London Plus   This entire trip was built, as said, around the week I had chosen for the Transcantábrico trip in northern Spain, along with a day or two before and after. Before that I then added Portugal, including the flight to Lisbon. Afterwards, I found the best date for my usual return to New York on the Queen Mary 2, and had time in between to fill in. Having had enough time in Spain, I decided to spend the time in London, including the first-ever opportunity to sail across the Bay of Biscay.

I had used Eurail’s special Spain-and-Portugal railpass earlier, and found that Britrail issued a number of railpasses, one called the Britrail London Plus Pass. Its seven-day length fit my six-night stay perfectly (one night Chichester, five nights London). It allowed trips out of London in all directions, in a delimited area in southeastern England, up to a distance of an hour or two away. I also bought in advance a seven-day pass for the Underground within central London. These two passes facilitated movement considerably.

I found I’d had pitifully little experience on the British Rail system, little more than between London and Southampton for ship services, the high-speed Eurostar between London and Paris or Brussels, and the special British Pullman service on historic trainsets. Of all of London’s rail stations—and there are many—I’d only used Waterloo and Victoria.

All the day trips by train would be to places we had already seen, but that had been by car, and that would have been way back in 1966, so it was high time for a revisit. On my list, in this order, were Chichester, Brighton, Salisbury, Winchester, Canterbury, Dover, Oxford, Cambridge, and then to Southampton to leave on the QM2.

There was also a show or two I wanted to see, but before I could control myself, I had tickets to four shows for the five nights in London. Fortunately, there are no shows on Sunday night—but in honesty, I had run out of shows I’d wanted to see, anyway.

So what started as fill-in time between Spain and the sailing of the QM2 became a full and integral part of this trip, and an enjoyable one to boot.

Chichester   I can do on a trip as much as I can because of the advanced planning. I’ve traveled extensively in the past in the manner of showing up in a town and only then looking for a room, but that’s a time-waster, and you may end up with something less than desirable. Therefore, I know where I’m staying, have looked up the rail schedules (or road routes when driving) and have a master plan. And yet, there’s still always room for the sudden impulsive addition or subtraction.

However, on this arrival, there were some sudden imponderables. On the Pride of Bilbao I found that the Portsmouth Harbour Rail Station (in addition to Portsmouth Central Station) was not as nearby to where we’d be docking as I’d assumed. The several-hours late arrival at 20:00 (8 PM) made me wonder if I’d be able to get the validating stamp on the Railpass so I could use it. I was concerned if there’d still be adequate train service to relatively nearby Chichester at the later hour, and I’d be arriving in the dark. Finally, I found on the ship that I had a map problem. When visiting a city, I “live” by maps, especially the very clear ones Michelin provides. However, sometimes Michelin tricks you. The description of a city is in the Green Guide (for touring), and usually the corresponding city map will be right there, but sometimes there will be a cross-reference to the Michelin Red Guide (Hotels & Restaurants), which will have the map instead. Five of the cities I’d be visiting had maps in the Red Guide, which I’d neglected to photocopy from my copy at home. Since that copy was several years old anyway, I wanted to buy a new Red Guide for Britain. The point I’m making is that I had a number of anxieties on my arrival in Britain.

Not to worry. The Pride of Bilbao pulled past the modern spiral monument in Portsmouth Harbour as we docked to a setting sun. My taxi driver was quite clever. From where we had docked he said it was closer, not to the two Portsmouth rail stations, but to a smaller, third one up the line just a bit, and he turned on his speakerphone, dialed the rail service, and got the time of the next train from there to Chichester. I couldn’t get the validating stamp for the pass, but the conductor was understanding, and I got the validation on arrival in Chichester. I easily walked to the hotel, and first thing in the morning I found a bookstore for my Red Guide. Everything fell back into place again, bing, bang, boom, and my re-visit to familiar places in England would come about pleasantly and uneventfully.

Chichester is a small, very pleasant town of about 26,000 people southwest of London, and near the coast, and therefore not too far from Portsmouth. I was glad that I had arranged for one night there, before the five nights in London. We had visited Chichester years before when visiting and staying with friends in nearby Haslemere, and I wanted to stop again and see how Chichester looked today.

If you do not know of Chichester, you are most likely mispronouncing the name, since the sound-symbol relationship between the reality of the name and its standard spelling is poor. Beverly and I were mispronouncing it at the time, and I was mortified to find we’d been saying it wrong. The syllable Chi(chester) does NOT rhyme with Chi(na), it rhymes with chi(ck). Saying the name the way everyone else does makes the visit much more pleasant, and at least on this visit I knew “where I was”.

Chichester is a charmer. Although most towns grew up around a cathedral, and Chichester does have a thousand-year old cathedral, that wasn’t the case here, because when the cathedral was built, the town was already a thousand years old, having been founded by the Romans. This is evident in the simple street plan, which helped me find my hotel coming up from the station that evening in the drizzle. The town hasn’t outgrown its ancient core by very much. I walked north from the station just about two blocks to the point where you could tell the old city began, although there are no longer any city walls. The old city is in the form of a circle, and the clever Romans had simply sliced that circular pie into four pieces. I walked up South Street about three blocks to where the illuminated Market Cross indicated that West Street and East Street came in from the sides, then continued north on North Street to my hotel. Although I had remembered this splendidly simple layout from having planned the trip months ago, you didn’t need a map to walk through town. A Market Cross is a one-story stone structure, usually circular, this one Gothic in style and dating from 1501, which you can enter and then sit down on a circular bench to view the scene. They exist in many smaller towns, and I saw several on this trip.

Chichester’s Golden Age was in the 1700’s, and much of its Georgian domestic architecture comes from this period. Months ago I had discovered the Ship Hotel in the Red Guide, which was the Georgian Regency town house of an admiral built during that Golden Age.

The Ship Hotel had another claim to fame. In April 1944 General Eisenhower had visited Chichester for three days while reviewing troops preparing for the D-Day landing. He had arranged for a formal dinner at the Ship Hotel for a large number of officers. His portrait and the seating plan for that dinner are displayed at the hotel.

I got up early the next morning, since I had a full day ahead. Even though the drizzle persisted, while walking through the charming back streets of the town you got a feeling of the cozy atmosphere of the town, with many small cottages in some areas and Georgian townhouses in the area known as the Pallants. The cathedral also seemed just perfect for this small English town.

Brighton   On my second day on the train pass, after seeing Chichester I took the train to the east, to Brighton, the seaside resort on the Channel. Other than London, Brighton was the largest location I visited, at almost 200,000 people. It was still drizzling, but from the station I walked down to the boardwalk to look at the choppy Channel, then walked through the old “lanes” area, the older part of town, with winding streets and interesting alleys, then took a look at the Royal Pavilion, the oriental-looking palace built in the early 1800’s. I just wanted a quick look-see at Brighton, then took the train to London Victoria, in the southwest area of the central city.

The London Underground goes everywhere, with its many lines crossing each other at interchange stations. Most of it is notoriously deep underground, with long escalators reaching to the stations down below. It’s called “the Underground” and also “the tube”. It is in no way called a metro or subway. [The word “tube” has only rarely been used in New York. The subway service to New Jersey near where I live, now known as PATH (Port-Authority Trans-Hudson), when it used to still be private was referred to as the Hudson Tubes.]

Do realize differences between Americanisms and Briticisms. Sometimes intersecting stations have a longish walk between them. For instance, I would often change at the Green Park station from the Piccadilly line, and there would be a sign saying “Subway to Jubilee Line”. The inexperienced would be taken aback by that statement thinking “A subway to a subway”, but of course “subway” is used to mean “pedestrian walkway”; understanding this, the sign makes sense.

I’ve stayed at many hotels around London, and this time I had found the Knightsbridge Hotel in the street called Beaufort Gardens, just off the Brompton Road. This area is in “The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea”, as the street signs say, south of Hyde Park and west of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Belgravia, and Victoria Station. The Piccadilly line let me off at the Knightsbridge Station right at Harrod’s on Brompton Road, where I walked a short distance past Harrod’s to Beaufort Gardens. This is a quiet, treed cul-de-sac of perhaps 23 tall townhouses facing 23 more across the garden area. There are now three different hotels in some of these townhouses, and the Knightsbridge was accommodated in three of the buildings. Michelin gives it two roofs-red, the red symbol again signifying particular charm.

That same afternoon I went to Southwark at the south end of London Bridge, described separately later, and in the evening to my first show, ditto, so it was a long, busy, but enjoyable day.

Salisbury & Winchester   I had come to London from the south, from Chichester and Brighton, and my third rail day took me to the west. I went to Waterloo Station, the only major station on the south bank of the Thames, and left for Salisbury (SAWLZ.bri).

Brighton, at close to 200,000, was, again, the only larger city visited on these outings. Salisbury and Winchester, and later Canterbury and Dover, are all really relatively small towns with populations in the mid-30,000’s, somewhat bigger than Chichester. But Oxford (119,000) and Cambridge (95,000) though, are quite a bit larger, at three to four times their size. Yet all were quite walkable, including from the station.

Salisbury lies on the Avon. Its famous cathedral is quite visible from a distance, but it was very pleasant walking through the medieval streets with half-timbered houses dating from the 14C to the 17C. Its market cross is 15C, hexagonal, and is called the Poultry Cross, another type of reference to market activities that used to take place nearby.

Back on the train, a change at Basingstoke, and I arrived at Winchester, also famous for its cathedral. Its High Street (Main Street) was a pedestrian area, also with medieval houses, and included the market cross known as the Butter Cross.

There was one particularly pleasant experience. The Great Hall was the only surviving part of the castle, and was at the head of the High Street. It had been built in 1222-1236 and is 34 meters/110 feet long, and otherwise 17 meters/55 feet square. It’s a great example of a medieval hall, with a timber roof supported by marble columns. On a wall is the Round Table, 5 meters/18 feet in diameter, supposedly from King Arthur’s time. Beverly’s diary reminded me that we had seen this, although I didn’t remember it too well. As I approached the Great Hall I could see that it was closed to change exhibits, but the woman in charge called me over and, after we chatted a bit, asked if I’d like to peek in, which I did, free of charge. I told her we’d been here in 1966, and we talked while I gawked at the height of the hall and the size of the Round Table. Her being so nice was one of those special experiences that one can have while traveling.

That evening back in London I saw my second show.

Canterbury & Dover   My fourth rail day took me east to Canterbury and Dover, and I’d like to explain the starting point of the route a bit in detail. The south side of the Thames, Southwark, has traditionally been the “other place”, the place no one cared about, often used as a sort of dumping ground. When railroads and stations were being built, access was wanted to a number of points on the more important north bank, in and near London’s City. Three stations were built on the very, very edge of the north bank, backing out on bridges across to the south bank, where a viaduct carried traffic toward the east, a bit inland from the water’s edge. Fortunately the viaduct is not as intrusive on the neighborhood as you’d imagine, but it never, never would have been built on the north side of the river.

My train to Canterbury started at Charing Cross Station on the north side and immediately crossed the Thames. It stopped at Waterloo East, where I got on (coming home I went back all the way to Charing Cross). Waterloo East has pedestrian bridges to the major Waterloo Station a few feet away. The viaduct continues going east in Southwark, picking up traffic coming from Blackfriars Station on the other side over a bridge, then from Cannon Street station doing the same. Finally, leaving town, it passes, but does not stop at, London Bridge Station at the south side of London Bridge. This point is significant for later discussion.

Arriving in Canterbury, the cathedral again stands out over the rooftops. Again, it’s the charming medieval streets and rather large remnant of the city wall that impress. Walking to the small river and over a bridge, it was the quiet and pleasant Greyfriars Park, remnant of the grounds of a monastery, that offered a tranquil respite.

Watling Street is the curious name for the Roman road that cut across England, and then connected London, via Canterbury, to Dover, for connections to the Continent, even back in Roman times. I walked to the part of Canterbury where the local city street was actually named Watling Street, so I knew I was on historic ground. Beyond the city wall it’s now called Old Dover Road, so you can see you’re on the right track. I thought it odd that going west, after it crosses a main street, but still within town, it has the prosaic name of Beercart Lane. Don’t those people living on Beercart Lane realize what they’re missing by avoiding such a historic name? Well, I suppose not.

I continued by train to the coast to Dover. Dover was never a big attraction, and its center was destroyed in WWII, but coming from the station on the west side of town you immediately see the huge castle impressively perched on the hills on the east side. It’s then a short walk to the park on the harbour. It was sunny, but the Channel was fogged in, so you couldn’t see out to the water or over to France. But all you needed to do was look below the castle on its water side and there they were—the White Cliffs of Dover. They never fail to impress. I recalled leaving Hamburg last summer on the QM2, and, with views of France, as we sailed past Dover, you could see the city lights, but it was too dark to see the cliffs, I thought to myself that I’d be back next year. Well, 46 days less than a year later, here I sat looking at those chalk cliffs from the land side.

Before Britannia was the image representing Britain, the name Albion was used. The word Albion was Celtic, or even may have had an older Indo-European base, but when the Romans encountered the name, they took it to be based on the Latin word albus, which means “white”. Since Roman traffic would arrive across the narrowest water crossing from the Continent, the Straits of Dover, they further took this white reference to mean specifically the White Cliffs that greeted them, so Albion became associated with all of Britain, since this whiteness was the first thing one saw. In a sense, Albion was the White Land—and all because of the White Cliffs of Dover.

My third London show followed, back in London.

Oxford   The fifth rail day was devoted entirely to Oxford. The rail stations arrayed across the north side of London from west to east are Paddington, Marylebone (MÆ.ri.bin, a minor station), Euston, Saint Pancras/Kings Cross (technically two stations, but right next to each other), Liverpool Street, and Fenchurch Street (another minor station). Oxford lying to the northwest, trains there left from Paddington (I’ll have a comment about Paddington in the section on theaters).

Both Oxford, the oldest British university (ca 1200), and Cambridge, the second oldest (ca 1209) are different from other British universities, which are more unified entities. Oxford and Cambridge, however, remain as a multitude of semi-independent and semi-autonomous colleges, each unified under the university name. I counted 19 colleges on my map. In each case, it’s the university that confers degrees for study within one of its constituent colleges. Oxford lies on the upper Thames.

The colleges that comprise both Oxford and Cambridge are interwoven into the fabric of the city. Most of the stone college buildings are from the 1500’s and are golden in color, adding to the atmosphere. Some colleges are very large, some are small. Christ Church College is Oxford’s biggest and grandest Renaissance college. It’s toward the south end of town (though everything’s just a few steps away), and has a large park around it for pleasant strolling. Queen’s College is in the High Street; Magdalen (MAWD.lin) is at the east end of the High Street. Each college has an entrance next to which there is a porter’s lodge. Some colleges charge entrance fees, others simply state “No Visitors Today”. Merton College was, however open to visitors (the outside only), so I was able to wander through a couple of its quads. The oldest is Mob Quad (13C), a very small, peaceful square with the residence building surrounding it on four sides. I also saw the famous Bodelian Library and Ashmolean Museum. Also, in the streets of Oxford, intermingled with the weekend visitors, you could see people from the university wearing shorter versions of academic gowns, some holding caps in their hands.

Just a minor piece of trivia: I stopped into a bookstore, which had a table arraying books on the subject of comedy. I remember seeing a few books by Joyce Grenfell, and others, and then I saw a book about Laurel and Hardy. Although no specific reference was made to it, I couldn’t help remembering their droll comedy called “Two Chumps at Oxford”, of fond memory.

It had been a pleasant, sunny Saturday in Oxford. That evening in London I saw my fourth and final play.

Cambridge   The next day, Sunday, was just as pleasant and sunny in Cambridge for my sixth rail day, although at first I thought I was going to have trouble getting there. Cambridge lies to the northeast of London, and my online train schedule research showed access to Cambridge from King’s Cross Station. However, when I got there, there was weekend construction on the line, and the last part of the trip would be a transfer from train to bus. I had no wish on a train day to take a LTBfHell in a repeat of Spain, but the woman at the information desk said I could get a direct connection from Liverpool Street Station, since that line wasn’t being worked on, so off I went. Again, I’d never traveled from any of these stations, so each one was a new adventure.

But I had time at Liverpool Street for a bit of nostalgia. The Great Eastern Hotel, a Victorian railstation hotel that was recently refurbished into a posh, luxury establishment, is directly adjacent to the station. It was the hotel where, in 2004 passing through London for one night on the way to Southampton, Beverly and I had our last dinner together in the hotel restaurant, and spent our last night together in the same room, before boarding the QM2 the next day, where she went straight to the ship’s hospital. Having a few moments, I popped into the hotel lobby again and peeked into the restaurant for old times’ sake.

Both Cambridge and Oxford are larger than most of the other places I’d been visiting, but were still quite walkable. On the way into town there was another park area, similar to the one in Oxford, but on the far side a cricket game was in progress. The view seemed quintessentially English. I counted 13 colleges on my map, but there could be more.

The major colleges, and presumably the oldest, are concentrated to the west of the north-south main street: Saint John’s, Trinity, King’s (with its large, very famous chapel), and more, each with their large open internal courts and quads. But the best thing about Cambridge is “The Backs”.

The Backs lie, quite logically, behind this row of colleges to the west of the main street. You hunt for the narrow side street between colleges, come to a bridge over the Cam River (hence the name Cambridge) and are in a large parkland. Not only do The Backs of the college buildings have narrow lawns on their side of the river, on the other side are even larger lawns, which were being enjoyed by a lot of people on a Sunday afternoon. I found a place to sit across the river next to another bridge and watched the fun.

There are two levels of fun, both regarding punts. A punt reminds one of a gondola, except that it’s quite flat and nowhere nearly as gracefully shaped. A punt is powered by someone standing at the back and not using an oar as with a gondola, but instead by pushing a pole in the mud at the bottom of the river. The first level of fun is just watching those people on the river who’ve hired a “chauffered” punt, usually powered by a student, usually male, sometimes female. These punts glide gracefully along the Cam, and under the low stone bridges that cross it. The river is not particularly wide, perhaps ten meters/yards across, maybe a bit more, so that people on the bridges or at the edge of the lawns are quite intimately associated with the action on the river.

The second level of fun involves those people who have decided to hire a boat to go punting on their own. It should not surprise anyone, considering the situation, that this group of punters is heavily male. You can tell these punts, since they end up operating more like bumper cars at a carnival. As nice as it is watching the graceful action of the experienced punters, these are of course more fun. Many manage quite well moving their friends along the Cam. And then there are others.

One guy was coming toward the bridge I was on and the corner of his punt was tapped by a punt going in the other direction. This tap effectively stopped his punt and the people seated in it from further forward movement. However, in his standing position, it did not stop him from further forward movement, and into the Cam he went. He climbed back onto the punt to applause.

I saw at least two guys panic. Why panic? Say you’re holding a very long pole in your hands, and it’s the only way you’re going to move forward. Then you come to the low-arched bridge (where I was sitting) where you’re going to have to duck down if you’re standing in the back of the punt. However, you have to plan to lower the pole first in front of you as you duck down. Not everyone does this. When the pole starts touching the bridge as the punt moves under it, the noble punter then tries pulling it out of the water, then it’s too long to fit sideways, and—more fun.

The mud problem results either in a panicked look, or a forlorn look. Picture the punter who’s made it under the bridge, then, to move on, gives a strong shove of the pole against the river bottom, so that the pole sticks in the mud. Result: panicked look, until some other experienced punter shouts to twist the pole, which then releases, and cancels out the panicked look. But shortly afterward another bold punter is not as lucky, and he, his party, and his punt continue to glide down the Cam, but with his pole receding ever further behind him, sticking up out of the water at a defiant 45° angle, happily stuck in the mud. This results in a forlorn look on our erstwhile bold punter’s face. And the fun just goes on and on.

An odd coincidence: with all the visitors to Cambridge on a Sunday afternoon, as I was leaving, and was resting on a bench way across town along the road on the way back to the station, who should walk by but young Mr Fall-in-the-Water and his party, who by now looked relatively dry. “You fell in the water!” I shouted out to him, and we all had a good laugh talking about it.

With no show on Sunday evening, I was finally able to get online to send the Series about Spain that I’d completed on the Pride of Bilbao a week earlier. Then on Monday, the seventh and final railpass day, I took the train from Waterloo to Southampton Central to get a taxi to the docks to board the Queen Mary 2, bound for New York.

London Theater   In planning London, I at first figured that all the day trips would fill my time. But then there was one show I’d been planning for several years. Then there was another, and checking online what was playing, I found I had four I wanted to see. I’ve maybe only once seen two shows two days in a row in New York. In London we saw two in 2002, My Fair Lady and the Mikado (Reflections 2002 Series 5). But now I’d be seeing four. It worked out very well, especially since I was able to nap in the trains each day coming back into town. I had bought all four tickets online, for pickup at the box office, although for one show they ended up mailing the tickets to New York in advance anyway.

The different theater terminology is worth pointing out. Between acts Americans have an intermission; in the UK it’s an interval. In the US people sitting upstairs are in the balcony, sometimes the mezzanine with the balcony behind it. In the UK it’s mostly the Dress Circle, Grand Circle, or Upper Circle, although on occasion the word “balcony” might be used. As far as I know, the only places in New York where an upper level is called a Dress Circle is an opera house or concert hall.

But it’s where the people sitting downstairs are that’s of particular interest. While in the US they’re in the orchestra, in the UK, they’re in the stalls, a word that provokes smiles from Americans visiting London.

But before we laugh at the word “stalls”, why don’t we try laughing at the word “orchestra”, since what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The lower area is apparently called that because the orchestra traditionally sits between the stage and this seating area. However, now most orchestras are down in a pit below the stage, but let’s not worry about that detail. Still, if a person is sitting “in the orchestra” of a theater, shouldn’t he expect to have a tuba on one side of him and a cello on the other? The point is, of course, that, as long as a term is familiar, you don’t notice the absurdity inherent in its derivation.

But if the reason for using the word “orchestra” tends to be obvious, let’s try to think through why you might call that area the stalls. [Note that the word here is always plural: you say “I’m sitting in the stalls”. If you said “I’m sitting in a stall”, even Londoners would fall out of their seats laughing.]

A stall is a small, enclosed area, which is why the first meaning that comes to mind is a place you keep a horse or other animals. But then let’s expand that small, enclosed area to include a vendor’s market stall, or, better yet, a shower stall. All of a sudden you have a stall for people. Let’s expand that small, enclosed area for people to one where they may sit down, by considering a row of choir stalls in a church, especially the traditional kind, elaborately decorated, with choir members sitting in rows, each individual stall partially enclosed on the sides and back. Now let’s mentally move these choir stalls from the performance area of a public venue to the spectator area, perhaps in the form of partially enclosed pews, which is presumably how the transfer of the word came at one point in time. Today each spectator no longer sits in a partially enclosed stall, but in a regular theater seat, yet the name “stalls” persists.

Billy Elliot   I was taken, as were many others a few years ago, by the power of the film “Billy Elliot”. Billy is a 12-year-old living in Durham (sounds like Durrum) County in the very north of England. It’s a poor mining area, and the miners are on strike. (It might help to get the proper image to visualize mining areas in West Virginia or elsewhere in Appalachia.) His mother has died, and his father’s sense of adding to Billy’s education involves scrimping a few pennies together to send him for weekly boxing lessons. After a boxing lesson one day he hangs around to see a woman (Julie Walters) teaching some 6-8 young girls ballet. Before long, Billy has become interested in dance and starts using his weekly boxing money to pay for ballet lessons instead.

This is the film where Billy and the teacher go for a ride over what I later found out to be the transporter bridge in Middlesborough in the north of England, which started my quest to cross, or at least see, as many transporter bridges as possible (transporter bridge in Newport, Wales; Schwebefähre on the Kiel Canal, puente colgante in Bilbao).

Billy and his teacher want him to apply to the Royal Ballet School in London, the father finds out and is furious—and the plot thickens. But of course you can guess the ending.

A film such as this won such universal appeal because of its theme that the artistic spirit will burst through adversity. It was one of Britain’s most successful films ever. It should not surprise that it was Sir Elton John, whose own life apparently involved similar themes, was the one who reunited the team behind the film and wrote the music for “Billy Elliot-The Musical”. (It should be noted that, as I have stated, the art form of the musical started out as an American art form, but has highly successfully transferred to stages elsewhere, especially London, works by people such as Andrew Lloyd Webber being some obvious examples.)

This musical opened in London on 11 May 2005, and was heavily covered in the New York Times, especially the interviews of the many boys auditioning to play Billy and his friend Michael. Online information appearing in a London theatrical website gave this very interesting information: “In a case of life/imitating art/imitating life, the boys who play Billy and his best friend came from over 3000 who attended open additions, trying to realize their dream of performing in the West End. As a result, those who auditioned successfully and those who will replace them are trained in the newly opened Billy Elliot School, the only multi-discipline school of its kind in the North of England.”

This West End show was not playing in what I would consider the traditional West End, the area around Covent Garden and Leicester Square. Instead it was playing further west, in the Victoria Palace Theatre opposite Victoria Station, which had a beautifully Victorian-Baroque interior.

Elton John had made some changes to the story, but not significant ones. Musical numbers involving the miners and the police opposing them were worked abstractly into the daily fabric of the kids learning ballet. In the film, Michael is revealed as a developing cross-dresser, but it’s only a minor point, primarily made to show that Michael might have gay tendencies, but that wasn’t necessarily the case with Billy, just because he was a boy interested in ballet. Those two issues remain in the musical, but this being Elton John, the cross-dressing point is extended. Michael gets Billy to dress up just for the fun of it, and then there’s an entire number of headless giant dresses dancing around the boys on the stage.

This show eats up talent at a prodigious rate. There are posters in the lobby of who played Billy at different times since 2005. I believe I recall reading that even now, they rotate different Billys at different performances, since the role is so demanding. The 12-year-old I saw was Travis Yates, and he could be the most talented person I’ve seen in a long time. (Either that, or the Billy Elliot School is doing an excellent job—or both.) In the earlier scenes he properly stumbled when trying to do steps to demonstrate that Billy was learning, but when he got going, he was unbelievable. When fooling around with other kids he could tease them with an impressive shoulder-shimmy, or do a Jimmy-Durante-type Hot-cha! Where tap dancing was called for, he was great. But of course it’s all about ballet here. The most amazing scene is about half-way through the show, when Billy has a dream sequence of him appearing next to, then actually dancing with, his future self. The music is from Swan Lake, and Young Billy is doing in his spotlight exactly what Adult Billy is doing in his. This includes doing ballet steps while keeping a kitchen chair twirling on one of its legs with one hand. Then Adult Billy picks up Young Billy to dance together, and they pull a cute trick. Holding hands, Adult Billy starts spinning Young Billy around him in a circle, and then Young Billy goes flying off into space. The audience hadn’t noticed when the cable was attached to Young Billy’s harness, and off he goes like Mary Martin in Peter Pan. He ascends to the top of the theater, spinning like a helicopter rotor, then comes down and is faultlessly caught in mid-air by Adult Billy to continue their dance. This is theater on another level.

I recall two shows that have done similar “fun” finales. A few years ago we saw the revival of “The Music Man” with Craig Bierko (who lately has been appearing on “Boston Legal” on TV). It’s the flim-flam man who tries to convince the kids in an Iowa town that they can play musical instruments, and includes the famous “76 Trombones”. After their curtain call, the whole cast appears on stage in band uniforms with trombone in hand, no matter what role they had been playing, and every last one squeaks out on the trombone, for better or for worse, a version of “76 Trombones”. It’s a matter of the show being over and the cast having fun with the audience.

A similar thing happens in “Billy Elliot”. After the curtain calls, the whole cast gets back on stage and starts doing a tap dance, miners, police, little ballet girls in pink tutus, everyone. Then, this being gender-bending Elton John, every one of them starts putting on a pink tutu outside their regular outfit. Finally, Billy looks around him, grabs a tutu, and puts it on as well. It’s a great way to end a show, with the cast just having that much more fun with the audience.

Dirty Dancing   This 1987 film was set at a Catskills resort in the early 1960’s, which a family, including a daughter still called “Baby”, played by Jennifer Grey (daughter of Cabaret Emcee Joel Grey), visits for the season. Baby gets involved with the dancers at the resort, including Johnny (Patrick Swayze), whose style of dancing among themselves differs from the mambos and sambas played by the hotel band. Baby learns this “dirty dancing”, but is never quite able to execute The Lift, where she runs forward and leaps to be grabbed and lifted above Johnny’s head, the two of them forming a perfect letter “T”. Of course, her father, memorably played by the late Jerry Orbach, tries to keep the two apart.

When I saw online that Dirty Dancing was now a musical, I had to add it to my list. It was a curious coincidence that I would be seeing two musicals dealing with dancing. It was playing at the Aldwych Theatre, quite near Covent Garden, where it opened just a few months ago, on 24 October 2006.

Note these interesting routes shows have been taking to either Broadway or the West End or both. Jersey Boys started at the La Jolla Playhouse in California and came to Broadway. It will surely go on to the West End. The Drowsy Chaperone came from Toronto to Broadway, and is now in the West End, notably with Elaine Paige in the title role (which is nevertheless not a major role). Billy Elliot started in London, but I hear it’s going to New York before long. So, joining this company is Dirty Dancing, which opened in Australia in 2005, where it broke records, and is now in London. It can’t be too long till it’s on Broadway.

All the film song hits are included in the show, notably “Time of MY Life”, plus others that have been added. I was wondering if the locale would have been changed, but no, the time and place are as in the film, and all the actors speak with American accents. I listened carefully—more carefully than most people would—and I heard exactly two very minor slip-ups. One actor pronounced “anything” in the British way as anathing, but others said the word in the American way; one actor said the town of New Paltz with “Pal-” as pæl, but others said it correctly as Pawlts. Of course, there could have been a number of Americans in the cast, but I suspect the majority would have been either Australian or British.

The music and dancing are good. I had been curious from the beginning how they would do The Lift that Baby supposedly hadn’t been able to manage, but in the climactic scene she dashes across the stage from the left and WHOOSH flies up spectacularly above Johnny as he lifts her to form that perfect T, to wild applause. It’s not a terribly deep show, but a lot of fun.

Equus   On my second and fourth nights I saw two straight plays. Equus (EK.wuss) is the Latin word for “horse”, as in “equine” or “equestrian”. It’s the story, by Peter Schaffer, of Alan Strang, a troubled teenager, who, while working with horses in a stable, in a violent episode one night harms them seriously. Martin Dysart is the psychiatrist who, during the course of the play, analyses him as to the reasons behind this violent episode, which he eventually discovers. The end result, however, is that we all have our personal demons, even the psychiatrist himself. Equus is also known for having a nude scene that lasts for perhaps ten minutes. It turns out to be the scene involving the violence with horses, is fully integral to the meaning of the play, and is not at all, or at most minimally, erotic.

Three decades ago it came from London to New York, where it played from 1974 to 1977, and where we saw it. Alan Strang was played by Peter Firth, and Martin Dysart by Anthony Hopkins. The film came out in 1977, with Peter Firth again, but with Richard Burton as the psychiatrist, so there had been some heavy hitters in these roles.

This production had just opened earlier this year on 27 February 2007 at the Gielgud Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue very near Piccadilly Circus. Richard Griffiths played the psychiatrist. I had just seen him last spring in New York where he was the teacher in the very well-received “History Boys”, and had received the 2005 Olivier Award for his appearance earlier in the London production.

Everyone knows who played Alan Strang, and if you don’t recall right now, you will in a moment. When I was in Mexico City in January I picked up the Spanish-language newspaper delivered to my room and read that “Harry Potter” was now to go nude. In other words, Daniel Radcliffe, now 17, who has been playing Harry Potter in the films, was to play Alan Strang in Equus in London, which does of course include the nude scene. All reports were that he was doing an excellent job of it.

And that is very true. It’s a meaty role, and Radcliffe was totally up to it. He was absolutely convincing every moment he was on stage. His part was so good, and he managed it so well, that I might have to say I enjoyed him just a bit more than Richard Griffiths, who was also outstanding. However, the very clever line that one London reviewer wrote was that there’d be many people who’d come to see Equus just to see “Harry Potter’s magic wand”, a line that I got to use quite a bit. Be that as it may, Radcliffe was very good and I hope he and Griffiths reprise their roles when it comes to New York.

It’s vital to explain how they did the horses. The stage was set in a semi-circle, with most action on a central platform, set with four rectangular boxes. Everything was black, and the boxes served now as a desk, now as a bed, or as needed. The semi-circular back wall was, as needed, six openings to horses’ stalls. (There has to be some irony here somewhere about there being horses’ stalls on the stage and the downstairs audience also sitting in the stalls.)

The six actors playing the horses were in dark tights. Each wore a horse’s head of shiny stainless-steel wire mesh, and also stood on hooves of wire mesh, maybe four inches high. As they moved, very gracefully, it took only the slightest bit of imagination to see them as the front ends of horses.

When ordering the seats online, one choice was to have on-stage seating. I couldn’t imagine how that would work, and when I got there, what they had done was something I’d never seen before. At best I had imagined seats on the sides of the stage, as is sometimes done in concerts, but in a play that would have been disruptive. What they had was two semicircular rows of seats above the stables in the back, way at the top of the stage, and behind the action, facing the audience. It was like adapting a standard proscenium stage to a sort of theater-in-the-round. However, little to none of the onstage action favored a view from the back, and only during the curtain calls did the actors face toward the back for a bow.

The Mousetrap   This is the play that’s been on my to-do list since the time a few years ago when we saw My Fair Lady and the Mikado. But it turned out that that entire day would be my “Agatha Christie day”. It was, by pure coincidence the very same day that I went to Oxford, and left from Paddington Station, a place, and particularly a name, that has always intrigued me.

In 1957, Agatha Christie wrote the mystery “4:50 from Paddington”, where Mrs McGillicuddy sits down in a train leaving Paddington, and, as the train pulls out, she glances to another train pulling out on the next track, but at a different speed. As one of the other train’s windows passes her, she witnesses a murder in the other train. Of course, when she reports it, no trace of such a thing happening can be found, so, naturally, Mrs McGillicuddy ends up turning to Miss Marple. I’ve always liked the concept of looking between trains, since each train is a microcosm of life totally cut off from the other, which is so close, yet so far. Unfortunately when “4:50 from Paddington” was published in the US, perhaps the publishers thought US readers wouldn’t know what Paddington was or what the title referred to, so, as often happens with Agatha Christie books, it was published in the US with a different title, “What Mrs McGillicuddy Saw”, which to me is a much weaker title.

Then, by coincidence, the Paddington day was the same day I went to see her murder-mystery play The Mousetrap again after over four decades.

In the late 1940’s Agatha Christie wrote a short radio play in honour of Queen Mary. This then became a short story, and then a play based on the short story. In West Street there are two small theaters almost next to each other, separated only by a narrow pedestrian street, the Ambassador’s and the Saint Martin’s. On 25 November 1952, The Mousetrap opened at the Ambassador’s, and kept on running, and running. Beverly and I saw it there on 30 August 1966, and Beverly wrote in her travel diary the amazing fact that this play had been “running for 14 years”, which was an amazing feat. But it didn’t stop. On 25 March 1974 it moved next door to the Saint Martin’s Theatre, where on 16 December 2000 it gave its 20,000 performance, and where, on 2 June 2007, I saw it for the second time in 41 years (less about three months). The neon sign above the Saint Martin’s marquis proclaims: “55th Year”. It is, of course, the longest running play in the world.

The Saint Martin’s is a petite theater very well suited for such a long-running play. I had forgotten what it was about, even that it took place in an isolated country house cut off by a snowstorm. Someone had been killed earlier, and someone else during the course of the action. But whodunnit? Well, the only problem was that, as the action progressed, even after all those years it did come back to me just who had “dun” it, so I wasn’t as surprised at the twist as I’d have liked to have been, but nevertheless, seeing the show again after all that time was an experience. During the curtain call, one character stops the applause and asks that the audience keep the secret of whodunnit from future generations of theatergoers, so—mum’s the word.

I did read that, to keep the acting fresh, the cast is changed once a year, usually in November. I also remember reading that the royalties for this particular work were given to her nephew, which, by chance, turned out to be a real windfall for him. In addition, the story is not to be published until after the play’s West End run, and any film version has to wait six months after that run, so it’s amusing to thing of the people holding those rights waiting, and waiting, and waiting. I don’t know if it’s the Christie estate that holds those subsequent rights, or said nephew.

The Mousetrap has become a London institution. Posted outside the theater is part of a review that says: “The Mousetrap is to the West End theatre what the ravens are to the Tower of London. Its disappearance would impoverish us.”

Southwark   Dr Samuel Johnson’s biographer Boswell lived in Scotland, but did enjoy his periodic visits to London. Yet he apparently was concerned that if he were to actually live in London full time, he would soon tire of the big city. This concern is what elicited from Dr Johnson in 1777 one of his most famous quotes:

Amen. However, in fairness, such a quote should be considered metaphorical, since it would apply to any large city with much to do and see, certainly including New York, Paris, and others.

Southwark is a part of London that I had only visited fleetingly, primarily to drive past with Beverly the reconstructed Globe Theatre and little more. Actually, with so much else to see and do, Southwark would not be on top of anyone’s list. But I had already seen most of other things I had wanted to see, and with an impending revisit to Canterbury, I wanted to find the site of the Tabard Inn, so I had scheduled time to cross the river, and was very pleased with what I found.

If you don’t already know how to pronounce the name, the spelling will not help you. Say “mother” with a K on the end: motherk, and that will rhyme with Southwark. Perhaps I can try to re-spell it as Sutherk. At least the standard spelling does show you it lies to the south of the City of London (the old city), and takes its name from the defenses (bulwark) at the south end of the bridge. Of course, today, it’s no longer on the edge of town but right in the center of things.

To understand where Southwark is, and why it’s there, the first question to ask is: why is London where IT is? Why is it as far upstream on the Thames as it is, and not at the end of the river at the Channel, just as New York is at the end of the Hudson? Also, since the river flows generally in a west-to-east direction in the center city, why is London on the north bank, leaving Southwark to face it on the south bank?

The answer I’ll give is slightly inaccurate, but easy to remember. I’ll refine it in a moment. London is where it is because London Bridge is where IT is.

The Thames estuary is as tidal as the Hudson estuary is. Just as I regularly watch the tide come upstream on the Hudson before flowing back downstream later, so does the tide come upstream on the Thames, even to the center of today’s London. However, there is a point where the river narrows enough to form a natural crossing point, the first particularly easy crossing point up from the mouth of the river.

Note how it’s southeastern England that’s closest to the continent, and how the areas south of the Thames have historically been the ones likely to have more of the ancient commercial traffic wanting to go north. The wider, lower Thames was more of a barrier, and this traffic naturally would work its way further upstream to the easier crossing point at where London eventually developed. In prehistoric times, in Celtic times, in Roman times, boatmen would use his point to cross the Thames and continue north. As London developed, eventually this crossing point was replaced by London Bridge, a bridge that has been replaced many times over the centuries. In most of its manifestations, London Bridge has been the simple crossing it is today, although at one point, it had buildings along both its sides poised above the water, much like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence does to this day. (Do not confuse the Victorian Tower Bridge further downstream with London Bridge. Tower Bridge is visually the more famous because of its style and height; London Bridge is the historically far more significant bridge, even to the point of having become part of a nursery rhyme.)

So to rephrase my initial statement: London is where it is because it’s the first easy crossing point on the Thames, this crossing point eventually having been spanned by London Bridge, as it is to this day.

But that only answers the first point. London Bridge connects the historic City of London on the north bank with Southwark on the south bank. But why not the other way around? Why didn’t the City of London develop on the south bank, where it could receive all the ancient commercial traffic from the Continent in the first place before it crossed the river, perhaps to some spot on the other side called Northwark instead?

The area is relatively flat. There are two hills on the north side of this crossing point, which offered a defensive position. The Celtic, later the Roman, later the medieval city developed around these two hills. They are still there. One is Ludgate Hill, and the other is the hill Saint Paul’s Cathedral is built on.

So by medieval times this is the scenario. The City of London lies in a walled semicircle on the north bank of the Thames. Beyond the walls are fields. It would still be centuries before London would merge with its royal sister city to the west, the City of Westminster, also on the north bank. Commerce and travelers coming from the east, northeast, north, northwest, and west would arrive at the city walls at the appropriate gate, in other words, traffic on the north bank was appropriately dispersed.

But traffic from the southwest, south, and particularly from the southeast, this latter direction including from Canterbury, Dover, and continental traffic crossing at Dover, still had the Thames to contend with, namely at London Bridge, so while northern traffic was dispersed to several entrances to the City, southern traffic was instead all concentrated to one single bottleneck, the southern end of London Bridge. And this is where Southwark grew, and is the reason for its existence.

I have two additional points about Southwark. One point was the same for all entrances to the city. All city gates closed at night. Travelers arriving at odd hours would have to wait outside the city gates, as would locals who didn’t get back in time. This developed into a need for inns to feed and house these people. But the volume of traffic being concentrated on this, the south end of London Bridge, Southwark inns were more in number and did just that much more business. Chaucer had his pilgrims to Canterbury in the Canterbury Tales gather at the Tabard, a Southwark inn, to get an early start the following morning.

But Southwark had an additional problem here across the river that areas outside other gates did not. Southwark was at the time not only “out of town”, but also conveniently on the other side of the river, so in the spirit of NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard), anything that was undesirable for the City was dumped here. There were five major prisons in Southwark, and many brothels. And of course, actors having the reputation they did, all theaters were banished to Southwark (Reflections 2004 Series 7), including Shakespeare’s Globe, so when the American actor and director Sam Wanamaker pushed to get the replica of the Globe built, this is where it’s located, on the section of Southwark known as Bankside, perhaps not exactly on the same foundations, but quite nearby.

The Borough of Southwark is one of many boroughs in Greater London, but, perhaps because its older, I don’t know, its name is often shortened to just “Borough”. On that first afternoon in London I took the tube to the London Bridge Underground Station, beneath London Bridge Rail Station, just to the right of the south end of London Bridge. The next tube stop after where I got off was just called “Borough”. If you didn’t know that that refers to the Borough of Southwark and no other, then that’s presumably your problem.

When you do the type of urban sleuthing I do in one city I travel to after another, everything lies in the street pattern, such as in Chichester. There may be many ancient buildings standing, or some, or none at all, but the story often simply lies in the street grid. From the south end of London Bridge, with rush hour traffic coursing over it, there was a fine view of the City on the north bank. This traffic came south into the main road of the area, Borough High Street (think of it translated as “Southwark Main Street”). Cutting right across Borough High Street was the rail viaduct I spoke about earlier, from Charing Cross Station across the river, east via Waterloo East and London Bridge Station to Canterbury and Dover. Remember, less desirable things like rail viaducts have traditionally gotten “dumped” into Southwark, although this one is really not as intrusive as one would think. As you look at the maze of present streets, the historically-minded eye will note that Borough High Street after a few blocks meets Great Dover Street going southeast, which becomes the Old Kent Road. Since both Canterbury and Dover are in Kent, by just reading the map carefully you can pick up the modern roads which had been the route of the Canterbury Pilgrims, Chaucer’s fictitious ones, as well as the real ones, centuries ago.

Immediately to the left of this end of London Bridge is Southwark Cathedral, with the rail viaduct really quite close to its south side. It’s a beautiful Gothic structure, but I was looking for one monument inside, and found instead four of interest.

One marble monument in a side wall showed a recumbent Shakespeare. That might not have been so unusual by itself, since there are many Shakespeare monuments, but there was a special reason for it being here in Southwark. It read: “In Memory of William Shakespeare, for Several Years an Inhabitant of this Parish.” Well, if the Globe had been there, so had Shakespeare.

I almost missed the smaller plaque on the wall next to the Shakespeare monument, but it was very logically placed in this location: “In Thanksgiving for Sam Wanamaker ... Whose Vision Rebuilt Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre on Bankside in this Parish.”

The monument I had come to see in the first place was the Harvard Chapel across the aisle: “In Memory of John Harvard, Founder of Harvard University in America, Baptized in this Church 29 November 1607.” He had been born, of all places, right in Borough High Street, and emigrated to America in 1638.

The fourth and last memorial was a surprise, and one that I didn’t understand at first. On a wall in the Harvard Chapel was a plaque that read: “In Memory of Oscar Hammerstein, 1895-1960, Citizen of the United States of America, Playwright and Lyricist, the Hammerstein Chanters were established 24 May 1961.” I had been chatting with a “Welcomer” in the front of the nave, and asked her about the Hammerstein plaque, and the explanation was quite interesting, and further goes to establish the fact that the musical as we know it is an American genre, that eventually was transplanted to London and elsewhere, where it has since thrived. I know for a fact that “Oklahoma” opened on Broadway in 1943 and changed the face of musicals forever. Some time afterwards, it was brought to London, but Hammerstein had been told it would be a flop. Everyone was used to the drawing room comedies of Noël Coward, they said, and something like this was sure to be rejected. On opening night, a dejected Hammerstein had found his way to Southwark Cathedral, where he spent some time, before word reached him that “Oklahoma” was as big a smash in the West End as it had been on Broadway. In gratitude, Hammerstein in his will endowed two scholarships per year at Southwark Cathedral to train singers, to be called the Hammerstein Chanters.

After the Cathedral, but before my main business of the visit, I did walk over to Bankside to take a quick look again at the reconstructed Globe, but on the way I wanted to see something else quite special. All of the five prisons that had been built here were long gone. Most of them had been closer to, or on, Borough High Street, but one had been built in 1780 closer to the water. It, too, was demolished at the end of the 19C, and now there’s a museum about it in a commercial building. There would be little of interest about this particular prison, except for its name: Clink Prison. It’s the prison whose name everyone knows, but no one knows really existed. We say that “they threw him in the clink”, or “he’s in the clink”, so it’s now become a generic name. The sign at the museum declares it’s the prison that “gave its name to all the others.”

But my purpose in coming here was to see the Yards and Inns of Southwark, and that’s where I proceeded. In Borough High Street, just about two or three blocks down from London Bridge, and all on the east side of the road, there survive five narrow yards and side streets, hardly more than lanes. If you didn’t know they were there, you might not notice them. One is entered through an arch, and they all are little more than alleyways off the bustling main street, with office workers and other pedestrians hustling along. Ah, but what history you’d miss if you didn’t peek in. These yards and lanes mark the entrances to the old inns (I said, it’s all in the street pattern), the inns that were the overnight stops of people arriving too late at night to cross nearby London Bridge into the capital. And these inns were also the starting point for trips to the southern counties and ports, and where Chaucer set the starting point of his Canterbury Tales.

The five yards in order north to south, just a minute’s walk between each of them, are: King’s Head Yard, White Hart Yard, George Inn Yard, Talbot Yard, and Queen’s Head Yard. I’ll discuss them in order of ascending interest. (Note that the reference to “heads” was the sign in front of a pub that presumably showed a portrait of the king or queen.)

The second yard was White Hart Yard. It’s the least interesting today, with nothing really to see. There had been a pub there that supposedly Dickens’ Mr Pickwick frequented, but I have no details.

The first yard, entered under an arch, is King’s Head Yard. At one point it had the King’s Head Inn. Now it has a pub from 1881, with a painted statue of Henry VIII above its entrance.

The fifth one, the Queen’s Head Yard, had had the Queen’s Head Inn, demolished in 1900. However, this inn had been owned by John Harvard, and he sold it before he emigrated.

The third one has the most to see today. The George Inn Yard has the historic George Inn, which had originally been in the shape of a square U on three sides around the yard, with galleries (balconies) on all sides, but two sides were destroyed by a fire in 1676, and the remaining south range was rebuilt. It is the only galleried inn remaining in London, and is now owned by the National Trust. The cobbled yard has benches for outdoor service from the restaurant.

The fourth one, Talbot Yard, has the greatest literary and historical value. It was the site of the (genuine) Tabard Inn that Chaucer had his (fictional) pilgrims gather in the night before their trip started. A tabard was a short coat, and would have been depicted on the sign outside the inn. The Tabard was destroyed by the same fire in 1676 that damaged the George Inn, onto which it backed. However, the inn at the time was rebuilt, but under the new name of Talbot Inn to match the name of Talbot Yard. The Talbot Inn was a coaching inn, and profited from the coaching trade to towns and ports in the southern region. However, with the arrival of the railroad, it lost business and fell into disuse, and was demolished in 1873.

There is, however, a plaque reading: “London, Borough of Southwark; Geoffrey Chaucer, 1342-1400, England’s greatest medieval poet and author of the Canterbury Tales; The Tabard Inn, site from which Chaucer’s Pilgrims set off in April, 1386.” That date is 621 years ago.

This thought came to me while in Talbot Yard. Although there was no visible trace of the Globe Theatre, a replica of it has been rebuilt. Chaucer is two centuries earlier than Shakespeare, and there are very clear traces of the several Yards and Inns involved in the Canterbury Tales and its era, including the George Inn. Could we not see some restoration in the Yards, perhaps of the Tabard, of other inns, as museums, historically accurate restaurants and pubs, even small hotels? Perhaps we need another Sam Wanamaker.

By standing where Talbot Yard enters Borough High Street, and being aware of what it is you’re looking at, you can picture, in 1386, the real, and Chaucer’s fictional, pilgrims leaving the Tabard Inn in Talbot Yard on horseback, turning left (south) into Borough High Street, and proceeding to Canterbury. At a later date, you can picture the coaches leaving Talbot Inn in Talbot Yard, turning left (south) into Borough High Street, and proceeding to Canterbury, Dover, and other southern towns and ports. Then with the decline of the yards, you can look from Talbot Yard instead to the right (north), up Borough High Street toward London Bridge and see the railroad viaduct crossing the street and entering London Bridge Station, bringing contemporaries to Canterbury and Dover. This is what I pondered from the train looking down onto Borough High Street as we lumbered over and across it on my way to Canterbury, and later, Dover.

Canterbury Tales   I remember having a prejudice against the Canterbury Tales when it was discussed in English class at Brooklyn Tech. Since it involved a pilgrimage, I assumed it was a religious treatise, similar to some of Milton’s writings, and Dante’s, and paid little attention to it. It was only last summer that I came across the Tales again. My laptop cord had conked out in Oslo, and wouldn’t be replaced until Tromsø (Reflections 2006 Series 6), so as we sailed up the Norwegian coast I had nothing to do. Browsing in the Adlon Library on the Deutschland I came across a paperback copy of the Canterbury Tales, and became acquainted with what it’s all about, particularly in the Prolog. I had those pages photocopied and have worked with them since. It’s really quite interesting, because they are not at all a religious treatise, but rather a travel story. Just as in Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express”, where a dozen people are grouped together on a train and each reveals his or her story, in the Canterbury Tales, a group is going to be together on the long ride to Canterbury, and the same thing happens, each tells a personal story, in this case, to pass the time. I will also mention that Chaucer was born in London and probably lived in Kent at the end of his life, which seems appropriate, given the route to Canterbury. He began the tales in about 1386-7, and never finished them.

I will also note that it is by pure coincidence that, within this same trip, we’re discussing two different pilgrimage routes, in Spain, and now in England. But Canterbury was the terminus of the so-called “Pilgrim’s Way” within England, perhaps on a somewhat more modest level than Santiago was for much of Europe. We are also talking about a kind of early tourism. People didn’t go to beach resorts then, or tour historic sites and art galleries. When the weather turned warm, people’s thoughts turned to getting away from it all and thus to travel, just as it happens today, but just that travel then was in the form of pilgrimages.

We are taking pieces of works from other languages and discussing them, most notably so far a line or two from Don Quijote, and will be doing more this year. It is appropriate that we have something from English as well. But why make it easy and use Modern English? Let’s try some Middle English, which is what Chaucer wrote in. Not to worry. That Prolog I had copied was from an annotated edition, which helped me to understand it, and I put together over last winter two things, a guide to and a summary of selected lines in the Prolog. The guide doesn’t rhyme like the original does, nor do I try to make it poetic. Its purpose is to be an aid to understand the original. If you still don’t follow, the summary afterwards should do it for you.

I should mention here that Beverly was an enthusiast of the Canterbury Tales, long, long before I was, since she had studied them in college, and had memorized, as many people do, the first few lines. All you had to do was barely say “Canterbury Ta...”, and off she’d go with a burst of “Whan that April with his showres soote ...”.

We now come to a very important fact. Language is a living thing. The written word is for the most part a dead thing, that we rarely allow to change. You have to read the text aloud. But how? Although there are experts who know exactly how to say each word, that isn’t necessary. I’ve always thought you could “fake” reading Middle English aloud, and reading online, I found a professor of Middle English who said just that, and gave hints on how to do it. Many hints are not necessary for just the few lines we’ll be talking about, but let me point out what you should do to perform a reading that will be, while less than perfect, quite reasonable. Here are pointers for selected lines from the Prolog to the Canterbury Tales, first lines 1-9:

Pronounce every E, even though you feel they should be “silent”. A little UH-grunt will do. What looks like one syllable is two, two is three, and three is four in these words: showres, soote, perced, roote, bathed, engendred, sweete, inspired, croppes, yonge, sonne, halve, y-runne, smalle, fowles, melodye.

A number of vowels have their traditional “international” pronunciation. OO is not like in “too” but like OH in soote and roote. EE is not like in “fee” but as in ca.FÉ in eek, sweete, breeth, heeth. A is AH in April, bathed, maken. The I in inspired is as in SKI. Flowr apparently rhymes with licour, so they both are as in “tour”.

Lines 1-9:

[When Spring comes, such as when April showers bring the flowers; when the gentle West wind wafts through the countryside; when the sun is higher so that days are longer; when birds start to sing again, ...]

In lines 12-16 continue to add your E’s, and pronounce goon and seeken as described above; also shires and shire with an I as in SKI (SHI.ruh). I would guess that “pilgrimages” would likely be pil.grim.AH.zhes.

Lines 12-16

[... people get the urge to go on pilgrimages (to travel), some abroad, some locally to Canterbury.]

(Note the reference to those travelers who go to Santiago on the Way of Saint James, so we now come full circle.)

I’m assuming that you have an I as in SKI in ride (RI.duh), wide, rise, devise, and most probably even in “I”. Here “pilgrimage” would rhyme with corage ko.RAH.zhe.

Lines 19-34

[On this particular Spring day in Southwark at the Tabard, he gets to know quite well a group of 29 travelers, which he joins. They’ll all start to travel together the next day to Canterbury.]

As it turns out, on the trip they each tell stories about themselves to make the time go by, which happens among travelers to this day. And thus begins one of the great travel stories of English, and it is set in Southwark at the former Tabard Inn, in Talbot Yard leading out into Borough High Street.

Queen Mary 2   The one-night voyage on the Pride of Bilbao had been my 42nd voyage ever, so when, just about a week later, I boarded the QM2 for my fifth trip on it, it was my 43rd voyage ever. It started with a pleasant surprise I hadn’t thought of. The Isle of Wight is the large island close to shore along the southern English coast. The wide waterway along the east side of Wight is called The Solent, and Southampton is at its head to the north. I knew that Portsmouth, where the Pride of Bilbao had docked, was not too far away, but I hadn’t realized it was directly at the south end of The Solent. Arriving at Portsmouth last week, that large metal spiral monument was very visible, so as the QM2 sailed down The Solent, I was surprised to spot that same spiral right at its end, showing how close Portsmouth really was to Southampton.

There are advantages to being a repeat Cunarder. As the long queues waited to be processed, I just dropped of my bag to the luggage man and went directly up to the window for Platinum Card holders in Cunard World’s Club. I also had a substantial shipboard credit to spend as I wished. The next day I signed up for my westbound trip on July 30 next year, after the Africa trip, when I wanted to leave from Hamburg again.

I always have to visit the maitre d’ in the restaurant to change my table. At this year, they did remember to put me at a large (for 8) hosted table as I always request, but it was the Staff Captain’s table, and I wanted the Engineers’ table as usual, so I got myself moved. I knew I’d probably have more fun there, and it worked out very well. Brian Wattling was the Chief Engineer, and he remembered me. He hosted two nights, and two other engineers did one night each. I joked with Brian about having been on Watling Street, which he of course was familiar with, and he pointed out the variation in spelling between it and his name. The table included three couples and a gentlemen traveling alone, and we all got along quite well. The engineers and all the others at the table were British, except for a Canadian couple, although he had grown up in England. I was delighted with this, since I found myself gradually sounding more and more British myself the more I spoke with everyone. No, I do not feel self-conscious about that happening, since it’s what I do in such a language atmosphere.

There were three receptions, one given by the Captain for everyone, one for repeat travelers in the World Club, and one given by the Officers, I believe primarily for those seated at hosted tables with Officers. It was at this last one that two incidents of interest happened involving Beverly.

The first one was when the Captain, Christopher Rynd (rhymes with wind) and I somehow fell into a private conversation. We first determined that we had met onboard when I sailed with him last summer. I then told him that in 1957 my first two crossings were on the original Queen Elizabeth, and told him about Beverly being in the QM2 hospital on her final trip in 2004 all the way to New York, and he thanked me for sharing that information with him.

I’m terrible at remembering people sometimes, and often have to review the names of Officers and other shipboard personnel that I know, should I chance to meet them on board. It’s even harder the odd time that one might meet a fellow passenger that one once traveled with, which happened during this reception. A tall Scotsman came up to me, who eventually reminded me that his name was Robert. Only after we spoke for quite a while did his face begin to come back to me, but the two recollections he had I didn’t remember at all. He first asked if I weren’t the person with the ill wife; perhaps that’s what made it easier for him to remember me than vice versa. He said we were all at the same table on the last summer of Transatlantic crossings of the QE2, which we determined would have been in 2003. I told him of Beverly’s passing the following year, and he seemed honestly upset to hear the news. He remembered her quite well, and she seems to have made quite an impression on him. He recalled that, even though she was no longer speaking, at one point when she was seated next to him at dinner, she reached over and put her hand on his arm. It is heartwarming to see how Beverly touched someone, in both senses of the word.

He also remembered that I had specifically stated that it was sad that all those friendly people at the table on the QE2 that time would never meet again, so I thanked him for making a liar out of me. We also stopped by each other’s tables at dinner, since we were just two tables away. He was seated at the Staff Captain’s table, and if I hadn’t changed, we’d have been at the very same table once again, compounding my “lie”. And we bumped into each other disembarking in Brooklyn, so my error kept on extending itself.

The lectures were largely less than stimulating this trip, but a pair of concerts was given by Robin Hill, who was announced as the UK’s number one virtuoso classical guitarist, which I do not at all doubt, since his playing was phenomenal. He gives concerts around the world, including on ships, and also was recently appointed Professor of Guitar at Leeds University. The repertoire of the classical guitar is understandably Spanish and Portuguese music. At his first concert, I noticed that he was mispronouncing a number of words in the titles, but paid no mind, since it was none of my business. Then, on one of the later songs, he specifically asked if anyone knew what the Portuguese title meant, they should let him know. Well, SuperLangDoc to the rescue. I wrote him a note and dropped it off at the Purser’s office, asking if he’d like to meet at the Veuve Clicquot Champagne Bar the next day to discuss what he wanted to know and other matters. He called back and we set it up.

What a delightful couple of hours. We reviewed the words on his program of the day before. He had brought his laptop, and then had me record the words for him to review. He also had me review the next day’s program for potential pronunciation problems, and I invited him to e-mail me in the future if there were word problems. We then discussed all sorts of things, about music, stringed instruments, travel, what have you.

A hosted table is never hosted on the first or last night, so there’s a spot free. In the past, I’ve been known to invite guests from among the entertainers to be my guest at the last dinner, further arranging it with the maitre d’. I’ve had the band singer Helga Reiss from Canada and the comedian John Martin from England as my guests. It seemed ideal that Robin Hill should follow in their footsteps, and he was glad to join us the following (final) night, after his second concert that afternoon.

It couldn’t have worked out better. He seemed to click with the whole table, especially with one of the guys (named Guy, by the way). They decided they had gone to the same school, in the north of England, one year apart. Even though it was the last night, and people had to pack, about half the table retired to the more secluded and intimate Commodore Club way up on Deck 9 for a nightcap. It was a great end to an enjoyable crossing. And I no longer assume passengers will never meet again.