A Town by a River

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Kings College Chapel

Some time back when I was teaching in South Houston I mentioned to my students that Duke University would be an excellent choice for college. A young man laughed hilariously and corrected me as though he thought I was showing great ignorance, “Mrs. Burnett, Duke isn’t a college! It’s a basketball team!”

Of course I was stunned by his lack of knowledge, but I suppose that each of us sometimes demonstrates ignorance about certain things. I got my own comeuppance when visiting the town of Cambridge, England. For most of my life I had thought that the place known as Cambridge was just the land where a prestigious university stood, rather than a center of work and home for regular people. I had little idea that there was a Cam river across which a bridge was built that may have given the place its name. It wasn’t until I was watching Granchester on PBS that I realized how little I actually knew about the city of Cambridge, England.

On the second day of our great road trip adventures we headed to Cambridge. It’s quaintness and the friendliness of its citizens struck us almost immediately as we attempted to operate a parking meter. A kindly meter man approached and showed us how we might get a refund on the money we had already put into the machine. Instead he suggested that we go closer to the center of town where we would have unlimited time to park without having to worry about feeding the meter again and again. It ends up that he was originally from Poland but had chosen Cambridge as his home many years earlier when he had become a huge fan of the place and a source of great information.

With his advice in mind we set out in search of the city center noting the rolling green parks, the quaint homes, and the general neatness of Cambridge. As we walked down the main street we had a real sense of the people who lived and worked there, as well as the pride they had for their town. Soon we were in the heart of the university itself with its many colleges and buildings dating from medieval times. The architecture was striking, but we wanted more than anything to see Kings College with its chapel built during the reign of Henry VII with its distinctive architecture known as Tudor Vertical.

We had first heard about this remarkable creation from the Rice University professor who lead our class on the Tudor kings and queens this past spring. He had shown us images of the kinds of cathedrals that were typical during the time and then flashed a photo of the Kings College Chapel with a comment that the people who first saw it must have been awed by the light afforded by the long tall windows. Somehow we knew from that moment that we would have to see the place with our own eyes.

For the time being, however, we were hungry because it was long past lunchtime so we found a place that offered a wonderful luncheon menu at a remarkable price. I suppose that we are more accustomed to living in the fourth largest city in the United States than in a small town like Cambridge. We assumed that everything would be open at least until dark but soon learned how wrong we were when we attempted to gain entry to the Kings College Chapel. Our way was blocked by a woman who insisted that it was closed to tourists for the remainder of the afternoon to prepare for Evensong at 5:00. Not to be deterred from seeing this wonder, I inquired as to whether or not we might be allowed to participate in Evensong and to my delight learned that it was open to the public.

We spent the next couple of hours wandering through quaint shops, perusing the open market stalls, sampling fudge, and walking along the Cam River. Guides were using long poles to move boats along the tree lined water as people lounged on pillows while enjoying the view. We saw the Mathematics Bridge, a marvel of both art and science as well as many other chapels and interesting buildings. By five we were first in line for Evensong and waited expectantly for our chance to enter Kings College Chapel.

In the interim we met a wonderful man who explained that many of the places were closed to the public that week because students were busy taking exams. He also mentioned that if we wanted to just view the chapel without participating in the full Evensong gathering we would be able to sit in the back and leave quietly whenever we were done.

Kings College

Soon we were witnessing the magnificent chapel that was even more awe inspiring in person than in pictures. We had been cautioned not to take photographs and to respect the prayerful intent of the occasion but we nonetheless snuck a shot or two without bringing notice to our infractions.

The ceremony itself was outstanding. The choir was composed of students and the inclusion of female voices added a resonance to the singing that head been missing in the music of Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was a quite lovely experience that provided a moment to meditate on both the constancy of tradition and the inevitable changes of life.

I thought of the incredible people who had lived and worked at Cambridge University, giants like Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking. I wondered at the history of the college and the town itself. I felt a sense of ease and peace, closing my eyes to feel the flow of the river that had seen so much genius and so many instances of humanity. Once again the voices of history entered my head and blended with the sonorousness of the choir. It was glorious.

It was dark by the time we had returned to London. We were much calmer about my brother Pat’s driving and we felt quite content. We had walked in the shadow of giants and now also knew that Cambridge was more than we had ever thought it to be. In life there are both constants and variables and we had seen them both.

Punting on the Cam

The Rack

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

The Rack

Driving a car in England is no small feat for a Yank, and doing so in London requires a leap of faith. Aside from the obvious problem of driving on the opposite side of the car and a different side of the street, there is the crush of traffic on streets so narrow that it is a wonder that anyone ever makes it out alive from a simple excursion. Nonetheless we were intent on seeing some of the surrounding countryside and towns, so we rented a car and gave the task of navigating it to my brother, Pat, whose resume as a chauffeur is rather impressive. As a college student he had worked for the United States Postal Service delivering mail in one of those paneled trucks with the steering wheel on what is usually the passenger side of the car. He’d also driven a fourteen wheeler for a department store, and both an ambulance and a fire truck for the City of Houston. His credentials certainly seemed to indicate that he was up to the task of taking us out for a little spin.

Aside from the obvious problems associated with driving was the realization that parking is almost nonexistent in London. We wanted to secure a car for a week and travel back and forth to various destinations from our home base at the Holiday Inn in Bloomsbury. Try as we may we had still not found a reliable solution for our parking dilemma after a week of inquiry and we worried that finding a place to store it each evening would be almost impossible. Thanks to the quick thinking and negotiation skills of sister-in-law Becky we were able to set that worry aside.

  On the very evening before we were scheduled to secure the car Becky and brother Mike were locked out of their room, forcing them to inquire at the front desk of the hotel as to why this was so. They learned that the manager wanted them change to a different location, an up grade in fact, so that a handicapped individual would be in an adjoining room to his traveling party. They begged Becky and Mike for understanding and even insured them that the process of moving would be taken care of by members of the staff. Becky saw an opening for a special request and boldly mentioned our concern with having a place to park the car that we were going to rent for a week. She noted that there appeared to be a few empty parking spots right in front of the hotel and suggested that they would be ideal. A few words with the manager made everyone happy, as he gladly announced that he would be overjoyed to provide us with the needed parking slot. Our most worrisome problem was instantly solved!

The next morning we all walked to the Hertz rental location taking a long and circuitous route around the neighborhood before finally finding a small office on a hidden street. Since Pat was going to be the driver he had to secure the actual rental agreement which required documents that he had not brought, so there was another brief delay as he walked back to the hotel. Not long after noon we were excitedly piling into a Citroen that was supposedly designed for as many as seven people. We immediately realized that seats other than those in the very front were meant for only the smallest of children. To say that we were cramped is an understatement and the seats were not only tiny but also as hard as rocks. It didn’t take us long to refer to the vehicle as “the Rack,” as in an instrument of torture. Nonetheless we were quite excited about seeing more sights in the country so we squeezed ourselves inside and carried on.

As if driving in the country was not going to be difficult enough, the Citroen came with a manual transmission that required shifting gears with the left hand while steering with the right around corners. The second gear had an irritating habit of getting stuck in the worst of situations. It took Pat a bit longer to adapt than he had thought, but his wife Allison was an ever alert navigator by his side who kept him appraised of directions and alerted him whenever he was about to take off a mirror on a parked car. She came up with a way of telling him how to make his turns that eventually worked out well, “Make a wide right” or “This is a tight left.”

The first trip was to Brighton just to the south of London. It became more of a driving lesson for Pat than anything else and we only had a few close scrapes, but at first there was a lot of screaming and backseat driving as we all adapted to the strangeness of being in a car where everything was backwards. Not even Alice’s adventures in Wonderland were quite as ridiculously scary as our first hours in the tiny car.

By the time we reached Brighton we were famished, a bit shaky, and our limbs ached from the cramped conditions. We were more than ready to find a pub where we might enjoy a good Sunday roast and Google led us to the perfect spot. It was located on a neighborhood street and was packed with revelers giving us a sign that the food would be quite good. Happily we were not in the least disappointed.

We sat at an outdoor table where other diners came with their pets, sweet dogs that entertained us as we waited for our dinner. The meal was perhaps the best of our entire trip and husband Mike was particularly excited by the quality and taste of the Yorkshire pudding which reminded him of his own grandmother’s cooking. We splurged by ordering a sticky toffee dessert that was scrumptious and left full, satisfied and relaxed.

The beach at Brighton looked out on the English Channel. It’s rocky surface was not what we had expected and the piers and hotels were not as elegant as they appeared in movies set in the early twentieth century when women wore long white dresses and carried parasols to shade them from the sun. The famous gazebo and pier that is often associated with Brighton was a burnt out shell ravaged by fire and never rebuilt. The skeleton of its ruins sat forlornly in the water. Still it was a lovely place that looked out onto a route to the continent and to a storied history.

We walked on the rocky surface among hordes of sea birds and I even found one pebble shaped like a heart that I stuffed into my pocket as a remembrance of that day. It was nearing nightfall and we still had the drive back to London so we said our adieus and folded ourselves back inside the confines of “The Rack.”

For the most part our return journey was smooth, if uncomfortable, and Pat was quickly becoming a seasoned driver. He took our kibitzing in stride and we joked and laughed about the drawbacks of the car with a bit of lewd language. With grateful hearts we were soon safely parked in front of our hotel and congratulating Pat for getting us back “home” all in one piece. He and “the Rack” had served us well.

All the World’s a Stage

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

The Globe

I was one of those young college students who struggled to decide what path to follow in preparing for a career. I began with an unspecified arts and sciences major and changed directions multiple times. I even dropped out for a time because I was so confused about what I really wanted to do with my life. In the end I graduated with many more hours than usual, ultimately majoring in English and Education with a heavy dose of mathematics courses for good measure. By that time I saw myself as a purveyor of literature, and I dreamed of inspiring students to love Shakespeare as much as I do. I carried visions of my favorite high school teacher, Father Shane, in my head and hoped that I might inspire a new generation of young people to appreciate the beauty of the the written word as much as he had impacted me.

To my surprise my first job was as a mathematics teacher, something I viewed as a temporary status wrought by a dwindling market for newly graduated educators. I assumed that within in year or so the economy would right itself and I would soon enough be dramatically quoting lines from Othello and demonstrating the art of writing. Somehow I instead became branded as someone capable of instructing students in the algorithms and formulas of algebra, geometry, probability and statistics. It became an unbreakable trend, and soon enough my preferred mode of work. Still, there hovered in the back of my mind an undying love for literature, grammar, linguistics and composition. The artistic side of my nature needed to be unleashed, but would have to learn how to express itself in unique lessons for teaching proportion and the wonders of circles.

Once I retired from my career I returned to my roots, writing almost daily, reading and rereading some of my favorite authors, and immersing myself in the beauty of language. I even enjoyed tutoring a student or two in the ways of interpreting literature and then writing about metaphors and other tools of language. If found great joy and relaxation in having the time to devote myself to explorations of the ideas that I have always so loved.

Still there remained a longing to visit the land where so many of my favorite authors had once lived and to experience the history and culture that had so molded them. The number one entry on my bucket list was to travel to London and its countryside, and I was determined to one day make it happen. It was with great expectations that I recently crossed “the pond” and had the opportunity to walk in the shadow of some of the greatest authors of all time, not the least of which is my favorite, William Shakespeare.

The original Globe Theater where Shakespeare’s plays were performed was destroyed long ago, but a replica now stands along the Thames River offering seasonal productions for those desiring to get a feel for how the Elizabethan world might have been. It is an outdoor venue with a large open area for the “groundlings” who must stand during the presentation with three levels of seating on the same type of narrow wooden seating that the more prosperous patrons of old might have enjoyed. The only nod to comfort in the arena are the small cushions that may be procured for an extra fee to soften the harshness of sitting on a hard surface for three hours.

My traveling companions and I went to see The Merry Wives of Windsor, a comedy that might not have been my first choice but was nonetheless the offering for the season. It was a greatly modernized version of the rollicking farce featuring the crowd pleasing character, Falstaff. The members of the company played well to the audience just as the actors of old most surely had done. Their light hearted banter kept all of us laughing and enjoying the ridiculousness of the story.

When intermission came I learned that the members of my family had little idea what was happening. They had not taken entire courses on the works of Shakespeare as I had. Only my sister-in-law Becky was somewhat attuned because I had gifted her with a translated version of the play since she was worried that her English might not be up to speed enough to understand the nuances of a Shakespearean production. I hastily describe the premise of the play and each character’s role in the tale. After that there were more laughs and enjoyment coming from my family, and I felt a small sense of satisfaction in being a purveyor of understanding for them.

I was literally floating on air as we emerged from the Globe Theater at the end of a riotously fun evening. The night sky was clear and illuminated by a million points of light from the city of London. I walked across the Millennium Bridge in high spirits as I marveled at my good fortune, and considered that the course of my life had gone full circle, returning me to the passion of my youth. I thought of Father Shane and gave him a silent nod of gratitude for instilling me with a love of all things literary. I felt quite complete as I considered how well the course of my life had gone. There was something very Shakespearean about the way that I was feeling and the contentment that filled my heart.

As if to remind me that life is filled with comedies and well as tragedies, in the midst of my elation my brother Michael ran into a low barricade, did a complete somersault, and banged his head on the pavement in view of St. Paul’s Cathedral. His glasses were broken, his body was bruised, and we worried that his injuries were severe. With the usual aplomb he brushed away our fears, but the bubble of perfection in which I had been floating returned to reality. It felt as though Shakespeare himself was reminding me of the vagaries of life that are the stuff of both tragedy and comedy.

I shall never forget my evening at the Globe Theater. I have seen better plays and more superior acting at the Alley Theater in Houston, but those entertainments did not feel as sacred as my pilgrimage to the place where the undyingly prescient words of the Bard still deliver their universal messages. More than ever I knew that “all the world’s a stage,” and I have been a player in its never ending plot.

Not Today!

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Churchill War Rooms

Our trip to London had been carefully planned, but in our concern with hundreds of little details it had never occurred to me that scheduling a visit to the Churchill War Rooms at the end of a week of seeing all of the major sights would turn out to be so perfect. In fact by learning about so much of the history of this great city I truly understood what was at stake when Adolf Hitler threatened to overtake the whole of Europe with his warped political philosophies. In an effort to keep the peace much of the continent had bowed to his demands only to realize that his appetite for domination was not easily sated. For a time Great Britain seemingly stood alone in its determination to remain free from Nazi tyranny and the consequences for doing so were grave. Somehow through the inspired leadership of Winston Churchill the people fought valiantly against the greatest of odds.

History will never know how things might have ended had Great Britain compromised with Germany as some desired. It is uncertain if the people would have been able to endure the unrelenting attacks from the air on London were it not for Churchill’s determination to convince the citizens that surrender was not an option. The entire world might be very different today if Britain had fallen before the United States eventually entered the war. Instead the people of the British Isles fought with every fiber of their courage even as the landscape around them was turned to rubble. They were a proud and determined people with a leader who loved his country and its freedoms so much that he was committed to making whatever sacrifices needed to save Britain from unwanted domination.

The Churchill War Rooms were hastily created in an underground area near the government offices in the center of the city of London. They became the nerve center for the planning of strategies and battles. While they now appear secure from dangers above ground the fact is that they might have been instantly destroyed had an enemy bomb caused the building above them to fall. The honeycomb of offices, sleeping quarters, and conference rooms was improvised to provide safety to the key leaders of the war effort, including Winston Churchill. Today it stands as a vivid reminder of what was at stake not just for the people of Great Britain, but for the entire world during those fateful years when evil was overtaking most of Europe, Africa and the Pacific.

I had not realized how deeply affected I would be by viewing the Churchill War Rooms, but as I walked through a maze of rooms left just as they had been on the day that war ended for Europe I was moved to tears at virtually every turn. Because I had spent a week learning so much of about this great country I was able to fully understand both the fears and the determination that the citizens must have felt as the specter of pure evil hung over them. They were literally on the brink of losing all that they had ever cherished, and after fifty seven straight nights of bombing over the city they must have felt even more terrified. Somehow their leaders found the inspiration needed to keep hope alive, and much of what they did took place in the tiny rooms below the ground.

The tour of the Churchill War Rooms lays out both the brilliance of leaders like Winston Churchill and the humanity of the British people. I literally heard their voices telling the story of one of the darkest times in history. I saw their faces in countless photographs and films, and witnessed the devastation that seemed almost unending. All of my senses were immersed in a retelling of the horrors of the time and the bravery of a generation that said a resounding “No!” to those who would enslave nations.

I felt humbled beyond words and filled with my own private thoughts as I slowly wound my way through the tales of privation, loss, and courage. The ghosts of the people who had worked there came fully alive as did all of the citizens who chose to stand firmly against surrender. I felt the spirit of good versus evil, right versus wrong. I understood the humanity of what had happened before I was even born.

When I returned to the light of a gloriously beautiful day I was happy that I had time to sit quietly and collect my thoughts. I had been moved from one emotion to another and I needed a moment to simply meditate on what I had seen. Never before had I quite understood what my parents and grandparents had felt during that terrible war. Not once had I realized why occasions like D-Day in Normandy were so important to them. I had not fully comprehended how frightening life must have been nor had I felt so grateful for freedom.

As we walked through lovely gardens in sight of those underground bunkers I felt a sense of profound appreciation for the most simple aspects of the world. I saw the flowers and the birds in a new light. I felt gratitude for the people of Britain for holding the line against the evil that threatened the future into which I came.

I smiled when we encountered a political demonstration in the streets in front of Parliament. It was a raucous affair decked with flags and the nation’s colors. Traffic was stopped for miles around. The sound of bagpipes filled the air. People spoke their minds without worry. It was a show of freedom that might not have been there had things gone differently during World War II. I silently gave thanks for the folks who had said to Adolf Hitler, “Not today!”

Demonstration.jpg

Whodunnit?

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Jack the Ripper

It’s rather ironic and appropriate that it is a dark and rainy day as I write about the Jack the Ripper Tour that we took while we were in London. It was a Friday evening at the end of a week in which the sun had shone gloriously on us every single day. We had seen so many of the treasures that make the city so remarkable and had enjoyed good food in spite of rumors that the cuisine often leaves something to be desired. Everything about our visit had been picture perfect, so it was only right to have a threat of rain as we boarded a double decker tour bus in search of the infamous places where five women were brutally murdered by a killer who was never found, but came to be known as Jack the Ripper.

We used our age and the fact that we were the first to arrive at the bus station to be the first in line to enter the bus. This advantage gave us a seat at the top of the bus that had a cover so that our enthusiasm was not the least bit dampened by the chilly precipitation that was moving over the city. A gifted movie director could not have created a better backdrop for the tale that our guide was about to unfold. His thick Scottish accent only made the experience seem somehow a bit more sinister.

I suppose that I had thought that a visit to London’s east end and the Whitechapel area would have taken me back in time to a place where the clock stood still. I did not expect to instead see modern buildings and signs of great progress that cloaked the poverty and want that had once defined the area. The story that we were hearing was of people whose existences were so dreary that they had often lost hope. In particular the women whose lives were so brutally taken were victims not just of a murderous rage, but of a society that had thrown them into the trash heap long before they were killed.

As I listened to the circumstances of each woman who met such a merciless ending I felt that the real tragedy lay in the way that they were perceived by a society. They were attempting to survive in a world so cruel that they had little hope of finding a semblance of peace. These ladies were sometimes abused by men, spurned as being somehow indecent, and left to their own limited resources to get from one cruel day to the next. As our journey through their nights of horror progressed I found myself pondering the sadness of their fates, and seeing them as vivid examples of the societal problems that have challenged women throughout history.

There was one victim who had come from Sweden to learn the housekeeping trade. At some point she became pregnant without benefit of marriage and was thus spurned forevermore. Left alone in a city that was foreign to her with no support systems of family or friends she had to turn to any means possible just to have food and a place to stay at night. She was at the mercy of people who viewed her as a fallen woman and her opportunities for a decent life were forever gone.

Another of the victims had been thrown out of her home by her husband, a situation that was quite common at the time. She ended up in a poor house lodged in a building that is still standing to this very day. There she had a bed and food, but few prospects for a better future. Eventually she left to be on her own, only to somehow encounter the man who murdered her.

There have been hundreds of theories about who Jack the Ripper might have been. Some believed that he got away with his crimes because he was a man of influence, perhaps a royal personage or someone who worked in law enforcement. Others considered that he might have been a doctor, a barber or a butcher because of his seeming skill in ripping the bodies of his victims apart. The saddest aspect of his crime spree is that he was almost operating in plain sight, but because his victims were at the bottom of the societal pecking order his actions seemed to have gone unnoticed. He was simply one of many men who preyed on the hopelessness of women caught in untenable situations.

Our group became rather quiet by the end of our journey. Somehow we were all thinking less on the idea of whodunnit and more on the sadness of the five women’s lives. In an ironic twist they are now remembered and even mourned. We fidgeted as we thought of their how awful they were treated not just by the killer but by all who saw themselves as more decent. They lived in the darkest shadows of a city where status was parceled out with a punishing stinginess. Simply by dent of birth they were relegated to unimaginable hardship. The true crime was the way in which they were shunned so cruelly by people who never took the time to know them.

At the end of the tour we were left at the Sherlock Holmes Pub where I suppose we were supposed to enjoy some merriment and a few laughs after our evening’s entertainment. Somehow instead we felt the need to just go quietly back to our hotel where we said little about what we had seen. Each of us were left with our own thoughts, and mine we steeped in great sadness with a touch of anger that anyone would ever have to live as the five women did. How many more like them were there? How many more like them live in fear even now? What must we do to ultimately end the cruelty that reduces the status of little girls and leads them into lives of domination and hurt? What will it take for us to make keeping them safe a priority no matter where they may live? That is a more important question than solving an old crime.