As a writer, piles of notes, documents, file folders and edited manuscripts seem to pile up on my desk. During my last effort to solve this problem, I came across a photograph of a group of forty strangers in total, yours truly standing in the middle of the rear row, a thatched-roof house as a backdrop. I look at him now, remembering the group with bittersweet nostalgia. They were all strangers to me, but after eleven days on a bus in England, I remember them fondly.
When I told my father I wanted to visit England, he said with his strong Yorkshire accent: "What do you want to go there for?" Not Mr. Felice at best, had a low opinion of his former country. What I wanted to say in reply was: "I would like to know if your psychological problems are of a social nature or based on individual idiosyncrasies", but I kept the language. I was determined to visit the land of my ancestors one day.
I have listed many reasons for him to visit England. The main reason was, in addition to being an Englishman of blood, if not of citizenship, the country is a great cultural influence of the modern age. Birthplace of many luminaries from Shakespeare to Churchill, the country has generated an endless list of important historical names in each field of activity. Just because he wasn't one of them wasn't a reason to love them all.
How to hug an octopus, you have to choose how to approach England. You can purchase any number of reasonably priced rail passes that allow you to hop on and off at any time at your convenience. There are many options, from walking tours of London to guided bicycle tours, or renting motorcycles and staying in bed and breakfasts. The problem is figuring out which one suits you best. In the end I opted for a guided bus tour in England, leaving Wales and Scotland out, of which I am sure they are fantastic, but I would have extended the tour by another ten days.
A friend who did the bus tour recommended it to me. The reasons became obvious after a while. The British drive across the street and after a life in which they usually make right turns easy, they suddenly become extremely dangerous over there. You will appreciate the driver's driving skills after seeing how narrow some roads are. To simplify things, the travel itinerary is planned for you. On the first day you will see Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral, stay in a hotel in Plymouth, leave in the morning to continue the tour through Devon and Cornwall, and so on.
Attention, the tours in the catalogs change frequently, if not every year. The tour I had decided to do a year earlier was no longer offered to me. I settled on an eleven day tour of England. The coach would leave London and make a clockwise tour around the country stopping in picturesque villages and towns along the way. The pace was listed as a "busy" itinerary, code for saying it wasn't exactly pleasant. Sometimes when we stop, we only have time to buy coffee and use the bathroom and then get back on the bus. A slower pace means that you will be able to spend more time at each stop, but it also means adapting to fewer sites in the same time frame. So if you stop in Bletchley Park on a 'busy' tour, it's best to be able to understand subtraction encryption in twenty seconds or you're back on the bus without the full drug on the German Enigma machine. This is the thing about planning your tour; you can stay as long as you want if something interests you.
Think of the coach tour as Introduction to England 101. They give you an overview and decide what you would like most for your next visit. Another positive thing about England is that they speak a form of English here. Well, outside London they do. In London, it would be difficult for you to find English other than the queen. In fact, across England, with the exception of the types dressed as medieval falconers and your tour guide, you may find it difficult to find a real English people. Those wonderful PBS programs like Downton Abby, Upstairs Downstairs and the like are all a fiction, which reflects a nostalgic and non-existent vision of England - England as it once was. This, in a way, is what the coach tour presents.
You see, England exported its lower ranks, people like the Schofields, and still having not abandoned the class system, they needed to import a new group of coal miners and miners from the colonies. This is where all foreigners enter. Every waiter, hotel concierge, cleaner who you meet will come from abroad, few of whom have a good command of the language. The first clue should have been the customs agent who was African and spoke with a strong French accent asking "How's the hare going? Wuz da porpoze you visit?" Bloo-dee terrorists, I thought, the plane was hijacked in the Middle East while I was sleeping! I was brought to my hotel by a Russian who answered all my questions with an incomprehensible grunt. The Egyptian concierge was mad at us colonials, the Polish cleaner did not understand that I wanted her out of the room, and the Serbian maitre d 'pointed to the buffet and made vigorous hand signals: "Eat!" said "Zix on the dot - eat!" Ah, merry old England!
All hotels have a buffet breakfast. I have heard that if you wish to eat well in England, have breakfast three times a day. The British kill their food with a hammer and then boil it for a day to remove any remaining flavor. When you travel the world, note that there are no English restaurants, only many Scottish (MacDonald's). Eat the buffet, it's the best on offer and it's included in the price.
The tour was very reasonable at $ 2200 Canadians and put us in moderately good hotels. Keep in mind that a four-star English hotel is probably a three-star hotel in the United States or Canada. After my coach tour I spent two days on a dive which was below the motel but rated three stars. Our prisons have better accommodation. That single bedroom with paint peeling off the ceiling and eerie red spots dripping down the walls cost $ 250 a night. For sure there were better options, but it was conveniently located for my scheduled excursions to Oxford and the Imperial War Museum in the other direction the next day.
The visit was fantastic after leaving London. We stopped at Salisbury Cathedral and saw a copy of the Magna Carter. Our group's lawyer said it made the trip worthwhile. Lawyers must be Toastmasters by nature; every time he spoke to me I felt he was praying against a sleeping jury, his loud and slow statements were heard three counties away. We took a boat ride in Plymouth harbor and saw the steps where the first settlers in the New World would leave on the Mayflower.
We visited some picturesque towns on the Cornish coast, in particular Tintagel, home of King Arthur's court, and Clovelly, a curious fishing village on the cliff side where donkeys still carry supplies up and down the steep cobbled streets. The retired South Carolina judge scratched his knees as he took a fall. We visited Stratford-on-Avon, the hometown of Shakespeare, Bath, an ancient Roman village and Chester, a picturesque Elizabethan street lined with Tudor houses, where our talented tour guide helped us understand the history of street baths, which I almost made a contribution because of the length of his discussion. In the old Stratford hotel, the signs to my room were "Two stairs up, turn left, down a ramp, watch your head, then right and then up a flight of stairs". At this point you developed an English accent by Bill Bryson. "Greetings" or "Jolly well, then", answer.
Then we leave for Liverpool, a surprise because it was not the city I thought it was. I had lived there as a child and had heard many stories about his macabre living conditions. It was also the second most important port of its time. Beatles fans will be able to see the Cavern Club, Penny Lane and the relevant houses. This thrilled a girl from Texas whose mother had bought her the trip for her nineteenth birthday. He knew more about the tour guide on the Fab Four. Liverpool, now quite modern, is also home to the titanic White Star Line headquarters. I bought a coffee from a Liverpuddlian but his English was worse than the Russians in Devon, so I gave up looking for milk and sugar, taking what was delivered to me. Beware, average coffee prices are two pounds, about $ 3.75 Canadian. Think of it as a visit to another planet and you'll be fine, don't try to make sense of it all. "Meat an shooha ova da, mayeet. Ta." He says it, then you give him the money. Smiles everywhere. Until you drink coffee.
From there we went to the Lake District and took a boat ride on Lake Windermere, ten miles long, the largest lake in England. Home to many brooding British authors and poets, it made me laugh because we have thousands of lakes, all larger. They made us beat on brooding poets.
Afterwards, we leave for York, a city jewel. We dined in a private manor where a wealthy couple kindly served us all forty. It was on this evening that two Singaporean women asked, "How long do you have to stay married to a Canadian before you can get half the property?" A year was the answer, to which both smiled broadly.
The last stop on our tour was Cambridge and King's College. I found a shop that sold obsolete military surpluses, including tunics of grenadier guards and bear skins. Street vendors sold word games along River Cam, the famous flat-bottomed boats where a pole is used to push the aircraft. Oh yes, and a lot of girls on bicycles in fragile clothes! I'm sorry I can't stay for a doctorate or two.
I am a big fan of Inspector Lewis and added a trip to Oxford after the coach tour ended. I wanted to see the small university town where three people are killed every week, many of which, rightly, academics. I also wanted to be able to tell people "I went to Oxford" and delight in their reactions as they draw incorrect conclusions. I sat on a bench next to the Thames to chat with an elderly couple who knew Collin Dexter, the creator of the original Morse inspector.
On my last day in England I visited the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth, an easy subway trip on the south side of the Thames. World War II has been a lasting interest of mine since the age of fifteen. The museum turned out to be smaller and more crowded than I imagined. One day is enough to cover the exhibits, but I suspect I could have spent a lifetime in the upstairs library.
I had an uncle who died in that war as a pilot and wanted to know if he was one of the "few" to whom Churchill referred in his famous speech. The librarian said that the military archives were now in Kew, but since my return flight was for the next morning, it should have been another trip.
If you are looking for a safe and pleasant journey, I highly recommend England by coach. If you are an Anglophile - well, what are you waiting for! And no, not everyone in England is as unhappy as dear old Mr. Happy.