The AllGriffs Review 2018

Looking back on 2018 it is impossible to see the year in anything other than a bright sunlight: the wetsuits in constant use, coats and jerseys locked away for weeks on end, towels drying on the terrace, the lawn baked hard; in fact just like the books we read as children where it was always summer and one ‘had adventures’.

Two new arrivals made the year extra special. Daisy, a small tabby and white cat, arrived at the end of March and soon took over the house and garden.

The even more exciting arrival in May was a first child for Peter and Rebeka. William is turning out to be a jolly fellow who smiles almost as much as his happy parents.

He will have to work hard to catch up with his larger cousins who took full advantage of the weather, Cornwall’s coast and their devoted grandparents.

Child-sitting does not get much better than collecting two grandchildren from school, heading straight for the beach, surfing, filling them with ice creams, and delivering them home to their work-weary parents a few hours later.

The weather allowed us to complete our walk around Bodmin moor – the Copper Trail – to revisit various sections of the coast path, and to explore some obscure inland areas and remote churches.

Our big holiday of the year was to Vietnam and Cambodia which turned out to be something of a geography and history lesson. We discovered much about paddy fields, water buffaloes, water wheels, bamboo and coconuts, gaining an incredible respect for the sheer hard work of survival of some charmingly hospitable people. We also learned too much about man’s recent inhumanity to man, but we left the countries uplifted by the sheer exuberant joy of Angkor and its surrounding temples. Just don’t test us on the detail of the Ramayana, the Monkey God or the Stirring of the Milk.

We also went to Edinburgh for the Festival, remembering past visits from as long ago as 1971. It was wonderful to see the enthusiasm and charm of the young still oozing out of the Festival and reassuring to find that many of the shows were as impenetrable as the ones we used to attend, or indeed act in.

A touching moment at the end of the year was on Remembrance Day when we visited Pages of the Sea event at Porthcurno, surely the best amphitheatre of all the chosen beaches. Watching the sun going down on the image of a WWI soldier was very moving.

Somewhere in amongst this we found time to continue our day-to-day activities: learning Russian and the piano, helping out in two schools and supporting various Homestart families; managing databases and websites, editing, singing, visiting churches and working on the Neighbourhood Development Plan. Oh, and keeping an eye on Felicity, Jonathan’s mother, who lives in Truro.
 

It is sure to be another hot year in 2019 and we would love you to take advantage of it by crossing the Tamar to see us. But, be warned, in Cornwall, the wearing of stripes is pretty much mandatory.

Much love to you all for a Happy Christmas and good luck for whatever the new year may bring.

New - A Degree of Uncle Raymond

It is a fine thing to have an uncle, but there are uncles and uncles. Peter Copley is attempting to study English at Cambridge University but his wife's uncle is convinced that his education needs to cover a much wider curriculum. Unfortunately, Uncle Raymond is prone to enthusiasms, some of which prove a problem for an impressionable young man.

The latest offering from the pen of Paul Griffin is a series of witty short stories - a fictional sequence in twelve episodes - introducing the irrepressible Uncle Raymond.

A Degree of Uncle Raymond is published privately by Lyon and Lamb, and is available for £10 from www.lulu/shop

New - The Lost Battalion

From the desolate hills of the North West Frontier of India to the steaming jungles of central India and Burma, Paul Griffin's latest book recounts the story of his wartime service 1940-1945.

The Battalion of the title was the 3rd/6th Gurkhas who, after years of service in the relative peace of the Khyber Pass, joined the Chindit operations designed to fight behind enemy lines in Burma. Illness prevented Paul from joining them and he was seconded to Chindit HQ from where he had a good view of the whole operation.

Drafted into the Broadway stronghold to assist the evacuation, he describes the organised chaos of the fly-out: an exercise which coloured his view of mules for life.

The battalion fought on, long after its planned period of front line action, being whittled away by enemy action and winning two Victoria Crosses in the process.

A final invasion of Malaya and Paul, then aged a mere 24, was demobbed to pursue his dream of reading English at Cambridge.

Published privately by Lyon and Lamb, The Lost Battalion is available for £10 from www.lulu.com/shop