A Special Day

John Downes (1925-2006)

Mary Downes (1922-2002)

Its St. Valentine's Day. No-one really knows who St. Valentine was. Indeed, his name was removed from the church calendar in 1969 by Pope Paul as part of the Vatican II purge of dodgy saints. This was one of the most unfortunate pieces of Roman Catholic PR of the last few years; they removed the official status of much loved saints such as St. Valentine and St. Christopher, on the grounds that they were of doubtful historical veracity, whilst retaining support for a whole slew of dull, but worthy ones that no-one really gave a damn about. Once again, those in power over us show very little understanding of what the people as a whole actually need or want!

However, I digress.

Today is not just the feast day of a probably fallacious patron saint of lovers. It has two far more important connotations for me personally.

Exactly a year ago, I was sitting by a hospital bed in the Intensive Care Unit at Barnstaple Hospital. I was holding my father's hand, and waiting for the LED figures on the life-signs monitoring equipment by his bed to tell me that his long struggle was over. I sat with him for the last twelve hours of his life, and at 6.30 in the morning; 365 days and two and a half hours ago, he died.

Not a day goes by that I don't miss him. We had a pretty fraught relationship in life, but during his last eight months, as - together with the boys of the CFZ - I nursed him through his final illness, we became friends, and the old hurts were healed.

As I said at his funeral, I owe him a great debt. Everything that I have ever doine in my adult life, I was taught how to do by him. He taught me to drive, type, use the English language, lay out professional documents, build dry-stone walls, and even how to play the guitar. Without him I would not have achieved the things that I have achieved, and I would not be sitting here typing this now.

Rest in Peace, Dad.

This Picture was taken the night he died by Kaye Phillips,
who is the nearest thing I have ever had to a sister...

Five years ago today, my mother was dying in the same hospital. She and my father had been childhood sweethearts, since they met in 1932, and except for the years when my father was away at sea during the war, they were together for the next seventy years.

I cannot imagine the wrench it must have been for him when she died in March 2002. To have someone in your life for seven decades is unimaginable - at least for me, but I can understand why life was never the same for him after she died. I have always taken a great consolation in the fact that the two lovers were reunited on Valentine's Day.

There is a third reason why today is important to me. Well actually it is tomorrow, but who is quibbling?

Two years ago, tomorrow, I met Corinna, and - just like my father in 1933 - I knew that I had finally found the person with whom I wished to spend the rest of my life. Back in 1974 when my Dad was teaching me to play the guitar, he did so by using the pop songs of his youth. I resented the heck out of him for it. I wanted to be John Lennon, or Jimmy Page, not some weirdo music-hall singer of the 1920s, but the experience served me well. Not only can I now play guitar reasonably well, but I vaguely know a particularly trite song called "I want to marry a girl (just like the one that married dear old Dad)"

My mother was a remarkable woman. Together with my father they explored parts of West Africa that no European had visited for half a century or more, but she spurred him on to achieve extraordinary things. I truly believe that the semi-educated, and shy Grammar School Boy from Salisbury would never have risen to the heights of being Colonial Secretary in H.M Hong Kong Government, or have been made a companion of the Imperial Service Order, or any of the other things he did without her. I don't remember who it was who said that "behind every great man is a greater woman" but damn tooting!

On 15th February 2005, I met my "great woman". As I write this, she is putting together the last preparations for a last-minute dash up to the Lake District so we can interview another giant eel witness, and look at what may be some conclusive photographs. Its cold, its windy, and - to be quite honest - I don't want to go! But Corinna is pushing me in the right direction, in a markedly similar way to how my mother always pushed my father.

I think it is highly unlikely that we will have seventy years together - I have no intention of living to the age of 115 - but for however much longer we have together on this planet, I am not just in love with a beautiful and highly intelligent woman, but I am now in a partnership as strong, and as solid, as that of my parents. The shy, and semi-educated Grammar School boy from Bideford can now go on to great things! (And it's all down to one woman, and my Dad)

Dad, and Mum, I miss you!

Corinna, I adore you!

I love you both.

Do they owe us a living?

My cousin has just sent me this. She has been giving me good advice since 1963, and so - as al2ways - I am doing as she suggests and passing this on. If this is true it is just another example of this execrable government behaving like fascists and not even making the trains run on time....


If you drive a car, please read -

Sarah Kennedy was talking about this proposed car tax scheme on Radio 2. Apparently there is only one month left to register your objection to the 'Pay As You Go' road tax.

The petition is on the 10 Downing St website but they didn't tell anybody about it. Therefore at the time of Sarah's comments only 250,000 people had signed it and 750,000 signatures are required for the goverment to at least take any notice.

Once you've given your details (you don't have to give your full address, just house number and postcode will do), they will send you an email with a link in it. Once you click on that link, you'll have signed the petition.

The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it. The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery driver. A non working mother who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month.

On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit in time you can probably expect a Notice of Intended Prosecution with your monthly bill.

If you are concerned about this Orwellian plan and want to stop the constant bashing of the car driver, please sign the petition on No 10's new website (link below) and pass this on to as many people as possible. Sign up if you value your freedom and democratic rights -



http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax

Big Bird Book

Ken Gerhard's book on Big Bird is now on sale from CFZ Press.



I have been interested in cryptozoology for about forty years now, and have been working professionally at it since about 1990. Of the main groups of mystery animals, one of the most shamefully neglected are the flying monsters; `things with wings`, as Janet and Colin Bord once described them.

It was a flying monster, which provided me with the first big challenge of my cryptozoological career. I spent some years on the track of a zooform entity known as `The Owlman of Mawnan`; a grotesque flying `thing` that terrorised girls and and young women in the vicinity of Mawnan Old Church in southern Coprnwall.

It soon became obvious that the owlman was too fantastic a beast to be a bona fide flesh and blood animal. It was too strange, too weird, and furthermore it had been reported in a part of the world where the chances of a large, unknown species of flying animal were – realistically – very low indeed.

However, during my researches, I quickly discovered that the owlman was only one of a whole host of giant winged creatures that had been reported across the globe. In 1932-3 – for example - the Percy Sladen Expedition went to West Africa. In charge of the team was Ivan T. Sanderson, a well-known cryptozoologist and writer. While in the Assumbo Mountains in the Cameroons, they made camp in a wooded valley near a steep banked river. They were out hunting near the river when Sanderson shot a large fruit-eating bat. It fell in the water, and as Sanderson was carefully making his way in the fast moving current, he lost his balance and fell. He regained his balance when his companion suddenly shouted "Look out!"

"And I looked. Then I let out a shout also and instantly bobbed down under the water, because, coming straight at me only a few feet above the water was a black thing the size of an eagle. I had only a glimpse of its face, yet that was quite sufficient, for its lower jaw hung open and bore a semicircle of pointed white teeth set about their own width apart from each other. When I emerged, it was gone. George was facing the other way blazing off his second barrel. I arrived dripping on my rock and we looked at each other. "Will it come back?" we chorused. And just before it became too dark to see, it came again, hurtling back down the river, its teeth chattering, the air "shss-shssing" as it was cleft by the great, black, dracula-like wings. We were both off-guard, my gun was unloaded, and the brute made straight for George. He ducked. The animal soared over him and was at once swallowed up in the night."

Bernard Heuvelmans – “The Father of Cryptozoology”, reprinted this story in his seminal 1958 work, On the Track of Unknown Animals. However, Sanderson’s original account had also been an inspiration to the man who was my greatest hero; the coinservationist and zookeeper Gerald Durrell (1925-95). He even spent time on two of his West African expeditions in 1949 and 1957 trying to find the beast. Well, I thought, if both Durrell and Heuvelmans take such accounts seriously, then there must be something in it.

I can’t remember when I first heard of the North American `Big Birds`, but it must have been in the late 1980s. The stories fascinated me, and I wished dearly that someone could write a book specifically about them.

In 2004 I was in America making a pilot for a TV series for Discovery. Although the series was never made, and I never got paid, the trip was by no means a failire. One night, after I had spent the day interviewing witnesses to a strange, blue, dog-like creature outside San Antonio in Texas, I met up with Texan cryptozoologist, and musician Ken Gerhard, and his lovely wife Lori.

It soon became obvious that we had a heck of a lot in common, and by the end of the evening we were firm friends. We spent hours talking about our various projects, and promised that we would collaborate on various ventures in the future. It was only at the end of the evening when Ken – almost as an afterthought – told me that he was planning to write a book about the `Big Bird` reports. Was he, I asked diffidently, looking for a publisher? It turned out that he was, and so, one balmy November night in San Antonio, only a stone’s throw from The Alamo, with the sounds of crickets, treefrogs, and the trickle of running water from the hotel’s ornamental fountain, in the air, the deal was done.

Just over two years later, I find myself sitting in my study in rural North Devon, reliving the memories of that night. Ken, old friend: It is a true honour to be able to publish such a remarkable book.

Buy it now on Amazon

P.s. Because of the way that Amazon.co.uk work, I am listed in the search engines as co-author, which I most definitely am not!!! I would hate anyone to think that I am trying to steal Ken's thunder...