Edward Allen

Dear All,

It has been a week of journeys, of turning 32 and more medical tests. And turning 32 felt odd. I celebrated it by hosting a tea party for 3 of my nephews, my dear mother prepared everything and we had jelly and ice-cream, chocolate cake, party poppers, and silly hats. It was truly as if the ’80s had returned, and sweet memories to hold on to during the hard times when back on the field.

I’m slowly still getting better, the pain is frustrating and it has been difficult sleeping, but the progress overall is very encouraging. I’m having some problems with drug side-effects too, but hopefully these will get better under control soon.

A few days ago I went back down to London for more medical tests and to see another consultant there. The latest thinking from my doctors is that my reactive arthritis was perhaps triggered by a virus, rather than a bacteria, and this perhaps got in to my system when I was up to my waist in mud winching my truck out, through contaminated water in the mud. My illness isn’t a tropical disease, reactive arthritis is actually most common in Scandinavia, but obviously getting the bad case of dysentry earlier in the year weakened me considerably.

Whenever I go to London, I take the train as my parents fortunately live only about 20 mins from a train station which has a couple of trains an hour into the centre of London, right in to the heart of the financial district. The train takes about 1 1/2hrs and it is so serene, British people culturally don’t talk much when they are on the train so it is easy to sleep and read.

The big British train stations are beautiful, vast, cathedral-like, and so so cold. I tried warming myself up by buying a 672 page biography of Stalin in the station bookshop (I thought it might be good insulation) but that didn’t work. When they designed the train stations they forgot to put any heating in, I guess the steam trains used to warm the place up well, but now the steam trains are gone and spending some hours waiting for a train is difficult, eventually I found a Starbucks with a heater and tried to defrost. There are very few seats in British train stations which is hard to understand why, but perhaps the management just don’t like people very much. And there are no litter bins either, because nasty people have in the past liked to put things that go bang in them. It is basically Siberia…

Britain has changed, there seems a hostility towards the financial services industry that really wasn’t there in this way just a few years ago. When I was browsing in the bookshop at the station I saw a recently revised book titled “People who have trashed Britain” which boldly boasted on its front cover “Now with added Bankers!”.

Whilst I was waiting for my train I came across a recently unveiled statue of children in front of the train station. It was to celebrate and remember the “Kindertransport” when a large number of Jewish children from central Europe were evacuated to the UK just before World War 2 started and many of the children have gone on to have amazing careers. In total about 10,000 children were saved from persecution in Nazi Germany, Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, but none of them travelled with their Parents and indeed many of their parents subsequently died in the Holocaust. The evacuations only stopped when the war started. It wasn’t a religious thing, noble people from all over British society rose to the occaison from every religion and region, and so many families took the children in. It is a bit of British history worth remembering, and a timely encouraging example of how a few good people can really make a lasting difference.

Next week brings more meetings, more travel, and more generally sorting things out. I’m now rebooked to arrive back into Laos on the 16th February, but it is possible I’ll be further delayed in the UK.

lots of love,

Ned