I was most excited getting on the tube, feeling as if I was finally in the television. As a child I would watch play school and think about going outside to cut down a tree and ram it through the television screen so I could get in there and play with the people. Now, after flying for 24 hours I had accomplished the same goal without breaking anything. There weren’t many people on the streets and as I walked down the tube the “tube smell” struck me. I smiled remembering that Nigel had told me that within London there are so many different smells and for the rest of your life it brings back memories to you… however, I do hope that where ever else I go in the world, I will not have to experience the “tube smell” again… or the smell of the people on the tube.
I got off at Victoria Station again and felt like a local. While on the train Ihad my IPod in and was reading the book that Mum had given me before I left. Looking all very nonchalant and cool I was quite impressed with myself at tricking all of these people into thinking I was a Londoner. I’m sure that none of them really cared, but it made me quite happy indeed.
Victoria Station, it seems, is always busy. It appears the tourist terminal, people running this way and that, looking at maps, couples arguing about which way to go, Asian people snapping everything insight with their grand cameras and multi focal zooms. Men in hi-visibility jackets handing out pamphlets for everything from bus rides, to musicals to the Big Issue. Just getting off there is a buzz in itself and you get caught up in the moment. For a second I forgot what I was there for, standing staring at the goings on. It is like watching one of the first black and white films, people dashing about faster than you could imagine they could walk.
The rain was coming in and umbrella’s started popping up, it became a sea of teared ballerina skirts, all different colours and designs, some even advertising technology or restaurants. The downfall of my intention to ‘appear like a local’ was that I did not have an umbrella, and so instead grabbed my black beret from my bag and plonked it on my head in the hopes of atleast keeping the rain from my hair. I re-did my scarf to protect my bear neck that was slowly turning to ice and wandered off in search of… Big Ben.
Over the past few days I had come to the conclusion that I was Fiona the Fantastic who could never get lost and always knew which way to turn instinctively. I would check where the sun was, identify north and traipse in the general direction I was seeking… however, as is the way, when one makes the assumption of their superiority to all others, they are proven wrong and I got myself rather lost.
I had turned up what I thought would lead me to Westminster Abbey, only to find that I was walking into a secret department store. I say secret in that I didn’t realise I’d gone in it until shoes jumped out at me. The building was quite new and stuck out from the old buildings that make London, London. Determined not to go back or look at my map I continued walking and took a side street which I hoped would bring me to something a little more familiar. I was in a similar locale to when I had visited Buckingham Palace and so thought, considering I had been there once, there should be no issues in knowing everything about a place.
However, London is London and every corner sends you to a whole new experience. You are never parallel with the street you think you are parallel and this can lead you on a wild goose chase… I am all for the odd wild goose chase, but now when I am umbrellaless, its raining and all I wanted was a cup of tea.
I took a deep breath, accepted that I cant always be right… there will be times when I don’t know everything (ofcourse far and few between!), took out my map (after finding a corner to hide in) and turned back down the street I had just walked up.
Having returned to Victoria I finally found my “Victoria Street” which was to lead me to the sites I had dreamed of seeing since first watching a BBC THAMES production (which I believe was the “Goodies”…).
This street is particularly busy with office personell dashing about in their black and grey suits, meeting one another on the street to discuss all the important goings on of Mildred from Level One and Cedric on Level Five and what they had gotten up to in the elevator. I smiled and realised that I might be one of them soon, but hopefully would not have to experience the dramas of Mildred and Cedric (never heard a good word about them to tell you the truth).
I was strolling along taking snaps here and there, another theatre presented itself to me as well as enormous modern style buildings that stuck out like a sore thumb on a monkey. The design was quite striking, it was as if the architeches has realised that they could not, and should not try and recreate the traditional buildings, went along a completely different line and complimented the surrounding grandeur of Victorian style blocks with outrageously modern designs with shinning cold steel and windows throughout. One building appeared completely void of any brick or plasta and was beautiful in its own right. It was as if the building realised it couldn’t be the same as all the others, so thought it might as well be as different as it could be instead. I became quite fond of a few of them… the ugly ducklings that aren’t so ugly after all.
Nature still calls in London… even when there isn’t much nature to see. I was missing the trees along the streets and wondered how good the air was considering the lack of photosynthesizing beasts that littered Perth so beautifully. However, I had no time to ponder this… I had had a tea before I got on the tube and was regretting it as I fretted trying once again to find a public toilet. Heaven forbid you had curry the night before.
But then… there before me, like the golden arches they are… McDonalds! The time had come to once again take a McPee (as if the last experience wasn’t bad enough). But I had no choice and scooted in quickly in search of the loos.
People do not look happy in McDonalds… they simply don’t. They look as if they are eating for the sake of eating and the worries of the world are on their head. It was only 11.30am and people were scoffing down all sorts of appetising fat-ridden pretend cow… I raised my eyebrows wondering… considering we are IN London, which is reknowned in some circles for its diverse cuisine… why would people choose to eat McDonalds? It didn’t seem any cheaper, by no means tastier… and heaven forbid, healthier! Amazed at the impact of marketing and its ability to influence throughout the world… and wondering who Mr McDonald was and whether he had a son… I went to relieve myself, hoping that no drama’s would come of it.
Luckily all went well… I survived! I was off to continue my journey being able to concentrate on what I was doing rather than imagining a pristine ceramic bowl of beauty. Turning right out of McDonalds, and still on Victoria Street I gasped… I had been staring at the other side of the road, then swivelled my head around to realise… I had discovered a Cathedral… and not any miniature or small-scale Cathedral, this was impeding.
The exterior was not as beautiful as some Cathedrals I have intention of discovering in my coming days of travel. Red bricked with metal sticking out from columns (I assumed to stop people skating boarding or jumping on them… or prevent pigeons sitting on them and leaving little gifts). It was about three regular shops in width and height… well, I couldn’t fit it all on my camera when I tried to take a photo. Even through the red-brick, you could see beauty though, something internal calling out and wishing that you would enter. The previous day I had wandered the streets of Soho, Piccaddilly and the West End, hardly entering any of the places I saw. But here, now… I felt drawn to enter… and crossing the threshold I discovered why.
The immediate feeling of reverence that engulfs you was striking, but not more so than the interior of this magnificent hall. There was a sermon going on as I entered, and a few eyes greeted to as I walked into the Church, all smiling and welcoming. I glanced above the see glass mosaics strewn in the arches. The structure was early Victorian with all its regality and perfection. Images of the Saints, Lords and Ladies watched as you wandered through the hall. The Church was separated into four main areas. The hall, or main area where the congregation sat and prayed on long pews. Above them the arches of the roof were so high as to make it difficult to take it all in at the same time. At the furthest end of the hall was another distinct area strewn with gold leading to a statue to Jesus, his heart escaping his chest and glowing with gold stelectites erupting from every which way. This Jesus had a serene and loving look on his face as the Priest discussed the New Testament and its relevance today. Between the Priest and the statue of Jesus were large golden gates, steeped at the top as if being the Golden Gates to heaven, and all around mosaics of angels. Along either side of the main hall were two similarly sized halls that went the length of the church. To the left and right of the respective sides were smaller prayer chambers, separated by black steel gates and in each prayer chamber there was a tomb of some royal personage or previous esteemed member of the congregation. The Tomb was topped with a statue of the person that lay within. On the walls were mosaic portraits and poems to various historic people, advising “here lyeth …” and explaining their importance to the church and the society of his or her time. I stood in awe and dared not take my camera out. There was a sense of reverence that followed you, regardless of whether you were religious or not, it seeped into your bones and you knew that this was a place that had been loved throughout time, where historic events had taken place, tears had been shed and relationships made. I lit a candle in one of the chambers thinking of my Grandparents and hoping that they would be proud that I’d made it. I remembered talking to my Gran about travelling and all the marvellous things I would do in my life, her advising that it was possible but not always easy, I never believed her but now knew what she meant. I also now realised that maybe the difficulty in travelling, or doing anything that you truly want to do, is worth the struggle, the pain and hardship and makes the outcome that much sweeter.
I fell in love with this Cathedral. It is places like this that I crossed the oceans for. Some history, age… a sense that cant be captured in a photo, in a book, a feeling that cant be described when you are somewhere important, when you can feel the people that stood here before you… nodding their heads and knowing… something.
As I left the Cathedral I made a mental note to return as much as possible while I was in London so I could sit and feel whatever that feeling was.
Having a sense of accomplishment at discovering this place I felt a new sense of determination and was off, rushing down the street to get to the next experience. It was intoxicating, discovery. As a child I wanted to be an archaeologist, out the back of the house I was digging under the fig tree and lo! Behold! I had discovered a grave… who knew how old it was, who had died there, what was there story. Had there been a murder… I had stumbled across a piece of pure history, it would go down in the books of time. I rushed to tell Mum and Dad what a magnificent daughter they had, that I, Fiona Leake, had found something beyond imagination. My Dad smiled and knowing that he was breaking my heart advised that infact, it was a pig trough… an old pig trough, but a pig trough none the less. I was still determined to discover something and would walk along the rock at the front of the house collecting old bottles, stones I thought might look like something or could possibly have been coral when Pingelly was under the water all of those years ago… it was not until I was advised that Maths was a requirement of the budding archaeologist that I gave up on that venture and thought it better to simply write about old things rather than discover them. But now, turning a corner and making a discovery of my very own, feeding my eyes with all of this… I felt like I was that child again and took stock of the feelings that were swimming through my veins like new life.
Walking down the street, content in the fact I had seen this church and enjoying the comings and goings of office personnel, students with well-to-do accents and the preverbial crazy person (generally having a good old chin wag to themselves about the downfall of society) I didn’t realise that I had brought myself to yet another magnificent feat of architecture… Yes… I was in a pop up book… every corner was a page and on every page a new experience popped up before my eyes that were popping out of their sockets. Strangely enough… it was also around Remembrance Day and so Poppy’s were all the vogue.
It wasn’t just the building itself, but also its locale. There is a large roundabout and on every corner another beautiful structure, these buildings now used as offices, but were once something more. There was a wedding photo being taken on the roundabout next to the grand statue of a gentleman on a horse. Across from this a small park with statues of Winston Churchill and the more well known of the United Kingdom Primeministers. I have never felt to small. The structures draw your eyes from the ground to the sky and every where you look there is something else to be marvelled at. The sky was grey and impeding, the sun had disappeared completely from site and the air was getting increasingly bitter… but I didn’t have a care in the world. At this point I was completely alone, all the noises of the tourists muffled into the background as I realised that I was here… there are so many points now that I think… I’m here… I am actually in London. A lot of the time I am going through some kind of bizarre routine, get up, see stuff, go home, write a list, sleep, get up, see stuff. But it is when you come across an apparition such as Westminster Abbey, when you see Queen Elizabeth the 1st bearing down on you and suddenly feel guilty… (you know she knows, and she knows you know she knows)… you realise that you are treading on history.
Entering the Abbey grounds was particularly beautiful, I was looking intently at the two-person tall stain glass windows lodged all the way along the grand ancient walls when I almost trod on rows upon rows of paper-made poppies each with names on them. People were buying a poppy and writing the name of some relation that they had lost at war and placing them on the green that led to the gates of the Abbey. It was heart warming to see children remembering their long lost grandfather or great grandfather… some, I assumed, wrote the names of those that they have lost in more recent wars. The fact that this is such a day for those in England gives some sense of hope for community in the future. Sometimes you feel hurt by the fact that history plays such a small part in the fast paced consumer driven society of today… knowing that without history there is no future, without history there is no sense of self, no culture, no purpose and the same mistakes can be made all over again. I was glad to have visited on this particular day. Generations should not be forgotten for the sacrifices’ they have made for their unknown descendants.
I entered the Abbey, there seemed to be a small cue at the door where one was expected to pay… my first concern that it was 12 pound to get in, but I was sure it was worth it… I waited patiently with two gentlemen and a woman whom I assumed was French, given her look of distaste and very perfect personal presentation. She huffed and puffed, flung her head in the air and left the waiting area (there was another entry around the other side of the doors). The man who we were to pay was talking on the phone, chatting away as if it were the Sunday after the Derby. I had trouble understanding his accent, but knew that he was not talking about work. Eventually her directed his attention at the three customers waiting in anticipation to hand our money over and get along with our day…
“Sorry… ye c’nt pay ‘ere… ‘ave to goooo next doooor”…
At this point I assumed he was Scottish. The two gentleman… who by this time I realised were infact boys, huffed themselves, looked at me and rolled their eyes before heading out of the payment area and into the next cue. They let me through the door first, which I thought was all very nice, before whispering to each other
“what a prick!”
“You sound like Australian’s” I said… not from their accent, but rather from their very colloquial terminology,
“Yeah! How’d’ya’guess”… all the words spilling together in the local tongue. They asked where I was from and were shocked to discover that I lived a few suburbs from them in Perth…
“Well, woddoyaknow?!”…
After paying I decided to make my escape before the preverbial offer for a drink and a bite to eat and the rest of my afternoon of discovery was ruined. I wished them all very well and carried on my merry way.
When I entered the hall I was flabbergasted… the magnitude of such a building, and so auspicious… it was almost too much. Everything was dedicated to someone, you were in the realm of gods. Wandering along I placed my hand on a tomb… unknowingly. Feeling its chill of marvel under my finger tips. I turned to take in whose tomb it was and read, while a chill went down my spine;
“Here layeth Geoffrey Chaucer”
I immediately thought of Mrs Pullman from my English Literature class, talking to her about the Wife of Bath and trying hard to discern the meaning behind his olde English words. It was so hard to grasp how unique Chaucer’s form was for his time, he was a renegade… and I was touching his tomb! I took my hand off it swiftly, not sure whether a hand would pop out to grasp me, or at the very least… all the literary geniuses’ of the world come to strike me down with their golden pens.
I took a photo of one of the enormous statues that adorned what I assumed to be the main hall. A lady approached to me, (slightly annoyed),
“There is no photography here”…
Well, lets just say I was slightly annoyed myself. I just paid 12 pound to get in and I wasn’t allowed to take photos? I knew that it wasn’t for purposes of art maintenance, nor was it for religious reasons because they sold photos of the Abbey for quite a price indeed. The robbing sods! So, with a hint of frustration and a certain amount of naughtiness I decided to pop my camera on silent and do a bit of filming.. 12 pound, indeed.
The film didn’t turn out very well because I stopped concentrating on it, such was the structure I was within. It didn’t have the same emotional affect that the Cathedral had, possibly due to the hundreds of tourists wandering around in hoards, bumping into each other and listening to their technologically advanced handphone-style walking tours… London was advanced… no need for the knowledgeable elderly lady that would tell you the date of a particular statue, a painting or where the verse originally hailed from that was delicately painted upon the wall… no, we are more advanced than that… now there are speaker phones that you attach to your ear and wander around like a mad person listening to the details in any language of your choosing… Personally I felt it took a certain amount of personalisation from the experience.
Nevertheless, I avoided the people and decided to pay attention to those parts of the abbey that no one else was… I just felt a bit sorry for those parts… however, keeping in mind people are like sheep. As soon as I walked into a space that was, at that time, completely void of tourists… five people would walk in after me, wondering what it was I was looking at, wanting not to miss anything at all.
The Abbey is enormous; I don’t know what else to say. It is vast. It is beautiful and again, filled with memories…
TO BE CONTINUED… NEED SLEEP
.JPG)
.JPG)
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment