Understanding one's neighbours : Ken Gibbs

The Royal Military Canal, Appledore

Anyone wishing to understand the fractious relationships which exist between Britain/ England/ Scotland/ Wales/ Northern Ireland and the rest of Europe (especially Ireland/Eire) needs only to watch the film “Those Magnificent Men and their Flying Machines” (available on DVD both allegedly ‘New’ or ‘Used’ for anything between £ 5:00 and £ 20:00, or around € 6:00 to € 23:00 (Euros), depending. Available to stream (if you know what that means. . . .))

While the film was made in about 1965, the British attitudes to their neighbours/foreigners/others seems to have remained fixed in the past. This, incidentally, seems to reflect the immutable inability of the British to attempt to speak languages other than their own. Speaking Gaelic apparently doesn’t count.

In the very early 1800s, Napoleon was eying England and its acolytes, remembering the insults which the French Dauphin allegedly aimed at Henry V in the 1400s and which caused Henry to invade – and conquer a large French army which vastly outnumbered the English Expeditionary Force. 400 years is a long time for a memory to fester.

So worried were the English that Napoleon would invade England, landing on the Kent coast which was relatively flat and which contained the Romney Marsh, that a military Canal was built from Folkestone to Hastings, a distance of around 28 miles (45 kilometres). French forces would have to cross Romney Marsh before meeting the Military Canal, so it was seen as a last-ditch stand. However, even before completion, the French had been swept aside during the Battle of Trafalgar, so the threat of invasion was neatly thwarted.

Move on to the Second World War, when it was feared that Hitler’s Panzers might seek to invade Britain, and the obvious route was across Romney Marsh if they were aiming for London, so a few changes to the Military Canal were put in hand. In places it was widened and a steep earth bank was constructed further to harry any invading force. Best of all, it could be arranged to breach the Military Canal to flood the whole of Romney Marsh which would effectively sink the tanks. Luckily, this was never necessary.

In around 1994/5, we moved to a tiny house on the edge of Romney Marsh, a short way from the Military Canal. Soon after this event, we were gifted a rescued and very gentle flat-coat dog who was to transform our lives. He came complete with a number of characteristics marking him as different from all the rest and readers of this blog might have already met him in some earlier articles. He was pedigreed and came with an Indian name, ‘Mutka’ (meaning raw silk) which was changed to Matt as we didn’t want him to get ideas above his station. He settled in very easily, but. . . . . .

Matt would not turn left out of any door. Quite why, we never did work out, but we adapted by walking out and turning right. Then, turning right and right again would effectively have been the same as turning left out of the door. He never discovered our ruse. When it came to climbing stairs, he took one look and then howled making us worry that he had a thorn in a foot. Not so. He required that I carry him up the stairs and put him down whereupon he resumed life as if he was still on the ground floor, that was, until he needed to go downstairs. He just looked at the stairs and sat down and waited. We tried putting a small dog biscuit one or two steps down, to no avail. I had to carry him down.

Matt had an aversion to bridges – of which there were a number in the area where we had moved. I would walk with Matt quite happily until he saw that I expected him to follow me across the bridge, and all four feet would go out and I would sigh and pick him up, carry him to the other side of the bridge, and put him down, whereon he would resume normal service again. I suppose it saved me having to take out a gym subscription but we were anxious not to overfeed him. . . . .

Actually, there was one walk which he much enjoyed where I would park the car and then have to cross a bridge – with the pick-me-up and put-me-down routine - to get to where the path runs alongside the Military Canal. There were a lot of wildfowl on the canal and Matt, being basically a water dog, was anxious to show me how good he was at retrieving a duck or goose until he realised that I didn’t encourage him to try and catch the birds. Swimming was fine, but birds were not to be included in this exercise. I’m not sure that he ever got over his disappointment at this type of walk.

There was one time that we had a sharp winter, and the canal froze over completely which was a new experience for him.

I digress at this point in the narrative as I had an incoming message from an XUNICEF colleague who sent me a link to a Facebook video about ‘soft landings’. As the colleague had, at one stage, trained to train pilots to fly aircraft, I assumed that he was referring to aircraft landing softly.

Not so. The video was about water birds making a soft landing on water which they did with feet up or feet out in front. Marvellous to watch even when landing in the belly-flop position.

What the video did not show was how these same birds land when the canal is frozen over – but which I glimpsed with Matt at one stage. What happened was that the deceleration normally achieved when the bird meets water is no longer available on the ice. The bird simply comes down at flying speed and slips until it meets other birds standing on the ice – causing feathers to fly and loud protests. Matt’s ears pricked up with the noise – and he looked at me to see if I wanted his assistance ? Well, in this situation, probably doing nothing is best but I’ve often wondered what the birds are trying to say, because I’m sure the language would be fowl.