Our daughter Debbie, a theater major at Syracuse University, had spent her junior-year-abroad in London, with side-visits to France, Italy and Sweden. Ken, our son, with a major in psychology at Texas A&M, had followed the path of Dr. Freud, with several weeks in Vienna and Germany, for his own European experience. Even our luggage had made it to Hawaii with friends! It was now time for Karen and me to begin our own overseas sight-seeing. We decided to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary by using Brit-rail passes for a fortnight in England, Wales and Scotland. On October 1, 1983, we flew from Houston Intercontinental to London’s Gatwick to begin the first of our many European excursions over the next thirty years.
Without a direct reference to photographs, videos and written notes, our visits to the United Kingdom merge into a single experience. Rather than comment on them as three, separate journeys, I’ve chosen to blend them together, resulting in a single impression of a town we may have seen more than once.
Our initial exposure included visits to London, Canterbury, Penzance, Oxford, Bath, Wells, Cardiff (Wales), Lancaster and York, as well as Inverness and Edinburgh in Scotland. Our second journey replicated much of the first: London, Bath, Glastonbury, Windermere, Lancaster, Edinburgh, York, and Canterbury. Our third Brit-rail passage included Brighton, Eastbourne, Winchester, Bath, Salisbury, Swansea, Gloucester, Chester, Caernarfon, Buxton, York, Fountain’s Abbey, Castle Howard and Windsor. This third tour had more day-trips than the earlier two. Evidently we became more accustomed to the use of coaches or short train trips from a central town to whatever could be readily seen in a day. In fact, at the completion of our third trip, we stayed in a hotel at Gatwick, used the left-luggage facility at Victoria Station, and made a day-trip to Windsor; we escaped, entirely, being a City-tourist that year.
Since I have joined several visits into one tour of England, Wales, and Scotland, it’s appropriate, indeed, for this reflection to be designated as “United Kingdom.” However, as most visitors will attest, it all began with our arrival at Gatwick.
We easily passed through customs at Gatwick, while observing other, less fortunate tourists being detained for a public viewing of the contents of their luggage, a condition originating decades before the terrorism of the twenty-first century made such searches mandatory. Perhaps we looked more like middle-class English than many of our fellow travelers did. Over the next two weeks, this conclusion was confirmed each time we were asked for assistance by other Americans who seemed to believe we were locals who knew how to help them find their way to a new destination.
My first observations of England were made through the windows of our train on the way from Gatwick to Victoria Station. They began with the number and complexity of all of the chimney pots poking like miniature towers from each rooftop along the track. Their smoke-trails showed the location of every warm room in the autumnal countryside. The immensity of Victoria Station, itself, and its crowds flowing in conflicting currents were quickly replaced by the sight of fleets of classical, black-box taxis transporting everyone who entered or left the station. We also discovered the importance of grabbing the first available trolley to tote our possessions between the arrival platform and the distant site for cab departures.
In some mysterious manner, we arrived at the Royal Horseguard Hotel in Whitehall. From the blurry-pane window of our tiny room I had my first sighting of an image seen consistently throughout every city in England – as well as in all of Europe, as I learned in the years to come. There were statues carved on the facade of every surrounding building – males and females, semi-clad with flowing cloth made of stone.
Given that the room, itself, was only large enough to hold a double bed, a writing desk and a single, straight-back chair, we spent little time within it before taking off on a brisk walk to Westminster, Parliament and Big Ben – where we saw our first, but not last, scaffold-encased site. It seemed this was England’s year for re-surfacing every building that was more than 500 years old, of which there were quite a few throughout the Island. We later learned that this renovation occurred routinely every year – or at least, during every visit we made. Soot-blackened walls of castles and cathedrals became white, once again, under the ministrations of fleets of acrobatic laborers performing high over head.
We arrived at Westminster Abbey with its lofty façade of rows of saints upon saints standing guard above its triple-door entrance. At their center, stood a Madonna and Child to lead them and to welcome arriving pilgrims or tourists. I wondered how many visitors belonged to these two groups; how many pilgrims were actually mere tourists out to see the wonders rather than to experience any of the event’s spirituality. I, myself, was both.
As we entered the Abbey, I was fascinated with its history as well as its tombs and monuments to kings, statesmen, saints, and even scientists. Somehow it seemed inconsistent to bury Darwin within an Abbey next to some medieval saint, but evidently not to the English. I quickly became overwhelmed with all of it – like a boy in a fancy candy-shop. Too much to see, to absorb, to believe. It was difficult to accept that beneath those stones lay the dust of Edward I and his heirs – kings I had read about during the last few years as part of my newly established interest in the history of the Middle Ages.
Reality and history merged in strange ways. Slowly, I believed real people, not actors, once walked these aisles, knelt here, prayed here for over a thousand years – here at Westminster, and at all of the other cathedrals and churches we would visit during the next two weeks. These religious sites were more than mere locations for buildings. They were the homes of living Brits as well – people who added living-drama to the castles and cathedrals we saw.
On our rapid walk along London’s Embankment from our hotel to a tiny, nearby shop selling pastry and coffee for an early breakfast, we passed the entrances to tube stations where bed-rolls awaited their night-time occupants. The English did come in all the usual shapes and conditions of people everywhere. Many of them were easy to encounter individually, although few would start the conversation. We uncovered the lives of some interesting people, if we, ourselves, initiated the interaction. For instance, there was the lady at Paddington Station with her Wellingtons and anorak for tramping Dartmoor and asking us what to pack for her forthcoming visit to Denver and San Antonio in late October.
London, itself, is a kaleidoscope of images; its colors shifting with every twist in the roads over which we walked. Horse-drawn carriages interdigitated with long black cabs and red double-decker buses. Black and gold gated Buckingham Palace, with bushy-hatted guards at their posts in front of small houses – did they use them when it rained? Lion and Unicorn guardians everywhere. In front of the Palace, a towering monument that includes a victorious Victoria regally seated beneath a golden, angelic Victory about to take off into the cloudy skies above the circling traffic and rushing pedestrians. A stroll along Pall Mall, past residents for minor royals, all protected by black, iron gates and thick, green hedges. Views of Old London beyond the Lake, with its own left-over, towered palaces. A surprising statue of Abraham Lincoln poses solemnly nearby. And back to Westminster Abbey and its neighbor, St. Margaret’s Church with its sundial mounted on the side-wall to yield its own unique method for displaying the hours when the sun is shining, occasionally, over London. And almost everywhere along the pedestrian hike there are marble window boxes with classic figures carved along their sides, holding flowers of every bright color and ferns in various stages of greenery.
Of course there are also the usual sites every tourist believes must be visited. The Tower of London with its walls and grounds showing both relics and restorations; edifices crumbling or reconstructed to last another thousand years. London Bridge with its crossbar connection high over head. Old Bailey with stones, white from recent cleaning or remaining darkened by smoke; still surrounded by the words of lawyers, ancient and modern. And for my own, personal reflection, the nearby Templar Church with its round chapel and the visions it recalls of knights of long ago.
Did I really twist my knee while climbing the ramp and stairs to enter the British Museum? Did I really ignore the pain as I stood in front of the Elgin marbles, which Greece continues to demand be restored to their rightful owners. Who is there who wishes to reclaim the Rosetta stone?
To cross the bridge over the River Thames and see the views along its banks. I am content with Big Ben and the House of Parliament. I really have no desire to see a Ferris Wheel besmirch the view I saw almost four decades ago. And to end the day with a quick stop at Covent Gardens, which cannot be replaced by any modern, glass-domed shopping mall. Where else would you have a bite to eat while watching a Punch-and-Judy show, or teens with purple and green hair?
The only thing we found uninteresting in London, and throughout the rest of Great Britain, was the food. English cuisine was not among the country’s contributions to society, although stuffed “pasties” in Cornwall, and fish and chips in any quaint eatery, were acceptable fare. On the other hand, I wondered who invented “mushy peas!” Perhaps this is why, in London, we ate dinner twice in the same restaurant, an unlikely Topo Gigio. An Italian Mickey Mouse served a delicious meal in comparison with most restaurants. On the other hand, pubs and tearooms were very good for snacks throughout the day. An even better treat were Double Decker bars or Cadbury chocolates purchased for 14p or 26p at any newsstand in every village, town, or city.