From flooding to Fawlty

By Peter Carr

The recent horrific rain deluge in Auckland caused me to have several conversations with a good friend who is a leader among residents of a major North Shore retirement village.

She described the mounting carnage and associated horror of two boundary water courses breaking their banks. One was blocked by a shipping container swept off an adjoining property. Almost 40 people were evacuated, several cars towed away, there was a loss of IT records and much stress to a high number of displaced elderly people. Even the grand piano was seen to be moving across the main lounge at about two knots.

When the skies had cleared – and the water subsided – I labelled her Queen Canute – she being the wife of the Danish king of that name who ruled England in the middle part of the 11th century. One of his more famous acts being to sit at the edge of the sea on a beach beseeching the tide not to progress further. It was something to do with God and man showing who had the greater power.

Well Canute (actually Cnut) had a son named Harald (that being the Danish way to spell the name) who also made the headlines at a later date when he fell with an arrow in his head while attempting to repulse the French at the seaside town of Hastings in 1066. The invader, William, successfully attempted to show the superiority of the French. Thankfully, meaningful Francophile incursions into England ceased after that except for good cooking and a sometimes-superb rugby team.

The French have never actually loved their neighbours across the channel even though they had to be bailed out in two world wars by the British with some very late-entry support from the Americans. And I include Commonwealth countries in ‘British’.

So about 15 years ago my wife and I were wandering along the south coast of England on a journey from Hampshire to Kent. It was taking much longer than I had planned and around 4.30pm I experienced a mounting desire to get out of the car and to find an alcoholic elixir that would balance my temperament. We were crawling along the seafront at Hastings – a first for both of us and found a B&B. The tall and skinny proprietor directed us to a second-floor room overlooking the sea. Having viewed the steep stairs I remonstrated with him that I was getting elderly, had experienced a tiring day and that the bags were heavy, we eventually persuaded him to provide a ground floor room at the back.

Hastings would possibly be described by some as quaint. The aforementioned need for sustenance could be amply rectified by the high number of pubs. The beach is totally stoney (like Brighton and Nice) but there is a lovely historic harbour with some fine and well-maintained fishing craft drawn up clear of the tide. And those fishing boats provided great fare as proved by the evening meal.

The following morning the 15 guests in the B&B came together for breakfast in the basement dining room. Mine host displayed a remarkable likeness to the voluble and physical antics of that well known hotelier Basil Fawlty. He recited tales of how hard he worked and announced his wife would remain in the kitchen. Clearly, he misunderstood her ability to hear through a closed door, which opened to reveal his wife. The subsequent dining-room haranguing of poor Basil was a sight to behold.

Perhaps he will be joined one day by a diminutive waiter from Barcelona.