Culture shock goes both ways. Continue reading →

Score one point for each thing you’ve done that most other people have not done. Continue reading →

I was 15 when all the kids in my neighbourhood snuck into Marten’s Grove to go skinny dipping. It was the first time I had ever seen so many girls my own age in the nude. Continue reading →

What would life have been like if Ken and Bill had headed down to those desolate islands? Continue reading →

The Ragged Clown finds his home at last. Continue reading →

Mrs Clown and I attended the Remembrance Day parade in Bristol yesterday. My nan and grandad took me to my first parade in Footscray in, maybe, 1972. I was in the first rank of the Bexleyheath parade as a Sea … Continue reading →

Every blog comes to an end eventually and all too many end with a boring, uninspiring post that lingers at the top of the blogger’s home page for evermore like a turd that refuses to be flushed away. A blog … Continue reading →

I’m reading All Quiet on the Western Front and just got to the bit where Paul arrives home after a long time away at the front and suddenly, in my reverie, I was Paul, coming home from my first few … Continue reading →

Mr Gooden was terrifying and a tyrant and he altered the course of my life more than anyone else. Continue reading →

Footscray. Council estate. Fancy grammar school. Parents divorce. First in class. Run away to sea. Engineering apprenticeship. Girlfriend. Falklands patrol. Girlfriend. Sonar engineer. Polaris submarine in Scotland.  Patrol North Atlantic. Midshipman. BRNC Dartmouth. Quit. Backpack (California, Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, Huahine, … Continue reading →