Our daughter-in-law, Liz, is an Associate Professor on the faculty at a large midwest university in the Dept. of Sociology. She volunteered and was accepted to teach a summer class at Brookes College in Oxford, England. Liz went over by herself a week early to get set up in a flat that was provided by Brookes. The plan was that Lil (my wife) and I would follow a week later with the children. Our son, David, would be joining us all on Thursday, July 25th.
We left on Thursday, July 11th. We were accompanied by our granddaughters Emma and Lara, 4 ½ and 2 respectively. David, drove us to the airport in Chicago. We flew nonstop on a British Airways 747 to Heathrow Airport in London. The flight lasted about 7 ½ hours and the little girls were surprisingly well behaved - they actually slept quite a bit as we were "flying by night" (no pun intended).
We arrived at Heathrow at 10:00 AM and, after having our passports checked, were met by Liz. She suggested that we put our baggage in temporary storage and that we have a look around London, which is exactly what we did. We got on the subway (the "tube" as they call it) and proceeded to Piccadilly Circus which is sort of England's answer to Times Square. From there we walked on to Trafalgar Square only to find that it was jammed with thousands of people who obviously were gathering for some purpose. I finally asked a policeman and he informed me that Nelson Mandela was scheduled to make a speech from the balcony of the African Embassy, which is located at Trafalgar Square. We waited for a bit but, the little girls were getting restless so we went on without actually seeing Mandela.
We got back on the subway and headed for the Tower of London. At this point, let me comment on the London subway as I consider it to be nothing short of incredible. Understand, I had never been on ANY subway before. You can literally go just about anywhere in London on the thing - and London is a pretty spread out place. There are diagrams (showing all the routes and connections) at the stations and even on the walls of the cars. It's a real "no brainer" to figure out how to get around. In the states, of course, we get around almost entirely by driving ourselves in cars. But, I must say, I could easily adopt to the "tube" system I saw on display in London. At any rate, we arrived shortly at the Tower of London which is also right next to the Tower Bridge - not to be confused with London Bridge which is on down the Thames. I think it is the Tower Bridge which is usually seen in pictures and wrongly called London Bridge. The Tower of London is the castle complex which was home to most of the old monarchs of England. We toured the place and saw, among other things, the spot where Henry VIII had two of his wives beheaded for alleged sexual indiscretions. (No comment!) And, of course, we saw the crown jewels.
The "jet lag" effect started to take its toll on Lil and me (we hadn't slept for about a day and a half) and we finally headed back to Heathrow to pick up our baggage and head on to Oxford. For this trip (about 40 miles), we took a bus.
Oxford is a charming place and quite a bit busier than I had expected. It is also deceptively smaller than first meets the eye. The buildings are almost always adjacent to one another with no yard space in between. The block size is small, it usually being no more than about 150 to 200 feet between streets and the streets wind around in such a way as to make seeing a long distance virtually impossible. This all works together to give a new comer the very wrong impression that the city is much larger than it really is. Early on in our stay, we would go on walks with Liz and the children. When we arrived back at the flat, my impression was usually that we had traveled a great distance. Imagine my shock when I would then look at a city map only to discover that we had, in fact, traversed a relatively short distance and simply took in an area that had a lot of buildings and sights to see. The term "Oxford University" is a misnomer of sorts. Depending on who you talk to, there are no less that 34 to 39 separate colleges at Oxford. Each one is an entity unto itself and there really is no common link or central assembly place. Collectively, this is Oxford University. Liz's flat was located very near Carfax Tower which is at the town center. Nearby was also a shopping mall which, among other things, had a nice grocery store and this proved to be very convenient. During the week, Liz left every day (to teach) at about 10:00 AM. She rode by bus to Brookes and usually returned at about 3:00 PM. We usually spent this time doing domestic stuff and going for walks with the children. The flat itself was very modern though small. The kitchen area was complete with all the usual appliances including a combination washer-dryer. It was a very compact unit and would only do small loads. Consequently, the thing ran most of the time.
One day, Liz took us on a bus trip to Blenheim Palace which is about 20 miles from Oxford. The palace was built in 1704 and given to the Duke of Marlborough as a reward for winning the Battle of Blenheim. It's quite a layout covering many acres and is replete with reflection pools and formal gardens including some mazes (which the children found fascinating).
There were a couple of field trips (by big motor coaches) for the Brookes students that we were invited to go along on. On one of these, we went to Stonehenge and Bath all in one day. Stonehenge is, of course, the ancient (3000 BC) site of the mammoth rock circle on the Salisbury Plain. Even though it was roped off to prevent people from defacing the rocks, it was still much more impressive than I had previously imagined. One thing I recall from the tour guide is that many people mistakenly associate the Druids with the place. In fact, the Druids came into being after or around the time of Christ, so they couldn't have figured at all in the planning of Stonehenge. As to who built it or what the purpose was, well, that is still being debated. Bath is the city of natural warm springs that was developed and occupied by the Romans up until 400 AD. There are 3 main springs and the water temperature as it comes from the ground is a constant 103 F and never varies no matter what the outside temperature. The water percolates up from deep underground thru layer upon layer of sandstone and sedimentary rock. The tour guides make a big point of telling you that the water you see coming out of the ground now originally fell as rain 10,000 years ago! (......yeah, right! No further comment.)
On the other field trip, we went to Canterbury. This was a long ride (as far on the other side of London as Oxford is on this side) and I really could have done without this one. It also rained most of the time and this didn't help. The Canterbury Cathedral seemed to be the big attraction but I wasn't that impressed. This is where Thomas á Becket was murdered in 1170 by four knights of the court of Henry II. They had overheard the King say, "Oh, I wish someone would do away with this meddlesome bishop of mine!" They apparently didn't realize that the king was being facetious and, in reality, was very fond of his bishop.
On Thursday, July 18th, Lil and I set out for Ludlow by train. Back in April, while reading the New York Times one Sunday morning, I had read about a weekend Centenary Celebration in July in recognition of the poet, A.E. Housman. The next day (and knowing that we would be in England at that time) I sent a fax request in and ordered two package tickets for all the events of this celebration. I also made reservations for us at a Bed & Breakfast. The train ride was marvelous and, as if you hadn't guessed by now, I think England's entire public transportation system ranks right up there with the greatest developments since sliced bread!
When we got to Ludlow (about 120 miles from Oxford), we immediately found our way to the Cecil Guest House and checked in. It turned out that Stephen Housman (a distant cousin of the great poet himself) was quartered in the room adjacent to ours. We had never stayed in B&B's before and were a bit concerned about the "communal" bathroom concept. However, our concerns there turned out to be of no consequence. We stayed in several B&B's during our entire trip and found that they all featured a "full English breakfast" in the morning. This consisted of eggs, bacon (or ham), bangers (a mushy sausage link which we grew to hate!), stewed tomatoes, mushrooms, and toast. On one occasion, we were offered black pudding and, not wanting to show our ignorance, said ok. While waiting for that particular breakfast to be served, we found out from a couple sitting at a nearby table exactly what black pudding was. Lil politely overlooked hers but I actually sampled mine. It honestly wasn't that bad but, I just couldn't get past the idea - yeck!
The next day (Friday), we went on a bus tour of Bromsgrove which was where Housman grew up and spent his formative years. We actually made a little side trip and saw where he was born. Our tour guide was Robin Shaw who is himself quit a Housman authority. Speaking of such people, we were absolutely dumbfounded to learn that there are so many people who have literally built careers on the study of the life and times of A.E. Housman. There were probably 150, or more, people registered for this event and many of them were college professors from all around the world. I won't go into detail here, but the rest of the weekend consisted of attending lectures by some of these scholars on various facets of the life and writings of A.E. Housman. No stone has been left unturned in terms of the minutia surrounding this man. Of special note, Lil bought several books and, of course, had the authors' sign them as most were present. One such person was Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet, who won the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature. I had our picture taken as he was signing Lil's copy of his book. Of the several people that we befriended, one couple especially stood out. They were Fred and Betty Josephson from the eastern United States. They had made several previous trips to England. We found them to be very polished, cordial, and a great source of tips and advice. Ludlow is a beautiful little village and one that time seems to have passed by. When we weren't attending a Housman activity, we wandered all around the town and visited the shops and snacked at the many sidewalk cafes. The trip to Ludlow had to be the high point of the entire trip. We reluctantly returned by train to Oxford late on Sunday afternoon.
The following Thursday, we took the bus to Heathrow to meet our son, David, when he arrived from the states. We then rented a van and proceeded toward York, about a three hour drive. In York we stayed at a B&B but didn't do a lot as Lil was not feeling well. The next day, we kept going north thru the moors and eventually came to Edinburgh in Scotland. We toured Edinburgh Castle which sits atop a mountain and looks down upon the entire city. It was there that a tour guide had a few choice remarks about Mel Gibson's portrayal of William Wallace in BRAVE HEART. According to the guide, the real man was a foot taller than Gibson and never wore kilts in his life. The guide also said the blue face paint was something that Hollywood dreamed up. (I gathered from all this that the Scots and the English are at odds with one another all the time and live for the opportunity to "put each other down" or make snide remarks about the other.) We also went to a lovely botanical garden that I would rate as "world class" - bar none! Finally, we headed back south for London and the bus trip from there back to Oxford. We did make one side trip on the way back. That was to see Hadrian's Wall (or, to be more precise, what is left of it!). This, of course, was built by the Romans in 122-26 AD to keep the Scotish Highlanders at bay.
Early on Monday, July 29th, Lil and I said our good-byes to David, Liz, and the girls and reluctantly got on the bus to Heathrow for the long trip home. If there was any consolation, the British Airways clerk who checked us in upgraded us (why, I have no idea) to business class. All the way back to Chicago, we were waited on hand & foot. We were even offered drinks while still taxiing at Heathrow. On our next trip, I will definitely get a quote on the cost of going business or first class.
Copyright © 1999 - Thomas R. Fisher, All Rights Reserved.