Petes-Pix: June 2023

My Books

"Pinotage: Behind the Legends of South Africa's own wine" is available on the ibookstore

Learn more about my new book telling all about Pinotage and read sample pages at
pinotagebook.weebly.com

A I Perold's
A Treatise
on Viticulture
A I Perold (1880-1941) was South Africa's first Professor of Viticulture and Oenology. He dedicated himself to improving the quality of grapes for wine, brandy and the table. He studied wine and brandy production in Europe, imported more than 60 varieties to the Cape and bred new ones. Perold said this book “is intended to serve both the student and the practical grape-grower. There are in it technical passages that will appeal more to the student, e.g. the chapters dealing with the biology of the vine, its external and internal morphology, the theory of grafting. My remarks on the practice of viticulture, such as those dealing with the propagation, manuring and pruning of the vine, the production of table grapes for export, will, it is hoped, assist the practical grape-grower as well as the student.” This is a newly typeset reprint, not a photocopy. Text on the 712 pages have been aligned to match the original pagination so any external references to pages in the Treatise will be valid in this edition
Available in paperback and hardback editions. 712 pages

A Year in Paarl
with
A I Perold

Dr Perolds report on his Paarl experiments 1915 - 1916 reprinted with glossary, introduction and brief biography. Fascinating historical document on viticulture for wine and table grapes, wine and brandy making.

09 June 2023

Bentley Priory

To Bentley Priory, headquarters of RAF Fighter Command during WWII. The RAF moved out in 2008 and the main building houses private apartments. The central part is a museum.

We were lucky on the day we visited. The car park was almost empty and so we had the museum virtually to ourselves, after lunch sitting in the sun on a terrace overlooking the garden at the rear of the building. Britain's effective defence against air attack in WWII was 'The Dowding System' where planes were plotted using combined inputs from Chain Home station's radar and Observer Corps' sightings which enabled controllers to get defending fighters in the correct place to meet attackers.

The first plotting room has been reconstructed in its original room, with resin statues modelled on the real personnel.

A huge underground bunker was constructed in the grounds, and the plotting room moved there for safety. It was extended and adapted during the Cold War.

The first Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command was Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding. We saw an excellent AV presentation in his office, and we told that in the 1969 film Battle of Britain, with Laurence Olivier portraying Dowding, was shot in Bentley Priory.

Dowding's office overlooks the rear garden and is behind the pillars on the right of the photo. At the end of the movie he steps out onto the balcony behind the pillars and the garden with its fountain is shown. But the scene where Dowding looks out from his office at the red sky from bombed burning London was not possible, we were told, as the rear of Bentley Priory doesn't look towards London.