We got very lucky flying out of Berlin on
Friday. Lufthansa’s entire flight staff were on strike (after being asked to
take a hefty pay cut) and we were on a Lufthansa ticket. Fortunately their
subsidiary British Midland Airways wasn’t and we got over to Heathrow unscathed. Plus, the whole place was still in Olympics
mode (despite things being all but finished) and several staff accidentally
smiled. At Heathrow.
We took the underground to South Ken to see
Hugh Stewart and his girlfriend Wendy, and were amused to see someone had
painted over the usual array of “Asians
Out’’ trackside graffiti with an ocean of brown paint. That, plus the sun
shining, made London look the best we’ve seen in decades. Hugh had said ”call
when you get to South Ken’’ but after a muffin and a coffee we realized we didn’t
have his number , so we took a cab instead and surprised them.
They’re in his late mother’s small but
perfectly placed flat just off the King’s Road. Hugh, whose speciality is
striding ahead through crowds then telling you (if you can keep up) where you
are going, suggested a trip over Westminster Bridge on ”Boris Bikes’’ via Parliament
Square. We managed it though it’s hard to sightsee when you’re trying to dodge between
a builder’s truck and a Big Red Bus.
Hugh then persuaded me up a whirly dirly
thing beside the London Eye that had us swinging madly out at 45 degrees, at
about 25 metres or more in the air, and I took nervous photographs while he
chatted casually about celestial navigation. His nerve exceeds mine by a
handsome margin, although Anna stayed on terra firma.
We had a sushi lunch by the Eye (of which
more later) then took a ferry down to The Tower of London. Life got complicated
when Hugh later realised he had left his backpack on the ferry containing his
snappy camera, and Wendy’s purse and iPhone. However some smart work with the “Where’s
My Phone?’’ app allowed Hugh to see on a map of London on his laptop a certain
dot going down the river each time he refreshed it. Even though the ferry
people were pessimistic, he got to the ferry just before it went off for the
night and found the bag entirely intact. He said he only ran two red lights en
route, which we think may be an understatement. He gets about in a boy racer
Audi.
Wendy, who is a joy, made us a lovely Boeuf
Bourguignon and we knocked off a bottle of champagne (that we thought we had
lost in Germany but which turned up under the driver’s seat) to celebrate the
reappearance of the bag.
Saturday dawned fine and after a leisurely
breakfast we bussed (top deck of course) to the London Eye for a glorious trip
round. I had got it confused with Tony Blair’s Dome, which everyone hates, but
this is a deserved commercial success because it gives a fantastic view from
lots of angles at a leisurely pace. And by the way, if you wonder why there are
no old Citroen HY vans in France (the old corrugated iron travelling henhouse)
it’s because they’re all being used as fast food outlets on the South Bank.
Then it was off for the evening’s
entertainment. Hugh had invited a clutch of old St Andrews University friends
and no less than 17 were on the list, us included, for drinks at their place followed
by an Italian dinner down the street.
Most were London locals eg Kieron and Sarah
Lynch, but Jerry Stoke and his wife Phyllida came down from Birmingham, and
Charles Watkins, whom we had just seen in Paris, made it over too. We hadn’t
seen Jonathan Green and his wife Beverley for over 20 years (nor Prudence Lynch
nee Renny) and it was just huge.
Stephen Preston, who is a wonderful guitarist
and singer of funny songs as well as a keen sailor with Hugh & Wendy, took
up the instrument AFTER we left the restaurant and every single guest had gone
back to Hugh & Wendy’s. He and I did a harmony duet of a gloomy old Kris
Kristofferson song call “The Other Side of Nowhere’’ we hadn’t sung together for
at least 25 years, then he sang two much funnier numbers, one being a Morris
Traveller song to the tune of the Beach
Boys’ ”Little Deuce Coupe’’, the
other being a spoof on “”Me and Bobby McGee’’ which I think started “Busted
flat in Stoke Newington’’ or maybe Basingstoke.
Sunday: Anna woke up early, washed up all
the glasses, then did a Skype call with Iona and Laura in Melbourne to
celebrate Laura’s 19th birthday. She brought the laptop in to me to
wake me up and Iona said ”No offence,
Daddy, but you look like a cancer patient’’ after Anna nudged me into singing
Happy Birthday. Not my finest hour.
“I hear you cut loose last night’’, added
Iona with emphasis. It was a joy to talk to them, since both were on great form.
Laura’s going like Steam as imminent vice president of her college and Iona had
just been to the University Winter Games
at Mount Buller, where she took part in the giant slalom, beating six
others, and beat more than half the starters the cross country competition.
Plus she got the loan of a very sharp ski suit!
Wendy had a concert with the London Late
Starters Orchestra where she plays the violin, so Hugh took us off to
Paddington after another leisurely breakfast. We could get used to this. Tim
and Sue Knight had gamely driven up from Bristol for Hugh and Wendy’s bash,
only to have to host us back at home on Sunday.
Sue came to pick us up and take us off to her and Tim’s wonderfully comfortable
house where they’ve lived for the last seven years since she took up a teaching
post there from which she’s just retired at an absurdly early age.
Like many of our friends they have sons and
daughters who have just left home, although their Harry had come back mit nice
Californian girlfriend Kerry-Anne from a surf coaching job in Costa Rica, en
route to another in Hossegor, by Biarritz. Harry’s internet skills allowed us
to watch Andy Murray beat Novak Djokovic for the US open, although there seemed
to be a lot of Arabic writing in one corner of the screen. Anna’s warming
gradually to Murray but he ain’t Roger Federer.
Sue, now a proud Bristolian, showed us lots
of old town, Brunel Bridge over Clifton Gorge, and indeed the Close at Clifton
College where there’s a breathless poetical hush tonight. She noted that the
Wills family, who made their fortune in the triangular trade involving slaves
and tobacco, founded Bristol University when one of their children failed to
make Oxbridge. More on the Wills later.
Tim’s full of cerebral causes like
electoral reform and macroeconomic theory, but also helps out with the
Citizens’ Advice Bureau, perhaps the better to understand the human condition.
He did say that one character pushed an unopened final demand letter towards him
and told him to open it. Tim said, if you can’t find the bottle to open an
envelope you might as well piss off until you do, which sounds like tough love.
On our second day (we do lots of two day
stops, to keep our welcome alive) Sue dropped us at the SS Great Britain, Brunel’s
great ship. I was pleased to notice my Uncle Dick got an honourable mention as
first chairman of the project which brought the world’s first propeller driven
passenger ship back from the Falkland Islands in about 1970.
It’s now a top drawer attraction which is
so well restored in its best known guise as the ship that made 43 return
voyages to Melbourne in the 1860s and 70s, that schoolkids who’ve seen it actually bring their parents along later. To
give you an idea, the doctor’s surgery actually smells of ether and there’s a
back projected rat scurrying around the galley. Much of the attraction comes
from the quirky diary entries they’ve assembled from former passengers, making
thoroughly un-Victorian snarky comments about each other .
Anna found time to get along to a
hairdresser in Clifton and came back a
slightly dazzling blonde but it SHOULD fade. We then set off back to Newbury,
near where old friend Cecilia Lloyd (ex Ingram) lives. It was 12 years since
we’d seen her since when she’s been married again and widowed. To no one’s
surprise, since Hamilton Lloyd was 89 when she married him. And why not. They
had four great years, she says, and she’s all the better for it.
She lives at Litchfield, on an estate owned
by another branch of the Wills family, in a lovely little house where bunnies
and idiot pheasants bounce or strut across the lawn depending on genus. She has
three grown up children Henrietta (whose wedding we attended from Paris in
1989) Toby and Tancred, and around nine grandchildren. So we got all the goss
in one go. It was wonderful to see Cecilia and our visit hopefully buoyed her
up a bit. Lots of hearty meals and worthy walks but also a lovely lunch at the
Cricketers’ Arms at Longparish.
AND we got to Highclere Castle, AKA Downton
Abbey. It was a bit of a challenge not to allow yellow coaches into the photos
we took but we reckon we did pretty well. It’s a Victorian pile in a wondrous
location in a huge estate, actually owned by the family of the Earl of
Carnarvon, who helped Howard Carter find Tutankhamun’s tomb. There were lots of
free plugs for the TV series of course, and mobs of interested visitors from
all around the English speaking world. We gather the family were on their
uppers before the TV series came along. The best room is the hall, with its own
skylight three floors up, but for various reasons no doubt related to commerce
we weren’t allowed to take photos.
AND we also visited Highfield House in
Binley, where Uncle Dick and Aunt Deenagh used to live. It’s about two miles
west of Cecilia’s house.
It’s currently a bit tatty but rented by a
nice lady who engraves glass, so our visit at the very least produced a couple
of belting gift ideas for Cecilia.
Last but not least we climbed an iron age
fort, Beacon Hill, on the Highclere estate and found Carnarvon’s tomb, where he
is reportedly buried with his favourite racehorse. And while we were looking at
that, a Spitfire flew over, with its V12 Merlin engine making a noise like no
other. Perhaps the fact that it’s about four times the power of the average
Cessna is relevant. Meanwhile, you can’t say the Brits don’t do history.
Thanks, Cecilia.
Then it was back to London, this time to
see Avivah Wittenberg and her new man, Tim. She’s a pocket rocket, Swiss Jewish
Canadian leading light in the move to get more women into management jobs,
using the crystal logic that companies which do that will make more money. He
is a sculptor whose hobby is restoring old steam driven boats. They seem to get
on very well in a complementary way.
It turns out they live about half a k from
where we had cycled the previous week with Hugh , just east of Waterloo Station
in a wonderful ex-squat that Tim bought 15 years ago and restored himself, as
an architect manqué.
They gave us a lovely dinner then the next
day Friday we went our separate ways. Avivah and Anna went to the Tate Modern
in the old Bankside power station and I tried and failed to have lunch with
Flora, Hugh Stewart’s daughter and my god-daughter. We were victims of my crap
phone, mostly, but have subsequently exchanged cheery emails.
Things picked up as we went to Hedda Gabler
at the Old Vic theatre, about five minutes’ walk from Tim’s house. He was
pretty pessimistic, noting that Ibsen can be heavy going, but we all enjoyed it
hugely as the script had been adapted by an Irish playwright with a sense of
humour . Serious theatre doesn’t have to be serious and this wasn’t, as Tim
happily conceded afterwards.
Saturday morning saw Anna and me having
brunch with Miranda and Helen Maclean at Borough Market, not far from Tim and
Avivah’s. That was a joy as we had had Helen staying with us in Oz until June and
we hadn’t seen Miranda for three years. Miranda’s got a promising real job
working with a Sloane Ranger tea company in Fulham and Helen’s also looking
like a good chance for a proper job in London based on her time in Oz.
All too soon we were on our way to Gatport
Airwick for a marathon series of flights starting with Frankfurt, then
Johannesburg, then Mauritius. Unless you’re at the front of the plane, and we
weren’t, air travel remains the bane of such adventures.
