Tendring Topics – on line
A Harwich Bicentenary
Have you visited the Harwich Redoubt? It is a circular fort, surrounded by a dry moat and set on a hilltop just to your right as you drive along the main road from Dovercourt into Harwich. An article by Charles Trollope in the current issue of Highlight, the journal of the Harwich Society, explains that it is the best preserved of three similar fortresses built in the early years of the nineteenth century as part of the Martello chain of forts which extend along the coast of south-east England from Aldeburgh in Suffolk to Seaford in East Sussex
This defensive chain was first envisaged in 1805 when fears of a Napoleonic invasion – which may have been assuaged in October by Nelson's defeat of the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar – were revived in December by Napoleon's decisive victory over the combined Russian and Austrian armies at Austerlitz.
It was in 1808 that building work on Harwich's Redoubt was completed though it had yet to be armed, garrisoned and its associated earthworks completed.
It is this year therefore that the Harwich Society will be celebrating the Redoubt's bicentenary. Their members transformed the Redoubt from the dilapidated ruin set in a dry moat full of debris and rubbish that it had become, to the splendid memorial of the age of Nelson and Wellington, and their great foe Napoleon Bonaparte, that it is today. My family and I have a special interest in it as my late wife's cousin, Roger Gilbert, had been very actively involved in the restoration work. A cannon, salvaged from the debris in the moat, was mounted in one of the emplacements on the gun deck and was named The Gilbert Gun, in his memory.
An annual event that has now become an established tradition is the Redoubt Fête, always held on the late spring Bank Holiday Monday (the last Monday in May) each year. I never failed to mention this event in 'Tendring Topics – in print' and I attended it whenever I was able to do so. Now, I fear, Harwich is well beyond the range of my iron horse (my mobility scooter), which is a great pity because, writing in the spring edition of Highlight, organiser Andy Rutter says that – in honour of the bicentenary - this year's fête will be a very special one.
I shall also have to miss the 'grand Napoleonic Re-enactment Weekend' at the beginning of July. Andy Rutter says that 'those who have been to our earlier re-enactment weekends will need no convincing on how realistic they are, especially the final battle. Children love it'. It sounds very exciting – though I doubt if it was quite as much fun for those who actually had to take part in the bloody conflicts of the Napoleonic wars! Remember Byron's words recalling the aftermath of Waterloo – 'rider and horse, a friend, a foe, in one red burial blent'.
I shall look forward with interest to hearing of future developments – and will pass them on to blog readers.
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Percentages are Deceptive
William Connor who, under the pseudonym Cassandra wrote a hard-hitting comment column in the Daily Mirror in the pre-war and immediately post-war years once illustrated the deceptiveness of percentages by pointing out that if his elderly hen laid one egg only in one year and managed to produce two in the year following, he would be able to claim an annual 100 percent increase in egg production. This he suggested was an example of the way in which percentages could be manipulated by politicians and others to camouflage the truth.
I thought of this example when I read in the Evening Gazette, under a smiling photograph of John Hawkins, Tendring Council's Chief Executive Office, the claim that he had 'received the same rise' as the rest of the Council's staff. And, so he had – they had all received a 2.45 percent increase.
Mr Hawkins' pay increase of 2.45 percent was however on a salary scale ranging from £110,000 to £119,000 a year. It therefore amounted to between £2,600 and £3,000 a year. I doubt if those on a salary of – say - £15,000 \a year and for whom a 2.45 percent increase meant a pay rise of £367.50, felt that they had received 'just the same rise' as the Chief Executive!
Even a very large percentage increase of very little is not very much, and a very small percentage of a large amount can be quite a lot!
Across-the-board percentage salary increases inevitably widen the gap between the hard-up and the very-comfortably-off. It is an ever-widening gap that, I believe, is responsible for much of the malaise in our society today.
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An Expensive Jaunt
It isn't very often that the Clacton Gazette devotes something like one third of a 'news page' and the whole of its comment column to a matter that doesn't directly involve Clacton or the Tendring District.
Few though would criticise the Gazette's use of its space to publicise the County Council's expenditure of £61,000 on sending nine of its members on a mission 'to forge links with businesses in Virginia' - yes, that's right, Virginia USA! The 'links forging' business was the travellers' justification for their journey. The purpose of the visit was to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Colony by Harwich seafarer Captain Christopher Newport. This was surely a use – or misuse – of public funds that was of interest to every Essex taxpayer.
It's true that they hadn't intended to spend quite as much as that (the original cheaper flight was cancelled) and they hope to recover some of our money. I'm not holding my breath though.
It is quite refreshing to note that it was an 'All Party' expedition so at least no-one is likely to be able to make much political capital out of it. Among the travellers was the Conservative Council Leader Lord Hanningfield (recently returned from a trip to India 'on Council business'!) and Labour Group Leader Paul Kirkman. Mr Kirkman is reported as having said, 'If we can introduce businesses to one another across the Atlantic then it is worthwhile'.
I couldn't disagree more. Essex private businesses are well able to advertise (and pay to advertise) their own services on both sides of the Atlantic and should be encouraged to do so. It isn't for our political representatives to do their job for them – and to use our money for that purpose.
I have since learned that Harwich's Town Mayor Mr Dave McLeod, with members of the Harwich Society, visited Virginia at the same time. They too - and with a great deal more justification - wanted to pay tribute to the achievements of their former fellow-townsman. Did that mean that yet more public money was spent on this trans-Atlantic celebration? Not a single penny – the Mayor and his companions paid their own expenses!
If County Council members must travel abroad for inspiration at public expense, they would do better to visit our EU partners in mainland Europe. There they would find that the services with which they should be concerned – not-very-exciting things like social services, provision and maintenance of highways, education, public transport, refuse disposal and the recycling of salvageable waste, the conservation of energy and the use of non-polluting energy resources and so on, and on – are often superior both to our own and to those in the USA. They might, if they are prepared to learn, actually benefit from a visit to our European friends and neighbours – and, it doesn't cost £61,000, or anything like it, to pop across the Channel or the North Sea.
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Postscript
It was fascinating to watch Lord Hanningfield, on 'Look East' BBCtv on Monday evening, 1st April (what an appropriate date!) sagely discussing whether or not County and District Councils would be able to afford the new pensioners' bus passes which permit free off-peak bus travel on any regular bus service in England. 'These journeys have to be paid for', his Lordship gravely informed us.
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