Money frauds

I am always struck by the stories that victims of money scams have to relate. I've heard lots of them over the years on radio programmes such as BBC Radio 4's You and Yours and Money Box, and elsewhere, such as on LBC. 

The victims of big-money scams seem to fall into three main groups. 

There are those who are phoned out of the blue and told by their bank - or rather someone who claims to be their bank - that their accounts have been hacked and that their balances need to be shifted pronto into another account where the money will be safe. They are hustled by the caller, given no time to think, and of course the money is whipped away into the hands of fraudsters who control the 'safe' account, and it's never seen again. It's usually a successful sting - however sensible, level-headed or forewarned the victim has hitherto believed themselves to be. The correct response (I would say) is to put the phone down, travel to the nearest bank branch, and enquire in person with genuine bank staff. But I'm sure many people can't react so coolly when presented with a dire situation. (I dare say I would - or at least could - fall victim too: the psychological compulsion to take a safe and simple way out from sudden catastrophe, overriding all caution, must be overwhelming) 

Then there are those looking for a better return on their spare cash, who see attractive advertisements when searching the Internet, or on social media, and are enticed into a fake or worthless investment scam that sucks more and more money from them. The scammers intend to strip them bare, and if possible draw others in. I suppose it's hard to resist an apparently golden opportunity to make big money from trendy-sounding assets. Of course you have to possess a lot of cash to be attracted in the first place. (That theoretically means I should never fall victim of investment scams! All my small savings are for eventual necessary spending - the next car, the next bout of dentistry, the next pair of glasses. I will never now have a nest-egg in the background that I might risk losing) 

Thirdly there are the victims of so-called romance fraud. This is the cruellest scam of all, the victim being led up the garden path in the name of love and companionship and eventually asked to lend money to the person who has achieved ascendency over them. Oddly but typically, scammer and victim never meet: it's another online thing where all is taken on trust. The grooming process may extend to several months before the sting happens; but by then the victim may be too well under the control of the scammer (and his team) to refuse cooperation. I have met women - it's most often women who fall victim - who told me they immediately became wary as soon as money was mentioned. I've heard about women who questioned the reason they were being asked to give money to the scammer, but were cleverly and convincingly reassured, and persuaded to cough up just like the most gullible victim would. It's like a magic spell, and it all ends the same. They are left broken-hearted, embarrassed, self-doubting, and seriously out of pocket. (As I love my freedom, and never intend to give it up for the sake of having anyone special in my life, I'd like to believe I would be quite immune to romance fraud. But the sensible side of me says 'Remain on your guard!', and I am listening)  

There are many other types of money scam, big and small. But these three are the main ones I've heard about.

Now there's one thing that links them all: the victim has some money. And I've often wondered how the scammers know who they are, if they are trying to target those people who have enough cash to make an elaborate sting worthwhile. Have they, for instance, subverted amenable bank employees to put the finger on a likely sucker? If they can do this, it would be a very efficient way to select victims. I'm thinking particularly of the first kind of fraud mentioned above, where they impersonate the bank to panic the victim into moving funds to an account that the fraudsters control. But surely it would be a wonderful advantage to have a well-off would-be investor, or a lonely heart with money to spare, handed to them on a plate? 

Or do they leave it to pure chance, relying on the victim selecting themselves, either from greed or silliness? Such as responding to a social media advertisement, or to some YouTube video about how to invest very cleverly, or a great profile on a dating app? Cupidity and gullibility must work a lot of the time, human nature being what it is. Who doesn't pay at least some attention to the promise of a better return, or to finding the perfect partner? 

I can certainly see why most banks have long resisted compensation codes (and now coming legislation) to restore cash taken from money fraud victims. They know how irrationally people will behave when pushed or lured, and compensation costs them dear. But they now also see that rapid no-quibble compensation is going to be the name of the game, up to an £85,000 maximum anyway. They'll be forced to tighten their procedures and checks, to limit the leakage of serious money to scammers. And that, of course, means yet more inconvenience and delay for the public, whenever any non-routine transaction occurs. As when buying a house or car. Each money transfer will have to be thoroughly checked out, more so than now. Let's hope that no important transaction fails because a bank took too much time to satisfy itself that all was genuine. 

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To pay or not to pay, that is the question

Sophie, my 2016 Volvo XC60 R-Design car - bought nearly a year ago from Caffyns Volvo Eastbourne - was a Volvo Selekt car, meaning that she was among the pick of vehicles traded-in for something newer, and was not only a good-looking, cared-for, low-mileage example, but was running particularly well and reliably, all settings correct and everything working properly. 

That made her a good bet if buying second-hand. However, it also meant a buyer would be paying more than the ordinary price for having such a car. I reckoned some £1,000 more. But I was in a hurry to buy a replacement for Fiona, my previous Volvo XC60, who was old and ailing, and I'd decided that if I could quickly find another XC60 with the right engine (that is, the biggest diesel option, suitable for hauling the caravan) I'd go for that. The price was secondary, although the financing had to be affordable. I was lucky. Caffyns had exactly what I wanted, and I secured Sophie as soon as I'd had the test drive.

Part of the Volvo Selekt package was a one-year used car warranty. I didn't give it a lot of thought at the time of buying, but after six months of ownership, I was glad that I had that warranty. A rear wheel sensor that monitored ABS and all sorts of related things packed in while I was away on holiday in April. Once home again, I had Caffyns look at it. The part was simple to replace, but its cost, and the technician's time to fit it, would come to about £300. Ah, I said, that might be covered by the one-year used car warranty! And so it was. It was all done while I waited, after Volvo HQ had authorised the work, and cost me not a penny. 

So for once I'd invoked a warranty and had had a satisfying outcome. The warranty hadn't been needed since. But the good experience last April had stayed in my mind. 

Now, in October, it was time to consider extending that warranty for another year. I was getting reminders from Volvo to do so. I had to act before 24th October.

Clearly it could be very useful. The warranty was basically for original factory-fitted parts that failed unexpectedly or prematurely for reasons other than customer misuse or ordinary wear and tear. The sensor that failed was a very good example. It was unlikely to break so early in the car's lifetime; and there was no way a customer could deliberately or carelessly induce failure. So no quibbling about covering its replacement. Mind you, the position for other parts might not be so clear-cut. And there were a lot of specific exclusions. 

So was it worth buying an extension to the warranty? After all, mine was a quality car made with tough components by a car company famous for its long-lasting products. Sophie had enjoyed a careful first owner, and was now being driven just as carefully by someone who tended to cherish her cars. Driver abuse could be ruled out. 

But chance mishaps and failures can happen. So it seemed to me that the answer was yes - that is, buy a warranty extension - if the cost were reasonable. Say £300 for another twelve months. But to pay no more than that. 

This decided, I responded to the reminders and filled in an online quotation form. Surprisingly, they asked me what Sophie's current value was. (Didn't they have data on that?) Sophie was first registered in April 2016, and her cash price then, when seven and a half years old, had been £19,500. Now she was a year older still. A quick glance at some same-age XC60s for sale on the Internet suggested that her current value might be £14,500. I put that in. 

The form completed, I asked for my quote.

£899.

What? £899 to extend the warranty for twelve months? It was far too much. Maybe a business executive, or a high-flying smart young professional on £90,000 a year, would pay that kind of money without hesitation, at least on a newer car, but it was beyond my income bracket. Yes, I did actually have the money in my savings account, but £899 would deplete those slender savings too much. 

If the money would cover the next three years, that would be different. But no, it was only for a year. 

Why so much? Well, I had of course already made a previous claim. That would bump up the premium a bit. And as Sophie aged, the likelihood of other qualifying component failures would increase. Yes, I could see why the cost might be high. And get higher. 

The latest service and MOT - just done - indicated all was good, with nothing likely to fail. So I might easily spend £899 for nothing - and then similar amounts year after year. Rather than feeling warm and happy from insuring myself against unexpected part failures, I'd in fact feel robbed and a little resentful. It made more sense to build up my savings account instead. Then if nothing went wrong, I'd still have the money. 

Episodes like this always make you feel you are exposing yourself to the whims of fate if you don't pay up. But nothing is ever entirely risk-free, whatever you do. I felt that Sophie had already proved herself to be a good reliable car, and not one of those unlucky cars that always need fixing. So it was rational to forego the umbrella of an extended warranty, and instead to accept a small amount of risk.

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The kindness of strangers

In my experience, most people will help you out if asked nicely. 

For instance, yesterday I was in Oakham, the small town that is the 'capital' of Rutland, England's smallest traditional county. I'd parked Sophie, and was walking into the town centre, when I realised that I had still had my car keys dangling from my neck. Living alone, I have to resort to 'key management', meaning that all my essential keys for house and car are attached to a lanyard that I wear around my neck. Without fail - I'm never lazy about this - I put my keys around my neck whenever I step out of my front door, even just to pop something in the recycling bin at home. And I will naturally do this if going out for while. It's a good habit that has become ingrained. So long as I have my keys on a loop around my neck, I know that I can't accidentally lock myself out of house or car, with nobody to rescue me. But of course, while this expedient is fine for a short time, I don't want to 'wear' a bunch of keys all day. In that case, I take them off, and loop the lanyard around one of my handbag straps instead. Thus tethered, my keys can if I want be zipped up inside the bag - certainly if it's raining, but also if the environment makes it wise to keep house and car keys out of sight.

Well, there I was, in Oakham and already some distance from the car, with a couple of hours ahead of me, and wanting to transfer the lanyard from my neck to my bag. 

Could I do it? No. 

I should explain that there were four things around my neck: the cross-body strap of my bag; the cross-body strap of my camera; the lanyard from which my bunch of keys was dangling; and Starfishie's silver chain. Either in the car when driving along, or when I'd put the straps for bag and camera over my head once parked, Starfishie (my silver starfish from Orkney) had somehow wrapped her chain around the lanyard for my keys in some complicated way. The silver chain was now in a proper tangle, and felt as if it might be knotted. At any rate, I couldn't free it from the lanyard by touch alone. I needed a mirror. But here I was out on a pavement. It wasn't an emergency, of course, but it was something that needed sorting out without delay, for appearance's sake if nothing else; although it was also best not to make the knot in the silver chain worse than it was. If I walked on, it might gradually tighten up so much that I would never unravel it.

But good luck sent me a suitable helper. A lady appeared. She was maybe in her fifties - so far as you can ever tell - so somewhat younger than me. But I knew at a glance that she was likely to assist. You just know. So as she came closer, I said 'Excuse me, could you help me please? I'm in a bit of a tangle.' She stopped and smiled. 'Of course. Gosh, you're right. The chain's wrapped around the cord a couple of times, and seems to have got knotted. Let me see...' 

So there were were, standing together on a sunny pavement, practically head to head. I let her ease the chain free. It took a couple of minutes. She was clearly patient and methodical, and not the sort to give up. Nor did she. She persevered. Starfishie's chain was quite a fine one, and it would take good eyesight, care, and nimble fingers to sort this out. I hoped she hadn't been in some kind of hurry. But if she had been, she said nothing. Such is the overriding importance of one woman helping out another. I don't think that, in general. men ever show quite the same solidarity. 

Suddenly the chain was free. I thanked her warmly, and she went on her way. I suspected that I had indeed delayed her. On the other hand (I philosophised) we had both had a psychological boost. I'd set her a challenge, and she had met it with success. She'd also had the satisfaction of doing a good and useful deed, plus my sincere thanks. As for myself, I felt a glow from having a stranger's instant confidence and assistance, plus of course getting Starfishie's rather nice chain freed without damage. An encounter to remember. And now to write about.

Perhaps it's a trivial thing, perhaps not. We are often told that manners have coarsened and that in the modern world we have all become selfish. Certainly there are some awful people around, especially people whose aim in life is to fulfil a personal ambition that will entail stamping on others. It seems clear that those who become prominent in public life, or become household names, or are any kind of celebrity, eventually lose a sense of humility and a willingness to consider others not so admired. But most of us, in ordinary life, have not discarded the impulses to be helpful and full of good and decent intentions. It's good to know that the better side of human nature is alive and kicking and hasn't been abandoned. It's not naïve or foolish to be kind.

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Shingle Street and a line of white shells

Back in May - already four months ago! - I was travelling in Suffolk and made a point of revisiting a favourite spot called Shingle Street. It's a collection of houses, with a Martello Tower at one end, and former coastguard cottages at the other, strung in a row behind a wide expanse shingle that overlooks a wide bay a few miles south of Orford. It's out of the way, down a wandering dead-end road, and you won't casually stumble upon it. You have to seek it out.

When I first discovered Shingle Street back in 1985, I was struck by its end-of-the-world atmosphere. Many of the houses were weather-beaten and ramshackle - although being mostly brick-built, they were somewhat more substantial than the miscellaneous collection of shacks you see at Dungeness in Kent. Many had proper gardens, albeit half-wild. The impression was of a community that came alive in the summer, when owners came to stay, but was very quiet in the winter. Despite the rust and peeling paint, it was all most attractive, even in February, when I came.

 On that first occasion I gave more photographic attention to the wide, sweeping bay and the three Martello Towers that I could see, whose guns once guarded this stretch of coastline. The cold restless sea constantly sucked at the shingle, making quite a noise. 

When I returned ten years later, in February 1995, I was rather more interested in the buildings and the scattered holiday paraphernalia of their part-time residents, which together evoked treasured memories of similar sunny places in Cornwall long ago; although of course those Cornish retreats looked out upon sand and rocks, not shingle. I was pleased to find that Shingle Street hadn't changed a bit in ten years. Even in the chill winds of February, it was easy to imagine what summer weekends there would be like - lazy days in a wicker chair with feet up, watching the clouds, or reading a book, with happy strolls now and then along the shingle beach. Simple contentment.

Here are some pictures from that 1995 visit, to show what was so appealing to me about the place:

Another ten years passed. I went back in 2005, this time in June, and noticed other things, such as the flowers growing on the shingle. 

This time there was some clear evidence that owners were giving their properties more attention. Shingle Street looked a little less ramshackle. Walls had been repainted. There were a few smart accents, like that red sunshade. 

I didn't let yet another ten years go by. I was back again as soon as October 2008. This time I blitzed the place, taking more photographs than hitherto. I wanted to capture its most appealing aspects, before it lost its charm.

This time I came across something unusual. A long thin line of white shells that began (or ended) close to the high tide mark, and ran inland towards the coastguard cottages.

It was very well done. I was most impressed! And the thing was such a wonderful addition to the scene. But what a labour! What motive lay behind it?  There was nobody to ask. It occurred to me later than the person or persons who had created this line of shells were defying the malice and carelessness of vandals and others who might take pleasure in destroying this work of art (for that's what it was, surely). Well, good luck to the creators. But I didn't expect to see that line of shells on my next visit.

I was wrong. Years went by. When I revisited Shingle Street this year I found a line of white shells still there. 

It couldn't be the original line of shells - even if that had been respected by every visitor to Shingle Street through the years, and had escaped the heedless scuffing of young children and dogs, two or three stormy winters would have smudged or obliterated it. Therefore it had surely been refreshed at intervals, perhaps as a kind of ongoing tradition, and I imagined a family, down for a fortnight, spending the first couple of days tidying up that line of shells section by section. I wished I knew. (Research on the Internet has supplied the answer  - see the end of this post)

And what did the rest of Shingle Street look like after a sixteen-year absence?

For one thing, there was much more vegetation growing in the shingle. There were the expected seashore plants, but also colourful flowers, as if somebody had scattered a lot of seed packets, creating a colourful spectacle in places. But gorse was encroaching too. As for the buildings, they had had received even more attention, and generally speaking had been repainted and reroofed. In some cases, altered or even rebuilt. Here's a selection of my May 2024 shots (it was bright, but the sun wasn't out this time):

It's inevitable that owners upgrade their holiday homes. Tumbledown shacks give way to something smarter, with modern facilities and comforts. There was plenty of this now at Shingle Street, but its old charm hadn't been entirely lost. 

In 1972 I wrote a poem about a Cornish property called Corrib, which had a rear entrance off a sheltered and rather secret footpath that ran from the Trevose Golf Clubhouse down to the dunes at Constantine Bay, near Padstow. The opening lines went like this. (I was a sensitive soul in those days, fifty years ago)

A white gate in a tunnel of green:

That's Corrib, my Jamaican house.

A shady lawn, old tennis courts,

The bleached bones of a boat, or a seat,

Overgrown in a garden:

This is Corrib, my evening retreat.

 

There is a sandy path

That whispers through trees;

A tunnel of memories, a darkening arch.

Under boughs and down to the dunes

I flash by waving grass,

Rustling bushes and staring flowers.

Heedless of the evening breeze,

I hasten past broken gates and posts,

Forgotten by years and sagging in decline;

I look for the lights of Corrib,

My solace, dark refuge mine.

The Shingle Street I first knew had something of that atmosphere. I'm not sure it has any more. But it's still a magical place, a place apart anyway.

If you want to read the full poem, and to know more about Corrib and what happened to it, I wrote a post titled A tunnel of green, and a surfing bay on 15th October 2016, which you can easily look up.

Back to that intriguing line of white shells. I quickly found these web pages on the Internet - click on them to enlarge:

I'm even more impressed, in that it was originally a work started in convalescence, when the ladies concerned couldn't have been feeling too great. 

As for the long low building with a turret in the middle, near the coastguard cottages (and the landward end of the line of shells), I found this:

I don't know when I'll be in this part of Suffolk again. My priority for the future is to visit as much of the more distant parts of this country as possible, before the cost (or effort) of doing so by caravan becomes too much. So it must be Scotland, Northern England, and maybe Ireland, ahead of parts closer to my home in Sussex. 

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A handsome man

I've just had what is - to me - a rather odd exchange of emails. 

Somebody had read my post Bugger Bognor, which I published on 31st December 2018. It's about Bognor Regis, the holiday resort on the West Sussex coast, and a visit I'd made to it. 

I took for the title of my post the famous words that King George V is supposed to have uttered in 1929, seven years before he died of bronchial distress in old age. He'd just had a lung operation, and probably wasn't in the mood to be complimentary about the town. You can imagine the scene. His doctors bobbing around, deferential yet firm. 'Your Majesty has come through the operation extremely well, but a month of fresh air on the south coast would be most beneficial.' The King would have rasped some tetchy reply. 'We think Bognor might be just the place.' At this, the King would have muttered 'Bugger Bognor', the prospect of a month of being wheeled along a windy promenade, and perhaps several therapeutic cold plunges in the sea, filling him with gloom. And who could blame him. 

In my post I described him as 'the severe-looking bearded gent who appeared on many of the older coins in my young life'. I also had in mind the photographs I'd seen of him in his later years, when to my eyes he looked like an impatient man with a short temper, with many cares, and not at all well.

Out of the blue I got an email from somebody who gave no name except the username they went by online. Being cautious, I might have ignored it for that reason alone, but the question they asked was reasonable enough: why had I described King George V as 'severe-looking'? The emailer thought he was 'a handsome man who looked good until the end'. 

Intrigued, I decided to reply. Emails are of course one-to-one, and in principle private. So to preserve confidentiality, I won't quote any more of the emailer's precise words, just the gist of what was put to me. But I will give my own responses in full. So I said this:

Whether a man is handsome or not depends on the onlooker's own standards. If you think he was handsome, then I won't challenge your personal opinion.  

To me, he is an historical  figure who died well before I was born, and I can only go by reports. Apparently he was a man who took his position as monarch very seriously, and expected the same seriousness from his family: certainly not a man to suffer frivolous or inappropriate behaviour. 

In particular he did not enjoy good health in later life, with chronic bronchial trouble, and I would expect the increasing discomfort and distress flowing from that to adversely affect his manner and his appearance. 

I therefore chose the word 'severe' to encapsulate in one word the demeanour of a man who carried more than just the burden of being the King.

As a PS to this, I asked why he or she didn't say who they really were:  

I use my real name. Why do you conceal yours behind an alias?

No matter who emails me, or what their email address is, they nearly always (if previously unknown to me) introduce themselves properly, and plainly state their interest. As you surely would if speaking face to face. This person answered by asserting that giving one's real name in an email didn't matter: it was optional. In fact he or she couldn't understand why I thought it so important. So I said:

All the same, you are still not being open with me: I don't know who you are, nor why a word I used in a blog post about a long-dead person should matter to you.

I took a risk in responding, but on a hunch that it was all right, I did, and apparently no harm has been done. But in general it's unwise to engage with anonymous (or effectively-anonymous) people, and I'm rather surprised that you disagree.

I thought that would be the end of it, but I got a final response. In it the emailer told me that she was aged twenty, gave me her proper name and one or two other details, then signed off. She hadn't expected me to reply to her original question. She also assumed that I'd never been on YouTube or TikTok, where nearly everyone people stuck to their special online names, didn't use their real name, and yet despite this, online communities got along fine without interrogating each other as to their true identity. 

I do feel that I irritated the emailer. Nevertheless, I remain convinced that full identity disclosure at the outset is the proper thing to do, and that hiding behind a pseudonym invites suspicion and mistrust - even if there are strong and good reasons for concealment, and even if it is entirely normal for the particular arena in which we are in contact. That said, I must be well out of step with current online practice, which nowadays seems to shun openness and transparency, and to favour complete anonymity; with everyone's exchanges - benign, vitriolic, conspiratorial, legal or utterly illegal - cloaked in encryption. The dangers and harms of this are obvious and endlessly discussed. Because of them I don't feel apologetic for wanting to know exactly who is writing to me.

One thing that has surprised me about this episode is that a girl of twenty discovered my blog and read one of my posts! I'd assumed that my readership was middle-aged or older, and that the subjects I cover would have no appeal or relevance for a younger person. It just shows how wrong you can be.

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Lord Justice James' Seat

This was a wooden bench with a fine view that I discovered in 1990. I sometimes sought it on my way home, as I needed a buffer between the office in London and whatever might await me at home near Horsham. These were the final months of my marriage: things were getting rather strained and distant. Parking the car, walking through quiet trees, and sitting for a while on Lord Justice James' Seat on Reynards Hill in Winterfold Forest, with its (then) glorious view to the south over Cranleigh, was a delight that I needed more and more. I might be reluctant to go home, but at least the place refreshed me and steadied me for whatever later arguments might begin. And of course, after we did split up, and I sat out a full five years waiting for a divorce, I went there again and again for some peaceful reflection. Late in the afternoon, I usually had it all to myself. 

Here are two shots of the Seat that I took in 1990. In this blue one, I was approaching from the car park; the person in the picture, by the Seat, had gone by the time I reached the spot. No doubt they needed solitude too. 

In 1990 the Seat was no more than a stout wooden bench, pretty old, held together by thick wire. Here's a close-up of it:

It does seem, from what was carved in the bench, as if the Seat had been installed in 1881. But since then it had suffered much decay. In this view fifteen years later, in 2005, that original Seat had been replaced by something more up-to-date, though it was still called Lord Justice James' Seat. 

As you can see, the Seat was set in a glade, open on its south side to the sun and the breeze. It was on a high spot, commanding a wide view. Off to the left, in the distance, you could make out planes taking off or landing at Gatwick Airport, although they were too far away to be heard. Off to the right, you could see a succession of hilly viewpoints that receded to the horizon. Wonderful, considering that this airy scene was actually in Surrey, and not very far from the edge of suburban London.

Hardly anything changed during the next five years. Here are equivalent views for 2010:

There was however decidedly more vegetation. Eventually the small trees and shrubs on those slopes grew large enough to obscure the view. I think this was a deliberate policy of the local conservators, to discourage mountain-bikers from using the slope as a downhill racetrack. But then those on foot, who wanted to see the famous view, complained. This was how things were in 2019:

There was something to see if you stood up, but it wasn't a perfect compromise. I missed how it had once been. The Seat itself had lately been replaced by a curvaceous recycled-plastic creation, bolted together, that looked as if it should last for decades to come.

It wasn't unattractive, and was clearly going to be resistant to both weather and wood-eating insects. But to my mind it lacked charm. Nor did it have any obvious link with the judge who had first admired the view. This work of eco-art was called 'Contour', and not 'Lord Justice James' Seat' any longer. But I should think the old name will the one to endure. I still sat on the new bench for a few minutes, just as I had on every previous occasion. Thankfully, it remained a good place to rest on. 

That 2019 visit revealed more than just a new bench. Not far off, in the woods, was an area strewn with movie-making equipment. It wasn't abandoned, but wasn't fastened down and could have been stolen pretty easily. 

I saw a car nearby that seemed to belong to a security man, but he was nowhere in sight. I wondered if he'd mind if I used the female side of those portable toilets. I tried the door. It was unlocked. I slid in, did my stuff - everything was working, as if still powered - and was not accosted as I moved away. 

What was all this about? Shortly afterwards the security man hoved into view. Equipment must have been scattered all over the place, and he had been doing his rounds. He told me that the producer and crew had been making a film about wartime commandos. That's all he knew. 

And for the next few years, I learned no more: I forgot about it. But then I returned a couple of days ago, wanting a good walk in Winterfold Forest, and at the end of it discovered something about how the vicinity had been used in wartime as a training-ground for spies, saboteurs and commandos. I found this information board at the car park - click on it to see it better:

So all was made clear: they'd been making a documentary about Winterfold, a country house used as a school for Special Forces personnel. 

As for the rest of my visit the other day, there's little to say. I wanted to get some exercise, armed with my stick and camera:  

And I got what I'd wanted: a good long forest walk, often over rough or steep ground, or where there were roots to trip me up. I certainly needed that stick! When I reached Lord Justice James' Seat, towards the end of my tramp, I was glad to sit down for five minutes. Surprisingly, my right knee wasn't protesting, although it had a right to do so; but it was warm and I was definitely puffed.

The spot looked much as it had in 2019, and the view was no better: a shame. 

I pondered the question of who Lord Justice James had been. Apparently a High Court Judge who lived in the nineteenth century. But deeper research on the Internet once home did not reveal his identity. True, the man who (in 1886) built the big country house down the hill called Winterfold - the wartime school for spies - had been a judge. He would have owned a swathe of local land, including where the Seat was. But he was Lord Chief Justice Viscount Alverstone (1842-1915), and before being elevated to the peerage he'd been Richard Everard Webster - not James. There appeared to be no other candidate. 

Perhaps it was really Viscount Alverstone's Seat after all, with the name somehow getting changed from Webster (or Alverstone) to James down the years. It would be nice to clear up this little mystery!

Sequel  Aha. I've now discovered that Sir William Milbourne James (1807-1881) was a judge. The year of his death, 1881, was carved on the original bench seat that appears in the first two shots above, taken in 1990. So the surname James, the date of 1881, and his being a judge are three things that suggest this might be the man. But I haven't yet found any connection between him and the Winterfold area. 

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