Going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo

By Elizabeth Johnstone

I enjoy being a tourist in London.  Armed with my Super Off-Peak Travelcard plus Network Card, I like to take the train into town on a Saturday and visit one of our many attractions. Recently, I used the 2-for-1 discount offered by the Days Out Guide in association with National Rail.  Provided you travel by train, you can get two full price entry tickets for the price of one.

Meerkat at London Zoo

London Zoo seemed like a good use of this scheme. A single full price adult ticket, including a 10% “voluntary donation”, is an eye-watering £28.10.  Discounts are available for children, seniors, disabled people, groups etc but none are as good as two for one. My husband and I took the train to Finsbury Park, then a 29 bus to Camden followed by a pleasant 15-minute walk to the zoo.

Our first stopping point was Penguin Beach.  One of the newer features, it had raked seating so we could look down on these delightful creatures. Several “portholes” in the side of the pool showed off their streamlined underwater prowess. Readers may remember the Modernist Penguin Pool designed by Lubetkin in 1934.  It is preserved as architectural heritage but the penguins now enjoy a much more sympathetic environment.

Next, we explored the new “Land of the Lions”.  This huge, Indian-themed area includes a railway station, crumbling temple clearing, high street and guard hut.  Seeing the actual lions was harder.  A group of lionesses snoozed contentedly on heated rocks, but the male was well hidden somewhere in his spacious and protected habitat.  Ideal for him, less so for the customers.

Artworks and statues are too numerous to mention.  I liked the “Big Clock” outside the aviary.  It sprang to life on the hour with a charming mechanised interpretation of the Victorian attitude to animals.  Small animals were easier to spot.  Who doesn’t love a meerkat? An adult stood on guard duty on top of the burrow.  Even better were the black-capped squirrel monkeys, whose enclosure we could walk through. Plenty of keepers were on hand to prevent problems between curious monkeys and over-enthusiastic toddlers.

The venerable Galapagos tortoises lumbered purposefully around. The Komodo dragon glared balefully. We ate our sandwiches in “Australia”, eye-to-eye with emus.  Kangaroos dozed in the shade beside huge “termite mounds”.  We were in time for a presentation of the tigers and looked down on these fantastic animals from a viewing station.

By chance, we were visiting on Vulture Awareness Day.  Apparently, vultures are uniquely susceptible to an antibiotic routinely used on cattle in the sub-continent, with the result that over 99% have been wiped out. Vultures no longer devour disease-ridden carcasses and those diseases are spreading among the human population.  London Zoo has a programme to re-populate the vultures, to which we gladly contributed.

Another top exhibit was the vast and superbly appointed “Gorilla Kingdom”.  The enormous male slumbered in an equally capacious leather hammock, while the female relaxed on a branch.  She kept an eye on the baby whose eagerness to explore was not matched by its expertise.

At the end of the day, we had walked far enough, so used our Travelcards to hop on the 274 bus to Camden, where we picked up another 29.  We made it in time to catch the next train home from Finsbury Park, all pretty seamlessly.

Opinions are divided on zoos.  Some consider them unacceptable in any circumstances and I freely admit that the relationship between humans and animals is a complex one.  All I can say is that London Zoo appears to operate to the highest standards of animal welfare, conservation and education.

First published in VISA 131 (February 2017)

Angels, Fairies and Wizards

By Rachel Kruft Welton

It was a long way, so we (Saskia, Eartha and I) set off early, collecting Lynn, Faye, Megan and their friend Sarah on the way. The top box was still on the car from our trip to Norway, and we managed to fill it, despite only planning to be away for two nights. The trip to Northumberland was 285 miles, which is why we haven't been for years. It takes less time to get to pretty much anywhere in Europe, even including checking in time at the airport.Highlights of the journey included ordering ‘Dulux’ hot chocolate at a Little Chef (Eartha's mispronunciation) and eating our picnic next to some propane tanks at a petrol station. There were probably better, more photogenic picnic spots available, but we felt we hadn't properly adopted the mantra of “It's Grim Oop North” if we went about looking for pretty bits all the time. As we got back on the road, we passed a caravan with a sign in the back window reading: “WE ARE SORRY FOR HOLDING YOU UP. UNLESS YOU ARE JEREMY CLARKSON.”

Poison Garden at Alnwick Castle

Driving along, we suddenly saw signs to the Angel of the North. This huge iron sculpture has been guarding the A1 at Gateshead since 1989. I have always wanted to see it, but it hadn't occurred to me that we would pass it on the way. We swung off the road and went for a nosy.The Angel is 20m tall, made of rusting red steel and spreads its wings 54m, making it look as though it is top heavy. We sat on its toes for a while, then went down the hill to take photos. You have to go right to the bottom before you can get the whole Angel in the picture. A gaggle of Chinese tourists were down there also taking photos, and they took some of us too. We did some stupid Angel poses, much to their amusement.

We arrived in Rothbury by about 4pm and settled into the bunkhouse by the river. We were in a room of seven bunks above a cafe. It was crowded but not uncomfortable. There wasn't a huge amount of room to put things, but it didn't matter for just two nights. Lynn, with a foresight I hadn't possessed, had cooked and packaged some bolognaise and brought some pasta to cook for us all. On the down side, the kitchen contained one egg saucepan, a pair of hotplates that didn't get hot, no colander or saucepan lids and enough plates for a small army. Lynn stormed downstairs and threatened the chef in the main cafeteria that she would disembowel him with a fork if he didn't hand over some equipment pronto. The chef produced a large saucepan, developed a fear of cutlery, and went home sharpish as soon as he could. By the time we realised we needed a colander, he'd legged it out of the building.

Options for straining boiling pasta when you have no lid or colander:
a) the wastepaper basket. This fine wickerwork item will certainly separate the pasta from the water, however it may suffer water damage and is not all that hygienic.b) the plastic cutlery tray. Small holes in the bottom of this tray may allow straining, but pasta and water is likely to slop out all over the sink, as the tray is not very deep. Precision and patience will be required.c) fishing out the pasta from the water with a fork. Life is too short to chase seven portions of slimy pasta shapes around a large saucepan. If you do choose this method, the finished product will be stone cold by the time you have collected it all.d) a plastic container holding cleaning items under the sink. With a good scrub, this item could be the answer to your prayers. Its sides rise to a depth of around 4" and a floral cut-away design allows good drainage.We went for option d, once Lynn had disparaged my other suggestions. Necessity, as they say, is the mother.We needed to stretch our legs a bit, after so long in the car, so we went for a wander around Rothbury, which has a selection of the weirdest shops I have ever had to try to describe. There was one selling plastic animal figurines and stuffed taxidermy specimens, another sold skulls and dumper truck toys. Maybe the small boys of Northumberland have a peculiar taste in toys. We took some photos on a bike tied to the railings outside a shop with a huge wallpaper coated giraffe in it. The whole village was full of little shops, established before the outbreak of war (possibly the Crimean). Only the Co-op seemed new.   

  
We skirted the gas-lamp and memorial before taking a look at the river. Back at the hostel, the girls painted their toenails for a while, except for Sarah, who flaked out immediately in all her clothes and didn't move again until the morning.

Breakfast was served in the cafe downstairs. The petrified chef didn't make an appearance, but sent out extra toast. We purchased some ham and wraps in the Co-op and then left Rothbury on a road called Town Foot. I couldn't make it up.After a couple of loops of Alnwick, we eventually found the entrance to the car park and made our way into the castle. The place is quite sizeable and the gardens are worth a day trip on their own. It quickly became apparent that we wouldn't be able to see it all. One of the reasons for coming to Alnwick had been to see the Poison Garden. It is actually quite a small, fenced area to one side of a cascade of waterfalls down a hillside. We had to wait for a guided tour, as for some reason they don't like people wandering around, fingering the lethal foliage.

The tour was around 15 minutes, and in that time we learnt how to inflict pain, suffering, blisters and possibly death using various methods and diverse plants. Some of the species we saw included the mundane: rhubarb, catnip and rosemary; the illegal (Kat and cannabis); and the less well known, in the form of angel's trumpet, giant hogweed and castor bean. I shall no doubt be using my new found knowledge to off some unwanted characters (in my writing! What did you think I meant?).The next area we took a look at was called the Serpentine Garden. It's theme was water and it was very cleverly done. Each fountain or water feature explored a different characteristic of water. Water formed a vortex here and a curtain there. It bulged with a meniscus in one place, and reflected off its surface in another. The hydrostatic pressure fountain took a long time to fill, and we spent the time listening to cruel parents telling their offspring that they wouldn't get wet if they stood right in the centre. Judging from the dampness of the floor where the children were standing, I guessed the parents were lying. They were, although many seemed to have brought towels, so I guessed they'd played this joke before. The pressure reached the top of the tubes and with a whoosh, the entire area shot fountains up from underfoot, soaking the children, who ran about with squeals of delight.

Our teens explored a bamboo maze, while Lynn and I sat and had a cup of tea and a sneaky bit of cake (the girls will never notice). Afterwards, we decided to spend some time over at the castle, before coming back and doing some more of the gardens.   The castle has been the home of the Percy family for many generations and can be spotted in series such as Downton Abbey and the Harry Potter films. After lunch on the wall, we toured the grand state rooms. I spent some time admiring a pair of ornate 400 year old cabinets with Sarah. I also want a library like theirs, with ladders and balconies.

Eartha and Saskia discovered there was a lion trail. In each room, a small stuffed toy lion was hidden and they needed to find it, in return for a badge at the finish. Needless to say, they would have collected the badge anyway, regardless of the answer. I sometimes forget, when they are with their older siblings, that they are only 12. Sometimes it is good for them to have some time apart from their siblings, so they can just be their own age, instead of trying to be three years older than they really are all the time.On that thought, we found ourselves out in the courtyard watching a group of children and several adults being taught how to ride a broomstick.  It was the area where the same scene had been filmed in the first Potter movie. There was a lot of running up and down with brooms between the knees and humorous banter from the chief wizard and his sidekick. After a while, Saskia and Eartha joined the end of the line, quietly grabbing unclaimed brooms from the cart. We managed to get some decent pictures of them making their brooms float, and finally both of them flying, once they had got the hang of it.Lynn and I split up at that point, as my two wanted to continue with some of the children's activities and the older girls (all 16 already) were less interested in such things and wanted to visit the dungeon and meet the Duchess. Saskia, Eartha and I headed off to the Knight's Quest, past Sir Henry Hotspur and the girls got to dress up in medieval princesses costumes for a bit (even though the dresses were a little small). They made soap from what looked like lard, porridge and bits of lavender and saved Ralph Percy from imminent destruction in the Dragon Quest. By the time we'd managed such heroic deeds, the dungeon had shut and we headed back to the gardens via the gift shop.There was still much to see, but the day was getting late. Eartha wanted to do the Fairytale Trail, which involved a route around the entire site, I think. I loved the ornamental garden, and the musical bench, which played a tinkling sound if you held hands across it (forming a circuit). There was a tree with three blind mice in it, and a long zig-zag through the cherry trees. Humpty Dumpty sat looking glum; a lion lorded over the path and fairies hung in tree branches. There was a room of mirrors and a little witches hut. It would all have been better at a slower speed, but the place was closing. 

We never did get to the Treehouse and cafe. That will have to wait for next time.

First published in VISA 125 (February 2016)

Read more of Rachel's travel blogs here.

The Postcode

By Elizabeth Johnstone

SW1A 1AA. Did you recognise that post code?  It belongs to only one building in Britain, Buckingham Palace. Did you know that it was originally the site of a mulberry garden planted by King James I to rear silkworms?  But I digress.

Photo: Helen Matthews

In August and September, when Her Majesty enjoys the bracing pleasures of Balmoral, it is possible to visit the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace. The public rooms of this busy working palace are used extensively by the Queen and members of the Royal Family to receive and entertain their guests on State, ceremonial and official occasions.  The tour comprises some nineteen rooms including the Throne Room, used for investitures, and the Palace Ballroom, used for State banquets.

It is what the shopping channels call a ‘considered purchase’.  My ticket for the State Rooms alone cost about £20.  Pricier options combined the State Rooms with the Queen’s Gallery and the Royal Mews. Guided Tours, including ‘Garden Highlights’, sold out almost immediately despite an even heftier price-tag.  There is a considerable appetite for our royal heritage out there!

Huge numbers of visitors are processed, with timed tickets and full airport-style security. It is enormously popular with tourists: I read that about 300 are admitted per 15-minute slot.  A young, enthusiastic and extremely vigilant staff ensured the smooth running of the operation with minimal security risk.  However, armed police also patrolled outside at regular intervals.

At the beginning of the tour, you are given a multi-media guide i.e. the traditional audio-guide with some extra films.  All very classy and informative.  About two hours is recommended for the tour.  It probably takes just over an hour to walk through the rooms at a moderate pace, listening to most of the audio-guide, but there are benches for those who wish to linger amongst the historical treasures.   Photography inside the State Rooms is expressly prohibited.

Summer 2015 featured a new exhibition ‘A Royal Welcome’, describing the organisation of State banquets.  Exhibits explained the minutiae of catering, service and etiquette on such grand occasions, not forgetting some of Her Majesty’s gowns and jewels.  The Palace Ballroom was set out for a banquet, replicating the visit of the President of Singapore.  It was, by far, my favourite room.  I also enjoyed a description of the garden parties in another room.  I now have a very good idea of the Queen’s height and figure, with more dresses and hats displayed on life-sized mannequins.

Splendour followed splendour, until we reached the hospitality section at the end of the tour.  The Garden Café catered to the inner loyal subject – at a price.  ‘Toilets’ would have been too downmarket.  We were directed to the ‘Lavatories’.  A royal flush, maybe. I did not investigate the Family Room, but this avid Postcrosser picked up a packet of postcards in the amply stocked gift shop.  I saw one small child persuade his mother to buy him a replica bearskin hat.  I’m not too sure how long he wore it in the 25° heat.

The final part of the tour followed a pleasant path skirting the gardens, past a stall selling ice cream made from the milk produced by the Jersey cows on Her Majesty’s Windsor estate.  My husband selflessly – and patriotically - pronounced it delicious.  At the exit, there was a booth where tickets could be stamped for a free extra visit within the year.  You then found yourself rather unceremoniously out in the street, half way along Grosvenor Place, from where it was a ten-minute walk back round to the front of the Palace.

It was the weekend of the Prudential Ride London cycling festival.  Roads were closed off, and marshals had to operate a ‘lollipop’ system for letting us cross the road amongst the never-ending streams of cyclists.  Green Park was full of every sort of cycling-related activity and sales opportunity. The throngs of cyclists mingled with the throngs of tourists.  It was a lively atmosphere but not an experience for those who are nervous of crowds.

An entertaining postscript to our day out was provided by the youthful revellers taking the train to the Eastern Electric Festival at Hatfield House. The genre was ‘underground, house and techno’ and the vibe in the train was pure Ibiza!

First published in VISA 124 (December 2015)

The Ozymandias Complex

By Neil Matthews

Editor's Note: This article was written following a TravelSIG visit to St Pancras Chambers, formerly the Midland Grand Hotel, in 1997. At that time, the future of the building was uncertain. Now, it is restored to former glory as the Renaissance Hotel. 

There are surely few more depressing sights than a once-proud building fallen into disrepair. St Pancras Chambers, formerly the Midland Grand Hotel, is a prime example and was a good subject for a recent TravelSlG event. Twenty two people, including a number of London Mensans, gathered in the heart of London on May 10 for a stimulating guided tour.

The origins of the hotel lie in the great days of rail travel, back in the nineteenth century. A London terminus was an attractive option for the various competing railway firms and the Midland Railway Company had not acted quickly enough to secure one of the most attractive sites viz. King's Cross or Euston. So the company opted for St. Pancras. At the same time, Midland decided to build a Station Hotel bigger and better than those already in existence. Sir George Gilbert Scott won a competition to design the new hotel - which would also be the Midland's headquarters.

By October 1, 1868, when the first train ran into St Pancras, work on the new hotel was well underway and the first part of the hotel was opened in 1873 - there were both technological and financial obstacles to overcome. The hotel prospered until the 1914-18 war, after which the railway system was depleted. It gradually ceased to be viable as a hotel and was converted in 1935 to office use - it was used by British Rail in later years. It was closed in 1980 after failing its fire certificate inspection, but was a Grade I listed building. BR has spent over £10 million restoring the outside of the building (but only £130,000 has been spent on the inside to date).

The inside is something of a curiosity. Scott was essentially a Church architect and this shows in the dramatic Grand Staircase and the vaulted ceiling of blue spangled with gold stars. There are also allegorical paintings of the Virtues and of railway heraldry. Yet various parts of the inside are a jumble of architectural styles, from Baroque to Gothic to Romanesque. Some of the red Devonshire limestone is so highly polished that it passes for marble to the casual glance. There is an array of fine metalwork and the hotel also used the recent invention of "ascending chambers", namely water-powered lifts!

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the old Hotel is its possible future. As with the design of the building, this will be decided by competition - this time, run by the current owners, London & Continental Stations As St. Pancras becomes the London link to the Channel Tunnel early in the next century, the building could be used in a number of ways, most obviously as a hotel again. Due to its size, it may have more than one use - what odds on it becoming the home of the promised successor to the Greater London Council ...?

First published in VISA issue 25 (summer 1997).

Around the Isles (part 1)

By David Gourley

This was a rather unusual holiday for us, a driving holiday that took us to all the component countries of the British Isles. 

This was also in fact our first visit to Ireland, North or South. We had been fortunate enough to travel to many far-flung places but hitherto had not been to this country on our very doorstep.

Alnwick Castle

We first headed to the North-East of England, or more specifically Hexham in Northumberland, a long drive as we live in Surrey. We detoured into Durham, something of a nostalgia trip as our daughter had gone to university there. We'd gone up there quite frequently, especially during her first two years when she'd lived on campus and had to remove all her belongings during vacations as rooms were needed for people attending conferences or whatever. 

We'd grown rather attached to what is one of the nicest of British cities, a place that changes very little over the years. We briefly stepped into the cathedral. A service to commemorate the Queen's Golden Jubilee was about to start and we had a quick chat with one of the ushers - who had once been our daughter's year tutor! Having so far driven along motorways or fast roads, we took a scenic route via the Derwent Reservoir. Our hotel was Slaley Hall, not in Hexham itself but out in the countryside. This is part of the De Vere chain which is fairly upmarket (albeit owned, a tad incongruously it might be thought, by a Warrington brewery) though one does not necessarily pay upmarket prices since they do some very good offers. We were well pleased with our stay here and indeed have been back for a return visit. 

Northumberland is maybe one of England's least well-known counties, at least if one is a Southerner, but it is one of the most beautiful. It is also a good county if one likes old-fashioned castles. On both our days here we headed for the coast. 

On Day One we first visited Alnwick Castle, which has since gained a high profile as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. Its pride and joy at the time of our visit was the newly opened water garden, designed by the Castle's very own Duchess, with a bit of help from Charlie Dimmock. However, Chatsworth had had the idea about three hundred years earlier! Alnwick Castle is still owned by the Percy family, who have an ancient pedigree. In lawless days of old, during the Wars of the Roses and so on, they vied with another great family, the Nevilles, to be top dog in the Northeast. I don't know what happened to the Nevilles, though their name lives on in Nevilles Cross, on the outskirts of Durham. 

The real highlight of the day was our visit to Holy Island, also known, no less romantically, as Lindisfarne. We had not long, at this time, been on the internet and had been pleased that we could simply look up the times when the causeway to the mainland is open. At other times it is submerged by the tide. The times vary from day to day. We had lunch in the delightful Crown and Anchor Inn, including an interesting and rather tasty dessert made with dandelions. We spent some time at the marvellous old castle, which is still privately owned. The next day we had another look at Holy Island, just to see how it looked when still surrounded by the sea. Unbelievably a car was nevertheless driving along the still submerged causeway. I don't know whether the driver, whose passengers included young children, thought he was being bold; we and others thought him a chump. 

We carried on to Berwick-upon- Tweed, England's northernmost town. As is well known, it changed hands between England and Scotland many times. There is a Scottish feel still: its football team plays in the Scottish league and it gives its name to a Scottish county. We then drove back down the coast to explore another fine Northumbrian Castle, Bamburgh. 

During our second stay at Slaley Hall, we returned to Alnwick Castle (which had become a bit too commercialized, I rather thought) and Holy Island, and also did a trip into Newcastle, going by train from Hexham's impressively preserved station. Newcastle gets my vote as the most attractive of England's large provincial cities. My first visit many years previously had dispelled any view that this is a grim industrial city, for it has a fine Georgian centre. Now the riverside, here and over the Millennium Bridge in Gateshead, has been impressively redeveloped. We crossed the Bridge and had an excellent lunch at the Baltic Centre, based in a former flour mill, with fine views back across Newcastle. 

We returned to the city centre by one of the city's novel electric buses. Actually until the mid sixties Newcastle had plenty of electric buses: they were called trolleybuses. 

Reverting to our British Isles round trip, we headed the next day into Scotland, hurrying past Gretna Green which looked anything but romantic with its main road and meandered along the Solway coast, with its fine views back into England. 

I was struck, as we left the small town of Annan, by the road sign exhorting us “haste ye back”. Annan, along with nearby Carlisle, was for many years remarkable in that the pubs were state owned, the result of a decision in World War 1 when there were lots of munitions workers in the area. They were privatized in the early seventies. We spent some time at the picturesque Caerlaverock Castle, which has an unusual triangular shape. 

Our next stop was in not- Dumfries. This is one of those smallish towns which can punch a weight greater than its population because it is the centre of a fairly large region, in this instance Dumfries and Galloway. It is nothing very special - we only stopped because we needed to make one or two purchases. The riverside might be attractive, were it not given over to a sprawling car park. 

Our abode for the next two nights was a B&B in the Galloway region, a few miles south of Stranraer. We had again used the internet to find this and the lady of the house, clearly something of a technophobe, seemed rather impressed. It is a fine Robert Adam building and we had good accommodation, though the breakfast was somewhat stingy for what was supposed to be a fourstar guesthouse. 

Our hosts had, at time of booking, recommended a restaurant in nearby Portpatrick, which turned out to be fully booked when we rang them. But we headed to Portpatrick anyway and found that they could give us a table after all. We had a first-class meal there. Portpatrick is about as close as mainland Britain gets to Northern Ireland, which can be seen very clearly on a fine day. 

We debated what to do with our one full day here. One possibility was to explore the eastern part of Galloway - the old county of Kirkcudbrightshire - which is said to resemble the Highlands in miniature. The countervailing attraction of Culzean Castle, involving a scenic drive along the Ayrshire Coast, won. 

First we diverted to a lighthouse, right at the tip of the more northerly of Galloway's two peninsulas, or Rhinns. This has been transformed into a rather classy hotel, which we had considered staying at, but was rather pricey. We did book dinner there. This drive took us through Stranraer, which presents two faces to the world: an attractive resort in the west, a rather port in the east. We spent several hours at Culzean and could have done with more time still, as there is plenty to see, not just in the castle itself but in its extensive grounds. President Eisenhower was given a flat here in appreciation of his services to Britain as a general in World War II and apparently found time actually to stay there. 

Whilst walking around, an American couple asked us to take a photo of them. We thought nothing of this until, the next day, they appeared at the breakfast table in our guesthouse! Dinner at the lighthouse did not disappoint. We were continuing the next day by ferry to Northern Ireland, departing from Cairnryan, a little to the north of Stranraer. There was still the morning in which to explore locally and we headed for the tip of the southern Rhinn. One is supposed to be able to see into England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, but it was misty and we saw none of them. We then visited the Dunskey Gardens, the description of which led us to expect a mini-version of the Lost Gardens of Heligan. They weren't, however, of much interest. 

In Stranraer we had a sandwich lunch and attempted to visit the main attraction, the small Castle of St John. I was indignant to find it closed as it was supposed to stay open for another twenty minutes or so. But the chap heard us try the door, presented himself and let us look round for free.  

First Published in VISA 74 (August 2007)

Read about the second part of the trip here.

Chalk Flew Up! A Day out at Wimbledon

By Elizabeth Johnstone

Getting tickets for Wimbledon is not a simple matter of buying them online. They are so sought-after that you have to go into a ballot.  There is a public ballot, and the LTA also allocates a number of tickets to tennis clubs. We were lucky enough to obtain tickets through my husband’s tennis club.  I hasten to add that you still have to pay (handsomely) for them – they are not a prize!

We struck gold in getting tickets for Centre Court on the Monday of the second week.  Even if it rained, we would be guaranteed play because of the roof.  In fact, we had been at the very first full match played under the roof in 2009.  Andy Murray (whatever happened to him?) beat Stanislav Wawrinka, finishing after 10.30pm. Chaos ensued when no-one could find their cars in the open-air car parks in the dark, and the local transport was overwhelmed when everyone left at once.  But I digress.  Back to our day out.

We took the train into London then the Underground to Southfields, where the London cabs have a fixed-price shuttle service to the tennis, with a marshal organising travellers into taxis in fives.  Henman Hill was crammed with spectators, most of whom were enjoying upmarket picnics featuring products from Waitrose or Marks and Spencer.  You get the picture.  As did the spectators, literally, from the giant screen facing the hill.  A modest amount of alcohol may be brought into the grounds and from all sides you could hear the gentle popping of champagne corks. I bought a few postcards to feed my habit (I am a Postcrossing devotee) then it was time for some serious tennis.

Maria Sharapova played Angelique Kerber in the first match.  These women are goddesses! Tall, lithe, athletic.  Sharapova, the favourite, was defeated by the German after a mighty tussle. Next, Rafael Nadal faced the latest wunderkind from Australia, 19 year-old Nick Kyrgios.  The youngster pulled off a stunning victory, blasting his opponent with fast and heavy serves before the Spaniard could get into his game. I don’t know if he was helped or hindered by the fanatical Australian support, half a dozen Aussies who stood up, cheered and chanted for their man between each point.

I used my binoculars for celeb spotting – Sir Cliff Richard sat in the debenture section for the whole afternoon, and Rory Bremner was a few rows down from us.  Veteran lady champions Billy Jean King and Maria Bueno were in the Royal Box, as was Michel Roux Jnr.

Before I saw live play at Wimbledon, I didn’t realise how flat and hard the shots are. The players skim the net trying for ever tighter angles.  Sooner or later one of them makes a mistake.  Hawkeye is great entertainment and prevents McEnroe-esque protests. 

So many tennis puns to choose from – OK, our day out was ace!

 First Published in VISA 2014

Big Bus Safari

by Janice Booth

It was too good to miss. When the new pensioners’ England-wide bus pass was announced early this year, we decided to celebrate in style. We sharpened a pencil and drew a beautiful straight line on a map of England, linking the far west (Land’s End) to the far east (Lowestoft). The other half of “we” was my friend Hilary Bradt, of Bradt Travel Guides, whose journeys more often involve exotic destinations like deepest Madagascar; but she gulped bravely and down-sized.

Our plan was to start from Land’s End on 1 April when our passes became valid and take eight days travelling along our pencil line to Lowestoft, using various local buses and with spots of walking and/or hitching thrown in. We checked out the main buses via www.traveline.org.uk and www.visitbritain.co.uk, pre-booked half of our overnight stops and planned some “treats”, otherwise left the details to chance. Carrying just small backpacks made us flexible.

Land’s End on 31 March was grey and stormy. Avoiding the brash, unappealing tourist “attractions”, we reached the cliff path that would take us down to Sennen Cove for supper. On the way we passed England’s true southernmost tip: the hunk of rock called Dr Syntax’s Head. As the views unfolded, wind in our hair and breakers lashing at the rocks below, we spotted a pair of choughs and our spirits rose. Over supper we watched surfers in the bay, playing the waves like a pack of exhibitionist seals. Our B&B (Weavers) was a chance “blind date” that quickly became a friendship: traditional farmhouse, cosy room, friendly owners and lots of thoughtful touches.

1 April was even stormier. Hilary was to write the trip up for The Observer and they’d sent a photographer; cold, windswept and dishevelled we posed for him against stone walls, bus stops, sign posts and the bleak horizon. Our bus arrived, and the driver submitted – with some surprise – to being photographed as we flashed our passes at him. Then we were off, along one of Cornwall’s prettiest routes, heading for St Ives. Our Big Bus Safari (safari means “journey” in Swahili) was under way.

The sun began to squeeze through the clouds as we rattled along narrow, twisty roads, between high hedges, past hidden hamlets of pastel cottages and finally through the beautiful, golden landscape near Zennor, with its soft hills and open fields. No time to stop and visit Zennor’s mermaid, but at St Ives we swapped wheels for feet and took to the South West Coastal Path, stripping off anoraks and sweaters under the now hot sun. We pampered our feet by paddling along Porthminster beach and eventually spotted the spire of Lelant church – our next bus location – in the distance. Never able to resist an old English church (St Uny’s dates from Norman times, and a few centuries ago was almost buried by sand blown in from the shore) we went inside, and found the choughs had followed us from Land’s End: there they were again, in one of the stained glass windows!

What with the sun and the paddling and enjoying St Uny’s we’d become over-relaxed about timetables; our bus from Lelant reached Truro too late for our planned connection to Bodmin, our overnight stop. As we were walking to the central bus station to look for alternatives, we spotted our Land’s End photographer on his way home to Tavistock – and begged a lift to Bodmin. No, it wasn’t cheating: we’d always intended to hitch if necessary, and how could we possibly ignore such blatant good luck?

In fact we did then end up in jail, but only because the old Bodmin jail (www.bodminjail.org) houses one of the town’s best restaurants. The imposing jail itself, already a popular tourist attraction, is being imaginatively restored by its present owners, both as an educational resource for schools and – eventually – as a Museum of Cornish Life. Completed in 1860, on the site of an older jail built in 1779, it was in use until 1927. It’s among the UK’s most haunted buildings (you can spend a scary night there...) and, during World War I, the Domesday Book and state papers were held there for safety. In the dark, atmospheric warren of passages are tableaux and panels illustrating the Victorian conditions: treadmill, oakum picking, diet, punishments, executions and suchlike. The prisoners’ stories are documented and some are sad; for example, one young woman killed her child because she had no home or money and couldn’t feed him, and juveniles were jailed for small crimes like stealing apples. Of the 56 hangings at Bodmin between 1785 and 1909, only 26 were for murder; others reasons included sheep-stealing, forgery, bestiality and burglary. A 23-year-old man was hanged for stealing a watch. Harsh times...

We also ended up in a really super B&B (www.bedknobs.co.uk – just say “Bedknobs B&B in Bodmin” quickly a few times and you’ll remember): a rambly 168-year-old house, carefully renovated, wrapped in a deep-green garden with secret corners. Landlady Gill entered wholeheartedly into the spirit of our safari (we’re still in touch) and has just emailed proudly to say she’s been listed in Alastair Sawday's 2009 Green & Organic Europe Guide.

Bright sunshine the next morning gave us itchy feet; we abandoned our bus in a village just beyond Liskeard and set off along smaller lanes. From the bus we’d spotted The Hurlers, a group of local villagers turned to stone by St Cleer many centuries ago because they’d skived off from church on a Sunday and gone hurling, so we were careful to think good and sober thoughts. Our aim was to walk for a couple of hours cross-country to Callington and catch a later bus from there. It was a green and golden landscape, the sun picking out the beginnings of spring and fields stretching gently into the hilly distance.

Now, Hilary has this tiresome adventurous streak. She’s 67 to my 69 and doesn’t she know it. Just as I’ve settled into a comfortable rhythm and am ambling along happily, a glint comes into her eye and she veers off piste. In this case, she took a sharp right turn down what looked to me like a gully carved out by a flash flood: steep, wet and stony. Not uncomplainingly, I followed. It ended in a stream. Hilary insisted it was a legitimate footpath (actually she was right) so we took off our trainers and waded across. Clear fresh water, sunlight, mossy tracks, birds, the whispering of woodland around us – and I stopped grumbling.

However, we were cutting it fine for our next bus. A couple of muddy fields or so later, we hit a road and decided to hitch. A woman in a capacious 4 x 4 beamed happily at us as she revved past, but an elderly Sir Galahad was kinder, piled us on board and stepped obligingly on the gas. It wasn’t his fault that we missed our bus by two minutes. We bought hot pastries and munched them in Callington’s bus shelter beside the Town Hall – which sported a neon decoration of Santa and his sleigh. Well why not, in April. Passers-by stopped to chat and our next bus was superbly punctual. As usual, the driver examined our passes with interest: the first he’d seen.

We were into the swing of it now. In the mornings we caught the first bus for which our passes were valid, then sat back and enjoyed the passing views until we wanted to stretch our legs or explore. These were small local buses, winding their way through villages, so there was always something to watch: gardens, trees, thatched cottages, old churches, small market towns, farms, strangely named pubs and just the gentle beauty of rural England. We were never bored. People were friendly and chatty, both in the buses and at bus stops, and most days had some new treat built in.

The next of these was Glastonbury, which I had feared might be tacky or over-hyped but which won me over completely. The view from the top of the Tor is a stunning panorama of greens and browns and misty distance; while among the ruins of the massive abbey, where H V Morton wrote in 1927 that “the shadows of the yews lie in long pencils over the smooth grass”, echoes still linger of the town’s ancient importance as a religious centre and place of pilgrimage. Frances Underwood described it so well in VISA 80 that I won’t start again here; but yes, as she says, “whichever way you look, the people are different”, and the sense of history and legend is very strong.

Avebury (photo: Helen Matthews

Avebury took us even further back in time, with its prehistoric stone circles. Part of the village is actually inside the biggest of them, up to 400 metres across, originally consisting of almost 100 rough sarsen stones averaging 3–4 metres high. They were placed around a deep circular ditch whose bank rose nearly 17 metres above its base. Inside are two smaller circles. From the large circle, an avenue with up to 100 pairs of stones stretches southeast for about 2.4km. Although many of the stones are missing, strolling among the remaining great, grey guardians of this ancient landscape is still a heart-stopping experience. There’s also a good museum, and a peaceful little church, St James’s, dating back to about 1000 AD. The National Trust owns 1,500 acres of Avebury land, and manages the museum and archaeological sites in tandem with English Heritage (www.english-heritage.org.uk). Nearby is mysterious Silbury Hill: it’s the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe, but no-one knows why it was built.

The helpful little Tourist Information Bureau, tucked away inside a church, recommended us another gem of a B&B (www.tealcottage.co.uk), just outside Marlborough, for the coming night. Our bus driver dropped us at an obscure turning; we crossed an old stone bridge over a stream, passed a tiny village green, and rounded a corner to find a stylish, welcoming stable conversion in a pleasant garden. Later we strolled along leafy lanes and across a river into Marlborough for supper, and in the morning ate far too much breakfast because it was so good.

That afternoon, we watched the Grand National in a betting shop in High Wycombe! Two wrinklies with backpacks didn’t quite match the rest of the clientele, but they shifted up companionably to make room for us. Of course we didn’t win. The following morning we awoke to a cold white world, and crunched our way through deep virgin snow to our first bus stop. In Aylesbury, damp and frozen-fingered, we found a Café Nero complete with hot croissants. After more coffee and cake with friends near Leighton Buzzard, we arrived at Whipsnade Zoo; it was planned as one of our “treats” but turned out a pretty chilly one, with animals crouched in dejected huddles and ring-tailed lemurs trying sadly, arms agape, to bask in intermittent rays of wintry sun. Delays for roadworks in Luton meant that we watched our connecting bus pull away just in front of us, despite our kind driver flashing his lights to make it wait. We dived into a nearby Pizza Express for more comfort food – it was that kind of day – and sheltered there until another bus came. This wasn’t exactly the prettiest part of our trip and it was hard to feel enthusiastic about stopping somewhere for the night, but in Hitchin the church bells were ringing a Sunday serenade out over the central square, so we settled there.

Until now, local buses had gone wherever we wanted, with only small deviations from our pencil line, but getting from Hitchin to Bury St Edmunds without using National Express, where our passes wouldn’t be valid, looked harder. Traveline told us by phone that we’d have to go via London, which seemed silly, so we caught a bus to a few miles beyond Hitchin and then – yes, started hitchin’. Sorry. A businessman took us to Saffron Walden, choosing the scenic route in order to show us various attractions. I remembered the etiquette of hitching from almost 50 years ago: make conversation in such a way that the driver enjoys your company and feels good about having stopped for you. In Greece in the 1960s, I even learned enough Greek to praise the car and its performance, which was always a winner! Maybe I’m a touch more sophisticated now.

After a stroll around Saffron Walden, and a visit to St Mary’s (the largest parish church in Essex), we found our bus stop – complete with chatty fellow passenger – and continued towards Bury St Edmunds, via Haverhill and (unexpectedly) Cambridge, because we missed a connection at Haverhill and had to improvise; this was the only time during the safari that our bus was crowded, with afternoon shoppers and commuters. In Bury there was still just enough daylight for us to explore the extensive ruins of the old Abbey, hazily grey in the dusk, where birds treated us to an evening concert, before indulging in our biggest luxury: the Angel Hotel (www.theangel.co.uk), just across from the ruins. It has been sheltering travellers and pilgrims since the 15th century, and does it in great style and comfort. Good restaurant too, with prices lower than the quality suggests.

The Bury tourist office bustled helpfully the next morning, setting us off on one of my favourite days: visiting village churches. I love these peaceful, patient little buildings, blending so completely into the English countryside, some crouched low in their graveyards, some with spires peeping above the treetops, all filled with the centuries-old ghosts of worshippers who trod the same path to their doors as we tread today. I hope the ancient craftsmen who built them, lovingly, stone by back-breaking stone, can look down on their work and feel proud. Visiting them is an endless pleasure; each one offers some different charm or quirk or discovery. Partly by bus and partly on foot we went to All Saints’ in Beyton, its churchyard a designated wildlife site with more than 50 species of wild flowers and grasses; St Ethelbert’s in Hessett, with medieval stained glass and lively original paintings; and wonderful St Mary’s in Woolpit, with wing-loads of benevolent carved angels and a fine medieval porch. I’ve since discovered the very browsable website www.suffolkchurches.co.uk, full of temptations for a future trip to the area.

At the approach to Hessett village, a sign had warned us to “Beware of Children” (whatever do they get up to, those Hessett kids?), but far more intriguing were the green children of Woolpit. Sometime in the twelfth century, so the story goes, harvesters found two frightened children crying in a field. They wore strange clothes, spoke an unknown language and their skins were green. Initially they would eat nothing but beans. The boy soon died but the girl survived; eventually her green colour faded. When she had learned English, she said that she and her brother had come from a land of twilight where the sun never shone and the people were green. The legend appears in various forms; it’s well covered on http://anomalyinfo.com. A similar event allegedly occurred seven centuries later, in Spain, but descriptions of it are suspiciously like those of the Woolpit tale.

We were due in Lowestoft that night and time was running out. Hilary had arranged with BBC Radio Suffolk that we’d reach Lowestoft Ness, the official easternmost point, at 10.00 the following morning, where they would interview her live by mobile phone. We caught a bus to Eye (beautiful church) and another to Diss, but onward connections from Diss’s bleak bus station weren’t promising. Traveline suggested we go via Norwich, arriving in Lowestoft late at night, which wasn’t appealing. A woman waiting at the bus stop for her husband spotted that we were in trouble, popped us in her husband’s car when he arrived, and drove us to Harleston. There we unearthed our black felt marker, wrote our hitching signs “Direction Lowestoft, please”, stuck out our thumbs and waited, smiling sweetly, beside the relatively busy A143. Three lifts later we were in Lowestoft, in good time for supper.

The next morning we walked from our B&B to England’s easternmost point and reached the end of our safari. Hilary had her radio interview. A student was sitting in a car, revising, and we roped him in to take our photos by the marker plaque. Then – I hesitate to admit it – we caught a train back to London and went our respective ways.

Had it been fun? A resounding yes! Would I do it again? Like a shot! We’ve already had one “bus day” since then, just catching buses and walking in between routes, out of nostalgia. We plan to do it in the Lake District, round the Cotswolds, in Northumberland... the possibilities are endless and enticing. What did we learn? So many things! That the English countryside is wonderful (well, we already knew that), that the Traveline phone number (0871 200 2233) given on bus stops is a good source of information, that it’s wise to go to the loo whenever the chance arises, that missing a bus needn’t be a disaster if you’re flexible, and that strangers can be wonderfully kind and helpful. We’d worried that we might be taking seats from fare-paying passengers, but this never happened; many buses were half empty. Despite government subsidies, some district councils have expressed concern about the cost to them of refunding bus companies for so many non-fare-paying passengers, and who knows what cuts may be made in the future; so, if you’re old enough for a bus pass, do make 2009 the year that you dust off your backpack and climb aboard...

First published in VISA 82-83 (Dec 2008 - Feb 2009)

A Visit to Cornwall

By Rachel Kruft Welton

We arrived at the Cornish Bed & Breakfast late on Thursday evening. It was the Easter weekend and we had come to St Just in Penwith - about as far west as you can get in the West Country. We were staying in the obscurely named Coachhouse Suite, which consisted of a spacious room on the top floor of a converted barn made of the cool grey stone so often used in Cornwall. We could see the sea from the window.
 

St Just is a small town about a mile and a half's walk across fields from the B & B. It has a couple of shops, cafes, pubs, a chippie and some souvenir and craft shops. A narrow road leads down to the coast and to Britain's only Cape - Cape Cornwall. It has a small monument on it that the National Trust unaccountably decided to put there. The breeze was fresh and salty and the walk back up the hill was a little taxing to us computer blimp escapees, as our most tiring job usually is pressing the 'return' key.

Seaweed at Penzance

Discarding walking for the motorised comfort of Ember, the trusty red Fiesta, we drove around the spectacular coastline, past derelict tin mines. There are many prehistoric sites in Cornwall, but one of the most famous is the Men-an-Tol. This consists of a circular stone with a hole in the middle, flanked by two upright stones. Legend has it that crawling through the hole cures everything from infertility to rickets. As we have been waiting for a child for four years already, we have heard many suggestions for fertility charms. We crawled through the Men-an-Tol, giggling like schoolchildren.

 

Close by is the 9 Maidens stone circle, somewhat overgrown with heather and moss. Then back to Ember and round the coast to St Ives. If you ever have the chance to visit St Ives' wonderful steep and narrow streets, do remember not to park at the top of the hill. It's a long way up. We wandered round St Ives, enjoying ice-cream and sea views, streets of pretty whitewashed cottages and a meal at a vegetarian restaurant. We didn't, however, manage to find the pub advertising itself as sporting a "large collection of Toby Jogs". Shame.
 

The coastal road home must have been as delightfully precipitous as it had been on the way to St Ives. However, in the dark, we couldn't see, so we didn't care. We sped back towards the B & B, pausing only briefly to pick up two teenage boys who were hitckhiking. They enlivened our journey by giving us helpful tips and expounding their theory that long bus journeys are considerably shortened if you smoke a good joint beforehand.
 

The following morning started foggy, but cleared later. Our first stop was Modran's well and the ruins of a Benedictine chapel. The area is wet woodland - green trees, smothered in feathery lichen and dripping with moisture. In the mist, the air was still and quiet. The precise location of the well proved impossible to find without wellies and a love of mud. The approximate location, however, was clearly marked by hundreds of differently coloured wishing knots, ribbons, rags, ropes and strings, tied to every available branch, twig and stem, each representing someone's wish. This is a wishing well of the old style.
 

Piper Stone, Lanoma Cove

On to Penzance, a pretty city, friendly and busy, but lacking the magic of our previous stop. We bought postcards, avoiding the ever-present ones of eclipses, and a couple of books and had lunch in the Dandelion Cafe. I took some neat photos of the seaweed-encrusted hawser lines in the harbour and we went on to Mousehole, which has streets as narrow as the name suggests. The highlights here include some scrummy gooseberry ice-cream, finding a foot-long ex-shark and outwitting a barnacle fast enough to dislodge it from the rock.
 

Lanoma Cove, a few miles further on, is famous for its smugglers and wreckers and for being pretty. I think the parking attendant was a direct descendant of the wreckers mostly from his ingenious policy of blocking nearly everyone in, using a van full of scuba divers. We left without parking. A little further along the coast road, we stopped and climbed over a gate to visit the 2 piper stones. These are magnificent - 14 feet tall, they dwarf all else. They are connected with a stone circle in an adjacent field called the Merry Maidens. The circle is fairly large and the stones are about waist high. There were a few merry hippies about, absorbing the atmosphere. I guess they must have been going on a long bus journey later.
 

Last stop on our coastal tour appropriately was Land's End. We objected strenuously to forking out £3 to park and so we parked in the pub car park for nothing and walked. We did have to climb a few dry stone walls and brave a scratching of brambles, but we got to see Land's End and the striking rugged cliff sides around that part of the coastline. We walked back the easy way, along the road, and had a meal in the pub before going back to St Just.
 

Easter Sunday: and not even a huge chocolate egg for breakfast could quite clear my hangover, or the fog. We drove down to the Miracle Theatre, hoping the fog would burn off. It didn't. The Miracle Theatre is an amazing amphitheatre, carved into the steep cliff face, overlooking the sea. They perform plays there outdoors and the stage includes a stone throne, gateways and balconies. It is truly spectacular, even in fog.
 

We decided to try the other coast to shake off the damp mist. We went to Hoyle and visited Paradise Park, a delightful bird sanctuary. I loved the sleepy owls and the fish-feeding frenzy of the Humboldt's penguins. Nick fell in love with the incredibly ugly ibises, with their long beaks and wrinkled faces.

 

We walked down into Hoyle centre, which was totally uninspiring. The highlight there was a little egret wading through the estuary poking for food in the sand. For non-ornithologists, little egrets tend to live in Spain and Morocco, so this chap was a smidgin off course - must have been the fog.

 

On the way back to the B & B, we stopped at a ruined village called Crysanster, dating back to 3AD or so. Despite being overgrown with grass and heather, it was still quite clear where the walls and doorways were. The hearth stone and grinding stones were still there, too. All of it was still covered in drifting, unnecessarily atmospheric mist, but it drew me just the same.
 

Easter Monday: time to go home to Worcestershire. We bribed Ember with a full tank of diesel and left about 10 am. It quickly became clear that so had everyone else. After queueing on the A30, we opted for the scenic route through Devon. It was worth it for the scrumptious scones in the calorific cream tea we had. We stopped at Cheddar Gorge and saw the caves (and about 700 tourists). The caves were great and the tourists were everywhere. With hindsight, leaving Cheddar at 5 pm on Bank Holiday Monday might be seen as a bad idea. Every road heading north towards Bristol was stationary with traffic going nowhere fast (as it were).

 

Eventually, we decided to go to Bath for an evening meal in a great restaurant call the Bath Tub. Enough food and a surfeit of wine and I was all for breaking into the Roman Baths in the town centre for a skinny dip. Fortunately, our plans were foiled because the windows were unaccountably locked and anyway, we would have disturbed the infamous nesting duck that was holding up Bath city council's restoration plans. We hit the M5 north of Gloucester and, by the time, we got home at midnight, I think Ember was as tired as we were.
 

First published in VISA issue 33 (summer 1999).

 

 

 

 

Some Corner of an English Field....

by Neil Matthews

After a slight breakdown in communications with the owners of Dennis Sever’s House, we found out that the house was actually closed on Sunday 8 May, the date of our scheduled visit. The joint event for Travel and History SIGs – with some other Mensans from London also in attendance – was therefore redirected a few minutes around the corner to another Spitalfields location.

19 Princelet Street describes itself as a “museum celebrating diversity”. It is the remains of a Huguenot master silk weaver's home, whose shabby frontage conceals a rare surviving synagogue built over its garden. The official website takes up the story:

“Built in 1719 this 'brick messuage' became the home of the Ogier family, who had escaped from persecution in France. They entered the silk weaving trade and prospered mightily. As most Huguenots moved on, the elegant Georgian houses were sub-divided into lodgings and workshops. At 19 Princelet Street the attic windows were altered to let in more light for weavers to work, but later occupants of the house followed other trades and professions, including Mrs Mary Ellen Hawkins who used it as an industrial school, and Isaiah Woodcock who was a carver and gilder.

“The Irish came, and later the Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe. One little group of early arrivals, mostly from Poland, formed the Loyal United Friends Friendly Society to help newcomers, just as the Huguenots had pioneered such self-help groups in the late 17th and 18th centuries. They took a lease on 19 Princelet Street. In the garden where the Ogier children once played, in 1869 the Jews erected a synagogue. Underneath the synagogue, they created a place where people came together, and - much later - prepared to fight together, against intolerance and fascism.”

The building is Grade II listed and is rarely open to the public, due to the urgent need for repairs. We met a number of the unpaid volunteers who work as part of the Spitalfields Centre charity (reg. charity 287279). Their aim is to raise the £3 million apparently needed to enable the building to open as a permanent exhibition. Entry on the rare open days is free, with donations encouraged (this is an understatement).

The overall aim – to celebrate the contribution of many generations of immigrants who have shaped the life of London and the nation – is a noble one. Following a general election in which immigration featured prominently as an issue, this is a topical subject as well. Also, for Travel SIG members, the subject of escape as a motivation for travel is certainly worthy of debate and discussion. However, the implementation and curation leave much to be desired.

Much of the display relied on the efforts of local schoolchildren of 9 or 10 years of age in writing poems or prose, imagining themselves as recent immigrants to the area – whether Huguenot, Jewish, Irish, Somali or Bangladeshi. There was even a small television screen showing a self-devised play by the students about 19th century Irish immigrants, “using only Victorian petticoats and potatoes as props”. It is hard enough for visitors to imagine what life might have been like, without using the diluting filter of pre-teen schoolchildren. In fairness, this approach may work for the parties of schoolchildren who visit 19 Princelet Street. But they do not come alone; they are not the only visitors; and they are not the most likely source of the £3 million needed to restore the building for permanent display. Some imaginative use of contemporary photographs and documents would not incur much expense and would probably stir visitors’ imaginations much more effectively. Given that most immigrants were escaping something (persecution, famine, war), a better display illustrating their origins would not go amiss either.

The explanatory text on the walls was presumably written by adults. Sloppy sentimentality is too often here instead of useful information – how exactly did immigrants “jolt us out of our complacency”? Some of the information which is provided is dubious. London was not created by the Romans; there was a settlement there beforehand, although one could say accurately that much of what we know of modern London is down to the Romans’ efforts. And, no doubt in sheer excitement at the subject matter, the text veers between present and past tense, sometimes in the same paragraph and once even in the same sentence.

As with all museums and exhibitions these days, a degree of interaction is encouraged. Sometimes this leads to neat ideas, such as asking visitors to list on one label the personal items which they would pack if they had to relocate in a hurry. Sometimes it seems gimmicky and preachy. A number of photos of local residents fill several walls on the top floor, and the visitor is invited to choose from a number of comments on different sheets of paper, and append them to the local resident who is most likely to have made each comment. The recent General Election featured the slogan “Are you thinking what we’re thinking?” This appears to be a variation on the lines of “We’re thinking that you can’t guess what they’re thinking.” The other interactivity in evidence on the day we visited was a talk from one of the volunteers – not, as we hoped, about the building itself, but about how desperately the charity needs the £3 million, and a discussion of the arcane art of matching funding.

These comments should not be taken to imply that the visit was uninteresting - far from it. There were a number of fascinating points and stories struggling to get out from suffocation under the buzzwords and current political agendas. It reminded me of Not The Nine O’Clock News’s parody “Nice Video – shame about the song.” This was a case of “Unique site – poor exhibition.”

First published in VISA issue 61 (June 2005)