On our third visit to the UK, we avoided London as a place to stay. We took a train directly from Gatwick to Brighton, a seaside resort town on the southern coast. There are as many green-ribbon tunnels from Gatwick to Brighton as there are from the airport to London. And chimney pots and pocket gardens, as well, along the way. We stayed at a place with the non-British name of “The Twenty-One Hotel.” However, it was located at 21 Charlotte Street, within walking distance from the beach. Our Teutonic host had a kosher beard but no yarmulke, although his wife dressed more Iranian when she cooks.
A political party was scheduled to meet in Brighton, but no politicians were in sight on an empty beach early in the morning. The typically British beach had tons of pebbled rocks but no sand to comfort bare feet. Its ticky-tacky boardwalk cum amusement park was called Palace Pier. By now it was lunchtime for fish and chips (with or without mushy peas). As I once began an English vacation with a twisted knee at the British Museum, I now bite down too hard and chipped a tooth!. I do start my travels with strange handicaps. Around us, Americanization continued with venues showing virtual-action contraptions at impossible decibels next to “American Donuts” – along with the ubiquitous “Big Mac” attacking everyone who doesn’t consume the donuts.
It was a short hike to the Royal Pavilion, a fair-provided structure made to resemble an Indian/Persian fantasy outside, with Chinese dragons inside, of all colors, sizes and shapes. The buildings were fashioned like spirals of up-side-down ice-cream cones balanced on a wedding cake. English girls and boys march by as living history dressed in the clothes of chambermaids, cooks, and livery boys. They were on their way to a day of enactment at Preston Manor, a local historical site, where they received a remuneration of 12 £ per year, 28 £ for livery staff. However, they had to buy their own uniforms when employed at Preston Manor.
The following day, on a day-trip train from Brighten to Rye and Eastbourne, we met a Canadian watercolorist and British re-constructionist working on stone masonry in Spain. In Rye we saw our usual parish churches and castle keep. One church had a wall sundial, with flowers hanging down or growing up in all shades of reds, yellows, and golds. We thought that their bell-ringers must be thin to transit the passageway to the bell-pull room near the top of the tower.
Rye had the usual cobblestone streets lined with Tudor-wooded shops. We tried to find one selling scarves, since Karen now had the “hobby” of buying them as souvenirs of our travels; but Rye’s shops were scarf-less. We made a quick pass by the pastry shop of Simon the Pieman. We saw the Mermaid Inn and the “House Opposite to Mermaid Inn.” The Brits like to name places prosaically. While cars were parked along the streets, none moved, allowing pedestrians freedom to patrol the pavement unhindered as they passed from shop to shop.
It was a short cab-ride to Eastbourne and our walks by the sea to white cliffs. Which are older? The cliffs or the couples on holiday, tottering along on riding-chairs. Then, there is the Ditto railroad. But without the rails, what kind of a train can it really be? In Eastbourne no one seems to eat out, or at least the lack of restaurants would so indicate.
A semi-deserted Eastbourne terminal and many qued in Bristol for late cabs. Surely the multi-pierced, young man with blue and white feathers festooning his Mohawk cut is not a member of the new labor government which is holding its “conference,” i.e. convention, in Brighton this weekend. We used our Brit-rail passes for the return to our home-base.
In Southern England we quickly learned how to read Brit-rail timetables. There was a 9:00 (A.M.) train leaving Brighton which, with one stop in Fareham, arrived in Winchester at 10:47 (A.M.). If we would return on the 16:41 (4:41 pm) from Winchester we would arrive back in Brighton at 18:10, giving us plenty of time to roam Winchester and eat dinner on home ground. It was said that the British trains always ran on schedule, if you knew how to find the correct schedule for the itinerary you wanted.
The first sites to see in Winchester were the usual ruins in various stages of collapse or repair: the Ruins of Wolvesey Castle and the Old Bishop’s Palace. We saw their skulled walls with many eye-socket windows staring down upon us as we strolled by. Our first goal was to arrive at Winchester Cathedral. Instead we joined early elders having a cuppa at the United Church coffee house. We also listened to the Mad woman of Winchester, preaching about the temporarily closed Cathedral: “What a nuisance, holding a service at the Cathedral and delaying tourists their due viewing of the attraction.”
We decided the time could be well spent taking the Meadow walk beside the River Itchen, a narrow stream more than a river. We passed by another ruin or functional site, perhaps both: St. Cross Hospital. Much better to enjoy a quiet tromp across hazed water-meadows with songs of unknown birds, certainly not the ducks nor swans. In contrast to the incensed interior of a high-Anglican cathedral, we could smell the earthen damp of the water meadow.
Along the path, we met a Trojan horse, actually a pony, who readily approached us as we walked up to the wire-fence separating him from our path. Karen easily stroked his head. Perhaps he thought her action was insufficient. As she turned away, he nipped her shoulder in lieu of any proffered apple. We completed our stroll and returned to Winchester Cathedral.
Once more we were greeted by oversized, Gothic shelves with statues of kings, bishops and saints. Stacked vertically and horizontally like books waiting to be opened, but usually ignored. Cardinal Beaufort rested in his chapel and Bishop Langton lay next door. Bishop Wilberforce had his own memorial born aloft by six angels. We came upon another bronze statue, neither a saint nor bishop, but a rubber-suited, deep-sea diver, William Walker, who in 1905 helped drain the flooded foundations erected in the Twelfth century.
We came upon Jane Austin’s black tomb with its yellow asters. Nearby was the resting place of Isaac Walton, known for fishing mankind’s foibles. There was St Swithin’s tented shrine, without rain but with a few clouds. We missed Alfred the Great but did spy Arthur’s table mounted on the wall of the Great Hall with Henry III. This pie-wedge Round Table was not from Camelot, but was merely a fourteenth century tourist attraction, now protected by another blackened-bronze statue of rotund Queen Victoria.
Our return train did arrive in Brighton in time for us to enjoy spaghetti carbonara at Al Duomo restaurant, for 28.80 £. It was almost as good as the gael-potato consumed at lunch in a Winchester take-away for 10 £ along with two cappuccinos at one-pound each. When in England, it continued to be more satisfying to dine Italian and snack British.
On the train to Salisbury (Old Sarum), we engaged in a pleasant conversation with a former AMC movie businessman who says it’s hard to shift the Brits from sticky-sweet popcorn to butter and salt. To which I added, it might be even more difficult to get them to add spice to the sausage.
Upon arrival we had planned to walk from the train station, which is always in the center of the town, to the magnificent Salisbury Cathedral. In this instance it was not a short stroll but rather a long, long walk around the outside of the walls protecting the cathedral from invaders.
We found that the Cloisters were a quiet place to rest and meditate before viewing the interior of the cathedral. Once more I pondered: Why do noblemen have effigies with their feet resting on small dogs as they lie in solemn state for the centuries? Can they really find rest in full armor? And why did master carvers spend so much time on angelic and ecclesiastic details for work seen only by God? Certainly choir clerics without zoom lenses would not see them, especially in candlelight.
In Salisbury Cathedral there was even a Clerical section guarded by an orchestra of angels playing medieval horns and stringed instruments. Except for the soaring rood screen dividing clergy from commoners, this Cathedral was not unlike all the other Gothic structures we had visited in England. Perhaps that American couple on the train had been correct: once you’ve seen one Castle or Cathedral you’ve seen them all! On the other hand, we did spy, from the returning train, a white chalk horse outlined on a green hillside. Perhaps, if you’ve seen one ancient depiction, you’ve seen them all!
As York was a good focus-city for day-trips to surrounding Yorkshire sights of the North, London makes a hub for visits to several nearby attractions, for both the common and the cultured. On the two trips in which London served as our base, we traveled by Brit-rail to Canterbury and Windsor.
Reality and history merge in strange ways. It is so hard to accept that real people, not actors, walked towns and fields we saw at the end of the third Millennium. The churches where they prayed still stand much as they did centuries ago. Now few visitors knell; most of them gaze with craned neck to view the high-placed carvings and vaulted ribbed-ceilings. But perhaps those who preceded us were also tourists, come to marvel at the then-new styles of architecture where divinity dwelt.
It was in Canterbury, with it’s Edwardian tombs, beginning with the Confessor, himself, that I began to gain a sense that this was a religious site rather than a place for political memorials. Even with modern crowds, the church was quiet, not silent, but engaged with the sound of murmurings of tourists and their ever-present guides. There may not have been a need for there to be a plaque marking the spot where Thomas a-Becket was martyred; but there is some excitement in knowing that the murderous deed occurred on these very steps.
Although the Cathedral, itself, held mysteries and memories of ancient saints who once knelt there, the surrounding grounds held their own specialness. There were warm gardens with late-blooming roses surrounding benches placed there for thoughtful conversations or prayerful meditations. The ruins of the abbey of St Augustine of Canterbury, not of Hippo, were there to prompt other recollections of past ages. Was he, himself, really buried somewhere nearby? Although a site can bear a marker stating this is his tomb, a skeptic may still wonder about its veracity. Relic-sellers, ages ago, made not dissimilar claims to pilgrims with unfulfilled desires and needs for cures. Perhaps there is some merit in seeing the effigies of those pilgrims created by Chaucer centuries ago as they now are spread throughout the lanes of modern Canterbury.
For a more “modern” age, one only a few centuries after the time of Chaucer, there is a visit to Windsor and its royal Castle, which is still in use. After a short walk from the train station, the visitor comes upon the obligatory effigy of Queen Victoria with orb and scepter protecting the grounds and realm for which they stand. The thick walls are interrupted with round towers on the march towards the entrance to the multiple courtyards they conceal.
Once inside the stone fortress, the gold-hued stones of the palaces and chapels compete with the wooden barracks, hidden elsewhere. The Chapel of St. George has its unique merit as the site for royal events of the present as well as of the past. The entire location looks like a movie-set. Disney created one with white towers and moats; this one is much more realistic!
Leaving Windsor Castle, the modern tourist has the opportunity to wander through the town and cross the bridge to see Eton Boys’ School, the home of well-born British males over the years. A few can still be seen as they do their casual shopping in the town. One or two might even stop at the shop selling men’s fine toiletries. We, ourselves, did not go in; but it was amusing to look at the window display of gentlemanly equipment.
What remain as major recollections of our time in the United Kingdom? While there are many physical sites and sights, perhaps the Brits, themselves, are a true measure of the Island. I’ve already mentioned some of them as we met them throughout our travels. There are others worth a comment. Actually, not all of them were English.
The first one was Jane, a Canadian artist – although not always one. She had been a tenured associate professor in Vancouver who taught French, Spanish and Italian but was sacked when she refused to learn and teach Chinese! She took up watercolors then and has become, in her view, a semi-successful, internationally acclaimed artist. She was returning from Tuscany where she was to have taught a week-long course, but no one showed up. She wanted us to take part next year.
We met her on a day-trip from Brighton to Winchester. That evening we followed her on a journey to find a French restaurant in Brighton, an impossible task on a Friday night. She took inordinate amounts of time at each venue trying to convince headwaiters that there must be a table available. We finally waited at an Italian restaurant for an hour before having a fairly good meal. She was a most needful companion – trying to convince us, if not herself, how she was recognized for her work as evidenced by both French and Italian prizes. However, Margie, Karen’s aunt, is a better artist. Yes, Jane did show us photos of her works and gave us a poster before departing.
The most jubilant person we met was a thirty-six year old man who was on his way from Chester to Penzance to meet his biological mother, about whom his newly-discovered biological sister had informed him. He could scarcely stop telling us how happy, excited and thrilled he was to meet his mother for the first time. Yet he was apprehensive about the two weeks he was to spend in Penzance. He almost didn’t make it, being on the wrong track in Chester!
However, for personal history recitation, few would top the seventy-plus gentleman returning from Chester to York after attending his 45th or so reunion of his WW II regiment. We met him as we waited at Newton le Willows for a connection. He gave us his view of the war years, having been a prisoner of war in Germany before being assigned to guard such prisoners back in England. According to the Geneva Convention he had been released because the doctors thought he was dying. He was saddened that this fifty-year-old son had died last Easter, from colitis, only three days after their working together in the garden. He, himself, was a retired porter at an English agricultural college in York.
Yorkshire men seem to be very talkative, once started. Another one was a physician, actually a surgeon, an ophthalmologist, in fact, on his way from York to London for a meeting. He had book-reviews to complete on the train, but was very willing to converse in the meantime about comparisons between England and the U.S. on a variety of crime and medical professional topics. He had once been a student who heard DeBakey many years ago. He was a typical English physician-type: long and lean, with glasses and a bemused look.
Then there was the Yorkshire couple who were re-visiting Windsor after some forty-plus years. We met them briefly on the way to Windsor and happened to leave the town at the same time, as well. A very lively pair: he with a broad leprechaun smile, and she a pleasant opinionated matron, although more in the line of Edith Bunker than cousin Maude. Certainly not a Hyacinth. (Our pleasant conversation almost caused us to miss getting off the train at Clampton Junction. But he did manage to pry the doors open so we could get off!) The wife probably would have been troubled by the two young Jamaican men we shared a carriage with from Clampton Junction to East Croyden. They worked as professionals in London and looked forward to the weekend, as they munched on their take-aways from MacDonalds.
And yes, take-away memories may be munched upon even longer than those available from a fast-food service. Memories are food for slow digestion.
