A Life in a Year – 24th January, The Death of Winston Churchill

I have mentioned before that, in his memory box, dad kept the front pages of three newspapers: 7th February 1958, the Munich air disaster, 23rd November 1963, the Kennedy assassination and finally the Daily Mail of 25th January 1965 which reported the death of Sir Winston Churchill.

I think that few would argue that Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was probably the greatest Briton of all time. I know that I can say this with some confidence because in 2002 the BBC conducted a nationwide poll to identify who the public thought this was. The result was a foregone conclusion and Churchill topped the poll with 28% of the votes. The BBC project first identified the top one hundred candidates and the final vote was between the top ten. Second in the poll was the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel who received nearly 25% of the votes. These two I fully agreed with but in third place, and goodness knows what the public must have been thinking, was Princess Diana!

Now, the only thing that I can see that Princess Diana ever did was to whine a lot about having to live in Palaces, wear expensive jewellery and eat gourmet food and try to undermine and destroy the Royal Family. Not so long ago you could have your head cut off for that sort of thing but by some bizarre twist the British have turned her into a heroine. As low down as number twenty-seven was Emily Pankhurst who fought for women’s suffrage and much further down the list at number fifty-two was Florence Nightingale and in my opinion these two women’s personal legacy to the development of Great Britain as a nation is much, much greater than that of Princess Diana.

There were other anomalies on the list as well. There were eleven Kings and Queens and eleven politicians, ten military heroes, eight inventors and seven scientists. This is what I would expect but then there were eight pop musicians including Boy George! Now, surely there must be dozens of people who could be more appropriately included on the list than that. Even if you do accept that pop stars are great Britons what is even more unbelievable is that Boy George beat Sir Cliff Richard by seven places! John, Paul and George were included in the eight but there was no place for Ringo, which doesn’t seem very fair. Enoch Powell was one of the politicians and he was a raging racist. Richard III is in but not Henry VII. There is an issue of equality because of the one hundred only thirteen were women and I can’t help feeling that there must be more than that. Here are some suggestions of mine; the prison reformer, Elizabeth Fry, the philanthroprist Octavia Hill, the pioneering aviator, Amy Johnson, the nineteenth century gardener, Gertrude Jeckyl and the very embodiment of Britishness, Britannia herself. John Churchill the 1st Duke of Marlborough, military genius and ancestor of the great Sir Winston didn’t even make the list.

In fact Winston Churchill was so great that he was awarded a State Funeral and that doesn’t happen very often because this requires a motion or vote in Parliament and the personal approval of the Monarch. A State Funeral consists of a military procession using a gun carriage from a private resting chapel to Westminster Hall, where the body usually lies in state for three days. The honour of a State Funeral is usually reserved for the Sovereign as Head of State and the current or past Queen Consort. Very few other people have had them: Sir Philip Sydney in 1586, Horatio Nelson in 1806, the 1st Duke of Wellington, 1852, Viscount Palmerston in 1865, William Gladstone, 1898, the 1st Earl Roberts of Kandahar, 1914, Baron Carson in 1935 and Sir Winston Churchill. So this is a very small list indeed although it might have included one more but Benjamin Disraeli, the Queen’s favourite Prime Minister, who was offered the honour of a State Funeral refused it in his will. We might have to wait a very long time for the next one because I really can’t imagine that it is going to be Boy George.

A Life in a Year – 23rd January, Liechtenstein and a holiday with my Daughter

As Sally had recently broken the news about having a baby I thought it would be a good idea to have a last bonding holiday together as father and daughter before the big event as it is going to be a long time before we get this opportunity again. I was straight to www.ryaniar.com and I quickly located cheap flights to Germany from where we could visit Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

On 23rd January 1719 Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, decreed that Vaduz and Schellenberg were united and elevated the newly formed territory to the dignity of Principality with the name Liechtenstein in honour of histrue servant, Anton Florian of Liechtenstein and it was on this date that Liechtenstein became a sovereign member state of the Holy Roman Empire.

Liechtenstein is the fourth smallest independent European state after the Vatican City, Monaco and San Marino. It is predominantly Germanic but the only German speaking state that does not have a national border with Germany itself. When the Holy Roman Empire was abolished by Napoleon in 1806 all of Europe seemed to forget about this tiny insignificant Principality and the royal family were able to keep their heads down and have continued to exist as an independent state ever since and as such it is the only state in Europe with a remaining direct continuity with the thousand year old Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne. It is one of only two countries in the world that are double landlocked, the other is Uzbekistan, as neither of its neighbours, Switzerland or Austria have access to the sea either. It is therefore safe to say that fishing is probably not an important contributor to the economy in Liechtenstein.

After an excellent breakfast and with Sally in possession of the map and entrusted with navigation duties we set off from the hotel and attempted first of all to plot a route over the mountain behind us. The roads were narrow and after a while it became clear that they just went round in big circles without ever going across the top and down the other side so we had to abandon this course and return to the main road that took us effortlessly to the town of St Gallen, which is a sort of gateway to the Alps. Here things became slightly more difficult and Sally’s navigational skills were tested to the limit as she was entrusted with the task of getting us through the town and on the road to Vaduz. Unusually for a girl it turned out that she is a natural at map reading and she guided us through and then selected a minor road and scenic route where the scenery was wonderful with green fields that looked like watercolours in the rain and clean alpine meadows all bathed under a gentle pastel blue sky. In the fields adjacent to the roads there were honey coloured alpine cattle with full udders feeding on the lush grass and clanging noisily about on account of the huge cow-bells that they had hanging around their necks. They were friendly and inquisitive and when we stopped to admire the view they came close and posed obligingly for photographs.

We climbed the road through the town of Tregen and continued along the scenic route and through the Ruppen Pass with more impressive views and then we picked up a main road that took us south through the low-lying plains of the Appenzell region. This wasn’t quite so scenic but as we drove the Alps got closer and their high peaks began to loom overhead rising in dramatic style from the meadows and arable farmlands of this relatively flat part of Switzerland. Unfortunately the weather ahead was beginning to change and dark clouds were hanging in the mountain passes. Just before we crossed the border into Liechtenstein we came across a picturesque little town called Buchs where we stopped to admire the views of the Alps that completely surrounded this delightful little place and its attractive lake. We didn’t linger for long because by now we were excited about arriving at our destination so we moved on and resumed our gentle drive south.

We passed through the unremarkable state capitol of Vaduz with the castle of the ruling Prince, the Schloss Vaduz, perched high overhead and with magnificent views of all that he possesses stretched out below. Out of the city we began our ascent to the village of Triesenberg a thousand metres above Vaduz into the Alps. As we climbed a road with spectacular hairpin bends it unexpectedly started to rain, gently at first but about half way to the village it really started to fall quite steadily which made driving more difficult than it might have been and we were glad when we arrived at the top. We found a bar with an outside terrace overlooking the Rhine valley below and across into Switzerland and although it was still raining the terrace was sheltered and we took an outside table and enjoyed a drink and the magnificent view. Although the rain was disappointing and the bar staff and the regulars thought we were slightly daft to be sitting outside we wouldn’t have missed this view for the world and it was so good that after the first drink we had a second and stayed a while longer.

First of all before setting back to Rorschach we drove to the very top of the mountain above the town to the winter sports resort of Malbun. The road was quiet and we made a leisurely ascent through small villages with an abundance of unoccupied winter ski chalets and as the road became steeper the car began to strain in objection to the uphill task. The smell of burning clutch was enough to confirm that it wasn’t altogether enjoying the assignment of taking us to the top. When we completed the drive and stopped in Malbun we were one thousand six hundred metres above sea level and there were good views to be had all around us. The place was almost completely abandoned because by May there is no snow remaining in the valleys or on the ski slopes and only the very tops of the mountains still retained a covering.

We didn’t stay long at the top and not being able to get across the mountain because the road terminates at Malbun we returned down the mountain stopping in the Hamlet of Steg where we looked at the charming little chapel of St Wendelin that stands next to the River Samina that was flowing swiftly, full as it was of the last of the melted snow from the mountain top, and babbling excitedly as it surged towards the river valley below. The views were excellent and we stopped a time or two to enjoy them, although we were reluctant to leave them behind we wanted to leave the Alps and return to the lake where to the east of us we could see that the weather looked much better.

So we drove out of Liechtenstein the way that we came, back through the unremarkable Vaduz and then across the Rhine and back into Switzerland. Vaduz was a bit disappointed but I don’t really know what I was expecting really, it just sounded as though it should be more interesting than it is, the very fact that it has been able to remain independent through two hundred turbulent years of European history should have given me a clue. If none of its more powerful neighbours had taken a fancy to it or annexed it for themselves in all of that time that probably says a lot. Although it is regarded now as a wealthy country this hasn’t always been the case because in the immediate aftermath of the Second-World-War the Prince of Liechtenstein had to sell off family heirlooms to stay solvent but in response to this sorry state of affairs the economy of Lichtenstein was completely modernised and the advantage of low corporate tax rates attracted many foreign companies to the country. These days the Prince is the world’s sixth wealthiest head of state, with an estimated wealth of three billion Euro (by comparison, the personal fortune of Queen Elizabeth II of England is estimated at seven and a half billion Euro) and the residents of the country enjoy one of the world’s highest standards of living. And that’s not bad for the world’s sixth smallest country!

A Life in a Year – 22nd January, Zulu and the defence of Rorke’s Drift

Zulu has to be one of my favourite ever films because it was one of the first grown up films that I was ever taken to see at the cinema. As I have explained elsewhere dad was fond of anything military or heroic and stories don’t come much more heroic or military than this.

These are the facts: On 22nd January 1879 the Imperial British army suffered one of its worst ever defeats when Zulu forces massacred one thousand five hundred of its troops at Isandlhwana in South Africa. A short time after the main battle a Zulu force numbering over four thousand warriors advanced on a British hospital and supply garrison guarded by one hundred and thirty nine infantrymen at Rorke’s Drift. The film tells the true story of the battle during which the British force gallantly defended the hospital and in doing so won eleven Victoria Crosses, which is the most ever awarded for one single engagement. The film takes a few historical liberties but it remains one of my favourites and of course I have a copy of it in my own DVD collection.

Talking about historical liberties what I find interesting is that if you buy the DVD now, Michael Caine is billed as the star but if you watch it Stanley Baker had top billing and he was the film’s producer as well, the film simply introduces Michael Caine in his first big film role. That’s how easily history is rewritten.

I like battle films and perhaps could have chosen ‘Waterloo’ or ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ but the fact is that none of these comes close to the dramatic impact of ZULU! Later that year dad bought the Zulu soundtrack LP for Christmas to play on our new record player. I’ve still got it but I don’t play it any more. I’ve also got dad’s book on the Zulu wars and his favourite Royal Doulton water colour painting of the defence of Rorke’s Drift.

A Life in a Year – 21st January, School Sports

Generally speaking, when I was a boy I used to like playing sport, especially football and cricket even though I was never especially good at either. At school, when we were lined up against the wall and team captains made their selections I suppose, generally speaking, I would be in the second wave of call ups in between those who were considered to be the best (those who everyone wanted on their team) and those who were completely hopeless and were avoided like the plague. I suppose you would describe me as average, as with everything else in life.

School sport at Hillmorton County Junior School was really just about having a bit of fun, P.E. in the playground, a gentle game of rounders and French cricket at the nearby recreation ground and the annual Sports Day at the end of each Summer Term.

But in 1965 when I left the Junior School and went to secondary education at Dunsmore (now Ashlawn School) all of this changed and the whole thing took on a new dimension and became altogether more competitive and serious. Dunsmore was a school that was proud of its sporting pedigree and achievements and expected all of the pupils to play a full and active part. Because I was going to school in Rugby this meant Rugby Football and this was a whole new terrifying experience for me.

Before turning up on day one in September some during the summer holiday I had to be kitted out with the new school uniform and all of the appropriate new sports kit from the school outfitters, J M Squires at their shop in Sheep Street in the town. The claret and blue reversible rugby shirt was made of a heavy cotton, the navy blue shorts were baggy and voluminous and the socks were too big and itchy. To complete the kit there was a big pair of old fashioned ankle length boots made of stiff leather with nasty cork studs nailed into the sole. As well as the winter sports kit we had to have P.E. kit of sky blue doublet, white shorts, ankle socks and white plimsols.

First year sports afternoon was on Friday and so at the end of the first week I packed all of my kit into my duffel bag and looked forward to being on the playing field. Naturally I was a bit apprehensive because although I had never played rugby before, or ‘rugger’ as people used to call it (presumably to differentiate it from the place) I knew that it had a reputation for being a bit rough and some of the other boys were considerably bigger than me.

The changing rooms were at the back of the playground and smelt permanently of stale sweat and carbolic soap. They were functional and stark with rows of pegs for our clothes and wire baskets for our shoes, no lockers in those days and any valuables had to be handed in for safe keeping. As soon as we were changed and ready we were required to line up for a kit inspection before being released through the blue double swing doors and out onto the playing field.

For the very first lesson we were given some basic instructions about the rules of the game and the general principles involved. Not all the rules of course because there are a lot of them and they are quite complicated and then the games master, Wynn Morris, split us up according to size and his judgment on whether we would make rugby players or not. Morris was a rugby fanatic and walked and talked with an arrogant swagger that struck fear into us boys. It must have been obvious to him that I was most unsuitable for the scrum and with little spindly legs he probably didn’t think I had the pace for the wings so I was in the group of potential scrum halves, that’s the poor chap who puts the ball in the scrum and then gets jumped on the minute it comes back out again.

After about thirty seconds (no just ten!) I knew that rugby football wasn’t my thing but for the entire first term until Christmas every Friday afternoon was a miserable two hours of being bellowed at by Wynn Morris and being tried in a succession of different positions to see if we could find one that was suitable for my non existent talent for the game. I hated it and as the winter wore on it got colder and wetter and muddier and when it got colder and wetter and muddier the kit quadrupled in weight and I barely had the strength to lug it around the field without the added burden of picking up an odd shaped ball and running with it. Finally however, after what seemed an eternity, the whistle would thankfully blow and it was all over and there was a mad undignified dash for the warmth of the changing room and the communal hot shower.

When we returned to school in January 1966 we all changed and trooped out as normal but today there was a surprise because Morris called all the first years together and amazed us with the question, ‘right, hands up all the boys who want to play soccer?’ (it works best if you can do this with a thick Welsh accent and say the word ‘soccer’ with a distinct sneer of disapproval for such a pansy game); of course a forest of arms went up into the air and he looked scornfully at us all and said, ‘right, all the boys who want to play soccer, go and stand over there’ and he dispatched us contemptuously to the touch line.

There was real exhilaration and anticipation about this development because at least it seemed certain that we would be playing our preferred choice of Association Football. This excitement started to wither away however as we were kept waiting on the touch line while Morris spent half an hour or so with the rugby boys as he prepared them for the afternoon’s sport. This was completely deliberate of course because it was cold and wet and we just stood around getting damp and miserable. It was obviously a well rehearsed routine that he would stage every year and I bet all of the other teachers knew about it and were probably watching from the staff room window and pissing themselves laughing.

Finally the rugby match got under way and Morris strutted over to us with an evil leer on his face and things were about to go from bad to worse. ‘Right’, he said, he always started a sentence that way ‘all you boys who want to play soccer (pause for effect) ‘you’re going on a cross country run…’

And so in full rugby kit and football boots we were sent for a couple of laps of the field and then through a succession of farmer’s muddy fields, along the Grand Union canal tow path and back to school along the Kilsby Road. I had never been on a cross country run before and found the going quite tough at first but gradually I started to pull ahead of most of the others and I started to enjoy it. I finished in the top six and decided that cross country was a whole lot better than getting roughed up on the rugby field and the following week elected to do it by choice. This meant different kit of course more appropriate to running and a pair of suitable running shoes and no doubt my parents were delighted by another trip to J M Squires and the additional expense.

It was worth it however because finally I had found something (apart from Religious Education that is) that I was actually good at and fairly soon I was in the under 13 school team and every weekend representing Dunsmore in inter school races. Actually we had a brilliant team and in 1968/9 the under 15 we had an exceptional season and the school magazine for that year reported:

‘The U15 team yet again had a very successful season winning the Town Championships, the Newbold Road Relay and as usual all their league matches, thus once again retaining the League Shield.’

I was so good at cross country running that I even went on with a couple of the other boys to represent Rugby Town in County and District events and the best thing about that was that I never had to play rugby football ever again.

In addition to sports afternoon every week we had a couple of sessions of Physical education (P.E.) in the school gym. In addition to Wynn Morris the sports masters were David (Molly) Sugden and Taffy Thomas who used to put us through our paces doing sit-ups, press-ups and climbing the wall bars, a lot of which would surely contravene health and safety regulations these days.

What would almost certainly contravene all regulations these days was the punishment regime regularly handed out. I think it was about toughening us up but Wynn Morris in particular used to enjoy spanking boys with a slipper. This was much worse than the cane because you couldn’t take double underpants precautions in advance. In fact you couldn’t take any sort of underpants precautions at all because we weren’t allowed to wear them under our gym shorts and we had to do P.E. with our tackle flapping about and unprotected.

Punishment could be for anything really, mostly trivial stuff like not getting changed fast enough, having untidy kit or looking at the master in a funny way. Once selected for a slapping all the other boys were sent off to the gym to warm up and the victim had to stay behind. Morris would fetch the worn white plimsol that he would use for these occasions say ‘bend over’ and then whip down our shorts and apply two or three slaps to our exposed bare buttocks. Nobody seemed to think there was anything wrong about this it was just an accepted part of the Dunsmore sports routine.

A Life in a Year – 20th January 1959, 1st Flight of a Vickers Vanguard

In the first few years of the 1960s, in the days just before and then during the Freddie Laker days of early package holidays, my grandparents visited Benidorm in Spain several times. For people from London who had lived through the Luftwaffe blitz of the 1940s and the killer smog of the 1950s they applied for passports (which was practically unheard of for ordinary people) and set out with pale complexions on an overseas adventure and returned home with healthy Mediterranean suntans and duty free alcohol and cigarettes. They brought back exotic stories of exciting overseas adventures and suitcases full of unusual souvenirs, castanets, replica flamenco dancing girls, handsome matador dolls with flaming scarlet capes and velour covered bulls that decorated their living room and collected dust for the next twenty years or so.

In 1950 a Russian émigré called Vladimir Raitz founded a travel company in London called Horizon Holidays and started flying people to Southern Europe and the package tour was born. Within a few years he was flying to Majorca, Menorca, and the Costa Brava. In 1957 British European Airways introduced a new route to Valencia and the designation ‘Costa Blanca’ was allegedly conceived as a promotional name when it first launched its new service on Vickers Vanguard airplanes with four propeller driven engines at the start of the package holiday boom. By the end of the decade BEA was also flying to Malaga on the Costa Del Sol.

The flight took several hours and arrival at Valencia airport some way to the west of the city was not the end of the journey because there was now a one hundred and fifty kilometre, four-hour bus ride south to Benidorm in a vehicle without air conditioning or air suspension seats and in the days before motorways on a long tortuous journey along the old coast road. Today visitors to Benidorm fly to Alicante to the south, which is closer and more convenient, but the airport there was not opened until 1967.

I am curious to understand how they were able to afford it? Grandad was a bus conductor with London Transport on the famous old bright red AEC Routemaster buses working at the Catford depot on Bromley Road (he always wore his watch with the face on the inside of his wrist so that he didn’t break the glass by knocking it as he went up and down the stairs and along the rows of seats with their metal frames) and Nan worked at the Robinson’s factory in Barmerston Road boiling fruit to make the jam.

I cannot imagine that they earned very much and at that time the cost of the fare was £38.80p which may not sound a lot now but to put that into some sort of perspective in 1960 my dad took a job at a salary of £815 a year so that fare would have been about two and a half weeks wages! Each! The average weekly wage in the United Kingdom today is £490 so on that basis a flight to Spain at 1957 British European Airline prices would now be about £1,225.

A Life in a Year – 19th January, The Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo

As a consequence of a severe Atlantic storm we woke to a hissing wind and dark scowling clouds that the mountains of Portugal had failed to detain storming in from the west. It was mean and moody but there was no rain so that was a bonus. From the hotel balcony it was possible to appreciate just what a land of contrasts Spain really is. This was about as far away from the traditional view of Spain of the holiday brochures as it is possible to get and it was different to from our visit the previous month to Castilla-la Mancha. Here we were getting close towards green Spain in the north with more small farms, livestock, deciduous woods, fast flowing rivers and Portugal just twenty-five kilometres away.

Breakfast was a simple affair and as we were the only people in the breakfast room it soon became clear that we were the only two guests in the hotel. Afterwards we dressed appropriately and took the walk alongside the river and into Ciudad Rodrigo. The sky was blue but filling up with dark purple clouds with occasional shafts of sunlight darting through. There was a spiteful wind that stung our ears and although it was a nice walk it was along a very muddy path and we were glad that we hadn’t attempted it last night in the dark.

The path took us along the Rio Águeda, which is a two hundred and fifty kilometre long river which begins to the south in the Sierra de la Mesas, near the Portuguese border and flows through Ciudad Rodrigo and after serving as the border with Portugal for its final few kilometres joins the Douro at Barca d’Alva to the north.

As we climbed the outside of the city walls the wind strengthened and thankfully scattered the black clouds somewhere towards Salamanca to the east and they were replaced with friendlier white cotton wool ball clouds that raced in to take their place. We entered the city through the western gate cut into the fortifications and entered a charming place overflowing with history and character.

This place reminded me of the Richard Sharpe stories of the Peninsular War. In January 1812 Ciudad Rodrigo was besieged by the British Army under Wellington and held out for two weeks before the French forces surrendered. Ciudad Rodrigo was strategically important because it guarded the northern route into Spain for an invading army but it was only a second class fortress with a ten metre high main wall built of inferior masonry, without flanks, and with weak parapets and narrow ramparts. After the fall of the city the Allied troops disgraced themselves by the wanton sacking of Ciudad Rodrigo when many homes were broken into, property vandalised or stolen, Spanish civilians of all ages and backgrounds killed or raped, and many officers were shot by the men they were trying to bring to order.

It was quiet enough today however and once inside the walls we walked to the castle, which predictably is now a Parador hotel, had a look inside and then walked around a part of the walls. A few spots of rain forced us down into the city, past the cathedral and into a tourist information office with the heating set to an unnecessary maximum and then on to the Plaza Mayor in the centre with its warm sandstone coloured buildings, metal balconies and traditional Spanish shops and bars around all four sides.

A Life in a Year – 18th January, The First X-Ray and Naked Girls

As a teenager I used to read American superhero comics like DC and Marvel and I was always tempted to respond to the full page advertisements for such things as a complete two hundred piece civil war army for $1.49, a miniature secret camera for only $1.00 or a free Charles Atlas body building course. What stopped me filling in the order form and sending off the cash was not the rather critical fact that I had no idea how to exchange my paper round money into dollars but rather the fact that I had no idea what a ZIP code was. I concluded that it was some sort of secret code that prevented overseas orders from being processed and so never had the pleasure of sending off my order form for those intriguing items.

Most of all I wanted a pair of X-ray specs, mostly because the advert seemed to suggest that whilst it might be fun to be able to see the bones in your hand, it would be a whole lot more fun to be able to see through girls clothing and there was always a curvy girl in the advert that suggested that this was a real possibility. But, let’s think about it for a minute. This is how my science dictionary explains X-rays:

‘X-rays are a type of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths of around 10-10 metres. When X-rays are being produced, a thin metallic sheet is placed between the emitter and the target, effectively filtering out the lower energy (soft) X-rays. This is often placed close to the window of the X-ray tube. The resultant X-ray is said to be hard. Soft X-rays overlap the range of extreme ultraviolet. The frequency of hard X-rays is higher than that of soft X-rays, and the wavelength is shorter. During an X-ray the electrons decelerate upon colliding with the target and if enough energy is contained within the electron it is able to knock out an electron from the inner shell of the metal atom and as a result electrons from higher energy levels then fill up the vacancy and X-ray photons are emitted.’

Well, that all sounds rather complicated to me, and X-ray machines costs many thousands of pounds so thinking back it seems highly unlikely that a pair of cardboard specs costing a mere $1.00 was going to be able to deliver the sort of advanced level of technical process that would enable me to see through girl’s clothing.

Actually the lenses consisted of two layers of cardboard with a small hole punched through both layers. A feather was embedded between the layers of each lens and the vanes of the feathers were so close together that light was diffracted, causing the user to receive two slightly offset images. Where the images overlapped, a darker image was obtained, supposedly giving the illusion that one is seeing an X-ray image of dark and light. I know now of course that this isn’t a real X-ray machine at all and I would never have been able to see through girls clothing after all and I am retro spec tively glad that I never sent off my money and purchased a pair.