Finally, on October 24 with only two days to go in the book, we get to discuss the actual riddle of ‘The Riddle of the Sands’.

Lloyd notDavies uses his train timetables to get us to Esens. Minus a moustache, Tim notCarruthers points out the cultural highlights of this ancient Frisian town. And then both men argue at length about the proper use of canals. Finally the talk turns to the significance of submarines.

First, a plug for our Unbound project. Just £25 will get you a beautiful ROTS Handbook, an ebook, an audiobook and access to the month-long online adventure in September. (02:00 )

https://unbound.co.uk/books/riddle-of-the-sands

We start the podcast proper, as we often do, by referring to train timetables (05:19 ). We discover it isn’t as easy to get to Esens by rail as it was one hundred years ago.

We find the humblest guesthouse in Esens where we can eat wurst and drink beer (10:29 ); Tim notCarruthers tells tales of the Frisian pirate Junkers Balthasar (16:35 ) and, friend of Wagner, Theodore Thomas (17:29 ).

A long conversation about canals ensues (20:35 ) including: memories of the newsreader Peter Sissons (21:32 ); the geological history of Frisia (23:20 ); a canoeing trip down the Bensertief (27:30 ); German enthusiasm for navigable canal-building (29:15 ); the plan to ‘kill’ Rotterdam (30:42 ); how to get from Bensersiel to Aurich by barge (the long way round) (32:43 ).

We return to last podcast’s subject - the villainous engineer Böhme (38:12 ). If he hails from Bremen and is a submarine engineer, he can only have worked at one place. Tim notCarruthers follows this clue back to West Norwood (41:58 ), and ends up talking about an American-Irish engineer who imust have been known to Childers(43:03 ).

Club Business: Brian offers us a chance to row in the North Sea (45:18 ); Pat also talks rowing, and his brief time as a hero (47:33 ); Jeff gives us a chance to tell you about the mysterious annotated 1920s edition of ‘The Riddle of the Sands’ which has inspired this whole project(49:07 ).

MUSIC CREDITS
Great Open Sea by the Wellington Sea Shanty Society: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Wellington_Sea_Shanty_Society/none_given_1098/12_-_Wellington_Sea_Shanty_Society_-_Great_Open_Sea

Flying Dutchman Overture by Wagner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqezCR_XzaI