good cateress newsletter aug 07

good cateress newsletter, aug 07

We spent a good part of the 60’s, my early childhood years, in Germany. Dad was a Military man. From 1963 - 66 we lived in Berlin, those years we would drive down to Riccione on the Adriatic coast of Italy for our summer holidays. Usually we left right after my birthday in late July, after all I had to have a birthday party with my friends.

Mum and dad would get us up in the dark, for an early start. The car a German Ford Taurus station wagon, would have been packed the night before. It is hard to imagine living in New York that we could do such a thing, but after all it was not theft that we were worried about. Dad wanted us through the various checkpoints; Allied, East German and Russian before first light to avoid the queues and searches of that time. I do remember how quiet and desolate the Berlin Corridor was at that time. You did not stop or get off that road. Once we were through East Germany into the West how different it was. There was a British outpost immediately after the Border where we stopped for the necessary bathroom stop and breakfast.

From here the drive was long and hot on the autobahns; no air conditioning in cars then. The windows were all open, a breeze blew in from the motion of the car. Mum had her Triptik of the trip, as each year passed more notes were added. I learnt early on from these long journeys to pack things to do; books, crayons and paper, one doll. No chocolate it melted but chewy sweets. Mum made cool thermos’s filled with icy lime squash a prerequisite for every picnic. (in England and other European countries we have flavoured syrups and squash’s that we add to water, it is where Roses Lime Juice came from). We sang, ‘Ten green bottles’, ‘One man went to Mow’; ‘Twinkle Twinkle little star’; ‘I’m a little teapot’. Played I spy and other games.

Looked for trains. In the early years we were excited to see an electric train rather than steam; slowly that changed in the final years the electric far outnumbered steam. Simon and I got peevish and quarrelsome.

A couple of years ago I read Caramba by Nina Marie Martinez, in which she describes her family’s drive from Chicago to Mexico in the summers of the 60’s. As I read I had a huge flashback of our travels to Riccione. The heat, the laughter, the grumblings.

Our first night’s stop would be in a hotel down in Bavaria just outside Munich. It was always fascinating to Simon and I they had framed photos on the wall of Berlin before the wall went up, which amazed us as we had never seen it without the wall. We loved to stay here, they knew us after many years. I always had Steak and Pommes Frites, the frites were incredible, long and thin, brown and crispy. Our beds all had old fashioned feather duvets, that were huge and you shook them all out.

The next day we would play, who would be the first to see Mountains. Suddenly there they would be purple in the light rising high into the blue sky. The drive through the alps ws the day of the trip we loved most; the air was cooler, for a start. Each year we had watched one of the huge bridges, maybe the one over the Brenner pass, be built. It was scary to think of men being brave enough to build towers that high in a valley. Our favourite part of this drive was that night we camped on the side of a small road, beside a mountain stream. Dad would get up the next morning and bring us ice cold water from the river to drink, as he put the kettel on the camping gaz stove to make delicious tea.

One year at dusk, as we came down through the Italian Alps, we could see people climbing the mountains with lanterns. Lots of people swinging lanterns all across the valley. It was mystical and beautiful to see the mountains outlined with swinging lights; something out of a movie. I believe it was a saints festival.

And so from the cool of the mountains to the heat of the Italian plains. Italy looked totally different from Germany. Scruffier somehow. It had huge billboards along the roads with a scary dragon breathing fire. Noisier too.

By late afternoon we had arrived at the Hotel Jeuness in Riccione. The hotel was a mid sized family owned Hotel where three generations of the family worked here. The son Manueli was slightly older than me, my one great memory is of constantly hearing his mother or grandmother calling for him from the back door. Manueli taught Simon and I to play a card game, Scallacaranta, that all the grown ups played on the balcony surrounding the hotel. Manueli was really good at this game and often beat the grown ups.

Now here is the sad part for me as an adult. I now know that the food was incredible, mum and dad loved it, for mum it was why we went. Lunch every day was a different pasta, followed by a fish or meat and vegetable. I remember the smells; occasionally I go into an Italian restaurant and I am taken back to Riccione. I feel sure that I have mentioned before that I was a dreadful eater, fussy would be a mild description. Sometimes I ate plain pasta, sometimes some sauce, rarely the two together; Fish, there might be a bone. Salad and bread and butter were good! I do remember the zucchini fries, thin, juicy, crispy on the outside, nothing at all to do with the fried zucchini I once ordered here in the states. Dessert was mostly incredible fruit, peaches, apricots, cherries served in a clear bowl of iced water.

Our first morning Simon was up early eager to be at the beach and see his friend Tonino. We rented space on the beach under a long sunshade from Tonino, he was also a fisherman, who occasionally took Simon out in his boat to help him take the fish from his nets, he let Simon kill the crabs in the nets with a mallet.

The beach by late morning was packed with people, a lot of Germans. We would swim, play on the beach, walk with our baby nets and catch little shrimp and fish to look at, oh yes and sea horses. I have never seen a sea horses since then, but we would catch one or two, such amazing creatures. Small planes would fly over trailing advertisements, dropping samples and leaflets. There were boat trips to the Island Catolica.

People walked up and down the beach selling things; cold drinks, ice creams, fruit and the like. We were allowed one thing in the morning and one in the afternoon. My morning item was a banana ice cream, shaped like a banana, it came from the cafe a little further up the beach on the promenade with the beach huts. It was full of load people and a juke box, I remember “Volare” being played; I wanted to be older and part of this group!

In the afternoon a man came along with a case strapped around his neck; the case was filled with jewel-like fruit and nuts. The fruits were on skewers and had been dipped in a light caramel that then set around the fruit and was crunchy. When you bit through the crunch there was the soft chilled fruit, it was divine. Like nothing I have had since.

The days passed. Melding into each other. The walk down the road to the beach, sun, sea and sand. Chat before meals on the balcony. There seemed to be fireworks every other night for a different Saints holiday. One night there was a huge storm, the sea was really churned up the next day, with big waves and really warm sea.

Before we knew it was time to leave. Lots of Ciao’s, see you next year.

The return journey always seemed to go faster. There was a place on a road where mum and dad had spotted walnut trees, we stopped for lunch nearby and scrumped ‘wet’ walnuts to take home, dad’s favourite. Was it this roadside restaurant or another where we stopped and I ate the most delicious meat, wanted more, such a surprise to everyone. I kept asking what it was, as I also went out to pet the calf tied out back. One trip we stopped at a truck stop, where I had a salad of some sort. There was a red thing I didn’t recognize, everyone waited with trepidation as I tried it. I loved it, peppers and asked for more.

We moved back to England, our holidays were to France and Spain. For me the Hotel Jeunesse and Riccione remain a favourite.


Stay cool in the sizzling dog days of summer

good cateress newsletter sep 07

good cateress newsletter September 07


The Lunar Eclipse last week reminds me that the Spring tides must have been taking place. These are the big tides that would mean prawning in the early mornings along East Cowes breakwater, to catch the tide as it was changing from high to low.

Waking early, to find the chill of early morning fog, I would want to roll over and return to sleep. But everyone else was up and eager to be off. Dad would have bought tea to everyone to get them up. Prawning along East Cowes breakwater in the late summer Equinox tides was family tradition, I have a photo of my grandmother doing just this taken in the early 50’s.

The trick for me about the prawning was trying to maintain some level of body heat, while wading around in cold water. Having swam in the warm Adriatic and wonderfully heated pools all through Germany, I had not known that the sea or pools could be cold. Earlier that summer, in May we had gone swimming for our summer PE class at High School. I had eagerly lined up on the side of the pool and jumped in. But this was England in the 1970’s where heating pools was seen as extravagant It had never occurred to me that the water would be anything but warm, so when I hit that water I wasn’t prepared for the breath sucking iciness of it. I have always maintained that I levitated back out of the water. I learnt quickly that most of England's water was cold.

So now a little more awake I was standing looking at the blue green water, bracing myself to ease into its chill. The prawns were caught with pushnets with a flat base and mouth about four feet wide attached to a long wooden handle. These were pushed along the sandy bottom and around the bases of rocks catching a great variety of baby fish, prawns, shrimp and bits of seaweed. The prawns were grabbed out of the nets and stored in a plastic bag tied around the waist. I can still taste the early morning mist on the water and smell of rotting seaweed around the harbour breakwater.

Diana and I were the last holdouts to get in the water. We must have looked hilarious, from the waist down we had swimsuits and old sneakers, on top we had t shirts and a sweater. From the feet up to the knees the water was vaguely OK, but even a gentle wave was shocking. Simon, of course, was in the water splashing around, pushing his net and catching prawns. By the time I was finally eased into the water everyone else was ready to go home, we had enough prawns for lunch and more.

The translucent prawns, squeaked quietly to themselves on the way home. I try not to think that they were gasping in the air and dying. A big saucepan of water was put on the aga to boil as we all had a hearty breakfast of bacon, sausages and tomatoes, toast and honey.

But my favourite equinox event, was cricket on the Brambles sand bank.

My great uncle, Uffa Fox, designer of the airborne lifeboat that saved so many pilots and crew in the second world war; yacht designer and racer and great adventurer. Had over a few years watched the exposure of the Brambles sandbar, just outside of Cowes Harbour, during the autumn equinoctial tides. He kept thinking that there must be something that could be done on the sandbar and eventually came up with the idea of a game of cricket. The original teams had been Uffa’s office and work crew against the Parkhurst Prison Officers. The first game was played just after the second world war.

The Brambles sandbar would be exposed for only an hour, so the trick was to be out on the boats, anchored, ready as the sandbar emerged from the water. We would jump or in my case clamber, into a dinghy and row to the increasingly exposed bank, pull the dinghy up onto the sand. As the cricket stumps were placed, along with the red ensign and Uffa’s skull and crossbones being raised, the team captains would toss for who went ‘in’ first. The game would commence. There were always plenty of balls, and I believe they were American softballs, as they were easier to play with in the cold and wet. If a ball went in the sea it was counted as a 4, someone would have to swim out for these balls or they would just be left to float away.

The games I went to, Uffa with his usual charm would have persuaded British Hovercraft to bring the teams out and park the hovercraft on the sand. The Hovercraft was invented and built on the Isle of Wight. BHC would bring the new models for their test runs on the river by the Folly.

It was pretty amazing to be standing on this small sand bank playing cricket, surrounded by chilly grey green sea. Boats would come close to see what we were all doing, then stay to watch the ensuing game. There was much cheering and good natured booing by all concerned. We were also allowed to be out of school for these family traditions, so the pleasure was doubled.

All too soon the tide would turn and the game would rush to a close as the water quickly started to come back in. Stumps and flags taken down as the water lapped around our ankles. Back on board boat, we would have cups of tea from the thermos, or whisky macs for the men, with a big chunk of divine fruit cake.

There were other events on the equinox tides. Over at St. Helens on the East side of the Island, there was the fort walk. During the Napoleonic wars, Palmerston had ordered four forts be built in the Solent to protect the fleet at Portsmouth. St. Helens was the one closest to the Island. At the low equinox tide we would walk out and climb on the fort.

I should add here for all these adventures the clothing was similar, bare legs and many layers on top. When I think of an English Summer I am reminded that the evenings are rarely warm enough for outdoor activities, although the English try very hard for this not to be the case.


Uffa recounts his own telling of the equinoctial cricket match in his book “Joys of Life” and my aunt June Dixon wrote of it in her Biography of him, Uffa Fox a Personal Biography.