I didn’t mean to be out of the US during the 1991 Gulf War. It just sort of happened that way. I had my set of plans; the first President Bush had his. He didn’t let me in on his.
The war began while we were in the air en route to Gatwick Airport just outside of London. Because of a friend my mom had with the airline, we had been boosted up to First Class. The plane was half empty due to the threat of war and our section had a grand total of five people in it.
With a glass of champagne before dinner, a glass of wine with dinner, a Bailey’s Irish Cream after dinner, eye shades, a neck pillow and a seat that went nearly completely horizontal, I had actually slept for the first time ever on a plane. I smiled brightly at the customs officer and answered his questions with zest (instead of my usual bleary-eyed grumble).
The soldiers and tanks around the perimeter of the airport didn’t tip me off as I had heard that such precautions were being taken because of the possibility of war. The train ride from Gatwick to Victoria Station was uneventful. It was during the taxi from Victoria Station to the hotel that we found out we were at war.
“American are you?” the cabby asked.
“Yes.”
“One of the brave ones, eh? Don’t imagine I’ll be seeing too many Americans now that the war’s on.”
“The war’s on?”
“That’s right … you were on the plane. We’re at war.”
“Are we on the same side?”
The cabby laughed. “So far,” he said.
We drove past Parliament and several of the government offices along Whitehall. Not that many days earlier, the IRA had lobbed a rocket in Number 10 Downing Street’s direction from a parked van on Whitehall. The area was now patrolled by armed soldiers and the entrance to Downing street was sealed. It wasn’t even possible, at that time, to see down the street. On our previous visit in 1983, we had been able to stroll down the street and take a photo of the Prime Minister’s home. The cabby gave us a blow-by-blow of what had happened, pointing out the exact spot where the van had been.
Since it wasn’t our first trip to the UK, we knew that the large numbers of soldiers and the tight security which was evident everywhere were not standard operating procedures for the capital city. It was a little unnerving at first.
Our hotel was just off of Trafalgar Square near Charing Cross, so we could walk pretty much everywhere. This proved to be a good plan as the underground stations were closed half of the time because of bombings or threats of bombs. A couple of bombs went off at Victoria Station and some outlying suburban stations. There was also a threat one day of one at Charing Cross. They had the entire area around the station (including our hotel on Villiers Street) cordoned off and patrolled by policemen with dogs.
Except for this aspect, being in the UK during the war was actually a pretty good deal. There were very few tourists at all (much less other Americans), so we had all of the main tourist attractions pretty much to ourselves. On our previous visit, both the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey were very crowded. This time was completely different.
At Westminster Abbey, we managed to find the final resting places of several people we hadn’t been able to locate before. Someone had been standing on Charles Dickens on our previous visit (he is buried under a stone slab in the floor of Poet’s Corner — the grave is well marked now, but not so in 1983 or 1991). This time we were the only people in Poet’s Corner and we found him quite easily. In fact, the only other tourists we encountered in the entire Abbey was a group of French school children.
Since the Abbey personnel weren’t terribly busy with herding tourists, we engaged some of them in conversation and were rewarded by learning things we didn’t already know and being shown things we hadn’t seen before. It was a whole ‘nother world. We actually ended up spending more time in the Abbey than before because we were able to see so much more of it in detail.
When we got to the Tower of London and found only a small group of German tourists, we decided to spend a lot of time chatting with the Yeoman Warders (the Tudor-uniformed guards depicted on the Beefeaters Gin label). These people are wonderful conversationalists and extremely well trained in the history of the Tower. We always start our visit with the Yeoman Warder led tour and then carry on from there. With Mom and I as the only takers on our particular tour on that visit, it was much more of a conversation between the three of us than the usual booming voice of the Warder trying to carry across roughly thirty or forty people straining to hear every word. We could talk about the history of the place, the people who had been imprisoned there (and executed there) and the ghosts that were all over the complex of buildings.
On our previous visit, one of the Warders had explained the reason why the British drive on the left-hand side of the road. He claimed that, back in medieval times, the knights rode their horses on the left side of the road so they could carry a sword, halberd or an ax in their right hand to combat any enemy they might encounter. This tradition carried on up through the days of the highwaymen (trading guns for swords) right on up to the first automobile. Rather than changing the traditional side of the road, they just changed the car instead. Sounds rather plausible, but you are never really certain whether or not they are pulling your leg.
On this visit, since we had him to ourselves, we chatted with the Warder about some of my ancestors on my father’s side that had been Constables of the Tower between the 1400s and the 1700s. This made our visit inside the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula (located in close proximity to the site of the scaffold) a little more interesting than usual. Fortunately, none of the Royal Family (whose private chapel it is) was using it at the time. So Mom and I had a private tour of the interior. Anne Bolyen, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey, Henry Grey, and Sir Walter Raleigh are some of the people buried just in front of the altar. The Warder said that one of my ancestors was credited with inventing the rack — try living that one down.
One day, after exploring the South Bank of the Thames and having crossed back over one of the bridges to return to our hotel, we encountered one of the most unusual public facilities we have ever come across. It was cylindrical and extremely futuristic. As soon as I paid my 30p, the door slid open with a decidedly “Star Trekky” sound. Once inside, the lavatory flipped down from the wall and the door slid closed with the same “thuomp”. Then came the music — a bright, bouncy little ditty that only served to bring on the giggles. When the button to flush was pushed, the bowl flipped back up into the wall and the music stopped. To wash your hands, you put your hands into a space in the wall that first gave you soap, then water and then air dried your hands. To get out of this space capsule, another button was pushed — you didn’t want to push the wrong button at the wrong time. Also, you had to be quick about getting in and out as the door wasn’t open for long.
When I emerged, Mom said, “What’s so funny?”
“You’ll see,” I replied enigmatically. She did. We laughed for several blocks.
We took a multi-day tour out of London. There were maybe eight of us on a coach that could hold 40. The others were from Australia and New Zealand. The tour included some time in Warwick, where we toured the castle (which became and remains one of my favorite castles in the UK), a short exploration of Chester and a visit to the Lake District. It also included my first time ever in Scotland (where I have ancestors on my father’s side) and Wales (where I have ancestor’s on my mother’s side) — both sides have English ancestry.
In Edinburgh, we had a local guide who gave us a grand overview of the city. Our guide was a fascinating fella who had lived in Edinburgh his entire life. He knew all of its history and all of its legends. He had a delightful brogue and wore a kilt (Clan Gordon).
Public executions of people suspected of practicing witchcraft were held on the esplanade in front of Edinburgh Castle. Sometimes they were burned at the stake and sometimes they were hanged. There is a memorial to them all near the entrance to the esplanade. A very short walk away is a pub called The Last Drop, where the spectators to these executions (and those accused of other crimes) would gather before and after.
By the time we were up on the extinct volcano upon which Edinburgh Castle is built, it was storming pretty well. All that rain doesn’t make cobblestones any less slippery and the road up to the top is very steep. Mom and I were both wearing gym shoes (which were fashionably black, but still had the great gripping soles), but out guide was not. He slipped and revealed the secret as to what a Scotsman wears under his kilt. Fortunately, he wasn’t hurt.
In one of the episodes of the third series of the British comedy “Black Adder”, Rowan Atkinson’s character, Edmund Black Adder, does a monologue on Wales. He says that the men of Wales go about in gangs terrorizing the countryside with their close-harmony singing and that, should you attempt to pronounce any of the place names, you’ll end up drenched in phlegm.
I can testify to the place names. One of the towns we spent some time in was called Llangollen, which is pronounced something akin to “klan-clock-klin” with lots of tongue clucking and spittle involved. My mother’s maternal grandmother was from Caernarfon. The main Welsh word that I remember from my childhood is the equivalent to “shut up”. I don’t have a clue as to how to spell it, but it sounds like “kye-kieg.” Even English names can be embarrassing to try to pronounce. Southwark is pronounced “sutherk”. Leicester is “lester”. Then there is Belvoir — “beaver.”
Every place we went, we found ourselves engaged in conversations about the war. We also kept tabs on what was happening through newspapers and the BBC. It was a completely different perspective from what others experienced here in the US as it was a completely British viewpoint. One aspect that we thought was very interesting was that the British kept thanking us for helping them. I had been under the impression that it was the British, the Saudis, and the other countries in the Alliance that were helping the US. A friend on the tour, over a pint of Guiness he was standing me to in a pub one evening in Durham told me that Britain had some pretty large economic interests in Kuwait.
We were in York when the war ended. All over the city, every church and cathedral rang its bells. We couldn’t hear anything else because of the bells. All conversation stopped. The entire country heaved a massive sigh of relief. About a week later, we flew home.
Next time: Back to Victorian London or “Elementary, My Dear Dickens”
