The Weekly Dispatch No. 15: In Which Trains Play A Central Part; An Anniversary Is Celebrated; and A Long Overdue Debt Is Paid
 

 As much as I love Britain’s train system, there are times when things go awry, and, suddenly, you are caught in a web of tracks and tunnels and time tables, and there’s nothing you can do about it.  It happened to us in 2007—especially on weekends, when engineering work is done on both the Underground and National Rail lines—and taught us to check ahead of time before we set out on an adventure.  No amount of planning, however, could have prevented what happened last week.

Monday before last, my Missouri counterpart, Rich, and I went into London so that when his wife comes to visit later this month, he’ll know how to navigate the city.  Because I know my way around passably well, and with the only alternative my tagging along with them—which could really take the romance out of a candlelight dinner—it made sense to head up for some reconnoitering.

Since I was last here, they’ve added a fast train service, which means making it to St. Pancras Station in 56 minutes rather than the hour-and-a-half or more it normally takes.  When we arrived, we went to the Underground where Rich bought an Oyster card, a reloadable pass for city subway and bus travel, and took the Tube to Leicester Square, where cheap tickets to theatrical productions are sold, then wandered through Picadilly Circus, down to the National Mall, (a wide, wide street that leads up to Buckingham Palace), up the Mall to the palace (QEII was not home.  See the 2007 Dispatches for my history with the monarch) where we watched a royal band and horse guards apparently rehearsing for something.  The crowd there was heavy, so we snapped a few over-the-head phone photos and walked through St. James Park to White Hall and across to Westminster, where you can see Big Ben, The Houses of Parliament, Westminster Cathedral, the River Thames and the London Eye, all just by turning your head.  From the walkway along the river, I was able to point in the direction of the things most people want to see that aren’t in Westminster: St. Paul’s Cathedral, The Globe Theatre, The Tate Modern Art Museum, The Tower of London, all of which are along the Thames, but out of sight around a big bend.

Thus endeth the lesson.  Rich felt comfortable and confident, so we went underground again and rode the Picadilly Line to South Kensington, where we had a pub lunch, meandered past luxurious homes and a half-dozen or more embassies in this posh part of the city, then got back on the Tube and made our way easily to St. Pancras to pick up the train to Canterbury.

Here’s where things went awry.  As we made our way to the platform, we noticed that the 14:25 to Canterbury was cancelled.  When we asked an attendant about it, she said that we should get on the train leaving shortly for Ashford and transfer there to a train that would take us the rest of the way.  We did what she advised, but when we got to Ashford, we, and hundreds of other passengers, were told that there were no trains running in the direction of Canterbury or beyond because a bomb had been discovered near the station in Ramsgate, and all train travel was temporarily suspended.  Worried a bit by the meaning of “temporarily,” we nevertheless settled in to wait.

As it turns out, the bomb was not a terrorist device, but a World War II relic that had been buried and lay unexploded, for 70 years.  It was removed and taken to Joss Bay—a place we had visited last week on our trip to Broadstairs—and detonated there.  The whole ordeal caused the station to be closed for five hours, an inconvenience for us, but a more traumatic ordeal for school children who normally would catch a train home.  Buses were dispatched to the various affected locations—including Ashford—to alleviate the back-up.  We made a mad dash along with the rest of the stranded to the bus stop outside the station but, alas, we did not get seats.  By the time we had been herded back to the platform, though, a train was waiting to take us to Canterbury, three hours later than we’d planned.

In addition to the bomb, we were told by a couple of rail employees that there had also been a   derailment elsewhere that had had an impact on our travel; in addition, at Sevenoaks, a person had been hit by a train, and in some other location, “staff sickness” had caused a suspension of service.  After hearing all of that, I mentioned that the only thing missing was an attack by Godzilla.

This was also the week that Beth came over to celebrate our anniversary and this, too, has a railroad connection.  When we made arrangements to meet Friday after she flew in, we decided to rendezvous in Rochester, where I would be visiting the castle and cathedral and nearby fort with students.  We figured she could come to the castle and we’d head back to Canterbury from there.  It seemed like a good idea at the time because we had been in Rochester before and remembered it to be a much smaller city than it actually is.  Once this dawned on me, it was too late to change our plan; Beth was already on a train without a British phone, heading my way, and our chances of finding each other seemed rather remote.  I imagined us as a blindfolded trapeze act: one flying through the air, the other reaching out to grab hold; neither of us aware of where the other one was.   I figured my best bet was to get to the train station and hope I’d catch her there.  I didn’t know where the station was, but I went down High Street and saw trains moving a couple of blocks away.  I asked for directions and found myself at the place.   I had just gotten to the platform, when a train from London pulled in.  To my great delight, Beth stepped off, and all my worries disappeared.  It proved to be a good start to a great visit.

Much of our weekend was spent reliving things we had done together six years ago.  First on the list was going to evensong at the cathedral, which, on Friday nights, features the boys’ choir and the most angelic voices you can imagine soaring up to the ceiling a hundred feet overhead.  We also went charity shop shopping, and I now have, thanks to Beth, a décor in my flat.  Before it was white; now it has accent colors and little pillows and a vase with flowers.  It does, I admit, look a lot better and feels homier.  Eating and having a pint at a couple of favorite pubs, retracing walks where we’d gotten lost (and did again), and just taking in the place occupied most of the weekend. 

One exception to our nostalgia tour was Saturday’s trip to the Canterbury Food and Drink Festival held in Dane John Park, a sprawling green space just inside the city wall.  This was not as large as Chicago’s famous Taste of Chicago, of course, but it drew a pretty large crowd, and everyone seemed to be having fun.  We tried a few local delicacies, including wild boar and apple sausage, sweet potato croquettes and the British equivalent of funnel cake—in terms of novelty, anyway—a French-fried, spiral potato on a skewer.  (A note to organizers: ask people to leave their dogs at home.  I saw more than one hunger-crazed pooch lunge for a carelessly dangled sandwich.)  This was clearly an event for the local citizenry rather than the horde of tourists who take over High Street every weekend, and according to our new friends at The Forge restaurant, piqued a lot of interest in places many Canterbury residents had not yet discovered.

We also saw our favorite busker, a gravel-voiced singer named Vince Herron, outside the cathedral gate on Butter Market Square.  I had come upon him last week and was elated.  In 2007, the day before we left for home, we finally worked up the courage to talk with him and told him how much we had enjoyed listening to him over the previous three months.  He thanked us and sang REM’s “Losing My Religion” for us.  Sadly, we had spent most of our British money—and we were prevented from speaking to him after the song by a well-meaning neighbor who steered us away in both conversation and location—so we weren’t able to thank or tip him appropriately.  When I saw him in his customary place, I told him the story and gave him a tip I told him was six years late.  He had only just returned to singing he told me because a homeless man he’d felt sorry for and had given a place to stay had attacked him with a sword, giving him a nasty head wound and injuring one of his hands.  Then he launched into a song of his own, “At the Gates of Heaven.”  It occurred to me later that Vince essentially spends his days at “the gates of heaven,” sitting as he does just outside the cathedral, and that the attack he had suffered was eerily like that of Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was killed by four sword-wielding knights in the cathedral—his death due in large part to a vicious head wound—in 1170.  Thomas was granted sainthood, but I don’t think Vince will be honored the same way, but, given his compassion for his attacker, maybe he should be.

If you want to hear Vince’s song, go to YouTube and type in his name.  It’s worth a listen.

As much as I love this place, it’s even better when Beth is here to share the experience.  The three days went very quickly and, as I write this, Beth is almost back in Chicago where she will, I’m sure, be battling jet lag for a few days.  This weekend abroad idea is way more cosmopolitan they we are, but we agreed that this was our best anniversary to date and will be hard-pressed to top it any time soon. We’ll be enjoying an equally cosmopolitan weekend in Ireland late in October, and then she’ll be back to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Interestingly and thematically enough, as we made our way from the Tube into Heathrow yesterday, there was a hand-lettered sign alerting passengers to a delay because of “a person under a train.”  Mind the gap, people, mind the gap.

 

This week is the first real week of classes for the British students, so I will be put to work, finally.  In addition to leading seminars in conjunction with the American-student-only course on the relationship between Britain and the U.S., “Divided by a Common Language,” I will also be a seminar co-leader, along with Rich, and a one-time lecturer in “The Invention of America,” an American literature class, which will be great fun.  We will also be taking a field trip into London on Friday, so there may be enough to fill my next dispatch with activities, but I also have learned some things about the cathedral that I want to share when there’s room. 

Cheers!

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