Following our January AGM and Ordinary Meeting, we were entertained with two talks.

Head Hunters In Borneo

The first was a fascinating and informative talk from Robert, one of our members, who used to be head of the British Council in Malaysia in the early 1970s. Robert started his talk by describing Sarawak in the northern part of Borneo, covering its history and how it became part of Malaysia.

Robert then went onto tell the tale of how following an official visit to Sarawak, Robert and his wife had a memorable 24-hour holiday visiting the Kelabit tribe in the highlands of Sarawak. The kelabits are “retired head hunters”. Unperturbed by this, Robert and his wife spent the evening with the Kelabits and stayed in a room in a long house built on stilts, whose veranda ran the length of the long-house and was decorated with shrunken heads of the Kelabit’s enemies! Following the evening meal there was dancing at which both Robert and his wife were expected to show off their dancing skills. Luckily Robert was able to demonstrate Scottish sword dancing and his wife encouraged their hosts to learn and join in dancing the hokey cokey!

"Sailing" Through France

Following Robert’s talk, we were then given a contrasting talk and slide show by Keith, another one of our members, on how he purchased a yacht in southern France and the challenges he faced bringing it back to the UK.

Route: F > E > B

The 870-mile journey home was via the inland waterways (canals and rivers) of France and then sailing across the English Channel from Le Havre to Chichester Harbour. There would be 170 locks (Ecluses) to be navigated. It was done in three separate stages over the period March to September 2002.

They quickly became proficient with the various lock controls and at one stage had their own lock keeper who travelled with them along the towpath to open and close the lock ahead.

Many challenges were overcome, including navigating a 3.5 mile long tunnel where the traffic lights were out of order; luckily, they didn’t meet anything coming the other way.

Interesting places along the way included the sights of Paris and much wine tasted in the Champagne and Burgundy regions of France.