New consensus

 That's interesting! Everyone asks me what it's like to be the oldest person in the world, but no-one asks me why I am. It’s a good question. I'll have to think. Luck mostly, I guess.

Certainly not healthy living. I did become a vegan of course - am I the last alive to remember eating real meat? – but I always liked my glass of wine. Bottle of wine I should say! Now we make our own in the cooperative.

Certainly I'm not the oldest through planning it. I mean, I retired on my 60th birthday. I know! Less than half my life – 80 years ago today! I thought, why not? I was comfortable, I owned my own house, a reasonable pension and savings to keep me comfortable. I thought it would last until, what? 80, 90? That was life expectancy then. I wasn’t planning a new career - it happened by accident. Luckily for me, or I wouldn’t be able to afford to still be around.

So I suppose the answer is my new post retirement career. The first bit of luck was my writing taking off. I'd only started it for something to do, to fill the time. Do you know the term ‘viral’? You might have read about it. In those days what you call interaction was fairly primitive. We called it social media - I can't remember why now. There were just a few companies that controlled how people interacted, and people hooked on to these fads. So something would be sent by someone to their friends, then passed on, and so on until billions had heard about it. No, I'm not joking: these social media thingummies literally had billions signed up. So I wrote this story and somehow people, young people, latched on to what I had written and they wanted more in the same vein. Then I had something called a blog, which people could look at and read my stories and my ideas. Then there was a book, another book, documentaries. It all went viral! Suddenly I was famous and pretty soon I was rich. All unplanned, you see.

In those days there were some influential thinkers – people you know of now as heroes of the Restoration. But then it felt like they were crying in the wilderness. I had always admired them but by the time of retirement I think I had given up hope. Now suddenly I was mixing with these heroes of mine, campaigning with them. All when I thought I was going to have a slow descent to my death. I always knew it would come from the young ones: the ones born at the start of the century. My generation – the Careless Generation, you call them, right? – well, you're spot on there. We couldn't care less. We messed up the world, killed things off, all in the name of progress, and yet the more material benefit, the less happy we became.

Then suddenly as you know it all changed. Growth is Cancer, that was the cry. It was a perilous few years. Suddenly the young people were taking control all across Europe and what they did made a lot of sense. The New Consensus and all that. I was a great admirer of Greta Thunberg and we became great friends: she was kind enough to call me her guru, but I always said it was her generation that were the thinkers, the inventors of our new world, the clever ways of using technology to turn away from growth to the system we have now.

All those big corporations started to fail, thanks to them. I think what really made the biggest push was when – you've heard of the Friday school protests that Greta started? Of course you have! So they developed into Stay at Home Fridays and then Turn Off Fridays. That destroyed the big utility companies: consumption was down by ten per cent overnight. And people were learning how to mend things, to find new uses for them, to make and grow their own food, to exchange through local bartering networks, all facilitated by clever apps. That killed the retail companies. By then Greta and her new European Consensus were in power and the Treaty of Stockholm turned the EU from an apologist for the free market into a force for good.

But I still am amazed at how quickly it all happened. And not a moment too late. The climate emergency is still with us, of course, but it could so easily have been a lot worse. Do you know, when I retired, only 5% of United Britain was wild? And it was little patches of green surrounded by grey. Now 25% is forest, heath and wetland; even more of United Ireland. Yet we are self sufficient in food. The sprawling suburbs have gone. More people live in the country now than in my day, but also more densely in the cities. New arable farming techniques and the smallholdings give us everything we need, year round. People used to travel everywhere in their own cars, and fly half way around the world every year for their holidays, eating up fuel, poisoning the air. Now we all use the shared pods and the fast tracks.

I like to think that my influence on Prince George growing up was important too, if only through symbolism. As a student he said he had read everything I'd written. He often asked my advice and even tuned in to my lectures. As soon as he became king, he renounced his use of private vehicles and started using the pods, and he and his husband turned their various houses into self sustaining communes. Eventually he abolished the monarchy in agreement with the Consensus of course. I still go over from Heathrow from time to time and visit George and Hakim – by the way, I could tell you some stories about the greening of Heathrow and the fights we had, but that would be a whole other interview! A lovely young couple – well I say that but they're over eighty now of course, with a big extended family. Have you been to the People's Palace lately? The Mall orchard is magnificent at this time of year and they have some very advanced hydroponics units they're developing at Sandringham.

But I'm rambling. You know all this. I'm lapsing into one of my undergrad lectures again! You'll have to indulge this very old man. You used to tune in too? Well I'm glad.

Yes, I've been lucky with my health too. After the drug companies were nationalised and turned to research into the greater good – rather than some new pill for erectile dysfunction! – I volunteered for the gerontimplant programme. As I was one of the first I was very carefully monitored at all stages, and have been ever since, and I think that's helped to keep me going. Of course a lot of my generation were too far gone but the implants at least give them a good virtual world experience until they leave us. But the newer versions will allow people to live even longer than me. 100 is the new 60! I'm not as sprightly as I was, but I can still get around if I have to with the help of the pods and my brain isn't too bad for 140!

The one thing that has made the most impact on my life? Well, I'd like to say it was meeting Greta of course. But I suppose I have to go back to that first story I wrote that kicked the whole thing off, the one that went viral and for some reason gave people new hope. It was really off the cuff, hammered out one evening for a competition if I remember right – what was it called now? You know it? It's still famous is it? Well fancy that. You know I just interact now with my closest friends, I don't spread my virtual wings much further these days. Ah yes, I remember now, that's it: new consensus.

The switch

 

I have always had a strong imagination. I think this is important in a historian-criminologist. It's not just about the cold facts, the police reports, the evidence. You also have to be able to put yourself into the mind of the criminal; to see the world through his eyes (almost always it was he not she; to understand the culture and the times in which he operated. I can walk through a present day landscape and imagine how it was at the historic time I am researching. I can see almost like a double image how the streets would have looked at the time – the old fashioned shop fronts, the hurrying people in crinolines and top hats, the horses and carts, like a black-and-white movie overlaying the technicolor image of today. I can even move back and forth in time, fast forwarding the chiaroscuro image, back to a time of wooden cottages and dirt roads, forward to impressive facades and brick and cobbles.

So it was a real privilege to visit the actual scenes of one of the murderers I have always been interested in: Carson Ferzackerley. He was no Jack the Ripper. It was a fairly banal murder as they go, but my interest was sparked by the fact that he was the first to be executed by electric chair, in 1920s Chicago. As I looked into it, something fascinated me about it. It seemed to be a motiveless crime. His relationship with his wife previously had been idyllic and their love for each other was remarked upon. There had been no sign of mental illness – Ferzackerley lived a blameless life, he was a hard worker, a good churchman, a follower of the temperance movement. There was no evidence of gambling or debts; nor of infidelities on either side. This was Chicago in the 1920s, but there were no indications of connections with the underworld. So all the usual motivations for murder were absent. Some thought that a devil had possessed him, others that some kind of seizure had made him mad. The violence of his attack was horrific, by all accounts. But he offered no resistance to the authorities afterwards, and no explanation. In fact, he claimed not to be Ferzackerley at all, on the rare occasions when he spoke.

So with my good wife I decided to visit modern day Chicago. Olga likes to accompany me on these trips, even though I can sometimes appear to be in a dream as I wander the streets with my double exposure imagination going full tilt. The courthouse building where Ferzackerley was tried and convicted, and which housed the horrific machine that would end his life, was still there and is now a museum, although the execution suite is now normally off limits. I had been given special access by the curator, Sam Wise, whom I knew through collaborations and conferences we had both attended. So I arranged a private tour a few days after we arrived. The courthouse was quite close to the house where Carson and Marie Ferzackerley boarded, which is even now a small family-run hotel, little changed externally but with better plumbing and quite plushly furnished rooms in that characteristic American 'inn' style, and that is where we stayed. As I walked through its hall and sitting rooms I could picture how it would have looked in the twenties, somewhat faded and filled still with the heavy Victorian mahogany and brocades that survived from a more prosperous time. It would have all been threadbare but respectable: my research showed it was run as a temperance boarding house by an impoverished widow. The silent movie ran in my head, overlaying the real images as we toured the house and climbed the ornate staircase to our room. I had of course booked the room where the Ferzackerleys had lived, generously sized and now with an ensuite carved out of one corner where there would have been an overbearing wardrobe and dressing table. There was a small closet and the chimney breast of a fireplace, long since boarded up. The bed would have been a big iron-framed affair in the same location as today's twin beds.

We went out to dinner and then back in the room to read. I wanted to find all I could about the house while I was there. Olga retired early and I stayed up in a comfortable armchair, reading once more the police reports, which survived. I imagined the door opening and Ferzackerley entering from a late shift, his wife already in bed just like my wife tonight, the room cold and dark but for the flickering light of the dying embers. It was as if I could really see him now, standing there, taking off his heavy coat and his hat, brushing off a little snow on this deep winter night. He stood for a minute looking down at the bed and his sleeping wife. Then suddenly he looked up and seemed to stare right at me. I shook my head to lose the image: I had seen the police mugshot, directly into the camera, so that was the look I imagined.

I went to bed and turned out the light. The house, one of those late Victorian trophy houses, all gothic details and grey clapboard, creaked and cracked as the night temperatures fell. I fell asleep I think, because I seemed to see him again, staring at me in the firelight.

Next morning was bright and clear. Olga and I had a perfect day, walking around the city and along the waterfront. It's the thing we most like to share, exploring new places on foot, finding the little things that make a place unique.

That evening we had dinner with Sam who explained the history of the courthouse, an imposing classical edifice that had seen many a famous criminal sent down. Tomorrow the building was closed to the public but he had offered to take us round personally. It was an entertaining evening: Olga enjoyed Sam's anecdotes and decided to come with me on the tour.

We got straight to bed, ready for an early start. As I lay down, I felt decidedly chilly, even despite the late spring sunshine earlier, and decided to fetch the extra comforter in the closet. As I turned back into the room, I seemed to imagine Ferzackerley entering the room with his wife, perhaps a happier earlier occasion, I thought to myself. With these visions of the past it was always vision only, but tonight instead of the sketchy version of the mind's eye, the figures, while still black and white seemed more solid, more real. He was taking her in his arms: they seemed to be laughing wildly, whirling round and round in a mad dance, then abruptly he checked them and threw his wife roughly on the bed. Enough: my imagination was running away with me. I shook my head and thought no more about it. I went to bed and switched off the light. My wife's sleep seemed to be disturbed: she was breathing fast and shallow and moving about in her bed. I opened my eyes and looked over. I was shocked to be confronted by the vision of Ferzackerley's face no more than a couple of feet from mine, as if he was lying on top of Olga, looking straight at me, staring wildly. I jumped up and the vision was gone. My heart was beating fast and I decided I had lapsed into a dream, perhaps a little anxious about tomorrow.

Early next day Sam took us around the museum exhibits then into the courtroom, oak panelled and surprisingly small. He pointed out the various features – the judge's dais, the witness box, the jury bench, and the barred cage of the dock, with its stairs down to below. 'To be honest, it gives me the willies,' he said, 'every time I go down there. So if you don't mind, here's the key. Take your time down there and come up to the office when you're finished.' To be honest, I rather wanted to have some quiet time there, to imagine what it would have been like for the prisoner. I could imagine him standing there in the dock, with the officers behind him ready with their truncheons in case of trouble, hearing the dread words of the foreman as his fellows of the jury looked on – serious and upstanding gentlemen aware of their solemn duty – and then the awful sentence of the judge as the lawyers and the gawping public looked on. I saw him pleading, pointing at the jury then once again, strangely, seeming to stare directly at us, shouting something. This imagination thing was getting out of hand. I wondered how he felt as he descended the steps into the darkness below, then was led to the small whitewashed cell we found there, probably much smarter and cleaner than in his time, but still grim and dark. We walked along the corridor to a plain metal door at the end. It was heavy and creaky: it was obviously rarely opened. Quite large, with some natural light from arched barred windows high on the wall. To one side, a heavy partition with a window, through which could be seen a brighter room, with ancient electrical equipment, and a separate entrance to another circulation route. This was where the witnesses would have stood, with the executioner. In the middle of the electrical panel was a big switch, the kind that Dr Frankenstein would have used to pulse electricity into the dead body of his monster, to give it life. But here it served the opposite purpose. And in this room accessed from the cells, stood nothing but the horrific instrument of torture and death. We both shivered a little. In fact, Olga was shaking and I took her in my arms and comforted her. I could imagine the moustachioed gentlemen watching as the guards dragged Ferzackerley into the room and strapped him down. Was he terrified, was he calm? There was nothing in the record about this, just the bare fact that he was executed at such and such a time on such and such a day.

I imagined him there, scared, looking nervously over to the window as the guards left and locked the metal door, alone now. Seeing the men in the other room, looking back grim. I could see it all. He seemed to be calling out. Then the hand of the executioner moving almost in slow motion towards the switch. Then it seemed all too real for me: I could see his actual body there, as he turned and looked at me and he was mouthing – something. What was it? It looked like 'You – you!'

I hurried Olga out and back up the stairs and locked the door to the cellar behind us. 'What is it?' she said. You look more scared than me! Like you've seen a ghost.'

'Just my imagination running away with me again' I said.

'Such a sensitive creature' she said. She laughed and kissed me on the cheek.

That night we went to bed early again as we had an morning flight. I lay awake thinking about what I had seen in the execution chamber. For a minute it had seemed absolutely real. I really need to get more detachment, I thought. My eyes were just drooping shut when I thought I saw a flash of light, as if the door from the hall had opened. I sat up and looked over. There was the form of Ferzackerley, just like the first night, still wavering - but I realised that it was if he was seen in firelight – otherwise he appeared to be completely solid. I jumped out of the bed and stood at the far side of the room. He seemd so real. He brushed off the snow and took off his hat and coat again. Then he took a knife from the coat pocket, long bladed like a butcher's knife – the knife that was in the police report – and went to stand by the bed. Over the sleeping form. Was it my wife? Was it an image of his wife? It was hard to tell. I saw the old iron bedstead and the modern twin beds like a double exposure in my head. Then he lifted the knife and slowly turned to me and once again was looking directly into my eyes: into my soul.

Then he started to plunge the knife rapidly down into the body, over and over. I wasn't thinking, but just from instinct I rushed forward and tried to grab the knife, but my hands seemed to go right through him. Then there was a blinding flash. Suddenly the room was brightly lit and there was blood, bright red blood, lots of it below me. It was Ferzackerley's wife, stabbed over and over and I heard her last gasps as she expired, and almost the echo of her screams from before. And I looked down at my hand and it was bloody too, and in my hand was the knife. And I looked around and there was the mahogany and the brocade, the dowdy wallpaper of the old boarding house, just as I had imagined it. And there was a sudden banging on the door, a crash, a splintering of wood, and two men burst in and wrestled me to the ground. And they dragged me away from the bed, wrenched the knife from my hand.

'Ferzackerley, what have you done?'

Another flash. Suddenly I am in the courtroom from the morning. The judge and the jury and the counsel are all there, just as I had imagined them, but real this time, in full colour and sound. They are all looking at me sternly. Three people enter the floor of the court – strange, insubstantial people I could barely see in the glare of the winter morning. One of them was pointing around but making no sound. The other two, a man and a woman, are laughing and smiling, taking no notice of the courtroom proceedings. And now the grim-faced jury stands. And the judge says: 'Have you reached your verdict?' And one of them replies: 'Yes, your Honor. Guilty!' And there is some cheering and clapping and the judge bangs down his gavel and calls for silence. Then he sentences me to death. 'No, no, I'm not Ferzackerley,' I yell. 'Tell them!'

Another flash. I am sitting in the dreary cell. Unpainted, dirty, dank, just as I had imagined it would have been then. The man and woman appear again at the barred door hatch. They look in. They are insubstantial, like ghosts. But I recognise them.

Another flash. I am strapped into the electric chair. The guards are just closing the door. The man and woman are there in the room, black and white, flickering now, fading. I look across to the side and there are the men behind the glass; and there is the switch. I stare back at the couple. He takes her in his arms, hugs her tight, tenderly.

It is Olga – and me. Or is it? The man checks their dance, stopping facing me, staring into my eyes. It looks like my face: but suddenly it breaks into a malevolent grin. I realise now. 'You! You!' I cry. He grins wider, the embodiment of evil. Suddenly he slams her body against the wall. Olga's body. Out of the corner of my eye I see a movement behind the glass. The hand moves towards the panel and starts to close the switch.

The Wall

 The Wall has always existed. The people know this without knowing it. It is just a way of life: it is there. It is not always a physical wall. A wall, yes sometimes of concrete and brick and stone, of metal and razor wire and electrics; and sometimes a barrier of desert and ocean, of land impossible to cross; but also a wall of the mind.

At first it had been of mud bricks, baked in the sun. It wasn't to keep the Others out: it was to keep our treasures in: like all the walls to come. And like all walls in all times eventually, it came a-tumbling down and the treasures were taken.

Those treasures were gold, or food, or ideas. Or sometimes a face that launched a thousand ships. Those walls could seem impossible to breach. But ways can always be found to break them, by force of arms or subterfuge or by Greeks bearing gifts.

But soon everywhere walls sprung up, around this town and that city. And within each city, no longer did the treasure belong to all the people of the city, it was hoarded by a few – and so there were walls within walls, citadels within citadels, to keep the treasures for ever fewer people, and they now controlled the people: the Few. But people had built the walls, so they knew how to break down the walls of the citadel. And those from outside – the Others – knew how to break down the walls of the city. So then it was necessary, to protect the treasures, to invent a new type of wall: the wall of fear.

So then there were gods, who forbade the people to break down the walls, who would curse them if they attacked the citadels, who would send them plagues and droughts and floods if they disobeyed. Because, the Few told the people, they themselves were anointed by the gods, were descended from them even, and the rules they gave out came from the gods, and the gods were content to allow the Few to keep the treasures: and this is why they must not break down the walls. Of course not everyone believed that the gods favoured the Few at the expense of the people, and they brought down the walls, and took hold of the treasures. The Few were overthrown and the people made use of the treasures until the next city heard all the commotion and set out to take over. Thus one city became many, the Few became fewer, and the lands they controlled through walls of fear grew bigger and bigger.

They became so big that they had to build huge walls, stretching for thousands of miles, over mountains and plains and deserts, from sea to sea, to keep out the Others. These great walls will protect you, our people, said the Few; but mainly they were there to protect the Few and their treasure. The people were forced to labour to build these walls – and the walls within walls for the Few, vast palaces at the heart of these new empires, where the Few could count their treasures in peace. And to make sure the people believed in the gods, they made them build vast temples to the gods, too, to demonstrate how important the gods were and to remind them to bow down in fear.

And for the most part, the people feared the gods enough, and believed what they had been told – that the Few were god-like and it was the duty of the people to labour for them and let them enjoy the treasures. But sometimes there were natural droughts and floods and famines and the people thought the gods were angry and the Few were not propitiating them adequately. And then the people with great effort overthrew the walls of the palaces and took control for a while. Sometimes they even lost their fear of the gods and threw down their temples too. Then the people would rejoice in their freedom and the treasures until the next great empire saw their weakness and absorbed them. Or some among them, the brightest and best perhaps, or the most ruthless, would seize and take control of what the deposed group had kept to themselves – the treasures and the palaces and the walls of fear – and become the new Few.

And so the world continued, and empires waxed and waned, each with its group exercising absolute power over the people and the treasures. Empires continued, generation after generation: and this was a great weakness, because instead of choosing the brightest and best of each generation, it was the children of the Few, the blood relatives, that took control from their fathers. Because, after all, if the fathers were demi-gods, then surely their children would be likewise, chosen and blessed with the skills to maintain the walls? Some in the new generations were better at this than others and their fortunes grew. But frequently they were bad at it – lazy, weak-minded, corrupt – and they allowed the people and other empires to prevail. They were not blessed by the gods, because the gods had been invented by their forefathers. And so their walls were overthrown by the brighter, the stronger, the more ruthless.

So many times the cycle continued – build the walls of stone and fear, overthrow, build again – that eventually the people started to see through this and demand a new world, where they would all share in the treasures and decide who would control and maintain the walls. In one empire after another, the citadels and palaces were attacked, the Few taken away in tumbrils and executed, and the treasures distributed. And for a while in these places there was an illusion of a better world for the people. But still there were ruthless people amongst them. It was necessary to invent a new fear, a new wall of the mind because the people now knew that the gods at best had little influence, at worst were dead.

The new fear was the Others. Before, the Others had merely been an inconvenience, to be kept out by the walls. They wanted our treasures, the people said, just as we wanted theirs; you couldn't blame them, you just had to protect what was ours. Now, the gods held no fear – so the people must fear the Others. The Others were not just greedy, they were evil; they were inferior; they were destroyers of civilisation; they were Other. And they were not necessarily outside the walls – they could be your neighbours, or the people who acted a bit strangely over the road, or who didn't follow the rules. And they needed to be weeded out, because they would subvert our new life within the walls.

So the new nations came into being, one by one supplanting the old empires. And every time anything went a bit wrong within the walls, the Others could be blamed. Of course, once again, the Few were still building their walls within walls and their palaces. And if the people complained that they weren't getting a fair share, it would all be the fault of the Others. Soon the people were actually rioting against their neighbours and the people across the street, the ones everyone said were a bit different, a bit Other; soon they were smashing their windows and beating them up, and bringing in discriminatory rules to stop them being Other, even rounding them up and expelling them or exterminating them. The Few encouraged this as they quietly built their treasure mountains. Because if the Others were evil, then we were good, they said, and the way we lived was right, and the ideas and customs we followed were correct, and everything else was wrong. So each nation built up its own way of life and hated the ways of life that were different. And the Others were so wrong that they needed to be overthrown and so there came a time when nations attacked each other. Millions upon milions of people died and the nations suffered great trauma.

By this time, the people had had enough and called on the Few to stop this nonsense. Of course, some nations were very similar: they built up alliances, with a view to stopping the destruction, and soon there were only a few alliances: but they eyed each other with great suspicion. And the walls now stood between these great alliances: walls of ideas, and real walls of steel and guard towers and guns. People on the other side might like the ideas and the prosperity on the other side, but the walls were built ever higher to stop them crossing.

So now, it is as if the walls have always existed. The people think this without thinking about it. It is their way of life. It has always been this. The Others have got it wrong: they need to be kept out. The Few sit in their palaces and occasionally stir up the fears to strengthen their own position. We need to fear the Others, we need to fear their ideas, their influence, we need to keep them out.

Because now we are all in the citadel, they tell the people. We are all equal within our wall of shared values. One day there will be a wall right around the world, a wall across mountains and deserts where we keep out the Others who want what we have; across oceans where we stop the Others' boats; in our heads where we stop the Others' ideas. And we need to fear those inside our wall that sympathise with those outside, who follow their ways, who spread their ideas, because they are the enemy within, they are Other too. We must stop them so that only we, the right-thinking people, are within our wall, sharing our treasures, they say. But the people don't see what the Few, more subtly now, are quietly amassing in their hidden walls within walls.

The Wall has always existed, to protect what is ours, because we are right, the Few tell the people. One day it will be all the people hear, and all they want to hear. Before, all walls in all times eventually fell. When there is just one Wall, will it also fall?

Virgin Islander

Challenged to write about a place I knew very little about, I chose the British Virgin Islands...

She was always known as Great Aunt Laetitia in the family, but no-one really knew what happened to her. She was actually my great aunt three times removed, the youngest of eleven children, who disappeared at the age of twenty leaving her family bereft, including the second youngest child, Ferzackerley Beaumont, my great-great-great-grandfather, who had apparently been very close to her. Shortly before she disappeared, he had made a sketch of her, which is still in the family, and shows a very beautiful young woman, with a wry, playful expression.

It was a story I'd heard many times in my childhood, and now with time on my hands I determined to try and solve the mystery once and for all. Now I was off to the British Virgin Islands to follow one of the leads!

The rumours were many and various. Had she been a victim of the white slave trade? Had she died in the Crimea, one of Florence Nightingale's angels? Or was she part of the British Virgin Society's controversial settlement programme in the mid nineteenth century?

So here I was, looking out over the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean as the characteristic twin volcanic peaks of Sterling Island rose above the horizon. Though cruise ships now dock at the new port facility, I had chosen the more traditional route of a pirate ship. These are no more than tourist vessels nowadays of course, although I was told they do the occasional bit of drug running out of South America. But the picturesque sloop with its jolly roger flag gave me a feeling of what Great Aunt Laetitia must have experienced, in just such a boat as this. Dolphins flipped along in our wake, racing us as we approached the old harbour of Port Guinea, stacked up the hillside, with Mount Victoria now looming above us, and Mount Albert less distinct beyond. Around us the palm-fringed atolls of the outer islands could be seen: Peseta Island in the foreground and beyond it Rouble Island and many others to the horizon. Many small 'money boats' were plying between the harbour and the islands at a fair lick, or loading and unloading at the quay.

When paper money was introduced in the UK, it quickly fell victim to the depredations of Britain amongst those 'dark satanic mills' of the early industrial revolution. Health reformers were worried about the spread of disease by this filthy form of currency and so the Bank of England decided to have money cleaned in the then pristine environment of the colonies – where there was also cheap labour available. The Dutch, Portuguese and other colonial nations had already set up similar industries for polishing gold coins (names such as New Guinea and Guinea Bissau remind us of this tradition even today). The Bank had also been doing this in British Guinea (now Guyana), and decided to experiment with paper money there. However this project soon failed because of high humidity and malarial swamps.

Meanwhile the British Virgin Society, set up to prevent respectable young ladies falling into bad ways (there being a shortage of eligible young men following a series of wars), had established banana plantations in the Windward Islands, to be managed by their ladies. However, these were not doing as well as it was hoped, and so the Society bid for and won the money cleaning contract from the Bank. The rest is history: the islands became the British Virgin Islands and they remain to this day the money laundering centre of the world.

Pulling into Port Guinea, we could see row upon row of whitewashed cottages climbing up the hillside, each with its own yard, with lines stretching across filled with brilliant fluttering notes. Somehow I had imagined that the laundering process would have been modernised by now, undertaken in bland anonymous factories, but it was a joy to discover that the notes in my pocket must have been lovingly washed by hand right here on the island and then hung out to dry in the balmy breezes of the Caribbean. I could see groups of big brawny women scrubbing away around large, circular stuccoed vats dotted around the town, then pegging out the dripping notes on the lines.

After checking in to a charming old quayside inn, all oak beams and fishing floats, I made my way up steep cobbled alleys to the BVS headquarters building, a rather grand if fading colonial establishment, built around a shady colonnaded courtyard with brightly coloured shutters at the windows. A few old locals were hanging around in the shade, and an old dear was sweeping the courtyard rather half-heartedly. I had arranged to meet the BVS historian, Williametta Brooster, a descendant it turned out of a mixed marriage between one of the British virgins and a local. A mix of African, local tribal and European blood had given her striking good looks even in late middle age. She was a charming woman. Nothing was too much trouble for her – she seemed grateful that someone would take an interest in the history of the islands. She explained that many of the English ladies who had come over had ended up in relationships with the locals. In fact, it was only for a relatively short period that new virgins were sent to the colony; but the laundries were so successful that they continued eventually under native hands, in time taking on other countries' laundering requirements. Although Sterling Island continued to deal mostly with UK and commonwealth demands, the outlying atolls took on various European currencies: hence their names.

The islands have seen their economic health fluctuate as currencies came and went. The introduction of the euro was a troubling time for them as there was talk of an automated facility in Dortmund, but in the end Brussels relented and the euro work continues to be carried out here in the old way. There is now a major concern with the introduction of contactless payments as there has been a significant drop off in volume lately.

Miss Williametta explained all this to me, then took me to the rather grand oak panelled library, where the archives were kept. The building, foursquare and solid, had withstood many hurricanes and preserved the records, although she said that rats and mice and weevils had damaged some of the records. I had worked out – from Great Aunt Laetitia's age when she disappeared and her date of birth recorded in the parish register – that she must have left in 1858 or 1859. Miss W. pulled down the great leather bound volumes for those years, luckily intact, and we worked our way through the hand written entries, which meticulously logged every aspect of the work of the Society.

Suddenly, there it was: “Beaumont, Miss L. Arrived on Sloop Mary Jane, Nov. 9. Allocated to new Foreign Currency Division. Pig Island.”

Pig Island? I had thought all the islands were named after currencies. Miss W. explained that this was right at the start of the new contracts for non-Empire currency. Pig Island was now Peseta Island. And Laetitia would have stayed in the main house there, which still existed.

I was thrilled. The mystery was solved: I now knew for certain what had happened to Aunt Laetitia – and soon I would be able to see where she had spent her days, and maybe discover more about what happened after her arrival.

Early next morning I hitched a lift on one of the money boats, packed dangerously high with dirty old euros, and sped off to the nearby island. The captain pointed me in the direction of the old homestead and I set off, followed by a jolly bunch of curious laughing children.

The house was huge, an old Victorian gothic pile with wide shady balconies. It had obviously had a seeing to by the frequent tropical storms. Parts of the ornate fretted fascias were missing and the roof was patched with corrugated iron. One whole wing was abandoned and falling to ruin. Thousands of briliantly clean 20 and 10 euro notes were stretched on lines set up higgledy piggledy around the yard. A large old lady, sitting in the porch on a rocking chair, eyed me suspiciously as I approached.

I introduced myself. I believe a relative of mine once lived here many many years ago. Had she heard of Miss Laetitia Beaumont?

Without a word she stood, still stony faced, and beckoned me into the dark interior. The rooms were heavily curtained, with ancient wallpaper part peeling and torn, and big old mahogany furniture scratched and broken. There, in pride of place, was a very old photograph in an elaborate ebony frame. A couple on their wedding day. A handsome young African man and a beautiful young woman with a wry, playful smile. Unmistakably Great Aunt Laetitia.

“We calls her Great Aunty Tisha in my family.”

“So do we, so do we!” I said, as tears came to my eyes.

She looked surprised, then slowly her formidable look melted away and a huge smile swept across her face.

“Then we cousins!” she said, as she enfolded me tightly in her formidable washerwoman arms.

Perfectly middle aged

It’s a joy to be totally healthy

As my laptop boots up on the train,

And to know that I’m really quite wealthy

With a house, plus a villa in Spain.

But this feeling of loss never goes now,

And this feeling that I've been caged:

I suppose this must be what it feels like

To be perfectly middle-aged.

Yes, my family’s perfectly darling,

And my friends influential and bright;

And I’ve switched to Rioja from Carling,

Yet I still wake up screaming each night.

And at work I am known and I’m rated,

And I win corp’rate battles waged,

And I dress in Paul Smith (understated)

Since I’m perfectly middle aged.

And I’ve dabbled in shares and in stocks, mate

Because profit’s no longer a crime.

No, I don’ t watch a lot on the box, mate -

Cos I really don’t have any time.

So I’ve started to listen to arias

And I went to that Damian Hirst cow.

Yes, I’m really now jumping the barriers

To be perfectly middle brow.

Yes, I’m terribly cosseted, matey,

And my life is a little cocoon.

And I’ve noticed that sometimes, just lately

I start thinking: Please, Death, take me soon.

Where’s the passion, the joy, the exploring?

God - it’s years since I felt outraged!

Maybe that’s why it’s perfectly boring

To be perfectly middle aged.

Shall I compare thee to an iPad 3?

Thou art less awesome and thine apps don’t rate.

Fair art thou now, yet fair from fair shall flee,

And soon thou shalt embrace thy mortal fate.

But iPad’s mint good looks shall never fade,

And yet more functions Apple shall bestow:

Amazing software, retina displayed

Shall e’er amuse me, when thy wiles shall slow.

iTunes, iPhoto: thanks to Jobs above.

Dost think that thou with Angry Birds compare?

My iPad 3 – my joy, my life, my love!

Eternal loyalty to it I’ll swear:

  So long as I can breathe, I’ll love it more,

  At least until they ship my iPad 4.

After the tone: THE COMPLAINT

Another answerphone tale.

Beep

This is an automated response to your call. Thank you for calling Myer-Truelove on /beat/ December /beat/ 25th! Your comments on /beat/ unwanted item /beat/ have been received and are being dealt with by our consumer affairs department. Unfortunately the office is closed today, and we hope to get back to you shortly. Calls may be recorded for quality assurance purposes.

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This is an automated response to your call. Thank you for calling Myer-Truelove on /beat/ December /beat/ 26th! Your comments on /beat/ rubbish you keep sending me /beat/ have been received and are being dealt with by our consumer affairs department. Unfortunately the office is closed today, and we hope to get back to you shortly. Calls may be recorded for quality assurance purposes.

Beep

Hello, Ellie here from Myer-Truelove consumer affairs; call for Mr Smith, calling on the 27^th. Yes, we do employ humans! I can quite understand your frustration at only getting recorded messages when you call, and in response. Unfortunately, the office was closed for the bank holidays on the first days of Christmas. Of the thousands of transactions undertaken by this company only a few have issues raised by our customers, and they always receive our undivided attention. If you would like to send back the unwanted items you will be credited in full for the amount deducted from your account. We value your custom!

Beep

Hello, Ellie here again from Myer-Truelove. Mr Smith, I sincerely apologise for the issues you have been experiencing, though yours is unusual as you will appreciate. I realise you have no experience in transporting livestock, and when we just asked you to return the birds yesterday it seemed a little thoughtless. I hadn’t realised they were alive in fact. We will contact you in the next few days and arrange for the unwanted items to be picked up by a livestock carrier specialist. In the meantime if you could keep them fed and watered we would be really grateful. As a goodwill gesture senior management have agreed that you can keep the pear trees, but not the partridges.

Beep

Hello, Mr Smith? What can I say? I really sincerely apologise for the continuing problem. It has been tracked down to a bug in the dispatch centre server in Bracknell. As a result, since the first day of Christmas, Myer-Truelove have sent to you various birds: I believe today's shipment included four calling birds, three french hens, two turtle doves and yet another partridge in a pear tree. Let me assure you we have our best brains working on it even though it’s still the holiday. I can understand your comment that you are not running a ruddy zoo.

We have contacted the RSPCA and they recommend that the French hens are kept separate from the turtle doves and calling birds, as they can attack without warning. The partridges are docile and will most probably stay in their pear trees, so no worries there. We will of course reimburse you for reasonable costs incurred in continuing to look after the birds.

Purely as a gesture of goodwill we have today dispatched a lovely gold ring from our Serenity range, entirely free, for your good lady wife.

Beep

Mr Smith. Oh dear, I am so sorry about all this. Five gold rings! We did indeed only mean to send one ring and would be so grateful if you could return the other four when the birds are collected. Similarly I note that yet another batch of birds has arrived adding insult to injury. Unfortunately we cannot let the deliverer take away the unordered items as we do not have a contract with them for that. We are arranging a special collection, but at this time of the year – well, you know how things are!

Beep

Yes, Mr Smith, I am aware that your original order was for one organic goose, and I am truly sorry that you have today finally received six. And that they are alive when you clearly specified oven ready. If you now want to return all six that’s absolutely fine. Though I can confirm they are organic. I suppose you wanted it for Christmas dinner though. By all means keep the eggs you say they are a-laying. Our records show that along with all the livestock - sent yet again! - we also mistakenly dispatched a further set of gold rings, though I notice you did not mention receiving them in your message. We also need these back, I’m afraid.

Beep

It’s Ellie again. Well, it's the eighth day of Christmas already and first of all let me wish you a happy new year, Mr Smith! Though I expect you are none too happy at the moment, especially… well… getting the swans must have been particularly distressing to you and your good lady wife. Especially if you had been up celebrating. Probably the swans weren’t too chuffed either. (Just my little joke!) Lucky you have the pool.

As it happens, I was indeed aware that swans are the property of the Queen. I imagine that if returned unharmed this shouldn’t be a problem, but I’m checking with our legal department just in case. I hope the feedstock we sent arrived safely.

I’m grateful to you for counting up all the animals received to date. 69 tallies exactly with our despatch records. At least that part of the software is working correctly! You don’t mention the 15 gold rings….

Beep

Oh dear, Mr Smith: things do seem to be getting rather out of hand. The problem has spread to the bookings management software of Myer-Truelove Recruitment, our sister staff agency at Virginia Water. That probably explains the milkmaids who arrived this morning at 6:00am. I appreciate how inconvenient that must have been, and can only apologise again. Their normal start time is before dawn, I’m afraid: you’re lucky it’s not the summer. Presumably you don’t have cows? Not yet anyway! My little joke again! But see what they can do around the house, or maybe some gardening?

Beep

Another lot of milkmaids? It isn’t your week, is it Mr Smith? I have tried contacting my colleagues at Myer-Truelove Recruitment – unfortunately they are closed today with an extended New Year break.

Now. The ladies dancing are a complete mystery. I will try and get back to you later on that. Your garden must look quite a sight now with over a hundred of our feathered friends. Please try and utilise the milkmaids: it occurs to me they no doubt have some training in other areas of animal husbandry and could help with the poultry. I wonder if you would mind asking them to fill in their timesheets each day? We won’t charge you but we need it for our records.

Beep

Mr Smith, some good news at last! Our IT manager believes he has tracked down the problem to a particularly nasty virus implanted by hackers in our main server. Unfortunately, to cure the problem will mean taking down the server and reinstalling all software from scratch. This could take a few days, but we will keep you up to date with the latest. Until it is solved you will continue to receive seven swans, six geese, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree - 23 birds each day in all. And five gold rings – please keep them safely. The bug has also deleted the instructions to the company collecting the items from you. I have now called them directly. Hopefully they will be there to collect shortly.

I have solved the mystery of the dancing ladies. They were hired by Myer-Truelove Recruitment as part of a ballroom dancing display team drawn from impoverished members of the former Rumanian nobility. The computer glitch means they were sent to you instead of to the New Year’s parade in London. You probably also have some of the lords with you by now – their partners. The rest of the team has been held up by fog at Frankfurt, they are trying to get on later flights and should arrive over the next two days.

I’m glad to hear the milkmaids have been filling in their time well. So, there are now enough of them to set up two soccer teams complete with subs, are there? I’m glad you enjoyed being the referee – pity about the mud, but it didn’t seem to bother you too much, or them!

Beep

Mr Smith, how clever of you to set up your own impromptu pageant locally! It must have cheered up a dark winter’s day in Surbiton no end! You seem to have made good use of the milkmaids’ time in decorating the floats: ‘Leda and the swan’ with 30 swans and even more geese must have been spectacular, and the mud wrestling tableau sounds inspired! Not to mention the 66-strong aristocratic formation dancing team doing the military two-step down the High Street!

I bet your newer arrivals really topped off a fantastic display, what with the Kodushu Zen Drummers drumming and the Dagenham Girl Pipers piping. More wrong bookings thanks to that computer glitch, I’m afraid. Still, it seemed to turn out well - they really seem to have mucked in with the milkmaids! The finale sounds a hoot!

Beep

Well, Mr Smith, finally it’s all over and it must seem very quiet in Sebastopol Avenue, with all the animals gone, and no more drummers drumming or pipers piping. I’m glad the pick up went smoothly. I hear there were some tearful farewells, and that you are welcome any time in Transylvania and Kyoto. Or indeed Dagenham.

Just one thing. I think you may have overlooked the gold rings that were despatched. They did not come back with the other items. You’ll remember that purely as a gesture of goodwill, we let you keep all the pear trees, and I am glad to hear you are going to set up an orchard as a going concern. And as we said, do keep one gold ring for your wife. Perhaps it will help you to get back together again: though it sounds like you are having a good time with the milkmaids that chose to stay on. But we really do need the other 39 rings back.

Beep

Mr Smith?

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Mr Smith? Are you busy, Mr Smith?