The Cutty Sark

Some ignorant bastard has devastated the heart of Greenwich. On May 21 an arsonist torched the Cutty Sark, a fine three-masted square-rigged vessel built for long distance racing. This magnificent clipper was built in 1869 and at the time was one of the fastest ships in the world. She was dry-docked in 1954 and for more than half a century this ship has defined London's south east edges. But this relic from the golden age of sailing ships, when Britain had the world's greatest navy, is no more.

The loss is personal for me. I remember visiting the ship with my mother and late father in the summer of 1974. What a great adventure that was. My first trip abroad had taken us from Africa to Munich, Bodensee, Copenhagen, Roskilde, Manchester, London and Horley and my father (who had worked as a Fleet Street journalist in the late-50's) took pride in showing me the sights. One of them was the Cutty Sark. She was not just a reminder of the great age of sail, but also of Britain's history as an island nation whose success depended on maritime prowess. As a gifted raconteur, my father conveyed this to me in the most exciting and memorable way, spinning yarns about the last of the tea clippers and the lucrative race across the globe to bring the first tea of the year from China to London. My father is no longer with us, but the Cutty Sark was still there...until last week. And I feel the loss.

My young son unfortunately never had the privilege of meeting his grandfather, but last summer we did connect a few of the dots. I took him to Greenwich and showed him the Cutty Sark. OK, he was only a year old at the time (and I did not take his pram into the ship), but I wheeled him around this beautiful memorial to those killed in the two world wars and flashed back 32 years to that fine afternoon with my father...my tutor...my friend. I'm glad that I got pictures of my boy with the old clipper before she was cruelly defiled, but I have no doubt that she will rise like the phoenix from the ashes. Luckily more than 50% of the ship's timbers were undergoing off site restoration and if the iron hull of the vessel is not buckled, they should be able to rebuild her. But if they do, she will no longer be original fabric, and we will have lost some of the history itself. And some of my history too.

At the end of our month abroad in 1974 I also remember flying from Heathrow airport. At duty free my father bought two bottles of whisky with bright yellow labels. And the brand name? Cutty Sark! At the time I thought the label was cheap and tacky, but he seemed to enjoy the tipple when we got home!

In any event, I hope they catch the yellow bastard that wiped this genuine icon of London from the face of the tourist map, and I look forward to its rebirth.

Cheers, MAlfaRK

White Army Blues

Goodbye Gillian,
The army's come to take me,
So I'm leaving on a train.

We'll meet again,
Two years from now,
I won't be a long-haired lout,
I will be a man no doubt...
No doubt?

There goes the good life,
Farewell to the drinks and curls,
Farewell motorbikes and girls.
Bye-bye, so long...
How long?

MAlfaRK ©
Wednesday, July 4, 1979


I started writing this piece on the military troop-train from Pretoria, South Africa to the 7th SA Infantry Battalion at Bourke's Luck. Two years of conscription and carnage lay ahead. I remember finishing it while "naaing beat" (standing guard duty) in the early hours of the morning of that hellishly cold winter. The cloying aroma of military greatcoat still makes me sick. Gillian refers to Gillian Michael, my girlfriend at the time.

PW Botha & His Henchmen Excluded

"I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone"

These were the last words of Edith Cavell who was executed by firing squad for helping allied soldiers to escape from Brussels to neutral territory in Holland during World War I. I spotted them on a poster in the window of a bank on Fleet Street in London when I was out for lunch the other day. And they got me thinking...

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"

I guess this is where the whole patriotism thing started for me - John F. Kennedy uttered these words on the day I was born. Noble sentiments to be sure (if a little treacly), but for a young lad like myself, but it was all downhill from there I'm afraid. I was born in Apartheid South Africa and grew up without a patriotic bone in my body. How could one possibly respect THAT flag, feel anything but revulsion for THAT national anthem and identify with any of THOSE national symbols?

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it"

Or so said George Bernard Shaw. I think his theory operationalises, and I seem to support the alternative hypothesis. In my formative years I was deeply embarrassed by my country. In the sanctions era "my" flag was an embarrassment, "Die Stem van Suid Afrika" (a.k.a. "The Call of South Africa") belonged to supporters of the fascist regime, and national symbols like the springbok for me personified the racist totalitarian state in which I lived. Suffice it to say, it was an uncomfortable and sometimes scary place.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross"

This quote is credited to Sinclair Lewis. I travel to the USA fairly regularly on business and during George Bush’s term of office, I think fascism has arrived. I am terrified by the flag-waving Christian Taliban, their theory of "intelligent design" (i.e. their attempt to get people to accept the Genesis creation myth as fact) and their apparent quest to eschew science and technology, and drag us all into a new Dark Age. But I’ve seen it all before – this is how it was in the Old South Africa. When good science clashed with Biblical fundamentalist beliefs, science lost every time. I know graduates of the National Christian Education brainwashing machine who still scoff at fossils saying "How do you know they’re not just normal stones created by chance?" These patriots were the same people who supported a government that censored (and frequently banned) music, films, books, magazines, the press, people and groups who saw the world differently to them. Scary times indeed…

"Patriotism ruins history"

Goethe hit the nail on the head! And I’m tired and it’s time for bed.

Later, MAlfaRK

First Post

Damn - now that title has set off a strange thought process. It's taken me back to the late-70's and a dark and desolate place where "The Last Post" * played through claxon horn loudspeakers as the command came down the line to switch off lights and turn in for the night. Taxis without wheels shuffled us across mirror-polished floors to steel-framed beds and cheap foam matresses covered in what we cacophemistically referred to as piss-skins. Cold. Frozen red fire buckets on cheaply welded frames. The secret sounds of Onan. Communal hell. Instant sleep and the expectation of a rabid and brutal awakening in a few short hours time. Once were soldiers.

But enough of that. Back then I scribbled things on pieces of scrap paper and notebooks and sent state-censored letters back home. I also kept diaries. Through my university years I started expressing myself in bad verse and when I backpacked the world I became a regular correspondent to friends and family. When I moved abroad I wrote tomes about my experiences and spent a fortune on postage. eMail changed all that. And then came my personal website and the chance to share my world with a larger audience. Pressure of work, business travel and a family of my own ultimately extinguished that fire, and I resorted to postcards to keep in touch with my significant others. Now I think the time is right for me to give blogging a go.

I have no agenda here other than to share observations and experiences and to go with the flow. "A collection of thoughts under construction" - that's probably what it's all about. So please bear with me as I figure this all out.

Later, MAlfaRK

* : MIDI Bugle by Neville Young