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My Royal Navy Friend

My Royal Navy Friend: Week 12 – How to Fight a Shark “This chapter is Hilarious!”

By Amazon, Books & Authors, Creativity, Happiness & JoyNo Comments

From my recent book: My Royal Navy Friend, another friend insisted this was hilarious and that I share it with you. So here goes:

Hey Roy,

Picture the scene, you’re on a ship but forced to jump into the cold ocean waters as it’s sinking. It isn’t long before you attract some unwanted attention. Sharks. They begin circling you and you know it won’t be long before you have to fight for your life.

Here’s my survival guide to this scenario:

  1. Identify the type of sharks circling you. I’m sad to say that most sharks are carnivorous and would seek to gobble you up. However bonnethead sharks are vegetarian for 62% of the time, eating seagrass.
  2. Don’t play dead. Sharks are smart and will know you are faking it. They’re also not opposed to eating dead humans.
  3. Remain calm, keep eyes on them at all times and make sudden sporadic movements in an attempt to scare the sharks.
  4. Look around for any weapons or things that could be used as weapons. Use whatever you find in your battle with the sharks.
  5. If it’s hand to fin battle, focus your attention on the vulnerable parts of the sharks: their eyes, noses and gills. Avoid the mouth at all costs due to the sharp teeth.
  6. I once heard a story of a man who was attacked by a shark and successfully fended it off by punching it in the nose. I don’t know how true this story is. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so definitely worth a try.
  7. If you see a dolphin or a pod of dolphins call on them for help. They generally like humans and sharks are apparently afraid of them.
  8. Don’t under any circumstances try to swim away. Sharks will see this as a sign of weakness and besides which, they can swim quicker than you. So trying to swim away would be a pointless waste of energy.
  9. If all else fails, try to reason with the sharks. Explain to them the reasons they shouldn’t eat you. You could even tell them jokes or sing them a song in exchange for sparing your life.

That’s it for this week.

Big Hugs,

Antony

Royal Navy Fact:
The Royal Navy is responsible for the Continuous At Sea Deterrent (CASD). The CASD is also known as the nuclear deterrent. This is a series of submarines equipped with nuclear Trident II missiles.

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Ida & Louise Cook: An Extraordinary & Inspirational Story

By Inspiration, ThinkingNo Comments

The following is the the final chapter in my latest book My Royal Navy Friend. It’s such an inspirational story, that I thought it deserved to be shared far and wide. So I decided to post it here:

Hi Roy,

My last email. A whole year in the Royal Navy. Well done, I’m so proud of you.

There’s nothing more inspiring to me than ordinary people that do the extraordinary for others. The story of Ida and Louise Cook is one such story.

Ida and Louise were British sisters who worked as Clerks for the Civil Service. Ida also wrote romance books under the pen name Mary Burchell, authoring a staggering 112 books in her writing career.

These sisters loved the Opera and would often travel abroad together to see their favourite singers and performances.

Sometime in the 1930s they began hearing about how bad Jewish people were being treated in Germany and Austria. 

The sisters travelled to both of these countries under the guise of seeing Operas and witnessing this poor treatment of the Jews for themselves. Then something remarkable and extraordinary happened: These two incredible and amazing ladies decided that they must help as many Jewish people as they could to escape this persecution.

Ida and Louise could see that it was only going to get worse for Jewish people in Germany and Austria. Remember this was before the outbreak of World War 2, before the concentration camps and genocide that would follow.

Jews were free to leave Germany and Austria at the time, but they weren’t allowed to take any assets with them. This meant no money and no valuables. The policy of the UK and many other countries that were safe for Jewish people was that they had to prove they had the financial assets to support themselves and their families. 

This meant the Jewish people were essentially stuck in Germany and Austria. Now at this point in the story, I want to scream: What were the UK Government and Governments of safe countries thinking with this ridiculous policy? Why weren’t the general population outraged by this policy?

But what we have to remember is that at the time, there was no internet or social media. Many people didn’t travel abroad.  People weren’t as connected as they are now. So the vast majority of the general public didn’t know what Jewish people were experiencing in Germany and Austria.

Back to the story. Ida and Louise came up with a plan. They would travel to Germany and Austria as often as they could, using the guise of going to see the Opera as the reason for their frequent travels. On the return journey they would smuggle anything of value given to them by Jewish families. This was so that Jewish families could prove to the UK Government that financially they could support themselves.

Ida and Louise’s plan not only took a great deal of planning, their own money and time, but came at a huge personal risk. Imagine if they had been discovered in Germany and Austria.

In November 1938, just less than a year before World War 2 officially started, in the dark of night the Jewish people were targeted in Germany and Austria. 

Over two nights, Jewish homes and businesses were destroyed, Synagogues (Jewish places of worship) were attacked and there are even reports of individual Jewish people being arrested without cause. This was all backed by the Germany and Austria Governments and citizens were actively encouraged to participate in the assaults on the Jewish communities.

Ida and Louise’s response was fantastic. It was to up their game. They continued the asset smuggling, but went further. Ida and Louise worked hard in the UK to make sure officials signed off as many visas as possible, as quickly as possible, to save as many Jews as possible.

Ida travelled throughout England, making as many people aware of the situation for Jewish people in Germany and Austria as she could. In some of these talks she also raised small amounts of money for Jewish people that needed help. Every penny went to the Jewish people in need.

Ida and Louise rented a flat in London for homeless Jewish people to live whilst they established a life in the UK. The cost of this flat being paid by Ida and Louise.

Ida and Louise took no payment for their work from the Jewish people. They paid for everything themselves, mostly funding their endeavours through Ida’s fiction writing.

In total, Ida and Louise saved 29 Jewish people. They helped them escape persecution and come to the safety of the UK. Throughout their lives Ida and Louise kept in touch with these people, keeping an active interest in their lives and continuing to support them in any way that they could.

What an incredible true story of two wonderfully kind, compassionate and inspirational people. 

Best Wishes,

Antony

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Not Sure If You’ll Enjoy My New Book – My Royal Navy Friend? Well Here’s Every Chapter Title

By Amazon, Books & Authors, CreativityNo Comments

My new book, My Royal Navy Friend, is out now. It is a collection of 52 emails to my dear friend Roy, who enlisted in the Royal Navy. It also includes Royal Navy Facts and Stories. But just in case you’re not sure if it’s going to be your cup of tea, here is a full list of topics/chapters:

WeekTitle
Introduction
110 Dinosaur Facts
2Some Wonders of the World
3Navy Jokes
4Inspirational Quotes
5Weird UK Laws
6Would You Rather?
7Most Common Myths
8Gay Animals
9A List of Qualities in People that Inspire Me
10Future Technology to Be Excited About
1125 Date Ideas
12How to Fight a Shark
13How to Woo a Turtle
14Some of the Most Amazing Jobs in the World
15The Cycle of Change
16Things To Look Forward To
17Facts About Castles
18Dad Jokes
19Do Aliens Exist?
20Solve These Puzzles
21The Best-Selling Objects of All Time
22Some of the Most Impressive Inventions by Mankind
23Facts About Disney that You Probably Didn’t Know
24The Kindest Humans
25A List of Cakes
26Dark Jokes
27Why Do People Hoard?
28Tips to Deal with Loss
29What To Do if You Meet a Dolphin
30Manners
3113 Weird Body Facts
32Bottom Humour
3310 Ways to Be More Creative
34Stress: What It Is & How To Beat It
35Will AI Robots Take Over The World?
3620 Super Space Facts
37Bar Jokes
38Famous Film Quotes
399 Travel Tips
40Ancient Egyptian Curses
41Things Money Can’t Buy
42Whatever Happened to The Roman Empire?
43Mood Lifters
44Neurodiversity Super Powers
4510 Weird Olympic Games
46Some Wonderful Words We Should Use More
47How to Teach a Sea Lion to Dance
48The Great Emu War of 1932
49Quiz: Flags of the World
50Legendary Characters from the UK
51A Survival Guide to a Zombie Apocalypse
52Ida & Louise Cook: An Extraordinary & Inspirational Story
Afterword

Blog soon,

Antony

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