Tendring Topics…..on Line
My Chinese Readers!
A week or so ago I was very pleased to realize that a number of comments had been made by readers of recent Tendring Topics…..on Line blogs, and had been published on the blogspot. It was nice to know that I had at least one reader sufficiently interested to comment on what I had written. I was still pleased, though totally bewildered, to discover that these comments were written in Chinese!
Most messages written in any European language will contain at least one or two words with a meaning that can be guessed. It is thus often possible to discover at least the subject of the message. Chinese though! I hadn’t a clue, but I sent an urgent SOS to grandson Chris, living and working in Taiwan, for his help.
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Chris speaks Mandarin and understands the spoken language fluently, but has only a limited knowledge of written Chinese. Fortunately his girlfriend Ariel can read it – but she is a lot less than fluent in English! Together, they believe they have solved the mystery of my Chinese correspondence, and have translated four of the messages into English.
My Chinese Readers!
A week or so ago I was very pleased to realize that a number of comments had been made by readers of recent Tendring Topics…..on Line blogs, and had been published on the blogspot. It was nice to know that I had at least one reader sufficiently interested to comment on what I had written. I was still pleased, though totally bewildered, to discover that these comments were written in Chinese!
Most messages written in any European language will contain at least one or two words with a meaning that can be guessed. It is thus often possible to discover at least the subject of the message. Chinese though! I hadn’t a clue, but I sent an urgent SOS to grandson Chris, living and working in Taiwan, for his help.
.JPG)
Chris speaks Mandarin and understands the spoken language fluently, but has only a limited knowledge of written Chinese. Fortunately his girlfriend Ariel can read it – but she is a lot less than fluent in English! Together, they believe they have solved the mystery of my Chinese correspondence, and have translated four of the messages into English.
Chris and Ariel in Taipei, capital of Taiwan
They first of all discovered that the messages had come from a number of Chinese, not just one, as I had imagined. They think that the reason that I have received them is that hundreds of thousands of Chinese have recently acquired computers and have access to the internet for the first time. A great many of them are eager to learn English, and are searching the world-wide-web for sites that will enable them to practise reading grammatical every-day English, and perhaps to imitate a good English writing style. Having found such a site they mark it with the comment, in Chinese for the benefit of their compatriots, that that particular site is interesting and the material worth reading.
This theory is reinforced by the fact that two of the messages are to the effect that this site ( www.ernesthall.net or www.ernesthall.blogspot.com ) is interesting and worthwhile. Well, who am I to say that my blog doesn’t provide a good source of well-written and (usually) grammatically correct English, and an insight into the interests of people in this corner of the UK?
A third message comes from someone who had clearly read my comments on secondary education in Clacton-on-Sea. He, or of course she, says The purpose of education is to create a well-rounded, freethinking adult and not a mere store of information. I wonder if that came from a Chinese schoolteacher? I agree, but I would add, or a mere unit of human resources prepared for the labour market. I do however also believe that a foundation of accurate information is needed on which to build that well-rounded freethinking adult.
The fourth message? Oh, that was an example of Chinese ‘spam’. Readers were directed to a website where they would be able chat to young ladies of dubious virtue!
I look forward to hearing again from the first three of my Chinese correspondents. If they are learning English perhaps they’ll try to send a message in that language. I would like to be able to read it too!
Forty years on!
Below is a copy of the cover of the recently published illustrated history of ‘The Harwich Society’, written by Elizabeth A. Kemp-Luck M.A. With 94 x A4 sized pages, lavishly illustrated with fifty photographs it covers every aspect and every decade of the first forty years of what must surely be among the most successful of East Anglia’s Amenity Societies.
Created by sixty local enthusiasts at a public meeting in February 1969, it now has over 1,000 members, a number of them scattered ‘afar and asunder,’ just as the Harrow School Song, ‘Forty Years On’ predicts.
The forty years of the Society’s existence have been years of success, which have changed the face of Harwich, preserving much of the town’s past that would otherwise have been lost forever in the name of progress.
I remember (it must have been in the mid-seventies) an occasion when one of Harwich’s representatives on Tendring Council, who was less than enthusiastic about the Society’s conservationist activities, remarked that if you dared to stand still for more that five minutes in Harwich, you’d be liable to have a conservation notice pinned onto you!
Among the Society’s notable successes have been the restoration and re-opening of the Electric Cinema, one of Britain’s oldest purpose-built cinemas, the establishment of the Ha’penny Pier Visitors Centre, the Lifeboat Museum and Maritime Museum, and the restoration of the Beacon Hill Fort and the Napoleonic era Redoubt.
It was the last of these that particularly interested me and led to my becoming a (very inactive) member of the Society. Charlie Gilbert, the father of my sadly missed late wife Heather, had been a Harwich boy. His father John Gilbert, Heather’s paternal grandfather, had been a fireman on the ill-fated SS Berlin that went down off the Hook of Holland in 1907. As a child Heather spent many happy holidays in Dovercourt with her
cousins Roger and Joan.
Nine-year-old (or thereabouts) Heather Gilbert on Dovercourt Beach in the early 1930s.
Roger, grown up of course by 1968, was an early member of the Harwich Society. He was deeply involved in the recovery and restoration of a 9in, 12ton cannon found buried in the Redoubt’s dry moat. A striking photograph in ‘The Harwich Society’ shows it being winched from its resting place.
It was then, as the text goes on to say, ‘mounted on a purpose built carriage in Cook Street and is now known as the Gilbert Gun, named in memory of Roger Gilbert, the deputy group leader, who was much involved in the recovery of the gun'.
How proud Roger’s dad, Bill Gilbert, and his uncle (my father-in-law) would have been to know that their family name had been perpetuated in this way in their hometown.
I was a gunner in a 6in howitzer battery, in World War II and have looked over the Gilbert Gun with a certain professional interest. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted the job of feeding that huge 9in diameter iron monster its diet of cannon balls!
'The Harwich Society' history is a thoroughly good read for anyone with an interest in Harwich or who is thinking of launching an amenity society in his or her own area. It is, quite obviously, an ideal gift for Harwich exiles living elsewhere in the UK or further afield.
Copies can be obtained from Andy Rutter at 5 Church Street. Harwich, CO12 3DR at £9.50 or £11.00 by post. If you would like to find out more about the Harwich Society, access:
They first of all discovered that the messages had come from a number of Chinese, not just one, as I had imagined. They think that the reason that I have received them is that hundreds of thousands of Chinese have recently acquired computers and have access to the internet for the first time. A great many of them are eager to learn English, and are searching the world-wide-web for sites that will enable them to practise reading grammatical every-day English, and perhaps to imitate a good English writing style. Having found such a site they mark it with the comment, in Chinese for the benefit of their compatriots, that that particular site is interesting and the material worth reading.
This theory is reinforced by the fact that two of the messages are to the effect that this site ( www.ernesthall.net or www.ernesthall.blogspot.com ) is interesting and worthwhile. Well, who am I to say that my blog doesn’t provide a good source of well-written and (usually) grammatically correct English, and an insight into the interests of people in this corner of the UK?
A third message comes from someone who had clearly read my comments on secondary education in Clacton-on-Sea. He, or of course she, says The purpose of education is to create a well-rounded, freethinking adult and not a mere store of information. I wonder if that came from a Chinese schoolteacher? I agree, but I would add, or a mere unit of human resources prepared for the labour market. I do however also believe that a foundation of accurate information is needed on which to build that well-rounded freethinking adult.
The fourth message? Oh, that was an example of Chinese ‘spam’. Readers were directed to a website where they would be able chat to young ladies of dubious virtue!
I look forward to hearing again from the first three of my Chinese correspondents. If they are learning English perhaps they’ll try to send a message in that language. I would like to be able to read it too!
Forty years on!
Below is a copy of the cover of the recently published illustrated history of ‘The Harwich Society’, written by Elizabeth A. Kemp-Luck M.A. With 94 x A4 sized pages, lavishly illustrated with fifty photographs it covers every aspect and every decade of the first forty years of what must surely be among the most successful of East Anglia’s Amenity Societies.
Created by sixty local enthusiasts at a public meeting in February 1969, it now has over 1,000 members, a number of them scattered ‘afar and asunder,’ just as the Harrow School Song, ‘Forty Years On’ predicts.
The forty years of the Society’s existence have been years of success, which have changed the face of Harwich, preserving much of the town’s past that would otherwise have been lost forever in the name of progress.
I remember (it must have been in the mid-seventies) an occasion when one of Harwich’s representatives on Tendring Council, who was less than enthusiastic about the Society’s conservationist activities, remarked that if you dared to stand still for more that five minutes in Harwich, you’d be liable to have a conservation notice pinned onto you!
Among the Society’s notable successes have been the restoration and re-opening of the Electric Cinema, one of Britain’s oldest purpose-built cinemas, the establishment of the Ha’penny Pier Visitors Centre, the Lifeboat Museum and Maritime Museum, and the restoration of the Beacon Hill Fort and the Napoleonic era Redoubt.
It was the last of these that particularly interested me and led to my becoming a (very inactive) member of the Society. Charlie Gilbert, the father of my sadly missed late wife Heather, had been a Harwich boy. His father John Gilbert, Heather’s paternal grandfather, had been a fireman on the ill-fated SS Berlin that went down off the Hook of Holland in 1907. As a child Heather spent many happy holidays in Dovercourt with her
cousins Roger and Joan.Nine-year-old (or thereabouts) Heather Gilbert on Dovercourt Beach in the early 1930s.
Roger, grown up of course by 1968, was an early member of the Harwich Society. He was deeply involved in the recovery and restoration of a 9in, 12ton cannon found buried in the Redoubt’s dry moat. A striking photograph in ‘The Harwich Society’ shows it being winched from its resting place.
It was then, as the text goes on to say, ‘mounted on a purpose built carriage in Cook Street and is now known as the Gilbert Gun, named in memory of Roger Gilbert, the deputy group leader, who was much involved in the recovery of the gun'.
How proud Roger’s dad, Bill Gilbert, and his uncle (my father-in-law) would have been to know that their family name had been perpetuated in this way in their hometown.
I was a gunner in a 6in howitzer battery, in World War II and have looked over the Gilbert Gun with a certain professional interest. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted the job of feeding that huge 9in diameter iron monster its diet of cannon balls!
'The Harwich Society' history is a thoroughly good read for anyone with an interest in Harwich or who is thinking of launching an amenity society in his or her own area. It is, quite obviously, an ideal gift for Harwich exiles living elsewhere in the UK or further afield.
Copies can be obtained from Andy Rutter at 5 Church Street. Harwich, CO12 3DR at £9.50 or £11.00 by post. If you would like to find out more about the Harwich Society, access:
Indecision!
I once saw Shakespeare’s greatest play, Hamlet, described as the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind. In that respect, though probably no other, I find myself closely resembling the eponymous hero of that Shakespearean masterpiece.
I once saw Shakespeare’s greatest play, Hamlet, described as the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind. In that respect, though probably no other, I find myself closely resembling the eponymous hero of that Shakespearean masterpiece.
I am writing these words on Tuesday 27th April. The General Election is only nine days away. I am a postal voter and received my ballot paper and instructions on filling it in, yesterday. I can vote right away. I shall certainly do so and post off the envelope containing my vote, within the next day or two but I still haven’t quite made up my mind about the name against which I shall mark my cross.
My strong inclination is to vote for the Liberal-Democrat candidate. This is not because I have been bewitched by Nick Clegg’s honeyed tongue during the tv election debates. It is simply because Lib.Dem. policies nationwide support political ideas that I have held for many years. I believe that Britain could and should become a fairer society, both economically and politically. The gulf between the very rich and the very poor should be narrowed. Nobody should need to be hungry, homeless or deprived of health care. Everybody’s vote should count – even in ‘safe’ Labour, Conservative or Lib.Dem. held constituencies.
I believe that we should strengthen our ties with Europe, even if that means weakening those with the USA. I believe that climate change is a very real danger world-wide, created or at the very least exacerbated by humankind’s activities, and that we should take urgent action to counter this change.
I believe that the Trident submarine fleet is an almost unbelievable waste of money and resources.
These are all Lib.Dem. policies. Why then am I hesitant to vote for them?
Simply because under our absurd first-pass-the-post voting system, voting for the candidate whose policies I really favour would possibly have the effect of making the re-election of a right-wing, climate-change-denying Europhobe more certain. Perhaps I should vote tactically for the Labour Candidate as being the lesser evil. This really could affect the outcome of the election?
Another quote from Hamlet (who says that Shakespeare isn’t relevant today!) comes to my mind. ‘This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou can’st not then be false to any man’.
I shall certainly have filled in and sent off that ballot paper by the time you read these words. I think though that I may keep to myself the name against which I will have marked my cross. I have an uncomfortable feeling that I shall later regret my decision, no matter what it may be!
My strong inclination is to vote for the Liberal-Democrat candidate. This is not because I have been bewitched by Nick Clegg’s honeyed tongue during the tv election debates. It is simply because Lib.Dem. policies nationwide support political ideas that I have held for many years. I believe that Britain could and should become a fairer society, both economically and politically. The gulf between the very rich and the very poor should be narrowed. Nobody should need to be hungry, homeless or deprived of health care. Everybody’s vote should count – even in ‘safe’ Labour, Conservative or Lib.Dem. held constituencies.
I believe that we should strengthen our ties with Europe, even if that means weakening those with the USA. I believe that climate change is a very real danger world-wide, created or at the very least exacerbated by humankind’s activities, and that we should take urgent action to counter this change.
I believe that the Trident submarine fleet is an almost unbelievable waste of money and resources.
These are all Lib.Dem. policies. Why then am I hesitant to vote for them?
Simply because under our absurd first-pass-the-post voting system, voting for the candidate whose policies I really favour would possibly have the effect of making the re-election of a right-wing, climate-change-denying Europhobe more certain. Perhaps I should vote tactically for the Labour Candidate as being the lesser evil. This really could affect the outcome of the election?
Another quote from Hamlet (who says that Shakespeare isn’t relevant today!) comes to my mind. ‘This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou can’st not then be false to any man’.
I shall certainly have filled in and sent off that ballot paper by the time you read these words. I think though that I may keep to myself the name against which I will have marked my cross. I have an uncomfortable feeling that I shall later regret my decision, no matter what it may be!
PS (on Tuesday 4th May) I have completed my ballot paper and posted it off. In the end I followed the Shakespearean advice above!
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