I’ve been following the case of Alex Batty with interest. I know the area; my house is three kilometres from Chalabre. I’ve seen plenty of counter-cultural types around the place. One evening a year or so ago, in the pouring rain, I saw a young man on a bike with no wet weather gear. We invited him in and gave him a whisky, and he sold us rhodedendron honey from the mountains, which his friend produced (with the help of bees) and which he was cycling around trying to sell, in pouring rain. His name was Bruno and you’d assume him to be one of those counter-cultural types, like the people who live up by Lac Montbel in shacks and caravans and containers. Good for them, it’s a hell of a view.
Back to Alex.
Media report: He was found wandering on a mountain road.
Me: He was found on the main road between Camon and Chalabre. This road is flat (it runs along the valley floor) and passes at least three villages as well as plenty of individual houses, and a massive peach and apple farm with a magnificent 24-hour dispenser machine that can provide apples, peaches, wine and juice, for a reasonable-ish price.
Media report: He lived in the mountains near Quillan.
Me: The landscape around Quillan is stunning: steep gorges, rivers, and the town of Rennes-le-Chateau, a magnet for the spiritually and conspiracy-inclined because of ley lines and a buried treasure and an evil vicar or something. And some Templars. There are always some Templars. But the hills of Quillan are not the Pyrenées. It’s not flat:
But it’s a canyon: you don’t have to scramble up and over. There are roads.
Media report: He walked for four days through the Pyrenées.
Me: Not unless he set off in the wrong direction. You’d have a couple of hills along the way, but it’s only 25km between Quillan and Chalabre, which would take about six hours to walk.
So while I’m very glad that Alex has escaped his clearly self-centred and not particularly level-headed mother, I wonder at both the media narrative and what actually happened. Why was he only walking at night? He wasn’t a resistance fighter making his dangerous way through the Maquis. If he had left from Quillan or nearby, why was he walking back on himself from Camon to Chalabre? Maybe the media requires him to be a feral Jack London type rather than a teenager carrying a skateboard walking on a main road. A more important question: with everything that is going on in the world, why do I care about this?
Because it is geographically incoherent and that is far more important than an appalling war in Gaza, Houthis taking seafarers and ships hostage, HRT shortages everybloodywhere still, and all the other bleak and soul-sagging news. Actually the truth is my brain prefers to meander around the roads of Aude rather than confront trigger-happy IDF soldiers shooting bare-chested terrified hostages. And the rest.
If you do not subscribe to Lev Parikian’s lovely newsletter Six Things, change that and subscribe right now. Every week is great but last week he combined albatrosses with this fabulous clip from the West Wing, which I’m borrowing because it’s about geography and geographic incoherence. Also, CJ pushing Josh’s manspreading away like she would swat a fly, swoon.
Animal hero of the week : Police Horse Upstart
It’s Christmas! Let’s talk about bombs!
At 10.43am on 20 July 1982, a nail bomb hidden in a blue Morris Minor exploded. It had been planted by the IRA and timed to kill passing military personnel who were taking part in military parades. It worked. Three men were killed, one died later. Seven horses were killed. Here is a sanitised picture:
And a shocking, unsanitised one.
The ferocity of the colour. The blue Morris Minor, the red Mini, the dark red blood, the dead black horses.
It was an horrific bombing and was followed at 12.53pm by an equally horrific one on that had been laid under a Regent’s Park bandstand where a military band was playing Oliver! (the exclamation mark is part of the title, I can’t help it). Eleven people were killed in total. One severely injured horse, Sefton, recovered and was judged to be Horse of the Year. I can’t find the name of the seven horses who died, although they must have had names.
Instead anyway I’m going to tell you about another bomb. Here is the citation from the PDSA Dickin medal:
Upstart - DM 49
Date of Award: 11 April 1947
While on patrol duty in Bethnal Green a flying bomb exploded within 75 yards, showering both horse and rider with broken glass and debris. Upstart was completely unperturbed and remained quietly on duty with his rider controlling traffic, ect., until the incident had been dealt with.
OK. Fair enough.
Hang on.
It was 1947. What was a flying bomb — also known as a doodlebug — doing flying around in 1947? My mother remembers doodlebugs. “It’s not the noise you dreaded, it was the silence because then you knew the bomb was going to drop.” My mother was born in 1940 and a war baby. She remembers the doodlebugs but also having to sit in a cage under the dining room table. This was their bomb shelter. One day she’ll actually write the book I keep telling her to write, which begins, “My first memory is being in a cage.”
PDSA has produced an Upstart booklet which reads:
No stranger to the effects of enemy fire, the stable where he was originally posted was severely damaged following an attack on a nearby anti- aircraft station, Police Horse Upstart epitomised coolness under pressure.
Relocated to Bethnal Green in the East End of London after his stable had been damaged, Upstart was on patrol with his rider D.I. J. Morley when a ‘flying bomb’ exploded less than 75 yards from their position. The force of the blast showered both horse and rider with broken glass, debris and shrapnel, yet Upstart remained calm throughout the incident.
Did Upstart start? Did he start up? How many more bad puns can I make? No he did not. He was, in Catherine Tate’s words, not bothered.
Upstart was completely unperturbed and remained quietly on duty with his rider controlling traffic, etc. until the incident had been dealt with.
How was it dealt with? What was a flying bomb doing in Bethnal Green? The booklet tells me nothing.
It doesn’t even tell us which horse is Upstart. But never mind, I can identify him because he was chestnut (no use to me when the photo is black and white) and he had a snip.
A what now?
Someone somewhere has developed a whole vocabulary of words to describe markings on a horse’s face and that delights me as much as reading tool or stationery catalogues. And Wikipedia has a whole page on Horse Markings which makes me feel inclined to actually give Wikipedia some money (I have, routinely, but the hard sell is a bit too much. I’ll capitulate eventually.) You are dying to know what horse face markings are called so here you are.
Common facial markings are:
Blaze: a wide white stripe down the middle of the face.
Strip, stripe, or race: a narrow white stripe down the middle of the face.
Bald face: a very wide blaze, extending to or past the eyes. Some, but not all, bald faced horses also have blue eyes.
Star: a white marking between or above the eyes. If a stripe or blaze is present, a star must be significantly wider than the vertical marking to be designated separately.
Snip: a white marking on the muzzle, between the nostrils.
Faint: A small but permanent marking that usually consists of white hairs without any underlying pink skin.
Interrupted: A marking, usually a strip or blaze, that is broken and not solid for the entire length of the face.
Connected: Occasionally used to describe distinctively different markings that happen to be joined to one another
Irregular or crooked: A marking, usually a strip or blaze, that does not have a more or less straight path.
Lip markings: have no specialized names, usually are described by location, such as "lower lip," "chin", etc. Lip markings may indicate presence of the sabino color pattern.
“Lip markings are described by location such as ‘lower lip.’” Genius.
A snip is second from bottom right. So that photo doesn’t help. The first horse has no marking, the second has a star and the third has a blaze. Where is the snip?
Maybe this one is clearer:
But no, a star and a blaze again. WHERE IS THE SNIP?
More mystery, from Wikipedia:
The first three horses (Upstart, Olga and Regal) were selected primarily as a way to honour the entire mounted police force instead of singling out any particular deed.
So there was no bomb? Was there no horse? No snip?
I have no answers. It is a conundrum. All I know is Police Horse Upstart got through the war and then the flying bomb that may not have been a flying bomb, and he had a good name and a snip.
Finally.
I’m doing my best to ignore Christmas but apparently it is still going to happen. So happy Christmas to you all. Also, if you’d like to give me a Christmas present, I’d settle for a like or a comment. We are desperate people, writers, and when we don’t demand monastic solitude we want interaction all the bloody time. Ho ho ho.
Rose George: some rambling is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
All the thankings for the generous hat-tip, Rose, and for the horse markings thing, which may well become Thing Five in a newsletter near you at some point in the future (with due credit given, of course). Happy Notchristmas.
All the thankings for the generous hat-tip, Rose, and for the horse markings thing, which may well become Thing Five in a newsletter near you at some point in the future (with due credit given, of course). Happy Notchristmas.