Think back to the halcyon days of the 70s, the last time we had such a well-hung Parliament, when dead bodies were piling up in Liverpool, and rats held mass demonstrations beneath the statue of Winston Churchill – in the dark, of course, for we had a three day week, TV going off at 10pm and precious little electricity – and you might recall ‘Sunny Jim’ Callaghan. Prime Minster of Great Britain and all that remained of the Commonwealth, the pink tinged globe that we had grown up with. The public face that Britain showed to the world. Sheesh! And you think things are bad now?

‘Sunny Jim’ had gone to Guadeloupe to chat with the Peanut Farmer currently in pole position in that democracy known as the USA about important things like what was he going to say to the IMF, then beating a path towards a bankrupt Britain. President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing of France and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany were there too; head-spinning stuff to be discussed.

Meanwhile, back in sunny Brixton, in the basement of Raccoon Towers, that new fangled invention, a Telex machine, was whirring away. The result of a  complicated back story involving a bent Telecom engineer and my position as director of a scaffolding company in Saudi Arabia. Don’t ask on either count or we will be here all day! The Telex machine was like an early version of the Internet, in that it didn’t take long for ‘spammers’ or ‘traders’ as they were then known, to get hold of your contact details. Day after day the machine would spew out invitations to take a tenth of a quarter of a sixteenth of one per cent on some multi-million pound oil deal…it didn’t take me long to notice that all these billion dollar Dams being built in Botswana and Oil deals in China had ‘sweeteners’ attached to them. This part of the contract had a request for a top of the range fridge freezer to be supplied to someone in the Ivory Coast, that part required a Range Rover to be delivered to Zimbabwe…say ‘Jack Robinson’, quick as you like, and Ms Raccoon had a nice little side line in supplying the bits of the contract that the big boys couldn’t be bothered with. 100 Bedford steering wheels to Sudan – what for? No idea, but off they went. 3,000 metres of Copper household guttering for someone’s palace in the middle of the desert, off it went.

Some of the ‘big boys’ were more than nefarious characters, more than some, OK, probably all of them; amongst them was one John Banks. A five foot three, size 3 shod, supposed ex-SAS wallah. SAS my left foot. Colonel Banks he called himself, he’d made a pretty penny or two shipping mercenaries out to Angola, a whole nuvver story for another time, I haven’t got all day even if you have. He was an amusing raconteur, good company. Company which left me with £100,000 in Togolese ‘whatever they were’ stored in my dog’s kennel for months on end, and serving egg and bacon to 35 people on saucepan lids one morning since I’d long since run out of plates…oh, and could I buy half a dozen ‘rubber ducks’ for him, those inflatable motorised speed boats. I could, I did.

I also decided that I could afford, and needed, a holiday. John offered to arrange the plane tickets for me through a friend. I wanted to go to Jamaica, to a forthcoming Bob Marley concert – John’s friend had ‘connections’ with Air Jamaica. A return ticket to Jamaica appeared at the bargain basement price of £30. Magic. The day before I was due to fly, the ‘friend’ confessed that my ticket was a standby one for Jamaican military, and they needed it…would I mind very much flying to Barbados and taking a connecting flight from there? I did actually, I felt dreadful, sickening for something or other, but no choice…I set off for Barbados with my bucket and spade on a cold winter’s morn.

By the time we were halfway across the Atlantic, I had come down with full blown, head-bolted-to-the-pillow, let-me-die-now, influenza. That dose of flu saved my bacon, literally. On arrival at Bridgetown airport, I couldn’t face arranging a connecting flight and crawled to the tourist desk to request a taxi and a small hotel where I could sweat it out. They arranged both for me. A very pleasant bed and breakfast run by an interesting American woman who had spent time in Chile; a room with a terrace overlooking an army parade ground where new troops were being bellowed into submission. It was unbelievably noisy. After three days with no sleep, and looking like death warmed up, she asked whether I might appreciate going up into the mountains to stay with her boyfriend’s friend, another American who had a plantation in the hills. Wonderful, glorious house, old style colonial. I loved it.

He had lived in St Vincent for many years, and for some obscure reason had taken the last breeding St Vincent parrots with him when he left, and now had a colony of some 300 of them flying around the place. He’d spent time in Chile too, and I enjoyed many an evening sitting on the terrace with a glass of Pimms, parrot watching, listening to his tales of far off parts. You think I’m digressing, don’t you? I’m not, I promise you – all pertinent!

You see, after a few days of this salubrious and restorative life; I thought, sod Jamaica, I’ve missed the concert anyway, I’ll just stay here and soak up the sun on the beach. I went back to the little B & B, and after a lunch of barbecued sardines, lay down on the beach…

I must have dozed off, for I was rudely awakened by four huge goons, local policemen with huge beer bellies and holstered (for the time being) guns in their belt. ‘Ms Raccoon?’ they said whilst simultaneously snatching my handbag from under my head and pulling out my passport to check. I could but agree, I was indeed Ms Raccoon – but what on earth had I done? They weren’t about to tell me, and unceremoniously bundled me into a waiting police car. Even 24 hours later they wouldn’t tell me what I had done, 24 hours of a hot sweaty little police cell. It could only be something to do with that plane ticket, I knew I hadn’t done anything else wrong. Eventually the door opened and a policeman came in to tell me that I was ‘going to the airport’.

Deported! I’d never been deported before, this was exciting! (I do have a strange sense of exciting…) A military plane stood ready on the runway and I was escorted up the steps. ‘Deported on a military plane’, this was definitely one for the grandchildren….it literally never occurred to me that the plane might be going anywhere else, not until it touched down in New York…a car from the Barbados Embassy was waiting for me, and then, only then, did I have the wit to get frightened. Only a short time before, a body had been discovered in a diplomatic bag in London, being shipped off to some African colony. Nobody knew where I was, nobody would tell me what was going on, and my mind was turning cartwheels.

This black windowed limousine rushed off through the New York traffic – I had never been to New York before (or since!). No one spoke. We pulled up outside the Ritz-Carlton hotel. I should have been impressed, instead I was quaking, wondering at what point I should start screaming and shouting for help. The lobby seemed to be full of men in dark glasses talking into their lapels. I was about to encounter the CIA for the first time. Two of them invited me to step into a side room; holding my passport, they asked if I had any other identification. The only thing left in my purse was my Barclaycard – this was at the time of the ‘That’ll do nicely’ Barclaycard adverts, I managed to stifle my giggles as I handed it over. They explained that ‘some Barbadian officials’ wanted to interview me, but refused any other explanation.

Into the lift with these exotic creatures, still muttering into their lapels; the lift arrived directly into a private suite. Inside sat two very large, very important looking, black gentlemen. ‘Tom’ Adams, Prime Minister of Barbados, and his Foreign Minister (can’t remember his name!). They made no move to stand or greet me, just stared at me incredulously. I had come directly from ‘their’ beach after all, and this was winter in New York. They couldn’t have been as baffled as I was; every time someone uses the phrase ‘fallen down a rabbit hole’ I think of that scene.

‘Perhaps you would care to explain to us exactly what you have been doing in Barbados?’ said Adams sidekick. I did, from start to finish, when I reached the bit where the tourist office had kindly booked me into the B & B, Adams whispered something to his sidekick, who went scurrying off. I also explained that I didn’t have a clue what was going on.

‘How long have you known John Banks’? said Adams…ominous question that, I was beginning to smell a rat. Nothing involving Banks ever ended well. I answered him truthfully. Just as well, they knew more about me than I did.

John swears to this day that he didn’t know I had been diverted to Barbados. Swears, he didn’t. On his Mother’s life. Thought I was safely in Jamaica. Hmmn.

Sometime whilst I was over the Atlantic, nursing my bout of flu, John’s latest escapade was coming to fruition. A coup mounted by mercenaries…in rubber ducks, six of them. Oh, yes, small detail. The coup was in Barbados.

The plot had been discovered, and the island locked down. A check made on all visitors. One of them proved to be a known contact of John Banks. Worse, John, thwarted from the money he had been promised for a successful coup, had sold the story to the News of the World. As was his wont, all grist to the reputation…’yes, he’d had operatives already placed on the island’. Apparently the idea was that Tom Adams was to be ‘garrotted’ with piano wire on the parade ground – no wonder Tom had stared so incredulously at me.

For who, you ask, had recently bought six rubber ducks for Mssr. Banks?  Was living in a hotel with a perfect vantage point of the army garrison. Owned by an American whose ‘boyfriend’ was the ex-deputy Prime Minister of the Island – and bitterly opposed to Tom Adams. Had then spent time in the hill top home of an ex-CIA man who’d been involved in the overthrow of the St Vincent government. Who then, when checked out, proved to have a Father involved in something to do with British Intelligence. Why if it wasn’t liddle ol’ Ms Raccoon…just proving that it’s not what you know, but who you know that will end up with Panorama making a documentary portraying you as the Mata Hari of Brixton. (If anyone has a copy, I’d be much obliged…)

The situation had been taken so seriously that Jim Callaghan had made a diversion on his route home from Guadalupe, to Barbados to meet with Tom Adams. The media back in Blighty went ballistic, unaware of the reason for this sudden change of plans. The UK was strike-bound, in darkness, bodies unburied, rubbish piling up, and the Prime Minister was apparently swanning off for a few days rest in the Caribbean!

As Callaghan emerged from his plane onto the tarmac on a dismal winter morn, a disenchanted hack shouted out to him, ‘What d’you think of the chaos, Jim’. Callaghan actually replied ‘I don’t think that other people in the world would share the view that there is mounting chaos’. That exchange, slightly misheard or misinterpreted, by the Sun, became their famous headline ‘Crisis, what crisis’.

It proved to be a phrase that hung round his neck for the rest of his political life – encapsulating the notion that Labour leaders had no idea what they were doing to the country, and ultimately led to his downfall.

Ms Raccoon has never sun bathed again.

* If you want to know how truly bizarre the whole episode was – I arrived back in London on the early morning ‘red eye’ from the US, and walked into my house straight into a scene that was the subject of another post. It’s a wonder that I’m as sane as I am…

binao June 12, 2012 at 12:18

Welcome back and what a great tale.

mef June 11, 2012 at 14:12

Fabulous story….. I have a wonderful image in my head of you with a burnt
nose starting to peel, standing in a bikini and flip-flops, clutching a beach
towel, saying ‘Coup? What Coup?’ to Tom Adams.

Lovely to see you in another, more relaxed, space. Let me mix up a
celebratory Martini….

mef (aka M.Barnes)

Robert Edwards
June 11, 2012 at 11:32

The best one was from a naive publishing gent who, throwing such
imperatives as confidentiality to the four winds, sent out a request on a
’round robin’ basis requesting 500 Heckler & Koch SMGs with ammunition to
match (bless him – he didn’t even know the correct calibre*) for ‘Kenya’. You
may imagine his surprise when Special Branch called upon him that very evening
“with a few questions”. He had simply resent the automatically-generated telex
punchtape out to the entire London Chamber of Commerce Telex Directory. While
drunk.He thought it might be a nice little earner…

It even caused a brief spike in the perceived second-hand price of the MP5
before the cock-up became clear…

*For those wishing to chase this now-stale order (c.1973), it’s the 9mm.X19
Parabellum round…

Robert Edwards
June 11, 2012 at 10:28

A splendid return, with such a hard-to-top tale…
Well do I recall the
weird requests which popped up on the telex machine from complete strangers.
Invariably, they would begin; “Can you offer..?”

Hmm…

Everything from tomato paste (usually for Nigeria) through cement (ditto)
to machine-pistols (end-user cert. no problemo) – payment to be arranged by
confirmed letter of credit drawn upon a first-class London Bank of which
no-one had ever heard.

A sound commercial training-ground, though. The joys of being a
merchant.

But I do love these “Crumbs-from-the-spongecake-of-life” stories – they
fill in so many lacunae in the edited narrative, particularly where politics
and business collide.

I hope that this is the first of many, Anna. E-mail me for the reason for
the departure of Sunny Jim’s predecessor…

Welcome back!

Anna Raccoon
June 11, 2012 at 10:40

End user certificate – no problem!

Those five words tell me that you were emphatically part of the Telex
crowd!!!!!

Chris June 11, 2012 at 10:16

Welcome back, great story, can’t wait for more.

Gloria Smudd
June 11, 2012 at 00:48

Cooeeee, Luv! I see the bar’s got a few reg’lars in already, so set the
dominoes out on the table near the fire and I’ll be over in a while with a
Benedictine for you and a Gin ‘n’ It for me. xx

Leg-iron June 11,
2012 at 00:42

Blimey. I just make up stories – you actually live them!

Mark
in Mayenne June 10, 2012 at 10:28

Nice to be reading your stories again!

wassname June 10, 2012 at 10:11

Welcome back Anna, we’ve been expecting you! Hit the floor, running as they
say, with this incredible story!

Wigner’s Friend
June 10, 2012 at 09:52

As Zoony the Lazoon used to say: “Wecome home!” Nice to see you have
decided to resume blogging. I told you retirement soon begins to pall.

gladiolys June 10, 2012 at 09:32

I am an echo: glad to read you again and thank you for e-mailing to let me
know where you are hanging out.

Not to piss on your parade, I have a quibble: things were indeed grim under
Mr Callaghan. Wasn’t the three-day week, however, and electricity rationing,
the responsibility of Mr Ted Heath?

You call Mr Banks an “amusing raconteur”; you, however, are the most
amusing raccoonteur on the blogosphere.

Best wishes and hope to read more soon.

Engineer June 10, 2012 at 17:14

You’re quite right about the three-day week, electricity rationing and Mr
Heath. It was the Winter of Discontent that happened on Sunny Jim’s
watch.

Actually, in retrospect, the whole decade was one long round of
industrial disputes and political weakness – the propping up of inefficient
nationalised industries and the excesses of some (not all) Union leaders
cost the nation dear.

gladiolys
June 10, 2012 at 18:03

I agree. And now we seem to have completely tossed the coin and it is
some (not all) of the excesses and inefficiencies of international
corporations (specifically banks) which is costing us dear. The wheel
turns.

JuliaM June 10,
2012 at 07:49

Welcome back!

“That exchange, slightly misheard or misinterpreted, by the
Sun..”

Oooh, I know where I’m placing my bet!

Michael June 10, 2012 at 00:30

What a fantastic story! Great to have you back.

Dioclese June 10,
2012 at 00:09

Welcome back – love the design! (wink wink)

drsolly June 9,
2012 at 23:44

Welcome back!

johnny June 9, 2012 at 23:29

So glad to have you back.

AndyS June 9, 2012 at 23:20

I should have said “Nothing wrong with your previous establishment.” Does
anyone know where I can obtain a brain transplant?

Engineer June 10, 2012 at 17:07

Fish is said to be very good for the brain; no need for a transplant,
just gobble a haddock.

AndyS June 9, 2012 at 23:11

A woman with a past and a great storyteller too. I think I shall become a
regular visitor to this cozy little establishment, Not that there is anything
wrong with “The Arms” mind. Nice to have you back Anna.

Ancient + Tattered
Airman June 9, 2012 at 23:06

Frabjous joy. Calloo Callay! My first and best beloved blogger has returned
and is as enchanting and beguiling as ever!

Cascadian June 10, 2012 at 23:43

He chortled in his joy. May I echo the sentiments expressed here, it is
indeed a frabjous day.

And to use the word in it’s correct context……….what an
extraordinary and interesting tale.

Several other tales are hinted here, I do hope we get to hear them.

Mudplugger June 9, 2012 at 22:25

I like this new Snug – warm, cosy, friendly but with an occasional wisp of
waspishness just to keep us on our toes.

Think we might settle here for a while.

Welcome home, Anna.

Anna Raccoon
June 9, 2012 at 22:28

You’ll have to serve yourself though Mudplugger, no bar staff, honesty
box on the way out…

Mudplugger
June 9, 2012 at 23:18

Many years ago, away on a residential management course, the bar staff
obediently closed it at 10:30pm. We quickly learned that the lattice grid
they had pulled down was just large enough to reach through with a
half-pint glass and refill it from the still-working pumps. Thereafter,
each evening, everyone made sure they kept a half-pint glass to ensure
continuity of liquid into the early hours. Rather carelessly, they had
omitted to provide an honesty box. (Or maybe it was just a very subtle
lesson in management.)
Wouldn’t dream of pulling that stunt at the
Raccoon Arms…….but then the Raccoon Arms never closes, we hope.

mef June 11, 2012 at 13:56

Hah – honesty boxes are an excellent way of boosting profits. Many
moons ago I was at a friends wedding in deepest darkest cornwall. We had
the whole hotel (off-season) and the night before the wedding, as
everyone arrived we all wandered into the bar – past the talking parrot
– and started playing pool and swapping tall stories. After 10pm the
owners saw which way the booze was going and said ‘we’re off to bed,
heres the honesty box’… ever tried mental arithmetic after several gins?
Yup – we rounded things up and had to rummage around for another honesty
box when the first one got full. I think the parrot may have learned a
few new words too.

Nigel June 9, 2012 at 21:37

so very good to have you back !!

SagaxSenex June 9, 2012 at 21:34

Welcome back Ms Raccoon! How well I recall the three-day week. My outfit
worked at home then, only gathering in the office on odd Tuesdays.
Productivity rose by 30%. Happy days. Didn’t like those imported French tallow
candles though. Oh, just one thing from an old print-oriented specialist: your
line length is too long for the (default) type size. Didn’t realize you were
in the Frederick Forsythe league. Ever taken a pop at De Gaulle? Sorry,
incoherent with glee at being able to read your stuff again. Grtz (as they
text around these parts).

Mike June 9, 2012 at 21:15

Love it!
PS At the risk of repeating myself, I’m glad you are back,
correction, very glad.

zwartble June 9, 2012 at 21:00

Endorse previous respondents in offering a very warm welcome back.

davidb June 9, 2012 at 20:37

Should I be alarmed that you know my email address?

Anna Raccoon
June 9, 2012 at 21:07

Er, you use your e-mail address every time you comment on a blog!

Michael McD June 9, 2012 at 19:39

WOW, love it. What a fantastic story !
Encore ! Looking forward to more
stories !

permanentexpat
June 9, 2012 at 19:04

Lovely to see you back.
The yarn, hilarious…pure WAugh.
You couldn’t
makeit up…….could you?

Anna Raccoon
June 9, 2012 at 19:15

The truth, around John Banks, is always stranger than fiction. Sometime
when I’m minded, I’ll tell you how he came to be involved in Angola – that
one takes some beating!

heydj48 June 9, 2012 at 18:17

welcome back Anna

Woman on a
Raft June 9, 2012 at 17:30

Curses! Why didn’t you do something about Healey? Farmer Jim was wrong
about a lot of things and near enough smashed the hospitality industry,
putting us years behind the Europeans, but ultimately he was just a Jim Hacker
type and the Queen liked him. I even feel a wee bit sorry for him; he was out
of his depth as he never realized what kind of people he was fronting.

Healey is the one who deserves to have his craggy old hide nailed to a
church door for treachery. It was he who preyed on the ailing Harold Wilson’s
fear of starvation to swing the poor old nutter’s support behind contiued EU
membership. Healey’s was the wicked hand up the backside of both of his poor
glove puppets.

Other than that, good to see you back.

Mudplugger
June 9, 2012 at 22:20

Denis Healey and I were Old Boys of the same school, albeit different
generations.

When he was Defence Minister in the mid-60s and I was a spotty teenager,
he came back to his old school and gave a talk to the senior boys on the
subject of ‘Politics’. An hour later, when he finally stopped speaking, we
realised he had said absolutely nothing – which, in its own way, was a
brilliant talk on politics – a continuous flow of apparently intelligible
words but with bugger-all content.

As you suggest, Sunny Jim seemed like a straight man compared to all the
scheming, twisting plotters around him, including Wilson – the amazing thing
is that he got as far as he did – unless, of course, he was so clever that
we all thought he was just a nice bloke but, in truth, he was the secret
Mega-Mandelson of his day.

Spiral
Architect June 11, 2012 at 04:55

The only good thing about Healey is that he won the Military Cross.

Apart from that he was, and remains, a ridiculous Fabian
hypocrite…………not that there’s any other kind of Fabian.

skinymalink June 9, 2012 at 17:24

What an amazing adventure or should I say misadventure. I remember the 70′s
strikes, we had 4 hours of electricity a day and in that time we had to cook
our meals,do all the laundry things that we do, have our baths and catch a
little TV -it was just too bad if your slot was on when you were working!

Sara June 9, 2012 at 17:22

Welcome back. ‘Tales from the Snug’ will be just the (gin and) tonic.

Engineer June 9, 2012 at 17:10

Welcome back!

Well, it’s well known that Scousers are enterprising folk, but that’s quite
spectacular even by Scotland Road standards. No wonder Mr G took you off
somewhere nice and quiet.

Tony June 9, 2012 at 16:57

Great to see you back, girl!

Brian June 9, 2012
at 16:26

Great story. Reminds me of the time when my headmaster stormed into our
teacherless classroom to quell the ongoing riot, “You’re always involved when
there’s any trouble”, he snarled at me. “Not quite always, Sir” I replied,
realising even at that tender age that I was an innocent trouble-magnet for
ever at the mercy of coincidence.

Amfortas June 9, 2012 at 16:26

I am very glad to see you again, m’dear. If this is the way you are going
to start your new life, in the corner of the snug at the Raccoon Arms,
realating tales that will be very hard to top, I will just sit over here
nursing a large Glenfiddich single malt. And yes, it is a gun in my pocket, I
might need it.

Michael J.
McFadden June 9, 2012 at 16:19

Anna, welcome back to NetWorld! And thank you for one of the most
wonderfully bizarre true stories that I think I’ve ever heard from ANYONE I’ve
actually known — offline or online! You’ve had quite a life m’lady!

Michael

Anna Raccoon
June 9, 2012 at 16:21

There’s acres more where that came from Michael!

Engineer
June 9, 2012 at 16:51

Blimey!