Never Fear

by Ian Strathcarron

  Friend, this prayer will help Francis recover. Say it when you will but also together with all others every Sunday at noon Greenwich Mean Time.

  Lord, I give you your son Francis who is in pain and suffering. We offer him to Your grace and light and share with You his distress. We believe in You, we have hope for Francis and love for all Your creation.

  Poor Francis. His body was lying in a 1960s National Health ward, digesting 1960s hospital food: thin white bread with margarine, tinned soup, meat and two veg boiled beyond redemption, ditch-water tea and sweet biscuits. He described it thus:

  Hospital routine; dreadful nights, lying for hour after hour, unable to sleep; sometimes choking and gasping for breath; not allowed to switch on a light, because it would wake up other patients in the ward. Patients coming in, having a lung removed, suffering bravely, leaving. Every day the surgeon on his rounds poked my neck with his finger as if to see if I was ripe for the knife. I felt degraded, defiled and deeply depressed.

  As if that was not bad enough, he had the strain of having to be at least part-way cheerful for Sheila every day and having to bear Father Kelly in frantic prayer next to him. He must have thought these were the last rites, and he wasn’t even a Catholic; in fact, he was brought up to be the opposite, a hell-and-damnation Protestant. Sheila sent in two other priests as well, at which point Francis found the strength to rebel and she settled on Father Kelly praying beside him solo.

  Francis particularly came to dread visits from friends:

  I felt too ill to talk. I would make an effort, but felt I needed to conserve the vital spark, and not to fan it into flame. I wanted only to lie still in peace, and to defer the horrid moment when I would start coughing, and pass through the experience of feeling suffocated. I developed a terrified dread of that slow choking from within. I despised myself as I became an abject coward about dying that way. As each fresh crisis built up, I wanted to cry as if surrendering to that weakness that would give me respite.

  Meanwhile, Sheila was becoming decidedly shirty with the medical establishment; there was only ever going to be one winner in that battle. Her visits every day were becoming more fraught and frustrating. She wrote of

  endless tests and x-rays. I asked them not use any more drugs. I must confess I felt a total lack of communication with the doctors in general. I very rarely saw any of the senior doctors and I fear I must have seemed a very strange individual, always questioning what they were doing.

  Away from the hospital, the worldwide synchronised prayers continued apace – and she was developing a Plan B.

  Enton Hall, Francis’s cure spa

  Her nature cure doctor, Gordon Latto, knew of a health farm, then called a hydro, Enton Hall, near Godalming in Surrey. It had once been a Chichester relation’s baronial hall; it has now been divided up into ‘luxury apartments’ but in the 1960s it was a self-styled health clinic. Slowly but surely Sheila mentioned Plan B to Francis, lying distraught on what to her must have seemed his deathbed.

  Francis had defied her before when admitting himself to the hospital; dare he defy her again? The doctors with their ‘endless tests and X-rays’ were gearing up for the operation he knew must be any day now. He had never felt worse or more miserable. Then Father Kelly would arrive and misery and discomfort would take a different tack. Then his wife would arrive, a lone voice against the medical profession, and not a quiet voice to sooth the misery and discomfort. Now Francis was mired in the misery and discomfort of having to make the biggest decision of his life – and to do so utterly enfeebled and autophobic. Sheila or the system? The hospital or the spa? One lung or two – or none? Dr Latto’s hands or the surgeon’s knife? Science or faith? Enton Hall or St Bartholomews? Death foretold or death abeyed? Life restored or life abridged? Decision imminent or decision deferred? To his bedside they came: Sheila; nurse; Father Kelly; surgeon. You must do this; you should do that. Francis, torn this way and that, had to make a decision. Love, faith and hope won: he chose Sheila.

  At Enton Hall at first Francis deteriorated rapidly. The staff told Sheila that he was too ill for a hydro, that he must go to hospital. In the meantime they had to move him from the Hall to one of their chalets as his coughing was keeping their other clients awake at night. But the chalets were cold and damp and he developed a further cough and a return of his asthma. In some desperation, Sheila administered the Laying on of Hands, standing over Francis and taking his head in her hands praying aloud:

  In the name of God and trusting in His might alone,

  Receive Christ’s healing touch to make you whole.

  May Christ bring you wholeness of body, mind and spirit,

  Deliver you from every evil

  And give you peace.

  Dr Latto arrived and said that Francis’s heart could not take the strain of more distress and Sheila must give him hydrotherapy immediately. This was clearly a crisis, the low point at which Francis’s body could easily expire if his spirit had not been determined to live. Thus in the cold, dark chalet Sheila and Francis fought for Francis’s life through the night, applying hot then cold then hot then cold compresses to his back and chest. Sheila encouraged him with talk of the new boat being built in Ireland. Francis ‘knew that they had given me up that night, and somehow it did me good. It infused the will to live into me.’ By dawn he was still alive; a day later he was shuffling around the chalet, a week later shuffling around outside. 1958 was a glorious summer and Enton Hall had glorious grounds, taking Francis back to his nature-filled childhood. Survival was in the air, the sense not of if he would survive, but how.

  Two months later he was well enough to return home. At least that was Sheila’s view; Francis had not seen a medical doctor for weeks. But the return was not a success at first. He was still clearly very weak and the return to his home also meant return to the office, the business he had not seen for four months. Inevitably it had suffered, even though Sheila had stepped into the breech in his absence. And as she would be the first to admit, she was not a natural business person. As Francis analysed:

  My map business had been running steadily downhill. Finally Sheila could not stand it any longer, entered the office and took charge. She had never had anything to do with business before, and on top of that she’s artistic, with a slow casual approach to an issue, which can be maddening to the business mentality. On the other hand, her perception is brilliantly acute, her judgment excellent for half the occasions, and her imagination amazingly fertile for new ideas. Her chief asset however, is that if she makes up her mind to do something, she will do it. She overcame the inevitable frictions, introduced some new ideas, which, if not successful as money-spinners infused some new life into the firm. The hive had a new queen, and came alive again.

  As, indeed, did he. Forty pounds lighter, all folded skin and sticky-out bones, his confidence and personality battered, by early 1959 he felt strong enough to visit his mother in Devon ‘before it was too late’. The visit was not a success and should never have happened; clearly Sheila’s guard was down, perhaps now focused on her other sick charge, the map and guide business. In the cold, damp Devon farmhouse he caught bronchitis, which brought back his asthma. His mother called for a doctor; the doctor asked if his wife knew how seriously ill he was. ‘With what?’ asked his mother. Francis, lying down upstairs, couldn’t help but overhear. ‘Cancer’, replied the doctor. Francis wrote: ‘When I heard this it cheered me up: in fact I laughed. I don’t suppose many have laughed on hearing that dreadful verdict, but I reasoned I must surely have been dead eighteen months ago if it had been a living cancer.’

  Obviously concerned, Francis’s sister Barbara telephoned Sheila with the news that their mother had had to call the doctor.

  ‘What does he say it is?’ Sheila asked.

  ‘Cancer’, Barbara replied.

  ‘Don’t talk such nonsense’, Sheila barked back. ‘He’s got no cancer now. Let him rest, leave him alone. As soon as he is strong enough he will come home.’ It was 1
1 April, Sheila’s fifty-sixth birthday.

  Back in London, Sheila was preparing to send Giles on a school trip to France. Francis returned to London and an X-ray giving him the all-clear. Spontaneously Sheila and Francis decided they need a break in France too. They packed quickly and took the Blue Train down to Nice. They were heading to Vence, a famous health resort in the foothills of the Alpes Martimes, known for its healing air since Roman times. After two days Francis had a relapse and needed oxygen. Sheila was at first unsympathetic, thinking that he had come to rely on oxygen as some sort of prop. But then she doubted herself, perhaps for the first and only time: ‘Can I stand much more of this? Am I wrong?’ she thought, ‘yet at some deeper level I knew it was going to be all right’.

  Which is how Francis met Dr Jean Mattei, the doctor with the oxygen. To Francis he was ‘a remarkable man, a wonderful man, a man’s man: short, nuggety, fit, with terrific energy exuding strength and activity, one of the cleverest lung physicians in Paris before he settled in Vence’. After examining the patient Dr Mattei said, ‘Ce n’est rien, rien, rien. There is nothing serious the matter with you, you’ll see. You will be fine, do not worry. If you follow my treatment you will be climbing up those mountains in three days time.’ And Francis was: ‘At 2,200 feet Baou Blanc may not be much of a mountain, but it was the most wonderful climb I ever made.’

  Dr Jean Mattei

  How did this remarkable new cure come about? Sheila insisted that Francis was already nearly cured by her faith and prayers and Dr Mattei merely put the final polish on her good work. For Francis it was something more fundamental, the discovery of some part of his body that had somehow ceased to function that the doctor had found and repaired – perhaps a bit like a recalcitrant seal in a water pump. Sheila repaired to the local church to thank God for His delivery of Francis to good health: ‘I felt that this recovery was very miraculous. Throughout I was controlled and directed by a power outside myself. I felt that these were holy matters and must be kept private, but this was not to be.’

  Blondie Hasler

  Back in London in May 1959 Francis stopped by the RORC again and saw Blondie Hasler’s notice for a single-handed race across the Atlantic still on the noticeboard. The proposed date of departure was nearly a year old; the race hadn’t happened – yet it still might. He also noticed the chance to navigate Pym in the Cowes to Dinard and Mait II in the Fastnet. How good it must have felt to be breathing sea air again! To be pitting his navigation skills against others and elements! On Pym he had a slight relapse and found a local quack with a needle in Dinard to ‘ginger me up’. On Mait II some nifty short-cut navigation avoiding the rocks entering Plymouth Sound moved them up the field. He was back doing what he loved best, ocean racing and all that that entailed.

  But it was Blondie Hasler’s notice on the club board, by now curling at the edges, that really fired his imagination. ‘Good God,’ Francis thought, ‘I believe I can go in for this race.’ And he did.

  Mait II

  NOTES:

  14. Hasler conceived of and led the mission that took ten Marines in canoes 60 miles up the Gironde River to Bordeaux, where they sank several German steamers at the quayside. Only two of them returned alive.

  I believe that this is the greatest urge to adventure for a man – to have an idea, an ideal or an ambition, and then to prove, at any cost, that the idea is right, or that the ambition can be fulfilled.

  CHAPTER 8

  Gipsy Moth III

  Author’s note:

  As we head into the sailing exploits part of the story I am going to have to use some nautical terms, as life at sea cannot really be described in any other way. Port, for example, means the left hand side of the boat if you are standing at its rearmost part but the right hand side if standing at its sharp end going forwards; starboard, the contrary. So much more elegant to use stern and bow, and port and starboard.

  I’ll keep the sailing terms to the minimum but there is no other way to describe the sail plan. Working from bow to stern, Francis refers to the jibs as his small sails ahead of the main mast, genoas as his large sails and spinnakers as, well spinnakers. There are two masts, the main mast amidships off which hangs the mainsail and the smaller mizzen mast near the stern off which hangs the mizzen (sail). To reef a sail means to lower it partially. A cable is a tenth of a nautical mile, and that reminds me – a mile here means a nautical mile, being 1.15 normal miles, or 1.85 kms. A knot is a nautical mile per hour. Windward means the side of the boat facing the wind, upwind; leeward (pronounced lewod) the opposite, downwind. To tack is to change direction through the wind on the bow; to gybe to do so with the wind astern. To be on starboard tack means the wind is blowing from the starboard side; to be on port tack the opposite.

  That should do it; believe me this could go on for pages!

  EVERY SUNDAY MORNING, RIGHT IN THE CENTRE OF LONDON, some of the world’s most sophisticated yachts take part in a regatta. Like a truly eccentric English round pond, the Round Pond, in the prevailing lee of Kensington Palace, is neither round nor a pond. It is rather a 200 metres by 150 metres by 5 metres deep, round-cornered ornamental lake. When George II built it in 1730 he had no idea that it would not be until 130 years later that it would find its true purpose, to be home to the Model Yacht Sailing Association, and five years later to the London Model Yacht Club. And every Sunday morning, 150 years after that, the LMYC yachtsmen are busier than ever tacking and gybing around the mute and whooper swans, the Canada and Egyptian geese, the mandarin and tufted ducks, all of which paddle away with avian insouciance and a complete disregard for the long-established rules of yacht match racing.

  It was to the Sunday regattas at the Round Pond that Francis repaired during April 1960. He had a problem; the model yachtsmen had the answer. He reckoned that if a model yacht could self-steer herself 200 metres across the Round Pond, his full-size yacht, with full-size self-steering, could in theory self-steer herself in Blondie Hasler’s race across the Atlantic.

  The problem was far more than theoretical. There were problems all over the boat. The Transatlantic Solo Race was due to start in less than two months. Gipsy Moth III had only been re-launched on 3 April, after her winter lay-up at the Agamemnon Boatyard at Buckler’s Hard. Francis, Sheila and Giles had sailed her over to Buckler’s Hard from Tyrrell’s yard in Arklow15 soon after the 1959 Fastnet on Mait III. Apart from that gentle delivery trip from Ireland, an inconclusive shakedown in the Channel and some mild weather trials in the Solent, Francis knew practically nothing about sailing his new yacht. He only knew that he instinctively warmed to her: ‘The yacht suited me. She was staunchly built, and gave me confidence. She seemed so powerful that I felt at first like a small boy astride a tall, strong, broad-backed horse which would not stop’.

  Inevitably there was a snagging list that had to be unsnagged in the yard over the winter, or as Francis put it more poetically:

  I think that there were several leprechauns still on board. One must have had his feet jammed in the rudderstock. By the time we reached the Solent I could only move the rudder by exerting my full strength with both hands on the tiller, and both feet on the cockpit seat opposite. However, Gipsy Moth III has always had a friendly atmosphere, as if she carried the goodwill of the craftsmen who built her, and I try to avoid strangers coming aboard for fear they might trample the Little People and drive them away.

  But above all it was with the self-steering system that Francis was preoccupied. This is the single most important piece of kit for any solo yachtsman, without which life on board would be literally impossible. His old friend Allen Wheeler had by now become what Francis described as a ‘celebrated boffin and aviation consultant’ and had designed what must have seemed to Francis at first sight like a whizzo solution, a kind of autogyro-cum-weathervane with cordage working the tiller directly. Francis was full of a racer’s enthusiasm for this competitive advantage. Then Wheeler bowed out. Undeterred, Francis bought some Meccano, built a rough approximation and
showed it to another friend at the Sperry Corporation. This was by now January, with six months to go before the Plymouth gun. Sperry made a life-sized model and then in late February declared it unworkable except in a stiff breeze; this meant it was completely useless, as breezes are not always stiff, far from it. Three months to go.

  Francis and Sheila already had an appointment to revisit Dr Mattei for a health boost in March and I suspect that it was while mountain high in Provence that he hit on the idea of going to the Round Pond for inspiration. Time was now desperately short; any solution would have to be right first time.

  Just as it was for Francis, I think that a trip to the Round Pond might be fruitful in trying to understand what he was looking for. One sunny Sunday in July, with barely enough wind to muster a ripple, about two dozen yachtsmen are twiddling and twisting their radio control consoles while their charges flop about listlessly on the water. Somewhere between 1960 and now, model yachts had ceased to be vane-steered and became radio-controlled. Undaunted, I approach one of the sportsmen and unburden onto him my dilemma.