We left the Royal Scots Club the morning of the second of May and in a little over four hours of train travel we arrived at Kings Cross Station London. Again, the countryside was lovely with glowing yellow rape seed fields in spring bloom and the rugged coastline of the North Sea providing an engaging counterpoint.
A short tube ride brought us to our lodging at the Cleveland Residences a short two blocks from the Earl’s Court station in Chelsea. The Cleveland Residences was newly converted from a single-family town house into compact but comfortable single room accommodation. We had planned to meet our Mystic Connecticut friend, Nick Van Drimmelen, for lunch and he said he knew the pub around the corner from our room. It turned out his mother lived across the park from our lodging.
Nick brought along his mother and sister for a wonderful extended lunch with fascinating stories of the last of the Empire. Nick’s mother’s family had served the Raj in India for two hundred years. Nick’s father’s work for BP was as an expatriate to Laos and Cambodia and he experienced the life of being reared in Asia with long journeys back to England and the lonely interminable terms at boarding school.
Our location put us within a short walk of Sloane Square, Belgravia, and other areas built for the governing classes during the age of Empire. Two things stand out in my mind. We walked to Onslow Gardens, where my father was billeted during WWII and to a posh retail area that had the fancifully designed Michelin tire headquarters built in the 1920’s on Sloane avenue.
My father lived in Onslow Gardens during the fall and winter of 1944, when V-2 rockets blitzed London. They were supersonic so no warning of the strike unlike the V-1 that buzzed and could be shot down by fighter aircraft. Survival of the V-2 was by luck, not avoidance.
John Sr. was in the combat engineering corps, and he noted that they had much repair and cleaning to do because the Irish workers that proceeded them had abused the properties out of anger with the English. Now the streets around the garden are filled with Mercedes, Bentleys, and Rolls. The Michelin tire building is best described by the photo accompanying this story.
Heidi and I enjoyed aimless walking about, but we did plan two events, a visit to the Tate and evensong at Westminster Abbey. The Tate was wonderful though we arrived late for our reserved tickets because I foolishly directed us to Tate Modern. Evensong never came off despite our best efforts. We dressed for church, blazer, tie, and appropriately respectful attire for Heidi. We arrived thirty minutes early and found a line stretching around the corner of a motely attired, selfie-stick wielding herd of tourists. I spoke to the warden asking whether being a communicant (I am a life-long Episcopal-Anglican) would help us achieve our goal, alas no. I have made it a habit of going to evensong at either St. Paul’s or West Minster on several trips to London and never saw a line and was at times seated in the choir. Those days are gone with the surge of tourism due to the rising wealth around the world. A visit to one of these cultural treasures is another trophy that one can send home, a selfie to prove the visit.
One final observation. We were surprised by a social Pelican in St. James Park. This bird had an engaging personality and waddled up to children and adults but withal in a gentle manner. Pelicans are not native to England, but someone released one in the park and now the wardens have found others to keep the first one company and take care that they are sheltered, fed and protected.
Now on to Hayling Island on the Solent, next to Portsmouth in the south.
