Under the barbed wire

The Sierra Leone Army has a problem. They have around 14,000 troops but only 44 PTIs in the whole army. These i6 men are already trained PTIs.

As we arrive they’re doing warm-ups before heading off to the assault course. The temperature is about 45 degrees Centigrade and the humidity is so intense that we are sweating buckets just watching them. They don’t look like an army. They receive one item of each part of their uniform when they join. Most of these guys have been in at least two years and their issue uniforms have long gone. So they are all dressed differently, which makes them look slightly comical. Old Nike footwear is very much in evidence.

On the assault course, Wood is assisted by a young British PTI called Nick. Nick demonstrates each obstacle in turn, all the while looking slightly peeved about it. They get to one obstacle where you have to crawl under barbed wire tunnels. One of the tunnels is rela­tively dry and the other is a rut filled with dark, muddy water.

“Nick will now demonstrate this obstacle.” Nick sensibly takes the right hand, dry route. Wood watches him impassively until he finishes, looking relieved. “Left hand track, Nick.” Nick looks pleadingly but Wood still looks impassive. They stare at each other for a few seconds then Nick very reluctantly goes back through it again — the wet bit. He emerges absolutely soaking.

What is amazing is the diet the SLA soldiers survive on. They begin their morning by having a cup of green tea and a bread roll. The green tea benefits are essential for good health and body shape. Then at lunchtime they receive a large bowl of rice and some fish soup that they use as sauce (the same every day). And that’s it. They have an intake of roughly 1,50o calories a day — which drives them for about six and a half hours of exercise. They supplement this diet by eating fruit which they pick from trees, and with bread and biscuits which they buy with their wages. “They eat a lot better at the beginning of the month than at the end,” says Wood.

We get to see their lunch and I taste the fish stew — it’s like curried rubber. They very carefully divide this into two and eat the second half in the evening.

Perfect your pre-workout snack

Go high-carb with two or three fig rolls ( Jacobs Fig Rolls, 80p for 200g) and you’ll feel better prepared for an aerobic session. Research has shown the optimum munch is a snack of 200 to 300 calories 15 to 30 minutes before you begin.

Balance your meals

61.1 Count portions at mealtimes and, according to a study conducted at Miami University, USA, you will avoid overloading your plate to the tune of 220 calories per meal. Don’t go too far with the spices; choose the ones that are popular and healthy. If you have skin tag for example, look for spices that will help you get rid of them. Learn more about the skin tags and how to get rid of them. A portion is the size of a spatula head (Mastrad Silicone Spatula, £4.99 from johnlewis.com) so use one to dish up a balanced meal of three to four portions or a snack of two portions.

Clean your tongue Compared to just cleaning your teeth, which removes an average of 178 million bacteria, cleaning your teeth and tongue removes a mighty 900 million bacteria. Get hold of a Colgate 360 Whole Mouth Clean toothbrush (cA) with its built-in tongue scraper.

Have a “grill-up” Get your ‘greasy-spoon’ fix minus the grease by riling the usual Ty-up suspects. Stick two sausages, two rashers of back bacon, a handful of mushrooms and a tomato under the grill and you’ll save yourself a whopping 161 calories compared to their fiendish fried equivalents, plus you will have some health benefits from the grilled instead of fried.

Decommission rad your TV remote Next time you lose the clicker don’t bother to replace it Research from Finland reveals that, in an average-sized living room, a TV watcher could burn 3500 calories per year just 4″‘ by using the set’s buttons  to change channels rather than the remote.

Get the horn

This nifty little men’s gadget (plastic shoehorn, £3.50 from essentialaids.com) has been around since the fifteenth century and it still hasn’t been surpassed. Not only will it save your favorite pair of brogues from breaking down early but also it will stop you becoming one of the nineteen Britons who are injured every year putting their shoes on in a hurry.

Teresa later spoke of the five years she spent at San Jose as the happiest of her life. Sensing the larger value of her experiences, her spiritual ad­visers commanded her to write them down so that the Church might have a record. She went to work, sitting in her bare cell and using the window-sill as a desk.

“I have to steal the time for writ­ing,” she wrote, “because it keeps me from spinning and I live in a poor house where there is a lot to do.” Although her prose is full of faulty syntax and colloquialisms, her famous autobiography, Life of the Mother Teresa of Jesus, ranks with the world’s greatest classics.

But her outstanding work is The Interior Castle, a book on how to get close to God through prayer. Unrivalled as a guide to mystical theology, it takes its theme from one of Teresa’s visions, in which God showed her a large crystal globe. The globe turns out to be a castle, and in the castle there are seven mansions. In the innermost of them there dwells the King of Glory, whose light pervades the whole translucent structure. Ter­esa’s language rises to poetic heights as she tells how her soul progressed along the tortuous path towards the centre of the castle, and how finally she found herself on the receiving end of grace: “God and the soul alone now have fruition of each other in the deepest silence.” Read more fascinating stores online at http://www.hothouseflorida.com

Although contemporaries have described her as highly strung and intense, Teresa’s sense of humour rarely left her. “Well—I’m no saint!” she would exclaim when caught up in the matters of the world. In admitting novices, she chose girls with a happy disposition, saying it was “better to have no convents than fill them with melan­choly nuns.”

Consulted on the es­tablishment of a new boarding-school for girls, she wrote, “I know what it means to have a lot of women under one roof. God help us!” Pompousness in men of reli­gion made her laugh: “They would accomplish far more in a day by placing love of God above their dig­nity than in ten years of jealous care for their authority.”

FUEL UP

Don’t think eating’s cheating, especially if you include green coffee extract to your  daily meal. Check out the benefits of pure green coffee bean extract. “Doing a mountain marathon I was in real pain after four hours with a good six to go, and decided to fuel myself with carbs every hour,” says Simon Nurse.

BREAK IT I DOWN

“Remember your favourite run and split the longer one you’re doing into multiples of that,” says Tina Rossiter from Les Croupiers (lescroupiersrunningclub. org.uk). “Superimposing it over the same route helps you develop positive associations, and before you know it, you’re over your slump and flying along.” Or treat your run like toxic waste with a half-life, like Garry Cochrane from Dragons Running Club (dragonsrunning. co.uk). “I treat a marathon as a half-marathon followed by a loK, then a 5K, then my favourite 2K loop – as your energy drops you need ever-shorter goals.”

MAX YOUR MANTRA

Swearing aside ­which certainly works for some people – use words as your weapon. “My favourite mantras are ‘slow but sure’ and ‘strong arms, strong legs, strong mind’,” says Susan Kennedy from the Serpentine Running Club (serpentine. org.uk). “I remember Mick Curry pushing his disabled son Phil around marathon routes in a wheelchair repeating `easy, easy, easy’ and think there has to be something in it.” Marianne Aitken from Sevenoaks AC (7oaks-ac. org.uk) concurs: “The short rhythm and positive message of ‘pain is temporary’ pulled me out of a very dark place in the Amsterdam marathon.”

PICK A FIGHT

Externalising and focusing your emotions by giving them personalities is just the ticket for some of us. “I’ve identified any gremlins, and when I’m struggling on a long run, ”,I challenge them,” explains Lorna Gold from the Centurion Running Club (centurions.org.uk). “For example, I say: ‘Hello, Mr Boredom… I know someone who’s done a 24-hour track race, and if you didn’t stop him you haven’t a hope of stopping me,’ or ‘Hi, Mr Discomfort, I don’t seem to recall Sir Ranulph Fiennes quitting because he had indigestion or damp feet.”‘ Some prefer to make up imaginary competitors. pretend I’m beating an elite runner like Haile or Paula and if I drop my pace now, I’ll lose this once-in-a-lifetime chance,” says Robin Watts from Nottingham.

We came to the bus stop and had timed it just right. The num­ber 37 to the Market Square rumbled towards us within a couple of minutes of our standing there.

“Right you are Uncle Wilfred.” He helped the elderly man onto the platform. Then stepped back down to the pavement!

For a moment Uncle Wilfred panicked.

“Eh, Keith lad. You’re not coming with us?” he quavered. “Now what do you need me for?” responded Dad with a twinkling grin. “You’re the ex­pert.” And to me: “Now mind Harriet. You be a good girl and bide by Uncle Wilfred’s decision. He knows best. Now give this fiver to Uncle. It’ll more than

pay for the guinea pigs and all their food.”

“Yes Dad,” I answered meekly.

As I boarded the bus, the full import of the situation fell upon me. I was part of a conspiracy. A conspiracy to give Uncle Wil­fred back some dignity. I felt rather pleased with myself. I just prayed nothing would go wrong with Uncle Wilfred’s dicky heart.

“One and a half to the Square,” Uncle Wilfred announced de­cisively, when the clippie came for our fare.

He gave me the tickets to hold and we smiled at each other, checked for gnet.org. Our adventure had begun!

By the time we were halfway into town, I had learnt a lot about guinea pigs and guessed some­thing about Uncle Wilfred.

In his modest way, he had been quite an important man when he had been judging. He’d not only known all the different breeds of guinea pigs and their finer points of conformation, condition and colour, but he’d also had to recognise all the tricks of showing. Some exhibitors hadn’t been above cheating or offering bribes! But Uncle Wilfred had never been fooled. My respect for him grew by the minute.

WE alighted from the bus at the edge of Market Square. I took Uncle Wilfred’s free hand. It was thin and smooth and felt a bit like holding a wet fish.

His face, however, was glowing with sheer enjoyment as we walked between the stalls. Every now and then he paused, leaning on his stick, to listen to the ban­tering sales patter, flowing all around us. We came, eventually, to the shop. And went in.

We approached the brass­bound counter, where a grey parrot squawked “Hello” in a friendly manner, then went back to hacking at the “Not for Sale” notice on the bars of its cage.

There were quite a few people in the shop. Most of them apparently just looking. But Uncle Wilfred and I had business to do. He stated it with a new ring of authority in his voice.

“A pair of guinea pigs? Yes, we have several in stock. Smooth-haired, Abyssinian, Peruvian, Himalayan,” the round-faced man behind the counter informed us enthusiastically.

“May I examine them ?” asked Uncle Wilfred firmly.

“Why certainly, sir. I’ll take out whichever ones you fancy.”

So the search for my guinea pigs began.

They were all very appealing. I liked the Abyssinians best, with their funny, rosetted fur. For­tunately Uncle Wilfred concurred. So we concentrated on them.

The years fell away from my uncle. Absorbed in his task, he

had become the championship judge again. The shopkeeper sensed his vastly superior know­ledge, stopped his quick-sell spiel and waited for Uncle Wilfred’s decision with an anxious frown.

“We’ll take the black boar and the ginger sow,” my uncle pro­nounced after careful deliberation.

“I’m sure you’ve made the right choice. They’ve come from my best supplier.”

Uncle Wilfred nodded, as if he needn’t be told.

At that moment the shop bell behind us jangled dementedly, as the door ricocheted several times before finally closing.

An extraordinary shock of silence followed, in which we all looked around, instinctively aware that something rather terrible had entered our midst.

I heard a woman whisper: “Heavens preserve us, it’s Harry Thomsett,” in much the same chilled tone as she might have said it was Frankenstein!

He could have been Franken­stein’s monster, for the man was a giant. Broad, brawny and with features that seemed to have been chipped out of granite. He dar­kened the shop with his presence.

I wished we weren’t so near the counter. I wished we were at the back of the shop, where it was nice and dark. I wished my dad was there. I wished I’d never wanted guinea pigs. Above all, I thought of Uncle Wilfred’s dicky heart and Aunt May’s parting threat. “If he has one of his turns from overexcitement, I’ll hold you responsible.”

Overexcitement! It was here. Barely three strides away. Six foot six of Overexciternent, breathing fumes that implied nearly every cubic inch was saturated with best bitter.

Harry Thomsen, whoever he was, was reeling, rolling drunk!

“Canarily seed. Ah shwant two pund of canarily seed,” he slurred, swaying over the counter.

When he opened the great maw of his mouth, Thomsett revealed he had but one tooth in his head. A front one, that jutted up like a tombstone. I was horribly fasci­nated by it.

“I’ll just finish serving this gentleman,” the shopkeeper said.

“Ah’m in an ‘urry. Carnsh wait.”

“I really shan’t be long.”

“Wash trouble wit’ folks. Folks won’t oblige. Whole Worlsh is miserable. Full o’ miserable people. Ah’m ‘appy. Whyn’t everyun elsh ‘appy?” Thomsett demanded furiously. “Canarily seed. Thash all ah’m askin’ for!”

“But this customer was first.”

“It’s quite all right,” Uncle Wilfred interposed, prudently. “Please serve this . . . gentleman.”

The shopkeeper thankfully scur­ried off with a brown paper bag and began to fill it as fast as he could from a seed bin.

The trip to the pet shop would bring back past glories to Uncle Wilfred—if nothing went wrong

I took a lot of pleading but, finally, I wore Mam down. She didn’t exactly say “yes”. She just let her resignation slip into the conversation with the severe caution: “Mind, Harriet. If you don’t look after them, they’ll be gone quicker than you get them.-

Hardly able to believe my ears, I glanced across at Dad, who was ostensibly reading the newspaper with no part in our talk. In reality, he had been my greatest ally over the weeks of begging.

“If your mother says ‘yes’,” he’d told me time and again, “I’ll build you a house for them.”

Now he winked at me round the printed pages and home remedies for acne and the ghost of a satsified smile played at the corners of his mouth. I knew there’d be no difficulty in him keeping his side of the bargain.

He folded his newspaper care­fully and remarked: “Well then. I’d best call round on Uncle Wil­fred. What he doesn’t know about guinea pigs isn’t worth knowing. The poor old chap’ll be thrilled to think he can help. I’ll borrow his books for the plan of the house. You might as well start off on the right foot and have everything done properly.-

Dad was fond of emphasising the importance of “right feet” and “doing things properly”. It often meant he took ages about it, but you knew when he’d finished it’d not be just a “job”. It would be a work of art.

Over the following fortnight of evenings, the shed at the bottom of our garden resounded to the industrious sounds of sawing and hammering. Every day, after tea, I’d go down to help until it was my bedtime. It was like assisting a master surgeon and very exact­ing for a small girl of eight. But, at the end of the operation, there it was. The most desirable guinea pig residence in the world.

On the Saturday morning Mam came down to admire the com­pleted masterpiece. She examined the little wooden house from every angle and admitted it was perfect.

With her seal of approval gained, there was only one thing left to be done. The purchasing of the guinea pigs. It had been decided that this should be my Great-Uncle Wil­fred’s task. In his distant past he had been quite an authority on guinea pigs. So much so, he had travelled the country judging them iii

at Fur and Feather shows. These heady days had happened before the advent of Aunt May. After their marriage she had brought an end to “all that nonsense”. Poor Uncle Wilfred. He was a small man. In height, in looks, in voice and, after years of oppres­sion, his mind had been narrowed to Aunt May’s expectations of him. They were small also. After lunch, Dad and I went round to their house to collect Uncle Wilfred. Aunt May, big and bustling as ever, let us in.

“He’s out in the back,” she informed us. “Sawing logs. I ask you! I said he wasn’t to but he wouldn’t be told. And so I say, if his heart gives out, he’ll only have himself to blame!”

To add to the other afflictions in his life, Uncle Wilfred had developed a “dicky heart” at sixty. In the end it had caused his early retirement from his job as a storekeeper in a small engi­neering firm. Thus he was robbed of his only buffer against Aunt May’s in­cessant nagging.

“Wilfred, they’re here,” Aunt May announced.

Uncle Wilfred stopped his half-hearted sawing. His mousy features broke into a shy, pleased smile. The matter of the guinea pigs had brought an unexpected interest into his life. It was a long time since he’d been consulted about anything.

“Howdo, Uncle Wilfred. Hard at it?” Dad said shaking the thin, blue-veined hand in his strong grip.

“Got to do something.- Uncle Wilfred creaked up­right with a muffled groan. “Got to feel I’m some use,” he added with a meaningful glance at Aunt May. But she had become immune to the fact he had feelings. “I’ll get my coat and hat,” said Uncle Wilfred, trudging to the house. “Don’t brush your feet off before you go in,” Aunt May observed sarcastically, as he trailed golden, saw-dusty footprints onto her polished lino. He sighed, went back, scrubbed the soles of his shoes on the doormat, then took his coat and trilby off the back of the door.

“If there was ever a man needed looking after it’s you Wilfred Martin. Where’s your scarf? You’ll be dead from pneu­monia next,” Aunt May scolded. Uncle Wilfred seemed to be debating that this mightn’t be such a bad idea. However, he obediently picked up his muffler. “There we are. All ready Uncle?” Dad asked cheerfully. Uncle Wilfred inclined his head. “You mind him!” Aunt May’s voice foghorned after us down the front path. “If he has one of his turns from overexcitement, I’ll hold you responsible!”

On this sobering thought, we began the walk to the bus stop; me sandwiched in the middle. We went slowly to the tap-tapping accompaniment of Uncle Wil­fred’s stick. The lack of conversa­tion was painful.

At last Uncle Wilfred blurted out: “If only she’d leave me some dignity. That’s not too much for a man to ask. Is it? Just a little dignity.”

“Bye, she’ll not change now, Uncle,” Dad reflected sadly. “Still never mind. You’ve the afternoon out and you’re coming back to tea with us when you’ve chosen the guinea pigs. Uncle Wilfred brightened up. “Aye. I’ve been looking forward to this over the last fortnight.” We turned the corner of the street. Out of sight of Aunt May’s binocular vision, the pall of her influence lifted from Uncle Wil­fred’s shoulders. His step seemed to lighten. He swung his walking stick with a bit more dash.

Significantly, Captain Wynne’s only record­ed statement on the matter simply says: `Home went out of one window and came in at another.’ ‘The word ‘levitation’ is con­spicuous by its absence.

However, discrediting the witnesses by quoting the discrepancies in their statements does not necessarily imply the incident never took place. Nor have the conflicting add­resses given proved too much of an obstacle in tracing the scene of the phenomenon. Archie Jarman, in his meticulously resear­ched article published in Alpha magazine in October 198o, described how he managed to track down the house in question, using as his first reference one letter — written to Sir Francis Burnand by Lord Adare.

In this letter Adare states that the event took place at Ashley House, but gave it the wrong address, saying it was in Victoria Street. Archie Jarman noted:

The two rooms at Ashley House were connected by folding doors . . . The sash-windows opened onto stone balconies about 15 inches [38 centimetres] wide and running the width of the windows. Lord Lindsay later’recorded that the balconies were 7 feet 5 inches [2 metres 13 centimetres] apart and it was this gap that Home was supposed to have crossed by means of levitation. An important clue given by Adare was that there was a 6-inch [15-centimetre] recess in the main wall of the building between the windows.

Jarman walked the length of Victoria Street hoping to find a faded inscription on one of the older buildings that would reveal the real `Ashley House’, but he found nothing help­ful and no one who knew of its existence. But he did find an ‘Ashley Place’ close to the precincts of Westminster Cathedral and one of its few remaining older buildings looked promising. This was 1—to Ashley Place. The caretaker told Jarman of the building’s chequered history since its construction in 1845; of the minor repairs carried out after a bomb had exploded close to it in 1944, and that the suites — residential in Home’s time ­were now offices. But more significant was the fact that it used to be called ‘Ashley House’ before the two changed it to ‘Ashley Place’ in 193o for some reason of their own.

Teetering on the ledge

As Jarman says, ‘seeing as Home had been flying high’ he took the lift to the top floor, now occupied by a firm of architects. Rather surprisingly, perhaps, Mr Perry, one of the executives of the firm, did not think Mr Jarman a crank in his search for the suite where D. D. Home ‘flew’. Indeed, he was most helpful. He showed Jarman that two of his rooms were, in fact, connected by folding doors as described in Adare’s account.

Mr Perry and Archie Jarman measured the distance between the balconies — 7 feet 5 inches (2 metres 13 centimetres), confirming Lindsay’s description and the 6-inch (15-centimetre) recess mentioned by Adare was also present. The drop to the ground was 45 feet (13.5 metres) — not quite the 8o feet (24 metres) claimed by Home, but still a long way to fall.

Jarman noticed an architectural feature not mentioned in any of the witnesses’ ac­counts — a flat cornice, or ledge, about 5 inches (13 centimetres) wide, ran just below the balconies. Perhaps, after all, the irrep­roachable Home had edged his way along this narrow foothold from window to window, simply fulfilling Captain Wynne’s baldly descriptive statement.

However, Mr Jarman was nothing if not courageous. With some help from the care­taker, and taking sensible precautions, he tried to make his own way along the ledge but soon gave up. It was impossible to cross between the balconies on that ledge.

Another explanation that occurred to Archie Jarman was that Home had perhaps walked a tightrope between the balconies, having previously strung a rope or cord between them and attached it to the old-fashioned pivot-bolt of the blinds, which would have protruded beyond the windows. Intrepidly, Jarman proposed to try this death-defying feat himself but the landlords refused to sanction such a dangerous ‘re­construction’. However, it seems likely that Home could have faked his piece de resistance by some artificial means such as tightrope-walking, or even swinging, Tarzan-like, between balconies.

Jarman’s suspicions had been aroused by two unusual conditions surrounding the `levitation’ on the evening of 13 December 1868. One was Home’s insistence that he would ‘levitate’ out of a specific window and back in through another. Yet this was the very medium who often remarked that he had no control over the ‘spirits’ who, he believed, raised him up. So why put them to the test with 45 feet (13.5 metres) of thin air and a stony pavement beneath him?

Jarman draws our attention to a second suspicious factor. Before his exit from the window Home made the three witnesses promise not to move from their chairs until he re-emerged. When he reappeared he thanked them for their co-operation in this matter. But if they had rushed to the window what would. They have seen, what would their presence have ruined? The powers of the spirits? Home’s concentration as he walked the tightrope or swung from balcony to balcony?

Home’s entire reputation once and for all? We shall never know, for like the noble English gentlemen they were, they kept their promise and remained seated, well away from the window. They saw him go out of one window and come in through another. That is all they saw.

And yet hundreds of people had witnessed Home levitate in drawing rooms in America and all over Europe. There was no doubt in their minds that the lcvitations they wit­nessed were totally genuine, inexplicable phenomena. It would be very sad if Home’s only deliberate cheating was on the occasion of his most famous ‘triumph’.