We hope you are all well. Here are some notes on our year. I have been writing our Christmas News for over ten years, ever since they were popular. I wonder if anyone reads them? But I find them a useful reminder and even a Diary in which I can look up what happened and when. For you they purely optional – enjoy or bin!

2025 has been a year of big birthdays. On 1 st January Cathy was 70. On 3 rd January Mike was 85. So we decided to start the Year with a cruise. On 2 nd January we set off in Cunard Queen Victoria for a cruise to Hamburg

Hamburg on 4th January. All slippery with snow. Not many people around.

Our next stop was supposed to be Amsterdam. That is up a long estuary and then through locks. But the Captain announced that the weather forecast was very bad with strong winds. It would therefore be unsafe, so we would spend a day at sea. That amused me as a sailor. In bad weather I would seek a sheltered harbour, but Cunard would take a day at sea in the gale. But then Queen Victoria is a bit bigger. Also it would save big harbour dues and lock charges.

Only 56 kts but low Barometer

Stooging around off Rotterdam

In February we had a fortnight in Cornwall “cat sitting”, looking after the Pitmans two cats. Really a lovely relaxing holiday for us while David and Danielle cruised around South America on Queen Victoria. The house is normally run by one cat “Chester”. He expected to take us over, but after considerable power play he realised he was not going to sleep in our bed, or get a daily walk on my shoulders, luxuries he gets from David and Danielle.

‘I want the bed’ ‘Can’t have it!’

‘O.K. I will have the bathroom’.

In February I got a letter from Hampshire Police telling me my Shotgun Certificate would expire in 6 months, with dire threats if I didn’t get it renewed in time. Also a new thing just introduced, a ‘GP Report -Medical Information Proforma’, 4 pages of questions for you to buy answers from your GP. One look at that and I knew the Police State was closing in. Firstly I haven’t seen a GP more than once a year for years and anyway it is always someone different. And yet they have to give an opinion to the Police if I am suffering from ‘Mania, Bi-polar, Psychotic illness, Dementia, Depression, Anxiety, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Harm to others, Acute stress reaction, etc’ By the time I had read that I was suffering from most of them and ‘Post traumatic stress’ would not be long behind. I therefore set out to sell my shotguns. It proved very difficult. Nobody has any money to splash about and everyone is suffering the same Police harassment. The first, a ‘Greener Police’ sold in 24 hours to someone who turned out to be a Firearms Officer for Yorkshire Police. He immediately saw that I was asking about half what it was worth. The rest took lots of hard work, mostly selling for half what they would have sold for a few years ago. The very last one, a little Baikal side by side, with which I had brought down many pheasants, including one about 50 feet up and going 60mph with a gale behind it, was wanted by nobody. On the last day of my Certificate I paid a dealer to destroy it.

Antifouling. Back in January I saw a Government Surplus Sale auctioning ship antifouling. I bid for 6 x 20 litre drums and got them. Five I put on Ebay and they sold quite well, but the 6th I kept for ‘Fernweh’. In April we had the usual lift out and scrub. Dried off we painted with the ship antifouling. Now usually we painted 2 coats of ‘yacht’ antifouling and that took 5 or 6 litres. But the ‘ship’ antifouling was more viscous, like mud, and went on thick. One coat took 10 litres, so lucky I had 20. But it made a very smooth coating and I am sure she sails faster. The manufacturers promise low friction and 5 years antifouling. We shall see, but maybe we can change from every year with the ‘yacht’ antifouling to 2 or more with the ‘ship.

While Fernweh was lifted out I decided to repaint the length markings on the anchor chain. I pulled out all the chain and laid it out for measuring. I had some very bright hi-viz orange paint which I mixed with a power mixer. Once mixed I turned back to the chain, tripped over it and fell flat on my face. Putting out my arms to parry the fall I still had the paint mixer in my hand. Now this paint mixer is bit like a circular saw on the end of a steel shaft and the ‘saw’ part came between my forehead and the ground. Nick my co-owner crawled out from under the hull where he was painting and said “Are you alright?”. I said “No, I guess this needs a stitch?” as the blood ran down my face. “Yes, it does!” he confirmed. Anyway, I drove to the hospital, which I now realise I should not have done, and got in the luckily short queue at A & E. When I got to the front the nurse took one look and said “Come with me”. Good I thought I have jumped the 2 hour wait. Not so. She handed me over to a nurse who bound my head up with a bandage and then said “Go back to the waiting room, the wait is only 2 hours”. By the time I got back to the waiting room Cathy was there, having been called by Nick, so embarrassed me suitably by taking a photo. When I was finally treated, the Doctor said “Your blood is a funny orange colour?” so I explained “ No, that is the colour of the paint I was mixing”. Anyway she did such a good job with steri-strips that I have no bad scar.

Mike not happy but surviving.

Cathy celebrating Mike’s survival.

In April we took a cruise to the Baltic. One area that was unknown to both of us. This was in Cunard Queen Anne the latest Cunard ship. It was trying to be traditional, like the old Cunarders, but modern as well. More glitz and glass, but still good service. The route covered modern and ancient cities, Copenhagen, Visby, Tallin, Aarhus, Helsinki and Hamburg. I was a bit apprehensive when I discovered we were going to be in Hamburg on VE Day. I was even more surprised to find there was going be a celebration at which 2 million people were expected. When all became clear, the celebration was 600 years from the founding of the Port of Hamburg. One thousand ships were expected and Queen Anne was a centrepiece. All the ships paraded past us from morning until night.

We left Hamburgh in the evening and passed Heligoland which gave us a sobering moment. See ‘In Memoriam’ at the end of this.

On Midsummer Day we had a Party to celebrate our Big Birthdays, Daniel joining us by being 30 that weekend. It seems nobody took photos!

September. Goodwood Revival, brilliant Show as always. Main celebration VE Day. Had an excellent VE Day Revival including a childrens tea party down the Paddock Straight. I complained that it was incorrect, as I had been at the first one in 1945 we were lucky to get bread and jam. At the Revival the kids got cream cakes. The organiser said “Do you think we could get modern kids to turn up for bread and jam???”

It rained hard in showers so finished up as a mudbath, so many wet and muddy Jeeps.

Cathy has had a very successful year with her Art.

Voted best ‘en plein air’ artist at local art group.

Hampshire ‘Open Studios’.

Not only the local Art Shows as in previous years but this year success in the premier competition in the U.K. Art World. A small painting with which she had varnishing problems, she gave it a re-varnish and sent it in for the selection for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. 18,000 entries and 1,800 selected. This year success. Selection and sold on the opening day!

Proud artist in the Large Weston Room, selected by Helen Sear RA.

Title: “No gas and no gaiters”. Without realising it Cathy had hit on the theme of the Exhibition which was “Environmental Progress: Dialogue and Environment” or similar. Her painting of LPG bottles rusting in a field was therefore exactly on track.

So may we wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a Joyful and Peaceful New Year 2026. Mike, Cathy and Daniel

In Memoriam

In July we were very shocked to receive a telephone call from Yves, Mike’s French exchange student from 1955. Yves was very upset in telling us that his wife and ‘soul mate’ Chantal had collapsed at dinner the previous evening and passed away overnight. Thus was, of course, a tremendous shock to us all, as Chantal was fit and well with no warning of the heart attack that had struck her. We sympathise with Yves in his terrible loss, and remember Chantal as a warm and welcoming friend whenever we visited them in France.

Chantal and Yves on our visit to Bordeau with them in 2024.

George Mintram.
George was a neighbour of Cathy’s when she lived at Whitley Ridge. When I had first started beekeeping, one day in August we visited George and Armin on a day when he was harvesting honey. Seeing the large amount he was getting from his small apiary motivated me to try even harder and expand mine. He also was a fund of tips and methods to improve the yield.

George Krimpas
I first met George in about 1982 when he wanted to buy ‘Maid Marion’ the Q Class (Ex 6m converted to cruiser) yacht I had part owned since 1979. I owned one third with 2 brothers Charnley owning one third each. They wanted to sell but I did not. So we negotiated a deal. George would buy two thirds and I agreed to sell my third to him eventually. This suited George because he was a ‘far left’ Professor at LSE and a refugee from ‘The Colonels’ who were the ‘far Right’ Government of Greece. He had fled from Greece in fear of his life. But now ‘the Colonels’ had fallen and he could return to Greece. So he went to Greece, I looked after ‘Maid Marion’ and George and family sailed aboard every summer. This lasted until 1986 when I went to work in South Africa. George bought my one third and I sent ‘Maid Marion’ to Greece as deck cargo.

Terry Bowen
Terry was Founding Member and President of the Royal Naval Tot Club of Antigua and Barbuda. I had met him when helping with the Antigua Classics Yacht Regatta. When I got ‘stuck’ in Antigua in 2010 for 3 weeks I joined the RNTCofAandB. Here I met Terry and heard from him how the Tot Club had been started by him and Mike Rose when they met in a bar and discovered their mutual careers in the Royal Navy. Now a Worldwide organisation many Tots are held at 6p.m. local time combining a love of R.N.History, rum, yachting and charitable works.

Terry and his wife Connie, obviously in Antigua.

A bit of Family History.
Having set up a Family Tree for Daniel I found there were several gaps. In particular Cathy’s uncle Francis. All I was told was that he ‘disappeared on a secret mission in WW2’. I therefore set out to find more from the internet.
Francis Kingsley Doyle
Flying Officer Doyle was the pilot of a Stirling Bomber which took off on 29th May 1942 on a mission to lay mines in the approach to Hamburg East of Heligoland. His aircraft was shot down by a Messersmidt BF 110. All eight crew died and have no known grave. They are recorded on the Runnymede Royal Air Force Memorial. For more information see: https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/203599

Arthur Alleyne Kingsley Conan Doyle Known as Kingsley, son of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was Cathy’s ‘second cousin once removed’. Kingsley joined the Hampshire Regiment and was a Second Lieutenant. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916, he lead his men ‘over the top’. 20,000 British soldiers were killed that day, plus another 40,000 wounded – the worst, single day in Britain’s military history. Kingsley was shot through the neck, recovered, but was invalided out of the Army. Two years later, however, Kingsley was recovering. But in the summer of 1918, the whole world was swept by Spanish Flu, the most devastating pandemic in modern times, which claimed at least 50 million lives. Among them, on 28 October, was 25-year-old Kingsley, his resistance compromised by his battlefield injury. A sad story. He received no medals and was not given a Military Funeral or Gravestone. He is buried in a family grave at St Luke’s Church, Greyshot, Hampshire.