I might reiterate that I was a total mid-western American. The only fish I had eaten before the summer of 1965, when I married into an English family, was Lake Erie perch. The rice I ate was mostly rice pudding. Life in London was a life enriched by students from all over the British Empire. Until about this time, if you lived in the colonies you had a right to come to England. The building in which we were staying was comprised of many Indian families, quite a few Pakistani couples, several from Guyana (British) in South America, and one young, green, American couple (us!).
We soon made friends with a young fellow from Guyana named Derek. He was great! He and Eric hit it off well, and Derek included us with his other Guyanese friends. Derek was a student at the nearby university--and engineering student like Eric. But many of his other friends were learning to be tailors on in famous companies throughout London. Shops in Soho, Carnaby Street, etc. were the top of the fashion world for men back then. One evening they all got talking and decided they would love to make sure Eric had a London tailored sport coat. They would do it themselves for basically the cost of materials. They figured they could handle this for only $200--a total bargain at that time! But we were poor college students. We talked it over, decided that while this was "a steal" we would have forego to the honor. I have often regretted our decision. But Eric would probably have had to wear the same jacket for a decade to offset using that portion of our budget!
Derek told us about his first days in London. He came from a town in Guyana. There, in the tropics, the only chimney he had ever seen belonged to the local bakery. When he got to London and saw all the chimneys he thought to himself, "Man! Look at all these bakeries!" We laughed a lot as we talked over initial impressions in new places.
Derek was engaged to a young woman from his home town. She, too, was in London. L. was tiny, cute, bubbly, and very practical. As their wedding day approached, we received an invitation. We also were willing to help in any way we could--after all, we had only been married one year ourselves. Well, we were taken up on the offer. I helped at the florist--totally out of my league!!! I did not know what was proper in London and was a bit overwhelmed to learn that I would help pick out the greens, etc., and then also help arrange them for the reception!
The reception was to be held in the Victorian dining area of the hotel we lived in. The hotel had seen grander days and this was still evident in a dusty, worn out way. One of Derek's other student friends was somehow related the the hotel, restaurant, chef field. From him I learned to cut vegetables to be pretty (we basically sliced them on a plate in Lafayette, Indiana in the 60's), and arrange all the other food.
The wedding was held in an Anglican church near the London University. For USA mid-west weddings at this time, men wore white dinner jackets in the summer. Not in London! Here it was pin-striped tux with tails and a formal, British tie. Very posh, as Auntie Dorothy would say. Someone had rented or borrowed a long, vintage, convertible Rolls Royce for the bride and groom. It was driven by the Major. As befits a world-class city and college students, the rest of us walked to the church and then back to the hotel for the reception. Another first for me: all the toasting with champagne, the formality of a London reception, and the fun of getting to clean it all up afterwards! British humor, which takes some adapting to, was abundant that day!
Derek and his wife later moved to Toronto, Canada. We visited their family in 1972 when we were attending the Toronto Institute of Linguistics in preparation for moving to Africa.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
#5 1966 London Tidbits
London in the 60's. It was the world city of the decade. Everything revolved around London. Clothing styles (think Twiggy--the ultra-thin model in mini-skirts), music (Beatles!!), business, and construction (there were cranes all over town). While Eric worked each day, and saw London through the eyes of Harris and Sutherland engineer consultants, I walked the streets of London and figured out what Eric should see in the evenings and weekends.
I was learning to knit, so I would sit in St. James Park part of the day and watch the birds and huge variety of ducks (some would sit back in the water and fight with their feet). I would people watch, have conversations with some people and definitely try to avoid others!
Many mornings I would trot over to Buckingham Palace to watch the main changing of the guard which happened very day back then. This would also involve a concert by the military band, and one time I heard a whole concert of Beatles songs. It was fairly easy back then to get positioned to see everything. I knew just where to stand if I preferred being near the horses when they paraded down the street from the stables to the Palace. This made it all the more personal when I heard of the horrible bombing along there years later in 1982. I could not believe anyone would want to bomb those beautiful creatures (or their riders).
I also wandered through stores and anywhere free. The paid entries were saved until Eric was along. I enjoyed Harrod's and Selfridges. Back then, department stores had wonderful dining room restuarants that were about the cheapest place to eat in town. They not only had good food, the tables were set with white linen tablecloths and cloth napkins. I learned to love plaice (fish), but never did like the hard, dried and reconstituted round green things the British called peas! I learned to eat properly, with my fork and knife never leaving my hands (fork held tines downward in my left hand, knife in the right). I even managed the good form of mashing my peas and potatoes on the back of my fork!
London is full of theaters with all manner of plays and musicals. I researched, then Eric and I would buy the absolutely cheapest tickets. Sometimes that meant sitting in "nose bleed" territory in the uppermost balcony. Sometimes that meant SRO tickets. I did not know what that stood for but soon learned--standing room only. You have to be young and broke to want to stand for the whole musical or play! We were both.
I was learning to knit, so I would sit in St. James Park part of the day and watch the birds and huge variety of ducks (some would sit back in the water and fight with their feet). I would people watch, have conversations with some people and definitely try to avoid others!
Many mornings I would trot over to Buckingham Palace to watch the main changing of the guard which happened very day back then. This would also involve a concert by the military band, and one time I heard a whole concert of Beatles songs. It was fairly easy back then to get positioned to see everything. I knew just where to stand if I preferred being near the horses when they paraded down the street from the stables to the Palace. This made it all the more personal when I heard of the horrible bombing along there years later in 1982. I could not believe anyone would want to bomb those beautiful creatures (or their riders).
I also wandered through stores and anywhere free. The paid entries were saved until Eric was along. I enjoyed Harrod's and Selfridges. Back then, department stores had wonderful dining room restuarants that were about the cheapest place to eat in town. They not only had good food, the tables were set with white linen tablecloths and cloth napkins. I learned to love plaice (fish), but never did like the hard, dried and reconstituted round green things the British called peas! I learned to eat properly, with my fork and knife never leaving my hands (fork held tines downward in my left hand, knife in the right). I even managed the good form of mashing my peas and potatoes on the back of my fork!
London is full of theaters with all manner of plays and musicals. I researched, then Eric and I would buy the absolutely cheapest tickets. Sometimes that meant sitting in "nose bleed" territory in the uppermost balcony. Sometimes that meant SRO tickets. I did not know what that stood for but soon learned--standing room only. You have to be young and broke to want to stand for the whole musical or play! We were both.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Post #4 Arrival in London
There has been too great a gap since the last time I wrote. It is hard to live to the fullest in 2010, and try to delve into 1966! Eric and I traveled from Southampton to London and spent a day or two at a Methodist guest house--the name and exact location escape me. It was not far from South Kensington. But one contact led to another and we ended up with a room in a rather rundown Victorian hotel a short walk from Gloucester Road underground station. I have the exact address on Harrington Gardens and will give it in a later post.
Eric was already working at the engineering firm near Westminster Abbey, so I made the contacts. This student hostel was being run by a retired major from the colonial service (Kenya most of the time, I believe). He had a walrus mustache and a monocle, and wore a fresh red rose in his lapel each day. Who could ask for more for our London summer? The major had a wife quite a bit younger than himself and three small children. They had a fairly large apartment in the building. Others, all foreign students, each had a room. I asked if we could live there, and was told no--"Americans are too picky and complaining." I promised we would not complain about anything and after much discussion, for some reason the Major decided to take a chance on us. We moved into our one room apartment and shared bathroom down the hall.
Our room was comfortably large with a closet, an armoire, a gas fireplace, a two burner gas ring "stove"--no oven--a sink, a small, square table and two chairs, and two twin beds. Oh yes, in front of the fireplace there were two old, greasy looking arm chairs. It took some time to get up the nerve to sit in those chairs!
We loved our experiences, because this place was still a part of a London of the past that has mostly disappeared in the onslaught of modernization. We quickly learned that when the gas ran out in the gas burners, that meant we had to put some shillings in the meter on the floor near the fireplace. I knew to do this because I remembered Eric's mother's tales of England when they had to add coins to the gas line.
We had no refrigeration, but neither did Auntie Dorothy down in Southampton! You shopped daily and depended on the cooler weather! So we bought glass containers of milk that were probably about a pint in size. We bought our groceries every couple of days.
We set the small table by the one window we had. It looked out of the roofs and chimney pots of London, and our constant visitors were the pigeons. We actually had a pet pigeon or two who came to our windowsill regularly for the bread crumbs we would give them. Of course, like most of Europe, the window had no screen. We pushed up the sash and enjoyed our sense of the outdoors while eating there.
Each morning I would walk with Eric to the underground station. Halfway there we would stop at a little grocery store (really little) and pick up two Bismarks (round doughnuts filled with jam and rolled in sugar) for a threepence and a pint of milk. We would eat this as we walked the rest of the way to the station. Eric would give me a hug goodby and join the London business men in their striped suits and bowler hats with umbrellas over their arm. He paid a 6 pence to ride from there to Victoria Station and then walk a short way toward Westminster Abbey to his office. More about the office later!
Eric was already working at the engineering firm near Westminster Abbey, so I made the contacts. This student hostel was being run by a retired major from the colonial service (Kenya most of the time, I believe). He had a walrus mustache and a monocle, and wore a fresh red rose in his lapel each day. Who could ask for more for our London summer? The major had a wife quite a bit younger than himself and three small children. They had a fairly large apartment in the building. Others, all foreign students, each had a room. I asked if we could live there, and was told no--"Americans are too picky and complaining." I promised we would not complain about anything and after much discussion, for some reason the Major decided to take a chance on us. We moved into our one room apartment and shared bathroom down the hall.
Our room was comfortably large with a closet, an armoire, a gas fireplace, a two burner gas ring "stove"--no oven--a sink, a small, square table and two chairs, and two twin beds. Oh yes, in front of the fireplace there were two old, greasy looking arm chairs. It took some time to get up the nerve to sit in those chairs!
We loved our experiences, because this place was still a part of a London of the past that has mostly disappeared in the onslaught of modernization. We quickly learned that when the gas ran out in the gas burners, that meant we had to put some shillings in the meter on the floor near the fireplace. I knew to do this because I remembered Eric's mother's tales of England when they had to add coins to the gas line.
We had no refrigeration, but neither did Auntie Dorothy down in Southampton! You shopped daily and depended on the cooler weather! So we bought glass containers of milk that were probably about a pint in size. We bought our groceries every couple of days.
We set the small table by the one window we had. It looked out of the roofs and chimney pots of London, and our constant visitors were the pigeons. We actually had a pet pigeon or two who came to our windowsill regularly for the bread crumbs we would give them. Of course, like most of Europe, the window had no screen. We pushed up the sash and enjoyed our sense of the outdoors while eating there.
Each morning I would walk with Eric to the underground station. Halfway there we would stop at a little grocery store (really little) and pick up two Bismarks (round doughnuts filled with jam and rolled in sugar) for a threepence and a pint of milk. We would eat this as we walked the rest of the way to the station. Eric would give me a hug goodby and join the London business men in their striped suits and bowler hats with umbrellas over their arm. He paid a 6 pence to ride from there to Victoria Station and then walk a short way toward Westminster Abbey to his office. More about the office later!
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