Everything stopped for tea in deepest Uruguay
SIR – Waiting to start my career, at the age of 19, as a gaucho, in Argentina, back in the Sixties, I met Sir Eugen Millington Drake. He was the British minister in Uruguay during the Second World War who did so much as a diplomat to win the Battle of the River Plate.
He invited me to be his valet for a couple of weeks on a lecture tour of Uruguay. He was lent the Uruguayan presidential aeroplane, the equivalent of Obama’s Air Force One. But this was an old twin-engined DC3 that had been furnished inside like a Victorian railway carriage. It would fly us to some of the remotest parts of the country.
One of my jobs was to produce the perfect cup of tea (Letters, March 27) for him, day or night, wherever we were. He gave me full instructions on how to make it, with emphasis on keeping everything hot, including the teaspoon.
Early one morning we were sitting on our luggage, beside a makeshift runway in the middle of nowhere. We were waiting for the DC3 to appear. It had returned to Montevideo to refuel, when suddenly Sir Eugen cried, “Boy!” (that was me) “Cup of tea!”. Out came the Primus stove, matches, waterbottle, milk, sugar, tea, but, horror of horrors, no teaspoon!
By now I could hear the distant drone of the DC3 and still could not find the teaspoon. The water was boiling as I dug into the bags.
“I can’t find the teaspoon, Sir!” I finally confessed. “Well use a toothbrush, Boy!” The tea was brewing nicely and after pouring it into his mug I started to stir it with the toothbrush. With a roar the DC3 shot overhead as it came in to land. With a roar, just as loud, Sir Eugen shouted: “You haven’t heated that blasted toothbrush.” Peter Smales Swallowcliffe, Wiltshire