The British Library, Brighton, Bookshops, and Buckingham Palace

Sir Isaac Newton
brooding over the Universe
British Library courtyard

London 2002 continued...

Monday 16 September 2002

This is not to be missed: The British Library. Take the Underground to King's Cross. Turn right out of the station and walk a block. As you pass by St. Pancras station on your right, look up. It is a wonder.

Oh my. This library was one of my favorites. It is in a new building (1998) that has a grand statue in the front courtyard of Sir Isaac Newton brooding over the Universe. Inside is a book lover's dream. John Evelyn's diary from 1660 (in tiny, tiny handwriting); Jane Austen's writing desk; the original Alice's Adventures Underground with Lewis Carroll's own drawings; the manuscript of Middlemarch by George Eliot. (I had just read this earlier in the year and was thrilled to see the original.) Also a display of original Beatles' lyrics on paper napkins and the backs of greeting cards proving that inspiration can strike anytime. "I want to hold your hand..." There also, of course, are illuminated manuscripts, bibles, maps, Magna Carta, and more.

A wonderful gift shop full of books - what else. It is worth it to buy the souvenir guide. (Five pounds sterling.) Great photos and much history.

We had lunch in the shadow of the glass tower that runs up the middle of the building and contains the library of King George III. About 65,000 volumes. Awesome.

Next, we found our way to Covent Garden. Wandered in and out of the small shops at Neal's Yard (fashions, shoes, magic, natural remedies); had tea at the original Covent Garden; bought an enameled brooch for Mom at one of the antique stalls; and, miraculously found our way to nearby Stanfords, Britain's largest bookseller of maps and travel books, to purchase a copy of Mrs. P's Journey. It is about the woman who created the London A-Z map.

Tuesday 17 September 2002

Terre a Terre
Brighton

Day trip to Brighton. (An hour south by train from Victoria Station.) Toured the fantastic Royal Pavilion built by George IV with its Oriental domes and Chinese-style state rooms. Lunch at Terre a Terre vegetarian restaurant. Some shopping in The Lanes, a maze of small stores and restaurants. Bought chocolate-covered violet cremes that were yummy. A stroll along the boardwalk with great views of the Brighton Palace Pier (built in 1891) stretched out on the water looking for all the world like a grande dame in white lace. High tea at the Grand Hotel overlooking the English Channel. Three tiers of goodies: scones, finger sandwiches, sweets. Took a taxi back up the long, steep hill to the train station and back to London.

Wednesday 18 September 2002

Cecil Court bookshops

Spent five hours (including lunch) at the National Portrait Gallery. If you only see one museum, make it this one. Start at the top floor and work your way through the faces of British History. I was swooning. Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen...on and on. The only disappointment was that the gallery with a portrait of PM Tony Blair (I am crazy about him) was closed. Alas...

Afterwards, we turned left out of the museum and strolled along Charing Cross Road with all its bookshops. Too bad; so sad. 84 Charing Cross Road is no longer there, but its spirit is. Don't miss Cecil Court which is full of teeny bookshops too. It is right off CCR and is a treasure.

I bought a book of English essays and Twenty-Five by Beverley Nichols. He wrote Merry Hall which is a must read.

Thursday 19 September 2002

This is the morning we toured Buckingham Palace. The Queen only opens the palace to tourists in August and September while she is summering at Balmoral. La-de-dah for her. 

The best story about this experience: 

As we entered the palace through the Ambassador's Entrance we had to walk through a long, narrow hallway that was lined with marble busts perched on columns. One loud American berated the guard: "Why aren't these busts identified with names. It would be helpful to know who they represent." 

To which the guard replies in her chilliest British fashion: "Madame, this a not a museum. This is the Queen's home."

So there!

After the palace and tour through the gardens, we made our way to the Ritz Hotel. Mom had a seat in the lobby while I wrote a letter to myself on the hotel's stationery at a small wooden writing desk. Tres elegante. I posted the letter and it arrived in my post office box shortly after I arrived home. A little memento of our visit.

Of course I bought stationery at Smythson's

We did some shopping on Bond Street and New Bond Street. Here was everything I wanted: chocolates from Charbonnet et Walker; stationery from Smythson's; a Waterman fountain pen from The Pen Friend in Burlington Arcade which is right off of Bond Street. I was in heaven.

To read the entries for the remainder of our time in London, start here.

In Which We Arrive in London

The Chelsea Physic Garden, London
The perfect place to refresh one's spirit after
hours on an airplane, or anytime really

As this is the last weekend of my British Month, I have made a bold decision to add the rest of the day-to-day account of a trip that my mother and I took to London in September 2002. The account, based on the journal that I kept, was written for a family friend who was going to be visiting England six months or so after we were there.

Last weekend I posted from the end of the journey as the dates corresponded; this is from the beginning of the trip. 

You will see that it is quite bookish. Here goes:

Wednesday, 11 September 2002

We arrived at Lime Tree Hotel on Ebury Street about noon. We caught a direct train from Gatwick to Victoria Station and walked the few blocks to the hotel. A charming and convenient location in Belgravia. We had rooms on the ground floor (as I had requested) that overlooked the back garden full of rose bushes. So very British, don't you think?

After checking in and putting up our feet for a few moments, we walked south toward the Thames past the Royal Hospital to spend time at the Chelsea Physic Garden. It was founded in 1673. We had our first English tea there and strolled the gravel paths amongst plants and flowers that were intended to heal. A very quiet time. It was a fine place to catch our breath after breathing recycled air on the airplane for hours.

Dinner at Ebury Wine Bar & Restaurant next door to the hotel. It was the first place I had eaten dinner 20 years ago when I was in London. I stayed on the very same street. As a matter of coincidence, the couple who now owned the Lime Tree Hotel had owned Ebury House when I stayed at that fine establishment in September 1982.

Lime Tree Hotel
Ebury Street, London

Thursday 12 September 2002

Took the Big Bus Tour of the city. The company's many routes and live-guide talks proved to be a good way to get our bearings and to see the Big Picture. We sat on the top of red double-decker buses and had a grand time. Unfortunately, that was the day we took a lot of photos with the camera that didn't have any film in it. Woe!

Friday 13 September 2002

Started out at the Tower of London. Took the tour with a colorful Beefeater (bloody history made funny for the tourists). Oohed and aahed over the Crown Jewels. A spin through the gift shop (we each bought T of L souvenir leather bookmarks). We passed on the White Tower which contains armor and weapons. I took Mom's photo with one of the guards dressed in full regalia. 

We had a picnic lunch on a bench overlooking the Thames and Tower Bridge. Took a boat ride up the Thames to Westminster then  the underground ("Mind the Gap") back to St. Paul's Cathedral. (A bit of backtracking, but the boat ride was a spur of the moment idea.) St. Paul's is gorgeous. We didn't go downstairs to the Crypt. It was getting late and we still had to visit Dr. Samuel Johnson's house which is tucked away on Gough Square. From St. Paul's, signs directing us were well marked. Dr. Johnson, of course, is the fellow who compiled the first English dictionary in this very house. 

Saturday 14 September 2002

The British Museum. Hours spent looking at Elgin Marbles, Egyptian stuff, and the Rosetta Stone. The best part was sitting in the famous Reading Room with its spectacular dome and books, books, books all pertaining to the museum's collection. Lots of famous people have used this very room. Great gift shop so allow time to browse through it. 

Reading Room
British Museum

Sunday 15 September 2002

We walked over to Sloanes Square Underground Station and met our guide for a London Walk. These are such fun. There are tons of them covering all areas of the city. We spent two hours or so on the tour walking the streets and neighborhoods around our hotel. Very ritzy area. Margaret Thatcher (Dame) lives just a few streets over from our hotel. We didn't see her but we did see her house and the guard fellow who stands watch. Saw the house where "Upstairs/Downstairs" was filmed and also Noel Coward's home which is on Gerald Road in Belgravia. 

Later, we found our way to Piccadilly Circus and had lunch. Window shopped on Regent Street (no traffic as there was a street fair going on). Then we enjoyed the farce - "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Abridged" - which was wacky and irreverent. The Criterion Theatre is right at Piccadilly Circus. A great old, small theatre.


Tomorrow 16 September through 19 September - The British Library, Brighton, Bookshops, and Buckingham Palace.

A Peek Inside Merry Hall

The end papers of Laughter on the Stairs
featuring the interior of Merry Hall
as drawn by William McLaren 

Where Merry Hall is mostly about the creation of the gardens of the Georgian house bought by author Beverley Nichols after World War II, the second in the trilogy, Laughter on the Stairs, gives a glimpse into Merry Hall itself. 

This book records Mr. Nichols's quarrel with a stained glass window left by the previous owner, his installation of a window grill in the music room cupboard, the purchase of art, and the delivery of four walnut chairs designed and crafted in 1695 by a gentleman named Daniel Marot. It is these chairs, the gift from a friend, that Mr. Nichols sets as the standard for all the other furniture he purchases for the house.

He writes:

The vow was that somehow or other, cost what it may, I would try to live up to those chairs. To try to 'live up to' anything beautiful, whether it is a Greek vase or a slow movement by Mozart, is a most worthy and moral aim; if beauty is in your head, if even a fragment of perfection abides in you, it acts as a standard to which you may constantly refer, even if the reference is subconscious. The lines of the vase, the lines of the music -- they are a corrective to excess.

We also get to meet up again with Miss Emily, Our Rose, and the mysterious and erudite Marius and are introduced to Miss Mint and Erica, another author and faux gypsy. Everyone likes Miss Mint; Erica, on the other hand, is thought to be quite a pain. And, deservedly so.

Mr. Nichols has great fun walking these characters, along with Gaskin his manservant and Oldfield the aged gardener, in and out of the gardens and the rooms of Merry Hall and their exploits, conversations, and opinions sparkle on the page. 

Beatrix Potter

Two nights ago I watched the movie "Miss Potter" about the beloved children's author and illustrator Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 - 22 December 1943). My favorite part was the opening scene which showed Renee Zellweger as Miss Potter mixing her watercolors and testing the shades of blue on thick watercolor paper. I covet the wooden box in which she kept her pencils and brushes. 

When young, while her brother impaled moths and butterflies for his collection, Beatrix was sketching toy rabbits. When the family takes to summering in the Lake District, Beatrix discovers an entire barnyard of animals and gardens. These studies became the basis of her tales of Peter Rabbit, Jemima Paddle-Duck, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, and a host of other mice, toads, and kittens.

The movie was a gentle story about Miss Potter's success with her books, her romance with her publisher - of which her parents strongly disapproved - and about her purchase of Hill Top Farm in the Lake District and surrounding farms in an effort to preserve the beauty of the landscape

I can see that I am going to be off on a Miss Potter kick. Not only because of her stories but especially because of her sketches and watercolors. 

Wikipedia tells me that there are mysteries featuring Miss Potter - The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter - by Susan Wittig Albert. There are two recent biographies by Linda Lear: Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature (2007) and Beatrix Potter: The Extraordinary Life of a Victorian Genius (2008).   And, there are her own journals and letters.

I can't think of a better way to spend the winter than in the company of the talented and kind Miss Potter.

British Book Loot

I scored some big time British books today. First, I had lunch with a friend (and a big fan of Beverley Nichols) and she brought me her copy of  his Down the Garden Path which was first published in 1932, long before Merry Hall was even a gleam in his eye.

This is another garden creation story and one that I am not sure I have read. His books are slowly coming back into print (Yea! This one has a publishing date of 2005.), but it wouldn't matter if I had read it eight times before as I know I will be reeling along whatever path he chooses to go down.

Also, in the library's mystery section, there stacked all by themselves on a shelf were three crime thrillers by an author totally unknown to me:  Kyril Bonfiglioli. I love the titles: Don't Point That Thing at Me; After You With the Pistol; and, Something Nasty in the Woodshed (shades of Cold Comfort Farm, yes?).

According to the jacket blurb, this trilogy was a cult classic in Britain in the 1970s and features the Honorable Charlie Mortdecai, a "degenerate aristocrat, amoral art dealer, seasoned epicurean, unwilling assassin, and acknowledged coward."

I checked out all three as I was afraid I would love the first and then would have to wait to get my hands on the second and third books. I hope I am not to be disappointed.

Next Up: Laughter on the Stairs

I have been merrily tripping along with Beverley Nichols at Merry Hall and now I am ready to move on to the next book about his life wrangling flowers, trees, cats and visitors -- Laughter on the Stairs.

I have long been quite enchanted with Mr. Nichols. He was a war correspondent, gardener, and author. In addition to his gardening books he wrote five mysteries, six novels, six plays, two books on cats, and six, yes count them, six, autobiographies. He penned others as well including political writings, children's books, and a treatise on the marriage of W. Somerset Maugham.

How did Mr. Nichols ever find time to mess about in the garden?

His first autobiography, Twenty-Five (Being a Young Man's Recollections of His Elders and Betters), was published in 1926 when he was a mere twenty-eight years old. Even at that age he had lived quite a bit and had met some stellar people in his travels. I happen to own a copy of the book. I found it in 2002 in a little book shop,  Rees & O'Neill, 27 Cecil Court, off Charing Cross Road. I paid two pounds for it. 

In Merry Hall he writes a bit about his life as a journalist and comments about having to write to pay for the next extravagance for his garden and house.  I love that even when his (male) secretary hints that funds are running a bit low, Mr. Nichols throws caution to the wind in order to continue on with his next elegant plan.

I could practically quote the entire book; it is that entertaining. But then you must discover the delightful Mr. Nichols for yourself. 

Our Last Day in London

Cenotaph
Whitehall
London

And so to our last day in London...

24 September 2002

Our final day. Mom and I walked from our hotel up Victoria Street to Westminster Abbey. A wander through there with a long pause at the Poet's Corner. Some writers are just honored here; some are actually buried here. Part of the fun is discovering who is and who is not.

Just at the door as we left: A tribute to "A British Warrior unknown by name or rank buried 11 November 1920 in the presence of King George V."

Then we were out on the street with the Houses of Parliament straight ahead. In front of the buildings people were chanting and protesting: Don't Attack Iraq. 

I wanted to see 10 Downing Street - hoping for a glimpse of Mr. Blair. Police came up behind us and moved everyone along as there was a 'suspect package' at the base of the Cenotaph which is the site of a yearly Remembrance Service to commemorate British and Commonwealth servicemen and women who died in the two World Wars and later conflicts. The inscription reads "The Glorious Dead".

One of the city's many ironies: On every London street corner, in every church, there is a war memorial to the thousands who have died in battle. And yet the talk of war, the smell of war is still in the air. You would think we might have learned by now.

We ended the day with dinner at the Ebury Wine Bar next to our hotel. The very place we had eaten dinner our first night in London. I like a tidy ending, don't you?