Weekly Dispatch No. 16: In
Which A Former Student Visits; We Tour The Houses of Parliament and The Royal
Courts; and I Avoid Certain Death!
On Tuesday,
a former student from Christchurch, Stuart Morgan, came from his home in
Clacton-on-Sea for a short visit. The last time I’d seen him, if my memory is
correct, was a couple of summers ago when he and his mother came to Chicago for
a vacation, and they came to St. Charles and spent some time with us. Stuart was a classmate of Doug’s in the class
I taught in 2007, and the two have remained close friends, even spending a
semester together at Illinois State University.
Stuart received his degree from Christchurch and then went on to do
masters’ work at the University of Kent, which is also in Canterbury. He’s in that place where many people his age
find themselves not only here but at home as well: well-educated but
under-employed. Still, he remains optimistic
and has a couple of possible avenues for the future, including going back to
school to continue his post-graduate work. In addition to getting caught up on life
events, we went out to dinner with Doug and Rich to Wetherspoon’s, Britain’s
answer to Applebee’s, and landed in the middle of a birthday celebration for
one of the American students from North Central College in Naperville. After they all—well, after we all—sang “Happy Birthday” quite
loudly, we decided to get out before the night got noisier. The next day, Stuart and I walked up to the
University of Kent, which sits on a hill overlooking the city, where he pointed
out all of the construction and renovation that has taken place the past five
or six years. Like Christchurch, U of K
was also built in the 60s, so there’s an institutional concrete box look to
most of the buildings at both schools, but Christchurch is built right next to
the ruins of St. Augustine’s Abbey, and there are even sections of stone walls on
the campus, which gives it a bit of a connection to the past and counteracts the modern dreariness.
After lunch
on Wednesday, Stuart left for a train ride home—he’s hoping to visit the U.S.
next fall—and I got ready for the class all of our American students are
required to take: Divided By A Common Language.
It used to be called Modern Britain, but this new title and new focus
allows for more comparison of our two countries and seems to have engaged the
students fully. The lecturer, Dr. Martin
Watts, spent 30 years traveling the globe as a sailor/ship captain, and he
sprinkles his lectures with stories—so far all of them are rated PG—from his
travels. By his own admission, he was a
lousy student and hated history—“all of those names and dates and places:
rubbish. Couldn’t stand it”—until he was out in the world and began to wonder
how things got to be where they are. As
a result, his lectures are less names and dates and places and more
thematic. Last week, for example, we
talked about the constitutions of the two nations—we have one; they don’t
really—and it resulted in a good discussion.
That lecture and the upcoming one, on forms of government, are connected
to the field trip we took on Friday to Parliament and the Royal Courts of
Justice. Each field trip, in fact, will
have a more academic grounding than they did when I was here before.
The other
class I’m involved in is The Invention of America, a thematic survey of
American Literature taught by Zalfa Fenghali, who is in her first year at
Christchurch and very excited about the class and about being in
Canterbury. On Tuesday, she introduced
the course—called a module here—to the 50+ students and then divided them into
two seminar groups. One of those groups
met on Thursday with Rich and me to discuss Hector St. John de Crevecoeur’s “Letters
from an American Farmer,” more specifically his letter entitled “What Is An
American?” After introductions, we asked
the students how they would answer that question in this day and age. Their responses were not unexpected—Rich assured
them that neither of us was carrying a gun—but it was a real delight to hear
them talk about their impressions and how they had arrived at them. One of the most interesting observations was
that we are both a very publicly religious country and, at the same time, are
very permissive. A few of the students
had been to the U.S., but none had been to Chicago or the Midwest. Florida, New York, Los Angeles and Houston
had been their various destinations.
When we shifted from their views of America to those of de Crevecoeur,
the discussion was just as lively and the students were just as engaged as they’d
been when they were voicing their own opinions.
They even went back into the text and read passage aloud to support their
points. When I taught a Great Books Honors
seminar at Elgin, that kind of contribution was expected, but it wasn’t the
norm in many literature classes—and it wasn’t that way here in 2007, either—so from
a teaching standpoint, this is a real gift, and I’m looking forward to talking
with them about The Scarlet Letter
this Thursday. I also very much enjoyed
team-teaching, a method that has all but disappeared due to budget constraints
but should never have (how many computer classrooms do we need?) because it
provides students with two perspectives and a chance to watch how those perspectives
can make for a deeper understanding. Too,
Rich is an excellent teacher, which makes the cooperative endeavor even better
and a lot of fun.
I know that
I’ve probably already over-done the 2007-2013 comparison, but I want to do it one
more time. Six years ago, the field trip
to London to the Westminster area was simply a walking tour/photo op for the
students. We saw Big Ben, The Houses of
Parliament, Westminster Abbey, White Hall, The River Thames, but all just in
passing. This time, the trip focused on
two specific places—Parliament and The Royal Courts of Justice—each with a
guided tour. Needless to say, this was a
much improved addition to the curriculum, and yet more evidence of how much the
study abroad program has evolved. One
element of the field trips that has not changed, however, is getting all of the
students to the departure point by the appointed time of departure. On Friday, two arrived at the last minute—one
by car, the other on foot—and their penalty was that they had to sit on the bus
with faculty mentors instead of friends because all of the other seats were
taken.
The Westminster
area of London is the place most visited by tourists, so when we got there, the
place was crawling with people. Our bus
driver realized there was no good place to drop us, so he circled around and
let us off on The Embankment about a quarter-mile or so from where we wanted to
be. We were given our tickets for
admission to The Houses of Parliament and then moved en masse toward Big Ben. A quick digression: twice in
the past 10 years or so, I’ve gone out to Montana with a friend and spent a
week moving cattle (think City Slickers
without the cute calf), and I was reminded on Friday of those experiences as I
tried to herd our group in the right direction.
At times, I’d rather have been going after a stray cow than urging a
camera-wielding student to keep going, though I do understand their wanting to stop
and take in the whole thing. The kids,
not the cows.
Parliament
is housed in what is correctly known as The Palace of Westminster, and it is,
for ceremonial purposes, still a royal palace.
Its daily use, however, is housing the House of Commons and the House of
Lords, Britain’s bicameral governing bodies.
Before we could get into the building, however, we had to go through a
security check just like an airline check without the removal of shoes. Since I’ve gotten here, I’ve dropped a couple
of pounds, so when I took off my belt, I had some concern I would be dropping
my trousers as well, but I held on and re-cinched on the other side. The last visit I had to a House of Parliament
was in Scotland, and that time I nearly got arrested for carrying a pocket
knife. This time I left the knife at home, but
two of the students were carrying pepper spray (why, I don’t know), and they
had to leave that at the entrance with a police officer and were told they
could get it later.
Once we were past the
check point, we entered Westminster Hall, a massive building completed in 1097,
though often repaired and rebuilt over the years, and huddled there waiting for
our tour guide. Because we were such a
large group, we were put into three more manageable packs and assigned a
guide. My group was led by a white-haired
fellow named Howard who told us first that, other than in the vast room in which we
now stood, we could not take pictures. Then we set off. To Howard’s great credit, what he did was not
simply lead us from room to room, chamber to chamber, but, instead, created a
narrative that tied the whole place together.
His story took place on the day each year when the Queen comes to the
Palace of Westminster—the only day she is there during the year—to open the new
session of Parliament. (I eavesdropped
on some of the other nearby touring groups and none were given the same kind of
story we were treated to.) We started at
the doorway where the queen would enter and then mount the steps to a room--lavishly
appointed, as they say, with portraits of monarchy—where the Queen would stop just
long enough to put on her crown before she made her way to the House of Lords
where she would be seated on a throne, a very gold throne, and deliver the “Speech
from the Throne” outlining the year’s goals.
The speech is prepared each year by the Prime Minister and, according to
Howard, the Queen doesn’t even see it until it’s handed to her the day she
reads it to Parliament. Prior to her
reading the speech, though, she has to invite the MPs (Members of Parliament) in the House of Commons—whom
she can see from her throne at the other end of a long corridor—to join the Lords. This invitation is delivered by a black-clad
figure known as the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod. They make their way from their chamber then try
to cram into an already crowded room (there are 830 Lords, though many
are not attendance, and 650 MPs, most of whom are there) to hear what the Queen
has to say.
One of the
two main things that I took away from this tour were that the chambers where
issues are argued and laws are enacted are not large, certainly not comfortably
large. In both Houses, the parties or
coalitions face each other rather than sitting in a semi-circle, as legislators
do in most other countries. I didn’t get
a chance to ask Howard about the story I’d been told that, in the House of
Commons, the two sides are two sword lengths apart, meaning they can’t whack
each other without some effort, I guess.
Anyway, the Lords sit on red leather benches and the MPs sit on green
leather; when asked why the color scheme, Howard just shrugged. Good enough answer.
The other
thing that stuck with me is the amount of pomp and ceremony that accompanies
almost everything connected to the government and royalty in this country. What I described above about the opening of
Parliament is a stripped-down version.
The longer version—which you can read online—includes the delivery of a
hostage from the House of Commons to Buckingham Palace before the Queen makes
her carriage ride to Westminster, apparently and symbolically to ensure her
safe return, along with other scripted actions and reactions—the door to the
House of Commons is slammed in Black Rod’s face when he tries to enter, for example—all of which
have roots sunk deep in the country’s history.
From
Westminster, we made our way along the Thames on what is known as The
Embankment, a manmade promenade that reduced and now holds the north bank of
the river, until we took a left and went up to The Strand to the Royal Courts. The walk took about 30 minutes, which meant
our ravenous band attacked local sandwich shops like marauding Saxons and gobbled
their lunches in the 15 minutes we had before our next tour began. Some were still chewing when we went inside,
through yet another, though less strenuous, security check and then upstairs to
Courtroom 13 where we met with our guides, Brian and Pat, former employees in
the building who were enhancing their pension years by talking to groups like
ours. Again, we were warned not to take
pictures, unless we wanted to visit the dungeon cells in the building’s nether
regions. It was, Brian told us, the only
way to see that part of the place. There
were no takers.
What we
learned from Brian and Pat is that the Royal Courts building is where civil
suits and criminal appeals are heard. In
the complex, which includes adjoining structures, there are 100 courtrooms, 150
judges and 1000 employees. Perhaps because
they know Americans are celebrity watchers, or perhaps they were a little
star-struck themselves, both guides rattled off a list of famous people—Paul McCartney
and Heather Mills, Elton John, George Michaels, Boy George—who had appeared in
the building, usually connected to libel suits they were bringing against a publication
or media outlet. Pat, almost
apologetically, said that when Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones were there
she was appalled at Douglas’ appearance.
“He’s very
short,” she said, “very orange, and he’s had a lot of work done.” She let Zeta-Jones off the hook, explaining that
she, like herself, is from Wales and so gets a pass.
During the
question-answer period that followed the presentation, one student asked, “Why
the wigs?” This followed the donning of
said wigs by three other students to illustrate what happens during a typical
day. Brian’s first answer was, “Because
it’s always been done.” He then went on
to offer some other ideas, the most interesting of which is that the wigs—and the
flowing, ornate robes—were a kind of disguise so that when a judge left the
building, an angry litigant might not recognize him and exact revenge.
At the end
of this field trip, a number of students took advantage of being in London,
close to airports, and took off for the weekend. Three of my group went to Ireland, one headed
up to Yorkshire, and the others went on a bus tour of North Wales. Students from other groups were going to
visit Amsterdam, Germany, and France.
Rich was staying in London before heading to Southampton on Saturday to
go to a football match (a soccer game, to those of us who believe football
requires pads and quick counts), so I stuck around, too, and we went to see The Thirty-Nine Steps, which I’d seen
already but still enjoyed, before I took the train back to Canterbury.
With so
many gone and nothing to worry about, I spent a lazy Saturday reading and
watching television, doing laundry and otherwise occupying myself with mundane
tasks. Ashamed by my sloth, I decided that
on Sunday I would get out and take a proper hike. I’d called to set up a riding lesson next Tuesday
at the stable out on Stodmarsh Road, so I struck out in that direction to see how
long it would take me to walk there. I
wasn’t going to go to the stable—it’s about 3 ½ miles from where I live—but I
figured I’d go most of the way and get a sense of how much time to allow. So, at 10 a.m., off I went, up long, steep St.
Martin’s Hill, then a left onto Stodmarsh Road, surprised as I went at how much
traffic there was on a Sunday morning and how vulnerable I felt on these
shoulderless roads; a couple of times, I had to scramble up a bank and hold on
to a bush to let cars get past without running into each other. I went as far as Moat Lane, then turned left
there so that I could go through Fordwich, the smallest town in Britain, and
then stop at Asda (a Wal-Mart company) to stock up on a few essentials before
going home. Stodmarsh Road was narrow
and a bit frightening, but Moat Lane was outright dangerous. When we’d been there before, Beth and I biked
it, and it didn’t seem quite as risky as it did on foot, though given
the twistiness of the road and the blind turns and dips, we were probably lucky
we didn’t get clipped. I kept going from
one side of the road to the other so that I might be seen. That worked until a couple of cars passed,
and I started to cross to the other side.
A car I did not see coming down the hill and out of the shadows, a car
traveling too fast, by my standards, just about ended my British
adventure. I went up on tiptoe and did
a kind of wild windmill with my arms, and he hit his brakes before hitting
me. I waved, mouthed “Sorry,” and
watched him speed away. The rest of the
walk was much less eventful, but as I came to the end of a tree-lined pathway
and crossed an open field, I came upon a group of young men who had just
finished a game of American football.
They were all standing around their coaches, pulling off helmets and shoulder
pads. I was told that there were a few teams in the area, so I’m going to look into
catching a game. I was able to watch a
bit of the Vikings-Steelers game, and I follow the Bears via play-by-play
streaming text, but I miss the game. Oh
well, I’ll be back in time for the playoffs.
That’s
about it. This coming week, I’ll be
taking a riding lesson and then later Tuesday evening going to the cathedral
for an open house. We take a field trip
to Windsor on Friday where, no doubt, the Queen awaits, so I should have lots to tell
you.
Thanks for
reading.
