Postscript

We are well and truly home now! We became lazy with the log in the last few days in UK and once in Kent spent lovely times with Sue and Steve and Margaret and Peter as well as seeing Marie and Geoff Greenwood. We went out for dinner with Margaret, Peter, Marie and Geoff on the 24th to celebrate Stephen's 64th birthday - Margaret made a booking for us at the "Milk House' wwhich I kept muddling up calling it the 'milking Shed'. It was a lovely, fun evening with these wonderful people who remain our very good friends after the time we spent in Kent in 1997.

Back tracking to add more to the Cotswold blog, In Tetbury we visited the parish Church of St Mary's. It has been a place of Chritian worship since AD 681. That is amazing for us to thinkof the long continuity of faith. The church we visited was built between 1777 and 1781, replacing the medieval church on the same site. It is Georgian Gothic and grade 1 listed building.

While in the small villages of the Cotswwolds we popped into a tiny parish church in one of the villages, negotiating a narrow path that wound around the church to the front door. We walked inside to find a small, atmoshheric church with the well worm and smell of many, many years of worship.

It would seem we spend a lot of time in churches. I just want to enlarge on the visit to St John the Baptist in Cirencester. Stephen has outlined what we saw - it is one of the largest parish churches in the UK. This church in the 'wool' town of Cirencestor has many fascinating features. The most notworthy is the Boleyn Cup made in 1535 for Anne Bolyen by Henry VIII . It is a solid gold chalice cup with a lid - made at the request of Anne her self. She gave it to her daughter Queen Elizabeth and it is said used it to take her last communion before her beheading, The Queen then gave it to her physician - Richard Master, who lived nearby. This was characteristic of the lady who had little money at her disposal - inheriting the kingdom after Henry's big 'spend ups'. The cup was finally given by Richard Master to the church. The cup is housed in a small wooden case with lighting and a very serious secuity system due to its value. The Master family are well recorded in the church - obviously being people of substance and position in the area. We were told by the delightful man, a volunteer guide, that when the Queen Eliz II visited the church and saw the cup her comment was " So you have the other one" - Henry had made 2 cups and the royal family still retain theirs.

The guide told us that when Eliz I was on one of her many progressions around hher kingdom and visited Cirencestor  she had been informed about the beauty of the church.lady Upon arriving in the city market place - where it is  situated she said "'Tis but a church' how ever, once she stepped inside she said "We must have one in London!"  . The church is truly beautiful. We arrived at mid day the next day for the service of Holy Communion - just we two and the minister. A lovely service. He showed us after the service "Tom and Jerry" in the Lady Chapel - 2 wooden carved creatures - a sneaky looking cat and a cute mouse perched up in the rafters ! Gorgeous.

This is a very wealthy church - the Boleyn Cup is a huge draw card for tourists and donations yearly are substantial. Also they are hired as a venue for many purposes, graduation ceremonies, important conferences etc.

We also ate our lunch in Cirencester Park - the Earl of Bathurst's 3,000 acre estate deigned by Alexander Pope.It is spacious, with a lot of paved wolk ways, Chestnut trees and acres of beautifully kept lawns.

Nother notable visit was to The Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens. Stephen was very impressed with the presentation of the park - obviously they have more funding than the Otter Park in the Cotswolds. Their otters didn't have the peculiar fishy scent that the Cornish otters exuded. The park is huge and very popular for a holiday venue for families! We saw the rhinos in their large enclosure vis small train, meercats, giraffes and lotsd of lemurs. The gardens were fascination - flower beds, vegie gardens and a New Zealand garden - a walk through NZ flora with a few exotics thrown in for goood measure - intentionally or not?

One of our tours took us to the Broadway tower - a large stone tower built in the usual honey coloured stone. We didn't climb it - apparently you can see 16 Counties from the top of the tower - on a clear day!! This tower is a unique capability Brown Folly - built by one James Wyatt. It is built on an ancient beacon sight with views of a radius of 62 miles. There is also a secret nuclear Bunker used by the Royal Observer Corps to track enemy planes over UK in WW I and WWII .  It was converted into a nuclear bunker during the cold war. It would have been nice to have seen more of the tower. It took us a while to actually see it from the road - there were simply masses of cars and buses and crowds! We decided against the jostle and the bunker is open only in the weekends ,

Another feature of the lovely touring we did was to visit Nailsworh Vallet where I counted 20 plus mills. The neighbouring valleys of Avening, Horsley and Newmarket have a lot of mills also. We were spoilt for choice as which to visit  - settling for the Egypt Mill , now a comfortable hotel. It sits by the river with outside, riverside terrace. It was a cornmill in the 14th century, also served as cloth manufacture, fulling, logwood mill producing dyes. Richard Webb was the name of a former owner - a very high handed individual known as the "Pharaoh' and is thought to be the origin of the name of the mill - or maybe beacause gypsies lived on the river banks. Gypsies were then thought to have come from Egypt. The restoration began in 1985. We had a look at the old waterwheel. Amazing to think people were harnessing water right back in the 1300s.

BACK TO GREECE:

I didn't write at the time about our visit to Methoni - the site where my father's POW  transport came to rest after being torpedoed by the allies. I have a wonderful book now that describes this event and the debt the surviving soliders owe to a certain German Engineer onboard the Jansen. After the attack on the ship the Italian crew - including the Captain took to the life boats leaving the ship to fend for itself. It was this German who took control of rescue operations and navigated it toward Greece where it was driven onto the rocks at Methoni. I have a very good account now of these events and as I looked down onto the cruel rocks which the men had to come in over  I was shocked and horrified in equal measure. The clifs that the old castle stands on is very sheer. The bluff is evidently bufffeted by high winds and storms and it was in one such huge storm that the Jansen  was driven onto  reef. The facts are well recorded in "No Honour, No Glory' so no need to repeat them. I could well imagine the scene - men desperate to get off the sinking ship having to make a precarious descent along a rope from deck to shore. The rope wildly swaying in the gale , surf crashing over these jagged extensive rocks , men loosing their grip to be dashed to their death on the rocks , men jumping in from the deck to swim ashore - how any survived I have no idea. My father is said to have decided to stay on deck until his turn came to descend via rope. A wise decision even though he was a superb swimmer - or maybe because of his knowlege of the sea.

That night was a terrifying ordeal and it was important to see the site . The day we visited was hot and sunny but it was easy - looking down on that treacherous coastline - to hear the wind, see the surf and , with a shiver, the young men battling to survive. There must have been horrible injuries incurred. I have so much to be grateful for to my father Ernie for the way he dealt with and coped with during those horrific years while he was fighting or encarcerated. Thank you Daddy for your endurance and sound sense.