Charles Melville Hays: More Than Just Trains

Charles Melville Hays was a prime architect of the great Canadian railroad expansion. Hays was born in Rock Island, Illinois, on May 16, 1856. At the age of 17, he joined "the road" in the office of the superintendent of the Missouri Pacific Railway. He was identified early in his career as a rising star because of his great enthusiasm. He married Clara J., daughter of William H Gregg of St-Louis, on October 13, 1881. In 1884, he moved to the Wabash St-Louis and Pacific Railway as secretary to the general manager. Hays was appointed general manager of the entire Wabash Railway system following an 1889 reorganisation.

VANUATU: COCKTAIL PARTY BRINGS TEARS TO THE EYES

David Ellis

WE'VE mates in this travel scribbling game who delight in reminiscing about cocktail parties they've spilled their way through over the years: The Ritz in London, Raffles in Singapore, with Santa Claus on Finland's Arctic Circle, and even with Great Train Robber, Ronnie Biggs at his hideaway in Rio, to name a few…

But the one that's stored most fondly in our memory is not from some plush 5-star metropolitan hotel, nor from encounters with the popular or infamous. Rather it's from a miniscule dot that lays in the sun in the middle of Vanuatu's Port Vila harbour.

Iririki Island Resort just off Vila's CBD – if you can call the hub of this sleepy little South Pacific paradise a CBD – abounds with lush tropical vegetation, a poolside café and bar, a restaurant named after the famed author James A. Michener (complete with a framed letter from the man himself thanking them for the honour,) and to one side a collection of thatch-roofed tropical bungalows hillside or over-water and outfitted with all mod cons.

A lot of years ago we happened to be there on a Monday evening and were invited to the then-General Manager's welcome cocktails for newly-arrived guests. As we were chatting with he and other guests, one asked if he knew who was a particular lady who had just entered the room.

He said he did not, but could find out, but the guest told him not to worry – she just felt she had seen that lady somewhere before, possibly in the suburb in which she lived in Australia, or maybe in the press or on TV. It was no big deal, she'd said, adding: "It's just that you know how you can sometimes feel someone's familiar, but you can't put your finger on just how or why?"

As the evening progressed and guests began to drift off to dine at the resort or over in town, it left maybe a dozen of us who soon grouped together, including the lady who had made the enquiry of the other and who now had the opportunity to meet her.

But as soon as she did so she quickly admitted – aloud – that she had obviously made a mistake in thinking she had seen her somewhere before: the second lady had a quite  pronounced Canadian accent, and volunteered that she was on her first-ever visit to the South Pacific.

"I came to visit my daughter in Australia, and thought I'd also see something of the islands as well," she said.

And as is usual in such circumstances, someone made small talk by enquiring politely as to where she was from, and was given a run-down of her home town, her family in Canada and Australia, and how much she was loving visit.

Then she added that while she was Canadian, she was actually born in England and adopted by a Canadian couple when a toddler after her parents were killed during a WWII air-raid on their town just outside London. And that while they'd lost their parents, she and her sister had miraculously survived.

Again there were the usual muttered condolences and expressions of how sad it must have been, particularly for she and her sister being sent to Canada and adopted.

"Yes," she said. "With no other relatives the church took us, and as there was a lot of money to be made from adoptions, I was sent to Canada, and I believe my sister to Australia for adoption, but I never saw her again."

The Australian lady then mentioned how she, too, had lost her parents in an air-raid outside of London, how she too had been adopted and taken to Australia, and yes even how she, likewise, had never seen her sister again.

And as she unfolded the details of her life, the Canadian lady burst out: "But those are the details of MY life – that was my town, that was the day my parents died, I thought my sister had gone to Australia… oh my God, you are my missing sister!"

A few more queries, a few more answers and all was confirmed – as fresh celebratory  Champagne flowed from the GM, and as did the tears of joy from the rest of us for the re-united sisters.

………………….

Photo captions:

[] IRIRIKI Island Resort, a miniscule dot in Port Vila Harbour – but what a story to tell.

[] DELIGHTFUL over-water bungalows with all mod cons.

[] MICHENER'S Restaurant at Iririki, complete with a framed letter from the man himself thanking them for the honour.

[] ROOM with a view: dining at Michener's.

(All images: Iririki Island Resort)

Flying Mile High Club

A recent campaign by Asia Pacific's and MENA's leading travel search site Wego, has revealed that airline passengers are still quite partial to becoming members of the mile high club.

This fascination of experiencing one of life's ultimate pleasures at 35,000 feet sees no sign of waning as around 15 per cent of respondents from a total of 3,000 in the Asia Pacific region told Wego they'd witnessed some form of sexual conduct on an aircraft.

Many reported the inevitable sight of two people entering a bathroom together followed by a lot of banging and squealing, although in-seat 'activities' underneath a blanket were also very common. Some occurrences were even more blatant such as a woman straddling a friend in business class on a Sydney to London flight, another was asked to join the mile high club by a stranger while waiting in line at the toilet.

More creative encounters included a suggestive lipstick message on a toilet mirror unexpectedly viewed by an elderly lady when the young man ahead of her (for who it was intended), allowed her to use the bathroom first, a couple who hadn't locked the door properly only to fall out on the floor half naked to the amusement and applause of the entire aircraft, an ex-cabin crew member who discovered two men in a wheelchair closet, and even a couple flat out under the blankets stretched across three seats.

Wego also captured some interesting relatable sexual experiences included lacy underwear left on a seat, in-flight lap dances on a buck's party trip, an older man carrying a life size female inflatable doll that he purchased a seat for, and frightened passengers reporting a strange noise in the overhead locker, discovered to be an operating vibrator in a woman's handbag.

One man reported that the male passengers on his flight were left very distracted after two girls emerged quite ruffled from a toilet, and another said his girlfriend was so upset by the turbulence on a flight to New Zealand that she demanded he accompany her to the bathroom and 'distract' her.

Much debate still surrounds the legality of the practice although research indicates there's a dependence on individual country laws and also just how visible the act is to other passengers which can fall under 'public sex' laws. At least two of Wego's respondents witnessed couples being escorted by police from flights into Australia as a result of in-flight sex, yet the thrill of being caught is supposedly part of the attraction.

Overall respondents to Wego's campaign were not offended by the act, if anything all were rather amused but confessed to being somewhat surprised. Interestingly only a handful of respondents admitted to the act itself, while others bore witness and happily shared their stories.

Bangkok Nonstop

Bangkok is full of surprises. With the recent political confrontations prompting vigorous debate about Thailand’s reputation as the ‘Land of Smiles,’ that sounds like an understatement. But one of its greatest attractions is a non-stop capacity to amaze. The pulsating urban energy comes from Thai culture’s ability to absorb dramatic change and outside influence while keeping its vital essence.

Struth! 2.5 tonne cup of tea

With  Princess Diana at his side, Prince Charles (R) bends over to get a  better view of the Rolls Royce automobile that sits perched atop British  Wedgwood teacups during a visit to J.C. Penney's Department Store in  the Springfield Mall on November 11, 1985. Standing alongside the  Princess is William Howell, chairman of J.C. Penney's, and standing next  to the car is Bob Biagi, a Rolls Royce dealer. (UPI Photo/Larry  Rubenstein/Files)

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that back in 1970 England's Wedgwood porcelain company left newspaper readers agape when it published a picture of a 2.5 tonne Rolls-Royce balancing on four of the company's finest bone china cups.
The stunt was to prove the strength of its bone china, but when they tried to repeat it in Canada some years later for the opening of a new shopping outlets in Vancouver, it met with somewhat embarrassing results – they broke eight of their best bone china cups in front of TV and newspaper cameras before abandoning the effort.

Wedgwood have since refined the process of raising a Roller and letting it settle slowly onto just four cups when celebrating the opening of new stores in Britain, Europe, the USA and Canada.

(For the technically interested, bone china gets its strength from the addition of 50% incinerated animal bone ash to traditional China stone and industrial clay.)

Needless End For Trail-blazing Pacific Aviator

David Ellis

WHEN America's Pan American Airways decided in 1937 that the time was right to look to opening-up a commercial flying route from San Francisco across the South Pacific to Sydney in far-off Australia. it's founder Juan Trippe knew he had just the man to pioneer the route for them.

That was his Chief Pilot, Captain Edwin Musick who had already done such a job to Hong Kong two years earlier, embracing a circuitous route via Honolulu, Midway and Wake Islands, and Guam.

But the South Pacific decision was to prove a fatal one for the popular Captain Musick, who was somewhat of a living contradiction. On the one hand his extraordinary feats had made him arguably the world's best-known commercial pilot at the time, while on the other he was inordinately shy, cringing at publicity and facing crowds of admirers.

In those days with no airstrips on which to land on islands in the Pacific for refuelling and rest-breaks, Juan Trippe planned to use S-42 Sikorsky flying boats, that he dubbed "Clippers" after the clipper-ships that once sailed the routes he would follow, "landing" them at remote outposts.

But even in 1937 Britain eyed the South Pacific's sunny islands for its own Imperial Airways – and so banned Pan American from using Fiji (then a British colony) as a vital re-fuelling point.

Undeterred, Juan Trippe decided to test-out a route that would involve stops in Honolulu, a remote atoll called Kingman Reef 1700km south of Hawaii, Pago Pago in American Samoa, and ultimately Auckland rather than Sydney.

He outlined his plans to his Chief Pilot, who despite his quiet personae had actually begun his aviation career as an aerial barnstormer at American county fairs, billing himself Monsieur Musick, The French Daredevil.

Edwin Musick set to planning the South Pacific route in meticulous detail, just as he had the Hong Kong route in 1935 – and which had won him the prestigious Harmon Trophy for the aviation feat of the year, and put him on the cover of Time magazine.

On their first survey flight Captain Musick and his crew had no problem with Honolulu, while at Kingman reef – a mere pin-point on the map but large enough for drums of fuel to be stored there – a special radio ship had been anchored off-shore to relay directions to the Pan Am flying boat.

The mountains surrounding Pago Pago harbour, however, proved more challenging, rising between 490m and 650m, and causing Musick to comment later that landing there "had been like landing in a darned teacup" – harsh words indeed for the normally reticent Chief Pilot.

Hundreds upon hundred of canoes surrounded the flying boat when it came to a halt… and large as that crowd was, it was nothing to what greeted the flying boat on its arrival in Auckland in December 1937: 40,000 people lined the harbour to watch the historic event.

Captain Musick made another survey flight, and it was decided that just one more should be undertaken in January 1938 before beginning commercial operations.

It was a catastrophic decision: American authorities had just discovered that should S-42 flying boats need to dump fuel in emergencies, some of that fuel could be swept back into cavities in the wings, making them akin to flying bombs.

So a ban was put on the dumping of fuel by passenger-carrying S-42s until a solution to the problem was found… but because Captain Musick's survey flights carried no passengers, no one thought to tell him of the ban.

On January 11 1938 just after taking off from Pago Pago, Captain Musick's S-42 (named Samoan Clipper) developed an oil leak, so he decided to return to Pago Pago – dumping fuel along the way.

He had radioed his decision to authorities in Pago Pago, and when he neither arrived nor responded to radio messages, a sea search was organised: a US Navy ship later that day found the charred remains of the Pan American Clipper floating in a vast slick of oil.

Several items of clothing and personal possessions were also found, but no trace ever of Captain Musick and his six crew.

It would be 10 years before Pan American would finally fly commercially to Auckland, and ten more again to Sydney; the airline collapsed in bankruptcy in 1991.


PHOTO CAPTIONS:

 

[] PIONEERING Pan Am S-42 flying boat in Honolulu's Pearl Harbour.

[] AVIATOR extraordinaire, Captain Edwin Musick.

[] PAGO PAGO Harbour: Captain Musick described it as "like landing in a darn teacup."

[] MUSICK Point, Auckland was named after the pioneering aviator.

 

(Photos: US Aviation Museum Archives and Tourism Auckland)

Struth! No whinging please, we're British!

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that after readers' responses to his recent bizarre complaints received by British travel specialists Thomas Cook and the Association of British Travel Association, he has more howlers compiled by the two.

"I think it should be explained in the brochure," one disgruntled British holidaymaker wrote to his agent, "that the local store there does not sell proper biscuits – like custard creams or ginger nuts."

Another wrote: "It's lazy of the local shopkeepers to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during 'siesta' time – this should be banned."

And another: "On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food at all."

"We booked an excursion to a water park, but no-one told us we had to bring our swimming costumes and towels," another holidaymaker complained, while yet another's peeve was: "We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as yellow, but it was white."

And yet another: "Topless sunbathing on the beach should be banned. The holiday was ruined as my husband spent all day looking at other women," while one poor fellow was surprised with a purchase from a street hawker in Europe: "We bought sunglasses that had 'Ray-Ban' labels on them from a street trader for five Euros, only to find that they were fake."

And: "It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica (to England,) but it only took the Americans three hours to get home," wrote one complainant, with another's gripe being his apartment: "I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends' three-bedroom apartment. And ours was significantly smaller."

And finally the best whinge of all: "We had to queue outside where there was no air conditioning."

Struth! Don't Drop Dead in Westminster

IN his continuing search for the more weird, whacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that in England authorities actually have the right to insist on you having a doctor's certificate attesting to your good health before allowing you to join a tour of the Houses of the Parliament in London.



Because under old English law it is illegal to die in Parliament – not that that helped one-time Prime Minister Spencer Percival who died in the Houses of Parliament in May 1812 after an assassin got into the place, or another Member who died there in 1907 during a heated parliamentary vote.

The reason you are not allowed to die in the UK Parliament is that it is officially a Royal Palace, and under British law anyone who dies in a Royal Palace can technically be entitled to a State Funeral.

So if you're looking a bit pale on it while taking a tour of the Houses of Parliament, don't be surprised if an attendant suggests you take a bit of fresh air outside.

(And they reckon we're A Weird Mob.)