TASHY TRAVELS

Every Sunday, I am going to upload a post about the different countries I have visited and/or lived in since 2002.

I can assure you of some interesting stories.

EUROPE 2005

After the visa incident in Australia we flew back to Europe as I wrote last time.

We then spent two weeks in Poland. The time was a mixture of trying to appeal the Australian immigration decision, meeting with my girlfriend’s family and having a bit of fun. By the time we had to leave no decision had been made by the Australian authorities. We flew to England next and I visited my family, who I hadn’t really seen since 2002. I met my first grand-daughter and she met me. I was impressed. She didn’t say. Now, she calls me ‘crazy granddad’, although I am sure this is a term of endearment not a factual statement. I also met up with all my own children.

Our sponsorship monies were dependent on us being in Australia, so we needed to sort something out quickly. But immigration authorities don’t move quickly. It became apparent that we would not have a decision for months. I was all for staying in England but my girlfriend didn’t like this idea. We spent about three weeks in England and midway through I came up with the only solution I could think of for moving on; we could try New Zealand. Believing that the only way to make things happen was to go to the top, I made an appointment to see the High Commissioner in London.

It turned out that he had once being the education minister back in NZ and he really liked what we had done and our plans. As usual, I would have no problem going there but my Polish girlfriend, once again, needed a visa. He told us to go away for a couple of hours. We did the standard walk around the capital and I renewed my acquaintance with familiar landmarks. When we went back to the High Commissioner he had, somehow, conjured up a 3 months visa for her. I was still worried about starting all over again in another new country where I would have no contacts but, we made joint decisions, so we decided to try New Zealand.

We went back to the caravan we had been staying in and started to make arrangements. Then the weather took control. It snowed and everything around the caravan froze. We had no water, no heating, apart from the stove, and resorted to primitive methods to get some hot water. We also got delayed as there were no flights out of Heathrow for a couple of days. We still had our Royal Brunei return tickets but they were, naturally, a return to where we had left and we couldn’t go there. Neither could we change the destination. We decided to use half the ticket, fly back to Brunei and then buy a ticket from there to New Zealand.

We left England on March 9 2005. We should, had things gone to plan, been heading up through Western Australia by then. These days I have nothing but the utmost respect for people, especially sports people, who never give up in their quest to win, to be the best, to succeed, despite all manner of obstacles that are thrown in front of them. I saw a quote recently on the website of one of my favourite poets, the now late Rod McKuen. His writings had often inspired and comforted me during good and bad times. The quote said that ‘Even genius fails. The difference between him and us is that he tries again or goes in a different direction’. Whilst I would not claim genius status, however that may be measured, I was beginning to have similar feelings about the different directions bit. What had started off as a follow-on from my coastline project and had been intended as a journey through Western Europe and based in England, had become a journey around the whole world and based first in Poland, then Australia, and now, possibly, New Zealand.

This question of measuring genius reminds me that back in the seventies, the whole family decided to do one of those IQ tests. In fact, it was eight tests, to be done on separate occasions. You plotted your results on a graph and came up with a final IQ. As I understand it, an IQ of 100 is average and 140 gets you into MENSA. I am an intensively competitive person. I hate to lose. If I do, I need to try again and again until I have won. I would never cheat because that destroys the whole purpose of being competitive; anyone, Mr Armstrong, can beat his fellow-man with a turbocharger. I was never desperate to be seen as the best, only to know I had tried, with what I had been given by nature, to be the best. I will gain immense satisfaction from feeling I have done my best but that little bit is still missing if someone does better. It’s not the losing that worries me, it’s the fact that someone is doing better.

At the end of a month of doing these tests, we had some results. Five of us did them and I will mention no names when I say one was below average, two just above and that left my father and I. He scored 164, I managed 163. He also had the cheek to die a couple of years later before I could beat him. Now you may say I could try now and get 165. Unlikely, but I still wouldn’t have beaten him; it would have been a different test, the playing field had moved. The Rowland family must just be handing down its intelligence with the odd bit missing, which is seemingly confirmed by one of my sons, still studying in New Zealand, who recently told me he did some tests a year or so ago and came out with 162. At the time he had no idea of the tests and results done in the seventies. By the way James, I have no intention of dying so you can’t beat me. Please do. Then I will have an incentive to try again.

I once heard Donald Campbell, the world land and water speed record holder, say that the worst thing was to achieve your ambition as what could you do next. I suppose you could set your initial sights low and have something to aim for after achieving them. But why? Go for broke. The real sportsman or woman, Mr Armstrong, is the one who tries for the best, fails, is disappointed in themselves not their drug manufacturer and then comes back and tries again.

I watched a few years ago Tina Maze, who you may already know is a heroine of mine, so disappointed at losing the combined gold medal at the ski-ing world championships. The commentator actually said, ‘why is she disappointed, I don’t know because she has a silver’. I would respectfully say that she wanted the gold, all five of them. It was possible although it would have been amazing (yes pun intended). I would also say that, maybe, she knew, in that one moment, that she hadn’t performed at her best. But, once over that initial disappointment, she came back for the downhill and the giant slalom and slalom. If you do not set high standards for yourself, standards that include moral behaviour Mr Armstrong, then you can always succeed.

I am, and have been since I was eight, a motor racing fan, perhaps devotee, If I had to list my ten best drivers in motor-sport in all the years I have watched, Mr Schumacher and Mr Senna would not be among them. They both, deliberately, took out another driver. That is not sport, they are not, therefore, sportsmen and I believe motor racing is a sport. But then my influence was Sir Stirling Moss, who even testified in favour of his rival way back in 1958. That is a sportsman. And just to finish this little bit that I have gone off on, the great Juan Manuel Fangio is quoted as saying that ‘you must always believe you will become the best, but you must never believe you have done so’. Need I say more.

Returning now to Rod McKuen, he was about six paragraphs ago, I had been needing to read his stuff quite a lot in the late nineties and I decided to drop him a line, partly because I wanted an answer to something and secondly, just to release to someone what I was planning. I never expected a reply and the one I got, which you can read here, gave me the support I needed to press on. Unfortunately, by 2002, things had changed and we never got to do it. James is now 24. He has astounded everyone with his achievements since those dyspraxic days. He now acts as my sounding-board and confidante on many things. I loved it when he returned to the UK last year. He is, by the way, another of my heroes.

And now, after wandering more than was probably necessary, I shall return to our flight to Brunei. On our journey from Perth, the plane was almost half empty. That I understood, as who in their right mind would leave an Australian summer for a European winter. But, once again, there were many empty seats. We were told that the airline is owned by the Sultan of Brunei, a very rich man, and he insists that one-third of the seats on all flights must be available for Brunei citizens. Unfortunately rich as he may be, his people are not, so they don’t fly much, hence, the empty seats. The Sultan would appear later in my life as one of many very strange things that were happening.

Eventually, despite how light the aircraft obviously was, the pilot managed to bring it into land in Bandar Seri Bergawan, the capital of Brunei. Next week, an extended stay in Brunei with more visa problems.

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