1 April 2018
Dear Family & Friends
Historic Occasion
This photo, although blurred, records an historic occasion. It was Neel’s first evening out at a restaurant since his heart surgery. But the historical aspect is personified by the gentleman on my right in a red shirt: Dr Godfrey Walker. I met him in 1971 when I was carted off to hospital having inadvertently driven my Volkswagen estate car off a cliff in Dominica where I was then living.
(Plastered)
Dr Walker saved my life by wrapping me in a plaster of Paris “Minerva” cast and forbidding movement for several weeks, as he realised I had broken my neck within the smallest fraction of being permanently paralysed. We kept in touch over the years as the good doctor worked in Nepal, Thailand, Czechoslovakia and Switzerland, eventually retiring to Hammersmith. He came here on holiday last month, met Neel brooding at home, and immediately prescribed an evening out.
Ollie gone.
If you used to receive my weekly newsletter, which I circulated to thousands of subscribers from 2010 to 2015 (back numbers are archived on my website), you may recall the arrival of Ollie, a female cat. She was born unexpectedly to a very young mother cat (Lena) in my attic.
Over the years, Ollie became enormous with a personality to match; like a loyal dog, suspicious when visitors arrived, sleeping at the foot of my bed, and joining me at the beach-view bar for sun-downers (fishy crackers for her) every evening.
She didn’t turn up on Saturday 4 March but I wasn’t concerned as I had seen an ambitious male cat lurking in the garden. She didn’t come home that night, nor the next. Kumara reassured me by saying she was probably “on honeymoon.”
I once had a cat that went AWOL for a week before returning very thin and bedraggled, apparently having been trapped in an abandoned house. However, I guess some other fate befell Ollie, perhaps death by snake or polecat, as she hasn’t returned. Lena, her mother, was very puzzled for the first few days and still seems to miss her, as do I.
Farewell Tim
Another of the lads from my generation whom I met in Rickmansworth 60 years ago has moved on. I was flattered to be asked to send the poem I wrote about him in 1960 (published in
Rave and later
Gone Man Squared)to be read at his Farewell.
FOR TIM THE MERCHANT SAILOR
Loving bold and be done with it –
Wash your hands afterwards, not before;
Dreaming brave and to hell with it –
Tossing and turning and kip where you can:
Shouting, spewing, drinking, moaning,
From here to New Zealand –
From port to clinic –
Watching the waves of his wives.
A Prince Visits
A prince dropped in for sun-downers last month. Prince Will, the son of King Leo of Redonda, was incognito during his private holiday visit to Sri Lanka. I invited him because, in 1960, his father’s predecessor, King Juan I of Redonda, made me Duke Gypino de Redonda for literary achievements. It’s an honorary title without ranking status but after nearly six decades I have become one of the few remaining members of the original Court of Redonda.
You will have to look hard on a map of the world to identify the Kingdom of Redonda; it’s part of the independent state of Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean. It’s a rocky islet that is no more than one mile long by one third of a mile wide rising to a height of 971 feet. Christopher Columbus dubbed it Santa Maria de Redonda because of its round shape when he chanced upon it on 12 November 1493.
In 1865 the island was claimed by Matthew Dowdy Shiell, a prosperous trader from Montserrat. Shortly afterwards, Redonda was annexed by the British Government, so Britain could control the exploitation of its rich deposits of phosphates, and for nearly 50 years it had a population of contract miners. Although the island’s mining rights were administered by Antigua the legitimacy of Shiell’s title of Monarch of Redonda remained. In 1880, he abdicated so his son, who later became the prolific fantasy novelist, M P Shiel, could be crowned as King Felipe.
Shiel abdicated in favour of poet John Gawsworth who, in 1947, became King Juan I of Redonda. While there have been pretenders to the throne, the line from King Felipe to King Leo is well documented. The current king’s son is an epic double bass player in a heavy metal band and a keen landscape gardener. He was enchanted by Sri Lanka’s verdant scenery and looks forward to returning. Before he left, on behalf of King Leo, the Prince presented me with a gold ducal pin, commemorating my ennoblement to the original Court of Redonda 58 years ago. Floreat Redonda!
OK, so it’s April Fool’s Day but that’s all true.
Beat regards
Royston
……………………………..
Royston Ellis
Sri Lanka
www.roystonellis.com
