Week 2 in London, Part 2

Wednesday: After teaching, we took the students to the Tower of London. Mike and I had been there several times, so he stayed home to work. There were a few interesting changes. One was the addition of wire-mesh sculptures of animals throughout the grounds. As early as King John's time (John was the king who was so bad that his barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which became the foundation for English liberties--and America's) there were wild, exotic animals kept on the grounds of the Tower of London. Monarchs of other nations had a hard time thinking of gifts their fellow monarchs did not already have, so they ended up sending things like polar bears, giraffes, baboons, and lions. Eventually, there were over a hundred wild beasts of various kinds on the grounds, where they served as a royal zoo for curiosity seekers up until the nineteenth century, when one too many attacks on visitors led to a wholesale transfer of the menagerie to the London Zoo in Regent's Park. 

Wire sculpture elephant at the Tower of London

Wire sculpture baboons at the Tower of London

I skipped the crown jewels this time around. Not that interesting to me. But I enjoyed seeing the inscriptions of prisoners on the wall of the Salt Tower (mostly Jesuits sent there for proselyting or intriguing to kill the Queen after the English reformation), and Sir Walter Raleigh's cushy rooms in the Bloody Tower (the place where the two York princes were supposedly kept before they were murdered by someone. They've currently got a voting machine set up in the room, and visitors, after reading the abbreviated evidence, can cast their vote for the murderer:  Richard III, Henry VII, or "other." Richard the III is currently leading Henry VII, but not by a long ways. I voted for Richard III (sorry, Mom!) Raleigh was kept in comfortable rooms, along with his family, for many years. Elizabeth never had the heart to execute him. Her successor, James I, had no such softness for the man. He was trying to make nice with Spain, which had suffered considerably from Raleigh's pirating expeditions, so he yielded to their demands that Raleigh be executed in 1618.

Sir Walter Raleigh's room in the Bloody Tower

I don't have a photo of my favorite part of the Tower--St. John's chapel in the White Tower itself. (Most chapels request no photographs.) I don't remember seeing it before. It was a very spare, undecorated but beautiful room, with clean-cut Norman arches on two levels creating wonderful shadows with the lighting.

Borrowed image of St. John's Chapel in the White Tower

Old Saxon Wall in All Hallow's Church

Thursday: Happy Fourth of July! As you might imagine, there wasn't a whole lot of celebrating here. Mike and I decided to go to a free organ concert at All Hallow's Church near the tower. It's another of the very old churches of London whose foundations go back into the 7th century or earlier. This church was bombed in WWII, but all the old bits still standing were incorporated into the rebuilt church. For example, it includes a Saxon wall, circa 7th century, which used old Roman tiles in its arch.

Being so near the Thames, this church has traditionally been associated with sailors and has a number of models of ships displayed inside, as well as a stained glass window commemorating the Port of London authority.

Port of Authority window at All Hallow's Church

The coolest part of the church, to my way of thinking, was the crypt, which displayed objects found when the church was rescued from the WWII rubble. Turns out that the church was built on the site of a prosperous Roman home. Some of the pavement is still visible, and many interesting objects. At some point someone built a diorama depicting how Roman London would have looked. I don't know how historically accurate it is, but it is very cool.

Diorama of Roman London in crypt of All Hallow's Church

Wanting to celebrate the Fourth somehow, Mike and I walked to the Benjamin Franklin house, where Franklin lived when he was an agent for Pennsylvania and Massachusetts in the 1760s. They were booked to the gills and had to turn us away. (We'll go back another time.) Mike had an appointment with a colleague at Great Ormond Street Hospital, so he headed back home and I went to Leicester Square to see if there were any good tickets to be had at the half-price ticket booth. As I approached the kiosk, I saw (drumroll . . .) Herman! I knew he was going to be in London, but I didn't remember when, and we hadn't emailed each other. How bizarre to accidentally run into your brother in a metropolis of that size! We exchanged contact information and met for lunch at the OXO tower on the South Bank on Friday. (Good food--great view!)

Lunch at the OXO Tower with Herman

The City of London festival is going on for the next several weeks--a series of musical, dramatic, educational, and artistic presentations sponsored by the city. They sponsored the Britten War Requiem I went to my first week in London. I also bought tickets to a performance of Britten's operetta, The Prodigal Son. It was performed in Southwark Cathedral on the South Bank--a beautiful setting, with the setting sun lighting up the stained glass behind the performers. It was a beautiful performance, too, particularly the voice of the "tempter."

Benjamin Britten's "The Prodigal Son" at Southwark Cathedral

We had a lovely stroll back along the riverside.

Southwark Cathedral

Sunset over the Thames

The walking bridge across the Thames--Millenium Bridge.  

Mike and I hung out there for quite a while listening to a busker playing the xylophone. He was utterly amazing, playing multi-chord classical pieces at dizzying speed. He was so good that we had to walk back and give him a few pounds.

Friday: After lunching with Herman, Mike and I went home for a quick dinner, then back to town to see our first West End musical--Top Hat (based on the old Irving Berlin movie with Fred Astaire). It was sheer, unadulterated delight. We didn't stop smiling through the entire show. Great songs, fun plot, fabulous dancing, particularly the two leads. What fun!

Saturday: Our second day trip, this time to Stratford-on-Avon to see Shakespeare sites and watch "Hamlet" at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. We visited Anne Hathaway's cottage.

Anne Hathaway's cottage at Stratford-on-Avon

The (in)famous second-best-bed Shakespeare left to Anne Hathaway

Our guide opined that leaving her the second-best bed may actually have been a sentimental gesture. The best bed was always reserved for guests, so the second-best bed would actually have been "their" bed. A nicer story, certainly.

Shakespeare's grave at Trinity Church in Stratford

Shakespeare's memorial, erected by his wife and family after his death

Another fascinating aspect of Trinity Church is its evidence of the violence of the English Reformation. Iconoclasts hacked images of Catholic saints or of Christ off of carvings in many churches.

Defaced image in Trinity Church

They missed one image, tucked away in a place difficult to see but visible in a mirror near the altar.

Surviving image of Christ, captured in mirror

The play lasted three and a half hours (!). I learned later that it was the very first play one of our students had ever seen. What a way to start! It was very well done, set in a sort of modern, despotic state. Hamlet was played by Jonathan Slinger, and it was an amazing, intelligent performance. Very dark staging.

Sunday: A very busy day. If this is the day of rest, why am I so tired? Last time I taught a Relief Society lesson on the sabbath, I came across this scripture, which answers the question quite well, I think.

Isaiah 58:13-14:

13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words,
14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord.

The idea is that we don't do OUR ways or OUR pleasure on the Sabbath, but we DO work. We do the Lord's work--sometimes a lot of it. I had to prepare a primary lesson and a fireside for our students. When I got to church the chorister was running late, so I ended up leading the music in sacrament meeting. The bishop asked Mike and me to bear our testimonies in Fast and Testimony meeting, which we did. (I told them Mitchum had been our first ward in England in 1965, Dad, but didn't have time to ask who the bishop was that year.) Next I taught primary, then led the music in Sharing time, then raced home to prepare a dinner for six of our students, my co-director Kristine Hansen, and Herman, then gave a fireside on ancient Christianity in Britain, including teaching the students to sing England's national hymn, "Jerusalem." Whew! But it all went well, and it was fun to have Herman here tonight. Our students are really good singers. When we start harmonizing on a hymn, we sound fabulous!

Sign we pass on the way to the Mitchum Ward

Busy week coming up--our first long road trip, to Dover, the Isle of Wight, Winchester, and Tintagel. Back on Saturday. Until then!