Dan Webster (2008)
In 1959 Dr. John C. Webster, a research psychologist with the Naval Electronics Lab in San Diego, was awarded a National Science Foundation fellowship for a year of study at the prestigious Applied Psychology Unit in Cambridge, England. The year was also to include professional meetings in Montreal, Stuttgart, Essen, Paris, and Bonn, trips to meet and work with European scientists in their labs as far afield as Stockholm, and a cruise on a Royal Navy ship in the Mediterranean. But what made this year particularly momentous for some of us was that Dr. Webster, Dad, took us along (except for the Mediterranean cruise); Mom (Mary) and the five brothers, John (11), Tom (7), Bill (5), Charlie (3) and Dan (who celebrated his first birthday the day we took off). And, in addition to the professional papers and reports from his scientific studies, Dad took the time to record this extraordinary family adventure in a manuscript which he titled Daniel Webster’s Year Abroad[1].
Daniel Webster’s Year Abroad is primarily a travelogue, documenting our journey across the United States and the Atlantic, sightseeing trips to London and other British destinations, lengthy vacations on the Continent in a VW camper (planned around professional meetings or lab visits), and finally the long cruise home through the Panama Canal. Each chapter describes new scenes and adventures, but also challenges; language, logistics, driving conditions (Dad’s obsession) and of course the problems posed by five small boys.
This was the world of a half-century ago, with ocean liners, steam locomotives, horse-drawn carts and a Europe still recovering from the physical and economic damage of World War II. This was long before cell phones, credit cards or ATMs, not to mention the internet and email. Once you left home you were pretty much out of contact, although some trips included a stop at a designated post office for mail forwarded ‘poste restante’. Expenses were paid in cash or travelers checks. And we weren’t the only family attempting to see Europe under these conditions. As night fell and travelers congregated in the camping sites it wasn’t unusual to find another VW camper full of Americans, sometimes heading for the same meeting.
Of course we didn’t spend the whole year on the move. The other theme of Dad’s book was home life in an ageless English village. In many ways this was a step back in time. There was a medieval church around the corner. The streetlights were gas. We lived in a nineteenth-century former Manse heated by coal fireplaces in each room. Kitchen appliances were primitive (although there was a tiny refrigerator). There was no telephone. Dad found a wealth of material in the differences he observed in British culture, schooling, politics, food preferences, and, inevitably, driving habits.
You might think that the challenges of living and working (or attending school or minding toddlers) in a foreign country and occasional weeks-long camping trips would be entertainment enough, but Dad couldn’t resist the cultural opportunities in nearby London; operas, ballets, plays, the Royal Tournament, etc., and he took as many family members along as possible. He also found time to play clarinet with the Cambridge University Musical Society orchestra for a week’s performance of the “Damnation of Faust”. And of course there was participation in ‘chapel’ and school activities.
At the end of the year we left our English village to return
home. Remarkably, Dad was able to
arrange a sequel, in 1966, which duplicated Daniel Webster’s original year
abroad in almost every detail; Dad worked at the same Unit, we lived in the
same Manse in the same village and made camping trips to the continent in the
same type of VW camper (a 1967 model, not a 1959 model). There were
differences, though. The postwar recovery had continued to sweep across Europe.
Dad had access to the PXs in the many nearby US Air Force bases for those
previously unobtainable American staples. The Manse not only had a telephone
but a TV, and horror of horrors, there was even a channel with commercials. The roads were not much better but were even
more crowded, with the new Minis. The
BBC had made way for the Beatles and pirate radio. And the boys, now 8 – 18,
were probably not as entertaining either. Somehow Dad never did get around to
writing Daniel Webster’s Year Abroad, the Sequel.
“Is this England,
Daddy?” asked Charlie, our three-year old as the airplane landed.
John, our oldest
boy, who had been literally shaking with fright all the way from San Diego said,
“No, Charlie, this is Phoenix.”
Then Charlie asked Tom, our seven-year old, “Did you see the toy cows down there just before we landed?”
And agreeable Tom
said he had. So started our trip to
spend a year studying in Cambridge.
Actually of course it
started much earlier, when I applied for my fellowship. Not much was said to the five boys then
because of the odds on chances the fellowship wouldn’t be granted.
I suppose we can
say the trip started six months earlier, 4 December ‘58. On this day, one day before I expected to be
on pins and needles awaiting the
outcome of my application, the phone rang at work during my noon hour. The phone always seems to ring during our
relaxation period after lunch, and right in the middle of our dart game. In fact we had gotten in the habit of taking
it off the hook, since nobody took seriously
my solution for telephones, namely that all telephones the world over be
connected to make outgoing calls only.
Anyway the phone
rang and after letting it ring long enough to find out it was an “outside”
call, I finally answered it. You see
calls from inside the laboratory had regular rings since they worked off the
automatic switchboard while outside calls were handled by an operator who rang
longer and seemingly louder, the longer you tarried in picking up the phone.
Back to the
call. It was Mary, my wife, who seemed
to know exactly when our dart game was in progress. Although she phoned only about once every
second week she always caught us at darts.
So I wondered which boy had just broken our kitchen window again. But no, she said I had a letter from
Washington. This was really not too surprising, my mother lived
there, I work as a scientist for the navy and they have some sort of office in
Washington. I couldn’t yet see what occasioned the phone call, and anyway it
was my turn to throw the darts. Then she said it was from the National Science
Foundation. That stopped the dart game,
but as a disinterested spectator I asked if she had opened the letter and she
allowed as she had. From the obvious
lack of enthusiasm I figured I needn’t ask her any more questions. But with
obvious relish she stated was just a form letter. I had expected a form letter
telling me the sad news but thought it would come to me at the laboratory the
following day. I figured successful
candidates would receive long distance phone calls and duffers like me form
letters.
So with dejected
resignation I asked the final unnecessary question, what did it say? Never
raising her voice once she read “you have been selected as a Senior Post
Doctoral Fellow and will begin your tenure on or about 1 July at Cambridge
University.”
Even Mary couldn’t
pull that serious a hoax on me so I just about believed what she read must be
so. After a stunned period of dead silence I finally quizzed her again and she
continued “details follow.”
On returning home
that afternoon John 10, Tom 6, Bill 5, Charles 2, and Dan, that is Daniel
Webster age 6 months, were beaming from ear to ear. Charles wanted to know if
he could take his tricycle to England, which he figured must be as far as Uncle
Harold’s, 10 miles away.
Then came the hard
work. Johnny wouldn’t fly across the ocean no matter what, and all tourist
space on ships in June was already taken; solution we go by ship in May.
Our up-to-date
cars, ‘40 Dodge and ‘49 Pontiac Station Wagon wouldn’t get us, not with my
nerves, all the way across the United States; solution fly to Iowa, visit
relatives and filter on to east coast.
If flying, our present
luggage was too heavy; solution buy new light-weight luggage.
To see Europe with
5 small boys on scientist’s earnings cheap transportation and lodging would be
needed; solution order a Volkswagen Microbus complete with camping equipment.
This required correspondence to Germany where the camping equipment installers
decided we should have their longest luggage rack for “with these many boys you
will have much luggage”.
Getting rid of our
cars and arranging to rent the house were just part of the logistics problems
encountered.
The boys’ rolling
stock, 4 bicycles, 4 tricycles, wagons, scooters, 4 baby buggy wheels, etc.,
also had to be loaned out.
We decided to have
mom and four smallest boys on one passport.
The photographer earned her money that day. A witness was needed on our passport
application (and our friends have children too) so seven of us plus another
mother and two children started off to the court house. It so happened
passports and marriage licenses were issued in adjacent offices and the
passport lady was gone when we arrived.
The marriage license lady was handling passports. It didn’t occur to us that this created quite
a sight to the sailors and their girls who came after we had been ushered into
the marriage license office. I saw a few whispered conversations and felt
awfully sinful somehow but we did get our passports.
Actually we gave
the oldest car to Harrell and Dion Hurt, some church friends (at least they
were our friends) with instructions “If it lasts till we get back we want it
back, if it doesn’t it has long since paid for itself.” As a matter of fact, like Old Ironsides or
the One Hoss Shay that car never gave a moment’s trouble and on many occasions
we used it to get our new (1949) car and many other new cars started.
The station wagon
we gave to the church as our pledge for the rest of the year and besides “with
these many boys” I hadn’t the time to try to pawn it off on any one anyway.
Finally:
T’WAS THE EVE OF DEPARTURE
T’was the eve of departure
And all through the night
Was poor mama at packing
With morning in sight
The children were tossing
Too warm in their beds
While dread visions of’ flying
Thrashed through their heads.
At first there was flying
And relations to see
Then miles of driving
And a ship cross the sea.
Since the flying was first
And the bags need be light
With five children to pack for
Did mom have a fight.
To get clothing and playthings
For one year abroad
She was sorting and stowing
And would not be awed.
When out on the porch
There arose such a clatter
That we stopped all our work
To see what was the matter.
There were neighbors and church friends
With candy galore
And we sat and we chatted
Till back to the chore.
From seven to thirteen
The bags did increase
And then to our sorrow
We just had to cease.
Then laying our fingers
Aside us in bed
And getting two nods
Up for traveling we sped.
We looked like some peddlers
Just closing our packs
When up got the children
For breakfast and snacks.
Our friends now arrived
In two cars for to carry
Our family and baggage
Down to the air ferry.
As into the terminal
The bags they did carry
The agent just smiled
And said “Please do not tarry.”
Although overweight
And completely befuddled
We parted from friends
While our Danny was cuddled.
As we got on the plane
And prepared to depart
We said to our friends
“Goodbye” from the heart.
After our first
stop in England and a walk in the hot Phoenix sun (and a trip to the restrooms)
we were off again for Denver. The feel of solid ground did wonders for John and
he almost enjoyed the next leg of the trip. He even looked out the window. The
boys got one of their few views of snow as we crossed the Rockies. They were
quite fascinated. What concerned me
however was the fact that we were a half hour late and we had a half-hour plane
connection to make in Denver.
Originally it was
an hour and a half wait and I figured this would give us time to eat
lunch. However, that great institution
Daylight Savings Time came into effect two weeks before departure. United changed their clocks but not their
schedules thereby advancing their flights an hour (by the clock). Western flew
by the sum and changed both clock and schedules so we left a clock hour later
than planned. Now we were a half hour
late so I gave up the idea of eating. I
began wondering how to notify our relatives from Des Moines who were going to
pick us up at Omaha that we might be slightly (about 4 hours) late. Of course, I couldn’t work up a first-class
stew complete with anti-acid stomach pills because Charlie, now perched on my
lap, kept wondering what all those buttons were above our seats. I just became
aware of his curiosity when the Stewardess showed up and asked us if she could
be of assistance. I could think of fifty dozen things she could do; answer
Charlie’s questions, get the candy off of Bill’s jacket, calm John’s nerves, or
rock Dan to sleep. However, I answered
in the negative and wondered what brought her along at this time. After all she had already made John, Tom and
Bill Honorary Pilots and since the management miscalculated on the ratio of
boys to girls in the “children’s emergency packet for stewardesses” she had
made Oblivious Charlie Honorary Stewardess. They wore their badges proudly.
She left with a
somewhat bewildered expression only to appear again ten minutes later. About now it dawned on me why she was “on
call” and it dawned on me that maybe I wasn’t aware that she had been called.
So five cups of milk were distributed all around. Then I told Charlie you don’t
just punch every button you see (as I turned off the seat lights.) I was just telling him for the twentieth time
that the plane was not going to fall out of the sky when the “Fasten Seat
Belts” light went on. After getting him fastened in I had to start the old
routine again that this was not England but Denver.
As the door was
opened the gateman said “all passengers for Omaha follow me”. We joined, in
fact we were the greater part of, the parade (as well as being the least
disciplined). Except for six well
distributed single seats the new plane was already filled with impatient
passengers. John found a seat well
forward, Tom well aft, Bill amidships, Mom and Dan were inseparable in a single
seat, the stewardesses gave up their double seats to Charlie and me. This was, of course, to be expected but
nevertheless I was a little annoyed. I
am a 100,000 miler on United and had made reservations weeks in advance. In the past I had often been quite put out at
seeing double seats roped off “Reserved for People Traveling Together”, and
thought this would be my time to benefit by their custom. But, in any case we
were lucky that they waited for us.
In fact the wait
had just begun. It seems there was one more seat and two potential passengers.
A corporal on emergency leave and a woman who for some reason preferred
stopping at Omaha, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Philadelphia before arriving at
New York instead of transferring to a plane that left one half hour later but
arrived in New York non stop an hour earlier.
After much persuasion (80 minutes worth) and promises of many telegrams,
etc. she was convinced, the corporal got on, and we took off.
The candy we had
received before take-off now became our lunch and Charlie and I dozed off. I was awakened by some well-known bumps and
looked out to see clouds and rain.
Luckily we were close to Omaha but not close enough. I looked around to spot Tom and saw an
ashen-gray face, an anxious stranger, and a hurrying stewardess. We were strapped in for landing and I could
do nothing. In fact, upon landing we couldn’t compete with the crowds and had
to wait for the plane to clear before we could get to Tom and help him gain his
composure. We sent John off to tell our relatives we would be along (but of
course he didn’t recognize them nor they him). However, we soon got off, met
our relatives and while I guarded our thirteen pieces baggage my uncle and
cousin went off for their cars to get us (and bags) loaded into.
Many hours, words,
miles, chicken dinners and rain drops later we were carrying thirteen bags and
two boys into a large farm house in the middle of Iowa. The slightest touch on the locks of the
largest bag caused it to pop open of its own accord. Then John’s green, Tom’s
purple, Bill’s blue, Charlie’s red, and Dan’s yellow cloth sacks with sleepers,
socks and underwear were duly issued. It didn’t take long to get Tom and Bill
settled in bed in an upstairs room.
Charlie and Dan
were now awake and had discovered the staircase. They proceeded to explore this novel new
plaything. Charlie confided that he liked this England. John soon gave up and
finally only the 2 oldest and 2 youngest remained awake. The oldest on habit
alone, the youngest to run off the undissipated energy resulting from being
cooped up all day inside moving vehicles.
Finally welcome
sleep came only to be rudely interrupted by Iowa’s famous thunder and lightning
storms. Luckily all boys slept through
it except Charlie and he wanted to go home to San Diego right now. We had lived
in California long enough now to have five “native sons” and they hardly knew
of thunder and lightning and we had forgotten how frightening such a storm can
be. The lightning lit the room well even
if only sporadically but the noise, Charlie’s was continuous. We could
occasionally hear the thunder above Charlie and we could sympathize with him in
his desire to “go home”.
So ended our first
day, and our first 2000 miles. There is nothing like a three year old’s cry
wanting to go home to make you wonder about the wiseness of the decision to
tear up seven roots, five young ones, and transplant them for a year. At this
point four were oblivious, one was vocally and two were tacitly doing some
serious thinking about home in the placid air-conditioned state on the
Pacific. And more than 4000 miles yet to
go and sixteen months. Wonder what the ‘49’ers thought after a month’s travel
westward?
The boys loved the farm,
although farms aren’t what they used to be. Whereas I rode the horses as they
pulled the corn cultivator, the boys rode with Uncles Art and Glen on the
tractor. In fact, John made a quarter
“helping” Uncle Art on his tractor pull a car out of the ditch (after the
rain).
Long before any
sensible Pacific Timers (only 1 day but 2 hours removed) should be getting out
of bed, the Central Timers and three boy Pacific Timers were up romping around.
What with hay lofts, mud, cellars, mud, tractors, mud, a real working pump
(water, that is), more mud to explore and develop, there was no time to tarry
in bed. So when we got navigating again
the boys already had gone through one breakfast and one change of clothing
(mud, you know). Before lunch all the pigeons had been frightened out of the
hayloft ten times, the squeak had almost been worn out of the pump, the cellar
had been explored and discoveries of potatoes, pickles, and mouse traps made,
and Charlie had gone exploring, quite unknown to anyone else. We soon became
aware of a curious lack of youthful continuous questioning and decided someone
must be missing. Sure enough Tom spotted him giving the neighbors hens a good
chase. Charlie had never wandered off before, but, of course, he hadn’t the
provocation. He found the “chicklies” on the neighbors farm, a quarter of a
mile down the road, quite more attractive than the large rather over-friendly
dog at Uncle Arts.
A trip to Uncle
Glens found more wonders of the world, cows, not the milking kind, the eating kind,
and pigs and chicklies. But still the dairy delivered milk, butter, and eggs to
the door. It wasn’t like the good old days.
However, one thing
hadn’t changed. Wherever there are pigs there is mud not just ordinary mud but
hog wallows. And wherever there is mud and boys, especially city boys, there is
magnetism. We soon heard a wail and looked out to see a boy, it turned out to
be Bill, already tarred waiting to be feathered.
To say he was
covered with mud was doing him an injustice, he was dripping mud. He had done the pigs one better. He wasn’t out of action long.
One of my cousins
was old fashioned enough to milk cows and gather eggs and this saved the
day. We arrived late, (with five boys
you usually arrive late), and the eggs had already been gathered. But since little boys with big eyes don’t
come often, they ungathered some eggs and took the boys around to regather
them. Our orientation seemed to fail on
Charlie on two points. Why don’t the
chicklies eat the eggs? He couldn’t be
convinced that “hens lay eggs for gentlemen” to eat and not for hens to
eat. A similar misunderstanding occurred
with milk and cows. Charlie saw little
calves drinking milk from a bucket and wondered why they bothered to feed the
older cows corn, oats and hay. Why not
milk? He obviously had ideas of his own
about perpetual motion.
Another aunt and
uncle ran a small town variety store complete with cap guns, squirt guns, jaw
crackers, milk shakes, and of course books (coloring and reading). We had never bought guns, cowboy outfits,
hula hoops, nor Davy Crockett hats for the boys. We figured, and quite correctly, that
Christmas and birthdays, relatives and friends, would see to it that our boys
would be boys. And so the blanket
invitation, one toy for each boy, caused quite a raid on the arsenal
armory. We drew the line on squirt guns,
the range is too great, the missile too dangerous. But we did hear bangs and saw assorted gun
play for many a day.
So much for
Iowa. We left dad’s folks on farms for
mom’s folks in a small river town in Illinois.
River barges and trains took over from tractors and haylofts. And Uncle Dodd had a pony (why not with five
small children of his own) and a pony cart.
But the climax came
when,
There were two families seven in each
Whose fathers read Mark Twain
Our oldest boy, too, had read
Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn
So when in Illinois one day
The families were together
Said Dad to Dad why not today
In station wagon gather
Two moms, two pops, two babes eight kids
For Hannibal departed
To see Tom’s cave and Clemens’ house
In wagon were they carted
Before proceeding very far
The clamor rose for food
So in they drove at drive-in
For hunger of the brood
Two dozen hot dogs, mustard please
One dozen chocolate shakes
To make the menu quite complete
Six packs potato flakes
For that one car the waiter said
Then looked or rather listened
Then set to work at double speed
With sweat his forehead glistened
While mamas kept the cups upright
And daddies ate the extras
The kids again began to play
Then started in the questions
Were Tom and Huck and Injun Joe
Real folks or story people
Will we get lost in Tom’s big cave
Is there a tall church steeple
Then finally cross the
A broad majestic river
And in the bluffs south of the town
Tom’s cave in which we shiver
Judge Thatcher’s room and Mark Twain’s house
Museums and statues too
Then heavy eyelids old and young
The sky an orange red hue
So once again like sardines packed
Yet thoughts of food did gleam
So homeward bound in Pizza shop
Six pizzas, then ice cream
Then miles and hours later on
A quite car at last
When small limp figures off to bed
The great adventure past
I left mom and boys
with her folks and proceeded on to Ottawa for the spring meeting of the
Acoustical Society of America (the first time in its thirty year existence it
had met in Canada). To the Navy, however, Canada is a foreign country and
certainly not a place for any American Society to meet. For every meeting we have a red tape snarl
but when in Canada the odds are insurmountable. This is the trouble.
It is the general
policy of the Navy to send no more than two people from any one activity to any
one professional meeting. This means that theoretically the Bureau of Supplies
and Accounts can send two and our lab can send two. It so happens our lab is one of the major
research and development labs in underwater sound, communications and speech
and hearing. Because of this San Diego,
twentieth in population, is fifth in members of the Acoustical Society. Also it can boast (at this writing) the
president-elect, two of the ten technical committee heads, and the head of the
membership committee, probably the most important non-technical committee (it
elects fellows). And usually at least
five papers are submitted by members of the lab. In addition to this there are
always so many papers read at a meeting that at least three meetings are run in
parallel. So of the two authorized to go one must be in two parallel technical
sessions at once often giving papers in both, while the other must attend the
other technical session at all times plus attending many administrative and
technical committee meetings. The two must
attend everything because they are obliged to report back to all interested
parties, who didn’t go, exactly and in detail what transpired in every
session. Even the Navy Department
realizes this and usually officially sends four or five people while the lab,
by some method, usually manages to get everyone giving papers, or holding
important chairs, to the meetings. This
always involves many letters, phone calls and in general probably costs as much
as at least one attendee.
However, when the meeting
is in a foreign country another complication develops. This one has for a background the absolute
necessity for a majority of our senators and representatives and members of
their families, to inspect and/or investigate Europe at the close of every
session of Congress. Taxpayers object to
this and since we are a democracy the lawmakers on their return say quite right
it is scandalous for government employees to travel at the taxpayer’s expense. So they notify the Defense Department (who
furnished the lawmakers transportation) don’t let us catch any of your
employees gallivanting around in foreign countries. So when our American Acoustical Society met
in Ottawa (on a straight line between Minneapolis and Bangor and all of 50
miles from New York State) orders came down one member at foreign
meetings. Since our lab can’t write
foreign travel orders without Washington approval we were had. The lab sent my boss, membership committee
chairman, and me to visit labs and scientists at Syracuse University and
allowed us to take a week’s leave without pay while we slunk across the
border. We arrived in Ottawa (I won’t
say how since I don’t wish to incriminate innocent fellow conspirators) at 4
P.M. on Wednesday afternoon and I didn’t get outside the hotel in which our
meeting was held until 3 P.M. on Saturday.
During this time I presented a paper, chaired a technical session, met
twice with the executive council, met with the technical committee I chaired,
and with two others of which I was a member.
A most relaxing way to spend leave without pay. American ambassadors aren’t the only ones who
sometimes have to sacrifice their time and money to carry out their
duties. Oh well, it could have been
worse. The meeting might have been in
Vancouver which I haven’t already seen and then I would have boiled over since
I am an inveterate sightseer. I did see
the surroundings of one street on the way in and the railway right of way on
the way out.
My mother met me in
Ottawa and we traveled on to Montreal to meet Dodd who heroically brought Mary
and the boys (and his wife but not their five children) from Illinois. I shared
but one night of their motel existence. “Accommodations for five adults and
five children please” and “Where is the nearest restaurant?”
After a week’s
separation John had to tell me how they towed Uncle Dodd’s car away at Niagara
Falls. Apparently he’d parked it quite innocently in an unauthorized place.
This misinterpretation of signs cost him five dollars.
And Charlie told me
everything. He never stopped talking. Dodd said he had Charlie sit with him
when he was in danger of falling asleep while driving. Charlie’s continual barrage of questions kept
him quite awake. During the trip Dodd had retaught Charlie his Sunday School
song—it now went (at top voice)
“What do cows do
Oh don’t you know
They lay large eggs
To help us grow.”
By now Charlie had
more or less forgotten about “going home” but the thought of boarding the ship
tomorrow made John think more of home. The utter finality of casting off for
across the Atlantic had finally come home to John.
We had no
difficulty oversleeping (we hadn’t for eleven years) and missing our ship. Even so we weren’t the first on board. Preening up five boys isn’t done fast or easily. We had but one bad moment when I couldn’t
remember where I had put the tickets.
But a thorough rummage through all pockets located these and so began
the parade on board. It had aspects of
Cub Scout day at dockside; a Memorial Day parade (tears for the departed or
departing); and an African safari (14 bags, one up, since my mother had brought
one full of emergency foodstuffs).
The Empress of
England is a new and beautiful ship and our tourist class cabins were
elegant. Uncle Dodd, who had been a
purser in the Merchant Marines, soon showed us topside, the afterdeck, the
promenade deck and in general was in his glory answering all Charlie’s
questions.
But soon the “All
Ashore” call came and after hurried pictures and parting words, seven of us remained
onboard and three found vantage places on the dock. Ever since my short visits to Montreal and
Quebec during World War II I had looked forward to sailing down the St.
Lawrence, and especially the leaving of Montreal. When Uncle Dodd, Aunt Marilyn, and Grandma
Webster were out of sight and John was sobbing (he didn’t like major changes in
his environment) and I was getting a good vantage point to see the sights the
announcement came, “All first sitting diners report to the restaurant”. Half way to Quebec I got topside again.
Our first lunch was
quite trying on our table companions and a little disturbing to our
steward. He was prepared with high chair
but hadn’t all the answers for Charlie.
Our major problem was understanding our waiters English English and the
general routine of English meals.
Children’s high tea baffled us most. So the children have tea at 5, then
what? Also which children? And who feeds them? The idea is fine and standard
British operating procedure. In theory it works this way. The children,
assisted by a nanny of which we had none, eat early and go off to bed. “Daddy
and mother dine later in state, with Mary to cook for them, Susan to wait.” On
board it worked something like this: Dad and Mom and all five boys report at 5
expecting tea and biscuits, and find hard boiled eggs and/or cereals and cream
with bananas, apples, oranges, etc. and milk, and then biscuits (cookies)
cakes, or sweets (candy). The trouble was on the first day we didn’t know this
meant no supper or that this indeed was the boys’ supper. In fact, we wondered
why they wanted to spoil the children’s appetite just an hour before supper.
Also how do you eat hard boiled eggs?
The British children went right to it, but we didn’t know how to
de-shell it and with what implements to attack it. And who wanted cereals and
milk at 5 P.M.? Guarded questions to our
fellow, but British, passengers soon gave us the clue this was the children’s
supper. The children WOULD NOT be expected at our supper. This gave us 15 minutes
to see if Tom, Bill, and Charlie would like the chaperoned playroom. They
wouldn’t. And if John thought he could entertain Dan (age 1 year 2 weeks) in
our stateroom. Dan would have been acceptable in the play room if asleep. But
as crying is contagious, he wouldn’t otherwise be welcome. I don’t remember
exactly how we got away, leaving all five boys in our cabin, but needless to
say we hardly enjoyed our first six course dinner.
By the second day we
knew the meaning of high tea and introduced the boys to the play room early in
the day. They were neither completely averse nor adverse, but we did get Bill
and Charlie there while we hurriedly feasted.
Dining aboard the
Empress of
John liked the
swimming pool and cinema best. Tom and Bill the afterdeck where ropes and pegs
were available and occasionally shuffleboard. Charlie liked to walk around or
sit in the deck chair and ask, “What happened to the hair on that man’s head?",
"When will we get across the ribber?”, “Does that man have more cake?”,
“Why is that lady so fat?”, “Why can’t we go in there?” Dan liked to crawl on the deck and especially
to play in the water in the scuttle. Dad would have liked to sleep. Momma was
perfectly happy. No cooking, no dishes, just washing and ironing (which she
says she enjoys). She saw her first movie, except for Ivanhoe at the drive in,
in eight years and found many English mothers to talk to.
On the fifth day
came sea state 8 and ashen gray boys. My cure, Dramamine and a horizontal
position, was not working for the boys so at their insistence and much against
my better judgment we went to the afterdeck for shuffle board. There were very
few people about. John, Tom, Bill, and I played while Charlie collected the
pucks. It was fun trying to counter the roll of the stabilized ship. And the
mist on cheek (and glasses) felt good (but looked misty). The cure worked, the
boys kept their food down and so did dad.--(who still preferred his horizontal
method).
Johnny couldn’t go
swimming alone, so although mom was an excellent swimmer, dad got to go
in--glasses and all. Without glasses I couldn’t tell which boy I was supposed
to be watching. With glasses I couldn’t have done much had he sunk from sight.
Not to be outdone, John wore his non-waterproof watch in. It hasn’t worked
since. Charlie, Bill, and Tom watched and in the shower room Charlie asked,
“Why does that man have hair here (chest) and not here (top of head)?”
The cinema turned
out to be marvelously timed. Charlie was much too engrossed by the ship for an
afternoon nap. But after 10 minutes in the cinema he was asleep.
From the second day
on we were, you might say, well known. We made the longest passenger list, the
longest parade, and Charlie made the most continuous sound. We were approached
by grandmas, granddads, moms, dads, the whole lot. Without our five socializers
we probably would not have met a soul, but with them we were called by name by
half the passengers.
Perhaps our trip
across the Atlantic can best be summarized by the letter I wrote back to my
colleagues and church friends while on board:
Empress of
0930 Brit Summer Time
0130 Pac Daylight Time
Dear
Dave et al
Glad
to receive your letter which I received on boarding. Sailing is wonderful
except for changing the kids internal clocks. Each night for 5 nights we set
the clocks (the ticking kind) ahead one hour. Each night the kids get to sleep
about an hour later. Last night by 2330. This morning (which is no different
than all others) Mary and I, with the aid of those infernally noisy stewards
and stewardesses (who keep knocking and saying cheerfully its seven thirty,
with a rising inflection yet, all hands are British) flop out of bed and THEN
get the kids up. This morning we fed them (midnight your time) but were never
sure whether we were shoveling the food into their otherwise closed mouths or
eyes.
Now
all but Tom are back asleep. Yesterday it was all but Charlie - in each case, Daddy
likewise happily stayed up since the sign reads, “No children allowed on deck
without their parents”. Dan is the worst; he got to sleep at 0300 yesterday,
but by 0130 last night. He and mommy are now asleep in the adjacent cabin.
I
began taking Charlie to the 1415 movie so he would get some sleep which helped
him, but at least one of the kids enjoyed the movie and I’d have to sit through
it (Onionhead, Gidget, etc.). Of course, when they showed Richard III, everyone
was sick so I missed it.
None
the less, this is really the way to travel. For the same fare as by air we get
3 x 7 = 21 meals. Last night I had Tomato juice, Salmon, Roast Mutton with
vegetables, scones, caramel sundae and tea.
I skipped the soup and salad courses since I took the fish course and
Mary keeps thinking me a pig (especially when Alec Guinness, our waiter) brings
me a piece of layer cake to go with my dessert. Dave would love this. I still don’t completely understand the menu
- it has an appetizer course olives et al, soup, fish, then an entree and a
joint and a releve. Then salad, dessert
and tea. The releve seems to be fowl but the difference between entree and
joint I don’t get. I’ll have to ask Alec at noon.
The
deck steward sidled up to me last night and whispered something which, upon
explanation, turned out to be, “Do you want to take some spirits ashore”. He
strongly advised it since a fifth of Scotch would cost me 27 shillings, but 35
ashore. A shilling is 1/20 of a pound which is equivalent to $2.80 ± depending on
which way you’re sailing; expensive going to England, cheap when coming home. I
told him no thanks, my boys are too young.
I’m
king on board; no one has as many children and Dan always smiles at the right
time and Charlie keeps saying, when showering after a swim, “Look Daddy that
man has no hair” in his usually 100 db voice, or “I don’t like this ice cream”
(which is the chef’s special pineapple, not the vanilla he has at all other
meals), etc. Charlie who landed in England first at Phoenix, then Denver,
Omaha, etc. now wants to know “When are we going to get across this ribber?”
The
bath steward just stood with his mouth open when I requested 5 towels with my
bath and as J, T, B, C and Dad filed out of the bath (bahth) he had 2 other
stewards watching just to prove how big the bathrooms are on his deck.
Time
to wake them up again and go to Church. I can hear Charlie now, “Daddy where’s
the choir” or some such apt but loud remark.
JOHN
Even with five boys
however we agree with the travel books on sea crossings. They say you wonder before you board what
you’ll do with all your spare time. Once on board you wonder how the hours slip
by so fast. And the night before landing
you wonder what happened to those short glorious days.
At all previous
stops we had told Charlie “No this isn’t England” so by now he was wary. He
didn’t see why Liverpool should be England if all the other places were not.
But we soon persuaded him and he concluded that England is across the big
ribber. For the next few days his troubles began again. Cambridge was not in
England. It wasn’t on a big ribber and
our Empress wasn’t there. To this day Charlie insists Cambridge is pronounced
with an a as in lamb. He heard us say the city was named because it was the
first (or last) bridge across the Cam (as in lamb). To him (and more power to
his logic) the name is Cambridge (a as in lamb).
Celebrating in
Stateroom on the Empress of
Driving in England
is a not to be forgotten experience. As
the travel literature says, you do not rush through England, but around every
leisurely corner you have the opportunity to see the quaint countryside. They
are completely correct in saying you do not hurry, but getting the opportunity
to see anything other than the road is virtually impossible. Unless, of course,
you are foolish enough to do what every tenth Englishman does as his God given
right, namely just stop right smack in the middle of the traffic lane to see
the sights, to adjust the headlamps, to eat lunch, to sleep, or just because he
fee1s like stopping.
They have signs on
major highways (the ones they paint center lines on) that say “Layby 1/4 mile”.
This means that the road will widen by about half a lorry width and a trash can
(dust bin) will be provided for those desiring to walk 20 feet after eating
their sack lunch (tea that is) to deposit their litter,. These laybys are well
patronized, much more so than our “Roadside Tables” and for good reason. After
driving through English traffic for say two hours (40 miles) one does feel the
need for a rest. Parking is completely impossible in towns (except by just
stopping in the middle of the road which is universally done) and roadside
“Dairy Queens” or “Steak and Shake” shops are non existent. The pubs are only open for some very limited
times and so everyone packs “tea” and stops at a layby. However, since more people want to stop than
there is layby space, they just stop on the road.
To show how deep
rooted their tendency is to just stop in the traffic lane on the road let me
cite the first two fatalities on M1, their one and only freeway, which opened
after our arrival. It came as no
surprise to me to read: 1) That a van had some minor ailment and had stopped,
not on the verge which some reports said is not wide enough for a vehicle to
pull clear of the traffic lane, but as on all English roads, in the traffic
lane, 2) That a repair vehicle had come and stopped in the traffic lane; and 3)
that two lorries free for the first time of traffic worries were running “flat
out” in a slight mist; and 4) inevitably had crashed into the repair vehicle in
the traffic lane. This must have caused a minor revolution because soon after
this, and I quote from a Cambridge newspaper account “DRIVERS SLEPT ON Ml, Five
drivers said by police at Luton today to have been found asleep in their
vehicles on the M1 were each fined 5 pounds for parking on the Motorway”. I have since driven on M1 and find they are,
belatedly, widening and strengthening the verges (with crushed rock) so that
disabled cars (and sleepy or hungry drivers) can experience the novelty of
pulling off the road to stop.
Our first
experience was as follows: We got off the boat in Liverpool and paraded down
the gangplank, and through customs in jig time.
I am sure they figured anyone traveling with five small boys is too busy
to smuggle. We had arranged in the States for a rented car to meet us at
Liverpool (much against the advice of all our English friends). After all
Cambridge is only 160 miles from Liverpool, at most a four hour drive. We soon
saw a small man in a large overcoat (on a sunny very warm day late in May) who
had obviously spotted our entourage and was making his way toward us.
“The car is just
down the street" he said. "How many bags do you have”?
“Fourteen”.
“Fourteen”?
“Well, actually
three are brief cases, and two are little overnight bags”.
At this point we didn’t tell him one was a footlocker and one a duffel bag with three sleeping bags packed inside.
“Righto, I’ll get
you a porter”.
"O.K"
So Mom, Dad, John,
Tom, Bill, Charles, and Dan, plus a porter with 14 bags arrive with the by now
somewhat anxious little man at England’s newest and largest Consul complete as
per instructions with luggage (roof) rack on top. The porter sort of shook his
head and as quickly as possible made his exit, dumping all the bags in a heap
on the kerb (curb).
The little car hire
man now saw he was in it for better or worse and he actually accepted the
challenge in good grace.
First the boot
(English for trunk). Yes it held middle sized bags, the contents of the duffle
bag (by taking the sleeping bags out and stuffing them alongside, over, under,
and around the other bags).
By standing all
bags upright instead of laying them down, we finally coaxed the footlocker and
three large bags in the luggage rack. This added about 3 feet to the height of
the car. I say about 3 feet because by the time all bags and boys were in, the
car was at least 4 inches closer to the ground than when it stood in all its polished
splendor unsoiled by our presence.
The three
briefcases and two overnight bags went in the back seat with John, Tom, Bill,
and Charles.
And now came the
instruction period (if Mom and Dan could just stand outside a minute). This was
the key, it went here, the brake was still right and clutch left, but the gear
shaft was on the left since the steering wheel was on the right. After much
explanation I got the idea the gears were like ours except left handed.
He started to
explain the hand signals but soon gave up. Instead of three simple signals like
we have; arm down meaning I am slowing down or stopping, arm straight out, I’m
going to turn the direction I’m pointing; and arm up meaning I’m turning the
way I’m trying to point (but cant reach up over the top) and in any case means
O.K. for you to pass, they have, among other things, two waving signals, one of
which means “I am ready to be overtaken” (English for passed) which is the same
signal truck drivers in the States (and lorry drivers in England) give you when
they can see the road ahead is clear even when you can’t and means come on
around old buddy and be kind to truck drivers when the next request for a pay
raise (American for rise) comes around. The other wavy signal means something
else (I’m still not sure what). It doesn’t much matter what it means anyway,
because if you are more than 10 feet back you can’t tell one wavy signal from
the other. And later experience has convinced me that in any case, don’t be
fooled by the wavy. It means I’m ready to be overtaken but it doesn’t mean the
road is clear, except when given by lorry drivers on the open (and I use the
word loosely) road (I won’t use the word highway). So as far as I can make out
the English hand signal means about what a woman’s hand signal does in America,
namely that the window is open.
Anyway we
compromised. He finally said “Use the turning indicator lights.” This I did.
Detailed study of
my road map (helped by ten hands and six voices) convinced me the shortest way to
Cambridge from Liverpool was to drive west. That is, cross the Mersey River to
Birkenhead and avoid all the large cities, including Liverpool. Our dining
steward in the Empress told me the way to cross the Mersey from the dock was by
tunnel.
So knowing how to
drive from the wrong side of the front seat, and where I wanted to go, I was
ready to bid our little man farewell.
I had noticed that
we were parked on the incorrect (English) side of the street, namely where we
should be, on the right. The little man said that was O.K. You parked on whatever side of the street you
wanted to in England. I later found that
truer words were never spoken. You not only park where and when you want, you
also wait (park for less than 20 minutes) anywhere you want, including the main
traffic lane of the main highway, within 3 feet of intersections with traffic
lights and turning lanes, and in fact any place other than on verges (English.
for shoulders). As far as I can see, verges are used for absolutely nothing,
the only unused land in all of England.
After politely
refusing my offer to drive him to the nearest bus stop or railway station, the
little man vanished. Mary said he
crossed himself and ran. We were ready to go. John said why didn’t we take the
train. Tom just gasped. Mary clutching Dan tighter than usual, climbed (down)
into the front seat and we were off.
Within a block we
hit our first round about (English for traffic circle). The English Highway
Code says there are no right of ways (or left of ways) at round abouts. In
other words, they don’t want to be responsible.
The only real highway law in England is if you are in an accident and
were moving you were wrong. We later read of a case where a bus driver was
fined because he couldn’t stop soon enough to avoid hitting a car that had
stopped, not on the verge, but right in the lane of traffic, to adjust his
headlamps, right over .the brow of a hill. The man that had stopped was not
fined.
We finally decided, since cars were overtaking (passing) us
on both sides, to disappear into this maelstrom. Our
problem was where did we want out. We
chose the third exit. We crept along at the average pace, about 15 m.p.h. until
the next intersection and then found the secret. There are so many cars per
street that at every intersection there is a Bobby (policeman, you see Robert
Peel established the constabulary years ago and these were Bobby’s boys). Our
system; at every corner as we crept by the Bobby, we looked bewildered, spoke
American, and asked for Mersey Tunnel. He always answered in some completely
unintelligible speech that ended “You can’t miss it” but luckily he always
pointed. Finally instead of pointing straight ahead one pointed left, and we
saw hundreds of vehicles concentrating on one poor little double laned street.
Once committed to
the tunnel, the fast lane since we were not a lorry (at least in name) I became
aware of three things: first Mary was getting closer and closer to me and
saying “Do you know how close you were to that truck”? (American for lorry).
Second, unlike American tunnels, this one was not lighted (except conceivably
for cats) and again, unlike American tunnels where if there is no light you put
on headlights, here no one had on headlights but instead they had on side
lights (parking lights and actually the closest thing possible to no lights at
all). Driving in virtual darkness, in fumes as thick as fog, with candles borne
by lorries busses, and cars coming at you at 30 m.p.h (about the only spot I’ve
ever found in a metropolitan area where traffic can move that fast) had even
the captain of the ship a little uneasy. Then Mary said “The gas gauge says
empty” and so it did. Anyone knows when you rent a car it has a full tank of
gas, but.
We did emerge
safely from Dante’s Inferno, we did find a petrol (gas) station, and our next
problem was a rope to secure the bags on top. Who sells rope? Hardware stores
of course. We saw green grocers, chemists, and finally obviously an
ironmongers. So a rope and our first experience of stopping (behind an already
stopped car) and making a one lane road out of the major artery out of town.
This turns out to be more rule than exception.
Now our pulse rate
could return to normal. We were tied down, full of petrol, on the road to
Chester, and it was only 11 o’clock. We’d be in Cambridge easily by 4 or maybe
3.
We now had time to
realize that England is indeed a foreign country. The cars including our own,
were a sensible size, not domesticated tanks. The average age of car, lorry, or
bus was ten years older than ours. There
were people, bicycles, cars, houses, everywhere, no wide open spaces. Houses
were dotted with chimneys, and chimneys were full of chimney pots (flues). We
next saw a goods (freight) train with a steam engine. This really stopped us.
Four wheels per wagon (car) many of them spoked. Chain and bumpers for
couplers, and wagons about one third the size of our eight wheeled freight
cars. We actually couldn’t believe it and thought it must be a small and branch
line. It wasn’t.
Then came the strange
signs. Acute Bend, Road Up, Dead Slow, Road Works, Layby ¼ mile. And Free
House, No Coaches, Tea now being served. On a car ahead, Please Pass Running In
which means I’m breaking in a new motor (or car). Free House means we are not a
pub (tavern) that sells only Tolly, or Worthington, or Bass Ale, but whatever
we please.
Our fist near miss
came in Chester, an ancient town with city walls, overhanging first (second)
floors, etc. It happened like this. In
the States and California in particular, there is one golden rule of driving,
never just change lanes. Since it is legal to pass (overtake) on either side
(preferably on highways with painted traffic lanes, but actually anywhere where
vision permits) you soon get conditioned (by the loss of a fender, or at least
by loud honking and squealing brakes, not your own) to move forward in a
straight line. Before moving to left or
right you look in one, two, or three mirrors, signal, and pray, and in general
you don’t swerve. In fact the only accidents I’ve ever had were two gentle
bumps on cars who pulled over or stopped to make a U turn in my lane of
traffic. In both cases I could easily have avoided them by pulling into the
next lane. But since I knew I would just barely tap them, and by pulling out I
might get myself and others killed, I maintained straight ahead.
Back to Chester.
Being new to the left hand side of the road I was staying very left, about 18
inches from the kerb (curb), when no cars were parked there (which actually
wasn’t very often). As I was half way
across an intersection what should dart out from the side street which in
America would be a STOP street but a lady on a bicycle. She looked neither left
nor right, which I’ve since found to be an almost universal rule. During my
twelve months in England I saw only one bicycler who looked before turning into
the line of traffic from a side street. Anyway, this lady in Chester turned the
corner to join me in my direction of travel. Obviously Englishmen have been
conditioned for generations to swerve to miss such obstacles. I’d been
conditioned to accept a known risk rather than swerve into possible oblivion.
She and I arrived at the opposite kerb in a dead heat, me 21 inches from the
kerb, her 3 inches from me. I was listening for the crunch on my offside since
I did deviate 3 inches, but all I heard was unladylike speech from my onside.
This really didn’t unnerve me much since I’m used to missing objects by narrow
margins. I’m not sure what it did to her, but I’m willing to bet she still doesn’t
look before turning a
corner into a busy street. After all
statistics are statistics, and as I’ve said I’ve only seen one person, a school
boy about 15, who has ever looked and in fact he slowed down.
We soon learned the
only thing you don’t see in England is an open road. You can expect over any
hill or around any bend in country or city to find a car or lorry stopped in
the road. And bends they have plenty of.
It is an axiom in England that if a road is straight the Romans built
it. I guess Romans either didn’t have cows or else had highway engineers who
considered themselves the equals of cows. That they were good road builders is
attested to by the fact that many of their roads, paving bricks and all, are
still in use.
I heard one story
over the B.B.C. news about a village who couldn’t get the shire road people to
come and repair the ancient Roman road through their village. The reply was
something like this: “We didn’t build it, we won’t repair it”. Whereupon the
ingenious parish council wrote to Rome, the Italian government, and asked if
they could come to beleaguered Britain’s help; copy to shire hall. Result; the
shire was shamed into fixing the road.
By the time we
figured out that tea was the generic word for food it was two o’clock. We were
about 60 miles out of Liverpool, 100 miles from Cambridge. We were hungry and I, the driver, was about a
nervous wreck. Instead of peaking between 65 and 75 dropping to 35 in towns, we
were peaking at 50 and then not often, and dropping to zero in towns where
parking and waiting brought cross country and city travelers down to one lane
so you wait for one direction to pass and then you sneak through.
A phone call to
Cambridge, we’d be a little late, then lunch. Then more creeping on.
At all of these minor
emergencies, that is a car stopped in the traffic lane to have tea, I noted one
trouble for Americans in English cars. Every time I intended to shift from high
to second, as I always do where when slowing down, I succeeded in signaling a
left turn, this because I was reaching for the gears with my right hand and
found the signal indicators and shifted them instead. Other Americans have
complained of looking in the wrong place for the rear view mirror, but for the
most part these are easterners who can survive without outside mirrors. I tend
to look left into my outside mirror before overtaking in the states and found
no difficulty finding the mirror in England’s backward cars.
At first I gave
them the benefit of the doubt and considered it just a wrong choice to drive
left not right. But after months of thinking it over I believe they are wrong.
First historically; knights in shining armour afoot or ahorse carried shields
in left hands and certainly bore right on any path when meeting and passing
anyone head on. To this day I believe pedestrians prefer to keep right, keeping
their right hand free for emergency uses. Ships, even in England keep right.
The most important lever in a car is the gear shift, it should be handled by
the right hand. When giving hand signals you should sacrifice your left hand
and continue steering with the right.
I didn’t find it
particularly difficult to keep to the left since actually in any tight
situation there was just room for one car and it could be anywhere left, right,
or center depending on where others had parked.
I came to two conclusions before arriving in Cambridge. The English road
system would be more catastrophic to California than a major earthquake. And
English drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists would not last one week in
California.
We had been
spectacularly unsuccessful in finding a house to live in. We had some good
leads but no lease in our pocket. We assumed that when an estate agent
(realtor) gave us the address of a house (they never take you to see one) we
could expect to move in if we liked it. It doesn’t work that way. If you like
the house he puts your name on the list with others who also like the house,
and then contacts the owner to see which tenant the owner prefers. This takes anywhere
from a day to a month. With five children we knew how many times we were apt to
be preferred.
We dearly loved one
ancient and rambling thatched roof ‘cottage’, six bedrooms, large garden (yard)
quarters for nanny, cook, and whoever else you could afford, and obviously
designed for large families. We were put at the top of the list by the estate
agent. He realized that a house built for families should be lived in by
families. He also realized he had one and only one house commodious enough for
our entourage.
The cottage
(actually called Byrons Lodge) had always been rented to large families (2 or 3
children) and he told us we could expect to get the house. “Go off to the
Continent and we’ll advise you of the owner’s decision and tell you when you can
move in”. In any case we liked Byrons Lodge so well that we didn’t seriously
look for another list to put our name on.
So off to the
Continent we went with a hope but no promise. Early in March I had contracted
(and paid for) a Volkswagen Microbus to be picked up (by us) in Hanover on 1
June. I had asked our La Jolla travel agent not only to book us across to
England but also on to Hanover. She had stated that would be unnecessary. Such
a short trip and so early in the season. Just book it in Cambridge.
Well, as is usually
the case when I buy travel tickets I had spent hours in advance looking at
ferry and train schedules and knew precisely how, when, and where I wanted to
go. My travel plans had been firm since April, and I had written the VW factory
to the hour when I’d be in Hanover. So,
as is also usual when I want some tickets, I get in line behind someone who
knows to the closest two weeks when his holiday (vacation) is, and knows in
general which direction he wants to go, and how much money he has to spend, but
no more. For a half hour I stood
listening to “Switzerland is nice in August”, “It would cost you 30 pounds to
fly but you do save so much time on the channel crossing you know”, “However
you can go by rail, crossing between Dover and Calais”..... My thoughts and
blood pressure were near the breaking point.
Finally my subconscious mind heard “Thank you, I was just making
enquiries, I’ll contact you later if I don’t take my usual holiday to Brighton”.
In a not too
pleasant voice I said “I want two and four half, second class, tickets from
Harwich to Hanover”. He answered something in English, which after
reverberating around in my mind for a while came out to be American for
“when”. I said 3lst May. His composure
which he had kept during the previous half hour of nonsensical generalities,
suddenly left him. “Why that’s only three days from now”. I assured him I was
aware it was three days hence, but that American travel agents don’t like
trifling trips, that the railway representatives on the Empress are not
interested in getting anyone beyond the range of the British Railways, and that
yesterday I was looking for a house. Well, he couldn’t promise anything but
he’d see.
After much hustling
and bustling he returned to say “Sorry no second class berths on the night
ferry, only first”. Since I was in no position to be fussy I succumbed and said
“I want one four berth cabin or two two berth cabins”. He replied “Sorry, all
fare paying passengers (4 years and above) must have a berth. And there are no
4 berth cabins, only 2 berth cabins are available. You will need two of these
and an additional berth in a third cabin”. I
asked him in a slightly irritable voice, “How would you suggest I divide our
family up into 3 independent self sufficient groups”. After a moment’s thought, he said, “Put the
two youngest with their mother, you take the next older ones, and the 11 year
old can stay alone (with a stranger in a different part of the ship)”. I asked
him if he had any young children. “No why?" he replied. I thought back to the airplane where if
someone had been with Tom we could have talked him out of his air sickness, or
at least comforted him. I thought of many other things too, and told him that
while traveling Mom and Dan slept together in one berth, Dad and Charlie in
another, Tom and Bill in a third, and John alone, 4 berths.
He said “Sorry, you
must have 5 berths”, which we got. I
don’t know who got a private cabin at our expense.
Now as to the
train; I agreed second class was O.K. Did we want reserved seats? Of course we
did. We didn’t want a separate boy in
each compartment. Anyway the cost is ridiculously low.
One half hour
later, the tickets were ready. You see in certain countries children under 3
ride free, in others under 4. Likewise
half fare ages vary from 10 to 12 to 14. Then of course, part first class, part
second. One and a half hours after entering to transact a simple business I
came out cursing American and British travel agents, British and Continental
Railways, and myself for not having my Volkswagen delivered in England.
Sunday noon, 31st
May 1959 (Memorial Day) we again loaded down our overburdened Consul, but not
as in Liverpool. Two bags of permanent things (like winter clothes, technical
books, and papers, etc.) were left in Cambridge. We had our last lunch in our guest house, and
set off for the American Military Cemetery outside of Cambridge for Memorial
Day Service. Mary and I had taught (and in fact met) in an Air Force Communications
School at Yale University during World War II.
We felt we owed a debt of gratitude to some of our ex-students who had
graduated with gold bars into operations out of England, never to return. It
was a nice ceremony flowers dropped from bombers, military bands, and speeches
(we left early).
We had to drive 60
miles (3 hours) to Harwich. Most of the
goods lorries (freight trucks) were off the road on Sunday (but more sightseers
were parked on the roads gazing) and our pace was better than planned, that is,
better than our revised plans made in England not quite up to our original
plans made in America.
In any case we
arrived in Harwich in good time with only one stretch of typical English Sunday
traffic. In late afternoon every third car in London is returning from an
afternoon (or weekend) at the seaside (beach). Since we were going to the coast
we just gazed in wonderment at mile after mile of bumper to bumper,
five-mile-per-hour traffic struggling home through Colchester.
We arrived in
Harwich about 6:30 and hungry. At Parkeston Quay, where we were to board the
ferry, there was no place to eat so we drove into Harwich for a snack. We
picked a place that looked common enough to tolerate 5 children, but we were
wrong. They informed us they were closing. So we crossed the street to a more
exclusive looking place and ate in leisure, watching the poor unsuspecting
potential diners approach the closed cafe, and indeed enter it and eat.
Ridding ourselves
of our rented Consul was no problem at all.
A younger small man was waiting at the quay, walked around it once,
hailed a porter for us to unburden it, said we’d hear through the automobile
club about any additional charges or rebate, bade us bon voyage, and was off.
The porter carried
our footlocker, duffle bag, and matched set of fit-inside-each-other bags (when
empty) and three brief cases (mine, the boys school work, and the boys car
games) to the customs man and ticket takers. We asked about registering
(checking) most of the baggage to Hanover and did so. From what I’ve heard since about letting
baggage out of sight I am probably the only traveler in the world who
registered his luggage and claimed it upon arrival without incident.
We were then ready
to board, and on sight of the cross channel ferry, Charlie’s eye lit up and he
shouted “There’s our Empress”.
The Empress of
Arnheim is no Empress of England. It is
older, smaller and dirtier. Our first class cabins wouldn’t hold a candle to
our previous tourist class accommodation.
This was to be expected but it required much explaining to the boys. Our
extra privileges (going forward on the deck below the bridge, and eating or
drinking in style, which we had neither inclination nor time to do) were short
lived and we were soon nested in. We never did see the cabin where our fifth berth
was.
After a hectic and
rushed breakfast we boarded the train to claim our reserved seats. We found the right coach and were proceeding
towards the seat numbers indicated when we came to a glass door marked “First Class”. Sure enough our reserved second class seats
were in the first class potion of the coach.
And there we were. No seats, and
no likelihood of seats since all second class seats except singles here and
there were taken. The conductor (guard,
Schaffner) saw the difficulty and indicated he would straighten it out once we
were underway. So we stood holding boys
and bags until half way to Rotterdam when he escorted us back to another quite
ancient and quite deserted coach and gave us a whole six-seat compartment.
We were fairly
happy until we made a few discoveries. Namely this compartment, unlike the ones
in our assigned coach, had no rug on the floor. Once Dan started crawling on
the floor we remembered why passenger trains improved so much when diesel
engines replaced steam engines and sealed windows and air conditioning replaced
windows that opened (and like ours usually could never really be closed). His
hands and knees were blacker than coal. Soon his face and clothes as well as
our clothes began to turn first splotchy black, then smudgy gray, and finally
rather polka-dot; dark spots on dark gray background.
The scenery was
wonderful, especially the haystacks with moveable thatched roofs. When full the roofs were way up high and as
the hay was used up the roof kept pace by dropping down on the poles that
supported it. The scenery inside was getting darker by the moment.
Up to this point
(two hours inside our first non English speaking country) we had no real
language difficulty. English is not American, but except for a few (thousand)
words that mean different things, broad a’s, a rapid pace, and soft voice
level, everything could usually be deciphered.
Except of course the English money system (or lack of system), but more
on that later. And we were now on a
train that met the cross channel boat from England. Anyway everyone says every
European knows English, especially on trains, in hotels, etc. I hadn’t even
bothered to take my German-English dictionary out of the luggage and put it in
my briefcase. Then came our first shock and minor setback.
A young man wearing
an apron entered our compartment and started spreckend Deutsch. I looked a
little startled but rose to the occasion and asked “Sprechen Sie Englisch?” To
my utter amazement he answered “Nein, Sprechen Sie Deutsch” and there we were.
Actually I had
studied German two years in high school, and a year in college. I also had
taken a special German course and translated a short book on the history of the
clarinet and had easily passed my German “reading” test in qualifying for my
Ph.D. I had also attended night adult school in San Diego (at a school two
blocks from my home) and had a delightful time listening to Frau Busch telling
auf Deutsch of her impressions of Germany. I had even been teaching German to
my oldest boy (and three of his school mates) so that he could better
appreciate our trip to Germany. Nevertheless I hadn’t expected such an abrupt
nor decisive change of gears into a foreign language.
After a lengthy
conversation where my most used words were “Ich nicht verstehe”, and “langsamer
bitte” I gathered he wanted to know did we plan to eat in the Speisewagen
(diner); ja. Did we want the erste (first) oder sweite (second) sitting; erste.
What did we wish zu essen (to eat), followed by a series of words about every
fifth of which I understood, like eggs, potatoes, and sauerkraut. I chose
something which included the word Eier (eggs) and he gave me a piece of paper
with a table number etc. and departed much more tired than he had entered (and
much later than he’d planned, I’m sure).
Then John, to whom
I was “Herr Schulmeister” himself, eagerly asked what transpired. I regained my
composure and triumphantly told everyone would eat at 11 o’clock and have eggs
of some type, probably an omelette.
Not long afterwards
as we approached the border between Holland and Germany, some uniformed men
boarded the train. Very shortly
thereafter the Netherlands immigration officials, after looking at my boys and
my own short hair cuts and my rimless glasses, asked in perfect English for our
passports. And then the German customs man in perfect Deutsch said something of
which I extracted the words cigarettes and spirits, and I answered
"nein" just as if I knew what he had been saying.
Somewhere in the
next ten miles we must have crossed into Germany. I had seen no massive
concrete pill boxes, barbed wire, nor even any ploughed ground. In fact I
hadn’t the vaguest notion when we entered Germany and believe me I was looking,
for four voices kept asking “Are we there yet”. It was somewhat disappointing
not even knowing. After all, every movie you see shows barricades, guard
houses, sinister looking guards, and you somehow expect a change in something
or another.
The change soon
came, we stopped in the first German town to change engines (and about
everything else). I expected things to really get efficient now. So we sat, and
sat, and soon noticed it was 11 o’clock and so I stepped off the train to spot
the Speisewagen and it was gone. Part of our train was going to Scandinavia and
part on toward Berlin. There must have been some mix up as to which cars were
going where, and maybe they had only one engine. It seemed as if this engine
must have gone to Copenhagen and back and was now ready to take us to Hanover.
After a forty five minute wait we were again eastward bound and also walking
toward the Speisewagen. Because of the delay they must have telescoped the two
sittings into one. In any case when we arrived our assigned table and all its
four seats was already one-quarter occupied.
I am not sure yet
how we did it but somehow our seven got themselves in the remaining space.
Luckily our unfortunate dinner companion spoke excellent English and either had
a good sense of humour or was exceptionally well mannered and well poised. He
seemed to half way enjoy the consternation threw into the diner crew and
entered into the festivities with gusto. He suggested and in fact ordered two
German brews for Mary and me (kind of a nerve tonic) and reordered one for himself.
Then after a chat with the waiter he asked if we had really ordered a
dill-pickle and potato omelette. I
acknowledged that we probably had.
Not too long
afterwards (in fact I often had the feeling that certain parties were anxious
to see us on our way) a giant sized platter came with the aforesaid omelette,
with ham yet. Actually we couldn’t have done better, it was wonderful and even
the boys relished it. All except Dan. He went to sleep. The dead weight added
nothing to the ease of devouring that typically huge German meal. Before the
ice cream came around Charlie was also asleep. We knew this might happen,
that’s why we chose the first sitting. Unscheduled events cause havoc in
families with small and many children.
Our meal was really
quite a success, thanks to our unexpected interpreter, baby feeder, spirit
lifter, and companion to the end (of the meal). We succeeded in waking both Dan
and Charlie on the way back to our coal-floored compartment and so had the
pleasure of entertaining two cross boys the rest of the way to Hanover.
It was apparent to
me now, that not just everyone in Germany spoke English. So since I didn’t
really expect a Volkswagen representative to meet us at the station and escort
us to our new home on wheels I looked up the address of the factory. I was
right on both counts, no representative, and no one who knew English. I
couldn’t make up my mind whether to leave Mary and the boys at the station
while I got the car, nor whether to claim our substantial luggage and take it
along. After noting that waiting rooms in Germany seem to be tied up with
eating, and needing moral support anyway, I suggested they come along. We had
enough problems, I left the luggage strictly unclaimed.
We left the station
and made for the nearest policeman and as usual said “Sprechen Sie English” and
as usual heard “nein”. So now with
somewhat more confidence I asked the way to the VW factory. He was giving me details on this and the
other tram when I broke in and pointing to the boys said “Ich habe funf kinder
mit mir” and he seemed to get the idea and pointed a different direction and
said “Taxi”.
We walked over to
the taxi stand and noted what looked like two or three taxis deciding they
weren’t going to pick up passengers at the station after all. It could all be imagination but that’s the
way it looked. Anyway, the next taxi
driver was looking in his rear view mirror and stopped automatically at the
stand. Before he could size up the situation, we had the door open and were
half loaded. I then went through the usual “Sprechen Sie Englisch” and heard
the usual “nein” and proceeded auf Deutsch to tell him where we wanted to go.
Somehow Charlie and I got to sit in front with him, leaving only Mom, Dan,
Bill, Tom, and John in the back. So with much forethought and confidence I
began asking questions.
The trouble with
learning a foreign language is not in the speaking but in the listening. After all in two minutes by sub audible
rehearsal I could get out a quite decent five to ten word question. The only trouble was that in the next two
minutes I would hear a one or two hundred word answer, usually only about one
tenth intelligible. I noted however that
the proportion of understanding increased daily until it got between a quarter
and a half on first hearing.
We soon got to the new, beautiful, and large VW Werke, then came the usual difficult decision, which gate. We were wrong first but soon found the correct one. After a few phone calls and runnings back and forth between taxi and guard shack we bade farewell to our last link with the dependent past. We were on the threshold of independence from hotels, travel agents, trains (much to John’s regret) and eating in cafes, restaurants, pubs, hotels, and the like.
After a short wait
in the guard shack we saw a man walk out of the factory and knew our language
exile was temporarily over. Something about the whole surroundings made him
appear to be a prisoner released from prison. The giant, beautiful though stark
building, the fences and guard shacks, the absence of any people except guards,
and I suppose our sense of lingual imprisonment. However it was our release,
not his. We could now talk again to someone other than our family. Our lingual
imprisonment had not been ‘in solitary confinement’. In fact in many instances
our English speaking contingent was numerically superior. And of course Charlie was not bothered by the
fact that be got no answers. He continued his usual questioning of our captured
audiences. And now he had some new questions, “Why do they talk so funny?” “What did he say, daddy?” and finally he
learned “Does he speak English?” But it was nice to speak English to an
outsider again.
We were soon
escorted into a palatial waiting room, circular stair cases, very high ceiling,
gorgeous rugs, and modern furniture. Each of the boys was given a toy VW and
proceeded to scoot them across the bare spaces between rugs.
Our transaction was
quite typical. Even though everything had been specified and paid for in advance,
I still ended up giving him a substantial number of newly acquired Deutsche
Marks. He said they had figured my insurance for the small VW, not for the
Microbus.
He then gave me two
keys, a packet containing instructions for operating VWs, coupons for regular
inspections, maps of VW service dealers, and our insurance spelled out in all
its detail, auf Deutsch. Then came the carnet, the papers that get export
vehicles across borders without tariffs, in perfect French. Some paper to give
to the guard as we drove out, another to give customs officials as we left
Germany.
And then the
routine question, “I suppose you know how to drive a Volkswagen” and the not so
routine answer, “I’ve never even been in a VW Microbus” (except in the show
room in San Diego). After ascertaining
that I had driven other cars for 20 years in America (and five days in England)
he figured I shouldn’t have any difficulty. He’d show me how outside the
factory and it was only a short easy run to the Autobahn where I could get better
acquainted. “Fine” I said, except that all our luggage was at the railway
station right smack in the center of town (and it was now 4:30). This created a
slight emergency (for me, it needn’t have really worried him but it did). “Wait
til I phone my office, perhaps I can arrange to have someone drive you
downtown. You’d never make it alone with a strange gear shift and sitting five
feet forward and two feet higher than usual”. Here was a man really sold on his
product. He had made his sale. But obviously he couldn’t bear the thought of
his nice new VW getting crinkled and disabled with less than ten kilometers
(six miles) on the speedometer.
My driving lesson
was swift and simple; the lowest gear was like the usual reverse, all other
forward gears as could be expected. Reverse itself (push down, pull back) was,
and remains, somewhat of a problem. Always shift down when slowing down, and in
general shift when the speedometer needle crosses the red lines marked on the
speedometer.
At the VW Werke in Hanover
(note the dirty knees from the train)
So we loaded boys
and bags inside (and unlike the Consul we still had some room left over). Then
I remembered my camera and lined them up outside beside the only new car I’ve
ever owned and recorded the event. About now the English speaking sales manager
reappeared and said he would drive us downtown in person and we were off. This
was a hair raising experience. Apparently VW engines are most efficient at near
top speeds, and gas mileage is obviously best in the highest gear. We soon
discovered that 36 horses under expert
guidance can cause heads to rock on necks, eyes to bug out, feet to push on
imaginary brakes, and stomachs to rise to near mouth level. Unlike English
traffic which never exceeds 30 mph in towns, German traffic never is less than
30 mph except for the few seconds it takes to achieve this speed. It is well
known that personalities, especially hidden aggressions are reflected in a
person’s driving habits. The reserved, tradition bound, polite, and ever
enduring British put up with traffic conditions no American can understand,
(nor tolerate), with unbelievable restraint, patience, and apparent good
humour. Germans, efficient, intolerant, self important, always in a hurry wear
themselves, and their countrymen, out by never giving an inch, nor slowing down
for any obstacle (cyclist, pedestrian, or other car). Our heads continually
rocked back on green (and yellow) lights, jerked forward on red lights, and
rolled sideways for stationary or slow moving objects. I learned in the space
of two minutes that Microbuses are a foot narrower on each side than they
appear, can turn on a dime (or English 3 penny silver bit), are powered by an
engine highly underrated by horsepower engineers, are never to be run at less
than Top RPM, don’t require any breaking in (running in) time, and can run
equally well on streets, curbs (kerbs) or sidewalks. I also learned that there
are events such that even Charlie is speechless and that this type behavior in
German drivers must not be out of the ordinary since our driver carried on a
normal, reserved, conversation the whole trip.
The taxi ride
hadn’t been nearly as nerve racking, possibly because the taxi wasn’t my brand
new sparkling car, or because the taxi still had an engine and hood (bonnet)
between me and eternity, or because the rush hour traffic hadn’t started, even
possibly because the taxi driver couldn’t keep up such a pace all day and
subsided into somewhat saner habits. In any case we did get to the station, and
in jig time (and rhythm). A few words auf Deutsch to a policeman and we were
parked and were trotting over after our baggage. At this point the difference
between my inexperience with the German language, character, and personality,
and my host’s knowledge really became pronounced. Whereas even in England or
the U.S.A. I stand back trying to decipher unintelligible signs and go to the
baggage room only to find it a place to check parcels, then to the checked
baggage counter, to find this is where you check outgoing baggage and finally
find the incoming baggage counter (where I would have brought my bags when I
came in to start upon a trip), my host (with me three feet in arrears and
panting quite somewhat) read no signs but spoke up boldly from behind two layers
of people asking some questions auf Deutsch got us to the correct counter
before I could hand out my claim tickets.
In a twinkling we were behind the heavy iron fencing telling the baggage
man which were our bags and loading them in a dolly that miraculously showed up
from somewhere with a man pushing it. Before the baggage man, who was really
not just a clerk but a customs official, could catch his breath and become
officious, my host was telling him the contents, the destination, and the
valuation of the luggage, and that we were in a hurry. How he knew the contents
I don’t quite know, he didn’t bother checking with me, but in any case I was
signing some release papers and being pushed out before the customs man could
really show me what authority he had.
And believe me Germans in positions of petty authority delight in making
this fact felt upon the slightest provocation. Before I could gain my composure
and tender a ten mark tip to the porter my host had given him five and
dismissed him. This was real German efficiency.
Whereas this same
luggage had doubled the subjective size of our rented Consul getting to the
boat in England it was swallowed up over the engine inside the Microbus
practically unnoticed. Five minutes, and many suppressed gulps, later we were
sitting on the approaches to the Autobahn bidding a fond farewell to our super
charged efficient, self sacrificing, bi-lingual friend. Actually he drove us
directly to the autobahn and walked home (he said only a few blocks, probably a
mile) rather than having us drop him off and finding the autobahn ourselves. I
was never quite sure whether this was graciousness carried to the extreme, the
desirability of getting us out of Hanover (and his responsibility) as fast as
possible, or a certain pre judgment of my mental facilities relative to
navigating and driving his obvious pride and joy. In any case I take my hat off
to him. After being plagued by inefficiencies, bad judgments, unscheduled
delays, coal black train compartments, and general complacencies for 24 hours
this true salesman (he aims and succeeds in pleasing) made us very happy to be
in Germany, in a VW and alive.
Everything was rosy
now. Our independence was nearly complete. No more transport problems and only
one more night of lodging problems. We were on our way to Wiedenbruck to have
our new bus converted into a ‘campster’. We were on a typical American highway
in a new and clean car, no coal smoke nor remains of such, driving at a slow
but still more American than English speed of 50 m.p.h. which we could expect
to maintain for miles on end. No more cars stopped on the highway in front of
us around every bend or over the crown of every hill. Driving on the right side
of the road, shifting with the right hand, signaling with the left. Things were
indeed rosy. Is this our car daddy? Can we keep it? Can I ride up with
you? Dan’s asleep".
Before we hardly
became aware of the trademark of German motoring we had covered twenty miles on
the Autobahn and were ready to take some lesser roads to Hamelin to check on
the current population of rats. Even in the thirty minutes we were on the
Autobahn we did discover the famous German blinking light signal. Fifty m.p.h.
is not a fast speed on an Autobahn but it is faster than many vehicles and we
did have occasion to pass (overtake) some cars. It was then I noticed in my
rear view mirror the blinking lights. It would appear that cars in Germany, at
least those driven by Germans, have just one speed forward, namely the fastest
speed the car can possibly go. When you pull out to pass someone you quite
normally pull into the passing or fast lane. If any car no matter how far back
sees you pull into “his” territory he immediately starts blinking his lights.
This is to notify you that you are trespassing and you’d better be quick about
getting back into the driving lane out of the passing lane, because “here I
come and I don’t intend to slow down”. Of course no sane driver attempts to
overtake without checking his rear view mirror, and if any car is in sight to
signal his intended move into the passing lane. However in most mature
civilized communities the rights of other people are respected and car
overtaking another car half a mile ahead of where you are is ordinarily not
even noticed. In Germany one gets the impression that any time one usurps the
passing lane it is a personal affront to that whole cult of drivers in both
America and Germany who use nothing but the passing lane. To challenge everyone
who dares enter the passing lane seems to be the new national pastime in
Germany. I now knew in England roads are to park on, in Germany to speed
on. Normal, medium speed, straight line
driving has yet to be learned in both countries. Enough philosophizing, back to
Hamelin.
Johnny, our oldest
boy, had been the Pied Piper when his class presented the story to the P.T.A.
back home. Obviously we had to stop to see the Weser, the hill, the lack of
rats (and children). We arrived just before dark and started hotel hunting.
Actually it was only 1 June no tourists yet, no problem. Just one, five
children. That is just one big problem, the other problems were speaking
German, and recognizing potential hotels when you pass them. Every time I
thought I spotted a hotel I’d walk into a bar, tavern, or beer garden. And
usually it was a hotel of sorts but either for permanent residence, or not
enough rooms or beds for five children. Actually five children aren’t as awful
as they sound. Two double beds could suffice. After many trials and much advice
we did find a place, one large room, a double and three single beds. As long as
we left by 0830 we could leave the car on the street. They served dinner and
breakfast. All was well. The dinner was no more delirious than usual.
Difficulty in reading the menu, gauging the boys hunger, keeping Charlie awake,
and keeping Dan’s hands out of the soup were by now accepted hazards. In fact
we found German waiters and waitresses much more tolerant of children than
those in America or England. Maybe our lingual plight made them more agreeable.
We were soon upstairs again looking out the window at the curious and envious
populace admiring our shiny new bus.
Actually I’m sure
the whole rationale of America’s post war prosperity is based on the American’s
desire to outshine his compatriots with the newest, gaudiest, largest, and most
outlandish car. Each year the cars get more, i.e. larger, wider, heavier, more
expensive to run, etc. I had never succumbed to this illness and in fact
rebelled and profited from it. My two cars were nine and nineteen years old,
purchased at low cost, cheap to run and with very low maintenance costs. You
see I only wanted transportation and even then for short distances. I didn’t
need a status symbol. I just didn’t care what my neighbors thought. Anyway now
I was the possessor of the only new car I will probably ever buy. And here were
people actually “ohing” and “ahing”. I should have felt very proud and
boastful. Actually I felt ashamed. I knew the Europeans concepts of rich
American tourists, and I was not rich and didn’t want to be considered a
tourist. My Z license plates told one and all this was an export VW and I only
wished it were old and dirty so I could be one of the folks again and not a
rich American tourist.
With these thoughts
and knowing full well there would be no street music nor rats to disturb my
dreams I and six other mighty tired people fell asleep at the end of our first
non-English day.
The journey of
Daniel Webster, his four older brothers, and father and mother was really just
starting. Let us summarize his trip to
date and forecast highlights of his forthcoming summer’s itinerary in what
might be called the Land of the Midnight Sun:
LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN
There was a family seven strong
Who sailed across the sea
From U.S.A to Europe bound
To see what they could see.
They landed first at
And stepping on the shore
They said, while dodging left-hand cars
This country we adore.
It was but six days later on
At Harwich (Parkeston Quay)
That all were ready once again
To sail across a sea.
For Hook of Holland bound were they
And hence by train to buy
In Germany at Hano’er town
A car with which to hie.
A green and white Volkswagen bus
To serve as car and home
With beds inside and tent attached
And luggage rack as dome.
Then heading North again they came
To water cross their course
So once again but now they drove
On board for land of Norse.
In Copenhagen ships they saw
While cruising harbor round
In Elsinore upon the shore
Prince Hamlet’s castle found.
Across the water once again
To Sweden’s lakes they came
In Stockholm with the clock at twelve
The palace guards changed name.
By now in land of midnight sun
In June the days came round
When even in the midst of night
Sun’s light did yet abound.
The children this indeed did love
And tarried from their beds
But Mom and Dad with chores to do
Awoke with eyes of lead.
So off for land of setting sun
To Oslo and its hills
An old stave church and Viking boats
And many other thrills.
Off west again through lands of trees
And rising heights to mount
Until in winter playground land
Snow Patches can they count.
Across a barren tundra land
Until great falls they see
And then the fiords come to sight
And roads drop down to sea.
Again at Bergen boat they board
And to the purser’s grief
A personal check their passage pay
For cash was very brief.
Across to Hadrians wall they sailed
And first in weeks to see
Was mist and grime and rain and fog
For they in England be.
The rain did go the sun did shine
And beauteous weather came
The likes of summer fifty-nine
Will not be seen again.
At Sherwood Forest needs they stop
For Robin’s tree to see
And then to Nottingham they go
For there a castle be.
And then to Cambridge town they came
A house for them to find
So study could both dad and boys
Alas no house unkind.
For yet lo oer the whole wide world
With children yet to house
Landlords for ages past have said
‘Indeed sleep with the cows’.
So caravan they rent and park
Together with their bus
They sleep and eat in camping style
While house they seek, and fuss.
In Fulbourn village close hard by
What used to be the Manse
I guess because in God they trust
Became their habitance.
And so half way around the world
From sunny Californ
They settle in their eight room house
To see what brings the morn.
Their travels for one summer done
School starts for dad and boys
When summer heat returns again
They’ll look for greater joys.
J.B. and J.C. Webster
Fulbourn, Cambridge.
20 January 1960.
3 June 1959,
Wiedenbruck, West Germany. As of this date we were by definition full-fledged
campers. We possessed one two-day old Volkswagen Microbus and one one-day-old
campster modification. Our converted VW now called ZW (Zigeunerwagen or Gypsy
Wagon) included a full length luggage (roof) rack complete with canvas rain
cover, tent that attached to roof rack, camping box which allowed car to be
large bed at night but seats in day, 2-burner benzine (petrol or gasoline)
stove, and assorted foam rubber mattresses; three sleeping bags and three wool
comforters of varying sizes (brought from U.S.A.); two pans, a kitchen knife,
and assorted paper plates, cups, and eating utensils (just purchased in my best
German the preceding day), and one batch of very dirty clothes, some still
surrounding only slightly cleaner boys, and some beyond foreseeable help.
After clumsily
getting the car; bedroom, metamorphosized into car; traveling, we set off to
find breakfast, and ended up in a hotel restaurant. I was never quite sure that this hotel
intended to serve breakfast to transients (non-residents). Nor was I sure
whether breakfast in their eyes was some set combination of foods including
milk (hot for children), coffee, bread, and butter or whether they intended
one’s imagination to turn to such things as pancakes, sausages, eggs, and tea.
In any case since I was fresh from America where freedom of choice is a virtue
zealously exercised. (But actually highly overrated when it comes to ordering
breakfast since one might as well just specify small, sweet (coffee and sweet
roll); small, toast (coffee and toast); medium (coffee, fried eggs, bacon and
cold white toast); or large (coffee, pancakes and sausage). To get, for
example, tea, or whole wheat toast, or milk, or poached egg is possible, but
actually ostracizes you, at least from the cooks and waiters viewpoint. Usually
even the other clients move away or unfold a newspaper between themselves and
you, which lets everyone else in the establishment know in a manner far
superior to words that they are not in your party.)
Anyway being a
non-conformist (at least at breakfast) and being hungry, I ordered in my by now
polished (3-day-old) German assorted milks, coffee, tea, pancakes, sausages,
eggs, cereals (to each his own). About a half-hour later we got 5 milks (hot),
2 coffees, and 6 large German pancakes. I’m sure this is exactly what we would
have received if I’d not said a word, which I must assume is essentially what
our host thought I had said; nothing.
Finally, after a
final round of shopping for bread, cheese, bananas, and other essentials for
lunch, we set off in the direction of Hamburg. Our first, stop for gasoline (benzine)
was fairly routine except for getting some gasoline into our stove. The tank
had an opening of about a quarter of an inch. We soon decided we needed either
a funnel or a separate container, with a larger opening, or both. Or German
service station attendants needed calmer nerves, lower volume pumps, or finer
nozzles. We put “gasoline carrier” on our list.
At one o’clock one
thinks very hard about what one had already thought about at eleven or twelve,
namely lunch. Lunch time with five children means milk. Milk means grocery
store. Grocery store means window with tins of food, boxes of cereal, maybe
bread together with an open door. We found after much looking that the sign
“Lebensmittel” probably signifies the equivalent of a grocery, but we also found
the sign “Geschlossen zwischen 1230 and 1400” on a locked door means “out for
lunch.”
With tighter belts
and drier throats we continued our journey when to my pleasant surprise I saw
a traveling dairy wagon. A man selling milk, butter, eggs, cheese, etc. to the
neighborhood women. I stopped, waited my
turn, spoke my piece, and returned with a liter of milk. We traveled a few
miles out of town, found a nice place to pull off the road alongside the Weser
River, and had our first meal on the go. We also met for the first time our
continual companions, the wasps. They liked the jelly best.
Since we wanted
another night of practice on changing from car; traveling, to car; eating, to
car; sleeping, before hitting the big time, we stopped short of Hamburg. We
bought powdered potatoes, beans, sausage (wurst), and drove down a side road to
a camp listed in our book as possessing a store, restaurant, showers, flush
toilets, trees, and guarded. We arrived at a German tavern or pub and were
herded into the adjacent pasture, fenced and forested, and full of chickens.
The store-restaurant, was the pub, which also housed the flush toilets. The
shower? Well, it was out in the pasture with us. It consisted of an old oil
drum, perched on high, and a concrete apron below. No walls, no curtains, no
roof, .i.e., no building of any sort. Hot? Yes, after a hot day in the sun.
Cold? Yes, most of the time. Used by us? No.
We had no more
trouble than expected getting the tent up for the first time by ourselves, but
found the stove quite a challenge, more of a smudge pot than stove. But since
smoked sausage is indeed a delicacy, we feasted, turned Charlie off, and went
bed.
About a week, and
seven unused cold showers, after starting our camping trip, we arrived at our
first real destination, Stockholm. Not that Hamburg with its harbor ride and
zoo, Lubeck with canal ride and torture chamber museum, Copenhagen with
harbor-canal ride and Tivoli, Elsinore castle with torture chamber (and
Hamlet’s ghost), and the trip through Sweden’s lake country were uninteresting
and not appreciated. These were just frosting on the cake that was Stockholm
where I was to study for two weeks.
By now, in Denmark
and Sweden, there was virtually no oral communication. Travel books and bureaus
may say everyone in Europe uses English as a second language, but they fail to
mention that proprietors of village grocery stores and fellow campers don’t
really get a chance to use English except maybe once every twenty years. And
they tend to get a little rusty in understanding things like, “Do you speak
English”, or “Have you a loaf of bread”, later shortened to, “Have you bread”,
then “Bread, bread”, and finally, “Bread, brot, pane, pana”, followed by a game
of charades. Actually as we found out later, Scandinavians as a whole do speak
more English, than say Italians, Spaniards, or Portuguese, and in fact,
occasionally a gas station attendant might actually point out the telephone
instead of the toilets when the telephone was indeed what was wanted.
The long distance
call to my English speaking (and MIT trained) colleague at the Royal Institute
of Technology was most gratifying. I especially liked the part about the
camping site being located adjacent to a motel. Our first week of camping thus
ended in said motel where I was inaccessible for a half hour in the hot
bathtub. My boys showed their true colors however, and had to be coerced into
said bathtub.
Buying groceries in
village stores was no more challenging than buying a meal in a Swedish cafeteria.
My first faux pas was getting big bowls of tapioca pudding (at the soup end of
line) only to find they were sour cream. The meat dishes were not displayed,
just listed on the menu overhead. When you know not what is available, and know
not what might be acceptable, and know not how to speak the words that you know
not, ordering becomes difficult.
After two days to
recover from our first week of camping (at $10/day) we moved from the motel
into the adjacent camp site and settled down in Stockholm for two weeks. Our
biggest problem was dirty clothes. My Swedish colleagues, with whom I was studying,
took charge and dropped them off at a nearby laundry with “rush” instructions,
i.e. 5-day service. Apparently these were the only instructions given. Five
days later I went to pick up the laundry and was presented with a bill for 105
krona ($20). To say the least this stopped me cold. But as I couldn’t translate
the bill nor very well argue, I retreated to my ivory tower and had my Swedish
colleagues explain to me about laundries. It seems they iron everything unless
told contrariwise. So the laundry bill was only $1.50, but for ironing 40
underpants, 28 pairs of socks, and numerous undershirts, the bill was
$18.50. We decided forthwith and we told
the boys, “No more dirty-clothes”.
Our real problem in
Stockholm was the sun. We couldn’t get rid of it. Come eight o’clock and time
for the boys to go to bed, there was the sun. Come ten o’clock, time for me to
go to bed the sun again. Come two o’clock, time to take Charlie to the potty
clad in pajamas and walking through the camp, and again the sun. Granted at
midnight there was no sun, but you could read a newspaper. I got sleepier and
sleepier. We couldn’t get the boys to bed and although all seven of us slept in
the ZW, it took a certain amount of cooperation. The ZW worked well as a car,
as a kitchen and dining room, as a living room or as a bedroom, but not as a
car and as a kitchen; nor as living room and bedroom.
We pretty much led
a completely communal life, what one did we all did. But boys seem to think
darkness precedes sleep and no darkness, no sleep. I, on the other hand, knew
that sleepiness precedes sleep, darkness or no. Contrariwise I know from years
of experience that the dawning light means wake up, and off to work.
Contrariwise, boys know that waking up follows 8 or 10 hours of sleep. The
routine, if there ever got to be any was, “I’m ready to go to sleep, boys, GO
TO SLEEP”. Come morning, “Time to eat,
boys GET UP”. This in contrast to years of mornings where the conversation was
more typically, “Boys, keep quiet so we can sleep an extra half hour”.
After a week of
this no sleep routine, I was dead tired and we moved into the motel for a night
so I could go to sleep at eight o’clock, sun or no sun, and boys or no boys.
It’s hard to say which the boys liked best; the boat ride around the canals and
harbor, or the trip to Skansen, the park with typical buildings from all over
Sweden congregated in one huge park. Watching them put up the pole for
midsummer’s day in Skansen was great sport as was watching the polar bears and
Dan.
We were invited out
to a colleague’s house for dinner one night and sat talking until dusk, that is
until midnight. A great deal of the talk
was about when and how do people sleep in summer and stay awake in winter.
Since Ulf was a native Laplander he said it wasn’t at all bad in Stockholm but
further North, oh. He said many people had blackout curtains or shutters and
that most were sleepy. After we played the Mozart Clarinet Concerto (I had
brought my clarinet and he was a good piano player) we converted car to bedroom
in his front driveway and our usual 4 hours sleep.
As we left
Stockholm for Uppsala it was still Midsummer’s Fest and we stopped along the
road at a small village to watch the festivities. Before we knew it, the
villagers had the boys in line for refreshments and games. The holiday spirit
is contagious and the refreshments were good. If only I hadn’t been so sleepy,
I would have thoroughly enjoyed the day.
Our remaining camp
sites in Sweden were all on lakes but the mosquitoes never quite outnumbered
the wasps. Johnny got the idea that with lakes there should be fishing and
since he picked up languages faster than any of us, and therefore did the
grocery shopping, he ended up a few days later with some string, cork, weight,
and hook.
The other boys were
more interested in wading and were all fascinated by the birthday suits worn by
the Swedish children when swimming (or wading). Charlie was never one for shoes
anyway, and we always had to find them laying around somewhere before
decamping. In fact, that was usually our last act before leaving a camp site.
The word would be passed, “Find Charlie’s shoes and we’ll be ready to go.”
Our last camp site
in Sweden was not only on a lake, but also on a creek that fed logs into the
lake. Log rafts were made and at sunrise (2 A.M.) we heard the chug-chug of a
tug pulling the rafts away. Much later in the morning (6 A.M.) we were out
taking pictures of logs and loggers unsnarling jams. All in all, we got so
absorbed in observing Sweden’s greatest industry that we deviated from our
usual routine. Many hours later in Norway, we noted Charlie had no shoes, nor
were any shoes to be found in the car. Two days later when we were finally
convinced that Charlie had no shoes, we stopped in Honefoss, Norway, to
purchase a new pair. Actually he wore them so seldom a two-day wait meant
nothing.
After buying
Charlie’s "Norwegian Shoes" we proceeded straight ahead on the street
we had been on. The road soon changed to gravel and kept going north. I assumed
the Oslo-Bergen highway would be hard-surfaced and in general would proceed
westwardly. I kept looking for a highway marker to confirm my belief that we
were on the wrong road. No markers. It was lunch time so we stopped in a grove
of trees and I studied the map while Mary made the sandwiches. I determined
that even if we were wrong we were not too badly off. In general we would be
taking two legs of a right triangle instead of the hypotenuse.
I was soon
convinced we were on the wrong road but the scenery was lovely and we were far
enough along we decided to stick it out. Before long we came to some “Road
Works”. I was perhaps traveling a little fast for a gravel road but in any case
I pulled too far toward the edge and got mired down in loose gravel. Before we
could even get out to see how badly off we were four husky construction workers
were shoving and we were gone with no noticeable delay.
Further along the
road at a small hamlet a man who looked like another construction worker
flagged us. I presumed he was going to stop us while some approaching traffic
came through. He had no red flag and there were no warning signs but after the
lecture I got from Mary about the last little construction incident I was being
extra careful.
He approached the
car and the ensuing futile conversation was held first in English, answered in
Norwegian and then in sketchy German answered by equally sketchy German. I
surmised at about the same time Mary did, who knows neither Norwegian nor
German, that this was no flagman but a hitchhiker. And here we were stopped,
talking, and so to speak trapped. We never pick up hitch-hikers for at least
two reasons, no room, and fear of consequences. But in these circumstances we
welcomed him aboard.
Actually I’m sure
he was as nonplussed as we. He could see we really had no excess room. And I’m
sure he really didn’t intend to flag down someone with whom he could not talk.
He was obviously a local farmer or forester, about medium build, and probably
in his thirties. He had a simple, kindly, though weather-beaten face, and was
dressed in the rough and ready dress of the region.
Mary scooted over
and our new found friend crawled in hoisting a back pack we had not noticed
before. The pack gave some trouble, namely there was really no rooms for it on
his lap, since Dan was on Mary’s lap. So we hoisted it over into the back with
the boys. And we started forth again through this hilly, river valley country.
We soon surmised, more through osmosis than through conversation that he had
walked, or hitch-biked, about 10 miles into town for a few provisions and some
socializing. In the process he had partaken of some form of spirits. He was not
at all tipsy but his breath gave away his secret. He was in fact just far
enough gone to be at ease in this somewhat bizarre and potentially embarrassing
situation.
He and I tried some
rudimentary German conversation of which Mary seemed to understand more than
either of us. After a few miles I thought ZW was smelling of beer, not
rebreathed beer but spilled beer. The boys mentioned something of a strange
smell and in our consternation our friend became aware that something was
rotten in Norway. After a few minutes of this bewilderment he pointed to a high
bridge and a cross road and stated this is where he wanted off. As the boys
were handing him his back pack, they remarked that it was dripping wet. And so
it was. Apparently in passing it into the back seat and stowing it away it got
turned upside down. Also apparently the pack contained a partially empty (and
partially full) bottle of beer that had not been securely stoppered. At this
point our friend looked like the main character in a Laurel and Hardy comedy.
The leaking pack
had made a puddle in the car and he in the interest of good international
relations wanted to clean up his mess. He opened his pack to get a mop rag (a
big handkerchief) but it also was dripping wet. So after a few futile gestures
our friend sort of backed away blushing from ear to ear. His obvious
embarrassment was the only thing that kept us from laughing. We contained
ourselves until we drove off. We kept wondering if the main purpose of his trip
to the village had not been drained away in his ride home.
Our camp in Bergen
was again on a lake and there was a raft about five feet offshore which could
be tortuously and precariously reached via rocks and tree stumps. John had no
particular trouble getting aboard, but I had an awful time trying to help Bill
and literally depositing Charlie on this child’s paradise.
John soon found
some cheese and had his baited hook in the peaceful duck-infested lake. We were
so busy getting the tent up, cooking, and watching Dan, who was just learning
to walk, that we didn’t pay much attention. Soon Tom came running back to
report that John had caught a fish. I really couldn’t have cared less, I Was
busy and tired and thought fishing a silly pastime anyway. I never minded
setting in a boat or ashore, holding a string and reading a book, but always
got annoyed when the string pulled and I had to put my book down. Usually I was
careful to see that no hook got placed on my line, then if I could find a shade
tree, I liked to fish. Mary, on the other hand, had been raised in a fishing
village on the Illinois River and her family had in fact run the fish market.
(The go-between from fishermen to retail stores or cafes.) She could see I
wasn’t much account at instilling manly virtues into my boys and so she
encouraged the fishing and went over to help John unhook his fish.
I belatedly carried
Dan over in time to see Mary unhook an ugly-looking eel, and much against John,
Tom, Bill, and Charlie’s wishes, she threw the eel back. About fifteen minutes
later just I was about to round the boys up for supper, Tom came flying back
and screaming, “John caught a duck.”
This did disrupt
our hectic routine and Mary and I (and Dan) ran over to see what this was all
about. It seems after the cheese ran out, John used bread for bait, and of the
numerous ducks on the pond, one was unduly hungry. Now we saw one very unhappy
duck with a fish hook through his bill, and one unhappy boy with a duck on a
leash. This situation stopped even Mary and we just sort of stood, feeling
sorry for both the duck and John. It finally became apparent we must do
something, so we called in outside help. The camp manager was soon rounded up
and with a look of utter amazement as “how could this happen to me”, he went
off in all directions at once. Within a few minutes he had his teen-age son, a
pair of dikes and some gloves, and proceeded to hold one unhappy squirming duck
in both hands while his son took the dikes and cut the curved end off the hook.
Then they extracted the by now more or less straight wire from the duck’s bill,
and threw the squawking duck back into the pond.
At this point I was
very happy that I knew no Norwegian and that our host knew very little English.
John hasn’t hankered to fish to this day.
No trip, in fact no
facet of modern day life, is without financial worries. As Parkinson has
stated, “....expenditure rises to meet income...". No matter how much or
how little a person’s, church’s or government’s income is, there is always the
tendency if not the outright necessity of spending just a little beyond said
income.
Our trip was no
exception. I’m sure there is no more liberal paying fellowship than my NSF
fellowship; salary matching plus up to $2000 toward travel. However as usual in
these types of things the expenditures always occur before the money is
available. Also no one in his right mind would study in Europe without doing
some sightseeing. With five smallish boys, traveling and/or living abroad
presents planning, financial, and just plain ordinary problems. Months before
we ever left San Diego we had ordered and paid for our VW become ZW (Volkswagen
to be converted into Zigeunerwagen, or Gypsy Wagon), our air tickets to Omaha,
our steamship tickets from Montreal to Liverpool, a hired car to meet the ship
in Liverpool, new lightweight luggage, and twenty dollars worth of English
pounds, Netherlandish guilders, German marks, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian
kroners, and a large cashier’s check with which to open an English bank account.
Needless to say, we did not leave feeling financially free and easy.
Our first extra
came at Hanover. Someone had figured the insurance premium incorrectly and
there went some of our precious travelers checks. Since we figured things
pretty close anyway this extra expenditure made it necessary to stop on our way
to Hamburg for more marks. It took a full two hours to find a "Wechsel”,
get a parking place, return to get my passport (why they needed to see a
passport beyond me), and finally walk away with enough marks to get us out of
Germany.
By the time we got
to Stockholm we were flat broke and had to borrow money from my international
colleague, Dr. Gunnar Funt. Luckily before we left a big fat travel cheek from
NSF arrived and temporarily relieved our plight. The only trouble was I got
overconfident. Instead of keeping out about twice what I figured I would need
to get back to England I kept only just enough. With the rest I wiped out one
of my big debts and deposited a substantial amount to my English account.
All was well the
rest of our Scandinavian stay (except the 105 kronen, $20, laundry bill).
However another misplanned event caught up with us. Since we camped out we
didn’t plan in detail how far we would drive each day. That is, we had no
advanced reservations in hotels. I might put it in reverse, because with
"funf Kleine Jungen" it was impossible to schedule in advance, we
camped. In any case I looked at the kilometers between cities and figured we
could drive from Stockholm, to Oslo, to Bergen, and back through Denmark,
Germany, and Holland and get back to England easily in two weeks. One week and
five days later as we drove into Bergen I could see that something had gone
awry in my planning.
I knew that an
overnight boat service ran between Bergen and Newcastle and figured maybe this
would solve our time problem. There still remained a money problem, the fare,
and a reservation problem, namely we had none. To top it off we arrived in
Bergen too late on Friday to see about reservations. On Saturday the steamship
offices were closed and the boat sailed on Sunday. Actually the offices weren’t
completely closed. A young clerk was around who found out by marching through
other people’s files that there was room for a ZW and an 8-bunk cabin available
and he proceeded to sign us up. I told him that I had no cash nor travelers
checks to pay the passage and would have to write a cheque on my English
account. He wanted no money, no cheque, let the purser on board worry about it.
I asked if be could warn the purser to expect a cheque. He couldn’t care less.
He said he’d see that everything would be OK. Just don’t worry, let the purser
worry.
Our five weeks of
near-perfect weather came to a close as we drove up to load ZW and occupants on
board. The motor clubs got the Carnet, insurance, etc., checked and the ZW
whisked away before we had hardly finished our picnic lunch inside and gotten
our baggage, papers, potty, and spare food out. We then filed into the
terminal, loaded down to the gills with baggage, sacks, and boys.
On one of the very
few occasions where our multitude caused a difference in the usual routine, the
purser saw us at the end of the line (we always were, since we couldn’t keep
them lined up and at the ready) and told us to come to the head of the line and
go right on board. When he asked for tickets I told him of our late arrival and
arrangements with the boy in the office yesterday. He looked at the bottom of
his list and sure enough found our names. When I muttered something about
paying for the passage he said, "Later, on board." I started to
explain about personal cheques, etc., but he paid no heed.
We got aboard,
found our spacious 8-bunk cabin, hot shower, and clean towels and were really
reveling in comfort. We were soon sailing out the fiord toward England. About
this time the purser had finished his other business and called over the ship’s
PA system for me to come to his office.
He verified the
ages of the boys, the volume and weight of the car and figured out we owed him
588 kroner ($112). He then turned his smiling countenance to me and asked how I
planned to pay, cash or travelers check?
I hesitatingly said that I planned to pay by personal check. His jaw
dropped about two inches, color came to his cheeks and he fairly shouted,
"Personal check, we don’t take personal checks!” I said meekly, “That’s
all I have." "But the company won’t allow me to take a personal
check. Didn’t the man who made the reservation make that clear?" "On
the contrary, I tried to pay him yesterday so he could wire Cambridge if need
be to verify my account:" "What did he do?" "Nothing, he
said to let the purser on board take care of the passage money." "He
must have been insane, how much cash do you have?" “We counted out about 5
pounds, 100 Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian krone, a few coins from the
Netherlands, etc., and came up with about $30. And with the most despairing
look I’ve seen on anyone since I’d told my boys a year ago they couldn’t have a
dog for pet, he asked, "And you have no travelers checks?"
"No." "Nor anymore cash?" "NO." I thought he was
going to collapse. Then in a weak, sickly voice that could hardly be heard, he
asked, "And with what bank is your account?" "Lloyds Bank in
Cambridge." "Do you know the address?” "No, but I could show you
on a map I have in the cabin where it is located." And in an almost
inaudible whisper, near a state of complete exhaustion, he said, "Yes go
get your map and let us find the address of your bank."
About ten minutes
later I came back with map (and cheque book which I didn’t even have with me
before) and we continued our conversation. By now of course I felt terrible
seeing the man so put out. After all I knew I had money in the bank. At least I
thought I did. I wasn’t positive I had 40 pounds ($112), since my original
deposit was $100 and I had no positive assurance that the money I had the
Swedish bank send was actually deposited. But anyway I was quite sure I had
money in the bank.
Leaving Bergen on
board the ‘Leda’
Upon my return
however he was happy as a lark. He must
have had some narcotic or some spirits hidden away that he had partaken of in
my absence. Or seeing he had no alternative perhaps he had put on his happy mask.
He was probably practicing the part the old Chinese proverb about relaxing and
enjoying those things that are inevitable anyway.
In writing the
cheque I just about brought on his state of collapse again. You see this was
the first English cheque I’d written and I didn’t know how to do it. Where we
write, "z and y hundredths" Dollars, where y can be “no”, the English
write, “X pounds y shillings and z pence”, where if z or y and z are zero, you
write “only”. Once he told me about the “only” we were all right. I wrote Forty
pounds only. Then he asked me to cross it. “Cross it? What’s that?” “You don’t
know about crossing cheques?” “Never heard of it.” Vertically across the cheque you draw two
lines, about half an inch apart, and write ‘and Co.’” “Why?” “This means no
individual or company can receive cash from the cheque. Instead it is deposited
in some bank to the account of whoevers name is on the check. They then draw
the money out of their account.” “Oh!” “This is to protect against forgeries
and/or lost cheques. A crossed cheque is not negotiable.” “Two lines, you say.
Right on top of the writing?” “Yes, that’s it, thank you.” At this point he
probably realized no cheque artist could be this stupid. Being thus assured he
was my friend for the remainder of the trip.
This was a very
pleasant trip. We really hadn’t found our camping “wings” yet and getting back
to bunks, hot showers, and served meals was a real luxury. The food was both
wonderful and inexpensive. We found
another family with a boy flush, but only four of them so we were still kings.
The purser’s
lecture on the crossing of cheques was my first lesson in English banking. I
had much more to learn about English banks, and I will add it was all quite
pleasant. To begin with I found that George III is still king in England.
Whereas we fought a revolution over the stamp tax, the English still pay
tuppence for a stamp which is duly affixed to all cheques when they are cashed.
Maybe this is why cancelled cheques are never returned, at least mine weren’t.
Instead, the bank statement (which was mailed not every month, nor every second
month but when the page was filled up) told to whom the money was paid. That
is, the statement told you this if you knew the code: For example, CCC was
Cambridgeshire County Council, for taxes, licenses, etc.; EEB meant Eastern
Electricity Board; CQS or CHQ meant check (cheque) i.e. something deposited to
the account; Stamp, or Stamp on CHQ told of the tuppenny stamp tax deduction;
AMT Dusseldorf, or MT Bonn meant some marks had been sent to Germany.
There was no bank
charge for deposits or cheque transactions (other than the tuppence stamp tax)
but instead each book of cheques was purchased 24 for 4 shillings or 2 l/3
cents a cheque. The thing I could never get used to was that I never knew how
much money I had in the bank. I had arranged my finances so that my NSF stipend
check went directly to my San Diego bank who had my power of attorney to
deposit the money to my account. My life insurance payments were deducted from
my account automatically each month. The bank was instructed to send to
England, upon receipt of the NSF check, a fixed amount to be deposited in
Lloyds (of Cambridge). What I didn’t know was when the check from America
arrived and what the exact rate of exchange was on that particular day. So I
was always phoning Lloyds or going in to check on my balance. They weren’t
supposed to tell me over the phone but I soon became such a familiar voice that
few verifying questions were asked.
However this incessant
phoning was both embarrassing and time consuming so after five months of having
things work out OK, i.e. having money on deposit before I wrote cheques I got
careless on the sixth month. I wrote several good sized cheques without phoning
Lloyds bank, assuming NSF, the U.S. and U.K. postal systems, and my bank in
California were performing in accustomed efficiency. To my utter amazement one
morning in the 7 A.M. mail I saw this letter from Lloyds marked quite
conspicuously on the outside of the envelope, “PRIVATE”. I opened the envelope and read,
Doctor J. C.
Webster,
The Manse,
Fulbourn,
Cambridge. External
Account
Dear Sir
I think you would
like to be advised that cheques have been paid making the above mentioned
account overdrawn L87.15.5d.
You are no doubt
aware that under the Exchange Control Regulations overdrafts are not permitted
on External accounts and I shall be glad therefore if you will kindly let me
have a remittance to place the account in credit.
Yours faithfully,
(signed) W. de W. W. Symour
Sub-Manager
This was the
politest letter I had ever received that told me I was overdrawn to the slight
amount of $245.77. The letter appeared to me to be absolutely apologetic. They
seemed somehow to be sorry they had to remind me of this insignificant
oversight.
Two mishaps
occurred together to cause this misfortune. For some reason my NSF check was
late, and secondly some new clerk had sent my English bank deposit to me, not
to the bank. I received it the same day I got the distress appeal from the
bank.
Of course in the
confusion my automatic insurance payments came due in California before the NSF
stipend check came in and this of course made my California bank downright
neurotic. The reason I hadn’t heard sooner about their psychosis was that
apparently the same new clerk who sent my English bank deposit check to me, not
to Lloyds, had put only a surface mail stamp on the nasty letter. I’m sure they
gave her one air and one surface stamp and she failed to realize which was the
important letter and had sent money by air and dire warnings by ship. In
contrast to Lloyds reticent reminder of an insignificant oversight my
California bank was right to the point. In fact beyond the point. They stated
that my fixed commitments (insurance premiums and deposit to England) exceeded
my NSF stipend check and my residual balance couldn’t maintain a favorable
(black ink) balance. This was not true, in fact I accrued $60 a month from my
NSF stipend. The trouble was that our renters had failed to pay the rent for 2
months and I had to make my house payments out of the fat. All in all, no rent
and late NSF check resulted in much consternation to everyone except me. Before
I could answer my California bank the NSF check had come in and got me cleared.
But what really burned me was that while I was in the red in California the
date to pay “costs” on deposit and withdrawal transactions came due and instead
of waiting 2 days, they put me doubly in the red, at $1.50 per transgression.
Of course Lloyds charged nothing for my financial sin.
I was really quite
unhappy with my California bank especially when I remembered my other
experiences with banks and bankers. Incident one occurred after WWII when I
was a newly married, and not very solvent graduate student back in the hometown
I had grown up in. I had my account in the bank my mother had patronized during
my childhood (she no longer lived there). I had played clarinet in the same
band with the bank’s president in high school and one of the senior tellers was
the father of one of my oldest and best friends and classmates. My account was
never very flush and I was always estimating the “cost” to be sure I wasn’t
overdrawn and one month my estimate was in error. I received a three cent
letter, dictated by a $3 per hour teller to a $1 secretary to tell me I had
overdrawn my account by one cent. I somehow thought I could have been trusted.
Incident two
occurred with my self-same California bank just after moved there. I have
always traveled a lot and wasn’t always home on pay day so I gave the bank my
power of attorney to deposit my pay check without my endorsing it. Our
secretary often mailed my check in. On returning home from one such trip Mary
was fit to be tied. We were still living in the house trailer we had drug to
California from the University and were in a big camp with a community type
mailbox. She had been embarrassed by the postcard read by one and all in the
camp stating we were overdrawn. Of course the trouble was, the check was at the
bank but some new clerk hadn’t bothered to see if I had a power of attorney and
just didn’t deposit it. But no one in
the trailer park knew the details, only the results.
So much for banks,
but not for bankers. My final year in college started within months after our
new house was built and we had to rent it out. We told the realtor to keep the
rent reasonable and get a “good” renter. We were informed by mail that the
manager of a newly opened bank in our neighborhood was our renter. We were
overjoyed. Overjoyed that is until we started getting postcards from the water
company, the gas and electric company, and the phone company, all with the same
story. Pay your bills or the service will be discontinued. We replied, the
lease says renter pays utilities, go ahead and shut them off. This went on the
whole time I was in school. On our return the neighbors told us our renter
couldn’t pay his bills because of his wild parties. He had a high and riotous time in our new
house (and in addition his dog scratched the paint). All in all a very bad tenant. And a year
later we read in the paper where he drew a suspended sentence for embezzlement.
Suspended because he was “such an upright citizen”. We didn’t testify.
Personally I like English
banks and I always waved with enthusiasm to the Foreign Business Clerk (the
clark with whom I had most of my dealings) as I passed him riding his bicycle
to work every morning. I was confident he wasn’t living beyond his income. And
by the tone his letter to me on my transgression he wasn’t really very worried
about my solvency.
Our second arrival
in England was more somber than our first. After a month of near-perfect
weather in Scandinavia, we hove into Newcastle in a dismal fog. It was
reassuring to see our ZW lowered by sling onto the quay. But the sickening
feeling lingered that there by a string hung our home, our transportation, our
accumulated savings, and some bread and cheese for lunch. In Liverpool five
weeks earlier, the day was bright, our hopes were bright, our expectations
high, and our pocketbook relatively full. Now our first fling was over, our
pocketbook relatively empty, (its contents were held dangling over our heads in
the form of our ZW), the serious business of finding a house and starting in
earnest on fellowship business was at hand.
Even so, the
night’s rest on the “Leda” had perked up my spirits, got some pink back into
Mary’s cheeks, and really charged the boys up. Even Charlie was convinced this
was England; we had crossed a big “ribber”, we were disembarking from an
Empress, and this time we even had the weather we had told him to expect.
The hot shower on
board (and the hurriedly washed socks and underwear) had set me straight again,
although the boys could still neither see nor experience any real material or
spiritual uplifting by said showers. The fact that they now looked
tannish-white instead of grayish-brown meant nothing to them. Nor did the
slightly errant-looking bushy blond hair standing upright in true “crew”
fashion, as compared to yesterday’s used-broom appearance, mean anything to
them.
The two chief items
of business were to restock the food locker and on to Hadrians Wall. We cleared
customs in our usual short order. The British officials are sticklers;
efficient, polite, and somewhat pompous, but with five boys and a ZW loaded
down with luggage, sleeping bags, half-eaten loaves of bread, and half-empty
orange squash bottles, no unnecessary delays were encountered. Of course, the
custom officials were as anxious as I was to keep the process simple; in fact,
as subsequent events will show, one or the other of us erred somewhat on
passing ZW through on a carnet describing a VW only.
Hardly had we left
customs before the road changed from pavement to cinder, indicating to some
that we were lost. However a few twists, turns, railroad tracks, and dingy
warehouses later we were on a road toward Newcastle. We replenished bread, cheese, sweets, orange
squash, and capped sterilized milk, and were soon headed for Hadrians Wall.
Within a half hour and about four “left, top of the road . . . straight away .
. . and you cawn’t miss it’s . . .” later, we saw through the mist a sign and a
stile over a stone wall and a muddy path. While Mary sliced bread and cheese,
the boys and I sloshed through a pasture to a coherent pile of rocks that
formed what used to be a turret (sentry room) along the wall. John and I in
turn shaded our camera lenses to keep the condensing mist off and took a
picture of our first Roman ruin. We soon retreated over the stile and noted the
stone fence looked as if it were made of the same stuff as the Roman wall. As
we ate of our picnic-in-the-car, we noted a nearby farm building also looking
strangely Roman-stone-like.
We were soon headed
south through some of the most dismal looking stone villages in England. It’s
hard to say whether the weather or the barren age-old poverty-stricken villages
contributed most to the dismal, melancholy pervading atmosphere in and out of
the ZW.
Spirits and clouds
continued low through the afternoon. We still, after a month’s driving on the
continent, had not lowered our sights on our accustomed 50 miles covered for
each hour of driving. One of the contributing factors was the rate at which `kilometers
in Germany and Scandinavia passed by. It was quite customary to see kilometer
signs, to say Stockholm or Oslo, read about 50 less per hour (corresponding to
30 miles in said hour.) Without giving it much thought, we kept thinking in
terms of Cambridge by sundown; after all, the distance between Newcastle and
Cambridge is only 229 miles and we had started south from Hadrians Wall at
about noon. However, 100 miles and five hours later we camped.
Our first camp site
in England was a portent of things to come. At a pub coming into Bouroughbridge
we found a camp site. The weeds were a foot high, it had not stopped misting
all day and the ground was mighty soggy. The store, as our first in Germany,
was the pub and they were lacking on many essentials. The restroom facilities
were of the proverbial “red brick” variety. Other inmates consisted of a
caravan of WWI vintage permanently bogged down on this dismal moor. We met a
new traveling companion at this site to add to the wasps and mosquitoes;
namely, a slimy variant of our silver fish. We met them on folding our tent and
silently fading away early next morning.
The conglomerate
spirits in the ZW perked up considerably when John noted that Sherwood Forest
lay between our present position and Cambridge. Tom and Bill were soon singing
about Robin Hood and Little John, and as our spirits soared so did the clouds,
and by mid-morning the sun was out and we were shopping for our “Merrie Band”
picnic to be consumed out of reach of the Sheriff. This stop was a great
success. Dad, me that is, was sheriff, and the boys were the band. Luckily
their ambushes cost them the excess energy they had to burn. My path, pushing
our treasure (Dan in his stroller), was straight, narrow and energy conserving.
Our Merrie Band, momma included, easily got inside Robin’s “Major Oak”. At the
time telephone-booth packing was in vogue in the States, and I’m sure the
verger’s story of 17 members of Robin’s band hiding from the sheriff inside
this tree could have been tripled by any good U.S. college fraternity. Sherwood
Forest was such a success that nothing would do but a stop at the sheriff’s
castle in Nottingham.
After many false
starts, and at least five “You cawn’t miss it’s”, we found the stronghold of
the enemy and were soon marveling at old armour, dishes, coins, and the like.
While Mary tended Dan, the rest of the boys and I took a guided tour through
all the underground passages out through the cliff on which Nottingham Castle
stands. We heard tales of kidnappings of princely charges and the like, but my
most vivid memories were steps, down, then up, then down and up, then up and
down, and finally up, up, and figuratively and literally out. We soon became
aware it was late afternoon and we were still 84 miles from Cambridge, so we
were off at the usual English bicycle pace.
In
Although we had
looked for houses in our previous 4 days in Cambridge, we had not looked for a
camp site. After finding the “Red Lion” full we came across one of our most
fortunate choices of our whole trip, Waverly at Great Shelford. Waverly was
really a Caravan Park, but transients in rigs as ours could be put up for short
stays. Waverly was well tended, well located, well run, and turned out to be a
welcome and pleasant haven for us, especially now that the mists were behind
us. We really hadn’t intended to make Waverly our summer home, but tides and
taxes you know.
We folded camp as
usual on our first real day in Cambridge and reported in at the Unit to find
which house they had rented for us. Then the sad tales, “... 5 children ... not
vacant until August ... 5 children .... owner back by May …. 5 children ….
rented in June while we were in Scandinavia …. 5 children ...”. We then went to many estate agents, many
houses, and heard many times “.... 5 children? …. 5 children! .... 5 children
....” We pitched our tent many evenings, folded it many mornings, and drove
many miles, and were getting nowhere. Finally Mrs. Watling, the proprietor of
Waverly noted we were weakening, and we were. It is one thing to travel and
camp, and quite another to make and break camp each day so the car can be used
to get to work and to look for more houses. We were not only tired but weary,
disheartened, discouraged, depressed, dispirited, dejected, downcast,
disheveled, dismayed, despondent, distressed, doleful, and disconsolate. Mrs.
Watling said, “I know it isn’t much but if you find a house that can’t be
occupied immediately, we have a caravan here that you can hire (rent) to wait
out the interval.” At this point, even a permanent tent would have looked good,
and we lost no time in agreeing to a week by week hiring of said caravan. Now with time on our side, we took new heart
and went house-hunting again. We also cast caution to the wind and went to the
most expensive estate agent and within 2 days had found an 8-room house in Fulbourn
that would be vacant on 17 August, six weeks hence. At this point we would have
agreed on a Christmas moving-in date. We were particularly happy because Mrs.
Laurence, the estate agent, said we needn’t worry about the landlady refusing 5
boys. The landlady had given her, Mrs. Laurence, complete liberty in leasing to
anyone.
So started our six
weeks in a caravan (to sleep 4). Obviously we weren’t concerned with the
limited sleeping facilities. Our ZW slept 7; the trouble was it wasn’t there
during the day and the family had no roof, no stove, no table, no napping
facilities, or in general, no home. Our ZW, marvelous as it was, was either a
home or a car, not both simultaneously. So now we had sleeping accommodations
for 11, and a permanent roof, stove, table, silverware, and plates. What could
be more ideal? Possibly an 8-room house right now.
Luckily the British
summer of ‘59 was unbelievable, even the historical weather records fell; more
sunny days, highest temperatures, less rainfall, in general the best summer in
200 years. The weather, Mrs. Watling, Waverly Park, Great Shelford, and the
British Railway made the month of July very pleasing. You see, the mainline to
Liverpool Street Station, London, was within two blocks of Waverly. The boys
had a large garden (yard) to play in, and spent untold hours at the level
crossing copying down the numbers on the “belly puffers” (steam locomotives) on
the ”up line” (to London) and the “down line” (to Cambridge and points north
and east).
A guarded level
crossing with its gate is a marvel to behold. All “level crossing gates” on any
road at all are manned. Very important ones like the mainline from Cambridge to
Liverpool Street Station and its intersection with Station Road, Great
Shelford are not only manned but are remotely controlled. The signalman sits in
his glass tower with banks of levers and controls and manipulates not only the
gate but also the semaphores in his section and the points (switches). These
gates are not ordinary American-type gates. American gates stand vertically at
the edge of the road when no trains are in the vicinity and lower to a
horizontal position across the vehicle roadway to discourage automobiles from
passing over the tracks. I say discourage, because any ordinary American auto
with its excess mass, horsepower, and speed could easily negotiate said barrier
with only a few dents and some broken headlamps. The British Railway gates are
always horizontal, they either close off the railway or the roadway. They are
true gates in that no pig, chicken, man, nor car can get through when the gates
are closed. If perchance both the signalman and the engine driver (engineer)
were asleep so that the gate remained across the rails and the corresponding
semaphore ignored (a very unlikely combination of happenings), the gate would
not contain a fully-charged and chuffing belly puffer (steam locomotive).
However, those smallish, unpretentious slight English cars would have to have
quite a running start to make much of a mark on said level crossing gate. A
double-decker bus (fully loaded) or a large lorry and driver (fully loaded)
might possibly negotiate both of the closed gates but it would be pretty messy
and for the next few hours trains would probably be delayed.
These level
crossing gates should really be the subject of a separate treatise. Britain
without level crossing gates wouldn’t really be Britain at all. My guess is
there is no other people the world over who would put up with level crossing
gates ala England. It is my contention that the quality of the British people
that allows level crossing gates is the same basic quality that won WWII (at
least the Battle of Britain) and is now losing them the battle of the highway
(or traffic, or automobile, or automobile traffic on the highway). Since the
gates are true either-or devices (across the tracks or the road), and since
they are coupled directly with a semaphore at least a half-mile away, they are
closed well before the train is in sight (or in sound). The ever suffering,
courteous, happily resigned, non-hurried British motorist quietly and patiently
stops his little car, often turns off the motor, sometimes takes out a paper to
read, and his boys often get out of the car to get a better view of the train
(and copy down the engine number). Of course, the bicyclers and pedestrians,
who usually outnumber the cars, continue crossing the tracks via a small gate
at the edge of the roadway until finally at some crossing the signalman throws
a bolt and locks this gate also. The remarkable thing is that the British
motorist tends to accept level crossings and associated minutes of delay with
the rest of his road burden and doesn’t appear to object to these proceedings.
I can just see a north German, or an Italian lorry driver, or an American
putting up with such time-consuming protective devices.
On farm roads that
are seldom used the gates tend to remain across the road, not across the
railway. At such crossings there is a bell to ring which rouses the gatekeeper,
or his wife, or older child. Said gatekeeper will, not always happily, come out
of the house still chewing his luncheon sausage (cold), or with lather over
half his face, or his wife may have bread dough in one hand or lean the garden
rake against the fence as he or she opens the gate.
Apparently,
according to an article in the Cambridge News, gates in fields that line the
tracks also act as either-or devices. The article stated that, Mr. Ian
Whitehorse, a farmer from Little Wilbraham, was fined 5 pounds for leaving the
crossing gate across the BR (British Railway) tracks. In his defense Mr.
Whitehorse explained that he was only going in his field for a few minutes and
since he neither saw nor heard any approaching train and knew that none were
scheduled (pronounced sheduled) he left the gate across the tracks. Nothing was
quoted concerning the comments of the engine driver; chances are it would not
meet the criteria of the New York Times, “All the news that’s fit to
print.”
Probably the
majority of level crossing gates are neither remotely controlled as at Great
Shelford, nor, farmhouse manned as on Teversham Road, Fulbourn, but are pushed
by a signalman who comes down from his signal tower at the proper time to push
the gates from one position to the other. Such was the gate on Station Road,
Fulbourn, where Mr. Newman performed to the fascinated gaze of our boys later
when we moved into “The Manse” at Fulbourn.
So much for level
crossing gates in general and back to Waverly, or more precisely, three squares
away at Great Shelford station with its remotely controlled gate. The daily
routine at Waverly was: keep Tom in bed as long as possible; get up when Tom
woke up John or Charlie; convert 2-bedroom caravan to kitchen and dining-room
caravan (same 2 rooms); wash and shave and try everything from promises and
coercion to threats and violence to get boys to wash; cook, eat, and wash
dishes; convert one bedroom ZW to VW; convert dining room of caravan to
living-room; encourage Dan and Charlie to get ball or toy trains on grass (in
garden) and start playing; get dirty laundry, shopping list, etc., and drive VW
to Unit; and watch John, Tom, and Bill start off for level crossing gate out of
rear view mirror. On returning, the routine was to come by way of level
crossing gate and pick up John, Tom, and Bill, and so reunite the family. This
reunion was generally followed by a walking trip to the grocery to claim
minerals (soda pop) especially placed in refrigeration for “those Americans
who actually like minerals cold.”
Occasionally this
routine was altered; for example in John’s words:
One
day, while Dad was at the Unit, Mom finally gave in to our steady pleading to
take a train ride to Cambridge. After much pain we got down to the Great
Shelford Station, bought a sheaf of “return” tickets, crossed the tracks and
waited. Soon semaphore signals began popping up and the infamous “level crossing”
gate shifted from track to road. Unlucky automobiles began piling up behind the
gates and bicyclers passed through the pedestrian gate. Then a distant horn
sounded and presently a British Railways new two-car “rail car” hove into
view. This was one case when it took no urging and it wasn’t very long before
everyone was aboard her.
The
only incident on this 3 1/4 mile trip was the discovery that you could see
Waverly Park from the railway but unfortunately not vice versa. In practically
no time at all, we passed under Hills Road bridge, bounced over points
(switches) and cross-tracks, and screeched to a stop at the unique single
platform of the station of the University City of Cambridge. With much urging
we got the smaller children out of the train. After I had made my rounds and
jotted down some more engine numbers, we found a southbound train which by
amazing luck, turned out to be the right train.
The train was made up of single compartments with no corridors between
them. If you got in one, the only other way out was the other side. We pulled
each other into a compartment and tried to make ourselves comfortable. After we
got ourselves reasonably settled, we were surprised to see a man entering our
compartment. It seemed rather unreasonable as there were other compartments not
already occupied.
When
the train started, we all had that uncomfortable feeling that goes with an
intrusion of privacy. The train rumbled on and pretty soon we stopped at Great Shelford.
We tried to get out but there wasn’t any handle on the door. All there was was
a leather strap. It went into the same well as the window and appeared to raise
or lower the window as required. We were getting desperate since the train
didn’t stay there forever. Finally our fellow passenger got up and with a
bewildered look, calmly lowered the window, reached out, and opened the door
with the outside handle. After thanking him, we grabbed the stroller and
quickly dismounted. No sooner had we got out than the train started again and
we started home, wondering if we would have been in Bishops Stortford or London
before we would have figured out how to open the door.
John’s tale sounds
routine but momma was still in a state of shock when I got home, “What if that
man hadn’t been with us; we’d have been on that train yet.”
Trains became the
focus of all attention for the boys. We had brought along their baseball gear
(balls, gloves, and bats), but they seemed to sense that in England baseball
was not the summer national game. Whereas at home they played baseball hours on
end in our backyard (we couldn’t keep any grass growing around the bases,
plate, and pitcher’s mound), in England within a week trains were king.
It was probably the
signalman or perhaps some English boys at the crossing but within a week John,
Tom, and Bill had purchased an Ian Allen Loco Spotting book. For English boys
no more need be said, but for Americans I’d better explain about loco spotting
and Ian Allen. Whether it is because steam locomotives are still in use,
because no British home is over 5 or 10 miles from railroad, or because the
English as a race are born clerks (pronounced clarks), loco spotting is a
national pastime for boys 7 to 70. In its simplest form loco spotting is merely
copying numbers off the engines as they whiz past. But of course you learn that
there are many classes of locomotives and each has a basic number and the early
members of a class are also named. For
example there is the King class whose basic number is 6000. King George V is
6000 and it often pulls the Red Dragon. King Edward V is 6001, etc.
Then there are the
different regions like the Eastern Region which before nationalization
consisted of the Great Eastern and Great Northern; and the Midland Region which
was the Midland Railway; and the Western Region which was the Great Western.
Since the Regions were once independent railways, certain older engine types
are peculiar to certain regions and only the very modern engines are
distributed among all of the various Regions.
In general each
region has its own station in London; the Western region trains use Paddington;
Southern region trains use Waterloo, Victoria, and Charing Cross; Midland
trains come into Euston and St. Pancras. Scottish region engines do not come
into London since the engines are changed at Newcastle or Carlisle but the
Scottish trains come into Euston, St. Pancras, or Kings Cross. The Flying
Scotsman goes between Kings Cross and Edinburgh and is ordinarily pulled by an
engine of the A4 class. The Royal Scot leaves Euston for Glasgow pulled by an
engine of the Al class. And the Waverley
leaves St. Pancras for Glasgow.
Ian Allen has
little books that describe all the engines in a given region and has a list of
every single engine number in that district. The trick is of course to check
each number you have seen until you’ve checked the whole list. In Cambridge you
would start with the Eastern book and work on it until you knew that number
70000 was a “namer” called the Britannia and was of the 7P6F class, and often
pulled the Fenman. After a few years of this, getting older all the time, you
branch out and take the rail bus to Peterborough on Saturday and spend a day on
the Eastern Main Line. Here you are apt to see the "Mallard," 60022,
pulling “Queen of Scots” or a new Deltic Diesel pulling the “White Rose” which
goes from Kings Cross to York. Later you take the Oxford Railbus to Bletchley
which is on the Midland region main line to find that “City of Liverpool”,
number 46247, pulls the Irish Mail, or that another diesel was pulling the “Red
Rose” (to Lancaster).
Of course a trip to
London is pure ecstasy. You have your choice of all the aforementioned large
stations or London Bridge, Cannon Street, Charing Cross, Broad Street, and
Blackfriars Station, which are primarily suburban stations or to the Goods
Depots (freight stations) adjacent to Paddington, or St. Pancras, or to the
Carriage Shed near Euston or the Carriage Cleaning Shed near Victoria. At
Marylebone there is a Parcels Depot, a Carriage Shed, and a Goods Shed.
If you ever get all
of Ian Allens British Railway numbers then you switch to the London Transport
(underground) and find again that in general the Bakerloo line uses different
equipment than the Piccadilly line and the Waterloo and City line is in a class
by itself. At about age 80, if you have been diligent, you will have all the
numbers of all the rolling motive stock in Britain. Before we left England, a
year after our six weeks in Waverly, John had a stack of Ian Allen number books
six inches high. He had timetables from all regions (weight 5 pounds) and had
descriptive literature on all engines including the London Underground and
every month he bought the trade journal, Trains Illustrated. In general we had
half a tea chest full of John’s loco spotting books to pack when we left
England.
Then there is the
Dia Dema club. For 5 pounds a year you get 32 coloured slides (plus storage
binders, etc.) of any type British Railroad. This club is really cosmopolitan
because you can also get slides of locomotives of all the European Railways.
Needless to say, we were soon members of the Dia Dema club.
Then there are the
Lone Star Locos. These are Tom Thumb sized trains that run on ‘000’ scale
tracks. These tracks have cross tracks and points (switches) that actually work
and for about 2 pounds you can buy enough track to spend hours and days making
every configuration an ingenuous mind can invent. Then of course the Lone Star
makes famous locomotives typical of the more famous classes on the British
Railways. We soon had a 4-6-2 Class A4,
Gresley Streamliner, a 4-6-2 Princess Royal Class 8P, a 0-6-0 Tank Class 3F,
and even a Diesel Shunter. We had a brake van, a cattle wagon, a tank wagon, a
flat truck, and numerous just plain goods wagons. We had BR Express Passenger
Coaches, and BR Midland Region Passenger Coaches, and in fact, most everything.
We soon had as much track and rolling stock as the Kentish section of the
Southern Region and the price of these was so slight that I couldn’t even
really object much to their new hobby.
Within a fortnight
the boys were torn between loco spotting at the level crossing and building
Lone Star right-of-ways in Mrs. Watling’s garden (yard) at Waverly Park. Just
like backyard baseball, Lone Star railroading got so that it interfered more
than somewhat with mealtimes, bedtimes, and sight-seeing time. And of course,
after labouring hours to make a rail layout that eclipsed the best of
yesterday’s, or even just duplicated yesterday’s, loud cries of anguish
followed such logical and straightforward pronouncements as, “Pick up the
trains for the night,” or “Time to put the track in the box”, or more subtly,
“What do you want me to pick up first?”
The boys were so
engrossed in trains that they had no interest in driving to Kenilworth to see
another old castle, “We’ve seen a castle, we want to play trains,” or
cathedrals, “Who wants to see Ely Cathedral, we’ve seen churches before.” The
only sightseeing suggestion that fell on willing ears was, “Let’s go to
London” and the response was unanimous, “The train for London leaves Great
Shelford at 8:45,” and the following Sunday we were on it. Our original thought
was to drive to London but we soon saw the light and realized that only parents
could be stupid enough to think it might be easier to take care of five boys
from a well-equipped ZW than from a transitory train.
Our first trip up
to London started at the crack of dawn. Tom had Charlie turned on before we
could even crack one eyelid open. With Charlie spouting forth, even our one and
only sleepyhead, Bill, was soon up and the metamorphosis from bedrooms to
dining room to living rooms was accomplished in short order. Whereas ordinarily
you can’t coerce, threaten, or inveigle Bill into getting his clothes on before
Mom’s temper has but one remaining stop, and my blood pressure has assumed
pathological proportions, Bill was dressed before Charlie. Charlie couldn’t
stop talking long enough to get dressed; “Will we see the Queen?”, “Is there
really a mouse under her chair?”, “I’m not going on London Bridge, it will fall
down.” “I’m going to eat blackbird pie.” “John, will we go on a namer?” “Will
it be a streak or a brick?" “Will we take Dan’s stroller?” “Can I take my
Princess Royal engine?” “Do I have to wear my Norway shoes?” “Mom, are you
going, or just us boys?” “Tom, will you take care of me?” “Is time to go yet?”
Everyone was ready
to go an hour before train time except: John hadn’t shined everyone’s shoes,
Tom couldn’t find the engine he wanted to take, Bill was dressed but hadn’t
washed, Charlie couldn’t find one shoe, and Dan was playing trains and didn’t
want to move. Mom was fit to be tied. After traveling in ZW for weeks, how do
you get all essentials into a diaper bag, handbag, and boys’ pockets? Who would
carry Dan’s stroller? Should we pack a
lunch? What time does the train that stops at Great Shelford return?
We finally paraded
down to the Great Shelford station and I exchanged some of my railway coupons
(bought in America at a discount to get dollars for England) for tickets.
Luckily we found an unoccupied compartment and were soon spread out all over
it. During this trip we had time to examine the coach rather carefully. We
marveled at the old-fashioned ingenuity of leather strap as window regulator.
This two or three inch wide leather strap with holes punched every two inches
went down into the window well, underneath the window and was fastened inside
the well at the top but on the otherside or outside of the window. The strap
made a loop underneath the window; by pulling the strap tight the window was
raised, by letting all slack out of the strap the window was lowered. Holes in
the strap fit over a blunt hook and kept the window at the desired height. This
method was marvelously effective, as compared to, say, stuck bus windows I
have come in contact with, but a little loose fitting, that is, drafty.
The history seems
to be that when railways first replaced carriages and larger coaches, they
merely put small flanged iron wheels in place of the spoked wooden wheels.
Later they replaced the horses with steam locomotives. The carriage and coach
furnishings still persist, although now they have in essence put 8 or 10
coaches onto one a single railway coach and call the individual coaches
compartments.
Even in relatively
flat southeastern England the train went through a couple of tunnels (between
Cambridge and Bishops Stortford). Dan didn’t like this one whit. As the sun went down and he reflected train
noise level increased, the noise level in our compartment really went up. Nor
did Dan adapt fast. The second tunnel triggered him off louder than the first.
This was our first
long trip (54 miles) on BR and we kept wondering when the conductor (guard) was
going to collect our tickets. We still had our tickets when we arrived at
Liverpool Street Station and luckily so, for no one got out of the track
platform without said ticket. Apparently on some trains at least they look at
your tickets to allow you onto the loading platform at your originating station
and collect them at the terminating station. No collectors en route. Mary and
the boys had observed this on their short (but nearly longer) train ride but
attributed it to the distance, not the general accounting system.
Both John and I had
studied the Underground System Map and knew that to get to Westminster we
wanted the Circle Route. Mary being familiar with the New York Subway where the
worst in man beast comes to the fore (namely push, shove, look out for yourself
only and let the timid be trampled) was not looking forward to the tube ride.
However, Sunday morning in any large city is a quiet time, the only time to
really see a city. And Britishers, living shoulder to shoulder, have an
inherent politeness and live and let live attitude (unheard of in New York City
but strangely enough somewhat evident on the freeways of California), that made
our first tube ride a pleasant experience. They actually stood back and saw to
it that this rather numerous but midget-sized army stayed together as a single
pocket of resistance.
As we climbed up to
the daylight again we saw Big Ben in all its majesty and almost felt that
already our little excursion was worthwhile. We had lunch at one of London’s
equivalents to a Times Square snack bar and started our walking tour,
Westminster Abbey, Whitehall, 10 Downing Street, Horse Guards Parade, the Mall,
Duke of York’s Column, and up Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus. This took about 2 hours and 7 lollies (ice
cream bars). It was rather hot, lollies are sticky, no drinking fountains were
in evidence, and in any case after 2 hours with small children we were on the
lookout for a "Public Convenience." Finding none on it fell to me, the
father of five boys, to take same (except Dan, he was by definition still a
baby and therefore not a boy) and descend into the depths of the Piccadilly
Circus Underground Station for purposes of Public (and private) Convenience.
Here is where the ZW would have been and ordinarily was invaluable. With all
boy children, a tin can in ZW is a great public convenience. In the countryside
there are no disposal problems. In the city there is always a sewer drain
within a half block. So with boys, ZW, can, and modern sanitation (sewer
drains) we were never beset with numerous, small, emergency, right now public
convenience stops. However with ZW serenely standing under a shade tree in
Waverly Park, Great Shelford, and us in the vicinity of Piccadilly Circus we had
a problem.
We soon found
ourselves in a great circle (circus) with spokes running inward and hallways
running outward and upward, one great mass of confusion. By circumnavigating
and with sharp lookouts we soon found our objective and since it was crowded
the boys took off in all directions. When reassembly was called Bill was
missing. This was not completely unexpected since Bill has a tendency to know a
little more than he understands. Even if we hadn’t separated to find vacant
conveniences, and even if Bill had been within my sight there comes a time in
every man’s life when he does not stop what he is doing instantaneously and
start out in hot pursuit of an errant wayfarer. John is just inherently
cautious and we need never really worry that he will walk off a cliff or go in
water over his head, or climb the Eiffel Tower with mountain climbing gear. Tom
is inherently obedient, he has his wild streaks and can on occasion act more
like Tom Sawyer than Tom Webster, but in any emergency, he will do what he is
told or has been told in the past under similar circumstances. Bill is number
three, he has two older rivals for attention, he will get none being cautious
or obedient so he tends to be somewhat impulsive. A year earlier at a beach
party he saw John, who can swim, run and dive into the ocean; he saw Tom run
and jump in (carefully keeping his head above water and his feet on the bottom,
all of this unobserved by Bill). So Bill, who had never really been in or near
the water, figured this was the way to play in water and proceeded to run and
jump in. Luckily John saw him and dragged him out, sputtering and crying. John,
and especially Tom, also knew in general their capabilities and limitations.
All Bill knew was if they can do it he could too. But of course he didn’t know
what they couldn’t do and thought he could do these things too. Cautious John
and obedient Tom wouldn’t have thought of exploring the subterranean reaches of
the Piccadilly Underground Station by themselves. But Bill didn’t know this and
figured he would too. Charlie wouldn’t wander off, he’d have no one to talk to.
Anyway there it
was, Bill gone in a maze equaled by very few other mazes in London. The forces
had to be mobilized and a strategy planned preferably without letting Mom know that
Dad had done it again. Ordinarily she wouldn’t trust me to look after the
family cat, let alone the boys. Probably the only reason we don’t have a dozen
boys is that we have no close relatives living anywhere near us to look after
the boys, and Dad, when she goes to the maternity ward. She never stays more
than three days fearing that the dirty dishes would block reentry into the
house, and worrying that one of the boys might wander off and I would never
even know it. Anyway the great thing was to find Bill before she got all upset.
After all, what was there to be upset about? He had to be somewhere in or
around Piccadilly Circus, either underground or on the surface. He could only
leave on one of four trains going to Charing Cross, Kings Cross, Hyde Park, or
Baker Street. Or he could if he surfaced, go away from the circus on one of
only seven streets. Besides there weren’t over about 20 halls and/or stairways
leading away from the area. Why should we unduly worry Mom about little
misadventures like this; after all he could have been lost at Times Square (the
Piccadilly of New York), or Grand Central Station, or in the Louvre, or in any
of a number of zoos. After all, he was 5 years old.
But to action,
“Tom, you stay right here. Watch this entrance and put Charlie at the other in
case Bill comes back looking for us. And, Tom, don’t let Charlie out of your
sight, and don’t wander off. We will be back. John, you start around the circle
clockwise and I’ll go counter-clockwise, and I’ll meet you part‑way around.
Look into all inward leading halls or doors and up the outward leading stairs.
Macht Schnell!”
Three minutes later
John and I asked Tom if Bill had come back. No Bill. So plan number two. Tom
and Charlie as before, but John and I would climb out of each of the nearest
stairways and look in the immediate vicinity on the street level. But, “Don’t
go up the one we came down and run into Mom.” Besides, I wondered if anyone
knew which one we had come down. I did only because I made a complete survey of
its environs when I came down, to be sure we wouldn’t lose Mom and Dan. But it
was way around the circle from where we were and I couldn’t really imagine that
any of the boys knew which it was. It had no particular special markings.
Five minutes later
we decided it was time to face the music. We picked up Tom and Charlie and
started toward the stairway up to Regent Street where Mom and Dan were. I knew
with chatterbox Charlie along we needn’t act unconcerned as he was talking all
the way up the stairs, “Do you think Bill went to see the queen?” “I bet Bill
went on the tube train.”
As we gained the
top of the stairs, we saw Mom pushing Dan and window shopping along Regent
Street with Bill tagging along behind. I tried to slow the boys down and to act
nonchalant but Charlie yelled, “There’s Bill, Daddy, he’s with Mom.” And then,
“Bill, where’ve you been, Dad’s been looking all over for you.”
Mom’s comment,
“Glad to know that you missed him. Must have had your eyes open today.”
The atmosphere was
never quite the same for our walk down Haymarket, through Charing Cross and
along Victoria Embankment until, another round of lollies to the contrary, our
energy and time gave out. We boarded the tube train at Mansion House, got our
Cambridge train at Liverpool Street Station, woke Charlie and Dan up at
Whittlesford and arrived safely home at Waverly, Great Shelford.
The reverse order
of living, to eating, to sleeping quarters was accomplished in nearly the
record time of the morning, and soon all was serene again in the ZW-Caravan
home.
The pattern for the
remainder of our stay in Waverly was now set. Trains for the boys, housekeeping
for Mary and work at the Unit for me. We found that England had laundromats,
including dryers and this was our American Express. Here we met our
fellow Americans.
Our sightseeing
trips included our first visit to a cathedral, fifteen miles away in Ely, a
trip to Oxford, Stratford, Warwick and Kenilworth Castle, and a trip to the
British Railways (BR) exhibition of rolling stock at Peterborough. You might
think that visiting a cathedral or at least a ruined castle would be the
highlight of the summer for the boys. If so, you don’t know boys who have first
experienced steam engines.
At the new
Peterborough North Goods Depot was held an “Exhibition of British Railways
Locomotives, Carriages, Wagons, Containers and demonstration of Mechanical
Appliances.” The boys listened to old engine drivers tell them which lever was
the throttle, which the brake, which gauge read steam pressure and which read
vacuum.
It is hard to say
whether the class V.2., Mixed Traffic Steam Locomotive, the BR Standard Class
9, 2-10-0, or the class A.4, “Pacific” was the star of the show. Of the V.2 the
program noted: “Built whilst Sir Nigel
Gresley was Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North Eastern Railway,
the locomotive has many of the characteristics of his 3-cylinder designs.
Introduced in 1936 the first locomotive was named “Green Arrow” to mark its
association with the Green Arrow system of registered freight transits.
Although not as suitable as the Pacifics for working heavy or fast express
passenger trains, nevertheless, the V.2 Class gives invaluable service on
passenger duties during the peak summer months and at Bank Holiday times.” The
class 9 was “...one of a class designed as a British Railways Standard
Locomotive after nationalization.” Probably the A.4 was the star since as the
program said “The locomotive on view, No.60022 named ‘Mallard’ attained a speed
of 126 m.p.h. in 1938 creating the world’s speed record for steam locomotives
which it still retains. This class of locomotive was designed by Sir Nigel
Gresley in 1935 especially for working high speed streamlined trains running
between London, Leeds, Newcastle and Edinburgh. The corridor in the tender is
provided to enable engine crews to be changed when working on non-stop trains
between London and Edinburgh, a distance of 393 miles, the longest daily
non-stop run in the world.”
After the initial
haze of the steam locomotives wore off the boys even went aboard some diesel
engines. Finally they inspected the goods wagons and had a guard (conductor)
tell them about hand brakes and vacuum brakes. They saw the chains and bumpers
that do the work of couplers. They then inspected the Bulk Grain Wagon, the
Shock Absorbing Wagon, the “End-Side” Door Pallet Van, the Iron Tippler Wagon,
the 24 Ton Covered Hopper Wagon, and the Hopper Mineral Wagon. That just
whetted their appetite for the Bogie Bolster Wagon, Insulated Fish Van, and
Tote System Demonstration Van. I was looking forward to the Tote Van thinking
the British really had something if they had a railway van all set up for
rolling into race tracks to ease the shortage of betting windows. However it
turned Out that Tote Bins are for “...transporting powdered or granular
traffic...” and are pre-loaded and then hoisted onto railway cars with fork
lifts.
The passenger
coaches were featuring Open-Plan Saloon Coaches (not the swinging door kind).
Why all Englishmen ahed and ohed over these standard ordinary American type
coaches and hardly looked at all those nice compartment type carriages remains
a wonder to me. By brute force alone we
finally drug the boys away from the exhibition and headed back over the fen
country towards Cambridge again. And of course an additional stop at the Lone
Star loco store to get a Pacific Class locomotive.
This visit and his
year long interest in trains probably accounted for his choice of subject for
his “pretend to be an inanimate object” theme in composition at Cambridgeshire
High School for Boys later in the winter. He wrote:
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A RAILWAY ENGINE
My
name (or number) is 62785 commonly called by railway enthusiasts “twenty-seven
eighty-five.” I am an only son (that is to say the only engine in my class),
born in 1891. I am much too old to remember where I was born for I’ve been most
everywhere in the Eastern Region.
When
I was born I was the pride of everyone, being one of the best engines in
England at the time. Now, when I wait on the slow line to make way for a
diesel, I think sadly of what boys at the last school I passed had said. “It’s
twenty-seven eighty-five again,” some said. Others said “Scrap it” or “Bring a
diesel next time” or “It’s a crate.” Obviously I’m out of date.
When
I woke up in the morning my old pal and driver, Joe Bailey, poked up the
slumbering fire in my dirty fire-box and set about oiling, cleaning, and
fitting my underparts. When I’d worked up enough steam I tooted my whistle and
chugged out of the smoky shed to the bright light outside. Then my driver got a
message that a goods train was waiting at the goods depot so we chugged over to
it. My driver talked with the guard while the shunter with his long pole hooked
me to the first wagon. After a few minutes of checking we signaled to the man
in the signal-box that we were ready to go.
After waiting for a diesel to pass on the main line we saw the signal go
“off” and so I tooted my whistle and chugged away. We went about
quarter-of-a-mile on the slow line, then waited about half-an‑hour for
the main line to clear. There is a rugby pitch next to the railway so my driver
spends his time watching rugby but I am not interested in rugby so I must sit
and watch the big trains pass. Then the
signal goes “off” and I started off again.
When
we arrived at the next big station we were routed through the goods depot where
our cargo is inspected. Three of our wagons were meant for that station as Joe
told the shunter, so he started uncoupling the wagons. About an hour later we
were ready to leave and so departed from this station. This procedure was
carried out several more times on the route and finally, about eight o’clock
(seven hours after I started) I arrived in London (Kings Cross).
After
shunting around for awhile I took a short rest in the goods yard while my
driver had a talk with some shunters. Then he went to the office and arranged
that I would pull another goods train back to Cambridge at eight o’clock on the
next morning. Then he climbed into the cab and I chugged away to the shed where
I went to sleep for the night to rest up for my trip next morning.
I
had had a very hard day and slept heavily that night and dreamed of the good
old days when there were no diesels to question my honour.
I could never
truthfully say that I liked Oxford as well as Cambridge. We visited Oxford on
official NSF business and since we had no house anyway, the whole family went
along. I wrote my colleague, Neville Moray, to find us a campsite. We had
breakfast in beautiful Waverly Park in Cambridge and tea (the evening meal) in
a farmer’s field outside Oxford. I was assured by Neville that he really looked
for a caravan park or campsite and that this was it. There were a few other pre
WWI model caravans at the other end of our field so this probably was THE
Oxford campsite. I found out later in my correspondence with the Camping Club
of Great Britain and Ireland that this was the true way to camp anyway. It was
back to nature and since the bull was in the other field, the friendly cows
were safe enough, and the boys were fascinated by their pies. Anyway as I say I
prefer Cambridge (Waverly) to Oxford (Potters Field).
Of course there
were highlights to our trip. We found a Wimpy Burger Snack Bar, and had a
delightful walk along the Isis (Thames) and Cherwell Rivers. We saw many old
and beautiful colleges and the Experimental Psychology Laboratories had as big
and pleasant a garden back lawn) as did the Unit at Cambridge.
Then there was the
visit to Blenheim Palace. Americans visit because it was the birthplace of Sir
Winston Churchill (and the English visit here because it is the ancestral home
of the Duke of Marlborough). Dan had a little more vocal effort than our guide
and Mary didn’t get the complete tour. Charlie wasn’t exactly entranced at the
elegance either, he wanted to take the boat ride on the lake.
Stratford-on-Avon
was interesting as tourist places go. We found the Mary Arden House, well
removed from the town and beyond the time and distance range of many tourists,
by far the most interesting place. Primarily because of the old couple who
acted as vergers. They really liked the old place and took pains to point out
the dovescot where the squire of the manor kept his eating doves. The doves
themselves ate the grain from the tenant farmers’ fields. They showed us the
garret where all the womenfolk slept and at the other end, but inaccessible
except by going downstairs, the garret where the menfolk slept. Their museum
also featured man traps (for poachers) and other niceties.
The castle at
Warwick is worthwhile. It is still lived in but has a glorious past. The Earl
of Warwick was very high placed and was known as the king maker. His
descendants still carry on, but not as king makers. We saw trap doors, swords
with hidden guns and all sorts of conveniences for gentlemen who may at one
instant be on the inside track (and get buried at Westminster) and hours later
be derailed (and get beheaded and thrown into a common grave at the Tower of
London).
However the boys
preferred the ruined Castle of Kenilworth, I was taken with it too, having read
Sir Walter Scott’s novel as a child. John used this visit as the subject for
his “descriptive” theme at school. He wrote:
My Adventures at
It
was about 3:30 in the afternoon when we saw a series of strange road signs:
Acute Bend, Ford, and Kenilworth Castle. We rounded the bend, forded the stream
and soon arrived at Kenilworth Castle.
We
left my mother and two of my youngest brothers in the car and went in the gate
of the castle. There we bought a guide book and some tickets and started
looking around.
Once
inside we saw that Kenilworth was indeed a ruined castle.
On
the left hand side as we walked in was a Tudor barn, built much later than the
rest of the castle. We went to the keep and explored the crevices until my
father called us down. Then we went through the ruined dining hall to one of
the towers. We climbed up the steep, circular staircase to another passage.
This passage led us to another stair tower which brought us into the court
below.
The
first thing that caught my eye was a new wooden staircase which led up to an
observing platform. I led my brothers up at top speed while my father waited
below for the signal to come up (as we had turned back enough already). At the
top I signaled that all was clear for him and he came up. I took a few pictures
from the observing platform while I waited for my dad. I took a view of the
mere (bed of the man-made lake which they used as a moat), and the ruined main
tower.
We
descended the creaky wooden stairs to the bottom and made for the gate that
leads to the dam (not the entrance gate). We went through this gate and walked
out on the dam. The middle of the dam had been blasted open by the
Parliamentarians as had other parts of the castle. We stood admiring the place
for a little while then went to the main gate via the wall. We went out the
gates and drove away to Coventry.
Kenilworth Castle
is indeed a beautiful place with its crumbly sandstone buildings and
beautifully kept grounds.
Ely Cathedral
didn’t really impress any of us much on our first visit. I hasten to add that
later visits proved us wrong. We liked it more on each return visit. Our first
impressions were: it was worn out, crumbly, maybe even unsafe, the outside was
(smoke) dirty, the inside was cold, it was mostly empty and bare, all the
statuary was defaced. The boys were even less enamoured but their spirits
picked right up when we adjourned for fish and chips, with orange squash to
drink.
It was in a
restroom at Ely that the boys discovered they did not weigh 20, 30, 40, 50, and
80 pounds but 1 stone 6, 2 stones 2, 2 stones 12, 3 stones 8, and 5 stones
10. Be that as it may, their general
comment was, “Let’s get back to Great Shelford and play with our trains.” A
great bunch of sightseers.
We had been to London
before and we had camped before. In fact
we had camped for weeks on the continent, but we had yet to take our first
camping trip to London.
Camping in Europe
means well run camps almost always with a store for groceries, usually with
flush toilets, and often with restaurants, washing and ironing rooms and
sometimes with a large central kitchen (coin operated gas stoves) and coin
operated hot showers. These camps are located all over; on rivers, lakes, and
seas, in the middle of large cities, (Hamburg, Stockholm, Oslo, Stuttgart,
Munich, Vienna, Rome, Paris and Madrid), near historic or legendary sites
(Lorelei Rock, Bridge of Avignon and Toledo) and sometimes just beside inns,
cafes, or restaurants.
Camping in U.S.
usually means state or national parks or forests and, in general, rustic
surroundings. In Europe the majority of camps are for one night stands on the
way to or from somewhere. In the U.S. they are more often places to stay a week
or two at a fixed location.
In England camping
is rugged. Granted in Wales and Scotland and a few other vacation spots they
have some organized camp grounds. But to a true Englishman camping means an
individual or family finding a spot in a national forest or in a farmer’s field
and roughing it. To quote from the Camping Club of Great Britain and Ireland
brochure, camping....”is the spontaneous expression of a desire to....get away
from towns and cities and fend for himself . . .”
I considered
traveling with a wife and five boys aged 1 to 11 rough enough. Camping with the
aid of a VW Microbus converted to sleep seven but with attached tent for
washing, dressing, and cooking was to me a rugged and trying experience. Not
wishing to share the secret of the location of England’s camp sites without sharing
in the cost I wrote to the “Camping Club of England and Ireland” expressing a
desire to join their club and to buy the “location booklet” (a desirable and
necessary aid for finding sites). Since I was quite proud of our sleep-seven
arrangement I stated our method of camping in my letter of financial aid and
site request.
To my surprise and
chagrin I obtained the following letter in reply stating in no uncertain terms
that I was NOT a camper.
“We thank you for
your, but have to inform you, however, that the Volkswagen Microbus comes under
the heading of sleeping in cars, and as you will be sleeping in the bus, we
could not in the circumstances accept your application for membership”.
In an accompanying
brochure they had underlined “to maintain the recreational character of our
health-giving pastime, the Club regards sleeping in motor cars as contrary to
its standards of camping and caters only for recreational not residential,
caravanning.”
In spite of this
rebuff I thought the time had come to drive the family to London. To make
staying out economically feasible when we drove we camped, or in English terms
lived in luxury in our traveling hotel. You see we weren’t caravanners either.
A caravan, according to the GB&I Camping Club brochure is,”....a vehicle
built or permanently adapted for use as a mobile temporary dwelling which is
immediately able of being driven upon the public highway where it will comply
in respects with the law. The description ‘caravan’ can only be applied to a
‘van’ in which there is sufficient headroom for the occupant to stand upright.”
This last statement explains why in the British version of our “Campster” the
roof hinges on one edge and folds up at about a 45° angle with an accordion
type transparent plastic covering the opened edge. This does allow one to stand
upright. In our case, only five of the seven of us could stand upright, except
under our attached tent. In England, we were neither fish nor fowl and
obviously not quite human, preferring to sleep in the car instead of under a
tent.
London has one camp
site. Every year it fights for its life and in the opinion of experienced
continental “campers” it just barely makes it. It certainly can’t compare to
the facilities in any other European capital city except Bonn and Lisbon which
have no in-city sites at all.
In the time of
Queen Victoria, at the Exhibition of 1851 a Crystal Palace was built, the
elegance of which is legendary. It was so well thought of that when its central
location could no longer be justified it was moved to Sydenham Hill in south
east London. Here in the year 1936 the fabulous Crystal Palace came to an
inglorious end in a sea of flames.
Today, the “Site of
Crystal Palace” is the home of motor races, a 1000 foot TV tower, and London’s
only camp site. The LCC (London County Council) regulates the camp and yearly
threatens to disenfranchise it. They impose rules such as no tents attached to
cars (which just about disables us). This is a fire precaution rule that I’m
sure the excellent camp site in Paris, that has about five times as many
campers, would be glad to hear about, or for that matter most any camp in
Germany where they are crowded in night after night all summer long. Of course,
we, like most others affected by the no attached tent rule, just set up the
stove in the car, in my opinion a more dangerous procedure, but anything to
keep safe.
I’m sure the LCC
would like to eliminate the camp also to rid the city of all the undesirable
people who camp. I recall all the undesirables I met there, the Fulbright
Fellow returning from Finland, the Grinnell college professor and his wife, the
Penn State National Institute of Health Fellow, the 2 different public school
teachers from the Los Angeles area, and I could go on. I also remember the desirable
tourists I met later at a high class downtown hotel complaining about this,
that and everything and in general making Americans abroad as popular as the
plague.
Anyway, we drove to
London. We camped in “Crystal Palace”. Then came the object of our trip, to see
the changing of the guard. We endured the crowded facilities at Crystal Palace
and headed for Whitehall. Charlie and Dan were not overjoyed at being stuffed
in the bus again and so momma was very happy to spot a milkhorse complete with
feedbag. Charlie’s eyes popped out. I’m sure San Diego hasn’t had a horse,
except for riding for many decades. And to see one with his nose buried in a
feed bag eating almost changed our days plan. The sight not only diverted
Charlie and made him happy but immediately he was so interested he didn’t want
to go on. Since, as usual, we were behind schedule we had to push on.
We arrived at Horse
Guards Parade, found a parking place and went to see the great event. This was
only August and less encumbered tourists had already found all the good
locations. However, we were able to see the two mounted guardsmen in their
little cubicles facing Whitehall. And they were fine specimens indeed, scarlet
tunics, bearskin caps, polished brass and silver. The horses were no less resplendent,
groomed to perfection with bridles and reins fairly glittering with silver. We
pointed this magnificent sight out to Charlie, “Look at the soldier on the
beautiful horse.”
Charlie answered,
“Where is it?”
We said again,
“Right up there, see the tall black bearskin cap.”
Charlie answered,
“Where is it?”
I now picked him up
and pointed and said, “Over there, see that shining black horse.”
Seemingly
unimpressed, Charlie repeated, “Where is it?”
Tom now tried, “Don’t
you see, there under that little roof?”
And John added,
“Charlie you’re looking right at it, don’t you see the grenadier.”
Mom and Bill joined
in the chorus, gesturing and pointing and adding, “the red guard,” “on the
black horse.”
Finally Charlie
almost in tears said, “Where is it momma, where’s his feedbag?”
We hushed him up as
best we could and slunk out of earshot of the other laughing tourists and
decided we’d come back some other day after the tourist season was over.
Actually, we never did. Why go this weekend, we’ll be here all year?
One day as I was
about to enter Alpha, our caravan, after my day at the Unit, I heard a strange
feminine voice. This one was calm and
British. The words pouring forth were
too weak to be understandable, but every other word was not stop, or don’t, or
no, nor Dan, nor Charles, nor Bill, nor Tom, nor John. Obviously we had a visitor, perhaps Mrs.
Watling. Upon entering the caravan, I
saw a pleasant looking, well filled out but not plump woman, who Mary
introduced as Mrs. Whitehouse.
I was wondering how
the English equivalent of the Community Chest had found us so quickly. Mrs. Whitehouse couldn’t have been a
saleslady; she wasn’t dressed to the teeth, and she was neither painted nor
polished like the women in soap advertisements.
She was simply dressed and was obviously an English neighbourly
housewife. A very pleasant lady,
likeable on first sight. I had no sooner
classed her as a potential friend, even if a collector for some charity, than
Mary told me, “Mrs. Whitehouse is the owner of the Manse, in Fulbourn.”
My heart fell. Even in a split second it was not hard to
figure that if our potential landlady was here in the caravan visiting us
before we moved in, all was not well. To
begin with, it was not easy to find us.
Three people in all of England know we were at Waverly Park; Donald
Broadbent, the director of the Unit; Mrs. Laurence, our Estate agent (real
estate agent); and Mrs. Watling, owner of Waverly and our patron Saint. If Mrs. Whitehouse had found us, it had not
been without some effort. If she had
found us, it was not without purpose.
She had indeed found us and all I could think of was, “There goes our
eight-room, nine chimney pot house.” How
could such a friendly looking person with such a melodious voice and inviting
smile be the harbinger of such bad news?
My face must have
fallen as much as my heart. My feelings
of gloom were written all over my face.
This was completely typical of my behavior. Because my mood is always expressed
completely by the look on my face, I am about 95% honest; and because of this,
I am a near total social failure. Upon
tasting my first (and last) martini at a party given by the chairman of my PhD
committee, I gulped, turned two shades of purple, and even without a word being
said, I conveyed my complete opinion of martinis to the man who held my
academic fate in his hands, and whose favorite do-it-yourself host fete was
making martinis. His fame for this
accomplishment was a well known secret among graduate students, and it was the
thing to do to compliment him on his concoction. Obviously, socially I had flunked my first
test. And then there was the occasion at
the first party at the laboratory where I now work. I was playing bridge with the wife of my new
boss. My facial expression at the
conclusion of a “down two” performance of a sure game bid prompted her to ask
the rhetorical question, “Could the bid have been made?” Oblivious of all social graces, I thought she
was a student of the game and really wanted to know how she could have made
it. I proceeded to tell her. I was informed months later that she had
given up bridge.
Anyway, my look of “Let’s
pack up and go home” prompted Mrs. Whitehouse to come straight to the
point. She said, “I’ve come to talk to
you and your wife about moving into The Manse.”
I interpreted this to mean that she had come to tell us we could not
move into our five-fireplace house. As
the conversation proceeded, it became evident that this had indeed been her
intent but ……. Well, this is what she said:
She agreed that she
had indeed told Mrs. Laurence that as Estate Agent she could have the final
word in renting the Manse. However when
Mrs. Laurence had told her that her next renters were 1) Americans, 2) a Dr. of
psychology, and 3) with 5 children (boys yet) she, Mrs. Whitehouse had
exclaimed, “Are you out of your mind?” You see, that castle-like building set
apart behind high hedges and according to the sign “Fulbourn Hospital” is
really the Fulbourn Mental Hospital. The village of Fulbourn had seen many
Dr.’s of psychology and had likewise seen many children of psychologists and
psychiatrists. It is hard to say whether preachers’ children or psychologists’
children have the reputation for being the most incorrigible. And I will be the
last to refute any such fairy tales about said children.
So as it turned
out, it wasn’t because we were Americans with boys that had prompted the visit
of Mrs. Whitehouse, but the fact that I was a psychologist. She was quick to
tell us that other psychologists with other children had already lived in the
village and had not made a good name for the profession. Not that they hadn’t
made a name, it was just that it wasn’t good.
She was quick to
explain she was not a social reformer or a hater of children; it was just that
she didn’t want to be responsible for bringing trouble to the village. Had
someone else been the perpetrators she would not have cared, but she did not
want to be the instigator. Those were her thoughts when she started out on her
journey that day; in short, “Why did this have to happen to me?”
She stopped first
to see Mrs. Laurence to see what had unhinged her. Mrs. Laurence admitted I was a psychologist
and therefore my children were indeed psychologists’ children. But Mrs.
Laurence had told her I wasn’t a clinical (Fulbourn Hospital type)
psychologist, but an experimental psychologist. Mrs. Laurence and I had gone
through all of this earlier because she had the obsession that I was a
professor. After all, she had been finding accommodations for Americans with
families on sabbaticals or fellowships to Cambridge for years, and they were
all professors; ipso facto, I was a professor. So I had to explain I
carried on research in a laboratory. Then she got it, I was a chemist. No, I
was an experimental psychologist. This stopped Mrs. Laurence. She had heard of
professors, she had heard of scientists (chemists and physicists) and she had
heard of psychologists. But what was an experimental (scientific)
psychologist? Did I experiment with the mentally ill? No, I told her, I worked
in sensation and perception; how we see and hear and how we make sense out of
what we see and hear. My specialty was speech and hearing, and I worked with
normal people in abnormal environments. My general problems were how do people
talk and listen in high level noises (around jet aircraft), or underwater, or
when everyone else is talking. She got the general idea. At least she got
enough of the idea that she convinced Mrs. Whitehouse that I was quite normal,
a scientist really and not actually a psychologist. This was a step in the
right direction.
Mrs. Whitehouse
next visited Mrs. Watling, our present landlady. Since the boys were so
fascinated with trains and spent hours at the level crossing or with their toy
trains, they hadn’t had any time left over for trouble. They did play some ball
but again, no loud arguments; nor broken windows, hedges, or flowers. In fact
the boys, one and all, were so amazed by their new surroundings and were so
busy enjoying themselves they didn’t get into any trouble, and Mrs. Watling was
nearly hypnotized by their good behavior. She had remarked to us of her fascination
with our boys, but we figured maybe she thought we were thinking of leaving and
she had no other prospects for Alpha, her Caravan. But she told Mrs. Whitehouse
that she had never seen such well-behaved boys. Her remark was that they had
been playing in her garden (yard) for 3 weeks now and she had never even heard
them, she wasn’t even aware they were around. Of course silence usually
forebodes danger, but in this case they were just plain so busy with Lone Star
and British Railway Loco’s that they were indeed silent. That comment by Mrs.
Watling, our patron Saint, just about turned the trick. By the time Mrs.
Whitehouse came to our caravan, she was convinced we were either suitable
tenants or so bad that both Mrs. Laurence and Mrs. Watling would perjure
themselves hopelessly to get us out of their care.
When she knocked on
our caravan door, she had almost decided we might be acceptable, but she was
curious. She had seen American children in the village before, she had boys of
her own, and she had witnessed psychologists’ children in action. How could an
American psychologist with a family of 5 boys hoodwink two fellow Britishers
into such good reports? In spite of our references, the battle wasn’t yet won.
Although the summer of ‘59 was unequalled for sunny days, it was raining when
she arrived and all 5 boys were in the caravan. It doesn’t take much knowledge
of geometry to know that if the total floor area of an English caravan is x
square feet and this is divided into 7 equal areas (5 boys and momma and Mrs.
Whitehouse) that there is hardly room to sit down. Likewise it doesn’t take
much knowledge of acoustics (and speech and hearing) to know that 5 boys, even
if relatively quiet, in the same x square feet sound like a monkey cage at the
zoo. Perhaps because there was no space left, Mary and Mrs. Whitehouse were in
such close proximity that they could talk and listen in said monkey cage.
But you can’t keep
monkeys either quiet or segregated. We had as yet discovered nothing that would
keep our “uninhibited voice” Charlie quiet. And as Mrs. Whitehouse was coming
to the end of her tale and was reaching the decision stage, Charlie sidled up
to her and said, “She looks like my Grandma Bryant; I like her, momma; can I
give her a cookie (biscuit)?”
That did it, Mrs.
Whitehouse was now convinced that Mrs. Laurence and Mrs. Watling were excellent
judges of character and that we would not drag her name into disrepute in the
village. She said we were welcome to the
Manse. She did have to convince her husband yet that she, too, was not crazy,
but this she felt she could do. It was now just business details. They had
wanted to take the fireplace out of the kitchen and replace it with an Aga
cooker (coke stove). If we moved in the day the Halios moved out, when would
they make the conversion? That was easy. We planned to move in on the 17th and
we had ferry reservations for the 24th to go on a five-week business-pleasure
trip on the continent.
And so it was we
had a new patron Saint. Mrs. Whitehouse was not only convinced we were OK, but
as it turned out, she had paved the way with comments to the correct people, so
that when we did move in, we were met on the first day by friendly delegations
of tradespeople and neighbors, who before our stay was over, were our fast
friends. This was one day when our uninhibited voice, Charlie, didn’t hurt our
cause.
With our immediate
future now secure, after nearly two months of looking and hoping, we could
relax and look forward to moving into The Manse and getting our things
unpacked. But just as the twenty year prisoner so looks forward to release that
he tries an escape six months before his release (and gets 5 more years) so we
now got restless.
As part of my
fellowship duties I was to spend a week or ten days with Walter Lawrence at
Christchurch, Hampshire (on the south coast). He had developed PAT (a
Parametric Artificial Talking Machine) that I thought might be useful in my
research. So we figured, why not the first two weeks in August? Our British
colleagues told us, why not the first two weeks in August, but they weren’t
living in a caravan and itching to get into a house. They told us everyone in
England is on the roads during the August Bank Holiday and indeed for the whole
month of August, since this is the only month the children are not in school.
However we figured that for the Bank Holiday week-end everyone in London would
head for the sea and we would take over in deserted London. We weren’t too far
wrong and this part of the trip was a great success, except for Charlie’s
misunderstanding about the eating habits of the horses of Horse Guards.
On Tuesday after
the Bank Holiday we took the Great West Road toward Stonehenge, Salisbury, and
Christchurch. At Slough we experienced the first of the famous 15 mile long
queues of bumper to bumper cars. We later found others at Exeter, Polperro,
and at the ferry at Fowey.
At lunch time we
tried out the standard operating procedure of English driving practice; namely come
time to stop, you stop right in your tracks. You stop on the carriageway
(road), not on the verge (shoulder), since usually there are none or else you
can’t get on them, kerbs (curbs) you know. So flouting a sure fire $50 American
fine we enjoyed that typical British habit of stopping in one lane of traffic
(on the Great West Road) to have a quick car picnic, potato crisps (chips) and
cheese sandwiches. We felt quite important making all cars pull around us while
we nonchalantly ate (pronounced et) our lunch. We doubly enjoyed our lunch;
thinking of the $50 we were saving by doing this in England not America, and
watching all the British drivers slow down to go around our lunch wagon. We
thought this was only poetic justice having silently cursed, developed
functional ulcers, and reduced our usual driving-speed by one half to go around
the myriad of British cars enjoying the parking privileges of arterial
highways. Of course we couldn’t really enjoy our revenge lunch, and in fact
never did it again, in as much and we knew how completely silly, potentially
dangerous, and deleterious to travel such unrestricted parking was. We were
also chagrined because none of the British drivers even frowned, let alone
visually or orally cursed us for our utter stupidity, lack of courtesy, or
flaunting of the driving code. The reason is of course that if every second car
in England is parked on the highways the remaining half are so accustomed to
the inconvenience they think nothing of it. For that matter before the day is
out the other half will be stopped in the middle of another highway at another
place.
There is a
cataclysmic difference between the California Vehicle Code and the British
Driving Code. In California the code is the law. The vehicle code is preceded by
the statement, “Drivers are required by law to comply with state traffic
laws....” A point system is set up such that, “...any traffic conviction
involving the safe operation of a motor vehicle upon the highways shall be
given a value of one point...”, “…two points for...driving
without...license…hit and run…drunk..(or)..reckless driving…a total of 4 points
in 12 months causes suspension of drivers license”. Laws are strictly enforced
with stiff fines for offenders; for example $50 for going so slowly in a fast
traffic lane that more than 6 cars are bunched up behind you, $10 for following
too closely, $10 for stopping (parking) in a traffic lane. On a Sunday ride, or
for that matter driving to work, if you don’t see a police car every ten miles
you are lucky.
The Highway Code
(Her Majesty’s Stationery Office Price 6d Net) by contrast is a set of
suggestions prefaced by the statement, “A failure on the part of any person to
observe any provision of the highway code shall not of itself render that
person liable to criminal proceedings of any kind, but any such failure
may...be relied upon....as tending to establish or to negative any liability
which is in question…..” Road Traffic Act 1930 Section 45.
Some typical
“suggestions” are: “In traffic hold ups do not jump the queue.” “There are no
rights of way in general at roundabouts”.
“Use dipped headlights at night in built up areas, unless the street
lighting is good.” They don’t say what to do if street lighting is good but
what you do is to drive with side (parking) lights. “At railway level-crossings
with gates but no gatekeeper, open both gates before starting to cross
and do not stop on the lines (rails). Close the gates after you.” “Do not park
or let your vehicle stand on (a) the carriageway; (b) the slip roads; (c) the
central reservation; (d) the verges....” If they would enforce this last
“suggestion” alone with some arrests and fines the Chancellor of the Exchequer
could without fear of inflation, 1) cancel all income taxes for one year, 2)
cancel all purchase taxes for a year since no one would have any money left
after the fines were paid, and 3) have a surplus in the treasury. Likewise the
Minister of Transportation could cancel all highway construction for five years
(and build some car parks instead) because, without non-moving cars blocking
them, British highways would almost be adequate for handling moving traffic.
After our foolhardy
lunch was topped off with lollies we proceeded to Stonehenge. Later in school
John had to write a theme on the origins, etc. of Stonehenge in which he
states:
This
ancient circular stone temple is situated near Amesbury in Wiltshire. It is not
on any very large hill and so seems a strange place for an ancient stone
temple. A possible explanation is that Stonehenge stands on sacred ground since
another temple Woodhenge is no more than five miles away. Another possible
explanation is that in ancient times the vicinity had a very large population.
The soil is shallow making it quite an open land with few large trees but quite
adequate for simple farming. This seems likely because of the number of early
monuments in the vicinity. About 25
miles away are the two ancient lake villages, Glastonbury and Meare.
The
New Stone Age men who built the outdoor temple thought it important to get the
right building stones. The sarsens, which were the giant grey uprights came
from a place only 20 miles away. But even at 20 miles it took 1,000 men 10
weeks to get the stones from the quarries to Stonehenge using rollers of hardwood.
But the Bluestones and the Green sandstones came from Prescelly and Milford
Haven., both in Pembrokeshire. Geoffrey of Monmouth, the XI century historian
wrote in his books about King Arthur’s magician, Merlin. Geoffrey said that
Merlin, by his magic, had taken the monument from Ireland and set it down in
Wiltshire, not far from Camelot (Winchester) his master’s capitol. This may
have been partly true but Geoffrey was not entirely correct. He wrote that the whole
monument had come from Ireland. Actually the Blue stones and Green
sandstones came from Wales.
The
massive monument is surrounded by a ditch and Bank as can be seen in the
drawing. Right inside the ditch and Bank are the Aubrey holes named after their
discoverer. There are 56 Aubrey holes but we do not know what, if anything,
they ever had in them. In the north-east section of Stonehenge there is an
avenue and in the middle of it is the Heel stone. Some people call it the Hele
stone after Helios (Greek for Sun). Many people who have seen the Heel stone
think it used to be in line with the sunrise. However, astronomers say, it has
never been in line but will be about AD 3660. The Ditch and Bank, Aubrey holes,
and Heel stone were made between 1400-1700 BC.
There
were 30 lintel stones at Stonehenge resting on sarsen uprights. They formed a
circle of about 60’ radius around the centre. The uprights were raised by
sheerlegs. They used manpower to tilt the sarsen and it would then slip into
the hole. They had to account for the fact that when a five-ton sarsen landed
at the bottom of the hole its impact would cause it to sink three or four
inches. To get the lintel on the top they simply levered the stone up and built
a platform under it. By repeating this process the lintel will gradually move
towards its resting place on the top of the sarsens.
Incidentally for
this effort, John scored seven of ten possible points and received the
following comment from Master Warne, “There are gaps - perhaps because you did
not listen carefully enough - but this work (which included 4 full pages of
detailed drawings, a plan view, a close-up of how lintel stones rest on
sarsens, and how sheerlegs and levers are used to tilt sarsen stones into
upright positions) shows much more interest and determination.”
At the conclusion
of our sightseeing, John begged a ten shilling note to buy some mineral bearing
rocks. At the concession stand he had seen the sign “Minerals and Ices”. He
soon returned with minerals for the whole family, orange squash for Dan, grape
for Charlie, cherry for Bill, and Pepsis for Tom and himself. Mom and I had
vanilla and chocolate ice.
We didn’t have much
time at Salisbury but did get a glimpse of their very beautiful cathedral. We
arrived at Christchurch (120 miles from London) at 6 P.M. exactly five driving
hours (or eight total hours) after we had left London. Walter Lawrence had
arranged with a farmer for a corner of his field for our ZW. This in the
typical British Camping manner. Even though Bournemouth (adjacent to Christurch)
is a holiday center there was no real campsite there (as there had been none in
Oxford earlier in the summer).
During my week with
Walter at the Signals Research and Development Establishment our routine was:
eat early, pack up and drive to the commons (on a little inlet in
Christchurch), leave the family and ZW and ride in with Walter. Mary and the
boys lounged around all day until I came again in late afternoon. For
entertainment they had pony rides, boats to rent, a miniature train, swans, and
lollies. One day the boys conned me into hiring a boat and going up the Avon
(Hampshire variety, not Stratford). The man told me specifically keep left and
I nodded indicating I had driven left for many months now and knew the rules of
the road in spite of my accent. Off we went upriver and to the left. Coming
downriver we again bore left and were soon mired down on a sandbar. The hirer
of boats seemed to know this would happen and was to the rescue in record time
in his hip length Wellington boots. At this point he explained he meant keep
left going upriver and on the same side, the right side, coming back.
On Saturday we
picnicked with Walter and Ursula Lawrence in the New Forest (new in the time of
William the Conqueror’s heir). Here as on Dartmoor wild ponies run loose and
these gave the boys a new thrill, namely feeding them, all the signs to the
contrary. Obviously the ponies were used to hand feeding. If you stopped your
car on the road (not if, but when) to watch the ponies they came right over and
thrust their heads completely inside the car.
As suggested by the
Camping Club of Great Britain and Ireland we camped in the New Forest after
Walter and Ursula had departed. We
didn’t put the tent up but very unBritishlike we just slept in the car. At
about midnight two couples of party happy individuals drove to within 20 feet
of us. They obviously had partaken of many bitters and were noisy and perhaps
malicious. I couldn’t make up my mind whether they were prowling or carousing.
I was beginning to get concerned about their prowling when a torrential
downpour started and they embarked and departed post haste. I slept easier. I
also thought again of my basic disagreement in policy with the Camping Club of
GB & I and reaffirmed my belief that with 5 children, I’d camp in car and
in guarded campsite (if one could be found in GB & I).
Next morning we
ventured into Thomas Hardy country. The boys had heard his “Trumpet-major”
serialized on the BBC, but all I could remember was “The Return of the Native”
and I kept looking for a reddelman. Outside of Colchester we visited Maiden
Castle, another favorite subject of John’s history master. Of Maiden Castle
John in his theme for Mr. Warne wrote:
Maiden
Castle is a hill-fort near Dorchester in Dorsetshire. A hill-fort is a
fortification built out of a large round-topped hill, covered on the outside
with limestone. The New Stone age men made a trench by digging a ditch around
the hill and throwing the spare earth up into banks. Then the men continued
this process several times higher and lower on the hill until they had a good
defensive position. In time of war both men and animals occupied it.
Maiden
Castle was built by Stone age and Bronze age workmen and touched up by early
Iron age men. Nearby is the camp in which the Romans lived when they were
sieging the earthwork castle. The Romans over-ran this castle and made it into
a fort of their own.
And of his History
Master John wrote another theme for his English master, Mr. Cox, entitled, “A
Bullied Time at School”:
It
was just past break time and we were in the midst of a row when Mr. X (commonly
known as “Whacker”) entered the room. Soon there was a queue by his desk
waiting to get whacked. For no good reason I was among them and very soon it
was my turn. They were all cool hands at being whacked but I was new and it was
my first time. I walked up to him, bent over (by means of a slap on the back)
and got the slipper. He was our History master and as our History droned on I
thought of my aching back and what a cruel master “Whacker” was. Suddenly I
heard my name called out and of course hadn’t the slightest idea what I was
asked for. So I had to have another whack. Then I settled down and tried to
keep my mind on my work but I couldn’t. “Whacker”, fortunately, was in a good
mood and he only told me off and I soon was able to study again.
The
bell rang then and released me from the power of “Whacker”. I doubt if I can possibly equal that for a
bullying experience.
Our week in Jamaica
Inn Country (Cornwall and Devon) was not an uproarious success. The summer of
‘59 was unusually sunny. It rained very seldom and then only for short periods.
To my knowledge there was only one time when it rained more or less continually
for four days, and these were the days we were in Cornwall and Devon. We did indeed see St. Ives (but not man with
seven wives), Penzance (but no pirates), Lands End, and Tintagel (but no Round
Table nor sword Excalibur). We drove along many picturesque roads where the
hedgerows were higher than our ZW. We got involved in many August Holiday
queues of cars and stayed in many water-logged and not overly satisfactory
camps (the one at Tintagel was fine).
We returned to
spend a longer time at Salisbury and saw a replica of King Arthur’s legendary
round table at Winchester. If we hadn’t seen Alfred the Great in all his stony
glory in the middle of High Street, we would never have realized that
Winchester was the ancient capital of England (Wessex).
A quick ride
through the rebuilding of Southampton, a few hours at Windsor Castle, a two
step through St. Albans Cathedral and home for one last camp (without caravan)
at Waverly. Tomorrow was moving day, on to the Manse.
This essentially
completed our first summer in England, our nomad summer. We had learned about
lollies, minerals, and ices; British Railways, loco spotting, level crossings,
and Lone Star locos; caravans, camping sites (or lack thereof), and camping
practice (GB & I Camping Club style). We were beginning to learn about
cars (especially those stationary ones on all streets and carriageways),
driving(?) habits, and picturesque but non-traffic moving roads. The housing
disadvantages of having 5 children (boys yet) had been impressed upon us. We
found that housing and being an American, and in particular being a
psychologist from America with 5 boys were nearly incompatible. Charlie was
learning the eating habits of milk horses but not Horse Guards horses.
However we were
still American tourists; campers yes, but still Americans. The boys wore
American clothes, spoke American English, and ate the English equivalent of
American foods (cold minerals, lollies, potato crisps, and corn flakes).
I still blew my top at cars parked at every conceivable unlawful, illogical,
and dangerous place in the roadways, and was annoyed at waiting minutes for
trains to whiz by guarded level crossings. Mary still washed at the laundromat.
Thanks to the unusually hot and dry summer, we still had our California tans
that had amazed people in late May when we had first arrived. We converted all
sterling money amounts to shillings and divided by seven to keep track of our
expenses. And we drove everywhere. Our legs were still in the American state
of near atrophy. We were just beginning to settle in.
Tomorrow we would move into our English house (The Manse) in our English village (Fulbourn) and perhaps then we would start to become Anglicized.
Fifteen weeks and
two days after leaving home in San Diego we were moving into The Manse in
Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire, England. The intervening one hundred and seven days
could be accounted for roughly as follows: 14 days with relatives in Iowa and
Illinois, 8 days and/or nights on ships (mostly crossing the Atlantic), about
10 days in hotels (in Cambridge and Hamlin) or motels (from Illinois to
Montreal) about 45 days camping, and 30 days in “Alpha” (the caravan in Waverly
Park). It is not that we didn’t think
the ZW was the best home ever devised on wheels, but more that the companion
caravan to “Alpha” namely “Omega” was more fitting to our mood at this point.
To say the least, we were happily anticipating the end of our gypsy existence.
To say we were
happy to be leaving Alpha (and Omega) and to let the mattresses in ZW rest for
the first time in 75 days (even in Alpha, Tom and Bill slept in ZW) is an
understatement of the first magnitude. After all Dan had been a gypsy now for
one quarter of his whole life[2].
And of course the irony of the whole affair was that after 6 nights in the beds
of The Manse we would be off for another five week camping trip on the
continent where I was to give a paper at a professional meeting in Stuttgart.
Although bone weary
we were up at the crack of dawn, and were packed up and ready to go by 8:30.
Our usual departing time was 1100. The plan was to drive out to The Manse trade
Mary and the boys the Halios, (Dr., Mrs., and two children), and while I drove
the Halios to the train station, Mary and boys could start moving in. Luckily
the Halios were ready for if they hadn’t been I am afraid they would have been
stampeded in the exchange.
From the train
station I drove to the Unit and picked up some of our larger bags, deposited
there ten weeks earlier, and proceeded post haste to The Manse. Although there
was no time, nor even a real mood for relaxing you could feel the relaxed
attitude of the family in this hectic long awaited, busy, and fateful day. Even
in the midst of making up 5 beds, unpacking 14 suitcases, figuring how to work
an ancient electric stove, and an agitator-less pocket sized washing machine,
worrying about lunch, and keeping watch on 5 boys just released from the
captivity of the narrow confines of ZW and Alpha, Mary seemed somehow relaxed.
Of course the
orders flew hot and fast; Tom, you and Bill go to the store and buy some
cheese, butter, lunch meat, peanut butter and jelly; Dad, load Charles and Dan
in the car and find some milk, soap, and clothes pins; where’s the bag with the
sheets; take off those dirty clothes so I can wash them; how do you heat the water
here?
Many of the
problems answered themselves. Both Mrs. Whitehouse and the Halios had passed
the word of our coming. In the midst of flying dust, words, calories, and boys
a knock at the back door heralded the arrival of a stranger. A youngish, well built,
medium sized man with a broad smile over his ruddy-to-red complexion. He stated he was the milkman, and he had been
the Halios’ milkman. He delivered milk every morning and eggs upon demand. He
had TB tested and regular milk, it came in English (oversized) pint bottles and
he had some right now to start with. The early bird gets the worm and he had
just increased his delivery route by an appreciable amount.
Mrs. Whitehouse was
next to show up. And she was either pleased with her decision to allow us in or
was making the best of a potentially dreadful situation. She was all smiles and
full of interesting facts like, “You turn the stove on this way”, “This little
heater keeps this large tank of water hot”, “The coalman lives next door”, “I
told Mrs. Rodwell down at Myrtleberry’s store that you would be moving, in
today, she will probably drop by to see you. . . . .”.
Shortly a Hillman
van, or panel lorry, stopped in the street and in a sprightly gait, a woman
about our age came up to the front door. Mrs. Whitehouse said, “There’s Mrs.
Rodwell now.” Mrs. Rodwell was one of
these “jolly fellows well met” whose enthusiasm seems to permeate the
environment and carry the situation along in a light gay mood. She was the
perfect “Welcome Wagon” greeter. She had heard, from Mrs. Whitehouse, about our
five boys and wanted to meet them. She was also well acquainted with our
backgrounds from conversations with the Halios and Mrs. Whitehouse. We had
visited the Halios a couple of times. They also were from California. At the
conclusion of this gay welcome I hopped in the van with Dan and Charlie and
Mrs. Rodwell drove us to her store so that we could buy many needed staples.
Myrtleberries,
about two blocks down Pierce Lane from The Manse was a typical English village
store. The Rodwells lived in a two- story brick house set behind a hedge that
fronted directly on the road. There was no sidewalk between the hedge and the
road. Attached onto the house, probably at a later date, was a one-story
rectangular appendage that was neither architecturally beautiful nor
distasteful, purely utilitarian.
The store consisted
of 3 rooms, one large sales, one small storage room and one tiny room for the
refrigerator. There were two girl clerks a redhead and a brunette. Both mighty
pleasant to look upon and both seemingly happy. Around the room were shelves of
canned goods, fresh fruits and vegetables, toys, biscuits, and such things as
hair curlers and shampoo. They had Edam and Welsh Cheddar cheese, lunch meat,
canned orange juice (no one had frozen orange juice), Cadbury chocolate bars,
tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers, but no peanut butter. Our lunch problems were
solved.
After lunch we had
time to settle back a little and survey our temporary home. The Manse could not
have been simpler in basic design. It was essentially a 40 x 25 foot
rectangular brick box two stories high. This solid box was capped by a peaked
roof. Had the width of the house equaled the length the roof would have formed
a pyramid. As it was the slopes from front and back met in a ridge, while the
slopes from the sides just narrowed down at their apex to join the ridge. At
their junctions, at the apex of the side triangles were two of the three
chimneys. Scattered among the three chimneys were 9 chimney flues (pots). This
would signify that there were 9 fireplaces. The count of chimney pots agreed
exactly with the number of rooms, if the two bathrooms were not counted in.
Upstairs there were
4 large bedrooms and a complete bath. Downstairs there were two parlors, a
dining room, a kitchen, a scullery and a small bathroom. The house was divided
into two equal parts by a hall running from the front door to the back door.
Along one side of this hall was the stairway. At the top of the stairs at the
back of the upstairs hall, was the bathroom. The downstairs bathroom was below
the upper one but wasn’t as large and didn’t block off the end of the hall. The
scullery was appended onto the kitchen and spoiled the complete symmetry of the
house. Each large room had at one time had a fireplace, but now only the five
downstairs fireplaces were intact. Upstairs there was neither fireplace nor
source of heat of any sort, except for the windows which in the summer would
pass the heat of the sun. In the upstairs bathroom was a small heat lighting
fixture tube up near the ceiling.
The Manse (gas
streetlight in foreground, medieval church tower in background)
Symmetry was the
key to The Manse. In the exact center in front was a doorway and above it a
window. Equally spaced around this center were two windows below and two windows
above. The doorway was really an arch built of bricks which protruded out about
half the thickness of a brick. The door itself was set in about 4 inches in the
center of this brick arch. The door itself was rectangular and the arch above
was a window. At the top of the arch was a keystone built of bricks. One could
easily predict that each front room both upstairs and down had a large front
window.
What was not
obvious from the front of the house was that none of the front rooms had any
other or side windows. Contrariwise the back rooms had only side windows and no
back windows. The bathrooms did of course have back windows.
The Manse was built
about the turn of the century as a residence for the pastor of the chapel. It
was occupied as such until WWII at which time the elderly pastor retired and
the dwindling congregation could not afford a new one. Visiting pastors don’t
need Manses and so The Manse was sold. As I look at this it must have been the
fates acting in our behalf. I was not brought up in a church atmosphere,
although Mary was, but we were both active in church work now. We could easily
rationalize that our long and trying ordeal in the wilderness was and could
only have been ended by our inheritance of heaven, in this case in the form of
The Manse. This could also explain the change of heart of Mrs. Whitehouse on
the road to
The Manse was not
old as houses go in
The back parlour
was similar to the front except it was smaller, had only one large overstuffed
chair and a regular sized table; no cabinet. Its window opened southeasterly
and its dormant fireplace added to the August warmth of this cozy den. There
was a writing desk in this parlour and undoubtedly this was the old pastors
study (and our boys train room).
All the bedsteads,
wardrobes, chairs, rugs, and dressers upstairs were old. In this case perhaps
more antique old than venerably old. Beds are too functional to be venerable,
when slept in. For viewing at
The lighting
fixtures in all rooms consisted of bulbs hanging on the end of a wire in the
middle of the rooms. They did however turn on from wall switches. To me they
turned off instead of on and vice versa, you see in
The wardrobes were
another source of amusement, or annoyance, or amazement, depending on your
mood. There were no closets in the Manse and for want of a more adequate sample
I will say this is typical of older English houses. Wardrobes are essentially
portable closets. Functionally they are a large ornate box about six feet tall,
four feet long, and 18 inches deep. Two doors hinged at the edge allow egress
and ingress. A pole across the top inside is ostensibly to be used to hold up
clothes on coat hangers. However clothes hangers, at least with clothes on
them, won’t hang properly on this pole because then the doors won’t shut. You
see, a coat hanger is at least 16 inches wide and with a coat it is at least 18
inches wide. To get many coats or clothes of any sort requiring an 18 inch
width inside a box whose outside dimension is 18 inches becomes an exasperating
task. The trick is to slant all hangers the proper amount and to bang the door
closed before the hangers, obeying the laws of
The bedrooms were
not things of beauty. However on this first day, and for that matter from
thence forward, they were no source of concern. Even antique beds need only
meet one or two rather lax criteria. They must be somewhat soft and somehow
un-hammock-like. That is, no sagging in the middle, and no boards for
mattresses. This plus warmth equals a good nights sleep, and sleep makes a bed.
The bedrooms were completely adequate. The eiderdowns tucked away in wardrobes
or dressers were of no particular concern in August.
Houses are
functionally made for sleeping and eating. After these comes keeping clean and
finally relaxing. Eating involves preparation, consumption, and cleanup, or
functionally a dining room and/or kitchen. The Manse had both. The dining room
was obviously the used room. The rug was worn threadbare. It may have had a
design and maybe even a colour at one time but not now. The table and chairs
were well worn but sturdy. An old glass door enclosed bookcase, a dish cupboard
and another upholstered arm chair completed the furnishings. Some people might
consider the dining room drab, it was. Others would consider it well lived in,
it was. Others might say it had character, it did. With its fireplace and its
large window (which the boys soon found amenable to crawling in and out of) it
was a cheery room. As an unoccupied room it was drab. When graced with 5 boys,
and/or Mary’s culinary concoctions, it was cheery, lived in, and possessed much
character; too much (or too many) perhaps.
Although kitchen
equipment has developed most in the past decades and as compared to the other
furniture in the house, the kitchen may have been modern, it somehow did not
reflect Mary’s
A scullery behind
the kitchen contained the pee-wee electric washer, another sink, another
fireplace, some more cupboards, and a very large uninsulated water tank, inside
a cupboard known as an airing cupboard. This was the hot water tank. It could
also be heated electrically. The cupboard surrounding it was for items that
need be kept dry.
Behind the scullery
was a separate shed divided into a large bin for coal and coke, and a smaller
bin for storage of wood or whatever.
The Manse was built
of faded yellow brick, had a grey slate roof but was trimmed in a bright light
blue. The window frames, outside doors, and eaves fairly glistened with the glossy
blue trim. Between The Manse and the street was a 10 foot garden (lawn) and an
eight foot high hedge. The front of The Manse was not parallel to the street
but at right angles to it. The front garden was about 25 feet wide and
terminated in a garage (too small for ZW) and a driveway slanting down to the
street. This driveway was closed by a pair of swinging wire fence gates so that
the whole of the garden around The Manse was enclosed. The hedge gave way to a
wooden fence between The Manse and the Eastern Electricity Board’s transformer
station. After turning the corner, the wooden fence which was at least 8 feet
high, gave way to a loose wire fence and/or hedgerow separating the Manse from
an open field which in turn opened onto the village school.
Were we pleased
with our long awaited house? It was no architectural gem. It was not ultra
modern. In fact you might as well admit it was old, it was furnished with odd
and old pieces of furniture, there was no uniformity or central design of
furnishings or interior decoration. The rugs and wall paper were generally
drab. Plumbing and appliances were old, small, and outdated, the garage was too
small, as were the wardrobes. BUT it was a house, a large house, with enclosed
yard, fridge and washing machine, electric stove and five fireplaces and for
the next year it was our house and we were now in it. We loved it.[3]
Charlie soon
discovered that there was a sidewalk all the way around the house and to this
day he says, “I like houses in
After the first
night’s sleep in a house in more than three months we felt revived enough to do
some further exploring of our village. In the next five days before leaving for
a five-week camping holiday, we made a few visits of exploration.
Just across Pierce
Lane and down about two houses from The Manse was a very typical two story
yellow brick building with the long side parallel with and set back about 10
feet from the sidewalk. The gabled roof ran the length of the building and the
eaves were in front along the street. There was a small sign which said, “
The tiny sales room
consisted on the outside of a picture window, about four feet square, and a
door. Inside the door was room for perhaps four adult customers, or room for me
alone if accompanied by all the boys. A small display case topped by a glass
counter held all sorts of delicious looking objects, fruit tarts, hot cross
buns, Cornish pasties, various varieties of biscuits (cookies), and pork pies.
In the show window and on Shelves behind the glass counter were unwrapped and
unsliced loaves of white and, brown breads, and assorted cakes and pies.
Not to be outdone
by grocery stores, the bakery also had complete selections of hard rock sweets
(candy), tins of toffees, gum, Cadbury’s chocolate bars, and minerals (pop).
Actually if you were not too fond of proteins you could buy a very appetizing,
if not very well balanced, meal at Dixons. Adding to the pleasant sight of
cakes and tarts, and the wonderful smell of freshly baked bread, was the pretty
sales girl. I always liked to go to Dixons even when the tall, young pretty
girl with the big smile was replaced by Mrs. Dixon. The smile was just as big,
the greeting just as merrie, and the bread and tarts just as good. Dixons was a
jolly place, even if it were a mite tiny. We were soon regular customers and
had our standing order in for bread on Saturday.
Myrtleberry’s Store
was another square down
We had already
found that milk is not sold in grocery stores in
The closest store
to the Manse was Tyrells, all trimmed in red and with the show window packed
with glass jars of hard rock sweets.
Mrs. Tyrell, an elderly widow, was treasurer at the chapel. She was
short and on the plump side, very pleasant but sometimes somewhat forgetful.
She was assisted by a grown daughter and one or two other women. Tyrells was
the place to deposit laundry and cleaning. A laundry lorry from
Tyrells – with the
jars of sweets in the window
Webbs, just around
the corner from
Webbs Store – Mr.
Beaumont and a customer (in
Webbs were the newspaper,
magazine, and paper back book dealers and had picture postcards of
Fulbourn. Mr. Beaumont himself,
certainly in his fifties if not sixties, and slight of build, delivered the
morning paper on his bicycle. One of his clerks, a Mrs. Smith also of the same
age and build delivered the evening paper on her cycle. She collected weekly on
her rounds but for the morning paper and Newsweek I paid at Webbs on Saturday
or Monday or whenever I was in.
All of the stores,
Myrtleberrys, Tyrells, Webbs, and Peaks on around on School Lane had more stuff
packed away on shelves back in their living quarters or in back rooms than met
the eye. Being inveterate super market shoppers, this disturbed us. Instead of
seeing all the merchandise and selecting what we wanted from open shelves, we
could at best only squint and point to those items we did see and ask for other
items by name. And this was often disastrous since American words and English
words are far from synonymous on many items. Even if the names agree the products
often do not.
Examples are: sweet
pickles are gherkins, molasses is treacle, squash is marrow, turnips are
swedes, mustard (mild for sandwiches) is mustard (hot and powdered for
footbaths), peanut butter is generally not available, kerosene is paraffin
(which is obtained from grocers , paraffin is paraffin wax, and tomatoes are
tomahtoes.
Between Webbs and
the butcher shop was a tiny one room Electric Shop. This was not always open
and was usually staffed by someone with little knowledge of electric
appliances. In the afternoon a man, probably from
Dick Whitmore's
Family Butcher
Beyond the Electric
Shop was Dick Whitmore’s butcher shop and it was a marvel to behold. One end of
his two story brick residence that sat right on the sidewalk three feet off the
street was the butcher shop. On Monday mornings his big dark green blind was
pulled over his large show window. He was in at the
By Wednesday Dick
usually had his meat cut up into smaller portions and stored away in his large
walk-in fridge. Whenever he got too busy, and inevitably on Saturday, he didn’t
get time to replace each large portion in the fridge when be cut off a
customer’s request. The meat just piled higher and higher on his cutting table.
Dick Whitmore at
work
He had the whole
gamut of cutlery, a meat saw (for bones), a cleaver (for bones) and “the
sharpest knife I ever saw” said Charlie every time he went in. Dick was
continually sharpening this knife on a long spindle-shaped file (or emory) by
pulling the knife down with his right hand toward his left hand which held the
file. I’d swear he missed his own fingers by only hundredths of inches with a
knife sharp enough to strip his finger to the bone. Somehow he always kept his
fingers whole. You could buy hares, pheasants, pigeons, ducks, geese, turkey,
chicken, lamb, pork, beef, veal and sausage.
He did not, nor did any other respectable butcher handle wieners, lunch
meats and the like. He was about as slick and quick at finding and preparing
any desired cut as anyone could be. He would have the meat cut, on and off the
scales, and wrapped in a newspaper before the needle on his scales could
anywhere near settle down to a stable reading.
For our family he just counted noses, guessed appetites and cut away. I
never knew and I’m sure he didn’t know how many pounds and ounces of meat we
had but the number of pounds and shillings always came out the same.
The Six Bells
There wasn’t much
time for darts during this short stay so my relationship with the Six Bells, the
High Street pub was purely platonic. Even from the outside however the Six
Bells was a thing of beauty. Here was an old inn straight from Dickens. The
eave line of this thatched roof was two stories above and parallel with the
street and the ridge three stories high. One of Fulbourn’s taller buildings. At
each end and running up the outside were big brick chimneys. The upper floor
overhung about three feet over the sidewalk. At two places along the sidewalk
the windows of the pub protruded out in an angular arc. These bay windows were
tangent with the overhang on the upper floor and like the guard (conductor or
brakeman) in the guard car (caboose) the people supping in these windows could
survey up and down the sidewalk. All busses and coaches stopped here as I’m
sure they have done, for the past two centuries. They no longer change horses
here but I’m sure in the past they did. One got the feeling that The Six Bells
was an inn, a meeting place, a coach station, and not a tavern, or bar.
Actually it was all of these. I later found it to be a habitual haunt for Dick
Whitmore the butcher, our milkman, Fred the barber and many others. The dart
board next to the fireplace was well worn.
Beyond The Six
Bells on the corner of High Street and
Inside the Six Bells
Miss Ball, her
chief assistant, was much younger (in her fifties or sixties) and delivered the
mail on her bicycle (before
The Post Office
also collects telephone bills, issued four times a year and NOT in ADVANCE.
They deliver telegrams (Miss Ball on her bicycle), and sell radio and Telly
licenses. Unofficially they also sell beautiful Christmas cards. An artist has
sketched many of the venerable old buildings added a Christmas greeting and
ended up with a delightful remembrance.
During our six day
stint as respectable, settled, and staid citizens between our two prolonged
gypsy episodes there came time for haircuts. In two tiny rooms, a vestibule and
a shop, underneath the sign “Gents Hairdressing” was Fred the Barber. His shop
was open from 4 until 7 and he came out by bus. He was no older than many
others riding bicycles but, as I was informed by Dick Whitmore in the Six Bells
one day, he had a heart condition. He was old, and small, and talkative, and
pleasant, a good barber, and a nice person. He always wore a white knee-length
smock, as did most every other tradesman in the whole village. The butcher’s
smock usually ended up red at the end of the day and the Cobbler’s was streaked
with black and brown. Fred wore horn rimmed glasses and as befits a barber he
still had plenty of brown hair, receding a little on the temples, but a goodly
lock hung down over his forehead. He had a peaked nose and small mustache and
could well have played the part of the hero in a village production of “Mein
Kampf”.
Fred’s shop was a
most incongruous mixture of the old and the new, the old usually winning out.
The barber chair was simplicity itself. Fred may well have made the chair
himself. It consisted basically of four sturdy legs which also served as
anchors for the arm rests. A leather covered cushion and a straight slightly
cushioned back completed this rudimentary chair. Its distinguishing features
were simplicity, ruggedness, lack of moving parts and squareness; no contours,
no rounded corners, no swivel, no mechanism for raising or lowering the height,
but all the necessities, a seat, a back rest, arm rests and a board which sat
on the arm rests and served as a seat for children. A separate box that had a
sloping top sat on the floor and acted as a foot rest.
Fred's Gents
Hairdresser Shop
Other major
equipments were sink, with electric water heater, many bottles of shampoo, hair
oil, and I imagine hair restoring compounds, an electric clipper and assorted
combs, brushes, and towels. Auxiliary
equipment consisted of a waste paper basket, a gas fire (heater) and neatly
balanced on top of the gas fire was a tea kettle. Fred always had hot water for tea. Fred believed in diversification, he also
sold cigarettes and tooth brushes.
By our standards
Fred’s shop was medieval. Also by our standards Fred’s prices were medieval,
two shillings for a haircut (28 cents).
By any standards Fred’s haircuts were first rate and his conversations
worth listening to. He liked the boys and they liked him. At 2 bob a haircut
mom had five fewer jobs to do than she had in America, and Fred had himself
about 800% more business than our American barber, all the boys and all of us
more often. You see, haircuts for me and all the boys cost less than a haircut
for me alone in
The cobbler at work
The cobbler in his
thatched roof shop across from the butcher shop was a young man. The only young
shopkeeper in Fulbourn, and a man with foresight. He wanted to increase his
trade from repairing to merchandising. We agreed this was a good idea. We had
already found that parking space in
We did have one
item we wanted built during our six day rest; a set, of light wooden boxes to hold
food, travel books, our benzin (petrol, gasoline) stove, and cooking utensils.
There was a carpenter shop right across from us and I took them the problem
and its partial solution. I measured the exact sizes we needed and drew up
plans. With this much cooperation the foreman told the carpenter to try to get
the job done. The carpenter selected the proper light weight wood and told his
apprentice how to brace the boxes and the apprentice went to work. It is not
uncommon in
This young boy was
a marvel. He not only made the boxes, but trimmed them up, sanded off the rough
edges, and stained and finished them off. They looked as beautiful as the
highly varnished camping box the Germans had installed in our car. The boxes
looked so nice it was hard to desecrate them with belongings. I would have
expected such a job from an old cabinet maker or craftsman of the old school.
But from a teen-aged boy in this generation I was astounded.
It’s hard to say
whether the excellent job or the ridiculously low price surprised me the most.
I had been accustomed to paying carpenters, painters, plumbers, and the like
more in hourly wages than I earned as a scientist. And to pay them these wages
for work that looked like I, the scientist, had done it. Needless to say I was greatly impressed to
get excellent work at a price I could afford.
My exploration of
the shops in the village convinced me that this was the place for us. We had
waited 107 days for our house but it looked as if our wait was to be rewarded.
Our first impressions were favorable.
However we had only
time for first impressions. Our next
adventure in our near perpetual travel was at hand. We were to travel far and wide on our
“Continental Camping Holiday”:
CONTINENTAL CAMPING
At Summer’s end with tourists gone
A second trip you see
For Dad a paper had to give
At
From
And drive to
Then on to
Along the
The vineyards grow straight up
At harvest time with wine to make
They squeeze it in a cup.
We travel in our bus by day
At night attach a tent
At Lorelei on
While barges came and went
From
And walk through Dom at
Then
Eat stew, drink milk by pints.
Then on to
We pay our deep respects
To Luther and to Gutenburg
To kings of all aspects.
Up the
And camp upon its banks
Until in
To stay a week with thanks.
Dad goes to meetings day and night
He rides the Strassenbahn
For car is now a home for all
Through day and night and dawn.
From Fernsehturm, or TV tower
Sights great, knees shake, winds raw
On Sunday south through Tubigen
Burg Hohenzollern we saw.
Medieval towns were next to come
Beneath our pounding feet
We camped one night in Dinkelsbuhl
Old towns are hard to beat.
There’s Rothenburg and
With Nurmberg in between
Then cross the
In Munich Nymphburg palace stands
In Ratskeller we dine
Up St. Michaels spire we go
Below see city shine.
On Autobahn to
To Mozart yet our due
Around the town behind a horse
The time of day it flew.
Off to
The
Saves much in hotel fee.
Prince Eugen stands in Heldenplatz
St. Stephens towers o’er all
In Schonbrunn formal gardens stand
The opera gets our call.
To
O’er Dolmite Alps we go
We leave our bus in city site
And then by boat, heave ho.
By gondola canals we see
Then boys the pigeons feed
Who swarm the piazza of St. Marks
When walking please take heed.
On balcony Juliet stood
The Amphitheatre from Roman times
For opera is good.
To
Statue to
Cathedral likewise beckons all
To hasten from the strands.
On Autostrada south we go
La Scala in
And found our famous land.
Along the
In
Where people take their chance.
Thru Nice and
Across from bridge we camp
On petrol stove we cook our food
And settle down to nap.
When music sounds and fireworks glow
And on the bridge anon
The village children dancing to
‘The
To
As up the
Then Bill his sixth birthday he has
For him we buy gateau.
At Fontainbleau a palace see
On
From high atop the
Paree looks like a map.
We see the place where guillotine
Took lives in one short drop
A greater hazard yet today
Are cars that hop and pop.
To
Then north we drive once more
From
In peace no war planes roar.
From
Its dark, its after five
So ferry sign we do not see
Cross
At
Both tired and lightly fed
For yet five weeks on road were we
Now house, and food, and bed.
J.C.Webster.
The Manse, Fulbourn,
Daniel Webster (with
baguette) on Continental Camping
I imagine no family
ever left
Our desire was now
blunted however by our summer in Alpha and ZW and our damp
However it was the
Third International Congress of Acoustics to be held in
Things began
looking rosier right after our French meal on board, complete with the French
national beverage. The rosy effect soon changed to another well known effect
and I was asleep in the deck chair for the remainder of the crossing. My nap
did wonders for me and our trip along the
Next morning we
took Charlie’s and Dan’s favorite sightseeing trip, a horse-drawn carriage
ride through old
On leaving
This was but one
example of a fact not well known by anyone, namely that an Englishman’s view of
history does not agree with anyone except other Englishmen and then only
southern Englishmen (not to mention Scotsmen). And an American’s view of history
is not held by any other nation even southern Americans. I could repeat this
same statement a hundred times just replacing English and American, with
French, German, Chinese, etc. The most important war we ever fought was our
revolution but in
We left
We followed the
Belgian Luxembourg
and
As in any battle or
any war, or even in a family argument, there are at least two antagonists. And
so about two miles down the road from this angel white paradise lie the
vanquished enemy. Everything about the
It brought to my mind
that even on the wrong side, armies are composed of men, husbands and
sons. In death who knows who were
victorious and who were defeated, whose cause the righteous and whose the
unjust, who the invaders and who the defenders. All of the soldiers in both
cemeteries were fathers or sons and to mothers, wives, and daughters all were
heroes. Who will condemn a man because he fell in battle for a cause that most
people will agree was evil? Individual soldiers have little to say and can do
little to alter the course of fates that carry them to death on a field of
battle.
We were proud of
the
We advanced in
peace and charity across the German border to spend the night in the oldest
(Roman) town in
Next morning was
mail day and shopping day. The biggest item on the shopping list was Lederhosen
for the boys. Laundry was one of our biggest problems. Ever since our $20
laundry bill in
We noted the city
was dressed for and had the air of a fete. Within a block we came to a general
information center and a first aid station. This seemed like a logical place to
inquire about the whereabouts of the post office. Before we left
We were obviously
too early for the expected throng and the English speaking informant, if any,
was not yet at the information center. Ones ability to converse in a foreign
language improves with use and this was my first full day in
Along the way with
John, Tom, Bill, and Charlie or now Johann, Thomas, Wilhelm, und Karl we
continued our rather tortured conversation. She found I was also interested in
buying some Lederhosen. We soon found the Hauptpostamt and I did have a letter,
but not my slides. Our friend now nodded her head and smiled as she could see I
had some point in my stubbornness.
Our volunteer guide
was now convinced I knew what I was talking about, even if I didn’t know all
the correct words. She promptly took charge and on we went to the Lederhosen
store. Now she did all the talking just
as if she were Mary, or my mother, and soon two clerks were hopping around
showing gray suede Lederhosen, green slick Lederhosen, and black polished
Lederhosen. I finally agreed I liked the
green ones and next came getting the proper sizes and especially the right
length Trager (suspenders). He could fit Johann, Thomas, und Wilhelm aber nicht
Karlchen. I paid the clerk a hundred and ten Deutsche Marks and the boys walked
out of the store in splendor. All except Karlchen and he walked out making more
noise than a brass band, although not such pleasant noise. It is difficult to
explain to a three year old that they couldn’t fit him when he could see all
the green Lederhosen still hanging on the racks.
Our guide and
shopping mother was now practically like a member of the family and she
insisted on coming back to the ZW to meet Mary and Dan. After she had met all
the boys and their momma she took her leave to go back to help the next person
desiring information. If she was as thorough on all comers as she had been for
us she wouldn’t parry many questions but she would make lots of friends.
Charlie had not
really quieted down yet over his non-possession of Lederhosen so even before
we could eat lunch we went to a place much nearer where Mary had spotted some
Lederhosen while she and Dan were window shopping. We couldn’t find any green
Lederhosen but at this point Charlie didn’t care and we quieted him with a pair
of gray suede Lederhosen.
After restocking
our food larder we started on the journey I’d planned for 5 months. We left
Rather late in the
afternoon we spotted a castle high on side of the valley above Bernkastel-Kues.
We detoured up the mountain and saw the vineyards at first hand and sampled the
light green grapes. Later in the ruined castle, now a restaurant, we sampled
the fermented and unfermented juices of the local vineyards. From this point
on, the boys’ favorite breakfast juice was Traubensaft (grape juice). We
lingered so long that we decided to camp across the river from the castle. The
campsite was reached by a two car ferry. This man-with-crank-operated ferry was
a great fascination to the boys.
We liked this trip
so much we slowed our pace down. We ate lunch at
Lorelei Rock on the
Next morning we visited
Castle Rheinstein on the dizzying heights above the river. Tom and Bill were
delighted, John unhappy, and me just anxious. We paid our respects to
Gutenburg and the cathedral in
Martin Luther was
one of the boys’ favorite historical figures so we visited
We camped at
We soon came to the
fabled walled city of
I told her we were
looking for the town square. She apparently understood my question and rattled
off some answer a mile a minute. After a few more tries she commented that she
couldn’t understand how I could talk German so well and understand so little.
In the meantime it was starting to dawn on me that the full name of the fairy
tale village was Rothenburg-on-Tauber and among other things this village was
high on a hill, there was no river, not even a creek. I terminated our
conversation as best I could without making her think me more stupid than I
really was and we departed[4].
As we proceeded
down the Neckar her remarks started me thinking. I can make myself understood because I have
lots of time to configure my 1000 word vocabulary into a sensible question. But
when a reply is fired back from a 10,000 word vocabulary at 300 words per
minute my comprehension falls apart.
However my
experience in Trier and Rothenburg convinced me that elderly German women, like
my high school friend’s mother, are as nice as people come. The time, effort,
understanding, and consideration shown me and the emotions displayed at the
Luxembourg cemetery convinced me. People are OK, if governments could get along
as well as people, we’d have a wonderful world.
From a camping
standpoint it would be hard to beat Stuttgart as the site for the week long
Third International Congress of Acoustics. The Stuttgart Municipal Camp on the
Neckar River is one of the best, if not the best, campsite we encountered. It
had well mowed grass, it was flat, and the facilities were first rate. The
light, airy, spacious, and amply sized restrooms were spotlessly clean. Hot
showers were available. There was a roomful of coin-operated gas stoves. And
the provision store, though not large, was well stocked. The camp was not
crowded and it was not located in a crowded area. By walking two blocks I could
catch a tram into my meetings. The boys liked to walk along the top of the
dike. Mom and the boys by walking about 4 blocks could shop at a butcher shop
and a bakery. I took the boys for haircuts in the same shopping area. A better
situation could hardly prevailed for spending a week at a single camp.
Our longest
excursion out of Stuttgart was to Burg Hohenzollern a fairy tale castle atop a
conical mountain about 40 miles south via Tubingen, an old university city. The
boys had really seen about all the castles they wanted to see but they didn’t
complain of this one. Burg Hohenzollern is strictly out of the fairy tale
books. The road that wound around the mountain was clockwise so that attacking
soldiers would approach with shields out and not between them and the defenders
in the castle. From the top the surrounding area could be surveyed for miles.
Our only mishaps were that Dan who always goes to sleep noisily, didn’t quite
get to sleep. And so Dad, carrying Dan, didn’t quite get to finish the tour.
When the tour was over and we were ready to walk the half mile back to the car,
Dan did fall asleep. We therefore had two inert superfluous objects, deadweight
Dan for Dad to carry and his empty stroller for Mom to push. In the struggle
that ensued, getting Dan in the nest of the ZW, and everyone else aboard
without falling off the mountain road no one bothered to see that the stroller
was packed into the ZW. It wasn’t. We now had more room inside but more
transportation problems at every stop.
I met all my
stateside colleagues at the meetings. I was so enthusiastic about my fellowship
and our camping VW (our ZW) that one of my colleagues decided he’d apply for
the same fellowship next year. He applied and he was accepted and he ordered a
VW to be converted to ZW. And as it turned out we turned over our keys to The
Manse to him.
My paper was
scheduled for Thursday afternoon and by Wednesday still no slides. I had
revamped my paper somewhat to add words to replace the missing visual aids.
After the Thursday morning session I checked again and sure enough there was a
package from my lab. However since there seemed to be some customs duty due they
had held the package at the Postamt. I was then informed how to get there. This
was of course hopeless, it was now noon, my paper was at two, the ZW was a
house in the campsite, not a vehicle at the meeting, and my German, although
passing fair, was probably inadequate to argue
with a customs man.
A young Swiss
physicist on duty at the time said he was essentially through at noon, he would
drive me over. When we arrived at the customs section at the post office we
were informed everyone was out to lunch - could we come back in an hour?
"Ach, nein", I sputtered and then my physicist friend took over. Soon
he turned and asked me if I knew what was in the package. Obviously I knew what
was in the package, slides. Then after more words auf Deutsch and fast between
the physicist and the customs man came the question, “How come the package is
so big?” I was stumped, I had not expected a big package. Then I had a
glimmering. For some reason or another a box including my slide rule, a few key
books, and many unfinished manuscripts had never arrived at the Unit yet from
my lab. Were they in the package? I said, “It may include a few of my personal
professional belongings, books, manuscripts, and a slide rule.” “Slide rule?”
“They have heavy duties on slide rules.” “But this one is mine, it’s old, I
bought it second-hand fifteen years ago, it’s got my name in gold engraved on
it.” More words between Swiss physicist and German customs man, auf Deutsch.
“The customs man wants to open the package.” “Go ahead.” Two minutes of
cutting, tearing, inspecting, and discussing auf Deutsch, then, “You were
right, old books, a worn slide rule, and many typewritten pages.” He says, “No
duty, take it away.” At five minutes to two I was back at the meetings trying
to line up the correct order of the slides. At two I got my first good clear
look at the slides as they were projected on the screen. Luckily no major
errors.
On Friday, before
our trip to Burg Hohenzollern, most members of the Congress took a busman’s
holiday to Munich to visit places of acoustical note and study the quieting
methods of the German railroads on their passenger cars.
Our family stayed
in Stuttgart and took the opportunity to visit Killesberg Park with its little
train, sky lift, and spacious greenery. After a busy afternoon riding through
the air, over miniature tracks, playing on swings, slides and teeter totters
and learning the German words for “2 adults” and “from 3 to 5 children” and for
“soda pop” and “hamburger” we finally headed homeward.
We had come by one
street car line and being an inveterate sightseer and by disposition and
profession an investigator I decided to return by a different line. After all
I’d been in Germany 2 or 3 weeks and knew how to ask directions and had ridden
the street cars from our camp to the meetings all week. Likewise, I knew from
what intersection the street car left and what its number was. I also knew, but
didn’t confide my fears in Mary, that the loading platform was in the middle of
one of the busiest intersections in Stuttgart and highway construction work
made access precarious even for single able bodied and unencumbered adults.
But, a little bit to my surprise, I had found during my weeks stay in Stuttgart
that the German people, at least south Germans, were inordinately polite and
helpful and I knew we would get aboard our street car somehow.
At first sight of
the intersection, Mary, who was pushing Dan in his Swedish stroller which we
never had quite understood and couldn’t get to work to our satisfaction, looked
at me with that “have you gone out of your mind” look.
However, having
reached the Rubicon I couldn’t turn back now and sure enough a harried
policeman saw our plight and took action. Whether he came to our aid out of
utter amazement or in an attitude of help the mentally retarded I’ll never
know; perhaps he acted to repent for some haunting sin. Probably he was cursing
the day he crossed his superior and got assigned this intersection, but stuck
with his duty he had to act so he halted half the flow of goods and people into
Stuttgart for a full minute while we paraded across the street around the
construction work and finally arrived safely on the loading platform.
Now we realized our
troubles had just begun. The problem was how to get our troop, including one in
his mobile troop transport, along a three foot wide raised platform already
completely packed with tired, home-bound people. We spotted our trolley car all
the way at the forward end of the platform and started toward it.
German trolleys are
operated by two people, a conductor and a motorman. People board from the rear
onto an open platform, no doors to open or close, and the conductor signals the
motorman when all are aboard. We didn’t know that the all aboard signal had
already been given and that the car was standing only because the policeman was
allowing one of the many streams of cross traffic to move. The conductor wasn’t
even in sight - she had already moved forward into the car starting to collect
the fares.
Not knowing any of
this and arriving at the rear platform in staggered formation, I started
loading the boys on board. John, Tom, Bill, and Charles were on board and I had
taken Dan from his stroller and was standing by ready to board while Mary,
already laden down with diaper bag and pocketbook, was wrestling with the
uncooperative stroller trying to fold it up.
About this time the
policeman gave the motorman the go ahead and the trolley started to move. I
yelled for the boys to jump off but neither Mary nor I could help as I had Dan
and she had the stroller. John, Tom, and Bill managed to jump off but Charlie,
age 3, couldn’t make it. It is a little hard to remember who was screaming the
loudest, Mary or the other boys, but one sound was unmistakable and unchallenged
for vocal effort and loudness. Charlie’s screams from the departing trolley not
only carried across the teeming intersection, but were soon followed by the
sound of squealing steel wheels on steel tracks and a policeman’s whistle as
the trolley came to a screeching stop across all lanes of traffic. Then, or
course, din of auto horns started.
Hardly had the trolley stopped than an annoyed woman conductor emerged
with a screaming boy under one arm. She
made straight across the intersection toward the platform. The German she
uttered was not any that I had learned, but I thought it interesting that
Charlie had had no trouble at all communicating with her. He had, in a
universal language, not music, conveyed his exact thoughts into immediate
action.
After the din of
those few moments the icy silence that settled on our family for the delayed
trip home was far from golden.
The meetings over,
we succumbed to the wishes of Tom and Bill and went atop the Fernsehturm (TV
tower) before leaving Stuttgart. Then we proceeded toward medieval Germany, the
Romantic Road. We just touched Nordlingen, then camped outside the walled city
of Dinkelsbuhl. Nothing out of the ordinary happened at Dinkelsbuhl, no one got
lost, sick, or stolen. We still had seen no rain, only wasps and mosquitoes. We
were blissfully happy. The countryside was as familiar as the Grimm brothers
fairy tales, walled towns, hills and forests, rivers and streams. You could
almost see the princes and princesses, the witches and werewolves. We were the
youngest son in our seven league boots. All the dragons vanished before our
eyes. It was the vampires (wasps) and bats (mosquitoes) that caused us concern.
But let us start this tale again.
Once upon a time
there was a man called Hans, an only son, who had married and had five small
sons. Hans had been condemned by a wicked witch to perpetual traveling. This
witch, called Ima Homeowner, disliked children and had condemned Hans and Maria
and the boys Johann, Thomas, Wilhelm, Karlchen, and Daniel to a nomad’s life in
a flying house called Vesta Pegasus, a house by night, and a flying horse by
day.
In their travels
through the Black Forest they spotted a fairy tale castle (Burg Hohenzollern).
A stooped stranger beside the road told them that they too could have a castle
in the sky. That the curse of perpetual travel could be broken. Listen carefully
and follow these directions: To break the curse the family must upon seven
different occasions in seven different places ascend into the heavenly heights.
Begin with the castle you see on yon distant mountain. Then proceed toward the
north star until you come across a Fernsehturm overlooking a river. After
ascending this second height proceed for a day’s journey toward the rising
sun. At nightfall you will be at a walled city. Camp outside and infiltrate
into the city after sundown. There you will hear of another walled city that
must be entered through three gates each guarded by darting black dragons, and
whizzing gray satyrs. Inside this city you will see at one hour beyond high
noon a burgermeister doff a tankard of wine in one gulp.
In the city of the
three gates you will hear of a city famed for its song contests. From the halls
of Die Meistersinger in the city of song proceed toward the sunny climes until
blocked by high mountains. On the way you will cross a great river. Beyond the
river but before the mountains you will see a witches nest where people were
incarcerated in ovens. Show your boys this site so they can see that the ovens
must never again be lighted.
From here proceed
to your third height, the highest church steeple in the nearby large city. Look
toward the rising sun for a castle atop a hill in the foothills of the high
mountains you dare not pass. In the city of the castle forego Vesta Pegasus for
Centaur and phaeton. Visit the shrine of the boy wonder musical genius, so your
boys may gain his magic.
From castle city
you will discover a mighty river, follow it carefully past many castles until
you find an ancient majestic capital city with no empire to govern. From atop
your fourth height, an old triumphal arch in a palace courtyard, look toward
the sunny climes and set your course across high mountains, your fifth height.
On the seventh day you will find a city without streets. Vesta Pegasus, your
flying house will be useless. You will need proceed by boat. Beware the
usurers, you will be fleeced in this island city. In the square before the
campanile your son Karlchen will commune with the pigeons and find how your
next seven days will lead you to your final two heights and your castle in the
skies. Then Vesta Pegasus will release you from its grip and give you rest from
your travels.
So Hans and his
family left their modern day cares in Stuttgart, after a visit to their second
height, the Fernsehturm (TV tower), and journeyed into fairytale land, for
their remaining five heights.
Hans followed the
stooped stranger’s directions and headed Vesta Pegasus toward the east. He
passed shocked grain fields, walled cities, forests, streams, old women
carrying faggots, oxen pulling carts, and black dragons (Mercedes) and whizzing
satyrs (VWs). At sunset Hans found a walled city (Dinkelsbuhl). Vesta Pegasus
stopped its flight and became a house. After nightfall Hans and family slipped
through the gate by sending Johann, Thomas, Wilhelm, Karlchen, and Daniel ahead
dressed in native dress (Lederhosen). Inside the walled village, the six
storied, gable roofed, stucco buildings with wooden beams imbedded, dwarfed the
narrow winding streets. In the church near the gate Johann overheard the
information that to the north on the river Tauber is a city entered by 3 gates.
On the morrow Hans
and family in Vesta Pegasus proceeded northward along the Romantic Road. A sign
along the road said Rothenburg was close by. The road soon narrowed down,
rounded a curve and headed toward an arched gate in a city wall. An elderly
woman tending her geese motioned Hans through the gate. Immediately beyond the
first gate was a second and on a gentle curve beyond was a third gate.
The gooseherder and
her friends had a signaling system set up so that the egress of black dragons
and whizzing satyrs could be spotted. When the narrow road through the gates
was free of lethal monsters Hans and family in Vesta Pegasus entered. The
street through this fairy tale village led straight to the town square. Hans
arrived at high noon and his wife, Maria fed the boys and restocked the
larder. At one hour past noon from two windows high up in the Ratstrinkstube
which fronted on the square a puppet pantomime enacted a scene of
burgermeister doffing a tankard of wine in one gulp.
At the conclusion
of this scene a traveler who had come from the east told Hans about a city
called Nuremberg toward the rising sun where a Meistersinger Festival was held.
Hans turned Vesta Pegasus toward Nuremburg.
Inside the walls of
the city of song the burghers were busy rebuilding from a devastation rained
down from heaven more than a decade earlier in a terrific life and death
conflict. The Meistersinger Fest was not being held but Daniel, Hans’ youngest
son, showed one and all that he could outcry the best of them. Hans was told by
the burghers that yodelers of the ilk of Daniel were more appreciated in the
Tyrol mountain country to the south and suggested we proceed via Ingolstadt on
the Donau (Danube) toward these southern mountains.
Vesta Pegasus was
not deterred by the wide river, being much more worried by the charging black dragons
that attacked from front and rear. When attacking from the rear, these dragons
always belched fire first so Hans and Vesta Pegasus could easily evade their
ceaseless charges. Luckily these dragons always charged at full speed and in
straight lines. They always stayed to the left, never once deviating into the
path sometimes used by the whizzing satyrs. The satyrs seemed more afraid of
the dragons than interested in attacking Hans and Vesta Pegasus. Instead of
pressing an attack from the rear on Vesta Pegasus they pulled around and kept
fleeing the ever belching black dragons.
The night of the
second day was spent on the wide river at Ingolstadt. On the third day Hans
came to the witches nest at Dachau. The victorious conquerors of the witch
stood guard around her cold ovens. Hans could speak the language of the guards
and thus proved he was a traveler from the land beyond the sea into which the
setting sun fell. The guards then allowed him to see the witches nest. Hans and
his family were glad the witch was dead and her ovens cold. Even the sight of
the witches cruel torture chambers chilled the blood of Hans and his family.
To cleanse
themselves of this horrible sight they resumed their journey to a city called
Munchen. Here they mounted their third height, the top of the steeple in the
St. Michaels church. Karlchen, the boy who could talk with or about anything,
talked with the birds in the steeple. They told him that by proceeding
generally toward the rising sun and crossing into the land of the hills Hans
would find the castle city with the musical heritage.
On the fourth day
in the city of the castle, Salzburg, Vesta Pegasus was given a rest while Hans
and family let the horse that drew the carriage take them to a house called
Geburtshaus von Mozart. Johann and Thomas, who were somewhat acquainted with
the magic box with white and black keys, paid homage to another boy who at
their age knew the secret of the keys. Johann and Thomas did not always know
which key to use at what time to unlock the magic box and allow the treasury of
sound inside to issue forth. They procured a magic book that would help them
solve the riddle. Wilhelm and Karlchen were more interested in the magic horse
that knew where to go and when to stop. Even Vesta Pegasus which in the daytime
covered the distances like seven league boots always had to be carefully
controlled by Hans. These horses were indeed wonderful. They even ate through
their noses.
On the fourth day
the beautiful Donau River was reached at Linz and Hans and family followed the
river past many old forbidding looking castles into a glorious city, designed
to rule an empire, but now destined to rule a tiny land. This magnificent city
had been the home of Emperors and Empresses scholars, musicians, artists, writers,
and adventurers. Such a city with such a past. The trappings were still there
but not the pomp and ceremony. The rulers of the political empires, and the
world’s greatest musicians were elsewhere. The city sensed its lost grandeur
and glistened, but no longer glowed in ethereal light. On a hill overlooking
the formal garden at Schoenbrunn Palace stood the fourth height, the Gloriette
or Triumphal Arch to a long forgotten victory. On the fifth day of their
travels Hans and family viewed the imperial city of Vienna from the Gloriette.
The view thrilled Hans and his family and set that to thinking of empires then
and now. They learned that you can’t live on past glories alone. History and
life move on.
The fifth height
was a creation of God, not man. Higher and more massive than the previous
heights the mountains that stood between the ghost capital and the island city
were no problem to Vesta Pegasus. Across these mountains lay another land,
called the land of the sun.
On the sixth day of
travel the fifth height was ascended. The descent into the land of the sun on
the seventh day brought new dangers to Hans and Vesta Pegasus. The black
dragons were mostly gone but their place was taken by red segmented minotaurs.
The particular genus of minotaur in the land of the sun was called
Petrolorrytailus. The bull half of the minotaurs was the tailus which was as
big as the man half or petrolorry half. Like the black dragons in the land of
the virgin forest these minotaurs were always racing at top speed. They were
two to three times the size of the black dragons and roamed on paths only half
as wide. The only time these monsters ever slowed down was when the paths
passed through villages. Then the houses were so close to the curving paths
that the minotaurs could only get through by creeping. They didn’t mind
chipping corners off the houses but they had tender skins and if they hit the
house too hard they tended to explode in flames. Like the black dragons they
assumed full possession of all paths and ordinary travelers, like Hans, just
took whatever path or part of the path was left over. The Petrolorrytaili were
not friendly with each other and often fought for the same space on the path.
The pests that annoyed the Petrolorrytailus the most were distant relatives of
the whizzing satyrs, the buzzing silenis (genus Fiatus). These buzzing Fiati
darted in and out among the Petrolorrytaili and gave them no end of trouble.
The Fiati were much faster, infinitely smaller, and not really dangerous to
either the Petrolorrytaili or to Vesta Pegasus. The Fiati were mostly
nuisances. Every time a Petrolorrytailus tried to devour a Fiatus, the Fiatus
just buzzed away. Unlike the dragons and
satyrs from the land of the virgin forests who always belched fire before
charging, the Petrolorrytaili and Fiati always bellowed loudly. Whether
charging from behind or from the front these horrible beasts always bellowed.
Hans soon reached the point where the constant bellowing meant nothing.
Vesta Pegasus with
Hans in firm control evaded all Petrolorrytaili and Fiati and soon approached
the island city. Vesta Pegasus was put in a barn with other Pegasi and Hans
and family walked toward the biggest of the canals, the Grand Canal. A large
boat stopped for them and delivered them in due course to Piazza San Marco.
Before Karlchen could converse with the piazza pigeons a gondolier approached.
His sweet tongue soon enticed Hans and family onto his small gondola. That is,
his gondola was small for the family of Hans.
After a delightful
trip through many and diverse canals Karlchen was again ready to talk pigeon.
It might be said of Karlchen that he thought no bird could survive without food
from Karlchen. While Maria stood at the church wishing she were properly
dressed (long sleeves) for entering, Karlchen and his brothers started feeding
the pigeons in the shadow of the campanile. He soon found the talkative pigeon
and found what the two remaining heights were Mt. Olympus in the land of the
sun, and the highest manmade structure in the lands to the east of the great
sea into which the setting sun falls. Mt. Olympus would be on a lake and would
be a day’s journey toward the setting sun. The great open steel pyramid would
be in a great city in the land of the forest. It would overlook a river, and be
six days’ journey beyond Olympus along a mountain bordering the sea and up a
great river valley.
Without Vesta
Pegasus, Daniel got rather tired and Hans and Maria decided to find another
boat and return to the barn of the Pegasi. Hans had to shout to end the siesta
of a water taximan. Once awakened, Shylocki agreed to take Hans and family to
their Pride and curse Vesta Pegasus, for 1000 lire. At the end of the boat
journey Shylocki asked for 2000 lire. Hans knew he couldn’t argue in the
language used in the land of the sun. Hans paid up, remembered the prophecy of
the stooped stranger in the Black Forest, and left the island city with no
remorse, and with no desire to return.
Next day Vesta
Pegasus dodged Petrolorrytaili and Fiati and proceeded toward the setting sun.
Hans and family noted ancient ruins of a very old empire, a theater in Vicenza,
an amphitheater in Verona and as the sun set they approached a lake that was
partly in the land of the sun and partly in the land of the mountains. Vesta
Pegasus found a suitable pasture for the night atop a mountain called Olympus.
Six days later in
the land of the forest Hans, Thomas, and Wilhelm rode four magic boxes to the
very top of an open steel tower overlooking a river. While they were thus
ascending the seventh and last great height, Karlchen was again feeding and
talking to the pigeons. The pigeons told Karlchen that a day’s journey toward
the north star would take him beside a great body of water. After camping on
the edge of the water he was to put Vesta Pegasus on a boat and set sail for
some white cliffs. From the white cliffs follow a great river to the first
bridge. Cross the bridge and proceed toward the north star. An unmistakable
signal would then point to a village in which would be a large house completely
surrounded by a sidewalk. This would be Karlchen’s castle. Vesta Pegasus would
lose his spell over Hans and instead would become Pegasus Mercury, a useful
tool for Hans and his family.
And so it turned
out.
We were completely
enchanted with southern Germany and Austria, with Dinkelsbuhl, Rothenburg on
Tauber, Nuremberg, Ingolstadt, Munich, Salzburg, Linz, and Vienna. The
campsites were adequate to first rate, especially at Ingolstadt and Vienna. We
didn’t stay over in Munich but I understand it is fine also. We had had nothing
but good weather, no rain, neither too hot during the day nor too cold at
night. Wasps, although annoying like the black dragons, never stung us,
although mosquitoes did.
We loved our nomad
camping existence, and I strongly recommend it to 1) people traveling on a
strict budget, 2) people with children, 3) people who want to get off the
American tourist path, and 4) just people. We had never camped a day in our lives
before this European trip and we not only enjoyed the unscheduled, leisurely
alterable itinerary but also the chance to see the countryside and talk to the
people, to shop in village stores, and to camp among other Europeans.
None of us were
sick a day in spite of drinking native water and milk, eating local fruits and
vegetables, pastries and bread; and canned and bottled goods. We tended to get
adequate sleep (now that it was September and we were not in Scandinavia) and
we didn’t overeat. Mary only had one sized frying pan, which determined the
size of the scrambled egg breakfast. The scrambled eggs were flavored with
bacon, and/or cheese, and/or tomatoes, and/or dill pickles (except in England).
Cornflakes, bread, tea, coffee, and milk, bananas, and fruit juice (orange,
pineapple, grapefruit, tomato, and grape) rounded off a usual and adequate
breakfast.
The Zwei Flammen
Benzin Kocher (2 burner gasoline, from the gas tank, stove) was busy scrambling
eggs and heating water. Water for shaving, washing, coffee, and tea. Few camps
had hot water showers so most of our cleaning up was of the sponge bath type.
The boys were, in their own words, “not dirty” and used a minimum of hot water.
Drip dry blouses and sport shirts together with the boys Lederhosen kept
laundry problems to a minimum. Only essential dishes were used; 7 sets of
knives, forks, and spoons (from a dime store in Stockholm), 7 plastic plates,
and cups (from a village store in Sweden), 2 pans, a can and bottle opener, and
a sharp German kitchen knife.
We stopped for
cheese, lunch meat, milk and bread sometime before lunch and ate beside the
road. In the evening we usually provisioned ourselves at the campsite store.
Johnny did much of the shopping since he picked up foreign words faster than
anyone else.
The boys got to be
almost helpful in the camp routine. The procedure was that sometime between 3
and 4 o’clock we would get out our camping map and look ahead 30 to 60 miles
for a campsite. We would study the symbols to check on what facilities were
available, the important one being a store for milk, eggs, bread, and perhaps
cheese, Traubensaft (grape juice), wurst (sausage or bologna), and bananas.
Another near necessity was a stream or a railroad to enhance the environment
(and add mosquitoes). Other niceties were flush toilets (not a necessity), and
showers. You couldn’t tell by the symbols if hot showers were available and
they almost, never were, so showers were generally avoided like a dip in Lake
Michigan on New Years Day.
As soon as we had
selected, a campsite, and a spot within the campsite, the evening’s activities
began. Many things happened simultaneously, the most important one was to get
Dan and even Charlie off for a walk. This could sometimes be accomplished by
sending one or both with John to the store, or with Tom and the rubber lined
canvas water bag to get our water. Other times Bill, Tom, or John would be
requested to entertain Dan and parade him around the camp which he usually
enjoyed. This also helped us discover any American visitors. In my travels
around U.S. Colleges I always brought home as gifts for the boys T shirts
bearing the names Texas, Michigan, MIT, Yale, Harvard, Iowa, etc. On more than
one occasion when the boys returned they brought with them a fellow camper, a
student or a professor from these Universities or from Stanford, Wisconsin,
Penn State, or Grinnell.
Once Dan was out
from underfoot I would climb up on the roof rack and hand down to Mary the tent
pipes, the tent canvas, the foot locker (3 wool comforters), assorted bags (the
light, pretty, cloth zip-around type), and throw down 3 sleeping bags. Mary and
I would then attach the tent pipes to the ZW roof rack (with the boys’ help if
they weren’t doing the really useful work of entertaining Dan). Once the pipes
were in place the canvas was snapped on and our Pegasus became a home. This
would take about 15 minutes. I would then prime and start the stove, and if
the boys had done their work, the water and groceries would be on hand, and so
Mary would start the cooking.
If I was lucky I
could now relax for a few minutes while Tom set the table which was inside
ZW. If I were not so lucky I would
entertain Dan, and/or finish the grocery shopping, and/or set the table, and/or
get the stove going again. Within a half hour to forty five minutes we were
usually eating macaroni and cheese, or canned beef and noodles, or wurst and
mashed potatoes, along with fresh lettuce, and/or tomatoes, and/or cabbage,
and/or cucumbers, together with bread or rolls, milk, coffee and tea. For
dessert: pastries, ice cream, chocolate bars or canned peaches or apricots.
Everyone was usually hungry and the meals appetizing. The pans were not too
large so no one overate. The boys took over the dishwashing while Mary and I
relaxed and/or washed ourselves, the boys, or some clothes, and/or made up the
ZW into beds for the night.
The ZW was really a
marvelous creature, by day a bus for the seven of us. I always drove, Mary
refused to except in a dire emergency, and in any case my nerves suffered no
more from driving fatigue than from Mary-induced riding experiences. About half
the time John, Tom, or Bill would ride in front (on a rotating day basis) and
Mary would take her turn the rest of the time. Her presence was especially
needed in the late afternoons to read and interpret the camping map and guide,
and to inspect the camping site. Dan and/or Charlie were supposed to have
custody of the “nest” the compartment over the engine all the way aft in the
ZW. The nest was lined with a cloth
covered four-inch foam rubber pad day and night. Supposedly, and very often
actually, Dan and Charlie fell asleep while playing with their cars in the
nest. The real trouble was keeping John, Tom, and Bill out of the nest. They
had brought along the Lone Star Locos and liked to set their trains up in the
nest during the day (and at the campsite at night).
Directly behind the
front seat was a camping box which extended the full width of the car and was
about thirty inches wide. The height of the flat tablet surface was also the
height of the back edge of the front seat. At mealtime three boys on their
knees backwards in the front seat ate off of this table top. The back seats
formed an L; a regular seat in front of the nest and a seat at right angles
along the side of the car directly behind the driver. At mealtimes a secondary
table top attached to the camping box, creating a breakfast nook. The remaining
four of us sat around this folding and detachable table on the L shaped ZW
seats.
The camping box
contained three small drawers and shelves. One shelf was a board width above
floor height. The other at seat height, since the side seat did indeed rest at
one end on this shelf. These shelves contained the four large, but lightweight
wooden boxes, made by the young English carpenter’s apprentice. He also had
made a combination pan and dish box which held the stove. The remaining box was
the chalk water evaporation cooler, for the milk and butter. The boxes held
food, travel literature, cameras, sweaters, and surprises to quiet Dan and
Charlie in their worst moments. In general things we might want at any hour during
the day went in the boxes. Things needed only at night went in the roof rack.
The three little drawers contained the silverware, important papers,
knick-knacks and souvenirs.
At night the boxes
on the top shelf went into the middle of the floor. The backs off the rear and
side seats came off and laid beside the seat of the side seat to make a large
double bed (feet under the camping box table top). The nest was still intact
for Dan and Charles. The back of the front seat, hinged at the top, pulled up
to extend the width of the camping box top. A foam rubber cloth covered
mattress was added and Tom and Bill sleeping across the width of the car had
their beds. John slept on the front seat under Tom or Bill. This seat was more
or less detached from the rest of the car with little or no privacy as anyone
looking in the front window could see the occupant. That, plus loneliness and
condensation off the window, made us speculate if anyone would want to sleep
there. However John grew to love his solitary confinement and would sleep
nowhere else.
Occasionally one or
more of the older boys would sleep in the tent. The ZW itself was just a hard
covered tent. Curtains at all the windows gave privacy.
Although Tom was
apt to be up at dawn things didn’t move too fast in the mornings. Not much
could be done until the sleeping bags were thrown up in the roof rack, the
comforters put back in the foot locker (which doubled as a step), and the seats
reassembled from sleeping to eating configurations.
I usually got the
stove refilled, primed and started and heated some water before the complete
metamorphosis was accomplished. An early cup of coffee for Mary did wonders,
and the tea warmed me up too. I had often shaved and occasionally even coerced
Tom into washing before the standard scrambled egg breakfast. More washing,
boys and dishes, preceded repacking everything into the roof rack and the
inside boxes. Although the roof rack measured 10 feet by 4 feet and could be
packed at least a foot high we sometimes had trouble buckling the canvas cover
over the assembled or disassembled contents.
Before leaving we
had a treasure hunt; tent stakes, tent poles, wash rags, pans, shoes, boys, and
other odds and ends. Then we all climbed aboard ZW and counted noses. Before
leaving any camp we paid up and collected our camping carnet from the camp
management (never paying more than a dollar.)
In this manner of
traveling our running expenses, food, lodging, and gasoline (petrol) came to
$10 a day. So we not only had a cheap holiday but a healthful one. I usually
lost about 5 pounds and felt physically first rate, which is more than I can
say when sitting at my desk 8 hours a day and spending evenings at church and
civic meetings.
The trip from
Stuttgart through medieval Germany, Salzburg, the Danube, Vienna, and over the
Alps to Venice has been covered in the tale, “Seven Heights to Home”. My
immediate reactions to Venice are conveyed by a letter written at the time
which concludes this tale. You will note that the letter is not very flattering
to Venice. This is because I felt that only in Venice, of all places I visited,
did the over anxious tourist profiteers capitalize on my traveling troupe.
With the boys I felt encumbered, inflexible, and easy prey since if they were
tempted they could put up quite a howl for some useless souvenir. In most
places we actually didn’t hit the tourist centers proper and when we did the
vendors usually either knew that with five boys I’d be broke, or realized my
vulnerability and didn’t pressure me or tempt the boys. Not so in Venice.
John ran out of film
and the pigeons must have spread the word. Before I could say “Let’s find a
chemist” a man with too much film and too few lire was at my elbow with a
bargain. Hardly had he been dispensed with than a roving photographer took our
picture. Since we had not succumbed to this yet and I thought I might teach the
boys this one, we bit. It really turned out to be quite an experience. We
called at the address right off St. Marks piazza at lunch time. To find the
proprietor we climbed up beaucoup steps and traversed many narrow halls. We
found half the family eating and the proprietor at his siesta. We got a glimpse
into many aspects of Italian life we would never have experienced on the
piazza. Some aspects were strange to youthful eyes and forbidden to men accompanied
by said youthful eyes. In point of fact the pictures actually were mailed to us
later and were really pretty good. A nice souvenir.
Pigeons at St. Marks
The final straw was
getting back to ZW. Dan was getting sleepy, our time was up. We walked to the
Grand Canal where it is crossed by the Rialto bridge. After window shopping a
few minutes we decided Dan was too near asleep to wait for the water bus, we
would take a water taxi. Many were docked in the vicinity and we tried
signaling them. No response. Getting slightly irritated by the whole lack of
capitalistic enterprise I gently awoke one of the hustlers and asked him the
price from bridge to garage. One thousand lire. This seemed more or less in
order so we climbed aboard. At the municipal garage landing our guide said his
first word as I paid him his 1000 lire, namely 2000 lire. Since I couldn’t
argue in Italian and was anxious to get Dan in his nest I silently cursed, paid
the illegal tariff, and to this day have an abiding hate for Venice.
The following
summer when we were in the vicinity with my mother I wouldn’t even consider
revisiting Venice. My letter, written at the time, reflects my overall opinion
of a potential holiday mecca.
Sept 28
Dear Code 2124, et al
Arrived
back in England again after 5 weeks on the continent. We had beautiful weather; it rained but one
night (and light at that) in 5 weeks travel. Proceeded Dover, Dunkirk,
Brussels, Luxembourg, Moselle Valley (hic), Rhine Valley, Stuttgart (via
Heidelberg), Salzburg, Vienna (via Danube), Venice, Verona, Italian and French
riviera, Avignon, Paris, and Fulbourn. Thanks to beautiful weather and
wonderful city (socialistic) camps at Stuttgart and Vienna, I revived from my
full time camping (less 6 days) this summer and don’t feel as tired as when I
left. All of above mentioned places are worth it, except Tijuana with the
flooded streets (Venice). What a gyp joint. As I see it they live completely
(110%) from tourists and must train all bunco artists, etc. for duty at fairs all
over the world. Or maybe these places just send their post graduates to Venice.
My advice:
1.
AVOID
2.
If forced to go (relatives and the like)
a. don’t buy anything from anybody
b. shop around for gondoliers and offer the
cheapest 1/6 of what he requests,
c. pay in advance (one character quoted me
one fare and asked double at the end),
d. learn Italian so you can tell authorities
your story,
3.
DON’T GO (just go to a beach at low tide, preferably near a fish market, same
smell).
Other
comments re driving habits in Europe:
1.
Germany (worlds highest death/mi.): Everyone looks out for himself only, the
identifying mark is blinking lights. When you are ready to overtake someone you
will notice in your rear view mirror some blinking lights which means I’m more
important than you and if you pass, I might possibly have to slow down one iota
(he is at least 1/2 mile behind you) and I don’t intend to slow down so you
stay behind him while I pass both of you.
2.
AUSTRIA: No need of rear-view mirrors here. Everyone has 15° vision and if he
sees no one directly in front of him, he will pull out from a curb, pull onto a
major road or dart out of anywhere. When he passes he pulls in after his
windshield passes the front of your car.
3.
ITALY; As In Germany except they use horns not blinking lights. They even honk
as they approach from the other direction. I’m sure the horn and brakes are
reversed otherwise they would always be driving one-handed and in any case,
they never use their brakes.
4.
FRANCE (Except in PARIS): they are quite sane, no blinking lights, no horns,
just (as in all Europe) thousands of lorries bumper to bumper. PARIS makes up
for rest of France, completely insane, no lanes, no horns, just dart here and
there, turn left or right from anywhere preferably from middle lane. All this
frantic insanity moves traffic about 30 mph on streets that, if used with any
sense whatsoever, would move traffic at 50 mph. Police don’t even bother when 2
cars collide (its a personal quarrel).
In
general, Europeans haven’t had cars long and their roads are inadequate. They have absolutely no maturity. They kill
each other in droves, way above our average. Morgenthau didn’t need to make
Germany completely rural. He could have halved the population by supplying
every German an American car.
The
slides et al arrived in Stuttgart at the 2300 hour. I just had time to unpack
them and show them. Am thinking of coming home via Panama Canal.
Glad
Roy likes being Section Head and likes traveling by jet.
Must
get down to tea.
JOHN
Our opinion of
Italy began to mellow as soon as we started west. Our campsite at Vicenza was
very pleasant. The sights, both Roman and Italian, at Vicenza and Verona were
almost worth getting hopelessly lost in the narrow, crooked, and crowded
streets. I was particularly pleased as an old music major to see on the road
sign, “Adagio”, probably the only one in Italy I understood.
Around the Roman
amphitheater in Verona are a series of sidewalk cafes and at one of these we
tried that typical American gastronomical treat, Italian pizza. It wouldn’t
hold a candle to Johnny Pernicano’s in La Jolla. On about the twentieth trial
we found Juliet’s balcony and then left Verona for Como. We arrived after dark
and found our camp (our sixth height) to be the Mount Olympus Camp and it was
properly named. It was high and by making it our home we became gods for the
night.
Our descent from
Mt. Olympus was perhaps not as fast as was Mercury’s, but in the opinion of
Juno it was too fast. The road was narrow and full of blind turns and Jupiter
was reminded of this by not only Juno but also by Vulcan, Mars, Cupid, Bacchus,
and Pan. At the bottom the chaos and commotion gave lie to the environs of
Ancient Greece and we were soon hustling and bustling among the northern
Italians (and their German visitors). We paid our respects to the statue of
Volta and scurried through the pigeons to visit the Duomo (cathedral).
We then turned
southward toward Milan. The Petrol Lorries and attached tank trailers use the
road between Como and Milan to warm up for the big event, the daily race
between Milan and Genoa. From Como to Milan with courage, a few tranquilizers,
and the luck of the Irish you can just about keep from being pushed off the
road by the lorries. This is where the
bush league lorry drivers practice. We
too by learning here survived the main event, Milan to Genoa.
Milan is a great
energetic metropolis, and typical of most European cities. The closer you get
to the center of the city the narrower become the streets. Add a detour to this
and you have chaos. It may not have been quite so traumatic if they’d put up
more than one detour sign. They put up the one sign that got you off the main drag
but no others to tell you how to get back.
We ended up at the
Duomo, took a quick look at La Scala, and Mary’s pleas to the contrary left for
Genoa. Her plea was to find the original of the “last Supper”. This is where
our mutual agreement, that allows me to drive full time, nearly falters on the
rocks of divergent desires. My desire was to get out into the great open spaces
again. Mary’s to do more sight-seeing. In this case she has belatedly proven
her point. In any and all discussions of our trip Mary reminds anyone with open
ears that yes, we visited Milan, “You know that’s where the original of the
‘Last Supper’ is located”. And then after just the correct pause for effect,
“We didn’t see it”.
The trip from Milan
to Genoa is like having a ringside seat at the Grand Prix road race. The only
trouble is that your ringside seat is not stationary but moves along at about
half the pace of the race. The racers are evenly divided between Fiats and
smallers, and Petrol lorries and largers. Everyone assumes the road is a one
way highway and when they get ready to pass, they pass. If anyone happens to be
coming from the other direction then what used to be a two-lane road suddenly
becomes a three-lane road. Or if it were a three-lane road it now accommodates
four lanes. Occasionally, about once each day, we see where a two lane road was
supposed to have expanded into four or a three into a five. In any case
somewhere out in an adjacent field, often on both sides of the road are one or
two cars that didn’t quite fit into the pattern.
After watching a
petrol lorry start to overtake me when 1) there was no room between me and the
next ten vehicles ahead, 2) the oncoming traffic was not clear, and 3) his
speed was about one mile per hour greater than my speed, I decided I would
oblige by putting on my brakes and making room. However he wasn’t even slightly
inclined to pull in, he was headed for the front of the line. Since he
contained enough explosive power to blow up all 10 vehicles I decided I’d back
off about a quarter of a mile and watch for the fireworks. I never did see the
mushroom cloud but I’ll never know how many less fortunate motorists were lying
at the bottom of some ravine alongside the road.
By the time we
crept into Genoa I wouldn’t have paused to meet Christopher Columbus in person.
It was late afternoon anyway so we headed west along the riviera for the first
campsite. We bypassed the first and decided to take the next one sight unseen.
We purposely did not take the Genoa-Savona Autostrada so that we could stop in
between. We finally spotted the highway sign that indicated a camp was inland
off the coast road. The road almost immediately changed from hard top to dirt,
passed up along an old factory, under the autostrada, and started up a hill; a second
Mt. Olympus, not so named, but it could have been. The road weaved through a
small village and continued upward, the road getting steeper and narrower.
We finally arrived
at a beautiful camp atop a hill overlooking the Mediterranean. Ideally located,
well kept, nice facilities, and an adequate store. We had almost despaired of
even finding a camp at the end of this veritable cow path but the rose at the
end of the thorny vine was worth all the doubts and agonies.
The rest of the
trip along the riviera was indeed beautiful. The tourist season was past its
peak and the scenery is really worthwhile. The road is not quite adequate but
in September the scenery outweighs the traffic hazard. We camped near the beach
between Nice and Cannes and next morning the boys swam in the shadow of the
Film Festival Theater at Cannes. We soon cut inland heading for Aix-en-Provence
and Avignon.
The campsite at
Avignon is located just across the river from the town and within a quarter
mile from the end of the famous Bridge of Avignon. The bridge now ends in
mid-river. At one time it led from a fortified gate and wall across from
Avignon into the wall and fortified gate of the Popes Palace in Avignon.
We finished supper
and popped in bed early and everyone except Mary was asleep when the fireworks
and noises began. She awoke me and I popped a sleepy head out of the tent and
saw the bridge literally afire with fireworks. We woke the boys up, got some
sort of garb on them walked over to the river’s edge and toward the bridge.
Soon the fireworks gave way to music and children started dancing on the
bridge.
The week prior to
our departure from California the boys school had their dance festival and
Tom’s class had sung and danced, The Bridge of Avignon. Tom was entranced as we
all were. We had not been aware of any festivities and had not planned
accordingly. It was Sunday, but I’m sure they don’t do this every Sunday.
Avignon is an
interesting town. We left ZW in a garage just outside the walls for a periodic
check up and walked down the narrow crooked streets into the center of the
town. We were hot and tired and sat down at a sidewalk cafe. In my best French,
which is mostly English and/or pointing to items on a menu that I can almost
read I ordered a fairly typical morning pick up, five milks, one coffee, one
tea. Much later, in the tempo of the
southern climes, we got our 7 coffees. I pointed to the boys, to the menu, I
exclaimed laite, late, milk, milch, …. to no avail. I guess we should consider
ourselves lucky, under similar circumstances we had been known to get 7 glasses
of wine. In any case the garcon was not about to be told what dad and the boys
should be drinking and so mom had one or two cups of coffee and the birds had
the rest.
Having, originally
planned on returning via Switzerland and deviating only because we thought it
might be somewhat cold camping out on the Alps, we had not done much homework
studying about France. We did not know about the petrol coupons obtained at any
Banque Francais that allowed tourists tax free gasoline. At our only gasoline
stop in France before Avignon we had been told of this and so in our leisure
walking morning I stopped in at the Banque Francais. I had my passport and
green insurance card, the only things I had ever found to be of value, and
beaucoup francs and some English sterling traveler cheques. To begin with they
needed to see my carnet and car registration, which I didn’t have, but they did
fill out some forms to be ready for me when I returned after the noon hour. Every
establishment except cafes, in every European country closes down at noon. The
bank was no exception.
We did finally pick
up ZW and arrived back at the banque. I picked up the loose ends showed them every
document I had on ZW and was passed on to the cashier’s window to pay for the
coupons. As I might have guessed if I’d been thinking, they wanted dollars. I
had neither seen nor used American dollars for four months now. I had ample
French francs but these were the last thing in the world they wanted. After all
I was traveling on a U.S. passport and they wanted dollars. We came to some
sort of compromise. By scraping together all of the Swiss money we had intended
to use, together with the pounds and shillings we had, no travelers cheques
please, we just made it. They weren’t happy but they were content.
Before leaving, the
boys and I hiked out on the bridge. There was ample evidence of recent
fireworks, and lizards all over the place. We hadn’t seen lizards since leaving
California, and the boys had themselves quite a chase. But time and the tides
were beckoning, we must away to Paree.
We really didn’t
advance very far this Monday, 21 September for we stopped to see an old Roman
Theater in Orange. A stop well worthwhile. We camped at Valence.
Bill’s sixth
birthday dawned bright and clear on the banks of the Rhone in Valence. He rode
in the front seat (out of turn) and was generally king for the day. We had to
get a cake and my French was so rusty I had to get my dictionary out to look up
cake, birthday, and candles. We stopped in the village of Vienne, just south
of Lyons, and started in on our purchases. It soon became apparent that 1) my
French was worse than useless, 2) bakeries (boulangeries) didn’t all bake
gateaux, 3) birthday candles (anniversaire candelle) were not common household
articles purchased at boulangeries, and 4) this shopping trip was going to be a
time-consuming ordeal. About an hour later after visiting about ten different
shops we came away with a midget cake and some small candles and actually some
candle holders.
The delay put us in
Lyon just as the hordes were leaving for lunch. The only time in the day when
French city streets become completely clogged with vehicles. In Paris this is
true at all hours, except maybe Sunday mornings. In the ensuing melee we ran
out of gas at the busiest intersection in town. This was a minor embarrassment
since VWs have no gas gauge and when you run out of gas you merely pull a lever
and go on reserve. However this procedure works best at high speed on an open
country highway. In which case VW’s momentum carries it through until the
reserve gas hits. In the middle of an intersection the starter does all the
work, which be embarrassing when stalled in the middle of irate and hungry
citizens.
We soon refilled
our gas tank, left the Rhone and proceeded toward Paris on N6. Came camping
time and the sun and map agreed that Bill’s birthday party was to be in the wee
hamlet of Arnay-le-Duc. This campsite was utterly deserted. Not a soul was
present. As best I could read the sign on the closed store it said make your
self at home and notify the people in the house adjacent to this peaceful
pasture. Living proof that language is no barrier to effective communication
followed. The lady who stuck her head out the upstairs window knew no English,
I talked less than no French. But it was soon agreed I was welcome to stay.
We made a quick
trip into the village for last minute supplies and finally pitched our birthday
tent. In the height of our party the neighbor’s little girl and cat came over
and were soon part of the party. Whether her father feared for her safety or
whether it was just time to exchange his farmer’s hat for his caretaker’s hat
I’m not sure. In any case he was soon around to collect the very modest camp
fee and share a piece of cake. We were really in rural friendly France. We
paused in our party to watch a farmer returning home in his horse-drawn
two-wheeled wagon, and then finished the ice cream and punch. It was hard to
get the boys asleep after our gala party.
Bill (between Tom and Charlie) celebrates his sixth birthday at Arnay-le-Duc
Next morning was no
better. The little girl, between 8 and 10, cleaned the toilets, then came back with
her kittens. Boys, cats, and girl were
all over the all but deserted campsite. We really had this campsite to
ourselves.
But as the stooped
stranger in the Black Forest told us. We had one more height to ascend (and a
ferry to catch in four days). So we reluctantly left Arnay-le-Duc and proceeded
on through Auxerre and its cathedral) to Fontainebleau (and its palace). For a
lolly Tom and Bill watched Charlie and Dan while Mary, John, and I toured the
palace and learned to appreciate Napoleon’s favorite haunt.
We pulled into
Paris in late afternoon and were lucky to find a spot in the camp in the Bois
de Bologne. We were next to another ZW from South Africa.
The high point of
our stop in Paris was the high point of Paris itself, that brickless Empire
State Building called the Eiffel Tower. John played it smart from the
beginning, he didn’t even get out of the car. Mary right sudden-like
volunteered to stay with Dan and Charlie. Lucky Pierre, dad that is, got to
accompany mountain goats Tom and Bill aloft.
The ride to the
first level is only mildly nerve shattering. The huge, old shaky iron cage is
hauled jerkily up the steep angle in one of the spread eagle legs. The ride
from the first to the second level is more traumatic. The cage is smaller, shakier,
and the track steeper. The final run from second level to the swaying top is
the angina run. Whether the cage was from an old nineteenth century abandoned
coal mine or only modeled after one I don’t quite know. Like the others it is
open so that you can get the benefit of noting that the Eiffel Tower looks as
though it has never been painted. You wonder how long rusty rivets will hold
together rusty beams, as you violently shake and jerk upward. As if this
experience is not hair raising enough they have a little surprise for you
halfway up. At this point the cage shudders to a stop just as another cage from
the top bangs to a stop. At this point, the passengers from the two cages
interchange. With indomitable dad leading Tom and Bill by the hand, they pulled
me from one cage over the sheet steel bulkhead, that buckled with our weight,
from one suicide box into the other. The rest of the nightmare continued until
the top was reached. Here someone has built a primitive sort of tree house that
sways and buckles in the wind.
Not wanting to miss
a thing the boys tried the toilets, the souvenir shop, the upper outer level,
and my nerves. I pulled myself together long enough to take a picture of my high
living sons leaning against the outer guard railing. I was leaning back against
the inner wall but not too hard for fear the whole thing would totter over.
It was questionable
which was worse getting sea sick in the tossing tree house or making the initial
step into those open air coffins. In any case I had first to bolster up my last
remaining nerve reserve and chase down Tom and Bill. When captured we got
aboard the ferry across the river Styx and started down. Their rosy faces
smiling from ear to ear contrasted like a tropical sunset to a midsummer day at
the north pole with my colorless expressionless countenance. Again they drug me
across that mid air transfer stop. I felt like the ant that transfers from the
refueling plane to the jets at 20,000 feet.
With the boys
racing on ahead I almost felt as if I was awakening from this nightmare when
we reached the second level restaurant. Everything seemed so stable, so
permanent and enduring, so solid, and reassuring. The feeling of relative
safety in the funicular railway ride down the slanted legs was like being back
in ZW on a peaceful country road; bumpy, noisy, but somehow safe and serene.
The ground never
looked or felt better, even at the Atomium. Our seventh and highest and most
arduous height had been scaled and it was time to catch the ferry back to
England.
We detoured via
Versailles for a stroll and lunch and headed for Dunkirk and our retreat from
France. Our camping holiday on the continent was all but over. School and work
loomed ahead. But we knew now we were returning to a house, a large solid,
house in a small, old village. We were ready to return but were mighty happy
that we had persevered; had left our house after a six day occupancy; had
battled the wasps and mosquitoes of the Mosel, Rhein, Neckar, Danube, Rhone,
and Seine rivers; had scaled our seven heights; and fought our way clear of
black dragons, Petrolorrys, and the persistent smaller type pests Fiati,
Citroeni, and Volksis. Playtime was over and work was ahead. All of us were
ready and some of us even anxious to get to work.
Our third landfall
upon the shores of Britain was more like the return of the native. Our last
campsite in Dunkirk was of the English caliber. Gone were the excellent camps
we had found at Habay-la-Neuve in the Luxembourg province of Belgium, in the
city of Luxembourg, in Heidelberg, Stuttgart, Vienna, Vicenza, Como, Lerca di
Cogoleto on the Italian Riviera, and in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris. Gone also
were the not physically so excellent but well located ones such as
Bernkastel-Kues on the Mosel, across the Rhein from Lorelei Rock, outside the
walls of Dinkelsbuhl, and across from the Bridge of Avignon. Gone even was the
sentimental campsite in the small French village of Arnay-le-Duc where we had
celebrated Bill’s sixth birthday. The camp at Dunkirk like the ones we happened
to hit on the French Riviera were very British, nothing to shout about.
Our third landfall
was preceded by a day of English preview. Dunkirk itself is famous in English
history as is Agincourt and Abbeville. Our most recent camping companions at
Paris and Dunkirk were British. We had acquired some British accouterments
ourselves; membership in, and an elaborate, bright yellow coloured, bumper emblem
of, the AA (The Automobile Association, not the AA of England, nor the AA of
Great Britain, but THE AA); a ninety-day visitors vehicle license posted on our
windscreen; an O-SO-KOOL traveling cold box (a 5-sided, plus a door, cubicle
box of two inch thick chalk which when soaked down each morning and left to
evaporate during the day keeps the milk, butter, and bacon cool); the AA book
of foreign travel and assorted AA itineraries complete with continental city
maps; and the ability to almost understand the English version of English.
The queue of cars
getting onto the ferry was most orderly (mostly British) with only a few
impatient Frenchmen and all-important Americans trying to jump the queue.
Whereas the dinner on the west-east channel crossing had been celebrated with
French cuisine and French wine, the lunch on this east-west crossing was
unceremoniously observed with pork pie (cold), bitters and for the children
orange squash (British Railway style). Our west-east crossing was of a family
anticipating a continental holiday. Our thoughts and conversations were of
itineraries, camping sites, castles, rivers, and mountains. Our return was of a
family returning for school and work. Our thoughts and conversations centered
on needed school clothes, kitchen utensils, coal supplies, food stocks, and
money. To say the least the boys of school age, John, Tom, and Bill were not
happily considering the morrow. A new school with new teachers, new companions,
new curricula, in a new village.
Unlike our serious
and gloomy thoughts, the day was wonderful; warm and sunny. To put school aside
from their thoughts the boys played sailor. They were top side most of the
journey looking for the white cliffs and the castle of Dover.
The immigration
officials this trip no longer stamped “Three month tourist” but instead
“Student, report to police for alien registration within 10 days.” The AA men
didn’t routinely post a visitors vehicle license on the windscreen. Instead
they scrupulously calculated the remaining time on our original visitors license
and gave us a new expiration date in October. As I say, we did not this time
enter England as light-hearted carefree tourists. We were fast becoming
semi-residents.
Our 112 mile trip
from Dover to Cambridge started at 6 P.M. We estimated home by 10 by way of
Tilbury ferry. We still had the return portion of the ticket. To maximize
daylight driving we set off immediately on A2 toward London. In true British
style our Saturday evening repast consisted of fish and chips, just as it got
dark. Likewise in true British style we continued our trip on side (parking)
lights since the “street lighting was good,” which means only that everyone
else was driving with side lights, not that the “street lighting was
(that) good.” In this semi-blind state we missed the sign and the turn off for
Gravesend and the Tilbury Ferry. By the time we realized this, we were halfway
to Woolwich Ferry (and as the petrol station man said, “It’s free, don’t turn
back to Tilbury.”)
At the Woolich
Ferry a very nice Bobby (most of them are) informed us, “Because of the long
queue of cars, there will be a 2 hour wait.” He suggested Tower Bridge. I knew
my London and knew that Blackwall Tunnel came before Tower Bridge, I’d take the
tunnel. At Blackwall Tunnel the sign said, “Closed, use Tower Bridge.” And so
at 10 P.M. when I expected to be driving into Fulbourn and The Manse, we were
crossing Tower Bridge.
I guess all the
delay was for a purpose. The delay allowed the welcoming committee time to
prepare. As we left the roundabout of A11 with A604 within three miles of
Fulbourn we sighted a huge conflagration. We even woke Tom up to see it. The
closer we got to Fulbourn the closer we got to this burning pyre. When we made
our final turnoff from A11 to get into Fulbourn there was the fire big as life
and straight ahead. Just on the outskirts of the village we saw that this was
not the townspeople celebrating our return with Pre-Guy Fawkes Day bonfire, nor
was it our landlady in a final fit of anguish burning The Manse to rid the
village of a potential pestilence. The huge fire could be thought of as the
Star of Bethlehem beckoning the wisemen, or as the purposely relocated beacon
light luring richly-laden ships onto the rocks of Cornwall for plunder. It
could hardly be thought of as the light in the window welcoming home the
prodigal son, since our total previous stay of six days had not yet made
Fulbourn seem like home. We felt that the burning pyre was a friendly beacon
welcoming neither the wise, the rich, nor the prodigal son, but welcoming
instead the tired and heavy ladened. The Statue of Liberty which welcomed our
ancestors to their new homeland could not have gladdened their hearts any more
than this poor farmer’s haystack gladdened ours. Although I’m sure the farmer
whose burning haystack was our guide and symbol was neither thinking of, nor
would he have been impressed by our poetic, literary, and symbolic
thoughts. His symbology was most
certainly of the five pound note variety, a summer’s work up in flames. But if
it be any consolation to this poor unknown (to us) man, we appreciated his
symbolic welcome and we consider his homing beacon a harbinger of the really
loving feeling we hold to this day for our adopted English village of Fulbourn,
Cambridgeshire and its most friendly house, The Manse.
Our fairy tale adventure was now complete. Our ZW, or Vesta Pegasus, had made the trip possible. I salute our ZW, license number 114-Z-972:
114-Z-972
One One Four Zed Nine Seven Two
Had traveled far and wide
This was the license number of
Our car, our home, our pride.
Our car was fixed for sleeping all
And all was seven strong
Our Dan was one and Charlie three
They made Mom’s day quite long.
Bill was six and Tom was seven
And John was eleven (or two)
Cause he was born on leap year day
So birthdays, mighty few.
All seven slept inside the bus
Though tent attached outside
And Momma cooked on petrol stove
The food we ate inside.
Outside in tent we cooked and dressed
The boys got washed when caught
To keep clean clothes a problem was
Till Lederhose were bought
Dan’s nest in rear both day and nite
Both bed and playpen made
Dad’s bed at night was seats in day
In which the boys played.
In camping out On Continent
Big families we did see
On fellowships and school leaves
In other fourteen Z’s.
Our list of fourteen Z’s is long
Most all with kids galore
Professors, teachers, scientists most
And all with open door.
One One Four Zed nine nine four
Professor in the arts
On Fulbright to Finland was he
To save they shopped in marts.
One One Four Zed eight four eight
On leave from L.A. schools
On his return broad views could give
To students on their stools.
On NSF, on NIH
on Fulbright and on leaves
Did many fellow scholars sleep
Like us among the trees.
From Stanford,
From California many
From classrooms and from research bench
Big families save the penny.
For men who work in scholarship
Who teach or research do
The money does not easy come
They camp and eat the stew.
To see the Continent this way
Is best by far say we
For campers are a friendly lot
And much we learn at tea.
Though few museums or concerts see
To many, people talk
And countryside we see full well
Through many castles walk.
To one and all who travel will
And children many have
To get the flavor of the land
Take tent or caravan.
J.C. Webster.
Fulbourn, Cambridge.
18.2.60
The boys and I had been
very considerate of momma in choosing our return channel crossing date.
Although school had really been started for two weeks our boys would, by pre
arrangement, enter on Monday, 28 September. We not only got home on Sunday, a
day before the grand entrance but very early on Sunday, namely 1 a.m. So Mary
had al1 of 30 hours, three quarters of a standard working week, to get the boys
clothes washed, dried, and ironed, to get the boys themselves washed, dried,
and steeled, and to get the house running. (She really didn’t know how lucky
she was. On our return home to the USA we left the port, one hundred miles from
home, at 7 p.m. before school started the next morning, (still a standard work
day and a half .)
Needless to say we
didn’t meander over to church this particular Sunday. Mary tackled the clothes,
I the boys. As usual I could hardly wait to get a hot bath and soak off
5 weeks worth of steadily sponged in dirt. The boys, of course, never could
quite understand this particular use of water. Water in bath tubs had only one
purpose, namely to sail boats on. However, it sometimes worked out to be more
convenient to sail them while sitting in the bath tub. But soap didn’t sail
well, didn’t even float, muddied up the water, and got all gooey, even dissolved
if left untouched in the water too long. And wash rags; when used as sails they
sank the ships, they were too small to use to get dry when sailing time was
over, just what were they good for anyway? And dirt, what is the harm of 5
weeks accumulation of more and better polished dirt? After all it’s evenly
distributed, it looks like a good Mediterranean tan. Besides with neither a
house nor a yard to play in (except for 6 days) for 5 months, the boys could
think of many overdue things to do, like playing with trains.
Mary was learning
the intricacies of our little automatic washing machine; automatic that is
except for putting in the clothes, the hot water, the cold water, the soap,
closing the lid, turning on the switch, noting the time on the clock, turning
off the switch, draining out the dirty water, adding rinse water, etc., putting
the clothes through the ringer, and repeating same with the next small batch of
clothes.
I finally enticed
agreeable Tom into the bathtub and watched the color of the water change from
white to brown while Tom changed from brown to white. After a short pause while
the newly installed coke stove (Aga cooker) and water heater kept apace of both
the washing machine and the bathtub John transferred the majority of his tan to
the bath water. I finally peeled Bill’s socks off and converted him from slave
to master. Finally Charlie and Dan played boats for an hour, first in the
Mediterranean Sea and then in the Missouri River.
This crewing effort
of mine on the boys sailing boats left me exhausted and I stretched out for a
nap but the chugging of Mary’s washing machine kept me awake. After eating the
remainder of our camping rations (no stores open on Sunday) the relative
quietness of the ironing allowed me to doze off. The boys, of course, played
merrily on building complex track layouts for their Lone Star locos. By this
time Dan had discovered the staircase and I was awakened to guard the pass. And
so our first day of rest, the Sabbath, passed.
The difference
between us and the pilgrims was that having no ready made schools, they rested
on the Sabbath and washed on Monday, the day after their landfall. And so, as
the story goes, Monday became the national wash day. On Tuesday they started
building houses (and schools). They had no schedules to adapt their lives to.
We had to get the boys off to school on Monday, therefore, we (Mary, that is)
washed clothes on Sunday. Monday for us was start to school day, restock the
larder day, and find the barber shop day. Tuesday was Dad’s day to report back
to the Unit for fellowship work.
With a final
flourish of shoe polish on shoes and wash rags on faces I set off early Monday
morning with three boys toward the village school. We opened our wire fence
gate, stepped down two steps and were immediately in the street, not on a
sidewalk, not on a parking (verge), but in the street. If our gate had opened
outward instead of inward it would have protruded out into the road. We looked
carefully to the left for any approaching cars, which of course, is a big
mistake, we should have looked to the right. On Pierce Lane, however, it didn’t
really make any difference. Two cars could pass, even the double decker bus and
the coalman’s lorry could pass each other although it would be such a tight
squeeze they would have to do it in low gear. In any case, the manager of the
carpenter shop just across the road always parked his car on the street and so
only one useable lane was open to traffic. So the question as to whether a
double-decker bus and a coal lorry could pass each other was of only academic
interest. The point being Pierce Lane, like many English roads, is used mostly
in the center, only when meeting or overtaking another vehicle does anyone
think seriously of driving on the left side of the road. So looking first to
the left was in most cases perfectly safe when looking for motor vehicles.
However, motor vehicles account for only about half of the traffic. Bicycles
are the real danger. Not that you are apt to get killed by one. But you are
very apt to either get hit or cause the rider to fall into the street by trying
to avoid you if you suddenly sally forth from a blind entrance as our gate was.
And, of course, you don’t hear bicycles. We were used to listening for
short range danger and looking for long range danger. In England you look for
both short and long range danger.
But off to school.
We crossed over to the sidewalk on the other side of Pierce Lane and followed
it until it finally just sort of disappeared under a wall. Actually I’m sure
the wall preceded the sidewalk. But just before coming to Tyrells Store the
sidewalk angles into the wall becoming narrower and narrower until it just
doesn’t exist anymore. At this point, about 100 feet up the lane from the
Manse, we crossed back over Pierce Lane where the sidewalk suddenly reappears
in front of the “The Gables” the thatched roof house of our next door neighbor.
The walk is about 3 feet wide except at the entrance to the thatched cottage at
which point steps take up half of the sidewalk. Morale; walk single file here.
At the top of
Pierce Lane, just beyond “The Gables” Pierce Lane merges in a nice easy arc
into High Street (if going right) and Apthorpe Street (if going left). High
Street is the major street in this and all other villages. In America we call
similar streets, Main Street. Along the block of its existence, High Street
boasts Webbs General Store (and domicile of the Beaumonts); the house and shop
of R.A. Whitmore, Family Butcher; the Six Bells, pub and bus stop; the Legion
Hall; and finally Her Majesties Post Office, home of Miss Ball. Perhaps Peeks store (and home of Mr. and Mrs.
German) is also on High Street but at this point High Street merges into School
Lane (to the right) or Station Road (to the left) and Peeks maybe on School
Lane. Following School Lane we soon passed the library and as the name implies
came to the school.
Fulbourn County
School consisted of four buildings on a long narrow lot. The foremost building
in size, age, and position fronted on School Lane just across from the huge
thatched roof barn of Halls Farm. This ancient building was called the Church
Room and was indeed used jointly by the school and by St. Vigors and All
Saints, the local Church of England. The Church Room was not really as old as the
14th century St. Vigors church, it only looked that way. It was really just one
large room about 50’ by 100’ with a high gabled roof. From the outside the roof had the appearance
of being too heavy for the timbers that supported it. This is not an uncommon
malady for tile roofs in England. If of any age at all they are usually far
from horizontal throughout their length. They look as if at one-time or another
they had been ridden by a herd of elephants, the impressions of which remain
permanently affixed in the roof line. This sagging roof line gives the
appearance of ponderousness, of massiveness. On the inside looking out quite
the other effect is noted. You have the feeling of being inside an egg shell
with hardly any walls, floors, or roof at all. How could it be so cold inside
such a room if it really had walls and a roof. Anyway daylight can be seen
through at least some upper broken window panes, if not the roof (there is no
false ceiling). And the general inside appearance of mended or as yet unmended
plaster gives the whole structure the aura of a bombed building that has not as
yet fallen down; tattered and torn but not out.
The Church Room is
certainly of the 19th century, judging by its state of disrepair, its attempt
(on a limited budget) toward Victorian frills, and its sagging roof. As we soon
learned to expect, this huge room was heated with one fireplace. It was of the
generation and had the appearance one would expect of Tom Brown’s School and
since age begets venerableness I was quite impressed with this fine old school.
It must be steeped in tradition.
Immediately behind
this Church Room, which was indeed used for morning chapel, was the Primary
School. The Primary School was for children aged 8, 9, and l0, and so had three
classrooms and an office for the Headmistress, Miss Smith, and a lounge for the
other teachers. The two major rooms were covered by a high gabled roof (and no
false ceiling). The third room which formed a rather stubby base for the
general T shaped building may have been an after thought appended in the 1920’s
to the pre WWI building. Heating was again by fireplace and I’m sure that
whatever heat didn’t go up the chimney heated the angle of the high gabled
roofs just fine. Were the children all giraffes their heads at least would have
been warm. I noted electric fires (heaters) displayed prominently on many walls
of the Primary School rooms. This building was far from venerable, just mellow.
It was well lighted from copious windows, and I’m sure it was well aired on windy
days.
Offset slightly but
generally behind the Primary School was the Infants School for ages 5, 6, and
7. This was a modern, post WWII building; squat, square, stuccoed, and painted
a yellowish tan. Although it had the usual average number of windows, the north
walls had none, the south walls many. It was light, airy, pleasant, and heated
by fireplace.
The remaining
building, offset and more or less between the Primary and Infants Schools was
the cafeteria. The same vintage as the Infants School building, it was
pleasant, modern, plain, squat, square, light, and airy.
I took the boys in
to see Headmistress Smith, whom I had talked to before, preparatory to leaving
for the continent on my business - holiday trip. I was quite favorably
impressed by Headmistress Smith. She was youngish, with a short mannish style
hair do, and quite attractive. She seemed to have the situation under control
and spoke with authority. After reconfirming John’s age as eleven she turned
him, over to Miss Golding. Both John and I liked Miss Golding on sight. She was
neither young nor old. Her smile, her sprightly gait, and her general mood made
her appear to be much younger than her graying hair would indicate. She was
small in stature and well filled out but certainly not overly plump. I left
John in capable hands and concentrated on Tom and. Bill.
Headmistress Smith
took us from the Primary School over to the Infants School and introduced me to
Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. Kemp. Tom’s teacher, Mrs. Harrison, was young and
attractive. She was not petite, but rather tall and well built, muscular not
plump. She was very friendly and Tom was quite happy to go off with her. Just
as Mrs. Harrison was of Headmistress Smith’s generation, Mrs. Kemp, Bill’s
teacher was of Miss Golding’s generation. She was about the same size and build
as Miss Golding, but not quite as outgoing. She was somewhat more motherly than
John’s teacher if not quite as gay; more introverted. She seemed quite equal to
the situation and Bill reluctantly but not unhappily went off to his new class.
All was well. I was pleased with what I saw of the school and its staff and the
boys seemed to be as happy as could be expected. For them Michaelmas term had started.
I left the boys in
school and retraced my steps home. Leaving the school and walking toward High
Street the bell tower of St. Vigors and All Saints commanded my view. This
typical village church was enclosed in a large churchyard behind a six foot old
stone wall. The church was among old beautiful trees and ancient gravestones.
Opening onto Church Lane at the top of School Lane was an old ornate wooden
Lychgate. Through this roofed gate the clock on the bell tower was the highest
structure in Fulbourn (with the possible exception of a new mill a mile away
by the railroad station) and was situated at the top of High Street and
likewise at the top of School Lane. The squarish, unsteepled stone tower of St.
Vigors anchored down very beautifully the center of Fulbourn and separated the
shops from the Manor House which was immediately behind St. Vigors on Church
Lane.
I took a slight
detour up Station Road (which quite naturally led to the Railway Station) which
was what School Lane became after it serpentined across High Street. I was
investigating the remaining shops in the village and refound the barber shop.
In a very small one story building with a tile gabled roof running parallel to
the street and in fact separated by only a four foot sidewalk from the street
was the sign “Gents Hairdressing”. On crossing the street and looking through
the large 4’ x 4’ window cut into about 16 foot square sections, I could see
that no barber was in. A little sign on the door said, “Open from 4 to 7 P.M.”.
I left this elfin sized green building, knowing I would soon return.
High Street, Fulbourn
Around the corner
on High Street again and across from the post office and the Six Bells was the
Fulbourn Garage. Here, as befits the moderness of the profession, was the most
modern business (and associated residence) building on High Street. The roof
line did not sag, it was neither thatched nor tiled but rather shingled in
multi-coloured squares. In addition to the gabled roof across the show room
which as usual slanted toward the street, the roof over the attached living
quarters crossed the T and ran at right angles to the street. The exterior was
stucco and the upper floor of the living quarters was offset to protrude over
the sidewalk. Except for uneven coal smoke discolouring, the exterior was all
uniformly a yellowish tan colour. The chimney and chimney pots were trim and
unbroken and set at a 45 degree angle to both the roof line and the street. The
front of the show room was entirely of glass so that the ware; sports cars,
motor scooters, bicycles, and tricycles were displayed to all passers by. This
building was obviously post WWI. The sign, “Taxi for Hire” in one corner of the
window gave evidence that all things automotive; or even on wheels, were sold,
repaired, hired out, and discussed inside. Beyond the show room window, and the
front door step (with two milk bottles) which protruded onto the very ample
sidewalk, were the petrol pumps. Whereas the post WWI building stood out as a
showpiece, if newness is elegance, the Post WWI petrol pumps looked
antediluvian. Not immemorial like the two-story thatched roof pub across the
street but primordial. The Six Bells, the High Street pub, although ancient in
chronological age to the petrol pumps looked mature, the petrol Pumps antique.
One doesn’t expect thatched roofed pubs to change, but somehow petrol pumps
being in the motor age should not look as if they had been built by the
blacksmith as his last act before relinquishing his premises to the horseless
carriage garage. I’ll admit that these pumps with clock counter hands and faces
were not as primeval as the one I saw later in Spain where 5 liters, and 5
liters only, were first pumped up into a fish bowl and then allowed to drain
into the car tank, followed by another 5 liters etc. These were not
hand-pumped, they were automatic, except for calculating the price. I later found it mandatory to buy petrol in
integer gallons, since at the conclusion of the tank filling the mechanic-taxi
driver-owner-salesman’s pretty daughter and I always retreated back into the
office to look up the price on a table that listed gallons vs. shillings and
pence. If you’ve ever tried finding say 7 or 9 tenths of 4 shillings
threepence haypenny, you would soon decide to by petrol by the gallon, no
fractions.
The hoses were
mounted on hinged cranes since the pumps were on one side of the sidewalk and
the cars pulled up to the kerb. People in England still use sidewalks to walk
on, and the cranes are necessary to elevate the hoses over the sidewalk from
the pumps to the car and yet allow passersby to use the public sidewalk. When
no cars are being serviced the cranes and hoses are rotated through ninety
degrees and the hoses stand hanging down by the pumps on the inner edge of the
sidewalk. This arrangement piqued my curiosity. Beyond the pumps was the garage
proper where the mechanical work was done. This structure was not modern (post
WWI), nor trim, nor clean, nor really even a building. The garage was a sort of
lean-to made primarily of wood held together with barrel stave cast off
corrugated iron, and I imagine hair pins and chewing gum. It in fact burned
down before the winter was out and light again entered the area.
Beyond this montage
of the ridiculous with the sublime came the cobbler’s shop. Another thatched
roof shop, this one bearing the sign, “C. T. Beecroft”. The front of the shop
consisted of two large picture windows with a beat up old wooden door with two
long, narrow vertical windows in its upper half. One picture window displayed
boots, shoes, slippers, and Wellingtons (rubber boots). The other which, like
the barber’s was really a honeycomb of 12 smaller windows, displayed Mr. Beecroft at his bench working.
Above the door, but not centered over it, was a dormer window consisting of 12
small patchwork panes, that let light and air into an upstairs bedroom.
Attached onto the thatched roof shop to complete the living quarters was a two
story brick structure with a slightly angled gabled roof. The sharp angle of
the thatched roof on the shop contrasted drastically with the slight angle on
the shingle roof of the house. Although the ridge line of the two adjacent
roofs was roughly the same, the eave lines were eight ten feet apart. The
thatch eave line looked like eyebrows above the picture windows. The shingle
eave line stood high above, haughty and still in horizontal plumb (obviously a
rather new addition). Another clue to the relative newness of the aesthetically
hideous appendage to the old thatched roof shop was that the bricks were all
uniformly rectangular and of the same colour.
The last building
on High Street was ostensibly just a residence and the sign on the gate said it
was “The Nook”. Set back from the street it lent dignity and charm to the row
of shops. Actually I found out later this residence belonged to the woman who notarized
many of my official papers. Attached to
her house was a rather large “meeting place” type of room. The story I heard
was that a generation or so earlier the director of he Fulbourn Mental Hospital
lived here. In his professional work he had accumulated a substantial fortune
which he willed to his widow. When the
squire built “Townley Hall” as a meeting and recreation hall, the widow not to
be outdone built this meeting room. It was smaller but more centrally located,
and as I understand, it was cheaper to hire. This move probably heralded the
breakdown of the Manor House aristocracy in the village. I add again, “I didn’t
see this terrible spat, I only repeat what was told to me by the Chinese
plate.”
The first house on Apthorpe
Street and immediately adjacent to “The Nook” was The Rectory, a new and
modern-looking two-story stucco (or yellow brick) house. This post WWII house
needs no description because it almost seemed out of place among the thatched
and tiled roofs of its neighbors. I had seen thousands of new houses California
is full of them. My seventeenth to nineteenth century trance was broken by this
rectory that contrasted so gaudily from St. Vigors and All Saints Church whose
rector it housed.
Back in the twentieth
century I gingerly crossed Apthorpe Street looking first right then left for
bicycles, motor bikes, and cars. Directly in front of me was reaffirmation of
the twentieth century, the Co-op Grocery. A one story post WWII cube of stucco
with no style, no history, and to me no interest. Around the curve of Apthorpe
Street on Pierce Lane, and directly across from “The Gables”, was Tyrells
Store. Here there was no sidewalk, Tyrells just opened onto the street. However
on the other edge of Tyrells a wall jutted about 4 feet out into the street
making it unlikely any large or fast moving vehicle would run you down directly
in front of Tyrells. The exterior of Tyrells was bright. What wasn’t window was
basically off white and the trim and the signs were bright red. A jolly shop.
On rounding the
wall I saw the aforementioned, sidewalk oozing out from under the wall. I
followed this by the carpenter shop and with a sharp look and listen I darted
across Pierce Lane into The Manse.
There I really
awakened to the twentieth century, “What took you so long?” “It’s time to
restock the larder” “How did the boys like school?” “Dad, where did John leave
his Lone Star loco?” “Let’s take the trains with us today so we can play with
them in camp tonight.” Aren’t John, Tom, and Bill coming with us today?” “Where
will we camp tonight?” “I’m thirsty, Dad, where is the milk?” “Let’s camp by
the water tonight.” “I don’t want cheese on my sandwich in the car today...”
Yak, yak, yak………
Within the week I visited
Fred, the Gents Hairdresser. And as is typical of the time and place we started
off on the weather. This discussion was not just routine, however, because the
summer of ‘59 was not by any stretch of the imagination routine, for the sunny
days exceeded the rainy days by a ratio unmatched in 200 years. In May I was
spotted as non-British because of my California complexion. Now in October I
sometimes had to open my mouth before I could be distinguished from a native,
since in the fall of ‘59 all Britishers had an unbelievable atypical ruddy
appearance, not their more usual poolroom tan.
If Fred had any
lingering doubts about my origin, they soon disappeared when the conversation
changed from the weather and he asked me pointblank, “Are you church or chapel?”
And my answer was
equally blank, namely, dead silence. I was thinking, not talking, “Did he say
‘church or chapel’? How can I be either? And in any case, aren’t church and
chapel synonymous?” Fred felt the conversation lagging as he snipped the hair
out of one nostril and looking up into my face before switching to the other
nostril, he repeated, “Are you Church of England or Nonconformist?”
I could see he was
expecting an answer and was glad he hadn’t yet lathered me up and chosen the
straight edge as his conversation persuader. It began to dawn on me that he was
probably talking about my church affiliation, so I replied, “I’m a Methodist.”
“Oh, a
Nonconformist,” he replied, and trimmed up my other nostril.
“Are Methodists
Nonconformists?” I hesitatingly inquired.
“Certainly. You’re
either church or chapel, and you’re chapel, a Nonconformist.”
Now that he had me
to his way of thinking, properly classified, he told me the chapel was down by
the lolly shop, and that the village chapel in Fulbourn was Congregational.
I thanked Fred for
his information, paid him his two shillings (28 cents) and departed for the
Manse.
Mary was intrigued
with the gospel, as told by the disciple Fred, concerning the distinction between
church and chapel. Mary and I agreed with our newly found religious authority,
Fred, that what John Wesley had put asunder, we had better not join together.
We decided to ally ourselves with the Congregational “chapel” and not THE
“church.” We preferred being Congregationalists in Fulbourn to driving four
miles into Cambridge or 10 miles to West Wickham to be Methodists.
As neophyte
Congregationalists we decided we should find out what time our Sunday School
and our Divine Services were held. So the family walked over to the chapel one
evening to see “the word” as contained on the chapel sign board. On the way we
passed the village church, St. Vigors and All Saints. It was a venerable,
fourteenth century stone structure, enclosed in a ramshackle graveyard.
Surrounding St. Vigors was a decaying rock wall, breached by a peaked-roofed
Lychgate, which was stately and beautiful in spite of its age and unpainted
appearance, or, more aptly, because of its unpainted agelessness. St. Vigors’
bell tower was not capped by a steeple but was singularly imposing in its
stark, strengthful, perpendicular squareness. Small stained windows stood out
like jaded jewels in this ancient edifice of stone. Had aesthetics, not ritual,
ruled the day, we would have gone no farther; St. Vigors and All Saints was our
dream of what a church should be.
By contrast, the
village chapel, the Fulbourn Congregational Church, was no dream; it was
neither ageless nor stately. Featureless, yes; austere, yes; imposing, no. It
was built in 1810 and looked like a Quaker meeting hall. It did not look like a
church, nor for that matter a chapel. I guess this was to be expected. When
Henry VIII started the breakaway from the Roman Catholic Church, and when
Wesley, Knox, and others in turn broke away from the Church of England,
simplicity was stressed. Religion was to be freed from ritual, idols,
symbology. The meeting halls, altars, and decorations were to be simple. The
people were not to be mystified and overwhelmed with pompous ritual and Latin
phrases; the services and rituals were to be kept simple. These were the ideas
at the time. The proof of their success was the Fulbourn Congregational Church.
The village chapel
was indeed stark, austere, plain, and simple. Not that there weren’t a few well-kept
gravestones around the chronologically youthful meeting hall. And not that
there wasn’t a large stained glass window over the plain raised altar. But the
building was completely rectangular, with a simple gable for a roof. The chapel
was not built in the shape of a cross, nor was it marred by a bell tower or
steeple. There was neither a porch, a narthex, nor a vestibule. Obviously, the
chapel was built with no frills. Chapel people came for religious conviction,
more probably the religious convictions of their forefathers, and not,
certainly not, for outward displays and hallowed antiquity.
Attached to this
stark meeting hall on the off-street side was another equally box-like
appendage. This we surmised was the social hall and Sunday School rooms. This
offshoot was not built in 1810 nor would it be apt to outlast its more sturdy
parent upon whom it leaned for support.
Our curiosity was
satisfied, we had seen the venerable church and the functional chapel. And the
word, according to Reverend Taylor’s chapel sign board, was, “Sunday School, 3
PM; and Divine Services, 3:30.”
On Sunday, after
the usual round of scrubbings, the older boys put on their brand new school
uniforms: freshly polished black oxfords, grey knee socks ringed with green at
the top, short grey trousers, white shirt with green tie and yellow diagonal
stripes, green blazer and cap, with school badge (a head of wheat and some
straw). Charlie and Dan wore their usual American costumes of short pants and
knit tee shirts.
Even though Sunday
School was at 3 PM we were not ready in time to walk. This happened all the
time in America at 9:30 AM but we of course assumed it was the early hour, not
the crush of boys that caused the tardiness. Now we knew. So instead of walking
the quarter mile to the village chapel, we belatedly hopped into ZW and drove
over.
Our hearts were
saddened a little as we drove past the lychgate of St. Vigors and All Saints,
our calendar picture English church. And as we approached the Fulbourn
Congregational Church (chapel) we noted that neither the Sabbath Day nor the
presence of innumerable bicycles had beautified our chosen holy ground. We
edged ZW, whose presence could hardly go unnoticed, in among the few undersized
British cars, and more numerous two-wheeled vehicles, and unloaded our three
English (costumed) boys and two American (costumed) boys. We then alternately
led, pushed or otherwise coerced the none-too-cooperative sheep toward the
fold. We suffered them to enter the austere Model 1 Sunday School appendage we
had noted on our earlier pilgrimage.
We were met by Mrs.
Woods, a red-haired, amply proportioned woman of Welsh descent (and accent).
Her kindly but quizzical look seemed to imply, “Has a new orphanage opened out
in the vicinity?”, although her query was, “Have you come for Sunday School?”
She was quite astonished to hear our American accents and even more astonished
at our claim to being the real parents, not the house parents, of this quite
formidable flock. Mrs. Woods assigned John, age 11, to the oldest group with
Mr. Hardwick, up in the church balcony. She took Tom, 7, and Bill, 6; and led
Dan, 3, over to Miss Ward. Mary and I mercifully retained possession of
Charlie. [5]
There were no
particularly outstanding events during this phase of the Sunday School except
the look of disbelief when the boys each put a two-shilling piece in the
collection. We later found this to be quite ostentatious. Whereas we had the
boys all coached to gladly give their quarter in America we switched to
sixpence in Fulbourn. This created a slight amount of confusion: “If there is
only one God, why give him a quarter in America and-only sixpence here?” The
answer was really simple, though perhaps not to Dan, namely, his church in
Fulbourn was already paid for.
From force of habit
and with no fanfare, the teachers lined all the children up at 3:25 and marched
them out of the room. Mary and I fell-in behind to lead Dan and to carry
Charlie. We did not quite realize where we were going until we found ourselves
in the chapel. There remained nothing to do but to sit down, which we did. We
found ourselves directly behind the Sunday School group who sat in the front
pews. I must admit this was more than I had bargained for but, “Well, there it
is.”
Reverend Taylor
promptly entered and everyone, except us, stood up in unison. We were still
stunned by our sudden entrance into the chapel and were slightly behind in our
reactions but were on our feet in near record time. We found ourselves in front
of the whole congregation and the only examples we had to follow were the
children and, luckily, their teachers. And yet everyone could see our mistakes,
the major ones being Charlie and Dan. We hadn’t expected to end up in divine
services in quite this manner, but here we were.
Rev. Taylor inside
the Fulbourn Congregational Chapel
Our presence did
not go unnoticed. We represented about a 15% increase in the Sunday School and
Church attendance, or more specifically, it took one more row of pews to hold
the newly expanded Sunday School. I noted John and his class were across to my
right and slightly ahead of me, and Tom and Bill were within slap-on-the-hand
range. Things could have been worse.
As soon as the Rev.
Taylor gave the word we all sat down again and at his command everyone opened
his hymnal. Now, thought I, I would be in my element. I sang in our church
choir and although my voice left much to be desired, I could read music and
sing bass parts down to E flat. Someone from across the aisle handed us an open
hymnal and I was anticipating showing the natives that at least I knew about
hymns and singing. I soon discovered, however, that the hymnals contained no
music, only words, and that the reed organ was missing a few reeds and the
others had probably not been tuned since Handel. So to a tune I’d never heard
before, with words I’d never seen before, and holding Charlie in one arm, I
vainly tried to sing my first hymn. The results were far from spectacular. I
was slowly gaining confidence, however, and was ready to start out strong on
the second verse. However, I found myself singing a solo on the first word.
Instead of maintaining the rhythm and meter from one verse to the next, they
sounded the chord all over again so everyone could refresh his memory as to the
correct pitch, or to check that the organ was still operating. This just about
finished my hymn singing for the day, but I did save face by harmonizing the
bass part on the A-MEN.
Soon came the high
point in the worship serve for children--the children’s sermon. Reverend Taylor
came down out of his pulpit and standing directly in front of the children,
explained, probably for the benefit of his greatly increased congregation, the
form of his sermon. The idea was this: He would tell a bible story purposely
omitting names of people and places and at the conclusion of his story, he
would ask the children a series of questions on the who’s and where’s in his
story.
This was his story
(in my simplified and shortened version). Once upon a time there was a battle.
In this battle the old King and his son and heir were killed. A new King was
chosen to rule who was just and kind. The new King let it be known that if any
relative of the old King could be found, he should be brought forward to dine
and live with him, the new King. A few suspicions were aroused; for instance,
maybe if a relative were found he would be done away with to make the new
King’s position unchallengeable. Nevertheless, the King was taken at his word,
a lame grandson was found, brought forward, and did indeed enjoy all the
benefits of the new King’s court. The new King was truly just, kind, and
benevolent. “Now,” said Rev. Taylor, “who was the old King?”
I slumped lower in
my pew; I didn’t recognize a thing. The English boys and girls likewise slumped
low and looked as blank as Tom and Bill. After a few moments of awkward silence
a green-jacketed arm shot up. I thought finally some old veteran had caught the
theme, but his answer of “Jesus” was not, under this particular set of
circumstances, correct.
Rev. Taylor was
about to give up on his dull charges when to my utter amazement my John’s hand
went timidly up.
Rev. Taylor didn’t
quite know whether to call on John or not, never having seen him before, but
since there seemed to be no alternative, he said, “I see a new boy who knows
the old King’s name. Will you tell us his name?”
John said in a
crisp American accent, “Was the old King’s name Saul?” “It was indeed,” said
the astonished pastor. “And now does anyone know who the King’s son was?”
Again the awkward
silence, but now the whole congregation was watching John, who finally put up
his hand and said, “I believe he was called Jonathan.”
I straightened up
somewhat in my pew and tried to look unconcerned as if, “Obviously anyone
should know this story, why in America ....”
Now the obviously
happy pastor asked John directly, “And who was the new King?”
The children looked
on in a manner between envy, disbelief, and awe while John answered, “David.”
At this point, the
rest of the congregation and I sat up and smiled, for now we had all heard a
familiar name and knew that the pastor and John were not making up this whole
episode.
After John had
identified the lame grandson, Mephisbosheth and the nations in battle, the Philistines
and Israelites, the top button on my shirt nearly popped. Needless to say, our
reputation in the chapel and in a great part of the village was made. At the
conclusion of services we were greeted like old-timers by the pastor and the
congregation. We were no longer strangers, we were not disbelievers. And, in
fact, within a fortnight I was invited to be on the local PTA board and asked
into the inner sanctum of the village Conservative Party headquarters to
observe the parliamentary election.
However, I still
didn’t know where John had learned that story. When we got home I asked him
where he had learned that bible story.
He said, “From the
Sunday Pix” (a Sunday School-oriented comic book).
I repeated,
“Where?”
The answer, “The
Sunday Pix.”
Then I remembered.
Our church in California had a running battle about the issuance of comic books
(containing, among other things, bible stories) to the fifth and sixth graders
(age 11 and 12). From age 7 on, John had come to the Church School Office and begged
a comic book. He would read the bible comic and if he became interested, he
would go home, get out his bible and read the rest of the story weeks before
the serialized comic strip had finished the story. The story told by the
British minister had appeared in his comic book. He had gone home and looked in
the book of Samuel for the end of the story.
Fred had heard all
about John’s adventures by my next visit and concluded I must be correct that
church attendance was greater in America than in England.
Let’s backtrack for
a minute from the Sunday School Debut and pick up the boys schooling
again. As you will recall we returned
from the continent on Saturday, missed the turn-off to the ferry at Tilbury,
crossed Tower Bridge instead and arrived home at 1 a.m. Sunday everyone,
except Mary, rested and Monday we carted the boys off to school. Monday evening
we were informed by Tom that; children at school wear short grey trousers,
green blazers and caps with school badges and grey knee socks; that they sell
them at Jacobs in Cambridge; and that he was ready to go in right now. Jacobs
didn’t have everything in stock and Tom reluctantly agreed to go back to school
Tuesday providing his uniform was ready by Wednesday. Bill couldn’t have cared
less and John was willing to conform, but didn’t really care much one way or
the other.
But by Friday
things had happened to Johnny. He was eleven going on twelve and at this point,
in England an exam called the “Eleven Plus” separates Primary School pupils
into Grammar School scholars or Secondary Modern School scholars. The village
headmistress, judging from past American students, and from the general English
system of starting first grade at 5 years, suggested John just stay in the
village school, i.e. essentially stay a year behind his English contemporaries.
However, the Cambridgeshire Educational Officer wasn’t convinced of this and
suggested John come take an exam. By Friday, just as the last piece of his
village school uniform arrived, John was reassigned to a Grammar School, the
Cambridgeshire High School for Boys.
Monday just after
his Sunday School debut, John and I went off to see the Headmaster in Cambridge
and I felt like leading a lamb to slaughter. I explained to John that his carefree
days were over. He was now a man. Secretly I somehow hated to see his
disgustingly lazy boyhood come to such a screeching halt, but maybe he would
survive.
I wasn’t much
reassured when told by Headmaster Eagling that: (1) John would be taking Latin,
French, Maths (arithmetic, algebra, and geometry), English, Science, History,
Geography, Religious Education and Rugby, plus woodworking and music; (2) He
was now 4 weeks late, and (3) This was a first rate school with an envious past
scholastic record. It was quite apparent that Headmaster Eagling; (1) wasn’t
very happy about having another boy of any sort (his school like all others the
world over was already packed), (2) was equally unhappy about the late start,
(3) wasn’t completely overjoyed at having an American boy (in the past, some
had been OK, others just so, so, and in any case, an American is out of the
ordinary and British like things the same, just as they were in Victoria’s
reign).
John and I were
also instructed to purchase a school uniform, a Rugby outfit, a Bible, and a
pen (fountain, NOT ballpoint). Everything else was furnished.
So John and I made
another trip downtown (and to Lloyds of Cambridge) to get a different school blazer,
cap, tie, belt, socks and badge and the aforementioned Bible, pen (fountain),
and Rugby outfit. It occurred to me that the Rugby uniform was somewhat scanty,
namely shorts, short sleeved shirt, with collar, and cleated shoes. It also
occurred to me that Rugby was the great grandfather of American football where
helmets, nose guards) shoulder pads, hip pads, knee guards, and much tape were
standard equipment. Likewise, it occurred to me that this was October and this
game was played through January or February and that conceivably shorts and
short sleeved shirt, with no sweater nor long training pants, might be on the
chilly side. I had much to learn about Rugby, called rugger, and for that
matter I had much to learn about Cricket. For it turns out that when comes the
spring and summer, when one might expect warm weather, also comes Cricket. The
uniform for Cricket is long flannel trousers, long sleeved shirt, AND sweater,
heavy. This reversal of seasons and/or costumes had me a little baffled until I
decided that Rugby was probably invented in that part of the British Empire
that was perpetually warm, say India, hence shorts. Whereas Cricket must have
been developed in the Shetland Islands. When Englishmen do adopt anything new,
as when they took up Rugby and Cricket, they aren’t apt to do it differently so
if the original game of Rugby was played in shorts, then the final game, just
before the big bomb, will also be played in shorts.
Actually, except
for the fact that Rugger is a rough, rugged game with hard running and tackling
and many separated collar bones and fractured legs and arms, the light weight
outfit is fairly appropriate. Personally, I think some padding of some sort
would save a few fractures, but be that as it may, the light weight uniform has
many advantages. In the first place, unlike American football (or basketball
and baseball), Rugger allows no substitutions. I mean NO substitutions, if a
man is injured, the side plays with ten men, not eleven. So you have no substitutes
sitting on a bench freezing. All players are running and running hard, there
are no set plays from scrimmage, with long gaps between successive plays. The
general idea is one side kicks off to another side who tries to run and/or
lateral pass and/or kick the ball toward the defending teams goal. The ball is
not dead when a man is tackled. Instead, a free for all develops until someone
squirts out with the ball or until a referee finally decides it is hopeless and
calls a scrum. Even a scrum hardly delays the game, the opposing linemen lock
shoulders and push and shove each other in mass toward the goal line. This
leaves a hole in the middle of this mass of humanity. From one side the “scrum
half” rolls the ball into this muddle in the hopes that his “hooker” will kick
the ball out backwards from the scrum, where the scrum half will recover it,
lateral it to a wing half and the whole play opens up again. Of course, about a
third of the time the opposing hooker gets it and the ball starts moving the
opposite direction.
Other short delays
occur when the ball is run or kicked, usually purposely, out-of-bounds. In this
case, a line out is called where each team lines up facing the sidelines
standing shoulder to shoulder. One man from the team who kicked or ran the ball
out-of-bounds will now stand on the sidelines and throw the ball straight (in
the referee’s judgment) back between these two single file lines facing him.
The idea is to throw it so that your tallest man can jump up and knock or throw
the ball back toward your backs who immediately run it forward again. Except
for these two types of stoppages, the only other time outs are called by
officials when someone is really hurt. So, in general, Rugger players are
running flat out nearly all the time the game is going on, like hockey, soccer,
or basketball and NOT like American football. So you see, they ordinarily will
not have time to get cold, except maybe their fingers. Now Cricket, on the
other hand, is the closest thing to no movement at all that has yet been invented.
It is possible for, say, the tenth or eleventh batter to sit an entire day and
never even get onto the field. When he does, he swings and swings, but actually
need never run. They usually do run, but it is not necessary. More on Cricket
later, but for now, yes warm outfits are needed because (1) many players sit
many hours and (2) spring and summer days in Britain aren’t that warm.
But back to school.
Luckily John got on immediately with at least two of his masters; the Latin
master, Mr. Layng a venerable, silver-maned, distinguished looking and acting
scholar from the old school who was born to wear his master’s gown with
dignity, and the Formmaster, Mr. Thomas, a young, athletic fair minded, good
humored, science teacher and Rugby enthusiast, who would like to work an
exchange for a year with an American teacher. These two encouraged John through
his first fateful week and instilled in him a love for Latin, Rugby, Science
and the English system of grammar schools that will last forever.
In Latin, French,
and Science John was not too badly off, all other boys were new in this also.
In English, history, geography, and music he was fair to middling. In Religious
instruction he was well prepared but in Maths he was horrible.
California schools
teach children to be good citizens, to be conformists, and to be well liked. A
perfect graduate of the California school system would likely become a salesman
of some sort, belong to at least one service club, be active in civic affairs,
purchase the latest model car each year, and live in the latest housing sub
division. These accomplishments make one a good substantial citizen, maintains
our American economy, and keeps our advertising boys in business, which in
turn maintains our commercial TV and radio. Book learning does not contribute
much to the success of this type of well-to-do citizen. In general, knowing the
multiplication tables through ten, possessing the reading abilities of a twelve
year old, knowing a little American history, and enough English to write a
good “selling” letter is all the book learning necessary to make one a first
class and, in fact, an outstanding American citizen. There is a saying in
America, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you” and I sometimes think this is the
motto of our curriculum planners in our public schools. I want to say
immediately at this point that the individual class room teachers are first
rate. They are grossly underpaid and, therefore, by definition not really
respectable people. They do a remarkable job teaching children everything that
used to be taught in the homes or at church, but have not much opportunity to
teach the children what used to be taught in schools. After all, it is pretty
hard to keep children interested or to make them pay you any respect if you
have nothing to teach them except how to get along with one another, which they
can learn on the playgrounds, how to color pictures, which they can learn at
home by turning off the TV or how to run a democratic classroom, which they can
learn by joining any of a number of outside activities like scouts, or church
youth groups.
Because of the
emphasis on camouflaging learning with play activities and teaching “living
democracy” instead of 2 of the 3 R’s (They do a good enough job on reading)
California schools haven’t enough time left over for “getting on” very far in
arithmetic.
When put in a math
class with scholars of his own age, John, whose IQ is up with the best of them
was hopelessly outclassed. He had been exposed to the simplest operations in
manipulating fractions, knew what a decimal fraction was, roughly, but didn’t
know long division using divisions longer than three digits, and had no idea
how to handle decimal points. In any case, arithmetic using the Sterling
monetary system and/or stones (14 pounds) as a unit of weight makes life difficult
for semi-decimalized Americans. Take for example the problem: If coke costs 9
shillings and 4 pence per hundredweight (9/4/cwt) how much does one pound of
coke cost, and how much does an English (long) ton cost. Needed additional
facts for Americans (1) there are 12 pence to a shilling, and 20 shillings to
the pound, (2) a hundredweight (cwt) is 8 stone, (3) a stone is 14 pounds, and
(4) an English ton is 20 cwt. Note: a hundredweight is 112 pounds. Answer: One
pound of coke costs 1 pence; or in English 1 d (where d I understand refers
back to the old Roman Denarius). An English ton costs 9/6/8 or (20) x (9)
shillings plus (20) x (4) pence but since there are 20 shillings per pound,
(20) x (9/20) + (20) x (4) equals 9 pounds plus 80 d = 9/6/8. An American ton would cost 2000 pence
or 8/6/8. Just to confuse the issue try
to convert these costs over to American dollars. Remember a pound = $2.80. The
long ton costs (9/6/8) x (2.80) and the American ton $2.80 less. The only
problem is how do you multiply 9/6/8 by 2.80. It is really very simple - it
merely becomes (2.80) x (9 + 6/2 + 8/240) or (2.80) (9 + 1/3) = $25.20 + 0.93 =
$26.13. You may see why John was a little slow in arithmetic.
It took John
through Christmas vacation to catch up in arithmetic at about one hour per
night. This plus keeping up on all other subjects kept John very busy. However,
in defense of American boys, I think I should add that at the end of the
Michaelmas term (by Christmas) he was eighteenth in his class of thirty,
eleventh by Easter, and although he was never assigned, since he would not be
there the following year, I think he would have been in the A stream (upper
third) had he stayed.
But, of course,
even more important he did make the first eleven in his form for Rugby. This
was the year for Americans in Rugby. Rhodes scholar and ex Army all-American
Dawkins helped Oxford beat Cambridge (worse luck) and made quite a hit with
English fans. And at Cambridgeshire High School for Boys another American,
Harshbarger, (dad from Penn State) made the first eleven and endeared Americans
to the hearts of all local English fans with his American tackles, hard
running, broad grin, and short haircut.
Likewise, John
picked up the local aberration of English English and sounded to us like a
cockney. Before we left we could hardly understand him. And stranger than
strange in his class of 30, he found one other boy, Leslie Waters, later his
best friend, who had a birthday the same day as his own. Not too surprising,
except of course, he has a birthday only once every fourth year, and stranger
still this was the year. The two of them
together would only add together enough birthdays to equal half the number of
anyone else in the class. If my mathematics
of probabilities are correct, the chances of finding two leap year boys in a
class of 30 boys is one in five thousand[6].
We had scarcely
gotten the boys correctly uniformed for the correct school and introduced into
the Sunday school at the Chapel when Tom brought home a note announcing a PTA
meeting. Having just served on the PTA board at Kate Sessions school in San
Diego, as the Spiritual and Character Leadership Chairman (I read an
inspirational “thought for the day” to start each meeting), I was anxious to go
and compare notes on procedures.
It turned out this
was an organizational meeting and not a general meeting. The key officers had
been elected but the governing committee had not been selected. This, plus
planning for the three general meetings (one each in the Michaelmas, Lent, and
Summer terms), and planning for making and spending the association’s money
was the agenda of the evening.
Mr. Chamberlin (not
the umbrella Chamberlin) the chairman, opened the meeting by reading apologies
written by members who should have been there and weren’t. The custom seems to
be either show, or send your apologies in writing. At the conclusion of this,
he asked if anyone brought apologies for anyone else. One member said, “Yes,
Mrs. Cartwright phoned me to say she was home with a cold and would not be in
attendance. She sends her apologies”. He then stated that Mr. Sell would be
here as soon as he could make it.
We then learned
that the finances were really not too badly off but just as a steady reminder
we’d better have some sort of fund-raising project. Anyway it would be nice to
give the school a gift again like the venetian blinds last year.
Then Headmistress
Smith thanked the PTA for the venetian blinds and suggested that the school
could certainly use a tape recorder.
By now Mr. Sell had
arrived and the official business could start. In addition to Miss Smith and
Mr. Chamberlin, Miss Golding, John’s ex-teacher was in attendance, and about 6
other parents. One of these, Mrs. Ferguson, spoke American English and was an
attractive negro woman. I found out her husband was an American Air Force
Captain and was a dentist.
The first order of
business was, as might be expected, the fund-raising project. Various schemes
were suggested, housey-housey (bingo), harvest sale, beetle drive, raffle,
whist drive, sale of work, etc. It was agreed that a raffle was in order
regardless of whatever else they might have. All such church or school meetings
had a raffle. Sixpence per ticket and three prizes. Mrs. Ferguson would
purchase prizes from the Post Exchange. Prizes not to exceed one pound.
I told them about
our system in San Diego where each elementary school had a fund-raising carnival
on Halloween night. These carnivals not only kept the children off the streets
but also made lots of money. Of course you can’t really keep the children from
their “trick or treat” neighborhood rounds, they either do it the preceding
night or in the hours just before or just after the carnival. But I’m sure it
cuts down on the malicious mischief practiced extensively in my youth.
However they
decided a carnival on Guy Fawkes night just wouldn’t be proper and since
fireworks are the main celebration congregating too many people in one spot
could be outright dangerous. They would continue their small group bonfires
and skyrocket parties and have a Beetle Drive at the school later.
At this point
before any details were worked out, we had an interval for tea and biscuits,
While serving me my tea and after having conversed with Mr. Chamberlin and
Headmistress Smith, Miss Golding asked me if I’d object being nominated to the
PTA board. Although the National Science Foundation did not send me to England to
study their mannerisms and customs, this was indeed one of my own private
objectives. How better to learn of English customs than to infiltrate into
their organizations? In any case, I was flattered to be considered an eligible
nominee after only two weeks in this staid olde English village. I told her I’d
be pleased and before the meeting had hardly reconvened, I was nominated and
elected.
The meeting went
off very smoothly from here on out. A date was chosen that gave minimum
conflict with each and every member’s schedule (pronounced shedule). Mr. Sell,
who taught Mechanical Art at Cherry Hinton Grammar School would make the
posters, Mrs. Ferguson would buy the raffle and beetle drive prizes (at the Air
Force PX), Mrs. Brown, who apparently always handled the tea and biscuit
problem, would do so again. Mrs. Chamberlin would be Master of Ceremonies,
Miss Golding and I would be general flunkies, and Headmistress Smith would see
to it that every pupil got an announcement to take home at the proper time.
I heard no more
about the Beetle Drive until Tom and Bill brought home Headmistress Smith’s
announcement. Then I noticed Mr. Sell’s posters in Dick Whitmores Butcher Shop
and in all other shops along High Street. Mary asked me what I was supposed to
be doing. I said, “Awaiting orders.”
We hadn’t yet got
Daniel house-without-momma broken or conversely we had as yet not found a baby
sitter whose ears and nerves could take his continual (hours on end) crying.
Poor Dan had had a rough 5 months; no crib (cot) of his own in room of his own,
no house at all, and never really out of sight of mom. He didn’t take to life
in an upstairs bedroom far removed from mom at all well. And he didn’t take to
mom going off without him at all. So I went to the Beetle Drive alone, and
early.
There was really no
need of my going early. The women on the committee, as women the world over,
had everything well under control. Mr. Sell, Mr. Chamberlin, and I did move a
few tables and chairs but just to look busy. Our Beetle Drive was in the school
cafeteria which was not overly large but just held the 30 people who showed up.
Mr. Chamberlin quickly explained the rules, probably for my benefit since
everyone else knew the rules. You sit four to a table. Each person has a card
with 12 largish squares. There is one die (singular of dice) per table. On an
initial shake the highest number gets to be first at each table. At the signal
the first person at each table shoots for a six. No six, no play, pass the die
around. Once a six is thrown, that person draws a big oval body in his square.
Once the body is drawn, appendages such as legs, head, tail, eyes, and feelers
are added with the appropriate number on the die. When someone in the room has
a complete beetle the game stops. Everyone adds up his completed points, 6 for
body, etc. The highest two scores move to the next table and the next beetle is
drawn. Obviously the more throws per minute, the more chances of getting a
beetle, so speed is the password. Every scheme is tried to get the die passed
around the table quickly. If someone throws the die off the table they are
ostracized.
At the interval,
Mrs. Brown with the help of Miss Golding served tea and biscuits. Mrs.
Ferguson, with the help of Miss Golding, held her raffle and gave away the
bottle of sherry, a can of sweets, and a torch (flashlight). They also had a
food auction, everyone brought their specialty and everyone else bid for it. I
got Miss Golding’s plum jelly.
After another
hectic round of the Beetle Drive, scores were totaled and another set of prizes
given away. At a shilling per card less prizes and with the raffle and auction
proceeds the total money earned for the evening was a decent sum. I must say,
though, that they did indeed have a good time. I guess the children enjoy our
Halloween Carnivals but I find them deadly. Children were not invited to the
Beetle Drive nor to many other social activities, but the British parents
really enjoy a Beetle Drive. So ended the fall term PTA meeting and annual fund
raising event.
A second committee
meeting set up the winter meeting in near record time. I’m sure each year the
fall meeting is a Beetle Drive, the winter meeting an inspection of children’s
work (with a half hour speech beforehand) and the spring meeting a school dancing
program. At least this was the order this year and everything seemed to fall in
place too well for all this to have been spontaneous.
There was not much
question that the winter meeting of the PTA was a huge success. By the time
Mary and I got there, after turning the boys over to a baby sitter, the Church
Room was packed. The on-timers scowled a little but crowded up a bit and we
managed to squeeze onto a bench right against the wall next to the door. Of
course no one ever took off their coats at these affairs, they would freeze
solid. The single fireplace in this huge room gave about as much heat as a
candle in a barrel. The speaker undoubtedly got there early because he had the
spot right next to the fireplace and he had taken off his coat. The listeners
sat around him in concentric semi-circles.
The entrance was
not at the rear of the room, or else the speaker was not at the front of the
room. In any case, the entrance was on the speaker’s left, and there was a
small aisle through which he could escape if the audience got too violent. To
the speaker’s right, the circular rows ran almost up to the wall, a person
could squeeze through and there were indeed a few seats all the way on the
opposite wall from the door. Was I glad we weren’t any later. It would really
have been embarrassing to cross completely across the room and directly in
front of the speaker.
However we weren’t
the latest comers. We had hardly gotten ourselves settled enough so that we
could scowl at all later comers than in came one of the village characters. We
had often noticed this middle-aged, sloppily-dressed woman walking around the
village. She always wore pants and a jacket that didn’t fit. She wore her hair
short and looked as much like a man as like a woman. She seemed completely
oblivious of the world around her and obviously didn’t give a half crown for
what other people thought of her. Upon inquiry people told us she was the wife
of a Cambridge professor, a noted poet, and an avowed communist. Whether she
was a communist or just gained that notorious title because of her queer dress,
manner, and profession I will never know. I would be willing to bet that in
Puritan Salem such a woman would have been burnt as a witch. People who don’t
conform are often labeled with the worst name in current use, witch, anarchist,
fascist, and in this generation Communist. I might add that her dress and
appearance would have elicited her the Communist label from certain people even
if she repeatedly voted conservative.
In her walks around
the village she was almost always accompanied by a large shaggy dog and
tonight was no exception. Of course I didn’t see “Shag” at first, I just heard
some muffled instructions just before the door opened and she appeared. She
closed the door, as best you can a door with a broken latch, and proceeded to
make the long march across the room in front of the speaker. Of course the
speaker, the county Dental Officer, had to stop his talk as she jostled in
front of him. But he was an inveterate speaker and seemed to enjoy the chance
to depart from his cut and dried speech to extemporaneously make some pleasant
remark.
Just as the
honoured speaker again got onto the subject of teeth and how Britain had the
world’s worst, the door creaked and in walked “Shag”. Like his master Shag
couldn’t have cared less about the assemblage or the honoured speaker. Shag
started the same march as his constant comrade but stopped in front of the
fireplace right at the foot of the speaker. Who wouldn’t, that was the only
warm place in the whole room, and even then you could see the speaker’s breath
when he talked. I think the dental officer was friendly enough with dogs but
somehow the audience noise level in the form of snickers and chuckles got so
high that it was obvious something need be done. So the village poet who had
just settled into position, regained her feet and started the counter march
back across the front of the room. The subdued laughter became an uproar and
the advice to drink more milk and to eat fewer sweets came to a complete stop.
After a minute or two of discussion between poet and dog a new solo entrance
was made and the assemblage came to order again.
However all was not
yet well. A later late corner reopened the door. Upon being beckoned by Miss
Smith to the empty chairs across the room, she started the trip across the
front of the room, followed unbeknownst to her, by Shag, The poor embarrassed
woman couldn’t tell why everyone was laughing, and in her confusion she didn’t
see the loose floor board. Need more be said. Luckily she wasn’t hurt as her
foot dropped through the floor to the ground about six inches below. At this
point the laughter was welcome because a potentially extremely embarrassing
situation became a farce not a tragedy. The speaker now acting more like a
ringmaster at a circus than as a serious speaker at a PTA meeting told a joke
or two until everyone was settled.
We finally heard
the horrible statistics on how the cavity-to-dentist ratio was higher in
Britain than anywhere else in the world. However no one was really listening.
No feature could have followed such a choice selection of comic relief.
The inspection of
children’s work which followed was very similar to the same inspection in
California. The major difference was that even five-year olds were displaying
arithmetic workbooks, and workbooks with words printed in. The ratio of 3R work
to busy work was much higher in this small English village school than in the
California school the boys had left. They didn’t have a store complete with
counters and empty cans but they did have some writing and arithmetic to show.
We missed the
spring dance program since it came in the summer. We left our lovely village on
21 July, and on 22 July the PTA had their final (outdoor, if no rain) meeting.
I feel very cheated about this and will do everything possible to get back some
day in late July to see this final outing. Then I can also find out if
Headmistress Smith got her tape recorder.
After John’s Sunday
School debut and my election (draft) to the PTA committee, I was an alien
citizen, first class, of Fulbourn. One day on my return home from the Unit,
Mary asked if I wanted to observe the Parliamentary Election. It seems as if
Mr. Rodwell, the husband of the proprietor of Myrtleberry’s Store was the local
chairman of the Conservative Party. Since I’d proved myself to be God-fearing
(through John) and community spirited, I was to be initiated into the workings
of the celebrated English system of free elections. My education was to consist
of observing the workings of the village Conservative Party Committee in action
on election night.
I had noticed for
weeks on the billboard by Fred’s barber shop something to the effect that,
“You’ve never had it so good, don’t let Labour take it away, Vote
Conservative.” At the Unit I’d heard many arguments that sounded strangely like
arguments I’d heard in U.S. in 1956, and ‘52 and ‘48. In general every year
that John had a birthday, half of the people in the U.S. would start saying the
other half were doing everything wrong. This was nothing new; this happened all
the time but in different cycles: for example every October half the people say
hurray for the Yankees and the other half down with the Yankees (the argument
gets louder in a stadium in the Bronx called Yankee Stadium, or the Park that
Ruth built); about a month later half the people say down with Notre Dame and
the other half cheer vocally in South Bend, Indiana for Notre Dame; most
anytime of any year management and labor are at logger-heads, or the north and
the south, or the east and the west. However starting in the summer after
John’s birthday half of the Yankee fans join with half the non-Yankee fans and
say down with the Democrats, while the other half of the Yankee fans combine
with half of the non-Yankee fans and say down with the Republicans.
About the only
difference I could hear between the arguments in U.S. on leap years and the
arguments I was hearing at the Unit was a different set of words, instead of
Republicans and Democrats I was hearing Conservatives and Labour. Although
occasionally I heard of a third party called Liberal. And in fact at the Unit I
heard Liberal quite often. But back to Fulbourn.
Immediately after tea,
a midget Hillman panel lorry stopped at the Manse and Mrs. Rodwell came and
took me in hand. We proceeded to the top of Pierce Lane and the meeting room in
Mrs. Wilson’s house, The Nook. Here I already saw some familiar faces,
Chamberlin the PTA chairman and the garage owner and sports racing driver. I
was soon introduced to Squire Townley who lived, of course, in the Manor House.
The meeting room
was a beehive of activity. The center of activity was a woman at a table with a
list of names. She kept checking off names and sending off drivers of cars to
pick up errant voters. Occasionally someone would come in with a list of
numbers and the woman at the desk would feverishly check them against her list
and bark out some new commands. After observing tacitly for awhile and noting
that I couldn’t figure out the riddle, I started asking questions. Although I
didn’t get the whole story from any one person and in the correct
chronological order, this is what I found out.
Some weeks before
the election, I presume after a registration of some sort, a notification of
eligibility is sent to each legitimate voter. For the activities at hand this
evening the crucial aspect was that in this mailing each voter received a
number, his identification number. Each Party also got a complete listing of
every voter in the district. Nowhere in this procedure does the voter declare
to which party he belongs. With no primary elections here is no reason why any
voter need disclose to which party he belongs and consequently he does not so
declare.
On election day as
each voter comes to the polls, he is met by 2 or 3 unofficial door checkers.
These checkers are representatives of the Conservative, Labour, and/or Liberal
parties. As each voter enters they merely ask him his number which they
dutifully write down. Every half hour or so, a runner from the party
headquarters comes and picks up this list of numbers from the officially
sanctioned spies. Of course no one need tell these door checkers their numbers,
it is only custom or courtesy which dictates such compliance.
As the runner comes
back from the polls to the headquarters his list of numbers is checked against
the master list. If number 23 for example is Mr. Rodwell his name, already
underlined in blue, is cancelled off as a safe Conservative vote. When number
67, Mr. Perry our neighbor the coalman, comes in they underline his name in
red, a bloody Labour vote, not a true blue Conservative. This works fine until
number 16 has been reported as voting, but who is Mrs. Wells, number 16? She is
new in the village and her name has not already been underlined in blue since
she wasn’t home when Mr. Rodwell’s canvassers called.
Just as in the
U.S., prior to the election each active and on-their-toes party sends out
house to house callers asking each voter to vote for their candidates. In the
U.S., when the door is slammed in the face of Mrs. Welloff when she asks Mrs.
Toilandsweat to vote for Nixon, Mrs. Welloff concludes she has not called upon
a sympathetic and correctly oriented soul. Just so, when Mr. Chamberlin looks
into the unsmiling taunt and haggard face of Mr. Newman the local signalman for
British Railways at his Council home, when extolling the virtues of Mr.
Macmillan’s government he concludes Mr. Newman is not a true blue safe and sure
Conservative. The results of such canvassing and other circumstantial evidence
helps the local party decide whether to true blue or to bloody red each name on
their list.
Even so many names
are not categorized at all. So with Mrs. Wells. She didn’t live in Council (low
rent government) housing. Her husband didn’t have an obvious TUC (Trade Union
Council) job, so she could be a Conservative but no one knew. However since she
had already voted the issue wasn’t vital.
The important thing
at this point in the evening was those names still on the list who hadn’t yet
voted. That is those names on the list who hadn’t voted and which were not
bloody red. For each true blue name a car and driver was dispatched post haste.
Then came the uncategorized names. And the council of war. “Does anyone know
the Bates on Cow Lane?” “They read the (London) Times, they are probably with
us.” “What about the Simpsons on Teversham Road?” “They shop at the co-op, let
them walk.” “Who knows the Tabers on Haggis Gap?” “They listen to the third
program, we’d better pick them up.”
Finally all the
cars and drivers were dispatched and it was time to learn more about English
politics. “What about a visit to the polls?” asked my hostess. “Fine, but am I
allowed to go in?” “Certainly, come along.” And so we left the hopping activity
of the committee room and got into the Hillman again. Of course I headed for
the driver’s side, since in U.S. it would not have been the driver’s side. This
was soon straightened out and we set off for the school house. As we entered
two eager souls asked for our numbers. I was ready to retreat and stop my
political education at this point. I
could see me spending my year in England in gaol (jail) for padding the ballot
box. Mrs. Rodwell just told them we were
visiting and on we went inside. In the
hall in front of Headmistress Smith’s office which led to Miss Golding’s room
sat Headmistress Smith and Miss Golding barring the way into the inner sanctum
where the actual voting was done. As
compared to the door checkers, they looked a little more official and somewhat
foreboding (if Miss Golding could look foreboding, and John says yes, she
could). I was hoping Mrs. Rodwell had
decided I’d seen enough since I didn’t know the password from here on in.
Headmistress (now
chief election challenger) Smith smiled broadly and asked facetiously if I had
come to vote. I hastened to add, lest
the walls have Scotland Yard ears, that I was only learning the ABC’s of
English elections, and was not intending to vote. She could understand my interest having
witnessed my interest in school and PTA matters. I somehow had the feeling that I could have
made my inspection more complete but I was happy to remain on the outside
looking in. In any case being in the tow
of the Conservative Party chairman’s wife, I wasn’t sure how many good
Labourites I was alienating.
We soon returned to
the inner sanctum of the Conservative Party Headquarters. By this time I could see how ridiculously
simple an English Parliamentary Election is.
All of this fuss and bother and all the voter does is choose one of two
men, one clearly labeled Conservative, the other Labour (in some districts a
Liberal may also run).
When I think of our
presidential election where you vote for a president and his running mate the
vice-president, a national Representative (essentially what the English were
now voting for), oft-times a Senator (something more like a member for the
House of Lords), a state governor, a state senator, a state representative,
numerous judges, sheriffs, city councilmen, perhaps a mayor, and in California
at least a yes-no vote on about 20 propositions. These propositions to do with
what I thought all those men we were voting for were doing but I guess not.
Anyway going to the polls in a presidential election is a chore, a real job. To
vote intelligently on the propositions it is necessary or desirable to read a
20 to 50 page booklet on all the pros and cons. On the more important ones
thousands of dollars are spent on billboards (which say, “Vote Yes on 3”),
radio commercials (which say, “Vote Yes on 3”), bumper stickers (which say,
“Vote Yes on 3”), handbills (which say, “Vote Yes on 3”), and on form letters
(which say, “Vote Yes on 3”). About this time some people get curious as to
what proposition 3 is. By carefully reading the newspaper you might find out
what proposition 3 is. It probably has to do with taking the fluorine out of
drinking water, or removing the tax free provision on church parking lots (car
parks). You still don’t know whether yes
means you favor the proposition or not. For example the fluorine proposition
was worded such that if you favored the proposition you voted no. Since, other
things being equal people tend to vote yes on propositions no one was quite
certain after that election how many people wanted fluoridated water and how
many did not. This is no real problem however since they just put the
proposition on again at the next election and so it goes. An old age pension
plan gets on repeatedly because the vote comes out differently every election.
But back to Merrie
Olde England. It hardly seemed to be worthwhile to go to all the bother to
vote if you have only to choose one of two men. You could just as easily flip a
coin. After each district elects its representative (and the representative
need not live in the area he represents) the collective representatives in
Parliament then select their own leader, who becomes Prime Minister. The voters
themselves do not select the prime minister, they only select their own MP
(Member of Parliament).
Before I got to
England I always considered the Parliamentary system to reflect the will of the
people better than our system in as much as the Prime Minister always is the
leader of the party who has the most MP’s. However my English friends just
about argued me out of my point of view. They point out that we have an
election very two years and if voter sentiment changes our House of Representatives
immediately reflects this change. My impression of the British system was that
if a major issue came up they just called an election and essentially elected
themselves through their MP’s the Prime Minister who represented the prevailing
voter sentiment. My British friends informed me this could be done but by law elections
were only necessary every five years. Therefore a party with a large majority
could flaunt the populace for a full five years regardless of the changed
sentiments of the populace. If the majority party at the end of three or four
years sees it has a strong chance of reelection, that might fade in a year or
two, they call an election. In other words the majority party can call for the
election whenever it is to their advantage as long as they do it within five
years of the last election.
So much for
political systems. The polls had now closed and I was expecting a hectic night
of awaiting for results. Not in Fulbourn; by counting the true blues who had
voted and the bloody reds, my friends concluded Fulbourn at least was safe for
another five years. They suggested a minor sort of celebration but no one was
really interested and the group dissolved before my very eyes just as if
someone had made a motion for adjournment.
Next morning’s
paper heralded, “Conservatives Pull Hat Trick.” This meant they had won their
third consecutive election. (The hat trick is cricket for getting three batters
out on three bowls, why it is called a hat trick I don’t know.) I noted my
colleagues at the Unit were not nearly as happy as my Fulbourn neighbors. This
did not surprise me as my scientific colleagues in the U.S. also tend to the
left.
I now had it made
in the village. John had gotten us into the God-fearing group; my educational
trip to the PTA and subsequent draft onto the board got me into the scholarly
circles; and now I had met the solid citizens, the local Conservative bigwigs.
I had yet to meet the shopkeepers, the scouting people, the other overseas
visitors, and the largest untapped group of all, the general workers. But all
in due course.
For most of their
home games, fewer than 30 people (23 plus us watched the Cambridgeshire High
School for Boys first eleven Rugby team. When they played Perse, there may have
been 93. In neither Rugby nor Cricket did anyone seem to care who won. As I got
the story it wasn’t the game but the get together afterwards that counted. The
point is athletics were relatively non-competitive at least below the Oxford
vs. Cambridge level. Not that each man and team didn’t play to win but I heard
the coach tell the boys more than once “That wasn’t a very sporting thing to
do.” Breaking or stretching rules beyond the bounds of good sportsmanship just
wasn’t Cricket.
However, in the
classroom every boy was graded in every test and homework assignment. His marks
were well known to one and all. Each term, in every subject, John’s 30 member
class was listed from 1 to 30 in order of their marks. On the bases of all
subjects each boy had his class standing at the end of each term. I had the
impression that the competitive spirit was directed more at scholastic
achievement and less at athletic prowess.
Even in Sunday
School competition had its place. Starting the first full month in Mrs. Wood’s
Sunday School class Tom came home with the following tale:
“Mrs. Wood told us
to write our version of the story of Joseph.”
“Whatayoumean
write, you can’t write yet.”
“She said if we
couldn’t write we could draw pictures.”
“For next Sunday?”
“No, we have all
month.”
“Will everyone do
it?”
“Yes, she is giving
a prize for the best story.”
“Well, we’ll worry
about it later.”
“I want to start
right now.”
“Do you know the
story of Joseph?”
“No, you tell me
what to draw and I’ll draw it.”
So started our,
Tom’s and mine, study of Joseph. I read a little while Tom listened. That
didn’t work too well. Too many big words, not enough action. What did it mean?
So I read, then paraphrased the story in my own words. Still “What do I draw?”
So finally, “Tom, why not draw a picture of some men bringing bundles of wheat
to another man to stack.” “OK” and off to work he went. A little later, “What
shall I draw now?” “A caravan (the camel kind, not a house trailer)” This,
continued for four weeks.
“A many colored
coat.”
“Lean ears and fat
ones.”
“A rich man with
servants.”
“Building silos.”
“Pleading men.”
“Family reunion.”
Before it was over
Tom had a real collection which when pieced together formed a complete and
understandable story. He even copied on each picture the appropriate Biblical
phrase.
He was still quite
unhappy, since the others were writing their’s. What really made him unhappy
was that the others of his age could read the Bible passages and he couldn’t.
We cured this somewhat by having him memorize the particular passage assigned
for the day, and this worked pretty well.
Anyway came ‘Der
Tag’, the day of judgment, when the class, with a little discrete direction
from Mrs. Wood, would decide who had the best story, pictures or writing. Tom
had done a good job on his pictures and he had stacks of them. His tale read
like the comic strips and this seemed to appeal to his classmates, he won.
The prize; a tin of
sweets (Turkish Delight). We had been wondering for a month what the prize
would be, which only showed we were new to England. Hard candies, toffees, gum
drops, and the like are the standard “sweet” in England and the kids (and their
parents) love sweets. At each of the village grocers the most prominent display
was row after row of large glass jars containing every variety of these jaw
crackers and tooth eroderers. When
mommies or older sisters would leave babies in prams (the babies, in prams
could be up to 3 years old) outside of stores, they would pop one of these
pacifiers into the mouth of the not too patient infant.
As the dads and
moms bicycled home from work they would stop for these morsels of quick energy
in order to make, the last mile. It is no wonder that the shire dental officer
speaking at the P.T.A. told one all, “The condition of teeth in Britain is
horrible, the world’s worst teeth.” He listed as reasons, “Too many sweets, not
enough milk, not enough dentists.” It is interesting to note at this point the
difference between socialized medicine and socialized dentistry. Medical
doctors get paid a set rate for every patient on their lists, more or less
regardless of how often they see the said patient. Obviously if the doctor can
keep them well and happy he keeps himself among the idle (not very) rich (also
not very). Dentists on the other hand get set fees from the state depending on
services performed. Fillings, large, get
him more than fillings, small. Likewise extractions, molars, pays more than
cleaning. Therefore, since he has more
patients than he can handle anyway he tends to make fillings large, and
extractions, molars; and not examinations and cleanings.
But back to Tom’s
tin of Turkish Delights. He got most of
them home, his class was small and relatively polite. Now we had a new problem. The sweets were pretty good, especially to
those to whom caution was a concept not yet learned. Even momma liked the candy, or the tin. I
must admit the tins they put toffees and certain other candies in are both
beautiful and useful. They are painted with colorful pictures of castles, or
fairytale scenes, or most anything. They make wonderful boxes for foreign
coins, needles, thimbles, and the like; souvenir ticket-stubs, marbles and
new candy.
Dan just loved to
unwrap one of these sweets. However, he didn’t really like them and we found them
on table clothes, bedspreads, rugs, in mittens, on the seats of pants (formerly
on chairs), etc.
Charlie didn’t like
them much, he just plain liked milk. Whenever he asked for milk we knew he was
either tired and about ready to go to sleep; feeling lonely and unloved; bored;
knew Mamma was busy doing something she couldn’t stop in order to open the
fridge; or maybe even hungry.
Bill, our boy with
the worst teeth and appetite loved them and was always sneaking in between
meals and ruining his teeth and appetite.
Tom, himself was so
suggestible about things like tooth aches, etc. that his conscience never
allowed him to enjoy his sweets or develop an uncontrollable lust.
However, we noted that at about this time Tom and Bill became very popular with
their village playmates. At first these included many Sunday School classmates,
including Della Joy Woods. The crowd, however, soon grew to include school
chums, mostly girls.
At our house girls were
just barely tolerable. The boys sometimes admitted Mom was necessary, they just
couldn’t quite understand why she had to be a girl. In California they were so
busy playing ball that the few hardy girls who did stray into our yard soon saw
they were no competition for ball and usually withered away again. The best way
to start a fight was to have Bill call John, “Debbie” and on down the line.
These English
girls, however, were made of sterner stock. They chased Tom and Bill until the
boys about dropped in their tracks. They could climb the back fence into the
Eastern Electricity Boards transformer station, which our boys hadn’t thought
of yet. They also showed Tom and Bill how to climb atop the shed roof, to the
top of the apple tree and about everything else we had either told them not to
do or that they hadn’t yet thought of.
Some of these girls
even lasted beyond the prize tin of sweets, in fact through many new box
designs we had found. I’m sure it was these girls that put the final burst of
running speed into Tom, which was to pay off later at sports day. They
certainly kept the boys trim but didn’t help Mamma’s disposition any. These
English girls like all kids had a little difficulty in hearing certain
statements. For example, any sentence that started in don’t, like: Don’t carry
Dan out in the yard and drop him. Don’t get the ball out from among the
transformers. Don’t give Dan anymore sweets. Don’t throw the coke, at the
neighbors cat. And don’t dig that hole under the fence. They even had a little
difficulty with a few Anglicized American non-don’t statements; like Run along
now it’s time for tea. Or let the neighbors cat go home now.
We were used to
running a general neighborhood supervised playground. But we weren’t used to
the stamina and imperviousness of our village cousins. We were about ready to
stop buying any more sweets and/or hiring a trainer to teach Bill and Tom to
run faster when one afternoon Mary heard a terrible crash. She ran out to see
which boy or girl had bashed which other with a cricket bat but found only our
boys, the flying coat tails of many girlish forms and a five foot section of
cast iron eave trough laying on the sidewalk.
Bill and Tom said
they weren’t around at the time but knew that the greatest tomboy of them all,
Sally, was trying to climb up to the coal shed roof. We pieced together that
part of this maneuver including hanging on said eave. We were afraid she might
have been hurt but actually never found out. Apparently the girls figured they
had gone too far. We didn’t see any of them for a month and then only one or
two at a time for a few minutes. Our boys had lost their ardent Amazon suitors.
I heard no wailing, just, “Let’s play Rugby,” again.
We soon had the
boys in school, had made our church (chapel) connection, had discovered four of
the five village grocery stores, found the butcher, the barber, the milkman and
paper boys, had the boys’ shoes fixed at the cobblers and got our name on the
baker’s list for bread on Saturday. Now came the family doctor problem.
Dr. Jones lived and
had his surgery (office) right around the corner from Pierce Lane on Apthorpe
Street. I had been advised by my professional colleagues that we were eligible
to participate in the National Health Service scheme, but that to further
Anglo-American relations it might be well to become private (paying) patrons. I
later found that a great portion of the petrol (gasoline) tax, which about
doubled the price of petrol went toward supporting the National Health Service,
it obviously didn’t go for maintaining or building roads. Since, by British
standards, I was a big user of petrol (and milk, food, meats, shoes, etc.) I
was doing my part on National Health without knowing it.
In any case, one
evening after returning from the Unit where I had an office and carried on my
research, I made a trip over to see Dr. Jones. It turned out he was on a
holiday and his partner Dr. Hanton was there. Drs. Jones and Hanton did not, by
any means, share the same surgery or have the same list of patients. In fact,
Dr. Hanton’s surgery was in Cherry Hinton an eastern district of Cambridge. It
was only that they were each others relief for such things as holidays or other
emergencies.
I stated my problem
to Dr. Hanton, namely, “Should I, an American, enter our family on the National
Health Service or as private patients?”
He saw no problem.
“With a family of five boys you’d better get on National Health”
“Would he and/or
Dr. Jones think this a violation of English good will without contributing our
share of the cost?”
“Not at all, after
all who helped England back on her feet after World War II?”
“What had other
Americans done?”
“Joined up, no
qualms of conscience.”
“We will
compromise, we’ll list John, Tom, Bill, Charlie, and Dan, but not ourselves.”
“Suit yourself, I’d
sign up the whole family.”
“You don’t know
Mary, my wife. She doesn’t believe in not paying our own way. She believes in
giving not receiving. In fact, I don’t know if she will go along with signing
on the boys.”
“Here are the
cards, have her cosign them along with you and we’ll place the boys names on
our lists.”
As I expected, Mary
wasn’t too happy with this arrangement, but since we were in no financial
position to chance a medical catastrophe she reluctantly signed. However, just
as at home, our boys were remarkably healthy. We needed the doctor on only two
occasions. The first was in connection with Tom’s sudden attack of schoolitis,
which will be described in a later chapter, called Tom’s Black School Days. The
other makes up this tale.
I had just returned
from a three day meeting of the British Psychological Society in Hull in time
for a special school holiday. Because of the extra holiday John’s boy scout
troop was on a camp out. John was out in a nearby pasture with his village
troopers. Knowing how happy grown up boys are to see parents and young brothers
when on a big independent adventure of their own, Mary and I vowed not to go
check on John’s state of health.
However, as the
long English June twilight continued on, who should come walking up the street
but the Collins. The Collins were even newer in the village than we were. Laura
was a red headed Scottish lass who had been a wartime WAC. Douglas was an
agricultural adviser specializing in the feeding of pigs. He was an English
civil servant. Their oldest boy Duncan, like our John, was in the camp out.
Whether Duncan liked it or not they were going out to see how he was doing. How
would we like to come along?
Under the
circumstances we got shoes on and dirt off all boys and started walking toward
the Manor House. We soon found the camp, walked around the nettles and found
the boys watering down the soup. It was apparent from the appearance of John’s
and Duncan’s hands and faces that the water had not been used for much else.
After a lengthy
talk with the assistant scout master and camp out leader about sleep and the
lack of it, rain and the abundance of it, and boys the futility of it, we
herded our 4 and the Collins 2 younger ones back towards the Manse. It was now
9 o’clock but still very light. As we parents sat around discussing world
affairs the boys, the Collins had nothing but future Kings likewise, started
running and playing.
We were the
Collins’ favorite Americans ever since Mary first met Laura at the Church (not
the Chapel) young wives meeting. In a conversation about how we liked the
people in this our temporary domicile, Mary said, “Oh the British people
are.....” Mary got no further “British people, thats what I like to hear, not
English but British”. “You see we Scots think the southern inhabitants of these
isles, the English that is, are not quite on a par with the northern or
Scottish people, but the British people as a whole, God Bless them are the
worlds best”.
Up to this point in
our stay we really weren’t aware that English and British were not synonymous.
Laura reminded us, however, that the designation Elizabeth II was true of
England, only, not Scotland. The new Queen is Elizabeth I in Scottish minds. We
realized that all is not calm across the British Mason-Dixon line. Mary had
quite accidentally used the more generic term for just the right audience and
we had a fast English-Yankee friend. Laura even showed us the difference in
design on current one shilling pieces. The English version had 3 lions
(representing England, Scotland and Wales) while the Scottish version had but
one. Both were used interchangeable by
any but Scotsmen or numismatists.
About the time we
had decided that all English speaking people were the worlds best and our two
families were examples of the best of them, we heard a crash, saw two boys
bounce off of each other and heard one loud and lamentable cry. It was Johnny
Collins who was crying and, in fact, seemed temporarily dazed and soon had a
half egg on his forehead. Since Tom was not crying and, in fact, since we had
long since given up thinking much about minor collisions, measles, and cuts and
bruises we didn’t pay much attention to Tom.
Laura, however,
noticed that the cut under Tom’s eye was indeed a deep one and didn’t stop
bleeding fast or easily. In fact, after a few more minutes of leisurely
goodbyes we decided, on Laura’s suggestion, to take Tom up to see Dr. Jones and
maybe get a stitch in his cut.
I knew Dr. Jones
was not apt to have surgery at 9:30 Sunday evening, but also knew that, in
general, doctors expect emergencies. So with a quiet and subdued Tom beside me,
I walked around the corner to the residence of Dr. Jones. Of course, no one
answered the door and we were starting out the front gate when we met the
doctor’s guitar playing boy. He saw Tom and guessed we were looking for his
father. He told us this was his dad’s night out - we would have to go into
Cherry Hinton (Cambridge) and see Dr. Hanton. He gave us the address on Cherry
Hinton Road and off we went.
At about 10 o’clock
we knocked on Dr. Hanton’s door and were admitted to his surgery. He took one
look at Tom and asked, “What happened?”
“A collision with
another boy”
“How come Tom
wasn’t in bed, don’t you know it is nearly 10 o’clock. If children were in bed
by 8 they couldn’t be getting in trouble, could they?”
“Well, you see ...
just home from Hull ... boy scouts ... Scottish friends … running ... crash”.
“And another thing
two minutes later and I would have been closed too ... Americans .. all hours
of the night.....”
“Come on in here
Tom and lay down”.
“Should require two
stitches, maybe one will do”.
“Should really
deaden area, but that requires a punch with a needle also, so be brave Tom and we’ll
just sew it up with no local anesthetic.”
“This might hurt,
Tom, but be brave and maybe daddy will buy you a lolly”.
Tom is as stoic as
they come. He may have grimaced - I was in the next room, but not a sound.
“Say that is one
brave boy”.
“We are all done
now”.
“Dad, that boy
deserves a fine present”.
Again one of the
boys came through under pressure. Whereas Dr. Hanton was far from happy at our
initial intrusion, he was now fairly beaming and patting Tom on the shoulder.
“You’ll need
something to put over this to keep the air out, but its late now for finding a
Chemist. Ah yes, here is some”.
He gave us a bottle
full of purple liquid and liked to never found a cork, but finally got it
corked and us out.
“See Dr. Jones on
Saturday to remove the stitch”.
“Good boy Tom,
don’t forget that lolly dad”.
“Good bye”.
Tom will always
have a visible reminder of England (and Britain). The effect is the same as the
dueling wound in Germany and Tom can wear it as proudly. Although Dr. Hanton
wasn’t too happy with me for keeping Tom from his bed, but he was mighty proud
of Tom who in the spirit of the words of advice on our passports “represented
America honorably as an unofficial ambassador of good will”.
My major concern
regarding my whole trip to England was how to keep warm. I wasn’t really
worried about the 5 boys, Mary would somehow handle them. Nor did the prospect
of buying, equipping, and utilizing a campster (having never camped a day in my
life) worry me much. Schools, housing, finances, scheduling--all of these I
knew could be handled. But how was I going to keep warm? Even under my desk in
sunny California I had a 200 watt lamp bulb to keep my feet warm. My blood
pressure is low and when sitting at my desk hour after hour, I had the feeling
my circulation only reached my right hand, and on occasions my brain. I used no
other parts of my body, my circulatory system knew this, and my feet got cold.
And the stories I’d
heard of Britain--no central heating, rainy, foggy. Even that body temperature
was 98°, not 98.6°. Nor was I too happy to read in the paper soon after my
arrival when commenting on the heat wave, “On the beach temperatures in the sun
reached 108 degrees. Sea temperature was 67°--seven degrees more than normal room
temperature.” To me, 67° is five degrees below room temperature. Even in the
few hours I spent in my office at the Research Unit in Cambridge in late May my
ankles were cold. Of course they’d turned the heating system off in April.
By October, after our
hectic summer, I had time to worry about my major problem. And by October I had
a major problem. It really wasn’t too cold at the Unit, since they actually
heated each office in the old stately mansion. Donald Broadbent, the director,
knew of my malady and housed me in a small top floor room. If heat rises my
garret, with its gabled ceiling, should have been the warmest nook in the
manor. And if their heating system worked in large, medium, and small rooms, it
should have worked like a charm in my walled-in cell. I would estimate that the
volume of my nook was 250 cubic feet, or the floor space about 40 square feet.
With filing cabinet and desk, and table for equipment, the floor area was about
halved. And even this remaining area was not all usable since the gabled
ceiling came perilously close to head height. The volume of my loft was such
that just the addition of me reduced the volume of air by an appreciable
amount.
However, these
Britons are indeed ingenious, especially as regards heat (or lack of it). The
heating system at the Unit was as novel as it was inadequate. In each room was
what I figured to be a radiator. It was rectangular; about two feet high, two
feet long and nine inches wide. It was painted brown, which is fine for
radiating heat. It was not, however, a multiple set of radiating fins. In
fact, there were no fins at all, just a smooth brown metal box. But from
October to April these decorative chests were warm to the touch, not hot to the
touch, just warm, so I deduced they must figure somehow into the heating
system.
If these otherwise
useless bits of furniture were part of the heating system, there were still
many things about the system which puzzled me. First, I had never seen, heard
of, or would I expect to find a furnace at the Unit. Nor had I ever seen or
heard coal or fuel oil lorries depositing their wares. If a central heating
furnace existed, hot water should have been available via the regular plumbing
system. Small electric water heaters would not have been necessary above the
wash basins in the lavoratories. (The word lavatory is pronounced LAVatory with
an accent on the first syllable, where it should be. Because of the possibility
of confusion between two similar sounding words whose meanings are highly
dissimilar, the word laboratory is pronounced labORatory in England, the accent
on the second syllable, where it should not be.) But back to my suspected
radiators. I noted these “radiators” had no connecting pipes for hot water or
steam. In fact, there was no apparent connection of any sort, no wires, gas
hoses, or pipes. This source of heat had me baffled. Were there little men with
blow torches inside? An atomic pile perhaps? Not enough sunlight in England for
a solar furnace.
One day at lunch I
happened to remember the riddle of the unhot, unconnected radiators and asked
Donald about it. Then he told me that these were really electric fires
(heaters). They sat right over the plugs so no wires were visible. But the
ingenious thing was that the major component of the fire was a cement block.
During the night when there was not much drain on the Eastern Electricity
Board’s source of power, the fires at the Unit were turned on. And so during
the night these blocks of cement were thoroughly heated and probably heated the
rooms to a livable 70°. The blocks held the heat and radiated away throughout
the day, keeping the larger rooms at, say, 56°, the medium ones at 60°, the
small ones at 64°, and mine at 68°. All the Britons were happy with their 56°,
60°, and 64° but I was not happy with my 68°. I was therefore allowed an
auxiliary electric floor fire. The kind that burn a hole through anything in
their focus and don’t even faze anything else. My plan was simple, I directed
my extra fire against the large dark green filing cabinet which in turn acted
as a very efficient re-radiator.
This of course was
only part of the solution. I attended a few lectures at Cambridge University
and had tea in the Common Room at the Unit. These rooms tended to be British
warm and not American warm, so some portable heat was necessary. My first
attempt at this was a stop at Walkers Clothiers for Men. Here I purchased two
pair of knee-length, medium thickness (1/16 inch) wool stockings. During
October these worked fairly well. In November I purchased two pair of
knee-length wool socks of the heavy variety (about 3/8 inch thick). These were
wonderful, except of course none of my shoes fit any more. Anyway by December
my feet were cold again.
One Saturday
morning in the village the boys pressured me into a trip to the cobbler’s shop.
They had observed their compatriots were wearing Wellies (short for Wellingtons
or Wellington boots). It is not hard to imagine the derivation of the name.
Some resourceful advertiser, circa 1815, had persuaded a certain contemporary
war hero to endorse his product, a knee or hip length rubber boot worn without
shoes. I can see the full-page ads now in The Times. “What was the secret
weapon that won at Waterloo?” They probably even sent Matthew Brady I to the
scene to sketch the battle. His sketches conspicuously (but only by
coincidence) showing the British troops in knee-length rubber boots. Or in the
Observer, “What’s good enough for General Wellington is good enough for you,
wear Wellingtons.”
Regardless of who
made the fortune popularizing rubber boots (and I’ll bet Wellington didn’t get
rich off the subsequent sale of them), Wellingtons was now the generic term for
boots.
In the process of
procuring these necessary military supplies for the boys, George, the cobbler,
turned super salesman, asked if I wanted some. A light started to shine in the
heat area of my brain and I started nibbling at his bait. You see, Wellies are
worn in place of shoes, not on top of shoes. With my new woolen socks I needed
new shoes. And with December coming I needed warm new shoes. Wellies aren’t
exactly shoes, but in the rain or snow it would appear to me that intelligent
people would be wearing Wellies anyway. Being a foreigner I wouldn’t be
expected to know whether it was going to rain or not. If anyone was curious
about my Wellies, I could always reply, “Isn’t it going to rain today?”
Just to be sure my
feet would be warm I bought Wellies large enough to fit over my wool,
soft-soled, stocking style slippers. And this indeed did do the trick.
Quarter-inch thick, knee-length wool stockings, under ankle-length woolen
slippers, under Wellington knee-length boots, and my feet and ankles were warm,
even during the lectures at Cambridge University.
I soon found the
same three layers of heat insulation worked wonders in my state of near
hibernation in my loft at the Unit. At the Unit I would condescend to change
into regular shoes for tea (and then hurry back). Of course the Britishers used
a slightly different approach. Sweaters were their first defense against
“normal room temperature”. I always found, however, that a sweater worn as a
sweater did nothing but make me sweat under my arms. If worn to keep my feet
warm I always forgot and tripped over my double-footed leggings. Sweaters were
not for feet and therefore not for me. A secondary defense worn by one chap at
the Unit was a type of wrist glove, or glove without fingers. Apparently his
Achilles heel was on the other set of limbs.
In place of the
British sweaters and wrist warmers, my tertiary defenses against “normal room
temperature” included jackets, heavy socks, and heavy pants. I bought a pair of
pants at Walkers that were so heavy I could hardly sit down, they didn’t bend.
The cloth was at least an eighth inch thick and tightly woven. These pants had
certain characteristics of corrugated cardboard, namely you couldn’t really
make a sharp bend in them. Mary never could really iron a crease in them.
One wearing after
ironing these pants, and they took on the form of a cross section of an
American football. You couldn’t even hang them up on a hanger and get the two
sides of the pant legs to lay together. But they were warm, and fitted
marvelously over Wellies. You could never tell whether they flared out from the
internal pressure of the Wellies, or because of the potential energy ironed
into the front and back crease. These pants came the closest to standing up by
themselves as anything I’d ever seen. Even Bill’s pants when dried out after he
fell into his uncle’s hog wallow couldn’t stand beside my English pants.
Although my
grooming would not class me among Esquire’s best-dressed ten, or ten thousand,
or ten million, I was warm. Had Esquire concentrated on the other end of the
best-dressed distribution I might have made it. But warmth was my goal, let all
other chips fall where they may.
Mary and the boys
come from a different strain. You can’t get them cold. The boys wore knee pants
all year, as did all other English schoolboys. It was difficult to get them to
wear their Macks (Macintosh coats) to school or anywhere else. After all, none
of them had ever worn coats to school and why should they start now. As a
matter of fact, they were just about right. It didn’t really get cold in
southern England that winter. As I told my British friends, the only place it’s
cold in England is inside your buildings. It only snowed once (about 2 inches
and it was on the ground less than a week). There was frost on my windscreen
(windshield) on several mornings but it stayed below freezing for over 24 hours
only twice. Subtract twenty degrees from the temperature and southern England
is very similar to southern California, a very mild climate. The major reason
people (American people at least) get cold in England is that they never get a
chance to really get warmed up. If you are half frozen from sitting in a room
heated to 60 degrees, then go out into 50-degree weather, you get cold.
Mary and I were
both raised in America’s mid-west. Every winter the temperature would fall to
minus 20 degrees (or as the English would say, 52 degrees of frost). However,
our houses were heated to 70 +2 degrees. Before we went outdoors we were warm.
When we came back in we could get warm again. Inside we didn’t wear heavy
clothes, outside we did. The trouble with England is its mild climate. It
doesn’t get cold enough for people to get serious about it.
Take the plumbing
for example. Granted The Manse was built before running hot and cold water and flush
toilets were in vogue. And granted that if plumbing is added later it is easier
to put the pipes on the outside of the house. But houses much newer than The
Manse had “inside plumbing” with outside pipes. All of the downstairs drains,
for example, went through the nearest wall to an outside drain pipe or to an
outside open catch basin. Drains from upstairs or from the toilet went into
outside pipes. Outside of the kitchen and scullery there was an open drain.
This drain was covered by a cast iron grill for keeping apple cores and other
odds and ends out of the sewer. The dish water, and washing machine water all
flowed out of open pipes above this drain. Every month or so I would go out and
clean all the crud, mostly grease from the dishwater, off of this grill so the
waste water could get into the sewer.
About five feet out
in the yard from this drain was a fairly large covering over the sewer line. By
lifting this cover you could see, and easily reach with a short stick, an open
4 inch pipe. The bottom half of the tile (or cast iron pipe) was there but not
the top half. This was the clean-out plug. The drains from upstairs and the
toilets did connect directly to this sewer line but the down pipes were outside
of the house. The overflow from the bathtub, and from the toilet cistern, were
just short, small pipes that ran through the outside wall, period, or, as they
say in Britain, full stop. Any overflow just fell through the air to the
sidewalk below.
Noting that outside
drain pipes and outside water pipes were very common, I surmised that 1) it
didn’t really get very cold here, and 2) the English are daft. I asked Donald,
my interpreter of British customs, about these outside pipes and open drains.
“Don’t they ever freeze up in the winter?” I asked. With a disdainful look of
one who is being unfairly criticized, he answered, “Yes, they do, but don’t you
see if they are outside it is easier to get at them to thaw them out.” Yes,
indeed, I thought, but I didn’t think I’d write a beneficial suggestion home to
our less farsighted plumbers.
Another aspect of
their plumbing system gave me great challenge in heating up the upstairs
bathroom at the Manse. The American safety valve sytem in hot water systems is
the thermostat. Sometime before the water in the completely closed system
changes from water to steam, and the closed system changes violently to an open
system, a thermostat turns off the gas flame and the system remains closed and
in one piece. In the English systems I saw, the water is heated by an Aga
(coke) cooker. This cooker is usually on 24 hours a day and is used 1) for
cooking, 2) to keep the kitchen warm, 3) to burn the garbage in 4) to dry
dishes on, 5) to hang wet clothes above, and 6) to heat the water in the hot
water tank. This system does not lend itself to a thermostat very conveniently.
So they use an open water system. Somewhere way up high in the house, perhaps
in the attic, but in the Manse on the wall high above the bathtub is an open
cistern (bowl). A float valve allows water into this cistern whenever any is
drained out lower down in the system. The cistern itself connects directly
through the Aga cooker to the hot water tank. If the hot water tank really got
too hot its pressure would relieve itself up through this open cistern which
would merely overflow through an open pipe through the outside wall. A
foolproof system.
Obviously the water
in this supply cistern was outside cold and whatever heat there might have
been in the bathroom was used up to bring this water to room temperature. My
scheme was very simple. To convert this heat sink to a heat source all I needed
to do was to run hot water out of the bathtub top, disable the float valve
momentarily, collect this hot water and pour it back into the cistern. In
principle and in practice this system worked fine. I could make myself a hot
water radiator in the upstairs bathroom. The difficulty came in the operation
of my system. The cistern was just six inches below the ceiling and could only
be reached by standing with one foot on the bathtub and the other on the
toilet. Pans and buckets were too large to pour between the ceiling and the top
of the cistern so I had to use a quart bottle. The water pump in this hot water
heating system was me, using a quart bottle and balancing on the edge of the
bathtub. At least one person got heated up in this process--me, the pump. What
with bending over double to catch the water in the bottle and then stretching
on tiptoe to pour it into the cistern, and repeating this procedure until the
cistern was full of steaming water, I was heated up. Incidentally, the water
didn’t have to be very hot to steam up a 40° bathroom.
Although this
system worked fine, I soon gave it up and just filled the bathtub full of
steaming water and then waited a half hour for the heat to equalize around the
room. The trouble with this simple system was that the bathroom looked like a
steam bath. The steam did not do the nonwater-proofed wallpaper any good
either. In any case, once in the bathtub I soon discovered a new heat leak.
I’ve already mentioned that the overflow on the bathtub was merely a pipe
running directly though the outside wall and terminating there. I don’t know
how much water ever overflowed this way but I can tell you the cold outside air
certainly found its way in. I always set the boys up front by the overflow; I
stayed near the back. One thing about seeing your breath condense in the
bathroom, you don’t tarry long.
Heating the house
by fireplace was a hopeless job, though challenging. The British seemed so
surprised when we indicated that there were other ways to heat a house.
Apparently, for centuries past, coal had been so cheap that allowing ninety per
cent of the heat (and eighty per cent of the smoke) to go up the chimney had
been no real problem. Why install an efficient heating system at great expense
when coal was so cheap? Now that coal is no longer cheap (it’s cheaper to
import it from America), heat is just more scarce (in the houses that is the
warmest air in England is just above the chimney pots on the roof).
Heating with coal
in a fireplace presents many problems. The problem which presents itself first
is, “How do you get a coal fire started?” After having run out of paper and
small pieces of wood, consultation with Donald led to the following
information: all modern houses have gas outlets near the fireplace so you
merely buy a gas poker, ignite it, lay it in the coal, wait a few minutes, and
your coal is ignited. This sounded fine but 1) we had no such outlet near the
fireplace, and 2) we had Dan, who loved to throw switches and valves. Because
of Dan we had our gas service terminated before Dan terminated himself,
ourselves, and the Manse. The gas poker wasn’t our answer, so Donald’s next
suggestion was, “Buy some fire starter.” I wasn’t sure he wasn’t pulling my leg
but I thought I’d ask the next time I went to Webb’s store. Sure enough, there
was such a thing as “fire starter”. Fire starter was some wax-like substance
that was soaked in paraffin (kerosene). It was brown and came in packages about
12" x 6" x 1". Strips about 1 x 1 x 6" could be easily
broken off and these in turn broken up and hidden in the coal. They ignited
easily, burned hot, and usually ignited the coal, but they weren’t cheap. When
Mary and the boys weren’t around I sometimes just poured some paraffin over the
coal, but this was both dangerous and expensive.
The real solution
to this, as to so many problems, came quite by accident. One day a smudgy,
rather uncouth, and persistent little man came around with a lorry full of old
London wooden paving blocks. I’m sure someone told him there were Americans
living in The Manse and that the man of the house had no sales resistance
whatsoever. In any case, he timed his visit when Mary was at the store and I
ended up with a backyard full of wooden, tar-soaked, paving bricks. Any single
brick was as hard to ignite as coal and burned about as long. However, by
splitting these blocks down into slivers, and into small and medium sized
pieces, and by stacking them up properly one match would do the trick. The
advantages of this system were many; the boys built forts out of the blocks in
the back yard, I got lots of chopping exercise each Saturday, and it was easy
to start coal fires. There were, however, a few disadvantages; the tar came off
on boys, melted off and made a tarry mess of the fireplace; and the tar smoke
sooted up the chimney. I’m convinced no self-respecting Britisher would succumb
to burning wooden paving blocks.
One might ask why
anyone would use wood for paving blocks anyway. The answer is that in the good
old days people were not addicted as we are to noise. You see, iron horse shoes
and iron-rimmed carriage wheels on cobble stone, or brick, pavements are noisy.
When streets run under arches, or near cathedrals, or by the bedroom window of
the manor house, these traffic noises are bothersome. Quite obviously, horses’
hooves on wooden blocks make less noise than horses’ hooves on cobblestones. At
least this was my reasoning when I observed one day at Blenheim Palace that the
brick paving suddenly gave way to wooden paving blocks each time the street
passed under an extensive arch or covered passageway.
Now that I knew how
to start a coal fire easily I could concentrate on other problems dealing with
heating a house by multiple fireplaces. We soon decided that one room, other
than the kitchen which was heated by the Aga cooker, was sufficient for weekday
living. The only fireplace we kept going, therefore, was in the dining room.
But even here the question was how to get it warm in time for breakfast. And
the answer was simple: you get up at least an hour before breakfast and
rekindle the fire. By stacking on a very large piece of coal at night and/or
covering the coals with coal dust it was often possible to rekindle the fire
from embers still glowing. This was best heatwise since the room itself wasn’t
so cold. Safetywise I’m sure it wasn’t very smart, even with the wire screen
around the outside.
When guests were
expected we would try to heat up one or two of the parlours. We thought this
required advance planning because it took two or three hours to heat up the
rooms. We found, however, on being invited out one night for dinner that we
were mistaken in this concept. As we left our hosts’ parlour, which was their heated
room, to partake of dinner in their dining room, which was not heated, we found
that the fire was lighted just as we entered. The object of fires seems to be
psychological. If you can see the fire you are supposed to be warmed by it.
Feeling the effects of a fire seemed to be completely secondary. I think we
were told by every Britisher with whom we were bold enough to broach the
subject of heating-systems vs. fireplaces that, “We like to see the open
flame.” Usually followed by, “Don’t you have fireplaces in America?” Mary’s
usual answer was, “Yes, we have them. We use them to arrange furniture around
but not to heat the house with.”
Our Christmas
dinner with the Fergusons, our American Negro friends, pointed out a new
solution to a problem that Mary was beginning to see develop. The problem was
this. When we did heat the parlours and the dining room we had all the
downstairs rooms warm but it was necessary to put on a coat to get from one
room to the next. The hall, which cleanly clove the house into two separate
parts, was an insurmountable heating problem. It was two stories high, was
terminated on the ground floor by two loosely fitting doors, and on the top
floor it was terminated by four open doors into bedrooms, a window and the
usually closed bathroom door. It was impossible to heat the downstairs rooms
and the hall with fireplaces which in any case only heated the rooms by sight,
not feel. So recapitulating, the problem was how to get from the dining room to
the parlour without freezing.
At the Fergusons we
noted, on the landing of their staircase, a fanciful looking wick-burning flame
gadget with a polished reflector behind it. This was a paraffin fire (kerosene
heater). It was a marvel; it gave off lots of heat, it didn’t smell of burned
paraffin, it was pretty, and it was portable. We bought one next day and set it
in the hall by the downstairs bathroom.
A week later a
scandal broke over all England. Said paraffin fires were death traps. It seems
that if these fires were set in a six-knot wind they tended to explode, setting
fire to their surroundings. We treated our new heat source with respect but did
not stop using it. By setting it in the hall it kept the downstairs bathroom
usably warm and kept the hall warm enough so we could take our time walking in
and out of the doors of the downstairs rooms that opened on the hall.
On extremely cold
nights we moved the paraffin fire to the top hall for sleeping. Except for this
there was no heat in the upstairs bedrooms. This lead to a few changes in our
sleeping habits. To begin with, new woolen sleepers for the lot, Dan’s and
Charlie’s with feet. The rest of us slept in heavy wool socks. Next, seven hot
water bottles. When I was bold enough to try reading in bed, my favorite hobby,
I would wear my gloves. It didn’t take anyone long to either dress or to grab
their clothes and head for a heated room. In general, everyone slept like logs.
We soon realized we
were not the only people who had difficulty with heating problems. At Chapel or Church on Sundays no one, except
the minister, took off their coats (or mufflers). I usually took off my gloves, but only so I
could hold the hymnal. I got so I wouldn’t even put on a shirt and tie, or good
suit coat. All anyone ever saw was my
overcoat. I always wore my corrugated
cardboard pants and Wellingtons. During
the singing I could hardly keep my place because I got so interested in
watching the breath condense as my neighbours sang. The same behavior existed
at PTA meetings and at the village theatrical productions. In movies it was
usually the same.
I took John, Tom,
and Bill up to London to see “Carmen” at Convent Garden. I was worried for a
week about what to wear. Wellingtons at Convent Garden somehow seemed out of
place and only reluctantly did I wear shoes on the gala night. I was pleasantly
surprised. Either someone had been bold enough to install central heating or
they have figured out a way to conserve all the body-generated heat. It was
delightfully warm, or else I was so absorbed in the performance that I forgot
about my ankles. The boys were certainly enraptured. On our return I told Mary,
who sat with Dan and Charlie, that Convent Garden was warm and packed. After a
slight pause she answered, “Naturally, everyone goes to keep warm.”
By February we had
solved, or learned to live with, the heat problem. My solution was Wellington
boots worn at all times except to bed. I was getting so accustomed to our
fireplace that I threw caution to the wind. We were expecting guests and I
figured, since I had a whole collection of cardboard boxes to get rid of, I
would superheat our room by burning said boxes in the fireplace. I knew
corrugated cardboard was hard to get into small pieces, and burned hot. I figured
that a few hot and roaring flames going up the chimney might burn away some
soot (primarily of the London paving block variety) and save us a visit from
the chimney sweep. After the second or third box, which did indeed throw off a
terrific heat, and did indeed shoot flames up the chimney, I happened to glance
out of our front window. I wondered where the fog had come from, it had been
perfectly clear a few moments ago. I then had the rather sickening feeling
that perhaps that wasn’t fog but maybe it was smoke. And further, I had the
feeling that the smoke might be coming from The Manse. It got no better and
soon I couldn’t even see across the street and I had the feeling that I was
probably not making many new friends among my neighbors. I stopped piling on
more fuel and was not very patiently waiting for the holocaust to die down.
However, the room was still piled high with the boxes I had originally planned
to burn.
Suddenly I heard a
voice from behind the stack of piled-up boxes. It was not a very pleasant voice
and the words were something to the effect, “What in heaven’s name are you
doing?” These weren’t the exact words but they bear on the same subject. I
think the exact words referred to the other place, where flames were quite in
order. I looked up and noticed that the speaker was none other than my old
acquaintance (and perhaps the one man in the village I had reason to believe
wasn’t my friend), the village Bobby.
He informed me in
short terse sentences that 1) I was creating a nuisance (this I knew), 2) it
was very dangerous to cause flames to shoot up a chimney since chimney soot did
indeed burn and if perchance there was a leak in the chimney, said flames might
cause the house to catch on fire, 3) that red hot soot issuing forth from chimneys
created a fire hazard, particularly to thatched roofs, 4) the more usual way to
clean out chimneys was by utilizing the services of a chimney sweep (see the
coalman next door, his assistant was a chimney sweep), 5) in addition to being
the village Bobby he was the village fire watcher, 6) he was luckily (I somehow
would rather use the word unfortunately) passing along Pierce Lane when he saw
this erupting volcano, 7) really this sort of thing was against the law, 8)
Americans are somewhat stupid anyway, 9) I should cease and desist, 10) this
friendly chat should be considered a warning, and 11) cheerio.
We did indeed hire
the services of our neighbor’s apprentice and told him to tell the next tenants
of The Manse, the Pollacks, to use that shed full of cardboard boxes for a gay
Guy Fawkes night bonfire.
Our social life has
never flown very high. Neither Mary nor I are much for socializing. We belong
to no social, yacht, bridge, nor dancing clubs. We spend our time in church work,
PTA work, scouting, little League, and I play in the La Jolla Civic Orchestra.
Our going out other than picnics and pot lucks for the above activities
consisted of taking the boys to our favorite pizza house, Pernicanos. When an occasional office party comes about
we go but only reluctantly (and usually leave early). We are not exactly
anti-social, it is only that we have neither the time, inclination, nor desire
for purely social activities.
In England things
were somewhat different. Our church and civic activities were much reduced and
we were out to learn all we could about English life including their social
life. We were somewhat out of the ordinary, being aliens and so were invited
out quite a bit. At first before Dan became home-without-momma broken we didn’t
do much without the boys but by the Christmas season we even ventured out alone
on occasion.
Our first outing
was for the whole family at the, home of Dr. and Mrs. Christopher Poulton. This
was a Sunday afternoon affair while we were still in our caravan at Waverly. It
was a warm day, and for England it was a real scorcher. The plastic swimming
pools were out, and we had hardly settled down when the Poultons asked the boys
if they wanted to join their girls in the wading pool. Of course our boys did
and we were delighted, they hadn’t come close to that much water for months.
The Poultons had two girls and a girl cousin. The girls ranged in age from 6 to
9. As soon as our boys agreed to the wading-splashing affair the girls
immediately stripped down to their birthday suits. Excess modesty seems to be a
unique American trait.
At least we were
continually shocked, on the continent particularly, by the number of little
girls swimming in birthday suits, and at adults changing clothes right on the
beach. We didn’t point out these
differences in public bathing behavior to the boys, nor did we try to act as if
anything was amiss.
It was quite
obvious however that our boys were not yet accustomed to this type of thing.
They stood aghast watching the proceedings but not reciprocating, and in fact
they were somewhat at a loss to what they really should do. The Poultons
encouraged them to join in the fun and Charlie obliged. John, Tom, and Bill
cooperated down to their underpants but stopped at that. Their reluctance and
looks of shocked surprise dampened the outing to a certain extent but no
permanent international ill feelings developed. The tea, punch, and biscuits
followed by ice (cream) soon smoothed things out beautifully. The girls had
lots of toys and after the swim everything was lovely. In any case Mary and I
had a completely enjoyable chat with the Poultons about differences in English
and American customs and the whole outing was a huge success.
At Christmas there were
many parties. The Unit had an office party on Saturday night. Dr. Conrad had an
evening cocktail party and the Professor, Dr. Zangwill of the Experimental
Psychology Department at the University, had a similar party. In general these
affairs didn’t differ too markedly from similar parties in the USA except for
the preponderance of sherry. We enjoyed
them thoroughly because of all the things we had to learn from our talkative
companions.
The party at the
Unit was probably the most unique. Vera, Pauline, and the other girls worked
hard to turn the old mansion back to a mansion. The Applied Psychology Research
Unit was located in a stately, old, three-story, red brick house. There were at
least twenty rooms, many of them large and many with fireplaces. It had
obviously belonged to the well-to-do and one still had the feeling more like a
playboy pursuing an intellectual hobby than a hard working scientist in a spic
and span efficiently run laboratory.
The hour-long tea
and coffee breaks at 10 and 4 also added fuel to the leisure feelings of the
idle rich. I must hastily add that although tea was available for an hour, it
wasn’t often that anyone dawdled the whole hour in the Common Room. It would
easily have been possible to spend the entire hour at tea however because the
Common Room was also the periodical library and the last two months issues of
all the pertinent scientific journals were located there. As was also Punch.
The tea ritual in
itself differed heartily from our usual coffee breaks. There was the inevitable
pot of well brewed strong English tea (tea bags are as rare as American cars in
England). And for the back-sliders there is a pot of coffee. There are two jugs
of milk, one hot and one cold, and sitting on a shelf underneath the rolling table
that brings this repast into the Common Room is a tea kettle of hot water. I’m
sure the hot water was not solely for me (to dilute the tea) but I don’t think
any self-respecting Britisher would stoop to dilute the tea. Nor did I ever
note anyone else using the tea-kettle, but I’m still sure they wouldn’t cater
to any single alien in such a grand manner. My tea consisted of equal portions
of tea, hot water and hot milk. Many others had white tea which is roughly half
tea and half hot milk but somehow they always guffawed to see me add water.
Along with the tea,
coffee, and/or milk and hot water came the biscuits (cookies). To make
financial ends meet, threepence (three Pennies) was donated for the steaming
liquid and a penny apiece for biscuits. John is a semi coin collector. Semi not
because he is lukewarm about it, but because he oscillates between hot and
cold. In England he wanted to get
pennies for every reign and preferably for every year. And in England this type
of coin collecting is great sport because pennies, called coppers and as large
as half dollars are used until absolutely smooth. In any one day’s rummage
through the coin box in the Common Room I would find a penny from the reign of
Queen Victoria (in her old age), of Edward VII, George V, and about once a week
of Victoria in her youth (with hair in bun and called Victoria bun). So in
addition to diluting my tea, and eating 2 or even 3 biscuits, I would sort
through the coins; completely odd these Americans.
You can never tell
where hobbies will lead you. Not only did John’s coin collecting make me
regularly rifle the Unit’s tea and biscuit collection, but I also stopped at
Lloyds of Cambridge and asked for a newly minted crown piece. These are made
only rarely and are not ordinarily used as legal tender, but only as souvenirs.
In the process of reserving a crown piece my bicycling clerk asked if I wanted
some farthings or some three penny silver bits. Neither of these were in
circulation and whenever they came into the bank they were retained. They would
later be turned in. However if I wanted to buy some at their face value prices
I was welcome, and this I did.
One day as John and
I came home to The Manse from school and the Unit in Cambridge I noted a
strange bicycle in our garden. As I started in the house I noticed a Bobby hat,
a real one, parked on the stairway banister post. I wondered, “Now what?” I had
registered as I was requested. They had made a routine check only a week ago. I
hadn’t really burned down The Manse in my box disposal program. I hadn’t
recently tried driving on the right side of the road. “What now?”
As I entered the
dining room I noted this was not my old antagonist the village Bobby but a
stranger. And he was sorting through John’s coins. Had we broken some law in
gathering forbidden coins?
Mary soon put me at
ease. She introduced me to the Bobby from the neighbouring village of
Teversham. She added, “He is a coin collector, and came to see John’s
collection.” He of course also had brought his own collection along. We had a
gay old chat, and John brought out some brand new Lincoln Memorial pennies to
trade him. Before we left he brought over more of his collection and we became
good friends.
The climax of terms
end at Cambridge is the “Bumping Race” on the Cam. The Cam is too narrow to
race side by each. They therefore race their shells in series and the object is
to bump the shell ahead. The Bumping Order is inherited from last year’s crew
and each college has competed for hundreds of years. This is really one big
event. For this year’s race the Queen Mother was to be in attendance. This made
it bigger than ever and mandatory for us to attend. Just as I was about to give
up to trafficitis and turn back who should be on duty but the coin collecting
Bobby. We had no further troubles. The boys saw the Queen Mother. They had
already seen the Princess Royal. The Queen herself was yet to come.
But back to the
Unit and the coffee-tea breaks.
These coffee-tea
breaks had the other beneficial effect of bringing all researchers out of their
cubicles (all had individual offices), and into a common meeting place. Here
you could ask your neighbor, who you only heard on the stairs and didn’t really
ever see, what he was doing now. Or you could ask the statistician how to analyze
your data; the engineers, how to debug your equipment; the secretaries, when
your typing would be done; or the director, what he accomplished in London
yesterday. Many times you did spend an hour at tea because your neighbor was
detailing the results of his latest experiment, or the latest issue of Punch
had just arrived.
At least once a
week, Sir Frederic, the director emeritus, and the Professor emeritus, would
show up at tea. One day he came over to me with a very puzzled look on his face
and said he had a problem. It seems he had been invited to America to give a
lecture and act as consultant for a week at the University of Michigan. After
some tentative dates had been set, he found he had a conflict and had written
his regrets. He now had in his hand a letter from Michigan which stated in the
first sentence, “...I will take a rain check on your lecture...”. Sir Frederic’ question was, what have the
Americans done to the Queen’s English? What does he mean? What is a rain check?
In England rugby and
soccer games are played rain or shine, and Cricket considers rain as one of the
opponents in the game itself. In a first class cricket “Test Match” anywhere
from two or three to five days are allowed for the match, a single game. Two
innings are played. A coin is flipped and the winning captain usually chooses
to his team bat first. His problem then becomes twofold how to score the most
runs and yet get the other team completely out in each inning. For you see there are 3 possibilities in
cricket; win, lose, or draw. Many matches are draws which means only that the
winning team couldn’t get the losing team out before the end of the match.
Let’s say in a
five-day match the first inning is concluded at the end of the third day and his
team is ahead 366 runs to 316. Now in the fourth day in the afternoon his team
has scored another 206 runs and only 6 batsmen are out and the weather looks
like it might rain. He must decide whether he thinks he can get all eleven men
of he other team out 1) before they score 257 runs AND 2) before tomorrow
afternoon at the end of the match. On both counts he has his doubts. But if he
goes on to score more runs his chance of getting them out before the end of the
match is less, especially if it rains yet this afternoon or tomorrow. He has
the option to “declare” at any time which merely means he will not take all of
his outs. At this point he could stop with, “257 runs for 6 declared.” So you
see rain is just part of the game.
Anyway if the match
goes on for a full day, or 2, or 3, or 5 days, what difference does it make to
miss a half day, or a day, or 2 or 3 days or I might even add, to miss 5 days.
Unless you like to watch a single batsman for a full half day swat the ball
hither and yon and score perhaps a hundred runs, and can hold your revenge
until next day when your team gets to bat (when already behind by 298 runs) you
won’t enjoy a cricket match.
But back to Sir
Frederic. What about this rain check business. As you can see from his national
sporting background, explaining the meaning of “Rain check” wasn’t a completely
simple matter. Since his mind is as keen as ever in learning new facts and,
like myself, he enjoys exploring the differences that have developed between
the colonies and the king, we spent an hour at tea. I have since sent him a
rain check that I got in Yankee Stadium watching the Tigers and Yankees finish
2 games in one day NOT draw on a single game in two days because they couldn’t
get the last batter out).
It was at tea also
that Pauline, the choir singing secretary, started hatching up a musical
program for the pre-Christmas Party. Mervyn (DR.) Stone, the statistician,
played the guitar, Harold Dale the clarinet, Bob Wilkinson actually directed a
dance band, she sang and she knew I played the clarinet. Our total potential
was never reached but we did get together The Three Kings Trio. The wise men
somehow or another declined to play. Our kings consisted of soprano, clarinet,
and guitar, sometimes augmented by one or more of the kings prerecorded on a
tape recorder. Pauline had some carol books with English tunes and a few
descants and I composed a couple of descants and wrote in the chords for Merv,
who was relatively new on the guitar. We rehearsed a few carols and of course were
meant to be only the accompaniment for group singing the night of the party.
Come party
Saturday. Dan had just permanently deafened, or at least temporarily
discouraged, his last and our only baby sitter, so Dan came to the party. It
was really quite simple. When the Unit took over the stately mansion for
research they needed a caretaker, handyman, shop technician, and night
watchman. Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Deane lived upstairs in 2 or 3 rooms and served
all the above functions and on Christmas Party night, their flat also served as
nursery. I must add though that Dan was a little suspicious of the whole set of
circumstances and resisted my not too patient patting for some time.
When I finally got
down to the Common Room I found no library, no table loaded down with Punch
(the punch table was next door in the secretaries’ room), nothing that would
identify the room with a scientific relaxing space. Instead the whole
downstairs was now something out of a Bronte sisters novel. The Unit was gone,
the mansion was back. Chairs and tables arranged in the Paris outdoor restaurant
style replaced desks and typewriters. All sorts of biscuits, scones, potato
crisps (chips), Cornish pasties, together with dips (no mustard), and relishes
(no dill pickles) adorned a serving table. Sweets and nuts were liberally
scattered around, as were holly, mistletoe, Christmas cards, and gaily
coloured bunting. Cider, ale, and sherry was available and from the vocal
output of the assembled guests it was obvious that the liquid Christmas spirit
was pulsing in the veins of my staid and steady English fellow scientists. Sir
Frederic and Lady Bartlett were amongst their younger ex-students who were so
ably carrying on in the great traditions and high standards set down for them
by Sir Frederic.
Pauline, Vera, and
the rest of the Unit’s feminine staff were quite justly happy about their
handiwork and the array of smiles on some usually very somber faces. Mr. and
Mrs. Deane, in whose mansion the gala affair was celebrated, were as proud and happy
as the original aristocratic owners of this gay house could ever have been.
The present director of the Unit, jovial Donald Broadbent and his wife Peg,
were also pleased with the progress of the festivities. This party had many
hosts and hostesses and each was sharing in the Party’s success.
Dance music,
recorded on one of the Unit’s tape recorders, soon beckoned many to the
ballroom (Common Room) and the more youthful in mind and body started using up
some of the excess calories they had just shored up on in the banquet hall
(secretaries’ room).
The carol sing went
off very well with lusty singing bursting forth from one and all. Our descants,
chords, and lead singing were almost drowned out, but without us their singing
might have been less confident. Then came the usual break-the-ice games,
although I couldn’t see that they were needed. The cold-fire-hose treatment
might have been more appropriate.
In the height of
all this activity Mrs. Deane came down with one unhappy soul. The party spirit
had not engulfed Dan, apparently only the noise. Dan himself is no piker in the
noise department and his screams on the third floor were heard by someone at
least on the ground floor. Dan, however, entered into the spirit of the party
in short order. Dan has an affinity for food and an equal affinity for being
the center of attention. His main problem was which was his greater love? After
he had sampled enough cakes to have icing from ear to ear, and fearing that his
presence did not really add to the original spirit of the party, we bundled him
up and not so silently slipped away. Not so silently because by now he had come
to enjoy the party and saw no specific reason for going home. He could entertain
the boys any time. This audience was hard to come by. Before he was halfway
home, however, he was dreaming of his good time and was quite happy and
content. And so were we, family-office-Christmas Parties at least in an olde
stately English house complete with English good humour and the spirit of
well-being were much to our liking.
The remainder of
our Christmas Holiday was definitely American. We had our Christmas turkey with
Capt. Ferguson and his family and although New Years Day is not a holiday in
England, the Fergusons and ourselves made it one with ham in The Manse.
There was another
American scientist in the village with his family and we also spent an evening
with them. The Bowerings, from Canada, were younger than we, they had but one
baby. There were a few brand new houses in the village and the Bowerings were
in one. The owner, a professor at Cambridge, was off on a year’s expedition to
the Antarctic. We sat in his new house marveling at the perversity of the
British. This brand new house, built for a Cambridge University Scientist, was
heated by a single fire-place. It was however a modern fire-place. The cold air
came from outside the house. It came through an air duct under the floor. Ours
in the Manse got its cold air from the other side of the room in an unducted
duct along (not underneath) the floor. You had no difficulty knowing when our
fire was drawing well.
The other
innovation was that in the firebrick behind the firebox were a series of pipes
filled with water and these pipes formed a closed circuit with a radiator out
in the hall behind the fireplace. And so when I visited the Bowerings I only
wore my heavy woolen knee length socks and not as at home, my Wellington boots.
Our evening with
the Sells, my PTA board colleague, was very pleasant. He was the mechanical
arts and art master (teacher) at the Cherry Hinton Grammar School and
appreciated good art. His own colour slides of Norway were in excellent taste.
His books of photographs of olde English castles and of Prague kept me quite
entranced. The fact that he was a grammar school master led to lively
conversations of differences between American and English schools. Mary quite
properly insisted that the English system is not democratic and as such could
not and would not ever succeed in America. Selecting on IQ and achievement and training
these select students apart from the others was indeed undemocratic but it is
efficient. Good scholars usually manage to gain the top anyway but when I think
of all the things I could have learned if adequately challenged in my
pre-graduate days it makes me tend to like the European system. I was always
amazed at the range of intellectual interests of my colleagues in England,
their knowledge of good literature, world history, geography, political systems,
in addition to their specialized knowledge in their chosen fields. For those
who don’t make the grammar schools, life and education is hard; out of school
by age 15 with a long road ahead if any higher education is desired. When
compared to these children our system is good. But the opportunities offered
the grammar school students is not matched by an equal challenge here.
The evenings we
will remember longest as most typical of the England we wanted to enjoy were
the evenings at the Argues. Their boy, Christopher Rouen, could not in my mind
have been more British. If a new illustrator was to need a model for
A.A.Milne’s Christopher Robin, he would need look no further. Charlie and
Christopher played together by the hour and so of course Mary and Margaret soon
became fast friends. The Argues lived in a small yellow stuccoed thatched roof
cottage. The door was stooping small, and the threshold was one step below
ground level. I always wondered what happened in the rain. It would appear, if
the laws of physics hold for thatched roof cottages that the water would flow
in under the front door. People, or water, once inside are in a small
vestibule. Off of this vestibule is a large, for such a small cottage, living
room. It is large in width, the whole width of the house. It is large in
length, half of the total length of the house. But in height it reflects the
true size of the little cottage. I could, stand straight up in the whole of the
room, as could Mary. The Argues however being taller people could only stand up
between the rough hewn rafters that seemed to be winning the battle of holding
up the floor of the upper story. I say, seem to be winning, because on looking
at the ceiling from the comfort of an easy chair in front of the fireplace one
had the feeling that he was looking at the bottom of a large hammock. If I
lived in this cottage I would sleep Christopher Rouen in the middle bedroom and
I’d sleep on one end or the other. And I’m not sure I wouldn’t prop the broom
up between the floor and the lowest sag of the rafter before I did my daily
stopping stint. However since it has stood the test of centuries I was neither
concerned about my safety, nor for the safety of the Argues and if they would
have offered it for sale they would have had a taker.
Granted that half of
the charm of an evening at Argues was the cottage, the remaining half was the
equal charm of the Argues. Noel was an astronomer at Cambridge. An astronomer
of the old school. No satellites, nor radio telescopes, just old fashioned
astronomy. I guess I liked this so much because it seemed so impractical in
these days of applied science. In these hectic days of practicality how can
anyone become completely absorbed in work on stars with no thought of the
possible usefulness of his work to the building of bigger and better rockets?
The Sells were
often at the Argues as was Mr. Bradshaw a chemistry master from John’s grammar
school. We sat by the hour discoursing on world problems moral degeneration,
the materialism of America vs. the perversity of the British and many other
things that none of us were authorities on.
It was these
discussions on timeless and worldless subjects in this timeworn and out-of-this
world cottage with these people who studied the eternities of time and worlds
that added the zest to living in merrie olde England.
The whole aura of
the village and its charming people inspired me to an uninspired verse about an
English Village Christmas:
English Village Christmas
Out of the gate and into the street,
To the village shops we go,
The boys know the way
Through the mist and grey,
And what to order they know.
Out of the gate and into the street,
To shop in the butcher’s store.
In puddles to splash,
From bicycles dash,
And dodge the lorries that roar.
Out of the gate and into the street,
The Christmas turkey to buy.
The meat hangs round,
the carols sound,
And pumpkin we need for pie.
Out of the gate and into the street,
For bread at the baker’s shop.
Mincemeat he bakes,
With puddings and cakes,
And frosting he puts on top.
Out of the gate and into the street,
Off to the barber’s we go.
His shop is open,
From four till seven,
With electric fire aglow.
Out of the gate and into the street
To get the Christmas fare.
To the cobbler’s shop,
Thatched roof on the top,
To buy warm boots to wear.
Out of the gate and into the street,
The general store’s the place,
For toffee and toys,
For all five boys,
And candles and cotton and lace.
Out of the gate and into the street,
To visit the pub for wine,
For Boxing Day,
In package gay,
For milk and dustman to dine.
Out of the gate and into the street
To post the Christmas cards.
Her Majesty’s post
The countries boast
The village corner guards.
Out of the gate and into the street
To garage for petrol we drive
The paraffin sells
And bicycle bells
On taxi trade he thrives.
In the gate and inside the house
The Christmas tree is alight.
With candles lit
Around it we sit
The coal in the hearth is bright.
On Christmas Day with stockings filled
Father Christmas has made his rounds.
In church we say
On Jesus’ birthday
Thank God, that goodness abounds.
J.C.Webster
Fulbourn,
22nd December, 1959.
In the mail one day
at the Unit came a very official looking letter from the American Embassy in London.
I kept wondering all the way up the steps what I’d done now. I had registered
with the Cambridgeshire police, I hadn’t tried shopping in the Post Exchanges
around Cambridge (although I’m sure my Navy Identification Card would have done
the trick), nor had I pledged allegiance to the British flag.
The letter was in
fact an invitation to present a paper in Germany for a meeting sponsored by the
Ausschusz fur Funkortung. This is a
government sponsored, industry endorsed Committee on Radio Navigational Aids.
The topic for the 1960 annual meeting was Medical and Psychological Aspects of
Radio Navigation Problems. If interested I was to contact a General Martini via
the American Embassy in Bonn. When I read further that my travel expenses would
be paid by the German Committee I was obviously interested.
In subsequent
correspondence we agreed upon a title for the paper and I set to work and wrote
a paper and submitted it six weeks in advance of the January meeting so that
German and French translations could be prepared by the meeting time.
No one else from
the Unit was going to the meeting but Donald Wallis from the Admiralty (Senior
Psychologists Office) was going and we made arrangements by phone to go
together. The meetings were the first full week in January and to get there we
needed to leave London on Sunday morning. Donald suggested that in January it
would be the better part of prudence to go by train and boat not by air. He
obligingly got us First Class compartment seats on the 9 A.M. train Sunday, 3
January from Victoria Station to Dover with boat Connections and seats on the
Trans Europe Express (TEE) from Ostend to Cologne connecting on to Essen.
Then I found out of
course that there is no train from Cambridge that connects with early Sunday morning
trains out of London. Weeks before all of these travel transactions I had
purchased tickets for John, Tom, Bill, and I for Hansel and Gretel for
Saturday, 2 January. Top level discussions and decisions came up with the plan
that the whole family go up to London by train, stay over in a hotel and see me
off Sunday morning. We phoned London’s hotel finding agency and got a hotel
across Bayswater Road from Hyde Park, near the Queensway Tube Station. Another
gala day in London and our first family hotel experience since 1 June in
Hameln, Germany.
Everything
progressed smoothly. We knew our way in and out of British Railway Coaches. We
chose to go via Kings Cross Station. We expected to and did lose John for five
minutes in the station while he went loco spotting. Then to save time we put
Mom, Dan and Charlie in those squat, black London cabs and dispatched them for
the hotel while the older boys and I took the Northern Line from Kings Cross to
Angel and then walked to Sadlers Wells.
Hansel and Gretel was
very pleasing to my boys and to all the other children in the audience. Even
the witch didn’t really frighten them. In January it gets dark early but in
the tube it really makes very little difference. We transferred at Bank to the
Central Line and soon joined mom and the small boys at the hotel. The great
thing was the subsequent double decker bus ride from Bayswater Road through
Oxford Street to Oxford Circus, then down Regent Street through Piccadilly
Circus and Haymarket to Westminster Bridge. A short walk and return. The
Christmas lighting was still up and Regent Street in particular was lovely.
Our dinner in a
little French restaurant near the hotel was also a success, no spilled milk,
nor dropped forks. We did forget Charlie’s cap but returned forthwith and
retrieved it. The hotel was not American. We had two adjacent rooms, one large
one and next door a small twin bedded one. A shilling in the gas fire bought
enough gas to heat the room comfortably for undressing. The bath rooms were
reached down the hall. No problem in getting tired boys to sleep.
We strained the
hotel people somewhat at breakfast, which is included in the price of the room.
We were waiting at the door when they opened and our taxi was waiting for us
when we were finishing. I finally had to make my decision about my Wellington
boots. I’d come prepared to either wear regular shoes and stand the chance of
freezing on the train and boat or wearing my old patent foot warming
Wellingtons. The weather looked threatening so I chose the course of warm feet,
First Class dress to the contrary. With our light weight cloth luggage I had
brought along sizes 2 and 3 where 2 fits snugly into 3. If Wellingtons were not
worn they would fit into bag 3. If worn, bag 2 fit into bag 3, and this is what
I did.
We weren’t overly
early at Victoria so the family just stayed in the taxi for their trip to
Liverpool Street Station. I now gave up being father first class and became
scientist and traveler First Class (except for the Wellington boots). I was soon
seated in a compartment literally bulging with suitcases, parcels, baskets,
boxes, and people, four to a side. As soon as I took my seat Donald Wallis
sitting opposite introduced himself (all previous arrangements had been by
letter and phone). His light weight highly polished shoes caught my eye
immediately and I’m sure my black unpolished rubber Wellingtons complete with
red brand on the inside of the instep, also caught his eye. Being a typically
polite Britisher his expression did not convey the expression of, “Who’s this
odd ball I’m to spend the next week with.” He was about my age; taller,
slimmer, with thinning hair, and nicely dressed. He wore a continual smile,
and his general facial contours were of the happy, turning up variety, not of
the soured on life, turned down type.
We had lots to talk
about and one of his first inquiries was, “How well do you speak German?” I
told him I was no past master but had survived two previous trips although I
was ready to stand down to his abilities if they were better. He said his
competence was in French, that he knew no German. That took care of that. I
found he was an ex Royal Navy officer and had spent most of WWII attached to
the Canadian Navy. As such he was acquainted with New York City and some aspects
of American life. In general we hit it right off and I could see this was going
to be a successful trip.
At Dover I went
through the alien line, and Donald went through the citizen line. We soon
rejoined and went on board the Dover-Ostend Channel Ferry. We stayed topside
and watched the white cliffs of Dover fade from view. He told me how during
WWII a radar antenna scanned the channel here, and how the populace was
generally moved inland from the immediate coast. He spoke of specific incidents
like for example how the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst slipped through the
channel one night while the radar was down for maintenance. He often wondered
how they knew it was down.
We were soon beyond
the three mile limit and with his money I purchased him beaucoup cartons of
cigarettes. We then descended into the dining room and seeing no vacant tables
joined another amiable man for lunch. Our table companion turned out to be an
international civil servant working in Vienna on the joint Atomic Energy
Commission. Since all of us were civil servants and scientists we had a fine
talk on mutual problems. The journey was over much too quickly. At Ostend we
parted.
Donald and I had
reserved seats on the TEE but there were only about 6 people on the Cologne
car, we certainly didn’t need reserved seats. There was still about an hour of
daylight and I saw the skylines of Bruges and Ghent as we rushed past. As soon
as it was dark we ambled up to the snack car for more sustenance. While
enjoying the food an announcement came over the PA system auf Deutsch to the
effect that Herr Wallis was wanted at the Gepackwagen (baggage car). He had
registered (checked) a suitcase and the German customs people were getting their
work done early. No trouble, he was soon back.
We pulled into
Cologne before 8 P.M. and I ascertained from certain words I heard that the
connecting train to Essen was directly ahead on the same track. This somehow
didn’t seem to make good sense but it turned out to be so. The TEE is
completely symmetrical, an engine at each end, and they pulled out of Cologne
for Mainz and Frankfurt by reversing directions. We scurried forward and in a
short time were detraining in Essen.
Our hotel was just
across the square from the station and we were soon comfortably situated. Of
course Donald’s registered bag hadn’t yet arrived but he had the things he
really needed. The contrast between Essen and London began with the hotel. The
Handelshof was new as was all of downtown Essen. The WWII bombers had made it
easy to rebuild Essen. The Handelshof was centrally heated, with spacious halls
and large, light and airy rooms. My room could have been in a Hilton hotel
except it had no private bath. There was a sink (with hot water) for washing
and shaving but no toilet, bathtub or shower. The rest rooms down the hall
were spotless and perfectly adequate. Donald’s room though much smaller had a
bath tub of sorts. I’d never seen a tub like it before. You sat in this one
like on a chair and the water could come up to your waist. It also had a shower
which could be taken standing or sitting. I always visited Donald for my bath,
and he visited me if we wanted room to stretch out in.
We had had our day
and after a short walk we turned in to get good night’s sleep before the
meeting next morning at 9 A.M. in a hall a block up the street. Neither of us
were much worried about the early hour. Ten A.M. is a more usual and a more
respectable hour to open an American meeting, and British meetings might
commence even later, at least on the opening day. And at American and English
meetings 10 A.M. meetings really start about 10:15. Naturally we were not
concerned when we walked into breakfast at 8 A.M. and noted we were nearly
alone. Why not, no one in his right mind would be eating this early. Donald
took time to check on his bag and at about 9 we left the hotel for the meeting.
Not unexpectedly
the corridors were nearly empty of people.
As we expected no one would show up at such an early hour. We roamed the
deserted halls and found the large meeting auditorium. We thought we’d look in
to see what it was like. It was like most large auditoria five minutes after
the scheduled opening except that it was filled with people. And a speaker was
holding forth down front. We suddenly
realized we were in hard working, efficient Germany.
Donald couldn’t
understand a word and I could only catch certain phrases like, “Our great city
welcomes you ... production since 1950 has increased 50 percent ... we have an
opera house ... a new shopping center ... enjoy your stay in our city”. On my
program I noticed the word of welcome was from the Burgermeister himself. At
the conclusion of this speech we noted some other men stumble in, and they were
obviously fellow English speaking citizens.
We decided we’d
better consolidate forces, so we all retreated and looked again for the
registration desk. We finally found it just as the French delegation walked up.
Everyone except the extremely attractive and German speaking secretaries were
up in the meeting. My German got its first crucial test. We needed some
earphones to hear the translation. The secretary asked us specifically whether
we spoke English or French. Although I understood the question I couldn’t understand
the point of it. The earphones aren’t going to know whether we speak English or
French. Or are they? As it turns out
there were 2 separate translating booths, German-English, and German-French.
The outputs of these translations were radioed around the room so indeed the
red earphones tuned into the French speaking output. The blue phones had
self-contained receivers tuned to the English translation. And then the
translators worked in reverse English or French to German all German listeners
put on green earphones.
This system worked
fine except the German-English translator was not a scientist nor did he really
understand scientific terms. He did fine
on the introductions but the interpretation of slides and other technical aspects
were fairly sketchy. I did almost as well listening auf Deutsch and
concentrating on reading the slides and interpreting them myself.
We soon found that
not only do the Germans start on time but comes the question period and they
lose all track of time. Many questions, which really were unscheduled papers in
themselves eclipsed the original paper in time consumed. Nor did the original
paper readers adhere even remotely to their time limits. It was soon evident
that once you turn a German scientist on he doesn’t turn off easily.
The Monday noon
luncheon was a conference wide dinner of formal proportions. I don’t quite
remember why we were late this time and in fact we weren’t but a few minutes
late. In any case as we walked in the Herr Conference Secretary grabbed us by
the arm and paraded us to the head table to meet General Martini. I was
slightly awe stricken by the whole procedure, but nearly dumbfounded when the
General snapped his heels together and shot his hand out in a stiffly correct
handshake. The photographer’s flash bulb at this point did not add to my peace
of mind.
As it turned out
Donald and I were two of about 6 English speaking participants and I was the
only one in the whole assemblage that ate with my fork in my right hand,
obviously from the USA. Our cordial greetings were occasioned by two facts; we
hadn’t arrived at the usual greeting time at 8:30 in the morning and we were
prophets from other lands.
The never ending
barrage of only slightly understood verbage soon got us to the point of
exhaustion and we got in the habit of leaving at the scheduled ending times in
spite of the fact that were often only half finished. By doing this we found
time for shopping (I was still looking for green Lederhosen for Charlie and
some for Dan), making travel reservations back, getting tickets to the opera,
arranging a trip to a lab in nearby Dortmund.
Essen has been
beautifully rebuilt. Accepting the near total destruction from Allied bombers,
the city planners have done a marvelous job. Pedestrians only are allowed in
the large downtown shopping center, cars are parked on the edges. Broad, well
lighted arcades and pathways meander among the various stores. The stores are
large, are loaded down with goods and are well patronized. Like New York City
they have people too busy to sit down to eat so some of their snack bars, where
the snack would floor an elephant, have stand up counters.
One night we got
the last three (together with a colleague from Holland) seats in the back row
of the Opernhaus to see Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro”. The opera was
delightful; still funny after two hundred years and auf Deutsch. German
efficiency showed itself again at the Interval. They must have taken a
statistical sampling of how many coffees vs. teas vs. ales vs. soft drinks,
because many tables were all set up with the drinks served. If you found
essentially what your party wanted you sat at that table. If one or two drinks
were wrong they switched drinks from an adjacent table or sometimes went to
their source of supply. It did speed things up.
Another day we
visited the Max Plank Institut fur Arbeitphysiologie (work physiology) in
nearby Dortmund. The train ride, especially buying the tickets and finding what
stop to get off at in Dortmund, was great sport. The visit was first rate and
we were duly impressed by the quantity and quality of their equipment. I noted
a drastic difference between my adopted Unit in England where essentially every
scientist was his own designer, equipment fabricator, data collector, data
analyzer, and report writer and this German lab. The Dortmund lab had
essentially three top scientists who designed the experiments, supervised them,
and wrote them up but a whole staff of subordinates to really run them.
Other nights we had
Chinese food, ate in the Ratskeller, and had Italian food. In all cases I kept
wondering what we would do after the meal and in all cases the leisurely meal
with the proper wine and the talk it generated left no time for other
entertainment afterwards.
Friday night was
the formal cocktail hour. We had noted between the hotel and the hall a well
lighted sign labeled Essen und Trinken in Essen, which puzzled Donald until I
told him that Essen is not only the name of this city but also means “to eat”
or “eating”. He found out what the Trinken meant at the cocktail hour. They
served German Sparkling Wine known in France as Champagne. Actually we didn’t
get more than a good sample because suddenly the German Navy showed up.
Apparently some of the participants were Naval Officers in civvies. On cocktail
night they came out in their full colours and saw to it that no one (else) over
indulged in either drinking or in pampering the pretty secretaries of the
German Ausschusz (committee). We found out that General Martini’s Executive
Secretary, who organized this meeting had been the chief navigator on the
Scharnhorst when she slipped through the channel. Donald asked him how he knew
the English radar was down when the Scharnhorst made it through the channel. He
said they had no idea it was down. It had been decided it was now or never. It
was purely routine. He hadn’t even been awakened by the subordinate on watch to
help her through.
Saturday morning we
detoured to Cologne by way of Wuppertal. In Wuppertal we rode the monorail. In
Cologne we visited the cathedral and the new Rhein bridge. It was mighty cold
and we were on foot so we really didn’t do the town very well. On Sunday we took the train to Utrecht and
visited the Institute for Perception at Soesterberg. Dr. Bouman a hard worker
who also knows how to relax sandwiched our official visit into the morning and
took us to a van Gough art museum in an erstwhile private estate in the middle
of a large forest near Arnheim. We stopped for a pheasant dinner on the way
back to our hotel.
Tuesday we stopped
in Amsterdam for a look at Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” and proceeded on to
Hook-of-Holland for the night channel ferry to Harwich. The British Railway
ferry brought us back to reality from the newness everywhere evident in Germany
and Holland.
Next morning Donald took the London train and I got on the Liverpool train. At Bury St. Edmund I changed to a diesel rail bus and was delivered right to the Fulbourn station (one stop out of Cambridge). Mary and the younger boys were there to meet me. As in Holland, England had a snow and Charlie was all for going into Cambridge for his sledge. We got the sledge but this was the only snow of the winter and was gone before the boys really knew what it was all about. And this the only snow they’d ever seen. Moral, if you want to play in the snow in Southern England, don’t leave for a week’s trip for purposes of Essen and Trinken.
By the beginning of
the Winter term in January, Tom had school well under control. By nature, Tom
was the living example of the saying “Keep quiet and be thought stupid, open
your mouth and prove yourself stupid”. Unless he was positive that he was
correct, he would never volunteer an answer. However, by January he had learned
what was expected of pupils in the third year of Infants School, and had also
learned all his sums, spelling words, and reading and was, in fact, a star
pupil. He had even volunteered the information that the poet who wrote “----but
when I am older Leery, I’ll light the lamps with you”, was Robert Louis
Stevenson. That did it Tom was to be promoted to the first class in the Primary
School.
Actually this was
no great or even unexpected event. When Tom and Bill started at the Village
School they had been matched, not to their age groups, but to their years of
real schooling. In English schools there is no honeymoon period, no
Kindergarten. Five year olds start immediately on Reading, Writing, and
Arithmetic (sums). Bill was six, but had only been taught to get along with
others, ask to go to the bathroom, climb poles and count to ten. He was,
therefore, put with the five year olds. Tom was a postgraduate of Kindergarten
and had been through first grade in California. In addition to pole climbing,
and room monitoring (dusting the erasers), he could read, knew his number
combinations and knew the Pledge of Allegiance--to the U. S. flag. Since a
great part of this knowledge was superfluous to his present needs, he (age 7)
was put with the six year olds.
So since he is not
dumb, just discretely quiet until he has his problems mastered, he soon learned
all his number combinations, he learned to read at or above grade level, to
write cursively, and he learned all the words to “God Save the Queen”. He was
ready to be “put up”. Unfortunately, he had impressed his teacher too much.
Mrs. Harrison passed him on with such praise that his new teacher, Mrs. Harold,
didn’t go through the preliminaries of letting him start in with the lowest
group. She placed him in a top group and Tom’s reluctance to speak out unless
he was absolutely sure he was right, got him off to a BAD start.
Of course, we knew
nothing of this affair. We only knew that on promotion day plus one (P+1) Tom
came down to breakfast sick. Or more
accurately, when I came down to rekindle the fire in the fireplace and shake
down and carry out the ashes from the coke cooker preparatory to breakfast I
found Tom sick. You see, Tom was always
the first Webster awake and was called “rooster” by Charlie. No mistaking that
Tom was sick. He did not already have on his school uniform, have the table
set, and have a paper and crayon out drawing a picture. He still had on his
pajamas, the table wasn’t set, and Tom was in the bathroom vomiting.
No school for Tom
on P+1 but Mary noticed that at 0930, safely after school had started, Tom
perked up, got out his crayons and paper and even his sum book, the color came
back to his face and everything was fine. There was a relapse at noon when Bill
came home with another story about Christopher Shoesmith. Mary suggested that
maybe Tom was well enough to go back in the afternoon. Tom wasn’t and didn’t.
On P+2, the postman
(Miss Ball) in her deliberately noisy way of dropping our bills through the
letter slot at 0650, awakened us while Tom, our lazy sleepy head was fast
asleep in bed. On P+3 we, Mary is a first rate child psychologist, got Tom back
to school. On P+4, a new symptom, an earache. Charlie always was getting an
earache with every cold he caught. Since he was, and is, the only boy that ever
got anything other than colds, mumps, chicken pox, measles, and upset stomachs
he always got prompt first class attention with every earache. Now Tom had an
earache, that seemed to ease when the sun reached an angle which made the sun
dial read 0930.
P+5 was Saturday
and Tom beat Bill in garden (backyard) Rugby with no apparent ill effects from
his week’s illness. Tom was singing “Jesus Loves Me” with the best of them on
P+6.
On P+7 I again carried
the ashes out and the coal and coke in alone; Tom had an earache. When I returned from work on P+7 Tom and I
walked over to see Dr. Jones. Of course, I could never remember when Dr. Jones
had “surgery” (office hours) and this was no exception. However, Mrs. Jones,
seeing the anguish on Tom’s face, assured me the doctor would stop by “The
Manse”, our house, as soon as he returned from his rounds. This was more than I
had bargained for and Mary was quite annoyed at my ineptness in not being able
to parry Mrs. Jones concern and arrange to bring Tom in next morning during the
doctor’s surgery.
In due course, Dr.
Jones called around and, of course, Tom was miserable. However, the doctor
could find nothing wrong with Tom’s ear. Dr. Jones admitted Tom’s throat was
slightly inflamed and Tom obviously had a slight cold but no objectively
evident ear trouble. We imparted in round about phrases that this could perhaps
be a psychosomatic illness inasmuch as promotion, etc. And then in private I
quickly summed up for the doctor the results of my visit with Mrs. Harold whom
I had visited earlier in the day. In a nutshell, I said, “In an effort to give
Tom a chance to show to his new class that he was an apt scholar Mrs. Harold
had asked him a direct and rather simple question, which at home or in Mrs.
Harrison’s room he would have answered in short order. In new surroundings Tom
says nothing unless questioned directly and if questioned directly, he just
fidgets, reddens, and maybe stammers out some incoherent answer. He was true to
his nature, said nothing.” He was as miserable as only calm, deliberate,
methodical Tom could be and probably even wished he were back in his California
school playing grocery store.
“I see” said Dr.
Jones and we walked back into the room where Tom was getting sicker and sicker
by the minute. In adult life this sequence of events often results in the first
drink which leads to the second and third. But Tom had no such easy and
inadequate way out. He just felt more miserable than ever.
Psychologist Dr.
Jones told Tom that if he stayed home for about two days he should be feeling
enough better to go back to school. Experimental psychologist Dr. Webster (NOT
clinical psychologist Dr. Webster) thought every day away from school would
make reentry that much more difficult. But I think non-psychologist, just plain
General Practitioner Dr. Jones, had the correct solution.
On P+10 after two
days of recuperation, much orange juice and sparkling vitamin C and many pep
talks by the real psychologist in our family, housewife Mary Webster, MA (in
mathematics) Tom and Bill ran merrily off to school. And thats all we heard of
the silly affair.
We did note that
Mrs. Harold demoted Tom temporarily which allowed him time to regain his self
confidence and gave him a goal. He achieved his goal in short order and was
soon in the top group. He had one temporary set back. Headmistress Smith had
the geography lesson one day and Tom volunteered that Paris was the capital of
France and Stockholm of Sweden (he knew he’d been there). In a gallant effort
to further Anglo-American relations and restore Tom’s luster she asked the
simple question, “Now Tom, what is the capital of your country, what is the
capital of the United States?”
Dead silence,
followed by a red face followed by “Ah … New York?”
You see, the
California Schools have a Harbor Unit, a Grocery Store Unit and a Railroad
Unit. Finally they progress up to Indians, Mexico, and Early California, but
somehow Tom, whose grandmother works for the Government Printing Office in
Washington, D. C. and can see the capital dome from her apartment had not yet
had a Unit covering such details as the capital of USA.
However, he won the
foot race for his age on Field Day and each of his teachers expressed real
regret to me when 20 July rolled around and he left their lovely school to
return to his California school. There
his class started off on the Airport Unit.
Our family could
have brought $3500 worth of merchandise back into the USA duty free. On my
income however even had we lived on charity, we couldn’t possibly have
approached that figure. The only item we had of any real value was our VW
Microbus and its associated camping equipment. Dutywise this was a dead loss
from beginning to end. The US government has the tax law written such that if
you make arrangements to purchase your car through some stateside agency, a
dealer or an auto club, you pay customs duty even though you pick the car up in
Europe. It is fairly hard to beat that law. You can’t deal with foreign factories
directly, there is no particularly good way to learn the names and addresses of
foreign dealers, and even if you did they are obliged to steer clear of such
proxy arrangements. In any case it is hard for most people to know what the
product is without seeing it and maybe even driving it. Not me, my usual
shopping tactic is that if I decide I want something I go to the closest store
and buy it. And with the Microbus I was convinced this was our only feasible method
of transportation and housing long before I had ever been inside one. When I
went to the San Diego Motor Imports it was not to shop but to order and specify
a delivery date. While there I did look, for the first time, inside a Microbus
but didn’t drive it. The major reason for ordering a car stateside is timing.
We needed a car on 1 June, not 31 May nor 2 June, nor mid May nor Mid June.
Anyone is welcome and permitted to go to Europe, contact a dealer and order a
car, but then he must await delivery. In our case, and in most others, the car
is bought stateside, picked up in Europe, and customs paid on reentry. Very
simple, very fool proof, very taxable.
A magic piece of
paper called a Carnet gets your car duty free into all countries except that one
that lays under “...spacious skies...from sea to shining sea”. We did however
have a little difficulty with a certain island Kingdom. This same kingdom under
George III gave my ancestors similar trouble, called in history books “taxation
without representation”. The trouble was this. We picked up our Microbus right
on schedule, to the hour, and drove it 130 kilometers to have it converted to a
“camping bus”. In this reconversion process the two back seats became surplus
(American) or redundant (English). Our immediate solution, transacted in my
best German, was to leave the seats with Knobel and Sons, Wiedenbruck for 3
weeks and we would drive back through and pick them up on our return from
Norway before returning to England.
At this point in our
travels the 30 mile per hour distance traveled on English roads hadn’t
generalized over to European roads, We were still thinking in terms of 360
miles per day instead of 180 miles per day. The upshot of this oversight was
we arrived in Bergen, Norway one day before we were due back in England.
Luckily we got on the Newcastle boat and made it. It would have taken another
week to have returned via Denmark, Wiedenbruck, and Hook-of-Holland.
Now you see the
problem, VW seats in Germany, VW in England. To me this was no problem, I
merely wrote Knobel and Sons on 1 July requesting they make arrangements to
ship seats, Microbus, 2, to England. On 3 July their response said in essence,
“matter turned over to a British Shipping Firm await word from them”. On l5
October I opened a letter addressed to Herr John C. Webster from the British
Commercial Transport Co., Ltd. The letter consisted of a form asking in 2 or 3
thousand words for information “...to enable us to effect clearance through
Customs, on your behalf,
PLEASE FORWARD US
BY RETURN.
1. Statement as to
nature and rates of Duty and Purchase Tax payable (Declaration required where
goods are not liable to duty and/or Purchase Tax).
NOTE: No
responsibility can be accepted by us for the consequences resulting from the
failure to declare rates of duty, and/or purchase tax payable.
2. Original invoice
and one copy (English translation essential) which must state terms of
purchase. If prices include duty this must be specially declared.
3. Packing List
showing separate contents of each package for consignments consisting of more
than one package.
4. Form C 105 (Form
enclosed - it is essential that all alterations and/or deletions are
initialed).
6. Form C & E
648 (Form enclosed - to be certified on the reverse by your local Customs
Officer if you are holders of Purchase Tax Registration Certificate).
Form P.T. 26 (Form
enclosed - not required if you are holders of Purchase Tax Registration
Certificate).
7. Import License,
where necessary.
8. REMITTANCE
COVERING DUTY AND/OR PURCHASE TAX.
CONSIGNMENTS OF BAGGAGE AND
HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS.
9. C3 (Form
enclosed - which is to be completed and witnessed by any second person in
respect of used personal clothing and effects.
10. C 104 (Form
enclosed - in respect of household goods and effects. To be completed and
witnessed by a Justice of the Peace, Commissioner for Oaths or an Officer of
H.M. Customs & Excise).
11. A List of
contents (in English) and, if packages are locked, keys should be forwarded to
us.
12. A deposit of
_____ pounds should be sent to cover freight and charges to ensure prompt
despatch after Customs clearance. Delay in replying to this advice and
submitting documents will incur additional charges.
After struggling
with forms C 105, C & E 648, PT 26, C 3 and C 104 I began 1) to see why we
fought the revolution and 2) to appreciate the simplicity of form 1040W.
On 22 October
another form letter from BCT Co., Ltd., this time to Messrs. John C. Webster
read as follows:
Our ref M61429
Dear Sirs,
Re: JCW 810, 1
crate ex Mecklinburg 15/10.
With reference to
the above consignment, we regret to advise you that your clearance documents
are not acceptable to H. M. Customs or the following reason: To enable us to
pursue our claim for duty free importation would you please advise if the VW
Car was imported to England in a Carnet and if so please supply details of
carnet and date of import.
We would ask you to
kindly give this matter your immediate attention to enable us to proceed with clearance
of goods through Customs. Thanking you, we remain,
Yours faithfully,
(signed) C. J. Hockley
British Commercial Transport Co. Ltd.
My reply didn’t
point out the difficulty of importing my VW car to England “in” a carnet. Even
VW’s aren’t that small and in Particular Microbusses would be very difficult to
import “in” a carnet. I did send details of carnet and the date.
On 28 October to
Mr. John C. Webster the same form letter with slightly different inserts
namely:
Our ref M.61429
Dear Sirs:
Re: JCW 810. 1.
crate. ex: Mecklenburg.
With references …
not acceptable to H. M. Customs for the following reason:
Your favour 23/10.
Would you please
advise if the missing seats were noted by the Officer on the Carnet when the
car was imported into England.
We ... ask ...
immediate attention ..... Thanking you, we remain,
My reply was short
and to the point, namely “NO”, although I was beginning to see that their
reference that things were in “my favour 23 to 10” was not going to last.
On 7 November, the
same form letter, with the following insert:
In reply to your
letter 2.11, would you please note Customs require duty to be paid on the seats
as they were not noted on the carnet as missing.
Would you please
give a declaration of value to enable us to clear goods.
With this letter
BCT Co., Ltd. enclosed a long-hand written letter from Mr. H. M. Customs
himself stating:
Rotterdam Station
First Floor No.4 Shed
Your Ref. M 61429 Customs
and Excise
Parkeston Quay West.
Harwich, Essex
H.M.Customs and Excise
Messrs. B.C.T.C.
Parkeston,
Harwich,
Dear Sirs,
JCW 810 - 1 crate ex Mecklenburg 15.10.59
With reference to
Mr. Webster’s letter dated 2nd November, which is returned herewith I have to
inform you that the proper charges are Payable in respect of the 2 bench seats,
and that duty-free release cannot be allowed.
Yours faithfully,
(signed) H.C.Page
Off. Customs & Excise
At this point in
the proceedings my American heritage and my years of schooling in science and
logic got the better of me. Why, I asked myself, will Mr. H. M. Customs of
Newcastle allow a $1800 car to freely enter his private poaching grounds, while
his cousin, Mr. H. M. Customs of Harwich, will not allow the $50 seats of
selfsame car to enter? The point of law seemed to hinge on whether said seats
had been declared as missing at Newcastle. What seemed to worry Mr. Customs was
that I might sell the seats. In fact the idea so intrigued me I thought of
setting up an agency. I could see at once that the potential market would be
tremendous. The British still have no really enduring love for the Germans,
what with George I, II, and III and WWI and II. At least at this writing
Hillmans, Jaguars, Singers, Consuls, etc. still outnumber VW’s. And the number
of Microbusses without seats was astronomical, i.e. astronomically small. But
anyway Mr. Custom’s job was to see that I didn’t import saleable foreign
imports from the inner six into the outer seven, and he was performing “above
and beyond the call of duty”.
What put him on the
scent of this obvious intent to defraud was that I had purposely disregarded
specific instructions on my carnet and had not declared the seats as missing
upon my arrival at Newcastle. I therefore looked carefully at my carnet, which
was written entirely in French except for specific instructions on how it was
to be used and this was in German. Being a past master at reading the fine
print in all insurance contracts, warranty statements, guarantees, tax forms
and patent applications and being a recognized expert in reading French and
German (by definition any PhD has passed reading examinations in French and
German) I could ascertain that the carnet had something to do with 1)
automobiles and 2) borders. Beyond that I could make no sense of it.
I had been told at
the VW factory in Hanover when handed the carnet, “Be sure, in fact insist,
that the customs officials at each border tear out half a page and stamp
the document.” When leaving Germany for Denmark the quite correct German
official, who looked in his uniform like he might just have returned from the
Russian front, dutifully tore and stamped; and I believe the
Danish official followed suit, although I vaguely remember running off the
ferry at Grosebrude just before we left to get the deed done. However when we
ferried from Denmark to Sweden there was no sign of any border, any officials,
nor any concern. We looked a little while for a customs building but saw
nothing. Going from Sweden to Norway the officials were quite annoyed when we
came to a full stop and looked as if we were going to make them check anything.
We drove on.
In England our
carnet said the car had entered Denmark and was now about to enter England (off
the boat from Norway). With five boys neither you nor the customs official are
very anxious to prolong any needless activity (and he couldn’t read the French
or German any better than I). Not a single question was asked. Since I didn’t
really know at the whole carnet thing was about I didn’t even know what to ask
questions about. I had indeed purposely entered my car illegally. I had not
specifically said, “Now look here old chap, you know this bus doesn’t have the
regular seats in it. They will be shipped in on October 15 at Harwich by BCT
Co., Ltd.” I will be the first to admit that I did not so state the case upon
our entry.
Now I was to pay.
Or so said the letter. But my Patrick Henry attitude got the best of me at this
point and I wrote Mr. H. M. Customs and stated in essence: That there had
already been one, if not two, wars between our great countries over such tax
matters as this; that I was ready to reopen the whole matter again and stage a
one-man invasion; that I would not pay Mr. H. M. Customs a farthing but that
1) 1 would give an amount of money equal to the tax to, any charity Mr. H. M.
Customs would like to designate, or 2) I would deposit said amount with Mr.
Customs or any of his cousins to be returned to me when I re-exported my hot
merchandise, or 3) I would ship the seats directly to America. My last letter from BCT Co., Ltd., still on
the same form letter and dated 26 November, said “.... We are .... arranging
with our London Office to ship the goods to ..... San Diego, California.”
And so five months
after my first letter to Germany to reclaim my VW seats, they were awaiting
shipment to California. In April they arrived. Probably the most expensive VW
seats ever to arrive in California. The total cost was $47.60 to get them to
California and $8.75 to get them to San Diego ($4.20 U.S. Customs). Of the
$47.60, $18.50 was for shipment from Germany to England including storage in
England (9 Weeks).
This incident had
some strange effects on me. When I got the bill from BCT Co., Ltd. and sent my
cheque it was returned stating in essence that my figures and words didn’t
agree, and indeed they didn’t. I had written 17/4/7 in one place and had
written Seventeen pounds seven shillings and four pence in another place. My
unconscious mind apparently was still fighting the battle. I vowed then and
there not to buy anything in England I could buy elsewhere in Europe, and to
buy a bunch of stuff when I left to be sent sealed to our ship and thus avoid
increasing the coffers of Mr. H. M. Customs. To make me feel better a generous
check to both the local churches in our village on Christmas.
An interesting
sequel to Mr. Customs interpretation of the law was my subsequent talk with the
AA (Automobile Association). Incidentally, this (and the RAC) are great
institutions and should be supported by one and all. Anyway in talking to their
foreign exchange expert (and after he conferred with his chief in London) I
found out that the AA could and would, if I so desired, get my seats into
Britain duty free. I also found that had Mr. Customs of Harwich sent my seats
in duty free, upon leaving I would have to pay duty on the camping equipment
that replaced the seats (cost of seats $50, cost of camping equipment
$500). The AA also said that if the AA
got my seats in duty free I might have to pay duty on the camping equipment
even yet. And so it turned out Mr. H. M. Customs did me a great favor. Actually
unbeknownst to me I had modified my car so that the carnet was not really an
adequate or true description and had therefore illegally imported the camping
equipment into England. I asked the AA if they wished to rectify the mistake
and issue a new carnet to make things legal. They politely declined saying in
essence, if you make it legal now you’ll have to pay duty on the camping
equipment but since no one knows the difference, forget about it.
And so Mr. Customs
cost U.K. a pretty penny, saved me the same, and proved only that he knew the
letter of the law, and he convinced me at least that he did not know the spirit
of it. Of course I could always have sold those seats, he certainly did guard
against that possibility. And then again if we didn’t have such laws, what
would the honest men and true who administer them do for a living.
As I was waiting
for a bus one day in Cambridge, I noted in a store window a poster stating;
“Cambridge University Musical Society will present three concerts - - - tryouts
by appointment, phone - - -”. I had
brought my clarinet along and this invitation intrigued me.
You see, in high
school and as an undergraduate in college, I was very active as a performing
musician. In fact, I was the principal clarinetist in the high school band and
orchestra for my whole four year tenure. During which time both the band and
orchestra won top national contest honors, as did I as a clarinet soloist and
as a member of many small chamber music ensembles. On the basis of this, I
obtained a music scholarship to the university and obtained my BA and MA in
music. In the university, also, I was principal clarinetist in the band for two
of the three years I played in band and was the principal student clarinetist
in the symphony for three of my four years in orchestra. I am implying that, as
a performing classical musician in my time, I was no slouch.
Had I not graduated
just after Pearl Harbor, I would undoubtedly have been a professional musician,
performing, teaching, and perhaps working some outside job to make ends meet.
As it was, I did not want to spend the war in a military band. Each of
the three years I was an undergraduate I took mathematics (algebra,
trigonometry, analytical geometry, and differential and integral calculus)
and/or chemistry. And as a graduate music student, I took physics and wrote my
thesis on the physical analyses of clarinet tones. The head of the music school
thought me somewhat odd, but since his music faculty included a chemical
engineer (now the head of the music department) and a mathematician
(concertmaster of the orchestra and harmony and counterpoint professor), he
always signed my choice of courses. I guess he figured better to keep a
scientist musician than lose him to medicine as two of the others in our
woodwind quintet were to be lost.
In any case, I
figured if I could get into electronics before being drafted I would do myself
and the USA some good by being put into radio or radar in the armed forces
instead of in a military band. So with-my 31 hours of math and science I got
myself a civil service job teaching radio communications to Air Force cadets.
Then in quick succession I was drafted, classified 4F (physically unfit, 20/800
vision in each eye, but luckily corrected to 20/20), and sent off to Yale
University with the Air Force School as a permanent (4F) civilian instructor.
During my two years
at Yale I played in the Yale University Orchestra and the New Haven Symphony,
and played in chamber music groups with local doctors, and members of Glen
Miller’s band (these particular members being ex-members of the Cleveland
Symphony). I also attended night classes in Electrical Engineering and started
my change over to scientist leaving my past role as musician.
All of this is
background is to show why, when I left for Europe, I took my clarinet along.
Actually since WWII I had played very little, but did manage a fairly
respectable performance of Mozart’s A Major Concerto (with music) with the La
Jolla Civic Orchestra.
So my past interest
and wasted training got the better of my good judgment and I phoned and
arranged a date for an audition. I had brought along no music suitable for an
audition (actually I had packed some in a box to be sent over later along with
some pertinent scientific reprints, but the boys at my lab misplaced the box).
So I got my embouchure in shape, but just sight read what they gave me at the
audition.
Although they were favorably
impressed, they must have had more and better clarinet players than usual and I
was passed over ostensibly because I was only going to be there one year, the
others longer. But I knew I wasn’t the player I used to be, and this just
convinced me of it. In any case, thought I, there goes my musical activities in
Cambridge. I now had no alternative but to spend all my time on science (and
learning about England, going to operas, museums, Rugby games, church and PTA
meetings, listening to the BBC and keeping 5 boys out of trouble).
One day in dark, dreary, wet February, Pauline the secretary at the Unit phoned up to my third floor Bohemian type cubicle and told me I had a lady visitor in the Common Room. Well, this was indeed a pleasure and to say the least, unexpected. In honor of the o