Dougie is re-admitted to the Flat Earth Society

When I was young and relatively inexperienced in the ways of the world, I was accepted by the University of Stirling to study Literature. This was 1975. And for reasons that don't much matter to anyone except me (basically I was -- and still can be at times -- a nitwit) I didn't complete my degree / any degree until 2018.

Ony for the purposes of egotistical record-keeping -- albeit decades too late -- it was, I'm glad to say, a First Class Honours Degree (also in Literature) from The Australian National University. Because by then I had moved continents. I lived and worked in Canberra, to which pleasant wee town I'd relocated (from Sydney) to help launch Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme in 2013.

Canberra, it turns out, is the Hotel California of national capital cities: "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave." But that's another matter. The city has one of the best glass artist facilities in Australia. And Spike is a glass artist. We're never leaving.

Spike at home with buckets full -- literally buckets full -- of recycled glass on its way to being art

So, 1975 to 2018, what's that? Forty-three years.

I could have done better, should have been better, should have been quicker. Not least because I was the first Herd to be admitted to university (at a time, incredibly now, when only 3% of eighteen-year-olds went to uni). My parents deserved more from me. But there one has it: spilt milk. Too late to cry over, Dougie.

At eighteen years old, 1975, was a pivotal time to become a student. At least for me. Maybe it was / it is for everyone. If you're lucky, it changes you for good.

My father had died the year before. I quit my first proper job (in a bank). I moved out of Glasgow (a surprisingly important relocation for teenager-me) into an undergraduate's study bedroom in Andrew Stewart Hall of residence at the university (just outside of Stirling) on the grounds of what might be (almost unarguably) the most beautiful campus on the planet. We were not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

How could anyone not get a degree while studying here?

The world was different way back then. There were no tuition fees, no unimaginable levels of student debt (a 21st Century false economy if ever there was one). There were student grants in the UK. Taxpayers actually paid for us to study because (as I would argue) it was understood to be an investment in a country's future. We were not commodified.

I received the maximum student grant with no parental contribution (a form of means testing designed to increase participation by students from less well-off backgrounds). I received £740 to cover thirty weeks of study annually. That's about one-third of the average male employee's wage at the time for a bit more than half the year.

Horror of horrors ... we had to find summer jobs! One year, I was an onion-grader in a pickled onion factory in a field in The Netherlands.

Coming from a broadly typical Scottish family background (generally socially progressive, definitely economically Keynesian, committed to family, community, church) it was an exciting, life-changing time to encounter new ideas, new ways (to me) of thinking and the idea popularised by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that if we think, act and organise together progressively, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

We needed to bend a lot of the arc back then. And we still do today, of course.

My new world of higher education needed reform for its expanded future. The Sun newspaper had not yet screamed "Crisis? What Crisis?" but education cuts were on their way. In Australia, the Whitlam Government had not yet been dismissed in the most gentlemanly manner of anti-democratic shenanigans by a genuinely Colonial Governor.

Around the globe, 'The Troubles' were nearing their peak in Northern Ireland. Nelson Mandela was still in prison. Steve Biko had not yet been beaten to death in a Pretoria jailhouse. It had been only two years since President Salvador Allende in Chile had been assassinated in a coup backed by the USA against the elected socialist government. And in dear old Scotland, "homosexual acts" between men were still unlawful.

I found a home, allies, educators, mentors and lifelong friends in the left-wing student movement of my near youth in that galaxy far, far away and a long time ago. I became an activist and deeply involved with student union politics and representation; locally, across Scotland and nationally in the leadership group of the UK's National Union of Students. I loved every minute of it. Even the shitty bits (which were few and far between).

It is a time when I learned the most important adage of my adult life. Written by the long dead German guy.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in many ways. The point, however, is to change it.

And what, exactly, does any of this have to do with your holiday on a Pacific Ocean tropical island, Douglas? Well, since you asked, it's about me being a nincompoop.

Turn left after the eight palm trees Dougie

Way back then we were full of youthful certainty. The world needed changing and 'by Jiminy' we were the people to change it.

Sitting together in the student union bar or marching on demos or getting arrested (as some of us did) on our way to solving the problems of the world, we'd get a bit wanky, pompous and maybe self-righteous. When I say "we", generally I mean the blokes.

On the basis of scant evidence, dubious credentials and insufficient knowledge we would -- on occasion -- assert with certainty (and persuasive rhetoric) that X was Y, night was day, left was right and ultra-left was objectively right. Sometimes we were even correct.

I think it was my friend Maggie (who now lives in America) who first started to get us to pull our heads out of our arses by warning new arrivals to a conversation, "watch out folks Dougie or Scott or Davie are 'being Communists' again." But our youthful over-confidence and certainties were occasionally misguided and lacking supportive evidence. Sometimes known as facts.

So too with me planning our current holiday. In 2025. When I should know better.

We thought it would be nice to split the holiday in two. Week one in the city centre. Week two on the southern coast where Spike could go swimming at the beach, inside the shark nets.

Spike after swimming with no sharks (thanks to the net)

We were reasonably sure (and correct as it turned out) that there would be no wheelchair accessible public transport on the island. There is one wheelchair accessible taxi. But not in Noumea. Go figure.

I was able to arrange an aged care community transport accessible vehicle for the 40 km trip from the airport to our hotels at the beginning and end of our stay. But not for the 5 km journey between hotels in the middle of our stay. This is the point at which Maggie would have said ... watch out folks, Dougie's about to start being a Communist again. Bold assertions. Persuasive rhetoric. Internalised logic.

Not a fact in sight.

I came up with a cunning plan.

• It's pleasantly warm in Noumea but it's not the oppressively hot and humid cyclone season.

• It's only a few kilometres. I have power-assisted wheels.

• I checked Google maps.

• The route goes along or near the coast. There are beaches and marinas.

• It will, therefore, be flat.

• I'll push between the two hotels.

• You take the bags in a taxi then walk back to meet me.

• How hard could it be?

This is the kind of thinking that led to the collapse of international monopoly capitalism, the establishment of a peace loving, egalitarian Socialist Millennium where everyone's rights are respected, there is no discrimination, prejudice or inequality anymore. And everyone is happy.

Or wait a minute Dougie ... none of that actually happened! Just like your so-called plan.

There were two not-small hills in those 5 kms.

Steep Noumean hill

And no sight of the nearby coast and charming marinas. There were, however, road works, potholes, broken pavements.

"The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley,"

And no kerb cuts because ... even though you have an access right Dougie ... which wheelchair user in their right mind goes up and down two steep coastal hills in 29-degree heat with humidity at nearly 85%? I know the rights-based answer. But seriously?

The absence of kerb cuts on the down slop of the second hill

By the time we'd reached the summit of the second hill with its chapel and surprisingly Modernist relief of the Madonna and stunning tropical tree, Spike was ready to abandon me to my plan. And I was thinking of making my way back to Jesus if someone would just flatten the land.

Atop the second hill going south

Flat Earth Dougie. A former Boy Scout who can't even read a Google map of Noumea.

Five kilometres. Two hills. Two hours of our lives that me and Spike are never getting back.

Last night we sat at the beach at Anse Vata, near our second hotel. Along with many others we watched the sun go down due west across the Pacific Ocean. 'Being a Communist again', I thought ... that setting sun demonstrates that the world is, in fact, not flat.

But I kept my mouth shut. Spike already knew. She lives with a nincompoop.