The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

There are two preoccupations all old codgers have and love. First, marvelling at how things have changed since we were young; second, reminiscing about the things we did when we were young. This thread is for us.

Since we British Expats came to live in the Caribbean, our island-homes have changed – not much for recent immigrants, but hugely for old-timers. When my wife and I came to Cayman, the population was 15,000 – and now it’s four times that. Our son was two and is now 45, with three Norwegian children. We used to phone our mothers in Australia for $2.49 a minute (or was it $2.49 for three minutes?), now I can phone around the world for free on WhatsApp.

I had the foresight to record my personal thoughts and reminiscences on an online journal that I wrote between 2010 and 2016. It can serve as my obituary, at least for my grandchildren; they’re not interested in it yet, but maybe one day… My wife wrote her own obit (she died in 2019), but it was a two-page summary, and that’s way too brief. What about all the travels she and I shared before we settled down? I gave up on travelling at that point, but she never did. She left thousands of photos behind, but very few words. She got that wrong, I think.

This thread is not intended as a series of summaries of old codgers’ lives, but as a sort of prompt. Let’s see how it goes.

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Gosh Gordon, i'm not so sure, maybe, codgerdom - i definitely get it, and i have been seen occasionally to engage, but for me there are impediments.

1, My career is in IT. There is only one constant in IT, and thats change. I was hugely lucky in my career [or made that luck?] so i have mostly been at the bleeding edge and have reinvented/relearned new tech many many times. It has got to the stage where the actual tech is irrelevant to me, its about how its implemented and managed, my job is to make IT disappear so nobody has to consider or worry about it. Yes it amuses occasionally that my memory stick is 50 thousand times bigger than the entire memory of my first PC and that was 50 times bigger than my first machine, but its far too techy to amuse anyone else. I actually know how my iphone really works and how bogglingly complex it really is, but same - who cares. SO - old stuff, new stuff, same stuff different day.

2, Its said you are as old as the woman you feel. Well lets just say i'm pretty young at heart in that direction, and this remains a pleasant revelation of life, i'm actually more than i was at half my current age. I am more about current things than most people my physical age i suspect.

3, - My personal codger statement? Yes some things get easier, like whatsapp. I tell my lights to turn on, i never watch TV just download any movies or tv series i like, but this is ephemeral. How we live is far more about people. Eventually most hardware will disappear, we can expect to not have to use physical devices like phones much longer. We wont be driving cars ourselves in 10? years BUT we are the top few %, in Africa i suspect things wont be better, worse? Covid 22 will probably sort out the population numbers, maybe if we survive this is a good thing? Many may engage more in virtual worlds as they become more pervasive? Better than life? [This is actually a real sci fi book]

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

For twenty years here in Cayman I wrote weekly newspaper columns for a local audience. An anonymous "fan" then offered to set me up with an online presence as well, and I wrote stuff there for six years before giving it away. Mostly for a local audience again, but at some point I branched out into the field of reminiscences addressed to my Norwegian grandchildren. I began with short reports of my youthful travels in the 1960s with a girl I picked up outside a hostel in Greece. I'd like to share some of those here on this old codgers' thread, in the hope that other qualified persons will follow suit.

I don't think the BE mods will allow me to give a direct link, but if you type "clean sheets" (inverted commas and all) and Barlow's Cayman (which is the name of the site - inverted commas not needed for that), then you ought to arrive at my favourite story from our Middle East adventure, written in 2012. It will give you the flavour of how it was in those peaceful days for two low-budget backpackers in that part of the world.

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Here's another old-codger's reminiscence - this one not about youthful travels but along the lines of "things were better when I was a boy", which is very much a codger-ish topic. I'm disappointed that nobody besides my old chum uk_grenada has contributed to this thread. No youthful holidays worthy of mention from anybody? After 220 visits? Tchah!

One more time, then. To get to this one, Google Barlow's Cayman again and type in inverted commas "Where did all the bad people come from?" What that title meant was that there weren't (many) bad people when this old codger and his wife were kids, so where on earth did they all come from? A rhetorical question, by the way. If any mod would be kind enough to let me give the actual link, I'd be very grateful. It would make life easier for us all. It's not advertising, and I make no money from any clicks. It's an online personal journal, that's all, discontinued five years ago. Ta.

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Well, for what it's worth. My "international career" started at 15 with a school trip by train (& ferries) to Greece & Crete in 1970. Opened my eyes to there being a wider world out there!

The ding, ding, ding, ding of the night trains passing through level crossings, the mountains & streams of the Tyrol seen from the train, soldiers lined up along the tracks when crossing the border into Yugoslavia at Jesenice at midnight. Chickens, etc on the train south out of Belgrade. On that train having just enough US $ to pay the group's dinner bill because they would not accept the local currency. Sleeping on the deck of a ferry out of Piraeus because the heat & smell below decks was just too bad , Baklava & Ouzo in Athens, sitting by the Parthenon in the evening listening to an open air concert from below, the Corinth canal, a group of Israelis singing & dancing to Hava Nagila on the boat from Patras to Ancona...

Nothing particularly remarkable but, looking back, that's when I became a European - 50 years on the memories so clear.

PS: I had been abroad once before, by car air freighter to Brittany but that didn't count!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Good stuff, Patrick. Those are excellent old-codgers memories, and exactly the kind of post I was hoping for. your adventures are what made you a European, you said. My adventures made me a permanent expat. Cayman has been my home for 43 years now, but/and I am still an expat, with feelings of loyalty to the world of expats.

My youthful travels are still fresh in my mind. Well, not all of them, but enough. I used to report some of them on an online journal, ready for the day when my grandchildren might enjoy reading them. My first time "on the road" was hitching around Scandinavia in 1963. I put that story into my journal in January 2013; if you can find your way to that month via the signature below this post, it's the second-last of the six items for that month - under the unimaginative title "The Summer of '63". (You might have to copy and paste; clicking the link doesn't lead to the journal, for some reason.)

Sometimes - as I'm sure you've found - the memories can be socially useful. Last year I was able to ask a Hungarian friend-of-a-friend, "Do they still have a public-bath-house on the river between Buda and Pest?" The memory was from travels through eastern Europe in 1965 in my 1958 Beetle. I think we paid a shilling each, but I may be wrong about that. What's your guess? (I'm also guessing the year of my Beetle. It had a crash-gearbox: when did they stop making those?)

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Aha, the baths! Believe it or not we have yet to make visit (you know the syndrome, when it's on your doorstep...). We made a new year resolution 2020 to visit, then covid interfered. They are about to reopen for those with Vax certificates.

Anyway, most of them are in Buda, very near the waterfront, if you were in Buda then you may have tried the large bath / hotel Gellért as it is very promibent. In Pest the main one is the Széchenyi complex near Városliget (city Park) about 4 Kms east of the river. This is very busy, we have been recommended a much smaller one in Buda, which is alsó more convenient.

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Gellért hotel and baths

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...401b84fb84.jpg

By the way your one shilling is about €15 now!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Hey, we were foreigners on a budget! We didn't know the difference between Buda and Pest; and we were staying at a cheapo place we stumbled across somewhere. I've no recollection of it. Somebody we met, took us to "the baths" - whichever one he was most familiar with, I guess; we didn't know there was a choice!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Well, it was a long time ago! However, maybe, just maybe, you might remember if the area was dead flat (in which case you were in Pest) or VERY hilly (in which case you were in Buda)!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

I don't remember any hills, so it must have been Pest. That's on the eastern side, right? Could "our" baths have been in the middle of the river - maybe on an island?

From memory - a desperately weak and unreliable memory! - we came into Budapest from Timisoara. Then we would have gone south to Balaton, then north to Gyor and out to Bratislava. We didn't have a planned itinerary, but just wandered about wherever looked interesting. We wouldn't have been in Hungary more than four or five days, and as budget tourists, I have to say we weren't all that impressed with the country. Sorry! We just didn't stumble across anywhere exciting. Sigh...

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Now we know! You must have been on Margit Sziget (Island). Two sets of baths there, one a proper Spa, the other, what I call "the people's" swimming pools (typical Soviet complex). Unfortunately you missed the best bits. Never mind, we're still here!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

OK. Well done! We would have been in the cheapo place - the public pool(s). The young fellow who took us there didn't have money for anywhere fancy. I've just checked the Island on Google - lots of lovely pictures, but nothing rings a bell. We wouldn't have known it was a tourist attraction - and maybe it wasn't one, in 1965! We didn't "do" tourist attractions anyway. Our standard method was to drift around observing the culture of the places we visited, and we missed out on a lot of beautiful places. Only occasionally did we go out of our way to see one of "the sights".

We had come up from Turkey and were headed for Poland and Russia, but got diverted in CZ because they wouldn't let us enter East Germany without a visa - miserable buggers! - so we had to semi-backtrack to Vienna and decided to go the long way round, to Russia (USSR) via Scandinavia.

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Margit has changed a heck of a lot in the last 50 years! Very popular attraction now.

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Just a thought. If you asked the mods to move the thread to one of the more mainstream areas you might get more responses?

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

No, Patrick. Too many whackos out there. I'm infinitely more comfortable here in this little branch office!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Fair comment!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

I speak for a lot of old codgers when I say that we have forgotten a lot more than we remember. Such a shame, but/and it means that we have to cherish the memories we have managed to retain! Childhood incidents, early jobs and loves, youthful travels, the "turning points" of our lives... Being expats, we have a greater wealth of potential memories than most of our friends and family members: why we emigrated, how we chose our destinations...

I committed some of my personal stories to an online journal between 2010 and 2016. (Then I ran out of puff.) As a sample, that I hope will encourage other similar samples from other BEs, there is a "how I met my wife" report in that journal, still available. BE Rules don't allow me to give a direct link, but if you Google "Zorba the Greek Barlow's Cayman January 2012" you will at least get to the month. Then check on the archive-index on the side and find it there. (On Duckduckgo, it's much easier.) The title will make sense when you read the thing, by the way!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

I had a lovely old-codgers' evening last night with a chap who used to share an office with me in Nassau in 1968, and his wife. They are a few years younger than me, but 53 years after, it doesn't matter, does it! We met up again in 1978 when we first came to Cayman and they were already here, and we've always kept in touch. She told me that she had visited us when we lived in Bath (Combe Down) in '77. I'd totally forgotten that, but I'll take her word for it. Especially interesting - and every reader of this thread will know the pleasure of this sort of thing - was talking about the Good Old Days when we emigrated to Nassau... me in '67 after marrying in Canada and he after marrying in Bristol a year later. I spent almost all my capital on buying a new Triumph Spitfire, and he spent his on a new Triumph Herald.

Today they spend half the year in their house up in the US near to their son and his family, and we used to spend a few weeks a year in Norway with our son and his kids. Nice.

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Patrick. You must have a half-decent story about how you ended up in Budapest. Married a Hungarian, is my guess - and if that's so you may have a half-decent story about how you met. Right? It's all grist for the mill!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Funnily enough, my wife is not Hungarian, British but actually half Dutch by virtue of her father, a Dutch merchant seaman, twice torpedoed, who met his wife to be while docked in Liverpool.

So, why Budapest? Came here on short term work assignments back in 2008/2009, my wife came with me, fell in love with the place (& the people). Was offered a very good redundancy / retirement package back in 2013 and took the opportunity to get out of the UK, based upon the briefest of conversations, viz, me, "How about Budapest?", She "why not". Arrived with just one bag each on a wet December evening - and never looked back!

What may interest you more is the experiences of my late father. Spent much of the 1960s "working" behind the iron curtain. Never did find out exactly what he was doing but there has been a lot of speculation in the family ever since (he died back in 1980).

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Very interesting. So is this story... an English friend of mine was working for Barclays Bank in West Africa as a young bachelor back in the mid-70s. On "long leave" back in England he was offered a promotion in another country in the region - but the job required a married man. He had a few weeks to sort out his act, which he did. Chatted up a girl from Eastern Europe working at a hotel in London, married her, reported himself married, and got the promotion. And lived happily ever after. Still living happily, in fact, all these years later!

Visitors to this thread who don't know what "long leave" was... People (almost entirely men, in those days) employed in what were called "hardship posts" in "uncivilised" parts of the world, got three weeks' annual "local leave". In the days before aeroplanes, three weeks was far too short a time to go anywhere except within the region. So every two or three years they were compelled to take three months' "home leave" in Blighty - the idea being that they would be refreshed by their exposure to civilisation again, don't you know, and thus be enabled to fend off the temptation to "go native"! The custom still existed in the 1970s, at least in West Africa. In 1967 I had been hired (off the street) by a British/Canadian trust company in Bahamas; and my bride and I were given the temporary use of the home and car of an employee who had just left on "long leave" with his family. Before they returned, we had to find ourselves a place to live and buy a car, which of course we did. I presume the chap knew we had been living in his house, but he (one of my seniors in the Company) never mentioned it to me at all!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Good one!

Now to expand just a little on my Father.

My parents divorced when I was about three years old, consequently I spent 4/5 weeks a year with my Father in London (in the '60s). On access visits my Father's study doubled as my bedroom. One day, probably age about 9 or 10 I went rummaging in my father's desk (as small boys do). I found, in the top left hand drawer, 3 very small cameras. Now I never saw my Father with a camera, ever, I don't remember photographs in the house (save, maybe, the odd one of my stepmother). 2 of the cameras were of the SLR type, the other the longer, flatter type. They were all surprisingly heavy, especially the SLR types. Anyway, some instinct told me that I probably shouldn't be looking at these, so I put them back and never said a word. Meanwhile my Father carried on his foreign "career", behind the Iron Curtain, then in the middle East, later in the far East. Now at one point, he worked for the EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) and during that assignment he collaborated in an investigation into the British Press, producing a report that was discussed by then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson in the HoC. Interestingly, he appears to have been airbrushed from history - the only reference I can find is his death certificate from 1980. My stepmother, who may or may not still be alive (& who was an actress) has also disappeared - even the Salvation Army has been unable to trace her!

I am sure there is a quote from Hamlet that applies here - but can't think of it!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Patrick. The only thing I can suggest is the Bodleian Library in Oxford. It's just conceivable that they have something about your father. A cousin of mine in the 1930s and '40s was in the diplomatic service (wink, wink) in Persia and Sinkiang - and he had given the Bodleian all (?) his letters home, which his parents must have been instructed to keep. I was allowed to look at them - but they all seemed to be full of trivial domestic issues, nothing secretive. Stuff about what the Chinese ambassador was wearing, and that kind of thing. Why the Bodleian, I don't know; he had been at Cambridge. Anyway, it might be worth checking them out, next time you get back to England.

I wrote about him and other relations of his and mine in "the business" one way or another, in my online journal a few years ago, which might interest you. Google "cousin harry and the branson girl"; you may or may not have to put the words in inverted commas. And I have to say that you should put something in writing for your younger relatives of your Dad's doings. One or two of them might thank you. None of mine have expressed any interest in their forebears, but you never know your luck. I passed on to my son a silver cup that a great-uncle had won at polo in Quetta (now Pakistan) in 1910; he (my son) uses it as an ashtray! Sic transit gloria, eh?

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

In the UK all records of import are kept in the natonal archive which is in Kew funnily enough just over the river from my house there. If you have anything of interest they will preserve and index it forever. They have a great museum, and anyone can use the archive for research.

Prominent things - Hitlers UK passport [yes he had one] and the original american declaration of independance lol. When it was created, several copies were made, there is no 'original' but 3 copies were all signed at the same time. The one in Kew comes as a slight surprise to the murican visitors. There is also the magna carta, a contemporary copy of the mapa mundi and heaps of caribbean audits / census docs - all searchable.

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Thanks! Read the blog, fascinating, I shall read on!

Hmmm, thanks for that also! Totally unable to find my Father's birth certificate. According to my (less than helpful) Mother he was born either in Dublin or Berlin. It appears his Father was a surgeon of Irish descent. Had a genealogist in Eire hunting about, no joy for either party.

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Talking of passports. I remember my Father showing me his alternate British passports for Israel and the rest of the ME. Think that is fairly commonplace however.

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Ugh. Where were you when I was doing all my family research, Grenada! I don't think I've ever known of the National Archive. I know that sounds pathetically ignorant, but it's true. Damn and blast! Yes, I expect it houses just about every official government document that ever existed. Any idea what the starting date is - of the archives, that is?

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Well time immemorial is actually a date - about 1050ad, and they have lots of stuff older than that. Ancient documents owned by the government are all sent there, like Caribbean censuses [done every 10 years] and plantation records as most of those were sent to the uk, and if an organisation is dissolved, it will tend to acquire their records so old churches still functioning will have ancient records of marriages and deaths, but churches that ceased - records will probably end up in kew, its all there, apart from books which might go to the british library also in London.

Photos and film goes to the BFI - british film institute - also in London - where you will find huge amounts of film and video of everywhere

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Grenada is fascinating - the british ran the entire island as a rum factory. Now there are 130k inhabitants, in 1760 there were 250k, of which less than 100k were slaves, lots of other types of worker? But the place exported 70k barrels of rum a year to the uk. This means more than 1 vessel a week left here full of rum - mainly for the british navy. GROG was burned on the barrels, which made them crown property which mean stealing them was going to get you hanged. GROG has 2 meanings and nobody seems sure which - grand rum of grenada or

Eighteenth-century English admiral Edward Vernon reputedly earned the nickname "Old Grog" because he often wore a cloak made from grogram (a coarse, loosely woven fabric made of silk or silk blended with mohair or wool). In Old Grog's day, sailors in the Royal Navy were customarily given a daily ration of rum, but in 1740 the admiral, concerned about the health of his men, ordered that the rum should be diluted with water. The decision wasn't very popular with the sailors, who supposedly dubbed the mixture "grog" after Vernon. Today, "grog" can be used as a general term for any liquor, even undiluted, and someone who acts drunk or shaky can be called "groggy."

Problem with the second is that there are known rums older than him, with grog on the label, and why would they call the original spirit grog?

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

That brought back a happy reminiscence about my travels in 1964! My travel companion at the time had gotten herself locked out of the whole Arab world by telling the Syrian embassy in London that she intended to visit Israel as well as Syria. I wrote about it in my online journal nine years ago. It will give you a smile, I think. To find the report you will have to go to the journal's Archives. There's an index on the right-hand side of each page, and this report is at the bottom of the August 2012 batch. It's called "Permission to travel - T11". The T identifies most of the travel incidents I wrote about for my grandchildren - in the best tradition of all old codgers, surely! Oh, and the piece starts off with an unrelated incident in the USSR; don't be put off by that. All my travel "reports" were undisciplined, I'm sorry. It probably irritates the grandkids, too. Sigh...

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Fascinating stuff, Grenada. Your posts are always good value. I'm very glad you've joined the thread - although I have to ask: are you really old enough to qualify?

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

63?

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

O.K. Fair enough. You've had a hard life! We'll waive the joining fee...

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Spring chicken!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Any idea where behind the Iron Curtain, and what years? And where, too, in the Middle and Far East? That's quite a chunk of territory. I think in the spirit of this thread you should dredge your memory a bit more vigorously! I have fond memories of the lifestyle in Russia during my ten-day visit in 1965, but as a tourist I only scratched the surface of it. We (my travel companion and I) drove in my Beetle from Finland to Moscow, and thence through Minsk to Poland and East Germany; and before that drove north from Turkey to CZ, behind that same Iron Curtain. As tourists we posed no danger to the security of the USSR or its satrapies, but as a spy your father would have had minimal or no protection. (The travel companion was an Australian girl I picked up at a Youth Hostel in Greece and later married; but that's another story.)

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

I had to Google-Maps for Ancona and Patras. I've never stopped at either place - and I don't think I've ever been to Ancona. I see it's a big ferry-port these days. We (wife and one-year-old son) spent a month in Vasto, which is down the coast from Ancona, in a flat owned by my wife's brother-in-law. Quite close to the beach, although the map says Vasto isn't actually on the beach. When we left Italy, we took the ferry from Bari to Corfu. This was in 1976, in a Kombi van. We lived in the van for three months in a camping ground in Corfu, and a lovely time was had by all. I got a few games of cricket in Corfu Town, just off the town square - playing for The British Casuals against all-Greek teams. The British occupied Corfu for fifty years or so after the Napoleonic Wars; that's where the cricket came from.)

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Travels between 1960 & 1970. As I recall they started with frequent short trips to Istanbul, followed by trips to Berlin, Warsaw, Moscow & Leningrad, between, I guess '63 & 66. Subsequently to Tel Aviv, Damascus, Cairo, Jeddah & Riyadh. I think all or most of these fairly short assignments (weeks, or maybe a month or two). Finally, longer assignments in Hong Kong & Singapore.

Don't forget I only spent a few weeks each year with my Father so wasn't always aware of his activities!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Just a few hours in Ancona before catching a train (with wooden seats) to Milan. From there night train through the Alps, to Strasbourg and then across France to Calais. We had a young man from Nigeria with us who was hauled off the train by French border authorities (with a teacher for Company!) and held for 24 hours, until they were satisfied that his parents were in Nigeria and not en route for La Belle France!

Re: The old codgers' thread - Caribbean
 

Flower moon rising over the ruins at Corinth last night

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...6df40280e1.jpg