Dad visited England in 1989 fourteen years after emigrating to New Zealand. He gave the following talk to the Wellsford Probus club…
When Ivan asked me to speak about my UK holiday, I thought: ‘What could be more boring to one’s friends than being confronted with an album of photographs and a long dissertation on one’s travels, the weather and where one has visited’.
Then I thought: ‘What the hell! I have an opportunity to bore a whole lot of people in one go!’
I’m not a great traveller, more a great arriver. Flying bores me. I can’t read or sleep. One, or two-hour flights are OK, but 30 hours non-stop…
I have a quick look round the aircraft like a wartime pilot’s pre-flight check known as ‘counting the engines’. After all these air disasters, I think the port inner looks a bit loose and the starboard flap hangs down a bit – let’s get off the ground; we’re bound to come down somewhere – off we go. Brisbane, 2.5 hours, Sydney 1 hour, Bangkok 9.5 hours, London 12 hours. It’s a hell of a long way round the world!
Over Tashkent, Moscow, Riga, Gadansk, Gottenberg, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, London. At last, 8am touch down, I’m about 5th out of the plane, the first four are the cabin crew. Walk through the new Terminal 4, about a mile to the carousel, immigration customs, out into my son’s car – time 8.30am.
Only 15 miles now to my son’s London flat – it’s the 23rd May, first day of the bus, rail and underground strike! We arrive at the flat at 10.40am: 2 hours and 10 minutes, nearly 7 mph. It’s 30°C in London. A beer and a shower – as I have said, I’m a great arriver.
At the weekend, 8.30am Friday off to the Western Isles of Scotland. Overnight stop in Cumbria. 1st day 320 miles of motorway: travel up the M1, onto the M6 (Spaghetti Junction, Birmingham – six levels of motorway to unravel). Very good trip, average 75mph.
Next day, to Scotland: M6, M8 to Glasgow, then 20 miles of roadworks alongside Loch Lomond. Through the highlands of Scotland. Glen Coe. Still snow on the mountains. Can’t stop to take photographs (a few on the move through the car window). Must get to the ferry, 5pm, from the Kyle of Lochailsh. Arrive, police say 2.5 hour tail back, only one ferry in use, other had run aground. Arrive Isle of Skye Hotel 9.30pm – 12 hours, 230 miles (average 20 miles an hour).
Wonderful dinner: half a lobster, crab dressed and stuffed with prawns and scallops, vegetables and salad. So to bed. Main object of the trip – bird watching. Skye has 20% of the world population of Golden Eagles. Saw over a hundred different species of birds. Drank in the scenery, intoxicated by the waters. Visited Islay and Jura Islands. Soon over. Back to London.
What are my impressions of the UK after a fourteen-year absence? London looks dirtier, is smellier, decayed except for the rebuilt Dockland and the cleaned-up tourist sights. I thought I would take some photographs of the usual tourist areas, so one day I travelled by tube to Westminster. Took photographs of Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Palace of Westminster, through St James Park to the Palace to take some of the changing of the Guard. On my stroll back through the park, it was hot so I thought I would have an ice cream. Reached for my hip pocket notecase for my money …
Which brings me to crime
I’d been dipped on the underground – £85 lighter and I hadn’t felt a thing. So much for all my police training. Luckily, I had my return ticket back to the flat. Two days later, I call into my bank (National Westminster) to refill the coffers. While in there the Midland Bank, 3 doors away, is robbed. Two armed men hold up the security van. An old age pensioner attacks the villains with a couple of planks of wood he’s bought to put a shelf up for his friend. He is shot dead for his trouble. Two days later, the Barclays Bank opposite my bank is held up by two armed men who get away with 20 thousand. A few mornings later, I walk down to the shops. Lying on the pavement is a young woman. She is dead and people are just walking round her! Two policemen come along, check her carotid artery and take a few notes. In the next day’s paper: 25-year-old woman found dead of heroin overdose.
Shopping
I went shopping at 8.30am and found chemists don’t open until 9.30am. The fish shop opened at 10.30am. It had changed. I found the only shops open were the 7 to 11 and corner shops which now open every day from 7am to 11pm, sell groceries, milk, bread, beer, wines, spirits, newspapers and magazines. All these are operated by Pakistanis, Indians and Sikhs. Mutton is obtainable in some, bacon and ham in others, beef elsewhere, according to their religion. Fruit and veg shops were selling different types – it all depended on whether they were owned by Africans, Chinese or Thais. The only Cockney I met was a fishmonger.
Walking back to the flat carrying a load of shopping, I was passed by people speaking Chinese, Thai, Hindi, Middle European, Africaans, Polish and, once by an American couple. That was the only language I could nearly understand. Where have all the English gone? The Scots are still in Scotland and on the Islands they still converse in Gaelic.
Parking
My son has to pay £55 a year ($190) for a permit to park in the street where he lives, so that he can park on the parking meters from 5pm to 9am. After that he pays the meter. The street is lined either side with Edwardian five storied flats. He lives on the top floor, 6 flights of thirteen steps up from the street: 156 stairs down to the car and back. Those who park illegally are wheel clamped. It was quite common to see six cars clamped in the morning, which means a trip to the vehicle station and pay a fine of £75 ($200) before they come and unlock it.
My son lives in St Stephens Gardens W2. At the end of the street is St Stephens Church, which bears a notice: ‘Church parking only – offenders will be baptised’ A local Rabbi, seeing this, decided to put up a similar notice on the Temple, and it worked very well indeed. It read: ‘Temple parking only – offenders will be circumcised’.
Countryside
Most of the English now live out in the country. This is why country cottages are in demand and there is nothing available under £95,000 ($240,000) anywhere within a hundred miles of London. This is why every working day, the main sixteen routes into London are carrying 4,000 vehicles every hour. The M25 (completed in 1984), which encircles London crossing all these main routes, was supposed to take all the traffic by-passing London – 120 miles of three lanes west, three lanes east – until the year 2000. Now it’s being widened to four lanes in each direction and requires another tunnel at Dartford because of the two and a half hour hold up. The M25 is now known as ‘the largest car park in the world’.
I had numerous trips into Dorset, Somerset, Devon and also Suffolk and Norfolk. Wessex is still as beautiful as ever: winding lanes hedged or stone walled with lovely villages and hamlets untouched by time, thatched houses and pubs. These lovely old inns sell good beer and local cider, and stock the usual spirits and wine, in the main supplying good meals, either restaurant or bar meals, at lunch time and evenings and often have rooms available as well.
They haven’t been plasticised and still retain their charm. One I dined at in Kent was still the original 16th Century Inn named ‘The George’ after St George and the Dragon which the sign depicted. It had been rebuilt in 1510 and on the wall it had a list of the dates and names of the landlords up to the present day. It had been built on the site of the previous inn, built in the 13th Century in the reign of Edward III, which was burnt down. Really hallowed ground!
The pubs in England have really wonderful names, one local to the flat in London was ‘The Slug and Lettuce’. Others, like ‘The Duke Without a Head’ and ‘The Startled Saint’ which shows St Leonard wearing a startled expression with a halo of spitfires. This relates to the nearby West Malling wartime aerodrome
Whilst on holiday with my grandchildren, we stayed at a cottage in the little village of Chittle Hamholt in Devon. The local pub was 16th Century thatched roofed called ‘The Exeter Inn’ on the edge of Exmoor. Here we had our evening meals, while my son and I tasted the beer and the kids had soft drinks. It was nice to get to know my grandchildren in the peacefulness of the moors, walking and birdwatching. Suki aged 16 years a lovely cuddly girl with a lisp, who had been two when I last saw her. Ashley, 13 years, meeting for the first time. The weekend fishing trips in competition with my son and grandson were so very enjoyable; walking the moors and woodland with Suki, birdwatching and chatting away together, were some of the best moments of my life!!
Eight thousand miles around England and Scotland spotting 130 different species of birds. Fishing the lakes – the temperature between 23° and 33° every day. One shower of snow in the Highlands. Two hours of rain one day in England. In Scotland, birdwatching in daylight up to midnight, dawn at 3am. Fishing with the steam rising off the lake at 5am. A diet of Scottish salmon, trout and seafood. Numerous pints of beer. The three months flashed by. I had enjoyed it and achieved my object of seeing my grandchildren before I ‘popped my clogs’
Arrived 6am Auckland Airport, raining and 80°. It had been 28° when I left Heathrow.