Stratford-Upon-Avon or “To Be or Not to Be”

The place of William Shakespeare’s birth was nearly the place of my death.

I once heard a comedian talking about the difficulties of translating a joke from American English to British English.  He used an example which contained the phrase, “hit by a truck”.  In the UK, a truck is called a “lorry” and the phrase “hit by a lorry” just doesn’t have the same punch to it.  “Lorry” isn’t as harsh a word as “truck”.  To further complicate the issue, a semi is called an “articulated lorry”.  Nevertheless, whatever you call it, I was nearly flattened by one in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Stratford is a very small town which is famous mainly for being William Shakespeare’s birthplace.  The Royal Shakespeare Company also has its headquarters there and performs the Bard’s works in a large theatre complex on the edge of the River Avon.

The squashing incident (or “nearly squashing incident”) occurred on my very first visit, not only to Stratford, but to England.  The British drive on the left side of the road, so it takes some getting used to as to where the cars are coming from.  It’s second nature now, but a new experience then.

I was at the crossroads of five streets.  I looked up and down every one of them and then proceeded across.  Apparently I should have looked down and up them instead of up and down them.  I was not quite halfway across when an articulated lorry parped his hooter (which is what the Brits do in place of honking their horn) and slammed on his brakes.

Well … I could have broken the Olympic record in the high jump.  I rocketed straight up into the air about 50 feet (give or take an inch), came back down (almost — my feet didn’t quite touch the ground), polished the truck’s grillwork with the sleeve of my jacket in passing, and shot across the remainder of the road in a single bound.

Once the shocked onlookers ascertained that I was indeed all right, I was congratulated on my agility.  A bit shaken by having seen my life flash before my eyes in sixteenth century iambic pentameter, I repaired to a tea shop for tea and scones.

While we’re on the subject (or at least in the neighborhood), let’s discuss a few differences in terminology with reference to road transportation.  Although a truck is a “lorry”, a car is still a car.  However, the fender is the “wing”, the trunk is the “boot”, and the hood is the “bonnet” under which is a “cylinder block” instead of an engine block.  The windshield is a “windscreen”, the muffler an “exhaust silencer”, the drive shaft a “propeller shaft”, the battery an “accumulator”, the transmission case the “gearbox housing”, the turn signal the “flasher”, and the choke the “strangler” (I rather fancy that one).

You fill the vehicle with “petrol” instead of gas.  If involved in a “car smash” (accident), you might fix it with a “spanner” (wrench).  You do drive it, with a driving license, but on a motorway instead of a highway (although, inexplicably, a divided highway is a “dual carriageway”) upon which you may be involved in a “multiple smash” or experience “nose to tail traffic”.

Then there are the traffic signs:  A detour sign is a “diversion notice”; instead of just play “slow”, the road signs in the UK emphasize that you proceed “dead slow”; and the yield sign says “give way”.  I almost expected the stop sign to say “cease and desist”, but it simply says “stop”.

Across the street from the tea shop was Shakespeare’s birthplace.  For a small fee it can be toured.  But you will be stooped over by the time you leave the house.  Even I had to duck through the doors, and I am just 5’3″.  People were much shorter 400 years ago.

In addition to the birthplace, there is also Shakespeare’s daughter, Suzanna, and her husband’s house — Hall’s Croft.  She married a doctor.  Many of his medical instruments and records are on exhibit and the house itself is completely intact, including the furniture.

You can see Will’s school, which is across the street from Harvard House.  This was the home of the founder of Harvard University here in the States.  Just outside of town is Anne Hathaway’s house, which looks like the Seven Dwarves should come marching out of it.  Anne became Shakespeare’s wife.

Will’s grave is in the church at the end of town.  There is an inscription on it that reads in part: “… cursed be he who moves my bones.”  People have taken this very seriously indeed.  At one point some group was hunting for the originals of his play manuscripts.  They poked around the houses that are still standing, found nothing, and then came up with the brainy idea that they might have been buried with him.  Spooked by the curse, they used machines to x-ray the grave instead of digging him up.

I could have told them they wouldn’t find anything anyway.  Playwrights in his day did not own the plays they wrote.  The acting company for which they were written owned them.  If they want to find the original manuscripts (if they still exist) it would be necessary to track down the movements of John Heminges (the last of the company to die) and his descendants.  Heminges was in possession of them at one time as he was the person who had them published at Will’s death.

The town has changed little since Shakespeare’s day, so it is possible to get a real feel for what it was like back then.  Shakespeare lived and wrote in what was the end of the Elizabethan era.  This was also the time of Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Spanish Armada — a fascinating period in history.