Doodlebugs

It always helps to make fun of things we fear: it gets them into some sort of perspective in our minds. Thus it was with doodlebugs.

In some places that is an alternative word for a cockchafer or maybug. Apart from their being rather poor flyers they are regarded as serious agricultural pests – or rather their larvae are. So they do not have much of a fan club. And that whining noise they make in flight...

Perhaps that is why the German V-1 flying bomb was given that nickname though, unfortunately, the V-1 was a better flyer than the beetle.

I read with interest David Rose’s piece on Doodlebugs in last week’s issue. I had a more distant sighting of such a thing than did Peter Randall, whom David quoted.

During the Second World War my mother worked at Fair Oaks – that is the way it was written in those days – where she was employed by the Royal Observer Corps and so was in receipt of a small petrol allowance for her Rudge Autocycle.

This machine could be pedalled and thus save on the precious fuel, or switched over to the engine. Would that make it an early type of hybrid vehicle?

There was a wicker seat on the back for me but on this particular occasion she was pedalling and I was also pedalling – proudly on my little bicycle. We were going into Horsell village to get petrol at Benny’s – Archie Benstead’s - petrol station in the High Street, remembered now as Benstead’s Cottage and still with the old petrol pumps outside.

Benny was a friend of the family, especially to my uncle, Bill Inder, who was a leading light in the local cyclist touring club. I don’t recall whether the petrol had been purchased or not but suddenly a man shouted at us to get away from the petrol pumps and pointed upwards at a V-1.

We dodged round the corner into Bury Lane, crouched down, and watched as the flying bomb was caught in an updraught and changed course. I have a vague idea that it eventually came to earth in the Petersfield area.

I was so terrified that I jumped on my bike and pedalled so furiously that mother had to start the Rudge engine to keep up with me.

David Rose mentioned the V-1 which landed in August 1944 on The Riding in Woodham. A report on that event, by David Evans, who was living there at the time, is part of my World WarTwo memorabilia collection which I have on show at the annual Horsell Garden Safari.

The RAF tried shooting the flying bombs down but it was discovered first hand by Wg Cdr Beamont that attacking at close range could result in a hazardous explosion.

He found the best method of attack was to approach from astern at an acute angle with the canons of his Hawker Tempest V synchronised at 200 yards but on at least one occasion he deflected a V-1 by carefully sliding his wing-tip under that of the V-1 and flipping it.

By the end of the V-1 campaign he had become a V-1 ace, having accounted for 32 of the flying bombs.

Many years later, in September 1973, I met him. I was working at an air show at Cranfield and recognised him from a photograph – I was photograph librarian for Flight Magazine at the time.

So I went up to him and said “Are you who I think you are?”

He asked me who I had in mind, and I said “Roland Prosper Beamont”.

There was no jackpot to win but I did get someone to photograph me with him in front of the late-lamented TSR-2 – one of many aircraft which he had gone on to test fly. He duly signed the photograph for me.

Back in the Swing

The Dutch contingent of my family are staying with me. Daughter, grand-daughter and grandson, not son-in-law this time.

We set off for a family walk to the Rive Ponds but got diverted by the view across the Wheatsheaf Green towards the playground.

Remembering that on my grand-daughter’s last visit we had to placate her when she discovered the playground shut on grounds of health and safety – and lack of WBC finances – I feared more tears. But she is now five years old and Understands These Things and, anyway, it was obvious a start had been made on repairs.

The next day the family set out once more. Yes, it is open. The swings are swinging and the zipwire zipping. I am told the new surface has a pleasant bounce to it and the old wooden edges to the flooring – always a bit of a trip hazard to little ones – had been done away with.

There are improvements and repairs and so all is right with the world. There has always been an issue with the gate – if it is flung open too hard it gets stuck in the fence in an open position.

There was a moment when it stuck open and, with the monstrous grass-cutter doing its duty, there was a moment of worry that a very small, and very fast, boy might make a break for freedom in the direction this exciting piece of machinery but a hefty push and pull closed the gate successfully.

The only worry now is the notice affixed to the fencing warning of the danger of the oak processionary moth, which has been found in the area and the attention it brought to the fact that the hairy caterpillars and their nests should be avoided.

There is a picture of such a caterpillar for ease of recognition. These caterpillars are not only harmful to oak trees but can also pose a hazard to human and animal health.

Remember to take necessary precautions if you encounter them: their hairs can cause an itching rash.

Lepidoptera

Mention of those moths takes me neatly to comment on The Big Butterfly Count for 2024 which runs from 12 July to 4 August.

Not only can it be pleasant to wander round and count butterflies but it is important. Their health and quantity are good pointers to the health of our climate.

Probably, like me, you hailed the first sight of a brimstone butterfly early in the year. But then there was an obvious dearth. No orange tips; a couple of peacocks, and a tortoiseshell and that was about it. Where are they all? The wet spring is one reason they have not thrived. They also seem to be moving northwards to take into account the changing climate.

The charity Butterfly Conservation says that over the past 50 years there has been a huge decline in butterfly numbers of around 80%. That is very bad news.

We all know of the vital benefit of pollinators and that many flying – and some wingless – insects help with pollination. Still there are people who through unsubstantiated fear, or plain ignorance, will kill off any creepy crawly they may come across.

And how selective are those lights which people hang near barbecues and other dining-outdoors sites? I fear they zap more than mosquitoes. I have been asked why I keep a fishing net in my conservatory. This is because flying insects find their way in very easily but then lose their senses of direction and buzz around pathetically until they die of heat, or thirst, or just weariness.

The exercise of catching a bee and taking it outside is very good for us as it involves a great deal of stretching

Moths get bad publicity too – and not just those oak processionary ones. Clothes moths. I was dismayed when I recently went to the cupboard to take out a beautiful woollen cape which my mother had knitted for my grandmother and I and my daughters have worn.

Clothes moths had shown their appreciation of the quality of the wool and had left great gaping holes in the shawl. Despite the fact that every spring clean, and sometimes between, I spray clothing cupboards with anti-moth stuff.

The word lepidoptera covers all butterflies and moths – those with scale-covered wings: the coloured dust which identifies the many various types.

Particularly at this time of year – the time of The Big Butterfly Count – there are plenty of accurately coloured pictures of said insects. But rarely are there pictures of the caterpillars which, through nothing less than a series of miracles, turn into butterflies and moths.

How many keen gardeners inadvertently squish caterpillars not realising that, like Andersen’s ugly ducklings, some of the caterpillars which we perceive as distinctly un-beautiful are going to become things of wonder and, yes, great beauty.

Pitching a Sale

As I have zero interest in football I shall not be joining any queue to pay £1 for Woking Football Club. But on reading of the intended sale I was reminded of that joyous film The Titfield Thunderbolt although, in that case, the plot revolved around a group of locals trying keep their branch line operating after British Railways decided to close it.

I do remember – possibly mis-remember – a line spoken to the late, great Stanley Holloway who was, as Walter Valentine, a wealthy man with a fondness for daily drinking and whose financial backing would be vital.

To coax him into financing their scheme the locals informed him that, as part owner of the proposed new railway, he could write his own licensing laws. That reeled him, and his megabucks, in.

So perhaps Mr Volpe should accentuate some overlooked perks of being an owner of a football club. I am sure there must be many.

By the way, the name Titfield is an amalgam of two Surrey villages near the Oxted home of TEB Clarke, writer of the screenplay Titsey and Limpsfield.

What a Show!

Horsell Village Show on 27 July was bathed in warm sunshine. I realise this may shock you for by the time you read this we will probably have experienced cold, wet, wind and, quite possibly, drought. But that’s a British summer for you.

It was just as a village show should be with stalls and entertainment and music and food and drink and prizes for fruit, vegetables, flowers, handicrafts, photography and there were some amazing limericks on the subject of our area.

Woking's towers featured largely – as they do, unfortunately, in real life. I do hope our new MP, Will Forster, had time to read them.

It is obvious that organisers of such events hope and pray for good weather, but the prayers continue after the last visitors have left, for that is when all the tentage has to be taken down and stored away.

And it must not be stored damp for, as one or two examples demonstrated, mould grows.

As ever, it is what goes on behind the scenes of such events which make or break them.