Chapter 27
When I returned to El Campo from Dubai, for the first time it really felt as though I was returning home, and it was a nice feeling. I was even getting a little used to all the attention being heaped on me, and as I had just bought all those boats, I was eagerly looking forward to learning to fly!!!!! One afternoon, just prior to my Dubai visit, after a lazy picnic lunch on the hill overlooking the Marina (I enjoyed work, I could watch it all day long) David had a proposition that he hoped wouldn’t upset me too much. There were two perfectly good aircraft in ‘A’ hangar, George’s Tiger Moth and Harvard, and both were in excellent condition (I had inherited them along with the airfield), so he wondered if I would let him get them made airworthy so that he could get back into flying again’.
‘Rubbish’ I said, ‘I will pay, and then you can teach me to fly’, so David went off to England for a week to do some refresher training and returned just in time to take the Tiger Moth up for its ‘post storage’ test flight. Whilst he had been away a team of mechanics had come in and checked both aircraft over. They were fine, and after the Inspectors had carried out their checks both aircraft were given a clean bill of health (Certificates of Airworthiness). The next day we were departing for Dubai, so after the obligatory test flight I went up with David for a quick ‘jolly’ (his name for a pleasure trip), but I wanted more, a lot more. David explained that he could take me up for jollies whenever I felt like one, but unfortunately he couldn’t teach me to fly, but he knew a man that could.
Group Captain Edward (Teddy) Heslop (retired) was a certified Chief Flying Instructor (he’d had a hand in teaching both royal ‘children’ to fly) and he and his wife had moved to Spain on his retirement from the Royal Air Force, but were both now getting just a tad bored with all the sun, sand and sangria – they had given the other ‘S’ up a long time ago, and David had met him the night before, following his return from England. He was having a quiet night out with Caroline at a local restaurant and they had got talking to the people on the next table, one thing led to another and an idea was born, telephone numbers were exchanged, and the next day David was ringing him back. Although Teddy would willingly have taught me for free I insisted on paying him, even if it was only ‘in kind’, ‘how about flying hours in the Harvard?’ I suggested, but as he quickly started to spend more and more time at the airfield that idea went straight out of the window, there just weren’t enough ‘flying hours’ left in a day, and so he quickly became my CFI (Chief Flying Instructor).
Within a week of my return from Dubai he was teaching seven of my staff (plus me) to fly and the poor old Tiggy Moth would soon be starting to wilt at its seams. I would have to get something more suitable post haste, perhaps a Cessna Skyhawk - or two, and life soon became one long round of fun and frolics. If I wasn’t learning to fly, boating, visiting the Lady S, or total strangers (for what usually turned out to be a quiet weekend for two - ugh), I was improving my swing with Paul.
Phase IV was progressing well, and I was convinced that it definitely must be coming ‘flat packed’, as every time I went aloft with Teddy it seemed to have progressed another leap or bound, and the architect was convinced that I was checking up on him. I was, but only so that Paul and I could ‘test drive’ the next hole to be finished, and neither of us could wait for the course to be finally complete, especially as I had made a decision very early on in the process that the eighth hole/ninth tee would be on the Island, and there would be no bridge to it, we would have to use special boats to get to and from it. ‘CAROL more boats please’.
One of my first true house guests turned out to be the Colonel, and he sort of invited himself, but it was still nice to see him (and meet his lady wife) again. After an outdoor ‘hog roast’ (sorry no vegetarian equivalent), several cold San Mig’s and a very ‘good’ (large) Brandy he presented me with a beautifully embossed invitation to an ‘Anniversary Banquet’ at the Guildhall in London at the beginning of October; the only condition was that I had to bring David and Charlie along with me. This intrigued me so I asked him what the ‘Anniversary’ was in aid of, so he told me.
The Lady S was coming along fine; and I was collecting an awful lot of ‘frequent flyer air miles’ commuting back and forth to Germany, but I realised early on that the shipyard might be great at building warships and commercial vessels to an exceptionally standard, but unfortunately in a luxury yacht some of the finished standards were expected to be even higher, so the yard arranged for an English company from Gosport, which specialised in building luxury yachts, to set up a temporary site in the yards fitting-out shed, to ‘fit-out’ the posh bits.
Because of her chequered past, below decks were all but complete way before the Lady S was floated-out. The only really major ‘heavy’ work was the construction of the new superstructure, and so once the plans were finalised it flew (or should that be ‘sailed’) along, and early autumn found me watching the floating out ceremony; and it came a close second to watching paint dry as it was an awfully large dock to fill with water, but as she was towed over to the fitting-out jetty I started to have an inkling of just how Carol must be feeling, and with luck she should be able to bring her home to me just before Easter, but the Lady S wasn’t the only boat that I had to play with; I now had a Marina full of them. The Marina would be finished well before Lady S came home to roost, although one thing that I had well and truly ‘thrown my teddy out of the pram over’ was the Boat House, it wasn’t finished, and my newly restored Riva Aquarama was getting wet. Not only her beautifully smooth and shiny bottom that was floating in the water, but the twenty odd coats of marine varnish on her top, it was raining. I had spent a wonderful day at Hurley, on the river Thames looking over my ‘new’ Aquarama. It was having the finishing touches done to a minor repair, and a colour change for its blue leather upholstery (my eyes are green, it would clash), and I enjoyed wandering around watching their craftsmen lovingly restoring and/or constructing a host of other beautiful boats, NO – enough is enough. My Aquarama was second-hand – or is it now pre-loved - it had to be, they had stopped building them in 1972 but it had just undergone a lovingly restored. The previous owner had ‘dinked’ it slightly on its first outing after the restoration and had promptly had a minor heart attack, his wife then insisted on him putting it up for sale before he could do any more damage to it, and kill himself off completely. I hope that it wasn’t an omen!!!!
Virtually from the day that each of my new boats arrived I had to join a queue to take them out. Carol was busy recruiting a permanent crew for the Lady S, but had realised early on that she only really needed a glorified harbour crew; after all I wasn’t going to be spending months at a time at sea, so at my first monthly ‘A’ team meeting of all the departmental heads after moving into my new home, we discussed this problem. As Carol pointed out, a full crew on board the Lady S at all times would probably send them all stir crazy, most of the time they would have absolutely nothing to do, so what she suggested was that the crew would effectively be split into three. The ‘service’ part of the crew, that would solely be looking after me and my guests (catering, waiting, cleaning etc) when I was embarked, would come from ‘volunteers’ from my existing service staff. If that turned out to be a problem them perhaps we might look into revising their contracts, but I doubted that that would be necessary, those that embarked would be receiving a daily ‘sea going’ bonus. The small ‘permanent’ ship’s crew would be recruited by Carol, but when the Lady S was alongside at El Campo they would come under the day to day supervision of the Bosun, not only looking after the Lady S but operating and tending all my other boats as well, but to enable the Lady S to function safely at sea 24/7, extra seamen (and women) would be purloined from the other departments around El Campo, staff that wouldn’t normally be going to sea (security, ground staff etc). They would receive additional training, and again receive a sea going bonus.
David saw where this was leading to and ‘forcefully’ pointed out that he was already providing ‘volunte
er’ fire fighters, any more ‘volunteers’ and it would reduce the effectiveness of his teams, so to overcome this problem I agreed that he could start recruiting and training more staff to cover any shortfalls. I wonder if the Colonels Corporals were still available, and Carol and the Bosun would devise a course for those that wished to become part time sailors.
Rule one: They must all be able to jump into the staff swimming pool from its diving board with overalls on, and then swim two lengths of the pool without touching the sides. SPLASH, I’ve never seen so many fully clothed people in a swimming pool before.
Rule two: Every volunteer would earn their seagoing rank, just because a sergeant may volunteer, it won’t follow that he would automatically become a Petty Officer.
Rule three: When embarked on the Lady S they will wear the same uniform as the permanent crew, ‘CAROLINE, get your cotton out’.
As intended the Islander 600 was the perfect training boat, and Carol or the Bosun would regularly take her out to put everyone through their paces, and as time progressed, and more and more of my staff became ‘nautically’ proficient, I started to enjoy visiting the local Marinas and Yacht Clubs in her, if you have a smart and efficient crew – why not show them off.
Every trainee, when he/she had passed the initial training stage was flown up to Germany to acquaint them with the Lady S in person, but if they thought it was going to be a holiday, think again, Captain Carter was turning into a very hard taskmistress.
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