For a man of the sea who has never sailed; to feel the ocean for the first time late on an April eve at age 67 is rather special. To sit in a truck and hear the strains of “Of Wind and Water” by Harvey Reid can take you down to the sea – Lyme Bay maybe, just off Dartmouth, England. Down to mingle with your ancestors – Royal Navy men all – 7 generations, maybe more; 5 Admirals, maybe more: men of the sea and in your blood. But you were plucked out from amongst them at the age of 8.

To hear the plaintive echoes of the refrain “blue water calling me home – water oh water of silver blue” resonates within you. To sit in that truck and dance with the only 5 fingers you have is special. To dance with a woman who is introducing you to Harvey Reid, and who has heard him in person at Cool Water Ranch – it all just adds to the wind and the waves. To hear the 17 tracks multiple times, mostly on 12string, a few on autoharp and even one on mandolin; to dance with just 5 fingers and 10; almost no words, just the gurgle of Hogan Creek out the window – this is the way for an old man to finally feel the ocean. This is the way for an old man to commune with the grandfather he never knew who went down with his ship the HMS Good Hope in 1914. And to commune with his father too, who wasn’t born till 1915 and so never even knew his father at all. Three generations of sea faring men finally brought together by a stream in the mountains of Mariposa; with a woman who dances with 15 fingers. “Show me the road that leads to my home. Show me a sign, tell me a reason ….” Harvey Reid says it all.

July 26, 2010 / Men of the Sea – 2nd C FHP F5 / OC Pg 39 © 2010 / CIP 680, Aug 7, 2010 / EUR GD

It’s coming up on the centennial now. Today, in four years, three months and zero days it will be exactly 100 years ago. On Sunday, the 1st of November 1914, the Battle of Coronel was fought off the Chilean coast between British and German fleets as the opening round of WWI. The Germans, under Vice Admiral Graf von Spee, won hands down. It was their first and only major naval victory of WWI. It was the first major British naval defeat in over 100 years. Clearly it was historic, and it was completely avenged and reversed one month later in the Battle of the Falklands.

I am not going to give you a detailed blow by blow description of the battle. For that and a fascinating range of other information just go to www.coronel.org.uk Richard Bishop has done a superb job of keeping the memory alive and fresh. Here we will just deal with broad brushstrokes and a few proximate causes. There were a few more ships involved but it can be boiled down to two modern cruisers from the German East Asia Squadron that escaped from their base at Tsingtao China (immediately on the outbreak of war (August 4, 1914). These were the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau. On the British side there were 4 ships directly involved but the major players were two old cruisers just out of the mothball fleet: HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth. They were all under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock. Not only were the British ships antiquated they were mostly manned by recently called up reservists. It was no contest. The superbly trained German gunners quickly found their mark. Within about half an hour HMS Good Hope was suffering from multiple hits; and then its magazine blew. She was gone with the loss of all hands (900) in an instant. The Monmouth fought on bravely, but its fate was similar: sunk with the loss of all hands (700).

It is to the crew of HMS Good Hope that I would like to turn to now. Actually both ships but I don’t know anyone on the HMS Monmouth. One would think that with the name Good Hope the chaplain of the ship would feel blessed. I don’t know what he thought of that, but I do know the Chaplain was my Grandfather: Arthur Henry John Pitt. You met him anonymously in the article Men of the Sea above. And that is the key. All 1600 of these brave souls were Grandfathers, Uncles, Brothers, Fathers, and now some even Great Grandfathers of people you might know or remember. One of them that I read about, Herbert Allcorn, had a story very similar to my Grandfather. The notification of his death was also sent to a widow who was pregnant with his son at the time of her husband’s death. Another, George Hill, was the uncle of Margo Clarke, with whom I corresponded at some length back in 2004. Margo was told of another soul – one Joseph Ewart Lyman – who had a very similar story. I suppose it is probably a story told the world over in all navies – be they German, British, American, or Japanese. Especially you might hear that story at the beginning of a war. This is Living History. They all need to be remembered.

August 1, 2010 / HMS Good Hope – 2nd C FHP F7 / OC Pg 40 © 2010 / CIP Aug 7, 2010 / EUR GD

Sometimes geography is everything. Certainly the British believed it to be so at the dawning of the 20th Century. Since 1713 and the Treaty of Utrecht they had controlled the Rock of Gibraltar. Likewise Malta since the 1814 Treaty of Paris; and with France the Suez Canal since it opened in 1869. This is strategic geography at its pinnacle. Winston Churchill, as the First Lord of the Admiralty, still strongly believed in this concept in 1914. It was the chief cause for his fall from favor; a decline from which he did not fully recover till WWII.

History buffs will have already guessed that I am going to be talking briefly about the Gallipoli Campaign. Gallipoli (Gelibolu) was a Greek city on the peninsula of the same name that was destroyed and abandoned in a major earthquake in 1354. The Ottomans soon filled the strategic vacuum. And that is the way it stood for almost 560 years. It was then that Winston Churchill and the British High Command saw the strategic importance of the peninsula between the Aegean Sea and the Dardanelles leading to the Sea of Marmora and Istanbul. It turned out to be a peninsula too far.

This is not the appropriate place to go into great details of the Gallipoli Campaign – though the historical record is quite profuse. Briefly Allied and Imperial forces committed 480,000 troops – chiefly from Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand – they started the initial bombardment in February, 1915 and the evacuation in December of that year. Fundamentally, except for casualties, nothing much changed. The Ottomans still controlled the land and the British Navy kept blocking access to the Narrows till Turkey collapsed in October of 1918.

It would be criminal to not mention the losses on this peninsula too far. They were relatively evenly balanced. I have read estimates ranging between 205-252,000 Allied casualties with 47-48,000 fatalities. Turkish losses were estimated at 250,000 casualties and approximately 65,000 fatalities. That is a lot of loss for little gain. There was also however one participant I would like to mention who ended up neither wounded nor dead – in fact he was decorated. My Grandfather, Lieutenant J. L. Mifsud of the King’s Own Malta Artillery entered the Gallipoli theatre of war on 8 September 1915 and eventually won three medals.

PS It has come to my attention that the last two sentences may not be entirely accurate. The comment 'not wounded' was based only on my reading of the medal citations which did not mention an injury. His daughter, and I have every reason to believe her, tells me that at age 81, shortly before his death, told her of his experience and injuries at Anzac.

August 4, 2010 / A Peninsula Too Far – 2nd C FHP F8 / OC Pg 41 © 2010 / CIP 683, Aug 7, 2010 / EUR GD

Way back in the 1960’s I majored in history at SMCC and UCLA; it was what was then called ‘Real History’ – at least by historians. Ever since, and even before that, my family and I have participated in ‘Familial History’. We all do. Generations come and go and we grow and die in a family. Almost never the twains do meet. But of course they do. It is brothers and sisters who die in real wars; uncles and aunts who live through Depressions; daughters and sons who revolt. When they all do that – then it might be called ‘Living History’.

The decline and dismantling of the British Empire in the 20th Century might be one theme of ‘real’ history. So might be the rise and growth of American Power in the 20th Century. The participation of an Aunt in the early Suffrage movement, a Grandmother in the Russian Revolution, a Grandfather in a famous WWI naval battle, a second Grandfather at Gallipoli – these might be considered ‘familial’ history. And we are not even up to the 1920’s yet. Weave them all together and you have Living History. That is where we are going. We will find quite a few examples, some pretty startling ones; all in one family; mine! Little vignettes and sweeping themes: add them all together and you have Living History.

July 29, 2010 / Living History – 2nd C FHP F6 / OC Pg 39 © 2010 / CIP 681, Aug 7, 2010 / EUR GD

In this piece we will slip both forward and backward in time; we will slip across countries, continents and centuries. We will put an exclamation point on our earlier comment regarding the intertwining of family and history. Our focus will be on Malta, tucked just below Sicily, in what used to be that crossroads of the world - the Mediterranean. It is its strategic location and its transit point history that makes it the fulcrum and pendulum of the centuries.

We could go all the way back to the Knights of St John and the Crusades to illustrate our point but let’s limit it to a little more modern history. British Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder – namesake for both Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh – had considerable influence on the American War of Independence. A few years later Lord Horatio Nelson and Napoleon locked horns in and around Malta during the Napoleonic Wars. After driving Napoleon from Malta Nelson’s Battle of the Nile was decisive. William Pitt the Younger was the Prime Minister during this period and a whole slew of Pitt naval officers and Admirals followed. Mostly they were cousins and uncles of his and the Elder and often their progeny followed in the Royal Navy tradition. My father and his father, and his father before them, were among them. Many of them were intimately connected to Malta – particularly my father.

Here the intimately gets connected to the dispersion of the Russian nobility after the Russian Revolution. Those with the where with all and connections to effect an escape mostly did so through either Vladivostok or Malta. One of the Ladies in Waiting to the Russian Court who escaped to Malta and then eloped and married a gentleman of some standing with the well established Maltese name of Mifsud (July, 1919 in Floriana, Malta). These were my Grandparents. Flash forward about 20 years and another – this time a little more formal wedding – at St. John’s Cathedral, Valletta, Malta – formally united the Mifsud & Pitt clans. These were my parents. From these four principals the connections spread to England, France and the United States; with direct involvement in such 20th Century events as the Russian Revolution, Gallipoli, the Siege of Malta and the French Resistance. But of course, without the marriage of Pasquale Mifsud and Clotilde Enriquez on the 23rd of January, 1893 it would all have been for naught.

July 7, 2010 / Malta – Fulcrum & Pendulum – 2nd C FHP F4 / OC Pg 37 © 2010 / CIP July 23, 2010 / EUR GD

Early on there was a sign that the 20th Century might shake the foundations of the established order right to its core. In October of 1903 the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) broke away from the original 17 group National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS founded in 1897). Militancy was born. Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel, Sylvia and Adela shook and shook and even shocked Victorian England. Starting with smashed windows and gradually progressing to assaulting police officers and after 1912 arson – militancy begat militancy. All of them were arrested at various times with the mother managing it 7 times. Actually gaol was the goal (gaol is the British variation of jail and is pronounced similarly).

Of course there were other important Suffragists and Suffragettes (in Britain the latter was the term used for the more militant branches). Lydia Becker, Millicent Fawcett, Emily Davison and Vera Douie are a few examples. Then too one must mention Lady Constance Lytton AKA ‘Jane Wharton’ of force feeding fame. As a matter of course most of the Suffragettes when arrested refused to eat and eventually were force fed. When Lady Lytton was arrested the authorities refused to force feed her because of her social position and released her. She then ‘dressed down’ and was arrested as ‘Jane Wharton’ and ended up force fed achieving her aim of ‘martyrdom’. Even back then the ladies knew how to use the power of the press.

What is even more interesting to me is how your own family can be tied up with historical events. As we move through 20th Century British History we will find again and again direct, and sometimes a little more indirect, connections to actual historical happenings, movements, battles, elections and situations. The Pitt, Mifsud, Bee and other allied clans will all crop up at various and sundry times. Here we have a case in point, though its centrality from a familial point of view will not become evident till a little over a decade later. To the Bee’s however 1903 was important from the get go.

Marianne Bee (1847-1926) and her sisters Lara Wright, Ethyl and Ada were Suffragettes with the WSPU. While all the sisters were apparently involved to some degree only Marianne and Ada were said to have gone to jail (gaol). I personally even have a vague memory of visiting Auntie Bee (Ada); probably just after WWII before I came to the United States. I remember the bomb damage and a Punch & Judy Show (puppets) amongst the destruction. Anyway they all became important to my father after his father died with the sinking of HMS Good Hope in 1914. Events – historical and familial all.

June 22, 2010 / Woman’s Suffrage – 2nd C FHP F3 / OC Pg 36, © 2010 / CIP 678, July 23, 2010 / BIO, BTR

This is still a Cowboy in Paris which sprung into life in March of 2005 and was born out of Tricolors that first saw the dawn in October, 2000. Lately we have been wandering off in many directions. Often the subject matter has been some aspect of physics; and, even more often, some facet of cancer – death, dying, love, life, or even regeneration. Now we will be on occasion returning closer to our roots – England, France, Paris, Europe; and all from a Cowboy from Paris. It will be from a cowboy who is back in his mountains and reflecting on all of the above; and the setting sun.

February 26, 2010 / A Return to Roots / OC pg 23, © 2010 / CIP 672, Mar 21, 2010 / EUR, GOOD

A few days ago I experienced the most astounding example of serendipity that it has ever been my pleasure to be involved with. A word of history is in order – literally history. Anyone who has been reading this blog since its inception almost 5 years ago will know that I am a proud Englishman, American and Frenchman – at least chronologically in that order. After 1950 it slowly evolved that I was more American than English – thus the name ‘Cowboy’ in Paris is explained.

But that is not the history in question. Until Brad Pitt burst on the scene a few years ago the most common question I was asked when someone heard my name was: are you related to William Pitt? Generally they didn’t ask the Elder or the Younger. For years and years I would answer: my mother tells me yes, but I don’t know. She tells me that we were, and that I have four or five admirals in my lineage. Gradually the answer became: I don’t think so, at least not directly. After I got to Paris I had the time and the interest to research the question more deeply and the answer became: no, at least not directly. And that is where it lay when I came back to the United States just over a year ago.

I hope most of you know that William Pitt the Elder and the Younger were father and son, and Prime Ministers of England during the American Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars. Over there they would be somewhere around the stature of a Washington or a Lincoln over here. Thus the questions were not idle and I did do a considerable amount of research while in Paris. I know all of you know who Brad Pitt was. My answer to that question, especially if the person asking was a woman, usually was something like: ‘I certainly think so, we Pitts are all related you know’.

So where is the serendipity you might ask? On a completely different matter last Saturday I happened to be speaking with the daughter of the landlord of a little cabin I rented in Fish Camp 30 years ago. Her name back then was Zeifert, but now it is Wright – and I have a Wright in my name also. I wondered if she knew of a connection between Wright and Pitt. She suggested I look up William Sidney Smith. I knew I knew the name, but I couldn’t quite place it. A couple of hours later I did look up the name and very quickly excitement gripped me. Three or four hours later I knew for sure that I was related to William Pitt; I knew exactly how; and I knew the names of all 5 admirals. I had to come back home, 6,000 miles from my original home, to find the answers. Thirty, forty, fifty years of questions and it tied together all the original elements of our Tricolors – the United States, Britain and France. That is serendipity!

November 28, 2009 / Serendipity / AFW pg 123 © 2009 / CIP # 789, December 1, 2009 / Good / SHE

Finally I have a fairly good idea of where I am, where I have been, and where I am going. Finally my past, my present and my future are shimmering into something approaching clarity. Twenty months it took to integrate the preceding 20 months. Our preceding 10 years and my 40 years before that are also becoming clearer. My earliest 10 years are probably impossible to reach back to.

It was actually on writing that last sentence, and walking away and thinking about it, that I realized perhaps it wasn’t entirely accurate. Maybe, maybe, maybe the first 10 years of my life have been lost to my memory simply because I lost my father. Until today, right now – somewhere into my 67th year that never occurred to me. Maybe it took 20 months to understand her final gift. Anyway that is for another essay.

Now I want to concentrate on the clarity. Forty months ago in my little office overlooking all of Paris I had clarity. I knew where everything was, I had systems set up to aid my deteriorating memory. I knew my financial situation, and it wasn’t bad. The game was pretty successful and appeared to have a future. My wife and I were happy – truly and deeply happy. And my view outside my window was beautiful. Finally much of that has been restored. True, physics has replaced the game, but that process was already started in Paris. Memories have replaced my wife, but they are vibrant and alive. And the view outside my window is different but still beautiful.

It took the full forty months to restore a system where I had a reasonable idea of what I have and where it is. For sure it was stressful. With three moves and three triages I had to come to the realization that I did not have, and could not have, any real idea of where anything was. I could reorganize what I still had with me, and consign everything else to history. That is what I have done and finally I know where I am. It’s all good.

The way forward is backwards. I’m not talking here of ‘opposites aren’t’ or ‘the arrow of time.’ More the solidity of the truths of youth – mama said … the golden rule … the Desiderata. It was a line from the latter: “many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness” that led me back to clarity. I’m back with the birds and the wildlife – back to the words and physics. These are truths that I can understand.

November 21, 2009 / Finally a Path / AFW pg 118 © 2009 / CIP # 787, December 1, 2009 / Good / SHE

The New Wave has become old. Very old. Of course, even then, the New Wave was just a new name for an old phenomenon. The last fad, the latest word: the tulip bulb craze, the hula hoop, beanies, dot com, Sudoku, Reality TV, Wikipedia, & Borat. The list is endless, and annual. Some connect the term to the music of the 1970’s – punk rock and semi punk. Others connect it to French films of the 1960’s – Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard (Breathless) etc. I suppose some even connect it to surfing.

Of course the breadth and length of the term could be debated. Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler were the last rage, both figuratively and literally, for a long time. Bill Gates and Tim Berners-Lee launched sensations that were, and are, a la mode. Albert Einstein and Edward Witten conceived of singularities. Henry Ford and the Beatles were far removed culturally – and yet? To some degree the position on a timeline is instructive. The wheel, the cart, the bike, the automobile, the train and the plane have all at times been the latest in a continuum. Beam me up. But let’s get real, and back in vogue.

Truly you begin to understand cyclical ageing when you go to see a movie – say Casino Royale – and when it is finished all you can say is “I know I’ve seen that movie before, but I can’t remember where or when.” And it is then, that you can be pretty sure, that you, personally, are probably not going to launch the next new wave.

595 – The Next New Wave … Cyclical Ageing / Used June 7, 2007 / CIP 3, © 2007 / SHE