The Australian Diamond Dealer
This is a tale that I am pretty sure is true. But on the other hand it might just be one of those tales that passes down from teller to teller gathering more and more embellishments as time goes on.
In the 1970s, I used to work as a consultant to a clearing bank. I’m not going to say which, but it probably can be ascertained by those who know me. In that case, you’re wrong, as either it’s another bank or the tale was about another.
On the computing side banks went through a lot of changes at that time. Remember that D-day when we went from £sd to £p was the 15th February 1971 and also computers were starting to replace manual systems. So there was a large scope for mistakes and possible fraud.
This Australian, who claimed he was a diamond dealer turned up at a Central London branch, saying that he’d like to open an account. He had a reference from an Australian bank and backed it with a substantial cash deposit. He said that he was spending a few months in “the old country” and when he returned, he would take all the money out of his account in cash to purchase diamonds to take back.
It all sounded feasible and over the months, nothing raised any suspicion in the bank. Money came into the account and just as quickly came out in cash to buy diamonds. But never at any time did the account go into the red.
Then, the Australian announced that he was going back to Oz and on a particular day he would draw the money out of his account in cash and close it. He left a forwarding account for any charges or extra payments that might accrue.
It was only noticed later that the date he would leave was a few days after the branch was computersied. And someone went in and changed the paying-in slips in the branch for ones where the account number had helpfully already been filled in.
You’ve guessed it, but it was the Australian’s account.
I heard this tale twice and let’s say that a very nice six figure sum disappeared.
In one version, he wasn’t even Australian!
French Road Chaos
We tend to think that the French are a law abiding lot, what with the way they have treated British farm imports, how they keep Franglais out of French, how de Gaulle used the N-word lots of times, how they are fining people with designer goods and how their farmers are so creative with EU subsidies.
But this latest story shows them at their best!
Vive la France!
Sir Nicholas Winton and the Kindertransport
Sir Nicholas is 100 and over seventy years ago, he organised the rescue of nearly seven hundred children from under the noses of the Nazis in Czechoslovakia. He was so modest about his role, that it didn’t come to light until 1988.
The BBC’s Robert Hall will be following the route of the Kindertransport over the next few days on Breakfast Time.
Perhaps I Should Get a Sewing Machine
They’ve just announced that the “Make Do and Mend” culture is returning, with John Lewis reporting an increase in the sale of sewing machines. The department store has also brought out a guide with the same name.
You may ask, why a sixty-two year old man would buy a sewing machine. I probably won’t, but I used to be very handy with one, having been taught how to sew by my mother.
When we were first married, I used to make some of my wife’s clothes. I can remember making several dresses and a long brown coat. In fact, somewhere in this house is a short maternity dress, that I made in 1969 out of some red Dorcas fabric.
My father also taught me how to do proper carpentry, service cars, hang wallpaper and of course everything there is to know about real letterpress printing.
I don’t think we taught our children such a wide range of skills. And I think that these days kids learn even less from their parents.
The Price of Repeats
Christopher Biggins used to play Lukewarm in Porridge.
He has just revealed on radio, that he got £90 an episode all those years ago. Now if an episode is repeated he gets over a £1,000.
Interesting!
Technology That Works
The postman came about five minutes ago.
He delivered two pieces of post that mattered amongst all the old junk; a new card for Sky and a Voter Registration Form from St. Edmundsbury.
The card had been flagged up on my Sky system for about a week now. A simple message just told me that the card had been posted and could I check the post. I took out the old card and entered the new one. It worked first time. As it should.
The Voter Registration Card had only one problem. The URL was rather complicated, especially as it included St. Edmundsbury, which is not the easiest word to type. But after a couple of pages and a few clicks, I’d updated everything. Or in my case, just told them that a very lonely man, who spends a lot of his time blogging is still alive!
Seriously though, life isn’t that bad all the time.
But both systems worked without a hitch and with the exception of the URL couldn’t be faulted.
An aside here, is that if you’re developing an on-line system, make sure that the URL is short. There are lots of six and seven character ones available. I even recently acquired mx73.com. Short and memorable.
I just wonder how less stressful our lives would be if so many of the other things that we have to do in our lives were just as simple. We’re getting there, but not as fast I would like.
One thing that works round here, is that when my wife died, the Registrar informed the council, so that I got an automatic Council Tax discount, after I signed and dated the form they sent me. A very civilised piece of joined up thinking.
Do all councils work this way?
And then we have the excellent system for Vehicle Excise Duty, that has cost the Post Offices so much money, as who in their right mind queues for an hour to buy it.
Deaths, Public and Private
Every death is a tragedy for someone. Even the most noxious individual, had a mother, even if they didn’t know their father, or have any children.
Years ago, I was phoned by Haringey Council, because my great uncle had died in their care. He’d returned from Australia to find his family and after failing had ended up in an old peoples’ home in the borough. But a guy in the Legal Department of the council had taken the trouble to trace those few remaining relative after his death. He felt it was more than a pity, that he hadn’t been able to find us before my great uncle had died.
We’ve recently had a lot of coverage about Lockerbie, where unlike my great uncle, 270 died in a very public and violent way.
Over the years, I’ve met many who like myself, have lost someone very near and dear to them. But all of these, like my great uncle have been very private and the most public they have got would have been a notice in the paper. And usually only the local one.
But is the grief felt by those left behind any different?
When my wife died of an aggressive and incurable cancer of the heart, I felt totally powerless. It just gripped her body and drained the life out of her. But at least we said good-bye properly and if I can keep my dignity like she did in her last days, I will be surprised, as I don’t think I have it in me. I do want to get even, but it will be by helping those in the fight against cancer and other life-threatening diseases.
Others I know lost their partners, parents and children to accidents and heart attacks, where they didn’t have my luxury of a slow parting. They seem to take much longer to come to terms with their new circumstances. After all, they were not told to get on with their life. Or fixed up with a blind date! Many too, don’t have the financial circumstances that I have, to carry on in the same way as before.
Is the public death of a loved one any different?
In a way it is not. You still have the same grief and personal problems, although interestingly in some cases, you may well have received much more financial help and counselling.
But surely the real problem is that whereas I have been able to restart my life, the endless publicity and digging up of the issues, by newspapers and often well-meaning politicians, doesn’t help.
My heart goes out to those who can’t be left alone to suffer their grief in private with friends, family and any professionals they need, so that they can be left to rebuild the rest of their life.
An interesting aside to this is that because my wife was a barrister, we often discussed various legal issues and cases in the courts. She could not understand, why if someone was murdered, increasingly relatives seem to spend every day of the trial of the accused in Court. I agreed and if she had been murdered, I would have quietly withdrew and had nothing to do with case. She would have done the same if it had happened to me. How can you get any satisfaction from watching justice unfold, so close to home?
So to return to Lockerbie. I can’t understand the mentality of those who keep pushing themselves through all the grief again and again, by appearing on the radio and demanding more and more vengeance.
But then I think all deaths are generally a private affair, for those that are involved.
I like to think that by now, I would have moved on and built a new life that was a credit to the memory of those that I had lost.
Reasons for Small Houses
I like this article in The Times.
I sometimes wonder about selling my large house, getting rid of most of my possessions and live in a small flat somewhere in either Cambridge or London. All I’d need is a very large laptop and I could travel the world as I wished.
Steaming Ahead
It was fascinating to hear that the land speed record for steam powered-cars was set in 1906 at 127 miles an hour. Incidentally, this is just a mile an hour faster than that of the Gresley A4 Pacific, Mallard set in 1936. And Mallard was built for daily service!
They’re having a go at the record soon.
The car was developed by Donald Campbell‘s nephew.
Peterborough Cathedral
On Monday I had to visit Peterborough and went over the cathedral.
Peterborough Cathedral
Peterborough has this reputation as a rather grim overspill town, but it has a beautiful cathedral, which like several in the UK are old Abbey churches. In fact when Henry the VIII dissolved the monasteries it was the sixth richest in England. The cathedral has one of the largest mediaeval painted ceilings in Europe.
But Peterborough is also the birthplace of my paternal grandmother. She was a Spencer and her father was a builder, who according to legend build some of the city. I’ve recently met a distant Spencer cousin, whose ancestor was also a builder, who built part of Armley in Leeds.
The strange thing about Monday’s visit was that I’ve just looked up Whitsed Street, where she was born on Google and I parked the car in the next street.
