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I have looked at your website, on and off, for
several months but have not felt up to asking about my Dad until
now. This is because I have always dreamed of visiting Addu Atoll
and seeing where he was all those years ago. Now, thanks to my
wonderful partner, Alex, I will be able to fulfil that dream as we
are going to spend Christmas in the old Sergeants' Mess (aka Equator
Village) on Gan. It would be wonderful to go knowing a little more
about his time there. I haven't seen him in any of the photographs
on your website but, as many of them revolve around Gan, golf or
water sports, I am not unduly surprised. He never played golf and,
having suffered partial hearing loss following a
water-borne infection picked up in Aden, never went swimming or into
the sea again so he would have missed out on quite a few of the most
popular social activities.
I do hope you or your contributors might be able
to recall my Dad but, if not, thank you anyway for reading my e-mail
and for creating a great website where I can, at least, get an idea
of what his time there must have been like.
As I said, we will be going there for Christmas
(20th - 27th December then north to Haa Aliff Atoll for New Year) so
if anyone would like me to take any messages for any Adduans I would
be delighted to do so. Just send me an e-mail with the relevant name
and contact details and I will happily pass them on. I should say we
are planning to take a laptop with us so who knows... it may be
possible for us to help your old friends e-mail back to you and/or
the website. I would love to be able to help keep up the contacts if
you would like that. I do realise that Addu Atoll is not exactly
third world and that internet access is available - I was thinking
of those people who would not normally have access to a
computer/e-mail facility.
I would also be grateful if you could possibly
put me in touch with any Adduans who might remember my father
although I understand that would be a longshot. You must have
realised from the tenor of my e-mail that my Dad is no longer with
us. He left the RAF in 1982 after 35 years service and went into
civvy street as a technical author for Thorn-EMI in Feltham. A
combination of corporate re-structuring and ill-health led to his
early retirement in the early 1990s. To our great sorrow he died, in
May 2001, aged 74. We miss him very much.
Sorry, I know you can't see it on an e-mail but I
had to take a pause there. I really do miss him and I wish I'd asked
him more about Addu Atoll when I had the chance. The trouble is, you
never know that you should have asked until it's too late, do you?
(Sorry if I seem a bit maudlin - I'm not, honestly, just regretful).
Only a completely different but also slightly
co-incidental note - I am a Vice-President of Faversham R.U.F.C.;
our nick-name is 'The Castaways' and our official logo is a small
island containing two coconut palms (representing the uprights) with
a bamboo crossbar and a lookalike coconut for a ball. Our club was
formed in 1992 and got its name for the following reason:
Faversham is surrounded by other larger towns
(Ashford, Canterbury, Sittingbourne and Whitstable) all with
long-established and much older rugby clubs. Prior to 1992 all our
founder members belonged to these other clubs and would get together
once a year, on Boxing Day, as an 'exiles' team to play our near
neighbour Sittingbourne in aid of charity. One year the penny
dropped - i.e. if we can get a team together for this match why
don't we get a team together permanently? The charity team called
itself 'The Castaways' as, for the rest of the season, all players
were 'cast away' to other clubs so when they came together to form
Faversham R.U.F.C. the nick-name was permanently adopted and the
logo devised to explain the origin of the club.
I love rugby and know that the truly
beautiful game was played at RAF Gan. What I don't know is whether
the local populace was ever initiated so I was thinking of taking at
least one, maybe more, rugby balls with me to give to the local
community. I'd take a ball pump and a copy of the rules and laws of
the game as well. Alex thinks I'm bonkers. I should say he is our
1st XV hooker and Chairman of the Club so he really ought to be pro
spreading the word, so to speak, but he still thinks I'm bonkers.
Anyway, as well as some playing equipment, I had thought to take one
of our Club shirts - partly because of the logo (a tenuous
connection, I know) but also because I thought it might be possible
to establish some kind of very informal 'twinning' arrangement.
That's probably pie in the sky but it would be nice to at least be
able to supply the means to give the game a go, if only for fun.
Alex is a level one qualified coach and I have assisted at Junior
rugby training so we could help get things started. Could I ask...
do you think this idea is:
a) patronising and insensitive, bordering on
colonialist condescension? Don't do it.
or
b) a nice thought but misguided - offer the
equipment and let the locals decide?
or
c) potentially a good thing - make local contacts
and take it from there?
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I wonder if you or your contributors might be
able to help me, please?
I am hoping to find out more about my father's
time in Addu Atoll. He was Chief Technician Joe Darnley and was
stationed on Hittadu from January to October 1975. His fellow
'Hermits' nick-named him 'Joe 90', apparently because he was the
oldest of the bunch; I now proudly possess his pewter tankard which
bears that name and the obligatory map of the atoll. I stared at
that tankard for years, committing the map to memory, and dreaming
of what it must have been like to be there.
I have various memories of his time away from us
(we were stationed at R.A.F. Pitreavie Castle at the time of his
detachment) and I offer these, in no particular order, in the hope
that some of them may ring a bell.
Dad sent my brother and I whole coconuts for our
respective birthdays - our postman was utterly bemused - and I
remember our neighbour using a carpet knife to cut off the husk with
the intention of thatching his bird table! I contented myself with
an attempt at amputating my left leg as I took an axe to the nut
itself (fortunately the axe was blunt however it was a long time
before I told my mother what I'd been up to).
He also sent us all (I have two sisters) a box of
shells each - mine contained 7 cowrie shells and one 'spider' shell.
The cowrie shells have been absorbed into my mother's collection
and, as I cannot tell which were mine, have remained there. The
'spider' shell has travelled with me around Britain (Scotland,
England, Wales and England again) ever since and is still perfectly
intact. I see it every day and think of him - it is, and always has
been, precious to me.
When Dad went to the Maldives he took an
acoustic guitar with him having, as he said, romantic notions of
strumming away in the tropical evening. The reality of "short,
stubby fingers" put paid to that and it came home, unused until I
had a brief period of playing it not very well. Funnily enough, I
think it's still in a cupboard at Mum's house.
I don't have any written letters or photographs
from Dad's time on Hittadu - he mostly recorded audio letters on to
cassette tapes - always eagerly anticipated. I remember him telling
us that he had been on a night-fishing trip in the atoll and also
talking of a sponsored walk around Addu Atoll. I don't remember the
cause but recall him saying they (the walkers) were transferred from
island to island by dhoni. He said it was either 17 islands or 17
miles, I can't recall accurately. He also mentioned Bushy Island but
I don't know whether that had any special significance.
This last recollection might spark someone's
memory:
He was supposed to be on Addu Atoll for 9 months
but was gone for nearly 10 as, at some point during his tour, he
managed to run over his own foot with a fork-lift truck (or so he
told me) and was medevac-ed to Cyprus for treatment. I don't know
any more about that but I don't suppose it was a common occurrence
so, hopefully, someone will remember!
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