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!

 Even though I said at the end of the last dispatch that I expected an uneventful week, I was, as usual, wrong.  While there were no more incidents involving people under trains or unexploded bombs, the days were full and always interesting. 

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.