When did I last visit London? Well, there’s a question! Apart from changing trains coming back from Paris in 2020 it must have been the early 1980s when I lived in St Neots, Cambridgeshire. So when a friend suggested a weekend trip to the BBC Proms I jumped at the idea, especially since it would be a chance to see Daniel Barenboim conduct Brahms’s violin concerto with soloist Anne-Sophie Mutter.
The train from Hebden Bridge to Leeds was already 15 minutes late when it arrived and I found myself panicking about missing the train to London from Leeds. I looked up the Live National rail site and found that the London train had been ‘delayed indefinitely.’ Arriving in Leeds the station was packed with people gazing up at the overhead screens, stomping around, stamping their feet. SO many trains had been cancelled. Eventually I found a member of the the train staff and was told to take the next train to Sheffield, then from there take the Plymouth train which stops in London St Pancras. The entire East coast main line was closed. I met up with my friend and we travelled across Yorkshire to Sheffield, a journey of just over and hour and then managed to board the train to London. We’d been informed that there’d be no food or drink on the train, it would be standing room only. I’d tried to buy snacks at Sheffield station but because of the chaos they were all sold out.
Having to stand for a three hour train ride was not something I am capable of doing, especially on one of the hottest days of the year- and of course, this being England there is no air conditioning. So pleading infirmity I managed to grab a seat in first class, where it was, thankfully, a little cooler, and there I remained for the next three hours. Two days before I set out on this trip my bank card had been cancelled due to a possible breach of security. Realising that there would be many occasions when only contactless payments would be accepted in London (I rarely use cash on a daily basis) I had purchased a cash card from the post office and spent the majority of the journey attempting to get this card up and running so I wouldn’t find myself stranded somewhere in London.
Reaching St Pancras we quickly took a hot underground Tube train to South Kensington, whilst finding out that I had not indeed managed to enable my new cash card. We were staying in the student dorms of Imperial College, directly opposite a line of famous museums – the V and A, the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum. The dorms were built around Prince’s Garden and the streets were lined with beautiful Georgian terraces. The price of these blew my mind:
Lots of students were milling around, presumably taking summer school classes, many of them from distant countries. My dorm room was adequate, somewhat Spartan, but there was a window that opened 4″ and a small fan. The outside temperature was 77F.
We set off in search of food five minutes after arriving since we’d had no lunch. I’d noticed a Thai cafe with outdoor seating on the road from the station and we ate there. It was 5 o’clock and the traffic was bumper to bumper in every direction. The streets were also full of Uber Eats delivery bikes winding their way between the cars. It looked a very dangerous business. I was really enjoying the vibe of the city as I ate my early meal. Everyone looked very well dressed, expensively dressed. The streets were clean – no litter. Many expensive cars were to be seen. After all, this was only a stone’s throw from Harrods. After the meal I sat in Prince’s park for a little while watching the world go by. This didn’t feel like England – at least the England that I am familiar with.
On the way back to the dorm we walked past the Albert Hall. Last time I was here was when I organised a field trip with a group of 10 year olds from the school I was teaching at in Bedford back in the early 1980’s. We had sat up way in the gods but it was a first time experience at hearing live classical music for all the children. This evening a youth orchestra was in the middle of a photo shoot on the famous steps outside the concert hall and I couldn’t resist taking some photos too. Although the National Youth orchestra had performed in the Proms the previous evening I wasn’t able to find out who this orchestra were.
After a short time sitting in Prince’s Garden I headed back to my dorm. Just after midnight the fire alarm went off.
I hastily threw on some clothes and headed out. I was grateful for the balmy evening. The entire building was evacuated – several hundred people. After about 15 minutes we all were ushered back in, with no explanation. I went straight to sleep only for the same thing to happen 45 minutes later – and everyone piled out again. Same scenario – we were let back in after 15 minutes. I never found out what had occurred!
The next morning we headed out for breakfast in the Albert Hall cafe where I had a dish of overnight oats and a cup of tea. I was looking forward to exploring London for the day.
The evening Proms concert was to start at 7:30 so I’d planned on taking a Hop On- Hop Off bus in order to see as many of the sites of the city as possible. I had found a flier which was advertising such a trip with a cruise along the Thames included so I headed off to find a bus stop for the open top bus. With the temperature threatening to reach 90F during the day I set off with a borrowed wide brimmed sun hat and a large bottle of water. As I walked along Exhibition Street the crowds were already several hundred strong outside each of the galleries and museums, awaiting the 10 a.m. opening time.
It didn’t take me long to find a bus and off I went upstairs for the best view. Luckily the bus wasn’t too crowded. During the next hour I passed Harrods, Hyde Park, Marble Arch which is currently covered as it undergoes renovation, The Hilton Hotel, the boundary wall of Buckingham Palace (buses are not
allowed on the Mall), Piccadilly Circus with the Eros statue, Trafalgar Square with its lions, New Scotland Yard (where one of my students used to work) and arrived at Westminster bridge, home of the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.
Seeing some of these building brought back memories of the time I visited my college friend in London where she’d moved to when her boyfriend was studying obstetrics at a London hospital. They had lived on Praed Street close to Paddington station. I managed to dig out a couple of photos from that trip. The entire area was buzzing with tourists while I stood, awestruck by the complexity of the stone ornamentation on the major buildings.
AMAZING! I crossed the bridge that was covered with people and saw places where people mudlark for ancient treasures the river sometimes unveils. I took a stroll beneath the London Eye.
Each pod holds 25 people and was opened in 2000. It can hold 800 people at a time, having 32 pods – one fore each of London’s boroughs. A full rotation takes 30 minutes. I must admit I was tempted but my head for heights is not good. Besides, the queue was so long it would probably require standing in line for over an hour. So forget that idea. Perhaps it was time to take the river cruise.
I was fortunate that I didn’t have to queue too long in the bright sunshine and within 20 minutes I’d take my place on the upper deck of the boat, being careful to hang on to my sun hat of the entirety of the hour ride.
The boat, named The Mark Twain, sailed under the Golden Jubilee bridge, passing the Hayward gallery and the Royal national theatre, the famous Oxo building that got away with advertising when advertising on the waterfront was not allowed by having windows shaped OXO in the tower, the Tate Modern, the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre,
passed under London Bridge, saw The Shard and eventually arrived at Tower Bridge where I decided to get off. Again I was overwhelmed by the number of tourists around the Tower of London and to enjoy the atmosphere I bought a take away salad and luckily found a bench in the shade where I could eat my lunch and people watch. The whole experience of the boat trip I’d found to be mind blowing mainly because of the modern architecture. From the open space of the river the complexity of the new high rise buildings was visible in a way that isn’t when you are on street level.
By the river the expanse of the buildings can be seen in all their splendour, and of course, their juxtaposition with ancient landmark buildings several hundreds of years old is what makes this place visually very special.
With thoughts of coming back to this area tomorrow to go inside Westminster Abbey I boarded the bus back towards Marble Arch and walked through Hyde Park back to my dorm.
This walk seemed longer than I had anticipated but I think that was because of the heat. It was now registering 93F. I stopped for an ice cream cone and then went to explore a large gathering of people at Speakers’ Corner. It was a religious group eager to convert people and there were lots of people with tripods and video cameras recording the proceedings. Someone with a camera came over to me and asked if he could photograph me since I looked so delightful in my sun hat eating my ice cream cone. I smiled and moved on!
I passed the Serpentine Lake full of row boats trying to dodge the ducks and occasional swan but I didn’t see the Princess Diana memorial – it was just too hot to keep walking. I was back in the dorm by 3.30 and was eager to have a shower and relax before the evening’s entertainment. I’d walked 7 miles in temperatures that I’m not used to.
At 5.45 we headed out for dinner though it seemed too hot to eat very much. We found a fish and chip shop that served salmon salads – how weird is that? – but that was just a perfect meal for me.
Then over to the Albert Hall where long queues of people were waiting for the promenaders’ tickets. I’ve often wondered how on earth people mange to stand for an entire concert: judging from the queues they weren’t all spring chickens either. On the way up to my seat I stopped to buy a drink – very warm beer-ugh. Then up the stairs, and up more stairs until we arrived at our seats. We were on the top tier and just how high up that is can be seen in the photo below. The promenaders looked like they’d been brought in from a doll’s house, so tiny did they appear. There was another row of people standing behind the top tier of seats too. The concert was completely sold out which was not surprising since it was rumoured that this could well be Barenboim’s last conducting season. From our vantage point we had a perfect view of the entrance tunnel and we soon saw Anne Sophie Mutter and Barenboim link arms and enter onto the stage. The rapturous applause was deafening. She looked stunning in a shocking pink gown though I do have to say the colour and style reminded me of the Barbie movie. She was guiding him onto the stage and he shuffled onto the podium where a chair was waiting for him. At 81 he’s an absolute legend though not as mobile as he once was. Both Anne and Daniel had been married to legends too: he was married to cellist Jaqueline du Pre and she was married to Andre Previn. The orchestra this evening was co-founded by Barenboim, the West-eastern Divan orchestra and is comprised of Arab and Israeli musicians. I was expecting to see lots of TV cameras filming the concert but no, it wasn’t televised, but it was recorded for the radio. Unusually there was no overture so the first notes of the evening were those of Brahms’s violin concerto at quite a slow tempo. I was disappointed to be so far away, both for the sound and the visuals. I like to see the eye movements and body language of the performers as they interact with each other and that was just not possible from this height. After the intermission the second piece was Schubert’s 9th symphony, a piece much less familiar to me. There were some beautiful oboe and horn solos during the piece.
The concert finished at 9:45 and it was only a five minute walk back to the dorm.
Next morning we packed our belongings into our bags and left the bags in reception to pick up later. We bought breakfast at the students’ cafe and it was already warm enough to sit outside to eat in the garden.
I’d planned to go back to Westminster Abbey to see inside and so I flagged down a taxi to take me there. Already, at 9 a.m. the area around Westminster Bridge was chock-a-block with tourists and I was both surprised and very disappointed to discover that all the tickets for viewing the Abbey had already been assigned. Oooo. That was a bit of a blow.
The detail of the stonework on the buildings astounded me. I think I spent half an hour with my mouth open oo-ing and ah-iing at the complexity of the carving. I crossed the road and through a narrow opening I saw what looked like a tower of much greater antiquity than the huge buildings surrounded by tourists.
This little tower was even surrounded by something that had clearly once been a moat leading into the Thames. I walked around the moat, more to find some shade and quiet away from the throngs of people and on seeing that you could climb the tower I decided to go in. It’s a national heritage site called the Jewel Tower.
It was delightfully cool inside and guess what? I was the only visitor!
This was the building in which the standard measurements were established was the Weights and Measure office between1869 and 1938. There were silver cups and platters in glass cases, many hundreds of years old and to protect these valuable royal items the doors are made of metal.
The stairs were quite scary – even at their widest my foot overlapped the edges. The views from the upper windows (there are no windows on the ground floor for security’s sake) are interesting because the glass is old and bevelled – my favourite sort of view.
Leaving the Jewel Tower I stopped for refreshments on a small street, sitting outside and people watching. One of the people I ended up watching was Baldric from Black Adder. Well, that’s what the sign on the coach said!
Eventually it was time to head back to the dorm to pick up my bag and head for King’s Cross and the train back north. I found a taxi with a chatty driver. He’s been a London taxi driver for 17 years and I felt totally safe in his hands despite the crazy traffic and Uber Eats bicycles weaving in and out of the narrowest passages. When I caught a glimpse of the horse guards returning to barracks after the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace the taxi driver immediately turned a sharp right onto a side street saying “Jump out, run to the end of the street and you’ll get a photo opp!” No sooner said than done. He dropped me off at the dorm, waited until I collected my bag and then we headed to King’s Cross. I bought a sandwich and found the platform where my train to Leeds would be leaving from. A hundred or more people were waiting at platform 9 3/4, standing in line to have their photos taken with the sign where Harry Potter left for Hogwarts. When I’d passed through King’s Cross on my way back from Paris in February 2020 I’d been the only person taking a photo there.
I found my way to my reserved seat on the train, sitting by the window and soon got chatting to the man sitting next to me. We remarked on the crazy hot weather and I helped him, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to use the QR code on the seat to order some refreshments so off he went to the buffet car. Meanwhile I watched the world go by, thinking how flat southern England looked in comparison to where I now live. I sometimes forget that I live in the Pennines – the backbone of England. When I moved to the south, Cambridgeshire, for my first job in 1978 I remember thinking how boringly flat the landscape was. As the train approached Leeds station I headed towards the exit door. The man had left the train at the station before – Wakefield. It was only then that I discovered that ‘a famous vet’ had been in my coach ‘from the telly.’ Apparently I’d spent three hours in the company of The Yorkshire Vet, of the TV series by that name, but then I’d never heard of the programme or him!
A simple change of trains found me back in Hebden Bridge with no fuss, and looking forward to my next excursion.
Recent Comments