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In May of 1979 I would have been 27 years old. I had a some scholarship money (at the time I was a PhD student in Philosophy and a sessional lecturer in Computer Science at Western). I used a good chunk of that money to visit England for the month, my first real trip out of the country, where I did a bit of a biking adventure while visiting with some friends. Most notably I spent a lot of time with my friend Martin and his family in Woking, Surrey which is not too far from the Heathrow airport on the train line from Waterloo Station in London down to Southampton on the coast of the English Channel. Martin had been a Philosophy Masters student with me in 1977-78 but had left Western to study in Germany. I also spent some time in Wales visiting with Rachel, a classmate from Philosophy, who had recently finished her PhD. Unfortunately, I've lost touch with her.
Martin had invited me to come and visit him in England were I ever to get a chance. Fortunately, I did and a life long relationship developed with Martin, his mom Jean (who we came to affectionately call "Mom2") and his dad Charles (who we sometimes call "Chuck"). Later we developed and continue a relationship with Martin's son Christopher — he refers to us as "Mom2" and "Dad2", we refer to him as our "No.1 son". Chris came to visit at our 25th anniverary and will be here again in May of 2023. Martin sometimes laughingly complains that "We're stealing his family!". Throughout by "we" I mean me and Kate; we met and married in 1980 shortly after this trip.
My classmates and I were keen on bicycling and photography. My bike, shown above on a lane somewhere on the Isle of Wight, was a recent purchase. I packed it up in a large cardboard shipping box and took it to on the plane as extra luggage. My friend Neil lent me his pannier bags to strap on the back of the bike. I travelled very light with only a little bit of luggage. My camera, an East German Praktica, I had bought a few years earlier — I ended up dropping it one day in London and replaced it with a Cosina (another cheap screw mount camera). Picture quality, if you follow the link to the album, varies from OK to godawful. There's also a paucity of pictures from this adventures compared to later years; I would have taken only 10 or so rolls of film with me. Later, when we were more flush and had much better cameras, I would be shooting a roll a day. These days, with digital, I lose track of how many pictures I take. There's a rule for photograhy: the trick to taking good pictures is to take a lot of pictures.
Anyways, I believe that Gord and his first wife Monica took me to Toronto and then to the airport where I flew overnight on some cheap airline to London Gatwick airport. This was the days of large Boeing 747 and DC10 airplanes which were crossing the Atlantic. Martin remarked on how tiny the plane I flew on was — little did I know, this was only my second flight ever! Gatwick is to the south of London, Woking is to the South and West. It is some distance between, only about 30miles, but an hour on the A24 through many small towns of the scenic Surrey Hills. It would have been more convenient for them if I were to have flown into Heathrow but cheap flights go to places like Gatwick.
It was inconvenient, but Martin and Jean met me that morning at Gatwick airport. Jean tells this funny story: she asked Martin how will they recognize me at the arrivals gate and Martin says she should look for a fellow with a large bicycle box. It just so happened that a bicycle team arrived on another flight at the same time with all their bicycle boxes so that didn't work very well!
Everything about England was a culture shock to me: driving on the wrong side of the narrow roads, the many villages along the way, the very old buildings, but especially the pubs and the drinking culture. On our drive home to Woking we stopped in at a pub, perhaps it was two, where, quite tired from the overnight flight, I was unable to finish my "bitters" (or was it a "mild", I never understood the distinction). Martin remarked that was a first. In Ontario, at the time, we were still getting over tap rooms that were divided into rooms for "Men" vs. "Ladies & Escorts". Our bars didn't open at that hour of the morning! Our beers were clear and cold served in small glasses; their's were dark, cloudy, warm and served in large pint sized glasses. And, get this, you could walk down the street drinking an open beer. We had nothing like this in Ontario. There was a change going on in England from small breweries and small "Free House" pubs shifting to tinned beers in the Pilsner/Lager style and the rowdy "Lager Louts". Ian Robb laments that change in "The Old Rose and Crown" (1985).
In my travels around England I'd often stop into a pub for a beer from the tap and a ploughman's lunch. Jean laughed that I'd sometimes have some beer in the front carrier on my bike. But that doesn't work very well, beer and biking really don't go well together. The beer makes you want to lie down and have a nap.
After unpacking at "Winterset" (Jean and Chuck have a name for their home; there are no house numbers on their street) Martin and I hitch hiked over to the nearby town of Guildford where we visited, what for me would be the first, of very many, ruined old English castles. Guildford Castle, what remains of it, is thought to have been built by William the Conqueror, or one of his barons, shortly after the 1066 invasion of England (see Wikipedia). I think we later learned that Kate's dad Jack was stationed, for at least part of the time, in Guildford, during WWII. That night, after a rather full day, I slept well back at "Winterset".
A note on Woking: it's an hour on the train to Waterloo Station in London. It was established as a cemetery site for London. There are several old cemeteries in London but space and land is an issue. To my mind it's an old town, but these days there's quite a bit of modern buildings in the core. "Wintereset" is walking distance from the town centre and train station. Most important, and this is only something I discovered later on, it was the home for "The Jam" (1977-82) — one of my favorite "punk" bands of the era.
Martin and I visited London by train several times. We often stayed with a friend of his from his university days. Suzie shared a Victorian flat with some friends on Clapham Common which is south of the Thames between Battersea and Brixton (names which meant nothing to me at the time). Her flat was very much the style of a bunch of University students sharing a space together. Her roomates were always away, I never met them.
See "The Guns of Brixton" from the double LP "London Calling" (1979), by the Clash. I was blissfully unaware of the storms that were brewing at the time.
I recall riding the London transit system (those infamous red double decker buses) down the famous King's Rd (where the SEX Boutique (1974-76) of Sex Pistols fame used to be) in Chelsea (as in "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea" (1978) by Elvis Costello), crossing the Thames near the Battersea Power Station (made famous as the LP cover for the "Animals" (1977) album by Pink Floyd) to find our way to Suzie's flat. I must confess that I did not take in any music events while visiting England and only came to the punk movement on my return. We did watch "Top of the Pops" on TV one afternoon but that was about it. At the end of this trip I did buy a couple of double LP albums to take home — "The Great Rock 'n Roll Swindle" (1979) by the Sex Pistols (or what remained of flogging that dead horse) and the live album "Bob Dylan at Budokan" (1978).
With Martin we saw a lot of the city. It's a short walk across the Thames River from Waterloo Station on the South Bank to Trafalgar Square. There's a picture of me hamming it up with one of the huge lions at the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. Nearby is the Canadian Embassy on the square. We toured the Tower of London, snapped a picture of the nearby Tower Bridge (no that's not the London Bridge that's falling down — it moved to Arizona) and climbed the nearby Monument to the Great Fire of London. We went to the domed St Paul's Cathedral (where Diana and Charles were wed). We took a wander through Portobello Road and the Saturday Portobello Road Market in Notting Hill where there were lots of characters and many young dudes in their pink and purple hair. We visited Hyde Park where even more weird characters hang out and harangue the audience at "Speaker's Corner" near the Marble Arch. We stumbled across the "Old Bailey" in some of our wanderings. There's enough references there to justify some song lyrics dear to us:
London Homesick Blues (1973?) by Gary P. Nunn
Well, when you're down on your luck and you ain't got a buck,
in London you're a goner.
Even London Bridge has fallen down and moved to Arizona;
now I know why.
And I'll substantiate the rumor that the English sense of humor
is drier than the Texas sand.
You can put up your dukes, and you can bet your boots,
that I'm leavin' just as fast as I can.
I want to go home with the armadillo.
Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene.
The friendliest people and the prettiest women you've ever seen.
Well it's cold over here and I swear,
I wish they'd turn the heat on.
And where in the world is that English girl,
I promised I would meet on the third floor?
And of the whole damn luck, the only friend I got,
is a smoke and a cheap guitar.
My mind keeps roamin', my heart keeps longin'
to be home in a Texas bar.
I want to go home with the armadillo.
Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene.
The friendliest people and the prettiest women you've ever seen.
Well, I decided that I'd get my cowboy hat
and go down to Marble Arch Station.
'Cause when a Texan fancies he'll take his chances,
chances will be taken — that's for sure.
And them Limey eyes, they were eyein' the prize
that some people call manly footwear.
They said you're from down South, and when you open your mouth,
you always seem to put your foot there.
I didn't spend all my time in London, nor did I have Martin with me everytime I was in London. One sunny day I biked from Woking to Windsor Castle which is due north about an hour and a half each way. Another day I biked into London which would have been about a three hour bike ride. I visited the parliament, Big Ben, the Palace of Westminster (ie. the parliament buildings), Westminster Abbey and wandered the Mall down to Buckingham Palace. Riding into the city along the Thames I might have stopped at the Hampton Palace (Jean tells me this when I get back) where there's apparently a great maze to explore. Looking back, these great buildings, which are now cleaned and a lovely light color, were dark, stained and foreboding from the famous London smog of earlier years.
Riding through Battersea and Clapham Commons on my way to Westminster I almost got clobbered by a small three wheeled car in my confusion about what side of the road I ought to be riding on (I thought I was in the slow lane, but no I was in the fast turn lane). One day in the city I managed to fall off my bike at a stoplight with my feet stuck in the stirrups. Thoroughly bedraggled I took a train back to Woking, got off a station too soon, and managed to flip my bike in a rut on the road wacking my knee really hard in my rush to get back to "Winterset" for dinner. Looking back on the adventure I can see why they tell you not to drive a car in London; but I cannot understand why I thought I might safely try my bike in the city!!
Another bicycle adventure out of Woking was a trip to the Isle of Wight. The train from Woking takes you to Southampton and Portsmouth on the English Channel where you can catch a ferry over to the island. I biked from Southampton to Portsmouth and took a ferry across the way to Ryde. The Isle of Wight is a pretty spot with active farmland as well as beach side vacation stays. There are quite a few historic buildings with thatched roofs. I recall crossing some of the highlands heading south, then sticking to the shore traveling clockwise around the island, staying overnight in the ocean side town of Ventnor, catching a view of "The Pinnacles" at the far west end, and another night in the town of Cowes on the top where there was this really interesting chain-link ferry that crossed the inlet (the River Medina). One afternoon I had stopped at a pub, for a bit of lunch (yet another ploughman's lunch) and happened to be there for the 4:00pm call — "It's time gentlemen please!". There was a football match on the television and, although they did "close" and lock the doors, the locals remained drinking and watching the match. They wouldn't serve me another, probably mistaking me for a Yank, so off I went.
Having never seen the ocean before I was at first non-plussed. What is the deal? This looks an awful lot like our great lakes — a great expanse of water with no landmarks on the horizon. And the ocean ships seemed to me to be a lot smaller than the huge freighters we see on the great lakes. But then there's the tide. To see boats resting on their side in the mud of the harbor when the tide goes out is something I had not experienced before. The tides along the English channel are quite impressive. And the great lakes don't have tides.
On my return I seem to recall visiting Winchester Cathedral and I do recall taking a train trip to Cantebury to see Cantebury Cathedral. It's not clear to me which is which in the photo album. Both are impressive, but there's lots of impressive churches in England. I recall the Winchester has a more rural feel while Cantebury is buried within an urban environment. Between St Pauls and Westminster in London, Winchester and Cantebury I had visited quite enough of grand churches of England.
One sunny day in late May, Martin and I went on a bike ride out of Woking to the area near Ockham (as in Ockam's Razor). We stopped at a pub along a canal and found the blue bells in bloom in the woods. On our return Charles had an overnight meeting in Plymouth which is to the very far west in Devon and I tagged along.
Charles, who was born in Canada (his parents were English expats who returned for the war), was keen to show me around and the long drive to Plymouth gave us plenty of opportunity to chat. We stopped at Stonehenge on our way; he pointed out the burial mounds on the Salisbury plains; and, on our return, we made a diversion into the wild and windy Dartmoor where he set me to climbing one of the rocky outcrops. I almost got blown away; the wind was so fierce you could not stand up. You had to be careful driving as there were sheep at pasture but no fencing to keep them off the roards. Charles told me not to worry because "English cars could stop on a dime — it just happens to be the dime in your pocket".
In Plymouth we parted to meet up later. Charles had his meeting in a downtown hotel and I found a Bed & Breakfast in a Victorian row of white washed homes overlooking the sea. Next door one of the homes was completely gone, an empty lot. And, near the harbor, there were large parking lots interrupting the flow of Victoria rowhouses. I had seen the same in London and found out that these where reminders of WW II — they had been destroyed by bombing raids back in the 1940's. Why these prime building lots had not been redeveloped was a mystery to me. See Wikipedia for more on the Plymouth Blitz.
Plymouth, at the time, was a small, but pretty seaside port where, once again, the tidal changes were substantial. As I didn't have my bike I explored the town on foot.
On our return I set out on a substantial bike trip — to Liverpool, Wales and return. I had an uncle Walter Dixon, my mother's older brother, who served in WW II as an RCAF pilot near Liverpool. He died in a training crash in 1943 and is buried in the graveyard of St Peter's Anglican Church in the small costal village of Formby which is just a little to the north of Liverpool. This, at my parent's urging, was my first goal. The second was to visit with Rachel in Caernarfon, Wales.
It is a substantial distance from the south of England to Liverpool in the north. By train it's nearly 3 hours and that's how I went. Biking would have taken several days. I took my bike on the train from Woking to Waterloo Station, biked in the city over to Euston station (cf. "The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn" (1985) by the Pogues) and from there on up to Liverpool.
Liverpool, at the time, was a dreary drab tired old port city and seemed to be on the skids. I biked north to Formby, about 2 hours away, where, quite by chance, I found St Peter's church and my uncle's grave. It's a very old church with a scrambled graveyard of mostly very old graves. My uncle's is a single war time grave with the epitaph "He sleeps so far from Canada his native land". This is not one of those wartime graveyards with row upon row of remembered heros. Family remember and visit when they can. I ought to return.
At Formby there's a long sandy beach. Back in Liverpool, that evening, there's not a B&B in sight. As night time falls I end up sleeping at a "Men's Mission" where I do not feel safe. I had a little cabin/room of my own and slept fitfully fully clothed with the door locked. I understand that these days the city has developed to be amore tourist-friendly destination playing on the musical history of the Beatles. I did not see any of that, perhaps it was there, I didn't look hard and certainly didn't find it. But then this was just a stop off.
In the morning I'm heading west to Wales with the intention of getting to Caernarfon with an overnight along the way. But first I have to navigate across the Mersey. There's the big Kingsway Tunnel under the inlet but the police stop me and tell me I can't go through with all the traffic. I can go around the Mersey (which is a very long way) or take a "Ferry Cross the Mersey" (Gerry & the Pacemakers 1965). I took the ferry. From there I biked along the coast to the seaside/beach/holiday town of Rhyl where I stayed overnight. From Rhyl my destination the next day was Caernarfon.
Along the way to Caernarfon, you cross the River Conwy where there's the old Conwy Castle and a neat old iron Conwy Suspension Bridge. Again, the tide was out and ships at the dock were resting low in water or on the mud. From the pictures it looks like the tide is a good 12' or so (I just looked it up on Google, the maximum hight tide at Conwy is 8.8m! Wow!). I explored a bit of the castle, it's old and falling down. There are a lot of these old castles (cf. Guildhall) and abbeys (seized by Henry VIII) that are on the historic registrar but not maintained.
I made it to Caernarfon in the middle afternoon having an easy ride along the seashore with the mountains inland to my left. There's another old castle here, Caernarfon Castle, where the Prince of Wales gets his crown, and I find the nearby tourist information to ask for directions to Rachel's place. The kindly lady points me inland to the mountains — I need to climb the Llaneberis Pass (say "clan-a-bare-is"), past Mount Snowdown (which happens to be the highest point in all of Great Britain) to come down to the village of Nant Gwynant on the other side. At the end of the day this is no fun at all. The climb is incredibly steep; so much so that in parts I walk my bike. Along the way I stop at the old steam train that you can take into Mount Snowdown; but I have no time. Zooming down the mountain on the other side I fortunately catch a note for me written on a slate tile by a farm house gate — Rachel and her partner are expecting me but have gone into town.
Rachel's home is an old stone crofter's cottage with a slate roof and exposed beams. It's very rustic, they're almost, but not quite, "off the grid". The land is very hilly and there are sheep roaming about (not their sheep) munching on the grass. We try planting a garden, but then you have to protect it from the sheep. There's Mount Snowdown to the immediate west of us and in between, and below, is Llyn Gwynant (a lake). I recall looking out the window one morning to see a small British Airforce fighter jet go screaming by at eye level in the valley between us and the mountain — it's one of the few training grounds for them. I spend several days with Rachel before heading home.
My intention was to take several days and bike all the way back south to Woking and London. I made it as far as Shrewsbury in a day which had every kind of weather. I was wet and bedraggled. I found riding through the barren highlands out of Mount Snowdown particulary weird: in a land so fully populated there is nothing so empty as these abandoned lands. The weather was cold and rainy, I was drenched. So I found a B&B in Shrewsbury and hopped a train the next day to return south.
At the end of the trip I spent some time with Martin and Suzie in London but soon return home. The weather has turned summery and plants are in bloom. It's quite lush. Mum and Martin took me to Gatwick to send me off. Arriving in Toronto I assembled my bike, hoppped on and rode into the city and downtown to Union Station where I caught a train home to London, Ontario.
Some final comments, observations:
- We are especially grateful for the life long relationship we developed with Martin and his family. It's all too easy for friendships to slip away. This adventure really helped to cement our relationship.
- The Bank of Mom & Dad (my parents) must be acknowledged. When I was running out of cash they wired me a lifeline without hesitation. Likewise, when I headed home Martin spotted me a 10pound note!
- The kindness of friends like Mom2, Martin, Rachel and Suzie who welcomed me into their homes, fed and provided a warm bed is remembered — because, "it's cold over there, and I swear, I wish they'd turn the heat on".
