I found a letter I wrote on April 22, 1989 which I'll share with the world, whoever reads this blog. This was written to a penfriend in Cottage Hills, Illinois. I lived in New Jersey at the time and worked at Spectracolor in Cherry Hill. (Part of this trip was described on a blog entry on October 22, 2007.)My boss's daughter, Jo-el was to get married on April 15 and it wasn't until a week or two before that that I was invited to attend the wedding. It was to be held in Northampton, England, so some serious arrangements had to be made fast. Some of my friends were going too and travel arrangements had already been made, so it was up to me to find a ride overseas for a decent price. Priscilla, the mother of the bride, called up a couple airlines but the price was more than I could pay, almost $800 roundtrip.
Then I heard about Virgin-Atlantic. They had some pretty decent prices. In fact, they were downright inexpensive. The price was $149 one way. The only catch: I had to wait until the day before I wanted to leave to find out of there was a ride available. It's called Confirmed Standby. If a ride is available, I can pay for it by credit card over the phone. I don't have to be present to take a ride that someone had canceled at the last minute.
I was game and had nothing to lose but time if I couldn't catch a ride out on the first try. It wasn't the high season yet and the wedding was days away. I would only have to wait until the next day to try for a ride again. As good fortune would have it, I bought a one-way ticket on the first try and eagerly anticipated my first overseas trip.
Meanwhile, there had been a small matter of obtaining a passport to attend to. With some finagling and good timing, I brought my photos and application to the State Department Office in Philadelphia and, after informing the agent what day I had to leave, I obtained the passport in only two days, well in advance of the trip. After a few more days, I was all set, packed, and raring to go.
The flight was to leave on Monday, April 10, at 10:20 p.m. My brother, Dave, lives not far from the Newark Airport, so I drove up to his place the night before and spent the day there until flight time. I was getting pretty nervous. I had been on a plane before but not for such a long flight: seven hours flying time! Would I get airsick? Would the plane crash? Believe me, I had a few disturbing dreams about the whole thing, but I pushed them aside and when we were finally on the way to the airport, I relaxed.
After a wait of over three hours, I and 400 other passengers boarded the huge Boeing 747. The flight had been delayed over 45 minutes, leaving after 11 p.m., so everyone was a bit edgy to finally get started. Then we were off.
We were in a 747-200, called Scarlet Lady. It carries more than 400 passengers as fast as 600 miles an hour. It also transports cargo: vegetables, flowers, and industrial parts which need to go across the Atlantic in a hurry. Flight time is usually about 7 hours. We were given an amenity pack, which included an electromagnetic headset. We were also given a plug to plug our headset into a channel selector at each of our seats. We had a choice of listening to classical music, rock-and-roll, oldies, humor, or business related topics, or we could stay with Channel One when films were running. Seven hours is quite a long time to sit staring at the walls, especially at night when you can't see outside, and even during the day there's nothing to see but clouds below most of the time.
Flight at night is a cinch. At first you see the lights of the city as you're taking off, but they gradually fade from view. Then there is complete darkness as we climb to our assigned altitude of 33,000 feet. The pilot assured us that, in spite of the late departure, we would arrive in London pretty well on time, thanks to a strong tail wind. There was hardly a sense of motion and only once were we told to fasten our seat belts when we encountered turbulence.
I didn't know exactly what to expect on such a flight. The time was taken up by film clips, a movie, and food. In spite of a bad rap given to airline food, this stuff tasted pretty good. Maybe I was just hungry.
After a few hours, dawn broke. So soon? We were jumping five time zones and flying right into Tuesday. The pilot amended our ETA to 10:20 a.m. GMT. But the weather was bad, and there was air traffic to contend with; we might have to lose time we gained by circling over London. We gradually descended through the clouds and then, at a few hundred feet, I saw my first glimpse of England–wet and rainy.
We touched down at exactly 10 a.m., well away from the terminal at Gatwick Airport and when we disembarked, it was right into the teeth of a driving rainstorm, and only five minutes late, according to the schedule. And my umbrella was in my suitcase deep in the bowels of the baggage section of the 747. Now was the time to test the seaworthiness of my Campus Classics sports jacket I was wearing. Fortunately, shuttle buses were waiting within 50 yards and we all scrambled aboard for the ride into the terminal. I didn't know where I was going but at least I knew to follow everyone else.
Next stop, Immigration. I fingered my passport to ensure that it was safe and stood in line (oops! I mean queue, I'm in England now). The queue moved fairly rapidly. There were several agents available and there were only brief questions asked of each of us: How long are you staying in England? What are you here for? When my turn came, there was a choice of two agents. I picked the one who looked more pleasant. It was a friendly and rather eloquent introduction to my first contact in a new country. I loved his British accent.
Next, there was baggage to claim. I followed the signs and it wasn't long before I had my two pieces of luggage and I then went through customs. There was nothing to declare so I entered the designated queue and walked right through without being stopped. Others weren't so fortunate; they were arbitrarily singled out for questioning and possible search. Well, maybe not so arbitrarily–one couple had a whole load of baggage in rather small containers, which raised the suspicions of the customs officials. I didn't wait around, I just kept walking–right into the haven of safety of the crowds in the airport terminal.
Now what? I had two pieces of luggage plus a shoulder bag, passport, and money burning a hole in my pocket with nowhere to use it. That's it! Change your money! I went to the Bureau de Change kiosk and changed $300. The rate was 1.7 U.S. to pounds sterling. $300 changed into a paltry £163.
Now I had money to spend but I had not made any prior arrangements for a place to stay. All I had was a booklet with suggested places, and there were places in the terminal where I could ask about lodging. I finally found out the going rate was £20 a night. The only way to get anywhere was to go to Victoria Station in London, a half-hour train ride.
I enquired at the ticket window. Yes, there was the Gatwick Express which ran every half hour to Victoria Station. Did I want a round-trip? When I knew that the return ticket wolud be valid a week later, I paid the round-trip fare. I gave the man a £20 note. He gave me a five and four coins and I walked away. Wait a minute! The round-trip was £11. I was to get £9 in change. I went back to the ticket office and the ticketmaster gave me a crash course in change recognition. There were no £1 notes. Those small thick brass nickel-size coins were £1 coins. He showed me other nickel-size coins which were 15 pence, and the large half-dollar size coins were 10 pence. It took a while to sink in.
I entered the area where the train was waiting. A gateman checked my ticket and told me where to go. I dragged my luggage along and boarded the train. There was plenty of room for all kinds of luggage. I was beginning to get a healthy picture of British practicality. I sat down and waited. I felt rather tired but sleep was the last thing on my mind. I was in a far-off country for the first time in my life!
Exactly at the appointed time, the train departed. And soon we were breezing through the countryside. It didn't look much different than Pennsylvania where I was born and raised. Meadows with stands of trees here and there. And then we came to the outskirts of London and the row houses appeared. A half-hour ride isn't long at all when everything is new, strange and wonderful to you.
Victoria Station is a huge place. It is one of the centers of the rail, coach, and Underground systems. At any given moment there are hundreds of people filing through, whether to shop, dine, or travel. I was still traveling because uppermost in my mind was to find a place to stay. The places some of the others were at were rather expensive. Furthermore, I didn't know where most of them were in the city. Since I had opted to be on my own, I just played it by ear and kept looking. I asked quite a lot of questions. I didn't mind asking because I enjoyed hearing their answers in all kinds of British accents. And they didn't seem to mind answering, although I noticed that these hordes of people seldom spoke to each other, even in close quarters.
I had a copy of a travel booklet my boss have given me. I found a promising place to stay, complete with phone number. I called up Driscoll Hotel in Southwark and asked if there were any rooms available, and at what price. Yes, there were rooms available and the price was £100 a week. I didn't know if I'd stay a week at the same place so I told her I'd ring her back when I decide.
It didn't take long to decide. I was getting desperate for a place to dump this pesky luggage. And knowing that £20 a day was average for a room, I decided that the Driscoll Hotel wasn't a bad deal at all, even if I'd stay the whole week. The booklet said the place was a five-minute walk from the Elephant and Castle tube station, three stops from Charing Cross. That didn't mean much to me, except for the fact I could take the Underground. I followed the signs to the Underground. They led to a wide stairway which led under the street. My arthritis was beginning to bother me and I didn't know where I could pick up a ticket. A couple of policemen were walking along and I asked if I could get tickets to the Underground by going down those stairs (maybe a dumb question). Yes, the tickets could be obtained down the stairs and to the left.
There were ticket machines everywhere, and a couple of manned ticket windows open. I consulted a list of stops listed alphabetically and found that it would cost 60p (pence) to get to Elephant and Castle from there. I realized I was playing Sherlock Holmes with all the strangeness around me, and things were quite confusing, but gradually they became more straightforward. Signs pointed the way to the Victoria Line, District Line, and Circle Line. Which one to take! I spotted a huge wall map of the Underground and looked for Elephant and Castle. I spotted it, but it wasn't part of the Victoria, District or Circle Lines, but the Bakerloo Line. Someone else was perusing the same map and I asked him how I could get to Elephant and Castle from here. He obligingly pointed out the route. "You'll have to take the Circle Line to Embankment and change trains there on the Bakerloo Line." In studying the logic of the map, it all began to make sense. There are 250 miles of subway with 11 subway lines traversing the entire city. To get there from here you only have to determine which Line is at your station and which stations the Line travels through, and then find which Lines travel to where you want to go, and which stations they travel through. You change trains at the intersecting Lines. Simple enough.
I deposited 60p in one of the machines and got my ticket and headed for the District Line, through an underground hallway, down a long escalator and into another tunnel. Parts of the map were neatly drawn on boards which stood on the floor at the entranceway of a corresponding tunnel. It wasn't hard to find out where to go–north or south, east or west; directions really didn't matter–not to me anyway. All I needed to see was my destination printed on the board. My destination this time–Embankment.
The train was there in short order. Aboard the train there was the entire Circle Line imprinted along the wall. You need only consult the stretched-out chart to find out when yoru stop came along. Embankment was only a couple stops away. Then I alighted and followed the signs to the Bakerloo Line. After a few minutes wait, the train came along and I was on my way to the end of the Line.
I had to surrender my ticket at the end, either by turnstiles or give it to the attendant. Because I was carrying luggage, he opened the gate and let me pass through. Another commuter was stopped because the turnstile wouldn't accept his ticket. He hadn't paid enough for the fare. He had to pay the attendant the remainder to be allowed through. I emerged from the Underground straight into a windy rainstorm. This time I had my umbrella but I soon found out it was useless. Three pieces of luggage and trying to hold an umbrella!? And the wind was trying to shatter it!
Now I had to find New Kent Road. I stopped at a newspaper stand and asked the proprietor. He pointed out a street far across the intersection. He was friendly enough. My American accent must have appealed to his sense of sympathy for a traveler braving a rainstorm.
The booklet said it was a 5-minute walk from Elephant and Castle. It took more than 20. Twenty long, struggling, exhausting, wet, windy, and almost-god-forsaken minutes. But at last I saw my destination: Driscoll Hotel. I struggled up to the door and rang the bell. A lady let me in. I told her I had called earlier but instead of calling back I had come to obtain a room. She was stern about the fact that I didn't call back first, but pleasant enough to let me stay. I paid cash for a week's stay and she then showed me around.
The hotel had four floors and no elevator. During the past 75 years 40,000 guests had stayed there from 174 different countries. She showed me my room. Just one door among many down the hall on the second floor. The room was cozy enough and there was a bed, two desks, and a clothes closet, rather tiny, but fine for someone who had come to London to see the sights, not just to stay in one room all the time.
The main building has 212 well furnished, centrally heated single rooms each fitted with hot and cold water basins. Shower, baths and toilets at the end of all corridors. It has a shop, sitting rooms, four television rooms, table tennis room, library, laundry, and there is space to park cars within the Hotel gates, at owner's risk.
Meals were served over long hours. Breakfast served 7 till 9:30, lunch 1 to 2, dinner from 5:30 till 7. The nice part about it is that the meals came with the price of the room. I paid 25p for the key to Room 90, which would be returned at the end of my stay–the key to them and the fee back to me. I could borrow the daily newspapers from the office and I could buy tea, sodas, cookies and crackers for tea at any time day or night in the office, which was open 24 hours a day.
After I became confusingly acquainted with all the house rules, I was left to go to my room, unpack, and do whatever my little heart desired. Right now, all I wanted to do was get rid of this jet lag. I had crossed five time zones, and I had not slept since I had napped at my brother's house in New Jersey over 10 hours before. I slept for the rest of the afternoon until the evening meal and then I started to plan for the next day out on the town.
After a good night's rest I went down the several flights of stairs to the dining room. There was a good variety to the breakfast menu. The toast and marmalade appealed to my sense of appetite, with a couple pads of butter, scrambled eggs, and, to the gentleman ladling out the food, I told him I'd take some oatmeal, pointing to what looked like I should like it. "Oh yes, porridge," he replied, and dished out a glop of the stuff. As soon as he said it I suspected trouble. That is the stuff British horror novels are made of–little orphans forced to eat their ration of porridge under the stern gaze of the matron on duty. In front of me it didn't look at all like oatmeal, but a warm gray mass of whatever. I tasted it–rather bland. I walked over to the stash of marmalade and grabbed a couple packs. A little fruitiness on the porridge wouldn't hurt. It tasted better, but too much is too much and I couldn't finished the whole bowlful. I decided the taste for English cuisine had to be acquired. After eating as much as I could, I dutifully took the tray, plates, dishes and silverware to the kitchen and sorted them out to be washed by the kitchen help. The dishpan for discarded food scraps bespoke the culinary tastes of the rest of the diners. It was half full already.
New Kent Road is a heavily traveled street and there appeared to be no speed limit. I spent the day exploring the city. There was a hefty pile of information at my fingertips to find my way around the city and I resolved to just be a Londoner for awhile. Armed with a camera and shoulder bag I hit the streets almost midmorning. Those red doubledecker buses came along one right after the other but I wanted to save my money and take the subway back to Victoria Station. There was no sign of the rain of yesterday for the sun was shining on a city which stood the test of time. Even thou London is centuries old I came to realize that this city had been one of the major targets of World War II and much of what I was seeing may not be as old as many of the landmarks back in the States.
I walked back to the Elephant and Castle tube station. It would cost–what did I say?–60p, and I couldn't afford to ride the system too much unless I had a Travelpass. So I traveled to Victoria Station, took a quite unflattering picture of myself at one of the photo booths and bought a Travelpass good for a week for £17.50. That's about $30. My picture was on it and the zones I could travel in (all five of them). I didn't know how far I'd go in London but the Pass was good only in the city; the entire city. I could ride the Underground, the surface trains as far as Zone 5, and those ubiquitous red doubledecker buses. I wasn't about to rent a car. It was mentally confusing to just watch the Londoners drive–all on the left. And they don't spare the horses either. Like I said, there didn't seem to be any speed limit.
London Regional Transport (LRT) runs the Underground and bus services. The Underground has 272 stations and covers 250 miles. Nearly 5,000 buses on 360 routes carry 3.5 million passengers a day.
So, with the Travelpass in my possession, I hoofed it back to the Underground. After studying the map I went to Piccadilly Circus. Victoria Station has three Lines running through it, the District Line, the Circle Line, and the Victoria Line. The only Line I could find that traveled toward Piccadilly Circus from Victoria Station was the Victoria Line, which went to Green Park. I would then have to change trains there and take the Piccadilly Line to Piccadilly Circus.
You must understand that I was new to the city. I never traveled it before. Indeed, I never even saw the place before. How did I know that much of what I saw was only a few blocks apart. But then, several things I wanted to see were miles apart. The most organized way at the time was to stick to the Underground. It was the best thing I could have done, health wise. I lost 10 pounds (bodyweight) in the process of climbing and descending all those stairs and traipsing through the tunnels to the Underground stations.
I crept out of the Underground into the brilliant sunshine at Piccadilly Circus. A circus is an intersection of several streets, and Piccadilly is only a few blocks from Oxford Circus. Down the street was the Guinness Museum. It wasn't open yet so I made a mental note to come back to see it later. Across the street was Burger King, a block from Aberdeen Steak House. The porridge wasn't setting too well with me but I was still a bit hungry–and thirsty. I wanted to see how the British treated the American dietary staple. I ordered a cheeseburger and a Pepsi. They slathered on the ketchup and mustard and handed it to me. I took one bite and decided then and there that British culinary cuisine is still to be modified. I ended up with a nice drink of Pepsi, the same the world over, and furtively tossed the rest of the cheeseburger into the dustbin (wastebasket).
I had several days to myself. I tried to contact some of the others but, since I have learned to be independent, I didn't try too hard. I called Jo-el in Northampton to see how she was getting along. She was OK, if only a bit homesick–quite a bit, I'd say. She had been in England for only a couple weeks now and still had to get used to things.
The second evening of dinner at the Driscoll Hotel I met another traveler from Toronto, Canada. She struck up a conversation with me and we talked at length about politics, political science, politicians, political history, current events, and the future of the world. She was quite versed in it all and opinionated to boot. She had traveled extensively, lived in Indonesia for several years as a teacher, knew of some of the same people I knew of in the Toronto area, and she never once told me her name. And I didn't ask.
We discussed the Middle East, Nicaragua, the Iran-Contra affair. "I don't like how you handled the Nicaragua situation, and the Middle East...", and she'd point an accusing finger at me in her emotion of the moment. Yes, she was quite opinionated and got carried away sometimes. The way she talked, you'd think she thought I represented the U.S. government. I chuckled at her accusations, and she then noticed the humor in what she was saying so seriously, so she changed into a kinder demeanor, realizing how she was coming across. I had to agree with her on many points and I also realized I was in a country where I could say anything treasonous about the U.S. I cared to, and get away with it. Of course, in the U.S. you can get away with it too. Freedom of speech.
But there really was nothing detrimental to say about U.S. involvement. England itself had its day in the sun and was involved with much bloodshed over the centuries. Admittedly though, many of the countries they occupied during the glory days of the British Empire, fell to ruin when the British left them when they declared independence.
She subsequently invited me to her table in the other dining room where she had other acquaintances whom she befriended while staying there: one from Cornwall, another from Ireland, one from Australia, another from Portugal. Together we had some interesting conversation going, with "Toronto" presiding. It was a pleasant way to spend each evening, and even over the breakast meal.
I wandered the streets, taking in the sights. I went to Covent Garden several times a day, mostly to watch the street entertainers. Some were good, others average. One impersonated Michael Jackson, another was a mime who confronted unsuspecting passersby, to the delight of the watching audience. Toward the end of a certain entertainer's performance, the hat was passed around for donations. One couple of young men sang in the style of the Everly Brothers, and sang some of the Everly Brothers songs. There were jugglers, magicians, and belly-dancers. Covent Garden also has its share of shops and food vendors, and behind the main thoroughfare was the Transport Museum.
Early on I was finding that my American accent was not being understood by many although I'm a rather clear speaker, so I resorted to their own accent. I then found that there were fewer occasions where people asked me to repeat myself. The colorful way people expressed themselves n the various accents was not lost on me; I appreciated it immensely. It is no wonder that they are natural actors and actresses in theatre, radio and TV. It wasn’t so much the accent as the choice of words they used. Listen to the BBC and you get an idea of what you’d hear on the street in many cases. If you watch Eastenders on TV you get another accent entirely, the cockney dialect which is quite different.
The exit from the Underground to Covent Garden was about five stories below the street. There were automatic elevators which brought commuters to the surface and around the corner was another set of elevators which took commuters down to the Underground.
There seemed to be some problems with train service for a few days—maybe all the time since I was only there for a few days. The train would stop in the middle of a run and we passengers had to wait sometimes for five minutes for the train to start again. Word was that some vandals had tinkered with the electrical systems on some Lines and it was acting unreliably. On the Piccadilly Line there was a strong odor of smoke at some stations, but no one seemed to be alarmed.
One time I was heading down a long tunnel from Hyde Park Corner as a faint smell of smoke manifested itself. All at once a couple of firemen with portable tanks brushed past me and headed for the same station I was going to.
True to British aplomb, no one batted an eye, so I didn’t either. They ran to the side of a train which was stopped at the southbound station, doors open with people inside as the unperturbed commuters waited for the train to continue. It was not the train I was taking anyway, but the one on the other side of the tunnel, northbound.
England is rather cool but a couple of days were quite warm; ‘hot’ to the British. I love cool weather so I was enjoying it immensely in that regard.
Along the Thames River, the Tower of London was magnificent. What I was seeing was 900 years old. And I was walking on the same walkways and paths, and exploring the same rooms where such notables as Sir Thomas More, Sir Walter Raleigh, King Henry VI, William Penn and a host of others, were held prisoner, and some of them executed.
From the Tower of London I took a boat ride up to Westminster. Every quarter-hour Big Ben would peal forth its famous chimes. Souvenir shops across the street attracted shoppers and tourists—I being one of them. I bought a red T-shirt with the inscription blazoned on the front, “Some idiot went to London and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”—I’ll give it to my brother. A sweatshirt I bought said, “I walked all over London”—with a pair of walking shoes crunching down on the words ‘London’.
I found out that the 63 bus would take me right to my hotel from Westminster, so for several days I ended the day by going to Westminster to catch the double-decker back. I was beginning to find my way around the city pretty well.
Every day I trudged the streets of London. I even went to 221b Baker Street of Sherlock Holmes fame. There was a plaque on the building at 221 Baker Street designating it as the fictional address of the fictional Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. Yes, fictional. Don’t tell me you thought he was a real person! Some people already have!
I finally got to visit the Guinness Museum at the Trocadero, and also see “The London Experience”, a 35-minute multi-screen atmospheric entertainment introducing London through its history by way of Elizabeth I, the Plague, the Great Fire, Sir Christopher Wren and the building of St. Paul’s, the Blitz and London in the 1980, complete with special effects.
Friday came, and I knew that Saturday would be the wedding day for Jo-el. I only knew that it would be held at the Town Hall in Northampton at 11:00 a.m. My job was to get there. I went to Victoria Station and asked about a ticket to Northampton for Saturday morning. Thanks to my Travelpass, I was able to get a cheaper ticket. I was told I would have to catch the train at Euston Station. That was a place I wasn’t familiar with so I knew I should get an early start in the morning in case I misjudged the time and distance.
Saturday morning came and I spiffied myself up in my Sunday go-to-meetin’ finest and went to the bus stop. The first double-decker read “Euston Station” on the front. Talk about timing!
Euston Station is a fascinating place. All trains traveling north out of London travel from Euston Station—to Scotland and to points toward Ireland. I only had to go to Northampton, about 70 miles north. It didn’t take long before I had to board at Track 10.
As I walked along the train at Track 10 I wanted to find a non-smoking car. I wasn’t sure which ones they would be so I asked a group of English commuters who were approaching, where the smoking car was. Being young, I guess they through they’d have a little fun and one of them pointed to the car I just passed.
“There it is, that’s the smoking car, the only car where smoking is allowed.”
He noticed I was not walking toward it, so he gestured more emphatically and repeated, “This is the smoking car.”
In reply I said, “Oh, I don’t want the smoking car, I want to avoid it.”
“Oh,” and he walked by rather sheepishly I thought, a little miffed at being upstaged in front of his fellows.
I went on board one of the cars. The clock was right by the door of the train, and at only about 10 seconds past the published time of departure, the doors shut and we were off. The City of London was soon left behind and I watched the bright sun-lit countryside flow past. It was going to be a fine, fine day—hardly a cloud in the sky.
There were two times I could have left the station, each about an hour apart. I’m glad I took the 9:00 instead of the 10:00. I understood that it would take about 45 minutes to get there. Instead, it took about an hour and 30 minutes.
I disembarked at the Northampton station and, after asking directions to the town hall a couple of times, I arrived there right on time, about a mile from the station, walking. But this time I was quite used to walking. I finally saw familiar faces for the first time in several days—my American friends and relatives.
The wedding ceremony was short and sweet. It was performed by a town official in elegant British English and then we were off to the celebratory feast. It was agreed by both families that a township wedding would be OK, instead of a church wedding. Doug, a pharmacist friend of mine, had rented a car and he was getting quite used to the British roadway system. Jo-el, I learned, had had an accident a couple of days before, which totaled the rented car. She wasn’t hurt, but her sister was slightly. The other two girls in the car weren’t hurt either.
It is quite confusing to drive in England. The driver sits on the right, and drives on the left, opposite most of the rest of the world. On roundabouts—and there are plenty of them—you have to remember to enter the circle from the left. Doug had it down pat after several days of driving in England and Wales. He had tried to contact me at my hotel but he didn’t leave a message because he didn’t know where he’d be if I tried to answer.
The wedding feast took place in a nice out-of-the-way country place in the finest weather England had to offer. I made fast friends with strangers I never knew before, and the food and fellowship were excellent. My second cousin, Dr. Clarence Freed, was also there with his family. He had married one of my boss’s other daughters years before and he attended the wedding with his wife and two children. Since I seldom see him, it was a surprise to meet him in England. He’s a plastic surgeon. He was so glad to be out of the range of on-call status and that beepers that he refused to talk shop, even with Doug. He was there to enjoy a nice vacation. I didn’t blame him at all.
After all was said and done, it was time to leave. I had a return ticket to London and asked if someone would take me back to Northampton. Doug said he was going back to Heathrow to return the car and stay in a hotel near London, I could travel back with him. Great! I had someone to travel with for a change, after all these days. And it was another chance to see the countryside, other than from a train window.
There was no speed limit; there were no police signals flashing like I was so used to seeing in New Jersey. It was quite pleasant to drive. We consulted a map to guide us and eventually we arrived at Heathrow. After returning the car, Doug went to the hotel to take a room, and he showed me where I could travel to the Underground station by taking a free shuttle bus from the hotel. It was dark by the time I left. Doug was just settling in as I set out for my own quarters far across the city. We settled on a time to meet the next day—the last full day in London for him; he would leave on Monday. I would leave on Tuesday and I hadn’t bought my return ticket yet. I would have to wait until Monday morning for that.
The Underground at night is what you might expect. I never traveled a subway at night, in London or in Philadelphia, but it wasn’t far from what I expected. On the way to the Underground I walked along with a man who started talking about a catastrophe at a soccer match just that day—over 90 people perished. I hadn’t heard about it. Then we parted ways and I showed my Travelpass to the gateman and he let me pass. The other man stopped to buy a ticket. I walked to the waiting train and sat down. After a few minutes we were off. At each stop people boarded and disembarked. A door would open, a small group of people would clamor on board, and the odor of beer would waft around the interior of the train car. Occasionally, the owner of a loud radio would board for awhile. I just minded my own business and read off the stops to where I would eventually get off. It was getting late; approaching 11:00 and the Underground shuts down after midnight.
I didn’t have a map, and the wall chart did not indicate a stop I was familiar with so I asked another passenger for his pocket chart I had spotted earlier. He obliged and I figured out where I had to change trains…to Westminster. I was on the Piccadilly Line which ran by Gloucester and South Kensington. I would have to disembark at South Kensington if I wanted to take the District and Circle Lines to Westminster. It was simple really…and again I stopped at Westminster to take the 63 double-decker bus to New Kent Road. I didn’t want to take the Bakerloo Line to Elephant and Castle because I would have to walk a couple of blocks through tunnels on the way to New Kent Road. As friendly and obliging as the pedestrians were during the day, it was a new breed of cat that traveled at night and I would do well not to set myself up as bait.
Fortunately, there were other pedestrians waiting for the 63 at Westminster. I didn’t feel so alone and vulnerable. The ride back over the bridge across the Thames was uneventful and I kept a weather eye peeled for my stop near Driscoll Hotel. I was quite relieved that everything came to a satisfactory conclusion. It was approaching midnight when I unlocked the front door of the hotel, climbed the 50+ steps and sank gratefully onto my bed, none the worse for the full day of adventure. Tomorrow would certainly be another eventful day, and I would now have a companion to travel with.
Sunday was a bit rainy and getting worse. After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and boiled bacon, toast and jam, and a glass of grapefruit juice, I went back to my room to get dressed for the day on the town. My name came over the loudspeaker in the hall. I scurried down the 50+ steps and poked my head into the office.
“Telephone call for me?”
Mr. Driscoll peered over his newspaper and replied, “Yes, the telephone is right over there.”
It was Doug, he would be delayed a half hour. We can meet at Hyde Park. I forgot to tell him that it took me an hour and a half to get to Southwark, and Hyde Park would take longer than he thought. But he found that our later, and as I expected, he had not known the time it would take to get there. I stayed Underground next to where he would surface and waited. My arthritis was kicking me in the shins so I bought a Pepsi and took a long drink of water in the public washroom down the street to keep any ulcers at bay, and fortified it with some Kentucky Friend Chicken later.
Hyde Park is a large place. One one corner—Speakers’ Corner—is a favorite spot for political activists and religious fanatics, and decent folks with something cogent to say to anyone who would listen. It was drizzly so the crowds weren’t there, but there were people there with something to say, mostly preachers and evangelists. Doug and I found each other and we approached the Corner and had our say too, discussing politics and religion with some of the speakers. Arguing would be a more accurate term.
We both had Travelpasses and we then headed for Harrods, the famous department store for tourists. It was closed! I was hungry in spite of the boiled bacon I ingested for breakfast. I heard Harrods had splendid things to eat, they had to be closed! So we opted for Kentucky Fried Chicken just down the street. In spite of earlier habitually disappointing culinary trends in the City of London, this chicken was downright delicious. Or did I detect a change in my taste for British cooking? … Nah! (I had problems with anyone's cooking for awhile after I left home at the age of 21 in the States, away from Mom's excellent cooking.)
We explored other parts of the city and then we decided to go to Charing Cross. Pizza Hut was there. So was a theater which Doug said he attended earlier in the week where “Me and My Girl” was playing. I noted the place and endeavored to remember it for tomorrow. It was dark by this time and we were hungry again. We saw Rain Man and then we searched for a place to eat—Pizza Hut! I seldom go to Pizza Hut, although New Jersey and Pennsylvania is lousy with them, so we bought a medium pizza with all the trimmings, two Cokes, and I had an extra Coke for the grand total of £9.85—let’s see…£9.85 x 1.70 = … ouch! … $16.75!
Afterwards Doug and I parted ways. He had to leave on the morrow and I still had a full day to explore what I hadn’t seen yet . . . and again alone. I walked downhill to the train station. It was Embankment, a place I had been to before. I realized why the name . . . it was at the foot of a large embankment . . . again British logic. Embankment was only one step away from Westminster and I then took the 63 to New Kent Road.
Monday dawned a bit dreary. Something was going wrong . . . I could feel it. I wasn’t very hungry so I just had toast with butter and jam, and a glass of grapefruit juice. Today was the day I had to call the airline for a ride back to the States. The office opens at 7:30 and I had its phone number. There were only payphones available so I changed as much money into 10p coins as I could muster for what might be a long wait on the phone, what with making reservations, verifications, and credit card information. (The 10p coins were as large as American fifty cent coins, and often a payphone was too full to accept more coins, which rendered them unusable.)
I need not have bothered to go to all that trouble. On the first ring someone answered (instead of a recording) and I asked the lady if she would ring me back to the payphone I was calling from, I needed a ride to the States tomorrow and I didn’t know if I had enough change to stay online.
She apologetically informed me that she could not call out on her phone but she was equal to the task and I gave her my destination, credit card information, name and address, in return for her verification number, for only 30p, that’s about 8 minutes on the telephone. And the return trip cost only £99, about $170. That last hurdle accomplished, I then set out on the city for the last time. I took the double-decker marked “Kings Cross” to check out a section of town I hadn’t been to before. I climbed the steps to the swaying top deck and sat down. After a couple of blocks it hit me. I was getting carsick, and I never get carsick. I quickly went down to the first deck and rode out the rest of the ride to Kings Cross. I saw Fleet Street and near Kings Cross there was an outdoor flea market, and a fish stand with cockles and mussels for sale.
Not seeing much there and not feeling too chipper, I headed for Charing Cross again to check out the theatre. It was early afternoon by that time and I bought a ticket for £12.50 ($21.25) for the evening show. I would surely feel better by then. But as the afternoon worse on, I felt worse and I headed back to the hotel. On the way I stopped at a payphone and called my brother by prearrangement, his answering machine answered. I spoke as clearly as I could into the mouthpiece: “This is London calling . . . Dave, meet me at the airport at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Arrival time is 6:45 but by the time baggage is collected and I go through Customs it about 7:30.” I went back to the hotel to sleep off my discomfort.
The ticket in my pocket was bringing me fresh memories of just two months before when I had taken ill in the Forrest Theater in Philadelphia during Les Miserables, passed out at Intermission, and was sent by ambulance to the hospital. I was beginning to regret having bought this ticket. I wasn’t feeling any better. In fact, I felt sure I had a fever.
I forgot that I had packed some acetaminophen in my suitcase so I went down to the office to ask for aspirin. The lady in charge asked what was wrong. I told her I had a stomach ache.
“An aspirin will not help a stomach ache,” she said.
Along came Mr. Driscoll. She asked, “Do we have any medicine for a stomach ache here?”
Mr. Driscoll replied, “Nothing that is reliable, but we do have aspirin.”
“Aspirin?!”
“Oh yes, but you must drink it down with plenty of water.”
So she gave me a couple of aspirin and I went off to search for plenty of water. Then I went back to bed and slept some more.
Showtime was at 7:30. I woke up about 7:15, checked my watch, turned over, and went back to sleep. Memories of Les Miserables loomed like a spectre. I wasn’t going to risk another go at being trundled off in an ambulance to some strange London hospital if the worst-case scenario would present itself, $21.25 notwithstanding. I slept fitfully for half the night and then I started to feel better and slept rather well for the rest of the night. I was ready to make the trip home. Departure time was not until about 4:30 p.m. London time. I had plenty to do to pack everything away again for the trip back. I had had a rather pleasant time in the city, and in the country. I had met some interesting people in the hotel where I stayed. Some of the food was quite good but my tastes for English cuisine have yet to be acquired. I had passing conversations with all sorts of people on the street and my horizons were broadened considerably.
It would take at least six hours to fly back, so I napped until noon and then packed up all my belongings, souvenirs, and tallied the cost of what I had purchased in England to bring to the States. Customs just might be interested.
I carried my suitcase, garment bag and shoulder bag down the 50+ steps, stopped in at the office to return the towel and keys, and strode out into the bright sunshine. This time I would take a taxi. I hailed a cab and he took me straight to Victoria Station for £8.50—that’s $14.45, and a tip on top of that. No, it isn’t a cheap place to stay—London. I still had the ticket for the Gatwick Express I had purchased a week earlier. At last I took the train to the Gatwick Airport to await the departure of Flight 002.
I really didn’t know how to go about doing all I had to do to get to there I had to go, so I let instinct guide me. I spotted some carts and placed my luggage on it. I saw the Virgin Airlines kiosk and approached the attendant. “I phoned in my reservation yesterday.” After asking my name, he leafed through a sheaf of envelopes and gave one to me. It was my ticket to home.
It was three hours until flight time so I had to wait another hour for my boarding pass. A loudspeaker boomed out in English, German, French and Spanish to all those with suitcases to not let them out of your sight. Do not leave them unattended. About every 15 or 20 minutes the same announcement would blare forth.
The Gatwick Airport is a major air terminal to all foreign points, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the U.S. There are no boarding announcements. There are TV monitors throughout the complex to visually announce arrivals and departures. Two hours before a departure, the name of the airline would be posted on the screen, along with gate number and departure time. One need only watch the screens.
Eventually we queued up to obtain our boarding passes. It was still over two hours until boarding time but we could browse through shops and buy food at food stands to bide our time. When my turn came, my luggage was weighed and ticketed. I was asked some security questions: “Did you leave your luggage unattended at any time while in the terminal?”, “Did you pack you suitcases yourself or did someone pack them for you?”. If any questions would be answered unsatisfactorily, or if a person did not show up at flight time, and his luggage did, the luggage would be taken off the plane.
After I obtained my boarding pass, I sat in the lounge to wait, watching the monitors. Occasionally I walked around to browse at the shop, buying several newspapers about the soccer tragedy.
When the monitor registered “Now Boarding”, I headed for the gate number indicated and took the long walk to the plane. It really wasn’t as long a walking distance as it looked because the walkway was a large conveyer belt moving you right along as you stood there. When I arrived at the correct gate I showed my boarding pass to the attendant, and she took it—took the stub on which my baggage numbers were located—and left me with the pass itself. But I didn’t find that out until later.
Finally I got on the plane, 42C was my seat—an end seat. I sat down and waited. 42A was already occupied by a young man from Ireland. Then along came a man of color who would sit in the same row—42B. I got up to let him pass. Looking a little upset, he explained to the stewardess that he couldn’t sit in the middle seat, he always takes an end seat. She instantly had that harried look on her face and started looking around for an empty seat. I told her it didn’t matter to me, I could take 42B. She was quite relieved and the man had his end seat, I had a seat, and the stewardess was free to be put upon by some other passenger.
I told you that I just loved the airline food on the way over, if you remember. Well, this time it was different. I still had a hangover from the day before and my otherwise healthy appetite just up and kicked the bucket. I tried to eat but was less than joyful about it. Drink, yes—Pepsi. The Irish fellow beside me ordered a beer. He slept practically all the way over. How can he do that? I didn’t sleep a wink! I even tried. Maybe I should have had a glass of beer too. Maybe two or three.
The flight was uneventful. The movie was rather nice: Working Girl. I was glad to see New York state again, and finally Newark, New Jersey. We landed right on schedule and disembarked into a hot evening climate—74 degrees . . . at least hot by English standards. I was just getting used to British weather and now I had to succumb to London broil in the States.
This time I lined up at Immigration. We were asked a couple of questions and then we went off for our luggage. It was then I realized my baggage numbers had been retained back in England, so I kept my eye peeled for instant recognition of my own suitcase and garment bag. Then I carted everything along to stand in line at Customs. I was, but this time, feeling fidgety and a bit out of sorts. My fever was kicking up again and I watched the couple several points down the line being interrogated at length by a customs official. I noticed that some officials came to people in line and asked them a couple of questions and let them go through. When an official came nearby I called him over and told him I had nothing to declare, unless a couple boxes of soap were to be declared. I told him I didn’t feel too good standing there. “No, soap is OK,” then he walked away. Rats! But then he soon came back, escorted me up to the empty counter, checked my customs slip and told me I was free to go. I didn’t need a second reminder. I lit out through the door and out to the International Arrivals point. I looked at my watch, 7:30. David was nowhere in sight.
But after about 15 minutes I spotted him driving by. “HEY!” I shouted, suddenly realizing it was almost in the ear of a passenger waiting for her ride. I apologized for the shout and watched as he came by again. He had heard me. I was soon on my way to his house, and then I’d go home.
Dave's home is 70 miles from my home. It’s fortunate I like to drive because 6 or 7 hours in the air, plus another couple of hours on the road is a bit much. But I made it. I drove into my driveway, parked the car, dragged the luggage into the house and collapsed on the sofa in relief.
PS: The fever I had in London didn’t go away for two weeks. I called my doctor about the problem and he ordered a blood chemistry taken. It registered a higher white cell count—but not enough to worry about, but a sign that I had an internal infection. I’m glad I heeded my own warning and didn’t push my luck by going to that theatre play in London. However, later an xray was taken and I was found to have a staghorn calculus (kidney stone) which was partially blocking one of my kidneys. But that's another story.
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