to boldly blog

 

Mynydd Parys 30/03/25

There was for a short time a wine bar called Corkers in Newport, Isle of Wight. Bev, my former wife, worked there in the kitchen, as she was/is a superb cook. The proprietor, Joyce as I recall, had previously kept a pub in Southsea. We were invited to her gleaming white art deco seafront balcony to watch the fireworks display at the Cowes Week Regatta. It’s fitting design, emulating super yachts, was as close to actual sailing as I had ever been in adulthood, other than an emetic excursion to the Madeiran Islas Desertas many years later. Arriving at Terra Firma was a blessed relief, despite the risk of being stuck in a mass of silky threads woven by the indigenous tarantulas (the only living creatures on the island).  

Back to Corkers. It’s good to write these things down, as despite the long and many legs of the world wide web, there is no trace of the place ever having existed. So much history is forgotten in seemingly Stalinist fashion. Just as you and I are too, if you try to search for your previous self, although having worked for many years in a large, media friendly organisation. At least the venue is remembered fondly here on this page. 

One evening (it must have been 1981/2) I dropped in for a glass of wine. Joyce excitedly told me that actor Richard Vernon had been at the bar earlier. She and the other customers were startled by my knowing response, when I exclaimed “Slartibartfast!”. Vernon had recently played the part of that proud re-builder of the Norwegian fjords in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. 

I’ve long enjoyed the social satire in Adams’ work. The fourth book of the trilogy (yes) introduces Wonko the Sane. He lived in a house in California called “Outside the Asylum”. Topologically, its walls enclosed the rest of the world, Escher fashion. The idea seems even more relevant to the state of things today, when the most influential are also the most deranged. We need more places of refuge like that. 

My career in mental health began one small step from the "mainland", on the Isle of Wight. There and subsequently elsewhere I met more than a few people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. Little did I know then that Linda, my partner of now 40 years, would have her own family connection to the phenomenon. Did I marry an alien? Not in the pejorative way the word is, sadly, increasingly used, as in “illegal alien”. Nor because she is Cymraes, a woman of Cymru, that nation referred to as “Wales” by Saxons and Romans, inferring a place of the foreigner. Aliens in their own land (as too in Wallonia and Valais/Wallis). But, truly, with reference to a distant relative of hers, Elizabeth Klarer Woollatt (1910-1994). It is one of the most acclaimed tales of alien abduction. The connection was verified through one of those family-tree companies that, for a fee, will dig up all sorts of family skeletons. Caveat emptor.

Born in Natal, Elizabeth had been a meteorologist, a pilot, and had worked for RAF Intelligence. Between 1954 and 1963, she claimed, she had a relationship with an extraterrestrial person, and had borne his child, Her book and delightful documentary film, Beyond the Light Barrier, can still be found. See below for a link to the full and entertaining story. Whatever the truth behind her convictions, she conveys strong messages of peace and environmentalism which are hard to counter. Much more preferable to the sort of “truth” to which we are subjected today. 

This was a blog where no-one has gone before. Or have they?

LINKS

Slartibartfast - Wikipedia

Wonko the Sane | Hitchhikers | Fandom

Elizabeth Klarer - Wikipedia

Beyond the Light Barrier | Elizabeth Klarer (Documentary)