Saturday, April 27th .....

I've just noticed that one of my posts has dropped out of the system so I've had to insert it here, out of order.  Oh, well!

As always, I enjoyed the train trip down to Blackpool and waiting for me at the station were Gavin and Shiela.  I was pretty confident that I would recognise Gavin, at least, because he had sent me a photograph some time ago.  Of course, you can usually suss out who is looking for whom and a little eye contact confirms the connection.

I suppose I hadn't anticipated their accent.  Somehow, in my mind, I had expected Gavin to have some relic of his Scottish heritage, which is naive as I have no trace of mine when I speak.  Sheila, especially, is quite broad Lancashire.  Still, we managed to communicate without too much trouble.

Today, we drove to Heywood to meet my Aunt Nettie and her other two children, Janet and John. My aunt was a delight.  We sat and talked for hours, and went through a box of old photos.  It was interesting to hear the family history from another perspective and it started to occur to me how much I had missed by living so far from these close relations for most of my life.

I thought Janet was fantastic.  She is the glue which holds the family together and I got on well with her husband, Peter.  My cousin, John, is the youngest.  He has some health issues but worked for 31 years for the same company before being retrenched.  He has a girlfriend, also Janet, and I was delighted to meet her as well.

It's true that family relationships are very special and I feel content that I have at last met my three first cousins, and re-acquainted myself with my father's little sister.

Wednesday, May 8th .....

I'm siting in Melbourne airport after a long flight from Heathrow. I'm feeling surprisingly fresh and I think it has something to do with the fact that the journey is split up into 3 legs with enough time between them to stretch your legs. Royal Brunei is a better-than-average airline and I would be happy to fly with them again.

The trip-of-a-lifetime is over and has been a resounding success. I had in mind that the main objective of going to Scotland was to do some more research on the family tree.  That plan was well and truly swamped by the sheer delight of meeting old friends and family again, and meeting three cousins for the first time.

What were the highlights?  It's unfair to single out two or three because every day was a new revelation but there are a few days which were particularly special: going back to Johnshaven and seeing Gourdon; talking to my Aunt Nettie about my father; the day in Stratford upon Avon, and seeing the colleges of Cambridge.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat.

Sunday, May 5th .....

We needed a quiet morning.  Frances took an elderly neighbour to church and Brian walked their aged greyhound, Comet, while I made a start on packing my bag for the trip home.  After lunch, Brian took me out to visit the American War Cemetery, a beautiful place with all the solemnity such a place deserves.  

We then drove to Grantchester, a name I recognised but couldn't place.  Brian happened to mention that they've had the clock fixed and the hands are no longer stuck on 10 to 3.  Click!  Rupert Brooke, the WW1 poet came from this town and wrote the famous lines: 

Still stands the church clock at 10 to 3

And is there honey still for tea?

I remember Peter Sellars did a spoof of the verse in the 1950s.  A plummy voice recited the lines and then an English-landlady voice said, 'Honey's orf, dear.'

Sadly Rupert Brooke was killed in France and his name appears on the war memorial in the church grounds alongside other locals who also died.  It's unreasonable to suggest that the death of a poet is more significant than that of a plough- boy but the loss of such a talent has to be a tragedy in more than one way.  Before he went off to "do his bit", Rupert  Brooke lodged at the Old Vicarage which is now occupied by Jeffrey Archer.  I suppose, at a pinch, you could say they both had something to do with literature.

Grantchester is an old-fashioned village with lots of thatched cottages and a Green Man pub.  A local farmer allows people to use one of his fields which gives them access to the river.  On this beautiful Spring day, they were out in droves, many in punts, or on bikes, or hiking energetically along the river bank.  At the first sign of sun, the pommies come out like butterflies, displaying their white limbs to the blessed rays.  I had to wear my sunglasses for the first time this trip but I don't know whether I was dazzled by the sun or the whiteness of the natives.

There was a beer fest at the Green Man but Brian didn't want to stop.  More churches to see! The Grantchester church dates back to the 12th century and they have recorded the names of all the rectors or vicars since that time.  I'm afraid I don't know the difference.

Saturday, May 4th.....

Brian and Frances had to go to Oxford today, to a party, and I was invited to go with them.     Displaying my usual reluctance, I suggested they leave me to my own devices but they insisted, saying that I was expected.

The party was in honour of Suzanna, who has just been given the all-clear after a cancer scare.  They were expecting about 90 guests, and set up a marquee in the garden.  They live in the country so we parked the car in a farmer's yard alongside his various bits of machinery.  Suzanna greeted me with a hug and thanked me for coming.  That was nice.  Everybody was friendly and I found myself talking to a young exchange teacher from America.  She had been dumped in a secondary school in Bradford, of all places, and she was counting the days until she finished (12 and a half to go).  

There were few white faces in the school and she didn't have a single Anglo in any of her classes.  I read in the newspaper that Anglos are moving out of areas which have high populations of immigrants, which is leading to the establishment of ghettos. The population of London is something like 62% immigrant.  Because of the EU, the doors are open and an extra 200000 Romanians are expected in the UK in the next twelve months.  And we think we have a problem in Australia!

Anyway, back to the party.  I felt very privileged to be part of a very moving celebration and I was pleased that I had allowed myself to be persuaded.

Friday, May 3rd .....

Another train trip, this time to Cambridge to meet long-time friend, Brian and his wife, Frances.  There was Brian, waiting for me at the station, easily recognisable after 28 years.  Frances is terrific and Brian clearly depends on her level-headed approach to life.

The weather was beautiful and we took advantage of it to spend a day exploring the extraordinary University city.  It is the lead-up to exams so many of the colleges are closed to the public but we were able to have a good look at Queens, Kings chapel, and Pembroke. I know I looked silly, walking around with my mouth open, but every corner brought me to another element of the history and the continuing wonder of this place.

At Queens, we crossed the Mathematical bridge and watched the punts gently floating down the river.  The Kings Chapel is awe-inspiring from the lofty ceiling to the Reuben's painting on the altar.  To think that this edifice was built around the time of Richard III whose ancient bones have just been unearthed beneath a car park is remarkable.

I've taken dozens of photographs but they won't do justice to this fabulous place (and I use the word with its proper meaning).

In a little alley, we stumbled across the Haunted Bookshop. What a place!  Inside the pokey little shop, there were old tattered books everywhere, on shelves, and in piles on every flat surface.  Boxes stood about waiting to be emptied when space became available.  Brian mentioned that he was looking for an Enid Blyton book he had as a child but couldn't remember the name.  The girl who was huddled behind the tiny counter said that children's books were upstairs.  Upstairs?  Yes there was an upstairs, reached by the narrowest, steepest stairs I have ever seen.  We had to pull ourselves up by a thick blue rope hanging from the upstairs ceiling. Health and Safety? Ha!

The upstairs room was even more chaotic than the downstairs.  There were some shelves but most of the books were in piles, although they did seem to have some order to them.  All the Enid Blytons were together, hundreds of them, packed two deep on shelves.  Brian still couldn't find the one he was looking for.  I picked up a Biggles book, 1950s vintage, £60.  No thank you.   A 1957 Broons Annual, quite shabby, was £40.  I could have spent all day there but there were more colleges and churches to see so we pressed on.

Thursday, May 2nd .....

Birmingham! Just a couple of hours down the road from Liverpool but with a completely different accent - more nasal and whiny. Lynne and John met me at the station.  It's been 27 years since I've seen them and I think I only met John in passing.  Lynne is no different to when I saw her last in 1986, a little greyer but still the bubbly person she always was. 

They have a very nice house in the leafy suburb of Northfield and they were excited about showing me round.  Birmingham is certainly a city on the move; there's a bright new hospital and building everywhere. Lynne wanted to show me the schools where she had taught and they certainly looked attractive.  There was a group of boys and girls in their uniforms playing in the grounds and I think Lynne was itching to get out of the car to meet them.

Today, we went to Stratford upon Avon, one of England's premier attractions. The weather was beautiful, so we walked about looking at the canal boats and the Stratford Theatre.  It's not hard to spend a few hours in such a beautiful place with so much to see. We came across a small bunch of tiny children in uniform, apparently from the Stratford Prep School.  Lynne couldn't help herself and asked on of the teachers how old they were.  3 and 4, she was told, and these two are just 2.  And they were already in uniform!

The evening meal was at a local carvery and, after all the walking around, I enjoyed it.  The visit to Birmingham  was too short and we didn't get enough time to chat.  Oh, we'll, maybe next time.

Monday, 29th April

Janet and Peter had to visit his family on Sunday so I got them to drop me off at Hooton so I could catch a train to Liverpool.  I had a day up my sleeve and I wanted to use my rail pass to see more of  England.  The big attraction of Liverpool was the Beatles Museum, but there was also the Maritime Museum as well.  I booked at the Britannia Adelphi, the cheapest hotel on the web because it was close to the station and within walking distance of the waterfront where the attractions are set up. It was opened in 1914 to coincide with the launch of three new ships by the White Star Line: the Titanic, the Olympic and the Britannic.

It turned out to be a very grand but shabby old establishment, catering for coach parties and other groups looking for an inexpensive bed for the night. A banner out the front informed me that the Liverpool Tattoo Convention was being held there and there was a coach-load of Glaswegians booking in at the same time as me.  That sounds like a dangerous mixture!

Liverpool seems to be stuck in the 1960s in some ways. There were lots of drunks around in the evening and lots of smokers.  The smokers don't stub out their cigarettes; instead, they take one last drag and flick the stub away.  Some of them follow up their cigarette with a spit in the street.  You don't see that very often in other cities.  I was amazed at the number of patches of chewing gum on the pavement. Clearly, when people have finished with it, they just spit it out on the footpath and it's trodden flat by the next pair of feet.  And the street-sweeper doesn't come around very often because the streets were filthy. 

Continuing the 60s theme, the air was filled with the music of the Beatles, Gerry and he Pacemakers and Cilla Black.  Of course, this is for the tourists and maybe the locals accept it with gritted teeth.

I loved the Beatles Experience which tried to depict what the city was like for teenagers at that time.  There was a replica of the Cavern Club and Matthew Street which was the haunt of young people looking for a good time.  I hadn't realised that the Cavern Club was so small or that Cilla Black worked in the cafe.  You couldn't buy alcohol there so she was busy making coffees and hamburgers, while the music was hammered out.

It's been a good visit and a delight to experience the Scouse accent, which they blame on the influence of the Irish who came over in droves during the last 150 years. 

Just another place that I want to visit again.