Alnwickdotes: No 5: The Fish and Chip Millionaire

Picture thanks to Darrin Henry, darrin@darrinhenry.com, @SaintsDidNext

When Saint Helena Island’s airport opens in 2016, a great feature of life – the arrival of the RMS St Helena at the anchorage will disappear.  (The UK has wagered the island’s future and self-sufficiency on a £192million (US$ 320m) airport. It is a dramatic effort to bring in tourism and investment, without seemingly taking note of the salutary experience of Norfolk Island in the Pacific and Australia.)

Jamestown is always abuzz when the ship arrives.  Crowds line the seaside from the-landing steps to the gate in to the town.  Some have returning loved-ones, others just want to see who’s coming and going.

I recall an extra-special buzz one time. 

Alnwickdotes: No 6 “Ginger” Northumbrian and Cambodian style!

I came across, one of the most fascinating stories of my overseas aid career, purely by accident.  This story apparently explains the existence of the Bunong indigenous people in Cambodia, now in danger of dying out. Although they total around 30,000 in all, they are under much pressure to integrate in to mainstream Khmer Society.

The story centres on the plant ginger.  A Google search then showed up, surprisingly “Northumberland Ginger Tea” , presumbly using Bergamot leaves, as first used for Early Grey and his Howick water? (Not to be confused with Ringtons Teas or another very fine pure Northumberland Tea.)

Alnwickdotes: No 7 Best laid plans of mice and men go awry

        What the children wanted                 What the committee came up with!  

Do you know that children out-perform adult executives?  Yet they play little or no part in “development” projects intended for them.  In 1998 I inherited technical and fundraising responsibility for a major multi-donor funded project to teach human rights in schools.  I spotted one thing that had eluded the educational and development experts.  The entire programme was being carried out without one child in sight.  We soon changed that, but it wasn’t children that spoilt the project.

  

If ever there is a quotation to apply to our line of work, it must be this one.  It could be the motto of the development game, even its guiding spirit! 

However it predates such modern fancy notions, coming from a poem by famous Scottish poet Robert Burns. I have it on good authority of our local paper that “he was inspired by his travels up and down the length and breadth of Northumberland, so that is good enough for me to claim him for linking my county with the developing world. Apparently he did visit Alnwick Castle, Warkworth and Hexham. 

As this is an Alnwickdote, it is another one of those strange occurrences in my overseas development career, one that fascinates many people. 

Alnwickdote: No 8 Island of Propriety in a Sea of Corruption

Lindisfarne and Tynemouth Priories

www.english-heritage.org.uk ; http://www.st-astier.co.uk/images/503.jpg

Holy Island was the first island we knew when growing up in Northumberland.  The county is graced by many ancient monuments, from Tynemouth in the South up to Lindisfarne and beyond in the North.  In this sense, there is a direct comparison with Cambodia and its great religious relics most notably Angkor Wat. 

Looking at these images reminds me again of the oddities and absurdities we encounter in the development aid business.  I am talking about the spoken and written words, and barriers to communication in language and in context.  Too often people do not understand each other, and it only bothers poor people who are too shy to ask.  It is not only the English and Americans that are divided by a common language.

Alnwickdote No 12: Honorary Girl Guide and Royalty

A Cambodian Girl Guide in 2003

The Baden-Powells would never have approved, but for the best part of four years I was an honorary girl guide.  It led in 2000 to the undoubted highlight of all my years in Cambodia with an invitation to dine with King Sihanouk and Queen Monineath.

The Girl Guides in Cambodia were revived by Mrs Meng Ho Leang.  She was also the Deputy Director of our human rights organization. Sadly history may not do her justice, with some of her achievements largely forgotten such as the pioneering of teaching of human rights in schools.  As my colleague, Aine Doody, an Irish volunteer used to remark she was a formidable lady.  “Why is it?” Aine would ask “Can I not go in to meet Mrs Meng Ho without coming out crying?”  She was not alone in that regard.

Alnwickdote: No 9 He died with a smile on his face!

http://www.visitnorthumberland.com/museums-galleries/hexham-old-gaol/www.alamy.com

Hexham Old Gaol was built between 1330 and 1333 and was used as a prison for almost 500 years. Alnwick’s 15^th century Bondgate or Hotspur Tower was also a prison in post-medieval times.

Our most famous jail, or gaol, is Durham "a boarding house where ye divven't have to pay" hear about it from the High Level Ranters here.

When a former accountant colleague died, his family remarked upon his smile.  He and they were happy that in his later life he had provided well for each of them. In fact, they had done exceptionally well considering his salary was just a few hundred dollars a month.

Now we should not speak ill of the dead, so I will leave the thought with your imagination, or for cynics to submit "freedom of information" requests.  The saying reminds me of a similar idiom: "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil!"

Alnwickdote No 10: Fit and Proper in the Aid Business

Gisenyi, Rwanda http://www.godsmurf.com/albums/2007-08-East-Africa/pics/3/0200.JPG

This is the follow-up to my last blog in which I questioned why donors do not practice what they preach when it comes to corruption and misuse of funds.  In this blog I extend the argument to those with regulatory responsibilities.  In my last blog, I referred to an article where it was argued that “rotten apples” should be removed. That is not an easy task!

If you delve in to history, it does not take long to discover parallels from the past with a bearing on life today, some good and some bad.  For instance we have “Rotten Row” in Alnwick, Northumberland.