Well I should have known better…. Turning up to a French Port at Caen, Normandy, having not shaved for 3 days and without a tie, rambling on about where the locals should come back with me and learn that oval shaped ball game called rugby. (Wales beat France, last week, after a spectacular come back in the second half). Les Authorities did their little bit.....
Les Douanes (Customs) took me to the cleaners….tipping out all my belongings from each piece of luggage, but not my own pockets which I thought curious? From that experience I spent a fascinating hour with a Gypsy Major expert, on board the ferry, having now recovered from the ordeal parrying off such comments as, “do you have a problem with courts and Authority?”…..and where did they get that if it was not off Big Brother , the European Computer , designed with stealth by Blair and his trade mark of deceitful lawyer tactics? A system, for which I strongly approve to combat crime but already a day to day example of how it wil be abused when identity cards finally arrive.
But let us not again slip into the gutter on such matters but let me tell you how retired Roy Gardiner, a life long aero engineer with De Havilland, witnessed so much history in Aviation. I met him on the ferry, over supper and was soon totally absorbed into his stories.
Geoffrey DeHavilland bought out the Rhone engine factory in France in the late 20’s and took the whole lot back to Edgeware, Stag lane which meant Roy spent much of his life converting petrol and Avtur engine designs between metric, American and UK imperial measurement! He was "the man" on gypsys.
It was the gypsy that had me on first solo in an RAF Chipmunk , in 1964, but that did not interest him, it was his stories such as, his colleagues who designed the first 2 strokes and Fairy’s boat designs, first used slung under an RAF aircraft, to be dropped for air crew recovery.
And to think I had just spent 2 hours at Pegasus Bridge and the Museum to remind me just how close the battle of “Overlord” had been, fighting to get a foot on Europe.
Now, in 2005, I wonder whether the loss of life and its principle was worth it, now we are dominated by such a corrupt legal trade, dominating both government, our courts and now even officious little french port customs officers?