Joy of Life ... a modern Odyssey (eBook)

Jean-Christian de Mons (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
342 Seiten
Books on Demand (Verlag)
978-3-8192-7208-0 (ISBN)

Infos

In his sixth book Jean-Christian de Mons exceeds all his former publications. The readers will share his experiences in exotic countries and his contacts with remarkable personalities. Besides he mentions problems that our marvellous world is suffering from because of ignorance, indifference and intentional disdain. A book that does not only stimulate thinking, but also offers immense pleasure.

Jean-Christian de Mons was born 1941 in Breslau, former Germany, now Wroclaw, Poland. After the escape from the Russians he spent his early period in Lower Saxony/West Germany. The military service at the Air Force followed the attendance of the Hotel Academy and then the practical formation in the hotel business. He joined the merchant navy working as steward on cruise ships followed by receptionist jobs in several renowned European hotels before being called to Mozambique/Portuguese S/E Africa by his granduncle to become a citrus farmer. The agitated situation that ended in the civil war induced him to return to Europe. For over three decades he served as chief steward for Lufthansa German Airlines. He invested much time to learn some additional exotic languages besides English and French and completed a management course and learned flying. As counsellor he joined the production of two documentary movies in China. With his Korean wife he is living now near Weilburg/Lahn in Germany.

Textauszug

*MY FIRST CAR*

I am a war product, born 1941, so I still can remember those battered-pre- and post war cars, that jolted over the pothole littered roads of post-war Germany, the trucks fuelled with wood gas (methane) and the coal fired steamrollers.

After our escape from the Russians we finally settled down in a small lower-saxony village in the British occupied zone. Later we moved to the nearby university city of Göttingen for educational reasons. My school there was accommodated in the former barracks of the air force at an abandoned airfield. An old Nissenhut there housed the local glider club. Already at that period I was interested in everything concerning flying. I was permitted to assist the team that was in charge of towing. I soon got the opportunity to sit at the steering wheel of the old-”AdlerTriumph- Junior” to learn driving. A driving license was not needed there. This car’s job was to tow the gliders in case the electrical rope-drum of the winch refused to turn … and that happened quite often. The battered gray “Adler” did just have one problem, the gear lever situated at the dashboard was broken, there was just a stubble left. Changing gears worked with the help of “hammer and wrench”. Instead of a fuel cap there was just a wooden plug.

At the start of the 60’s I served at the new established air force base near Munich (Bavaria). There I finally got my driver license. In spite of the fact that my pay was miserable, I managed to acquire a tiny little car … or you can call it more appropriately a “motorbike with umbrella”. It was one of those many ingenious cheap constructions that were to be seen on the roads of that time. Mine was a “Kleinschnittger” built 1952 by a former aircraft engineer. I am sure part of the used aluminum material to build the car originated from the remainder stock of a former aircraft assembly factory.

The 4-wheel, open, door less, 2-seater vehicle did have a simple canvass rain-hood. The spare wheel was originally mounted at the rear, but I moved it to the side to gain space for a luggage box. The 125 ccm two-stroke motorbike engine brought the “Kleinschnittger” to a maximum speed of 80 kmh with “tailwind”. There was no electrical starter. The motor was activated with the help of a wooden handle and a wire rope like a lawn mower. If you missed the timing you could hurt your fingers. There was no reverse gear. If necessary you did have to get out and push it backwards by hand. No problem with this “Super-Mini” that caused people to remark mockingly “that you needed a shoe-horn and a boot-jack to get in and out. Thanks to the simple construction its weight was just 160 kg. The oil/fuel consumption was accordingly about 1 1/2 I for 100 km. The parking procedure was very simple: You drove the car into the parking opening, then you lifted it with both hands in the rear into its correct position. The brake cables had to be checked continuously, they did have the tendency to rust tight in their slides. As ready spare brake pads were not any more available in the 60’s you did have to prepare, fit and rivet them yourself.

I did have a good relationship with the local police force in the small spa-city where I was living at that time. They soon knew my address. Often I was woken up in the night or early morning by one of the squad officers who informed me that my “Kleinschnittger” had been dragged by some rowdies in front of the Emperor’s monument, the water fountain or into a tulip bed of the neighbouring park. One night they even managed to lift it onto the empty loading area of a truck. The police never managed to get the culprits “in flagrante delicto”. Finally, fat up with the silly tricks they played with me, I chained the car to trees and lampposts. But even then one morning in January I found a discarded Christmas tree in my vehicle. There was of course no heating in the car. As I drove it in winter too. I improvised and used a small smelly safety catalytic-petrol oven to keep the windscreen free of ice.

The small motor flap/bonnet was secured with a padlock probably to avoid fuel or the engine to be stolen. The aluminum bumper was just decoration. I replaced it with a more solid one from the Italian “Fiat-Topolino”.

An Englishman who happened to park his giant RolIs Royce behind in front of the local De-Luxe Hotel remarked jokingly: “How about exchanging cars, everybody seems to be interested in your funny little thing”. 1964 this kind of “means of transport” were already a rarity. Finally I sold it to a collector who made me a good offer.

The next car I acquired was a real vintage one, a BMW-Dixi from1928, a license production of the English “Austin Seven” with an 750 ccm/4 cylinder engine. It was an open 2-seater with spoke wheels. It had to be started with a crank.

Until I discovered my first Rover 2000TC in Switzerland I did own some other classics like an Austin-Healey 100/4 2600 ccm built 1952.

Maybe it is just “nostalgia”, but when I think about all the cars I owned, I must state that no one has given me so much pleasure than my funny little “Kleinschnittger”. A collector told me recently that those vehicles achieve astronomical prices nowadays because of their rarity.

Before I finally acquired my first ROVER P6 I drove a couple of other interesting vintage cars. The DIXI was followed by a tough English 2-seater open sports car with spoke wheels, an AUSTIN-HEALEY BN1 with a 4-cylinder 2600 ccm engine from 1952. I could only afford this hobby because I had some friends with the same interest, who could teach me the essentials to keep a car going and to keep the workshop bills low.

Later I was in the position to do most general repairs myself.

After some years being an employee of LH we got the privilege to fly standby for an industrial discount with my company and on application with other cooperation partners like PAN AMERICAN AIRLINES and TRANS WORLD AIRLINES at this time. Often I flew to London with LH or BEA/British European Airways. I got the ticket at the employee travel center and waited patiently at the boarding gate until I was called (or rejected in the case the plane was overbooked). In this case I went to the next to London leaving flight gate. As LH flying staff with emergency training I had the privilege to fly with permission of the captain on a jump seat at the emergency exit or even in the cockpit. Most colleges knew me and it was enough to hand over my name card through the check in staff to be accepted. After the bothersome security checks, my English tool kit had to go into the luggage compartment together with the passengers luggage. Why LONDON? It was the best place to get used spare parts for my English classic cars from the car recycling scrap yards outside London and even near Heathrow Airport. Spare parts ordered from Germany took a long time to be delivered, were very expensive including freight and often unavailable because of strikes, the English disease. So I was in a privileged position to dismantle the needed parts with the permission of the manager of the recycling place which were often very cheap. My target were cars which had suffered a crash where I could be sure that the parts were working. A friend of mine David Hamilton allowed me to use his Morris Minor in search for the recycling places around London. I came already dressed in a mechanic outfit. Customs fee in Frankfurt was no question for my intentionally kept dirty spare parts like starter, generator, brake parts, petrol pumps, rear reflectors, instruments, bumpers, carburettors etc. How did I come to meet David? Not far away from Heathrow Airport in Osterley at the Piccadilly Tube Line I had booked a Bed & Breakfast place. In the evening I spent some time in the midst of some car enthusiasts and traded stories. David was an oil driller of British Petroleum in Libya and just on holidays. He drove one of those fabulous Aston Martins. He found my way of getting spare parts for my Austin-Healey very clever and invited me to use his guest room insead of the B & B place and became acquainted with his charming wife who was the daughter of a British colonial officer and an Indian wife. She worked in the cosmetic section of the distinguished department store “Selfridge” in the Oxford Street. David and I became good friends and he even entrusted me with the key of his home to use the guest room whenever I wanted and the key and papers for his second shopping car a Morris Minor That is only one example of how I met extraordinary people in my life.Bigger body spare parts had to be packed and went into the passengers luggage compartment or I got them from a scrapper in the Netherlands where I could pick them up by car.

An especially ludicrous acquaintance of mine goes back to my school time. Dr.Dr. George-Philipp Ranke, bestowed with academic titles, had been a member of the British secret service in WWII supplying Josip Tito’s partisans with military information, explosives, weapons, ammunition and radio equipment. 1944 he had jumped by parachute and had joined the partisans in their fight against the German occupation forces. Because of injuries he was picked up at the coast by an English submarine and spent the rest of the war in a military hospital in Southern England. His father was Canadian and his mother Greek. He went to Greece to get a training course as a ship’s helmsman. Much later after having worked on ships for some years he...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.7.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-10: 3-8192-7208-9 / 3819272089
• ISBN-13: 978-3-8192-7208-0 / 9783819272080