The Magic of London
In 1972, the year after I graduated college, my mother took me to England for a week as a graduation present. We went on a charter of people going to the Crufts Dog Show (my mother was a dog show person; we had a Keeshond we showed and she edited Kee Topics, a breed magazine.).
We had a banquet the night we arrived. Afterward, my mother said, "Let's take a walk. I'll show you where Buckingham palace is, and where you can see the changing of the guard. Then tomorrow, you're on your own". So we walked from Marble Arch up past the palace at about 10:30 at night. The gates were open and all the lights were on. Suddenly the bobbies in their helmets dashed out and stopped traffic, and the queen came by and waved at us! What a way to start the trip!
The next day turned out to be the 21st anniversary of the queen's accession to the throne. I started the day at the Tower of London. Fascinating place, but try not to go in February, if you can help it. They removed the crown jewels from display to clean them, so I missed seeing them. Spent about 1/2 day there, and stopped at a little restaurant right opposite the entrance for lunch. People started going over to the window, talking and going outside to watch. The guns were arriving for the 21 gun salute to the queen's yacht on the other side of the Thames, in honor of her accession. These guns were not rifles, and were more modern than old cannon. Each one was pulled by a jeep and had to be maneuvered into place on the riverbank. This was the Buster Keaton/Keystone Cops artillery placement: guns falling over as the jeeps jumped the sidewalk, soldiers running to straighten them out and get them rolling again, drivers unaware of how to back up when towing a gun, so the guns went the wrong way, etc. Finally the salute went off, a bit later than scheduled!
St. Paul's Cathedral was next on my list of places I wanted to see. It turned out to be even more fascinating than I expected and I didn't realize how late it was when I came out. I caught one of the double decker red buses and headed down to Westminster. It was after 4 PM. I was at the Poet's Corner when a group of priest came out and started moving around, talking to all the groups of tourists (there weren't many of us, late on a February day). They were going to have a formal vespers in honor of the anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne. The queen herself would not be there but there would be other VIPs. Problem was that it was February and the choir school was on break. The older men's choir was available, but not the kids, and the choir would look rather empty. So, if we would promise to stay till the end and not walk out in the middle, we were welcome to vest and sit in the choir. We could sing if we wanted; they would give us the music. Which is how I got to sing with the Westminster Abbey choir, while people with all sorts of sashes and medals on their chests processed in, so we could all pray for the queen.
Well, how could the rest of the trip live up to that? But my mother and I went to Canterbury, where she came down with the flu. So I went to Stratford on Avon alone. There were very few tourists in February, so at each Shakespeare property, the three tour guides would remove the ropes for this American tourist and tell all the stories they could think of. Heading back to the train, I passed a man whitewashing a Tudor period house that had a "For Sale" sign on it. I told the man I was an American student and not going to buy his house, but I would love to see it. He must have been ready for a break from the painting, because he gave me the tour. I learned about the problems of owning a period house in an historic town. You could install a flush toilet but not in the house itself, only in an outhouse that was made to look Elizabethan. He told me about thatched roofs, their pros and cons and how long they lasted. I had to leave, though, to make it back to London for a theater curtain. The Royal Shakespeare Company only performed in Stratford in the summer. In the winter they were in London, and I saw them perform "Murder in the Cathedral".
Despite my mother's illness we went to the Cruft's Show. The only thing I remember about it was meeting a woman who was showing her Keeshond and who made wine. She had dandelion and oak leaf wines with her, so I got to taste her wares. She said when she got into wine making she started looking at everything, thinking "I wonder if you could ferment that? Wonder what wine from old socks would taste like?" She was a trip!
About 1/2 of the 80 people on our plane caught the flu. The pilot asked to be met with five wheelchairs for the people who were still sick. This cause him to be instructed to circle. We were in the air an extra hour while the powers that be contacted the doctors who had seen our friends in London, to make sure they had nothing more than the flu.
I went back to Great Britain in 1988, one of four "last vacations before the baby comes" that I took while waiting for Diane to arrive from India. I went to Canterbury, Glastonbury, Oban and Iona, and Ayr (my Episcopalian friends will note that 3 of the 4 are pilgrimage sites. I had just become an Episcopalian the year before so that was part of the trip. Ayr is where Robert Burns was born. That was when I thought my father's family was Scottish, and didn't know that we were Irish Byrnes, until my grandfather came home from firsts grade in Catholic school and told his father, "Sister says we spell our name wrong." In a good Catholic family, if sister said, it must be so! But I did get to see the birthplace). I did not go to London. After the trip above and the magic of that day, how could I ever visit London again?
We had a banquet the night we arrived. Afterward, my mother said, "Let's take a walk. I'll show you where Buckingham palace is, and where you can see the changing of the guard. Then tomorrow, you're on your own". So we walked from Marble Arch up past the palace at about 10:30 at night. The gates were open and all the lights were on. Suddenly the bobbies in their helmets dashed out and stopped traffic, and the queen came by and waved at us! What a way to start the trip!
The next day turned out to be the 21st anniversary of the queen's accession to the throne. I started the day at the Tower of London. Fascinating place, but try not to go in February, if you can help it. They removed the crown jewels from display to clean them, so I missed seeing them. Spent about 1/2 day there, and stopped at a little restaurant right opposite the entrance for lunch. People started going over to the window, talking and going outside to watch. The guns were arriving for the 21 gun salute to the queen's yacht on the other side of the Thames, in honor of her accession. These guns were not rifles, and were more modern than old cannon. Each one was pulled by a jeep and had to be maneuvered into place on the riverbank. This was the Buster Keaton/Keystone Cops artillery placement: guns falling over as the jeeps jumped the sidewalk, soldiers running to straighten them out and get them rolling again, drivers unaware of how to back up when towing a gun, so the guns went the wrong way, etc. Finally the salute went off, a bit later than scheduled!
St. Paul's Cathedral was next on my list of places I wanted to see. It turned out to be even more fascinating than I expected and I didn't realize how late it was when I came out. I caught one of the double decker red buses and headed down to Westminster. It was after 4 PM. I was at the Poet's Corner when a group of priest came out and started moving around, talking to all the groups of tourists (there weren't many of us, late on a February day). They were going to have a formal vespers in honor of the anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne. The queen herself would not be there but there would be other VIPs. Problem was that it was February and the choir school was on break. The older men's choir was available, but not the kids, and the choir would look rather empty. So, if we would promise to stay till the end and not walk out in the middle, we were welcome to vest and sit in the choir. We could sing if we wanted; they would give us the music. Which is how I got to sing with the Westminster Abbey choir, while people with all sorts of sashes and medals on their chests processed in, so we could all pray for the queen.
Well, how could the rest of the trip live up to that? But my mother and I went to Canterbury, where she came down with the flu. So I went to Stratford on Avon alone. There were very few tourists in February, so at each Shakespeare property, the three tour guides would remove the ropes for this American tourist and tell all the stories they could think of. Heading back to the train, I passed a man whitewashing a Tudor period house that had a "For Sale" sign on it. I told the man I was an American student and not going to buy his house, but I would love to see it. He must have been ready for a break from the painting, because he gave me the tour. I learned about the problems of owning a period house in an historic town. You could install a flush toilet but not in the house itself, only in an outhouse that was made to look Elizabethan. He told me about thatched roofs, their pros and cons and how long they lasted. I had to leave, though, to make it back to London for a theater curtain. The Royal Shakespeare Company only performed in Stratford in the summer. In the winter they were in London, and I saw them perform "Murder in the Cathedral".
Despite my mother's illness we went to the Cruft's Show. The only thing I remember about it was meeting a woman who was showing her Keeshond and who made wine. She had dandelion and oak leaf wines with her, so I got to taste her wares. She said when she got into wine making she started looking at everything, thinking "I wonder if you could ferment that? Wonder what wine from old socks would taste like?" She was a trip!
About 1/2 of the 80 people on our plane caught the flu. The pilot asked to be met with five wheelchairs for the people who were still sick. This cause him to be instructed to circle. We were in the air an extra hour while the powers that be contacted the doctors who had seen our friends in London, to make sure they had nothing more than the flu.
I went back to Great Britain in 1988, one of four "last vacations before the baby comes" that I took while waiting for Diane to arrive from India. I went to Canterbury, Glastonbury, Oban and Iona, and Ayr (my Episcopalian friends will note that 3 of the 4 are pilgrimage sites. I had just become an Episcopalian the year before so that was part of the trip. Ayr is where Robert Burns was born. That was when I thought my father's family was Scottish, and didn't know that we were Irish Byrnes, until my grandfather came home from firsts grade in Catholic school and told his father, "Sister says we spell our name wrong." In a good Catholic family, if sister said, it must be so! But I did get to see the birthplace). I did not go to London. After the trip above and the magic of that day, how could I ever visit London again?
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