boiling hot water flows from taps when expected. Three rooms were carpeted yesterday and we will get the boys sleeping in their new rooms this Saturday. The third room to be carpeted was my office so I hope to move my desk and computer etc out of the 'bedsit' this weekend. We will be mightily relieved to start returning to normal.