CHAPLAIN’S LETER
Please may I ask your prayers for a group of seven of us who are making a pilgrimage to Iona this month? It’s quite a journey. We shall be travelling by boat or plane to Glasgow and then taking the four-hour train journey to Oban which goes through some of the most wonderful mountain scenery in Scotland. Then it’s a walk from the train to the ferry and an hour’s sea journey across to the island of Mull, followed by an hour’s bus ride along the south of the island. Then after a final ten-minute ferry journey from Mull to the tiny island of Iona, we will at last be in sight of the abbey which will be our home for a week.
This tiny Scottish island occupies a very important place in the history of Christianity, because it was here that St Columba founded the first Christian monastery in Scotland when he came across from Ireland in AD 563. And it was from this tiny island that Columba and his fellow monks brought the faith to the rest of Scotland, years before St Augustine brought Christianity to England. That was a long time ago, and for many years the medieval monastery on Iona was little more than a ruin. That was until a Church of Scotland minister called George MacLeod working in the slums of Glasgow had the vision of rebuilding the abbey as a Christian community and study centre in the 1930’s. Since that time the Iona community has become a centre for Christian spirituality, worship and social action which is known throughout the world.
We shall be staying in the abbey with fellow Christians of all traditions from all over the world. Part of the Iona experience is simply the value of learning to live in community with one another, sharing in the humble common tasks which keep any community going. However our particular week on Iona will be led by Carolyn Smith who will be introducing us to workshops on resolving conflict in everyday life. We shall also have the enormous privilege of worshipping together in the abbey church, which stands at the heart of one of the most ancient centres of Christianity in Britain.
One of the most striking things about the abbey church is that the windows are made of plain glass; they therefore enable you to look out onto the island and over to the mainland while you are meeting for worship. It’s symbolic of the dominant attitude of the Iona community which encourages Christians to find very practical ways of expressing their faith and their convictions out in the real world – perhaps even by trying to resolve conflict in everyday life. Outward looking churches are a blessing and an inspiration to all Christians. Please pray for God’s blessing on our journeys and our visit and also that we may bring some of the Iona vision back to Utrecht when we return.
Fr John
PRAYER CHAIN
If you have any requests for the prayer chain, or if you feel called to take part in this ministry, please contact Anne Miechielsen
HARDY PLANTS FOR DRY, SUNNY BORDERS
Below is just a selection of the most popular varieties of plants that are suitable for planting in hot, dry beds. However, with all of these plants, they need to be established first before they are left to fend for themselves - and that will of course mean some watering, especially for young and newly planted plants. Usually by the second year they can pretty much fend for themselves but remember they are not desert plants, so if you want them to thrive instead of merely survive, water them - just don't over-water them!
Acaena species Achillea species
Armeria maritime Bergenia species
Ceanothus species Cheiranthus species
Cistus species. Convolvulus
Cytisus species Dianthus species
Eryngium species Gaillardia species
Genista Lydia Hypericum species
Juniper species Lavender species
Mahonia species Miscanthus species
Hardy ornamental Sages Rosemary species
Santolina chamaecyparissus Tamarix.
Thymus species Verbascum species.
Weigela species
Other favourites:
Cold-hardy opuntias, echinops, yuccas and sempervirens, as well as euonymus varieties, oriental yew, and evergreen boxwood. All these are evergreen varieties.
Stachys byzantina (‘Lamb's Ears’). It attracts bees and is great for dried and fresh flower arrangements. Children love this plant as well; the leaves feel furry and soft like a lamb, hence the name.
Vinca can go a long time without any water and keep right on blooming and showing no signs of stress - even in full sun.
Ornamental grasses, artemisia ('Silver King') and all sedum plants, the many varieties of lantana and perennial salvias, and gaura ('Whirling Butterflies').
My own contribution: the small begonia semperflorens is hardy, drought- and water- resistant and flowers until the end of October.
Henny, for the Green Awareness Group
ECUMENICAL EASTER LETTER FROM THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
When St John tells us that the disciples met behind locked doors on the first Easter Day (John 20.19), he reminds us that being associated with Jesus Christ has never been easy or safe. Today this is evident in a wide variety of situations whether in the terrible communal violence afflicting parts of Nigeria, in the butchery and intimidation of Christians in Mosul in recent weeks, in the attacks on the Coptic faithful in Egypt, or in the continuing harassment of Anglican congregations in Zimbabwe. As we mark the thirtieth anniversary of the martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador, we acknowledge that Christians will never be safe in a world of injustice and mindless fear, because Christians will always stand, as did Archbishop Romero, for the hope of a different world, in which the powerful have to let go of privilege and rediscover themselves as servants, and the poor are lifted up into joy and liberty.
This hope is rooted in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. His rising from the dead shows the world that death does not have the last word whether the death of love, the death of security, even physical death itself. On the first day of the week, the first day of the new creation, God walks once again in the garden and begins to re-shape the whole world of our experience and our possibilities; the Second Adam wakes under the tree of the cross and promises fresh life, freedom and forgiveness, to the entire human world.
Wherever fear prevails, this promise will be seen as dangerous. But people still have the courage to identify themselves as Christians because they know that the resurrection demonstrates that Jesus is beyond all human power and violence, that all authority in heaven and on earth is given to him (Matthew 28.18). The Christian may suffer and die witnessing to this truth, but death itself cannot extinguish the abiding power of Christ to transform and renew; the martyr knows this and fixes his or her eyes on that joyful vision.
We who live in more comfortable environments need to bear two things in mind. One is that fellow-Christians under pressure, living daily with threats and murders, need our prayers and tangible support by personal contact, by continually reminding our governments and media of these things. To a Christian experiencing these threats, it matters more than most of us could imagine simply to know that they are not alone and not forgotten. But the second point to remember is that we need to keep our own fears in perspective. It is all too easy, even in comfortable and relatively peaceful societies, for us to become consumed with anxiety about the future of Church and society. We need to witness boldly and clearly but not with anger and fear; we need to show that we believe what we say about the Lordship of the Risen Christ and his faithfulness to the world he came to redeem.
The world will not be saved by fear, but by hope and joy. The miracle of the joy shown by martyrs and confessors of the faith is one of the most compelling testimonies to the gospel of Jesus. In whatever way we can, we must seek to communicate this joy, however dark or uncertain the sky seems. All authority belongs to Jesus, and into his wounded hands is placed the future of all things in heaven and earth. To him be glory for ever.
Rowan Williams
At the back of the church, there is an antique Canadian flag. Not everybody who attends Holy Trinity knows why. The following article by Arnold Rietveld explains the connection between our church and Canada.
THE POLAR BEARS AND THE LIBERATION OF UTRECHT
As you enter Utrecht through the Berenkuil and take a turn along the R.C. cemetery you can see a memorial in the Hogelandse Park that marks the spot where units of the 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division entered Utrecht city on May the 7th in 1945. The memorial is a walking Polar Bear with its head lifted up. This was the insignia on the division’s badge after the division had been stationed in Iceland from 1940 to 1942. Originally the Polar Bear on the badge had been designed with the head down to look into a hole in the ice, preparing to catch his next fishy meal. But a new Divisional Commander, Major E.H. Barker, thought that it looked too submissive and redesigned the Polar Bear to give it a more aggressive posture.
The Division had its baptism of fire in Norway in April 1940 and was to become involved in the bloodiest campaign of the Second World War – fighting around the Normandy bridgeheads in June 1944. The fighting was so intense that the German soon nicknamed the Division “The Polar Bear Butchers”. As a British Territorial Force, the Division fought under the command of I corps, the II Canadian Corps and the I Canadian Force. After the bloodletting in Normandy, the Division fought in a ferocious battle to capture the German fortified stronghold of Le Havre in September 1944. Another trial awaited them when in April 1945 they had to mop up strong German pockets of resistance in the ruined city of Arnhem, the scene of bitter fighting months before. Their entry into Utrecht on May the 7th that year, however, was much more peaceful. Ten of thousands of people lined the streets, cheering their Liberators. The town had not been severely bombed or shelled in the last months of the war, but its population, especially elderly and vulnerable people were malnourished and hundreds and perhaps thousands of them were literally starving to death. Most units of the division were engaged in a largely humanitarian mission to get as much food aid as possible to the starving people. Other units were engaged in a mission to disarm as many German soldiers as possible, especially the much-hated SS units which were reported to be in Utrecht.
The 49th Reconnaissance Regiment – a relatively small force with lightly armoured vehicles – apparently stayed over in the vicinity of the Wilhelminpark and discovered the church buildings of Holy Trinity Church on the Van Limburg Stirumplein and the corner of the Van Hogendorpstraat. The army chaplain, Rev. J.F. Wrangham Hardy, witnessed the effects of malnourishment on the small congregation of our church: he wrote that people looked like walking skeletons. De Breuning family had been looking after the church buildings since 1940, ensuring that the Germans did not seize them and use them for their own purposes. The English Church in Rotterdam, for example, had been seized by the Germans in 1940 and was used as their place of worship. The evidence that the Germans had similar plans for the English church in Utrecht in 1942 was so compelling that the family – with the aid of a German caretaker and clergyman - rented the church out to a Dutch congregation.
With the end of the war immanent the mood in town became increasingly tense. A neighbour from across the road had asked if the Breuning family would like to store medical supplies in the Parsonage because he believed that the Germans would not attack the building. Germans were still patrolling the streets, whilst civilians wanted to celebrate the end of the war. Small groups of Dutch resistance fighters also came out onto the streets to arrest and disarm the Germans. Most Germans, however, refused to surrender to them. On the 6th of May, the Germans surrendered to the Allied forces. On May the 7th, shortly before the arrival of the Polar Bears, a local Dutch resistance group sought to disarm a small group of German soldiers on the Prinses Margrietlaan, just opposite the exit road from the Van Limburg Stirumplein. Suddenly a shot was fired – it is still contested who fired the first shot. This alarmed other groups of German soldiers in close proximity who attacked the resistance group from various directions. The young, spirited resistance fighters were no match for the infuriated Germans. Some tried to run to the nearby cemetery to seek cover behind the headstones but were caught up with by the advancing Germans. Some were shot at point blank range. Eight young resistance fighters were killed in that gunfight, and one badly wounded fighter was left for dead. Stretchers that were hidden in the Parsonage were now used to carry away the dead bodies and the wounded resistance fighter.
The Breuning family with young children were also reeling over the shock that German soldiers had forcibly entered the Parsonage two days before. The sight of a Union Jack had angered the Germans so much that they used explosives to blast away the front door and to storm the building. The men of the 49th Reconnaissance enlisted the help of German POW’s they had captured on the way to clear away the debris.
The arrival of the 49th Reconnaissance Regiment marked the end of five years of often brutal occupation by the Germans. The congregation of Holy Trinity Church was now free to worship again in their own church buildings. Rev. J.F. Wrangham-Hardy looked after the congregation in the post war days and the Polar Bears donated their flag to Holy Trinity, where it hangs to this day. On the 9th of May he held a thanksgiving-service in the Wilheminapark. He recalled that this service marked to true end of the war for him and his men.
Arnold
CHORAL MATINS FOR THE POLAR BEARS
On Friday, 7 May at 10-30 a.m. a slightly shortened service of Choral Matins will be held in our church in the presence of the last few remaining members of the Polar Bears. They, along with a larger group of Canadian ex-servicemen and their wives asked if it would be possible to visit Holy Trinity and to attend a service there. After the service, there will be refreshments in the church hall before our guests leave to lay a wreath at the Polar Bear Monument. The service is, of course, open to all, but please let us know if you are planning to be present. Either speak to Henk or drop an e-mail to: office@holytrinityutrecht.nl
WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? - AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT: JOHN
‘I like the comparison of John’s Gospel to a pool in which a child may wade and an elephant can swim. It is both simple and profound. It is for the beginner in the faith and for the mature Christian.’ (Leon Morris).
The Apostle John is usually credited with the authorship of the fourth Gospel, writing in Ephesus (Asia Minor) at the end of the First Century. John writes ‘that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.’ (20:31). He stresses the deity of Christ, and presents Jesus as the Son of God. His gospel is quite different in character from the three synoptic gospels, with different stories, but highly literary and symbolic.
The prologue (1:1-14) brings together the gospel’s major themes, like an overture of a musical work. John proclaims Jesus as the pre-existent and incarnate Word of God revealed by the Father to us. Throughout the gospel many references are made to Jesus' deity. Most notably Jesus declares, ‘Before Abraham was born, I am!’ (8:57-58), referring back to Exodus where God describes himself as ‘I am.’ John also presents the contrast of darkness and light; Jesus has come as light into the world so that those who believe in him will not remain in darkness (cf 12:46).
The heart of John’s narrative contains seven signs or miracles, which demonstrate who Jesus is and show his creative and transforming power over creation and in people’s lives:
turning water into wine at Cana (2:1-11)
healing of the royal official's son (4:46-54)
healing of the paralytic at the pool (5:1-18)
feeding of the 5000 (6:1-14)
walking on the waters of the Sea of Galilee (6:16-21)
healing of the man born blind (9:1-41)
raising of Lazarus (11:1-44).
After these signs, Jesus ‘hour’ arrives, and the story moves into the discourses in the upper room that interpret the meaning of the death and resurrection narratives that follow. The whole gospel is a progressive revelation of the glory of God's only Son, who comes to reveal the Father and then returns in glory to the Father.
It can be well summed up in its most famous verse: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ (John 3:16).
CTC CHILDRENS TRINITY CLUB CORNER
Hi there! In light of our wonderful Easter celebrations we thought you might like to hear about the making of the Easter Garden. First things first: Danielle, the children and I made a brief appearance in church, and since it was so completely full, with standing room only, it was a relief to be told by Fr John that we could depart!
Once back in the church hall Danielle gathered the children round to listen to the Easter story with a recap of what they had been talking about leading up to this day. Each child played a ‘role’ and the story of that first Easter morning unfolded - at first a little self-consciously on the part of some - but very soon they were on their way - and Mary Magdalene with Mary the mother of James and Salome brought the spices to anoint Jesus’ body to discover that the stone had been rolled away; a dramatic moment fully appreciated by the children!
Now it was all hands on deck and quickly to the entrance hall where the garden base was laid on a low table for easy access. The scene was set with the hill on one side with the three crosses behind on the backdrop and on the other side – a cave-like mound with small opening (cleverly created by Jamie). Henk had carefully beforehand brought up all the materials we would need which are stored in the cellar – jars of all sizes, oasis, sate sticks and other items; whilst Pam had set bags of fresh moss for the base of the garden ready and even a selection of design ideas! There was no shortage of enthusiasm or creativity once tasks were assigned and very soon the garden was taking shape nicely with a little stone path through the moss connecting the mound with crosses and the cave and now bestrewn with beautiful spring flowers and twig trees set in cleverly camouflaged little pots under the moss. The remaining oasis was spread about in crumbs by now and a few trips through to the kitchen to rinse hands followed. It was fascinating to observe how creatively and practically the children worked, with the older ones guiding the little ones here and there and not even ‘klodders’ of mud from the fresh moss now smearing out over the floor, could dampen the spirits; and how Danielle kept an eye on everything at once and still got everyone into church on cue. That was amazing! And after the joyful service everyone going for coffee passed the beautiful Easter Garden – could they ‘see’ the energy that had so shortly before been part of this scene?
The younger group will be continuing with the story of Moses in the coming weeks.
The older group* has been completing the ‘Paasproject’ on Moses. In recent months, Pam reports that they have done quite a lot about the life of Moses. They had asked themselves why so much time had been spent on Moses when it was nearly Easter? The young people quickly realised that both Moses and Jesus were liberators, and that Easter (like Passover) is a ‘Bevrijdingsfeest’. They had a creative time with quotations from our liturgy celebrating the way Jesus has set us free from sin and death. There are now two posters on display in the church hall, which show you what their group has been up to! *The youth group will be led by Andrew Tucker during the month of May while Pam is on Iona.
Now we can go forth as Easter People – Hallelujah!
Nicky for CTC
MIRACLE 14: THE WASHING OF FEET
During Easter week this year I was on Hong Kong Island. What a contrast with Easter week on Iona Island last year! Iona (which is small) has about 100 inhabitants and on Hong Kong Island (which is nine times bigger) there are a couple of million people. But there are similarities too: church life in both places is thriving! Iona has three Christian retreat centres (including the Abbey), which are fully booked throughout most of the year, and an island church. Hong Kong seems to have near to a 100 churches (of different Christian denominations) all filled to the brim with worshippers. On Hong Kong Island people even hold services on the street: under the road bridges, on some of the squares and in quiet corners of the shopping malls.
I went to the Easter services in the Anglican St. John’s Cathedral, which is built in the shape of a cross and has been there since 1849. It is where I was baptised and confirmed over 40 years ago. As services are held there in English, Cantonese, Mandarin and Filipino there is an ongoing stream of churchgoers; one group coming in as soon as the previous group has finished its service (a little like HTC on some Sunday mornings, but then all day long and with congregations of at least 300 people).
There was an extensive Easter programme. In English alone there was a said Eucharist, a sung Eucharist and a Taize Eucharist on Palm Sunday. Then a daily morning service; and for the next three days the Stations of the Cross and Eucharist in the evenings, where we went around the Cathedral from one ‘Station’ (a framed painting on the wall) to the next, stopping at each for a moment of reflection and prayer. On Maundy Thursday there was the washing of the feet, the stripping of the Sanctuary and the Watch; on Good Friday Morning Prayer, All Age Worship and Liturgy of the Day; on Easter Eve the Easter Vigil and the lighting of the Paschal Light; and finally on Easter Day four services in English, including Sung Eucharis for Easter Day, an egg hunt and Solemn Choral Evensong. Of all the Easter services I attended, one made the biggest impression: Maundy Thursday. I had put my name down for the washing of feet. Together with eleven other ‘disciples’ I sat facing the congregation, while the Most Reverend Dr. Paul Kwong (Primate and Archbishop of Hong Kong) washed our feet. He washed them with such tenderness and care, and gave each of us such a warm smile, that it was like being with Christ in the upper room ....
Madeleine
GARDEN PRODUCE
A toddler was found chewing on a slug. After the initial surge of disgust his mother asked,” Well... what does it taste like?" "Worms," was the reply.
30 May is Trinity Sunday. Many people, when they think about it all, struggle to understand the concept of a God that is Three in One. So the following article by the Rev Michael Harding may help...
WHY YOUR TELEVISION IS LIKE THE TRINITY
Here is a trick question: How many colours does your television set use?
Answer: Just three: red, green and blue. And in that order, just like a rainbow (where reds are at one side, blues at the opposite side, green in the middle). This is known as "RGB".
These are TV's three primary colours which, when their luminescence is fired at your eyes, give all the colours of the visible spectrum. These are all "additive" colours. In fact, mix these three together in different proportions, and your screen can offer you 16 million colours.
Maybe you thought the sequence was red/yellow/blue? No, that's for painted or printed colours. A TV set emits light in three different colours, whereas paint daubed on paper absorbs and removes some colours to reflect back merely a small part of the light falling on it, the colour that you see.
You'll soon call out the repairman if your television loses one of its three colours and all the presenters look as though they came from Mars. But change the intensity of any one colour (red, green or blue) even slightly and you change the overall colour.
Switch them all off, and you are left with black. Let all three of them shine at full brightness, at the same point – and then as if by magic you have a totally different colour: WHITE!
It's a parable which illustrates the Holy Trinity. Three completely distinct persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), just as your TV set has three quite separate colours: red, green, blue.
Take away any one member of the Trinity, and you slip into theological error; take away any one of the three colours, and you call out the TV repair engineer!
So –
It DOES matter that God is our Creator and Father - otherwise our whole life is merely a meaningless illusion.
It DOES matter that Jesus is God the Son, for otherwise his death is simply a human tragedy, with no promise of salvation or eternal life.
It DOES matter that the Holy Spirit is with us here and now, otherwise we are disconnected from God.
Yes it really does matter! Just as it is essential that a TV set can produce white by the equal intensity of all of its three colours. In fact, the more you think about it, the more it seems that the doctrine of the Trinity is far from being a complicated bit of theological nonsense, but is a sort of theological test-card, to make sure that we’ve got the right picture of God, without distortion.
13 MAY ASCENSION DAY - FORTY DAYS WITH THE RISEN CHRIST
The month of May continues the season of Eastertide, and 40 days after Easter comes Ascension Day.
It may seem crazy to call it Eastertide when Easter is clearly over! - but these are the 40 days during which the Risen Christ appeared again and again to his disciples, following his death and resurrection.
The Gospels give us little of Christ’s teachings and deeds during those forty days. Jesus was seen by numerous disciples: on the road to Emmaus, by the Sea of Galilee, in houses, etc. He strengthened and encouraged his disciples, and at last opened their eyes to all that the Scriptures had promised about the Messiah. Jesus also told them that as the Father had sent him, he was now going to send them - to all corners of the earth, as his witnesses.
If you want to add more detail to Christ’s appearances, the stories can be found in Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; and John 20.
A PRAYER AS WE PLAY OUR PART ON MAY 6/JUNE 9
Lord, we give thanks for the privileges and responsibilities of living in a democratic society. Give us wisdom to play our part at election time, that, through the exercise of each vote, your Kingdom may come closer. Protect us from the sins of despair and cynicism, guard us against the idols of false utopias and strengthen us to make politics a noble calling that serves the common good of all. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.
EASTERS PAST
As I sit typing this Easter has just finished and I must say that the weather was amongst the worst I have ever seen at Easter. Rain, hail, snow flurries and even the odd bit of sunshine. Yes, I've seen better ones. In fact back in the 60s we had a really smashing sunny Easter. I was in England then and so it was a four-day break for me. For the entire long weekend the sun shone down and I spent most of it trying to get my tan started. Back then I had recently moved into computers and I had risen to the dizzy heights of engineering shift leader. (This is not quite as grand as it sounds, as there were only two of us on a shift.) In any event on the Tuesday after Easter I arrived on the computer site very early in the morning, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to start up and test the two computers.
Now in those days a computer was not some tin box that sat under your desk, it was a vast, air-conditioned room full of racks of equipment which, not being very reliable, broke down frequently. This in a way was fortunate as otherwise I'd have had to find honest work. But to get back to our tale, about six thirty I was to be found wandering through the 'off-line' area, where all the work for the computer was put together before processing. Being the first in the building I had to turn the lights on as I made my way through. Everything went as normal until I went through the double doors which led to the air conditioned computer room.
I got about three paces into the room before I could stop myself, turn round and run back out. The reason? There was a nasty smell in the room, and I really do mean nasty. Something was obviously dead in there and if my nose was anything to go by, it had been deceased for quite some time. Now I had misspent much of my youth on a farm and as a result I did have a fairly high tolerance for disgusting smells. Cows and sheep are not too bad, pigs can make your eyes water I admit, but the worst I had ever encountered until then had been a flooded hen house. However, this was much worse and, try as I might, I just could not stay in the computer room for more than a few seconds.
So I got myself coffee and a newspaper and settled down in the off-line area. Next to arrive was the other guy on my shift. He wisely just stuck his nose in and retreated. After him came the morning shift of operators. Some just sniffed by the door, others tried to enter and came back out a lot faster than they had gone in. Finally Stan, the no nonsense computer room manager, arrived. Usually by the time he got in the computers were up and running, so he was less than happy to find us all camped out in the off-line area, drinking coffee and chatting. When he asked what we thought we were doing and was told that there was a bad smell in the computer room, he went, to put it mildly, totally ballistic.
After a while, when he was calm enough to be coherent, he ordered us to stop messing about and get some work done. There was a dreadful silence and finally I suggested that if he took the lead, we would follow. (Yes, I was a bit of a sadist even back then.) Stan confidently charged through the double doors while we all watched. Now to give the man his due, he did get further into the room than any of the rest of us had, about five paces as I remember.
He then came running out holding his hands over his mouth. It took him quite some time to regain his composure and even longer to get the building maintenance team into action. It didn't take them too long to find the cause. A new bay had been built for the dustbins. This had been most thoughtfully placed directly under the intakes for the computer room air conditioning system. To add to the fun, the canteen staff had dumped a load of kitchen waste in the bins on the Thursday night and (this is the good bit) left the lids open. So for four days of brilliant sunshine the bins stood full of rotting food while the air conditioning sucked the smell, straight from the top of the bins, into the computer room. Normally the system changed only ten per cent of the air. In an attempt to clear the atmosphere, they switched it to one hundred per cent, but it was still lunch time before we got any work done.
There was another amusing incident after I moved to the Netherlands. One of our big super computers died and, due to training and holidays, there were no experienced engineers on site, so I got landed with the job of fixing it. Over the phone I diagnosed the problem as a Freon leak. This is the gas that was used in the refrigeration system which cooled the computer. Arming myself with the gas detector, a coupling hose and a cylinder of Freon I set off for the site. At the gate I ran into my first problem. This came in the shape of a red and white barrier across the road which was operated by an armed guard. The site was run by S.H.A.P.E. which is part of NATO and was staffed by totally paranoid American military personnel who were all convinced that everyone they met was a spy. The guard informed me that, as I had no security clearance I could not get in. I pointed out that their computer was down and I was there to fix it, so would he care to escalate the problem.
This got him on the phone and soon I was given a visitor's badge and escorted, under armed guard I hasten to add, into an office. There one of the 'officer classes' said that perhaps I might be allowed to enter the base, but that thing (the Freon cylinder) would never get in, as it might be a bomb. I replied that although the cylinder did have the potential to explode, usually they didn't and besides, until it got into the computer room their multi-million super computer was totally useless. This argument won me another badge and another step up the ladder.
To cut a long story short after several hours I eventually got as far as the computer room, with all my equipment and no less than six badges all of which had to be hung on my person. By now I was beginning to resemble a Christmas tree. I also had a large audience consisting mainly of the people who had interviewed me as I progressed through the system. At each stage the cylinder had been warily examined and all the warning messages carefully read. The main one stated that it must be stored away from heat and not in direct sunlight. (The significance of this will become apparent in a moment.)
Using the detector I found the leak and sealed it, then I coupled the cylinder via the hose to the refrigeration unit and started the recharging. Now as the Freon comes out of the cylinder it changes from a liquid to a gas. This causes it to expand greatly and this requires quite a bit of energy. This energy comes from the heat present in the cylinder. The net result is, the cylinder almost instantly freezes and the Freon is no longer transferred. About here I asked for a bucket of hot water and when it was supplied I plunged the cylinder into it. As everyone present had read and absorbed the dire warning about exposing the cylinder to heat, the reactions were quite amusing. The audience immediately split into two groups. The larger one rushing to take cover or get as far away as possible, the smaller group trying to wrestle the cylinder out of my grip and get it out of the hot water. After the shouting and screaming had died down enough for me to explain what I was doing and assure everyone that if the thing was going to explode, I would not be standing next to it, they eventually let me get on with my job.
When, some time later, their computer came up and began running without any further problems they calmed down and let me leave. However my performance must have impressed someone as they requested that I be transferred permanently to their site. Needless to say, I declined. Let's face it; the temptation to run riot in a place like that would have been too much for my sense of humour.
Jamie
Services at Holy Trinity Church, Utrecht
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