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Day Thirty-Five: The Last Day

Today we packed, and then had a farewell dinner. Also it was hot as all get out.

Tomorrow the final journey home begins.

(Note: I wrote this entry yesterday but forgot to post it, so please accept my apologies for its lateness.)

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Day Thirty-Four: The Hot Zone

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War and Peace is a decidedly large military vehicle and re-enactment show near Paddock Wood in Kent, and it was the site of our last hurrah for the trip. When I booked tickets, it was about twenty degrees in the heat of the day and didn’t seem likely to change. However it seemed today the weather wanted to get into the living history spirit by re-enacting Vietnam.

Thirty-two Celsius shouldn’t seem hot to an Australian, but it was a strange, oppressive and humid heat that beat down on Kent today, a kind I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. This is not to say I didn’t have fun – I did – but by twelve we were all at the end of what we could endure, and thus left for Bedford.

That having been said, what did I see today? Many of the reenactors were gathered in shady areas with the bare minimum of kit – I cannot for the life of me blame them. This however had a strange upside, for at War and Peace there were a number of WWII North Africa and Vietnam War reenactors, and the heat was basically authentic for what they were portraying, which meant that their often rag-tag and sweaty appearance was actually fairly true to what real soldiers on those fronts wore. Men were stripped down to flak vests and helmets; khaki drill was unbuttoned, and faces were red. Therefore, I spent most of my time among them, and I think I got some very nice pictures.

That having been said, my heart goes out to the guys dressed in full Home Guard and Royal Air Force home service kit, who, being a headline feature of the event, couldn’t really get away with stripping down, and gamely soldiered on in full cotton battledress. Also, a shoot-out to the guy I saw in the full three-piece suit – I can’t tell if you’re brave or insane.

I bought a book in the stalls and looked at some of the bewildering (some might say worrying) variety of deactivated and replica firearms there. Don’t worry, they’re just historical pieces, they can’t be made to fire again. I got to hold a full ‘gangster-style’ Thompson gun, an AK-47 and an Italian Carcano rifle, and I think feeling the weight and ergonomics of the weapons does help us understand how they were used and what soldiers thought of them. I also briefly handled a Prussian Dreyse ‘needle-gun,’ one of the first semi-practical breech-loading weapons, and I was startled by how heavy and cumbersome it was. The gun weighs 10.4lbs, is over a metre long, and was only really effective up to six hundred yards – hardly the world-beater it’s often portrayed as. Yet the Dreyse basically pioneered the way rifles would work for a hundred years. I suppose it’s interesting to think that such a clumsy piece of kit would change so much.

In any case, it was time to set off for home. Save for congestion on the junction between the M25 and the A1, it was surprisingly easy, and we hunkered down out of the heat for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Great Britain. How time flies…

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Day Thirty-Three: The Face of Evil

I didn’t end up going to Rugby – I felt off, so Mum went alone. After she got back, we drove down th A1 and M25 to Maidstone in Kent, where we’ll spend the night in a cottage.

The cottage has a bath, which I thought was a great thing. “I shall have one, methinks!” I declared, and strode purposefully into the bathroom to do so. Yet the plug was ajar, and would not go in – I lifted it to see what the matter was.

I looked upon the true extent of human depravity.

There was a chain inside the drain, which needed to be removed to clear the plug hole – but as it was lifted, a morass of wet, clumped-up human hair, most assuredly not from the head, oozed and squeezed through the hole. We unearthed perhaps a foot of this stuff before I could withstand no more, the urge to vomit building in my throat. Needless to say, I was notgetting in that bathtub.

I cannot fathom what kind of person would do this. Even Ivan the Terrible or Ted Bundy would probably shrink from such an act of wanton cruelty to their fellow human beings. Even Hitler never looked at a drain and decided to fill the drain with what I hope to god was chest hair. This was just…

Congratulations, mystery person. I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul.

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Day Thirty-Two: Pit Stop

Did I sleep all day? Yes.

Do I regret that? No.

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Day Thirty-One: Dieselisation

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Today was the day. No more vacillating, we were getting on a train.

It was always going to be a long drive from Caenarfon to Stoke-on-Trent, down the North Wales Expressway, skirting Chester and Liverpool before heading down the M6, travelling down the backroads of Staffordshire to the Churnet Valley Railway. But it would be worth it. It was finally going to happen, we were getting on a steam train and WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE’S NO STEAM TODAY?!

It was as if the ghost of Dr. Beeching himself had cursed us. Finally, we were supposed to get on a steam train, and there’s a mechanical failure and none are running. Dang. Darn. Blast. Various other words.

Oh well. We had lunch and carried on, deciding to leave motorways on the SatNav to get home quickly – it promptly took us down half the tiny country lanes in Staffordshire. That’s… that’s not what a motorway is. Go home, SatNav, you’re drunk.

Eventually, however, we made it to the M1 and made it back to Bedford without incident, thus ending our Welsh soujurn.

So begins our last week in Great Britain. Tomorrow is a rest day, sorely needed, and the day after we go to Rugby, and then double back, very far back, to Maidstone. Because we’re good at travelling.

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Day Thirty: Seeing Double

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This morning it rained again, and frankly the weather matched my mood. I was becalmed in an ocean of melancholy which didn’t really lift until the afternoon. But you don’t come here to listen to me complain, you come to hear about my adventures. With that said, Caenarfon Castle.

Many castles are scenic wonders – Caenarfon is not one of them. It’s a brutal castle built by a brutal king, designed to show force to a cowed Welsh populace. Built on the orders of Edward I, the infamous ‘Hammer of the Scots’ (who took time from his busy schedule of hammering the Scots to hammer the Welsh too), the castle is perhaps the grimmest of Britain’s medieval castles, but in many ways that adds to its charm today.

Within the halls of Edward’s mighty citadel lies the Museum of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, one of Britain’s oldest regiments (formed by William III in 1689 and seeing battle at the Boyne in 1690.) As far as regimental museum backdrops go, Caenarfon is stunning, and the museum is very well presented and has a number of very interesting artefacts inside, from the eagle of a French regiment captured at Martinique in 1809 to a Thompson gun illegally sold to the IRA in the 1920s.

Also in the castle are exhibits on the English conquest of Wales in the 1200s, describing such personages as Edward I, the legendary Owain Glyndŵr, the unfortunate and feckless John Lackland, Edward’s beloved Queen Eleanor (who probably ran the country while Edward was off beating up whoever had looked at him cross-eyed that day) and many others. Ultimately, I’d recommend it.

Following that, we added to the growing list of ‘railways we looked at but then didn’t get on’ with a trip to Porthmadog, central station of both the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways. We’ve been here before (it was raining), but I thought it was worth visiting again (it was raining less.) Today’s motive power was one of the WHR’s iconic Beyer-Garretts (NGG16-class 2-6-2+2-6-2 No. 138, formally of South Africa) and the Ffestiniog’s ‘Double Fairlie’ David Lloyd-George (named for the British Prime Minister during the First World War, who hailed from North Wales.)

A Double Fairlie, so named for being patented by the Fairlie workshops, is a unique contraption. It is essentially two tank engines strapped back to back, the articulated wheel arrangement allowing for easy use on mountain railways with sharp curves, while eliminating the need for turntables. Although they’re most famous for their connection with Wales, examples were sold to the United States, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Russia and even as far as Burma.

With that done, it was time to head back to Caenarfon. Dinner was had at a pub across the road; gammon steak, egg and chips. Tomorrow we head back along the North Wales coast and over the border once more, bound for Bedford once more – with a stop in Stoke on Trent.

I promised I’d get on a train, and I’ll bloody well get on a train.

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Day Twenty-Nine: The Great British Summer

Today we elected to drive up the picturesque North Wales coast to Rhyl, so naturally it rained.

Ideally, the road from Bangor to Rhyl is a scenic coastal drive, passing mountains that go right up to the sea and numerous little Welsh villages. In actuality, there was a lot of fog, and Rhyl itself was mostly rained out. I feel like if the sun had been out and all the promenade stuff had been open, it would’ve been a bit more cheerful, but as it was it was a nice drive regardless; I don’t at all regret it.

We headed back down the same road (it was very slightly brighter) to visit Bangor for lunch. We thought for a fleeting moment that it would get nicer. Then it started raining again. Ah well, it wouldn’t be Britain if it didn’t. In any case, Bangor’s a nice town to walk around for a few hours, dampness notwithstanding, and isn’t a bad place to base yourself if you’re ever in North Wales.

Tomorrow, it promises yet more rain in the morning, so we’ll spend it in Caenarfon Castle, before heading on to Porthmadog in the afternoon…

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Day Twenty-Eight: The Wilderness

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We left Dudley early, getting onto the M6, then the M54, and then finally leaving the motorway altogether as we rolled over Offa’s Dyke into Wales.

The first stop was Llangollen, home of the appropriately named Llangollen Railway. Here we saw Great Western Railway 5101-class 2-6-2T No. 5199, which was in charge of trains for the day. We didn’t go on (we willbe going on a train soon, I assure you), but we got some lovely pictures before briefly exploring the town.

We then carried on along the road from hell to the Soldier of Fortune military shop. Here I bought a Glengarry, because why wouldn’t you?

After this, we carried on the winding A5 to Betws-y-Coed, where we ate lunch at the railway station and explored the train shop there. We then proceeded to the road from the place under hell to find Swallow Falls – except no we didn’t, that’s where the Swallow Falls walking trail starts, the actual falls are next to the A5 – so yeah, we had to go backdown the road from the place below hell. Oops.

Nevertheless, the falls were lovely and well worth the look. They’re nothing on the scale of, say, Niagara Falls, but honestly, I’d say they’re more charming.

We doubled back from here, got lost again, and found Conwy Falls – or rather, we found the parking lot and café, and then basically hoofed it through the wilderness to find the falls proper. This makes two sets of highlands we’ve ended up wandering around on barely existent paths, after we did Scotland last time. I suppose we’ll have to find a way to get lost in the North Yorkshire Moors next or something.

We carried on from there to Caernarfon, through the valleys of Snowdonia where the massive, bare mountainsides tower over the road. It’s honestly indescribable, and if you go to Wales without going through here, you’re doing it wrong.

We arrived at around six and settled in to the Travelodge for a three-night stay. Tomorrow we head away from the mountains and down the coast on a daytrip to Rhyl…

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Day Twenty-Seven: Up and Down

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Today we left Dudley a little later than normal after a nice sleep in, arriving in Cosford just after ten.

Cosford is the home of the northern branch of the Royal Air Force Museum (the other being in Hendon near London.) It’s also right next to an active duty RAF base so, y’know, don’t get lost. It’s the home of the National Cold War Exhibition, a number of rare test planes, and that one-to-one scale Airfix Spitfire that James May built that one time.

Notable aircraft in the collection include the oldest surviving Supermarine Spitfire, an Avro Lincoln bomber, all the V-bombers and, of particular interest, the last Mk. I Bolton-Paul Defiant left in the world. The Defiant was an interesting concept – instead of having forward-firing guns under the wings, it carried them in a turret in the back, the idea being to catch out German fighters who tried to come up behind the aircraft, as was standard practice in fighter combat. It worked – at first. Then the Germans caught on, and the poor manoeuvrability and complete lack of frontal armament on the Defiant led them to be absolutely massacred in the early stages of the Battle of Britain (made worse that a Defiant, in the worst case scenario, went down with twoprecious aircrew rather than just one.) It wasn’t all bad news though – later Defiants, equipped with air-to-air radar, found success as night-fighters defending Britain during the Blitz.

After the museum we headed to the historic town of Shrewsbury, not too far from the Welsh border. There stands what remains of Shrewsbury Castle – duh – which now houses the regimental museum of the Kings’ Shropshire Light Infantry. The KSLI traces its lineage to the 53rdand 55thRegiments as well as a number of volunteer and yeomanry formations, elements of which fought in the American Revolutionary, Napoleonic and a number of imperial wars before being amalgamated in 1881. As far as regimental museums go, it’s quite extensive, and there’s a lot of very interesting artefacts in their displays, but I must confess, it was perhaps a smidge too focused on officers rather than enlisted soldiers. Still very well worth a look, though!

Following this, we had lunch and explored Shrewsbury. It’s an absolutely lovely town, a mish-mash of Tudor, Stuart, Georgian and Victorian architecture nestled on the River Severn. Of particular interest is the English Bridge, which gives good views of the town and river, and the big statue of Robert Clive, which gives good views of contested history.

We crawled home – even though we’re not in Birmingham proper, navigating it’s fringes at rush hour remains a nightmare – and I had a quick McDonalds for dinner. Tomorrow we leave Dudley and England altogether, crossing over the border toward the wilds of Wales…

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Day Twenty-Six: The King Is Dead

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King Edward II is not a terribly esteemed king of England – his reign is largely regarded as a failure, he annoyed both barons and queen, and he ended his life in a dungeon, where it’s said he was dispatched by way of a red-hot poker to the rectum. The Great Western Railway’s choice to name an express passenger engine after him seems baffling, until you remember it was the twenty-third of the King class built and they were probably running out of names. Yet somehow, No. 6023 King Edward IIcame to be one of the most prolific preserved steam locomotives in Britain.

Yet perhaps it still carries something of a curse connected with that name.

We left Bedford at eight and moseyed slowly along the motorways to the small village of Toddington in Gloucestershire. This is the main station (but not the terminus – we’ll get to that) of the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Steam Railway (get it, GWR, Great Western Railway, how clever they are.) I arrived, walked onto the platform and asked what was operating, and…

…no King. It was in the shed. Presumably sick.

Oh well. If nothing else, there was at least the 28xx-class 2-8-0 2807, presented in fine Great Western green. She’s an older fellow, built at Swindon Works in 1905, and is in fact the oldest Great Western Railway engine in private ownership (there are older ones in the National Collection.) She made a lovely showing pulling out of Toddington, and nearly made up for the King’s absence, but I couldn’t help but feel saddened by the lack of a ‘big engine.’

Then I looked at the otherengine running that day.

The Merchant Navy-class 4-6-2 No. 35006 Peninsular and Oriental S. N. Co.

Seems a heck of a mouthful – in short, this was perhaps the pinnacle of the Southern Railway’s express motive power development (albeit rebuilt by British Railways in the 1950s), and they were running one today.It came through shortly after, but as luck would have it, it stopped in a bad position for photography.

No matter. One race to Broadway – the actual terminus of the station – later, I had my picture and then some.

It turned out to be something of a blessing – Broadway proved a nice place to eat lunch and take a relaxed gander around. It’s an old Cotswold village and very much looks the part, and while it’s not exactly bursting with things to do, it’s worth a look if you’re in the Cheltenham area.

We carried on from there to Tewkesbury, following the brown tourist signs to the battlefield there, where a Yorkist Army defeated Henry VI’s Lancastrians in 1471 – something of a prelude to the infamous Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. As it turns out, there isn’t much there, apart from the invitingly named ‘Bloody Meadow’ and a few placards – most of the battlefield now appears to be a golf course. Ah well, it gave us a nice view of the town.

That was it for the day’s adventures – we carried on up the M5 to Dudley, just outside of Birmingham, where I write this now. Tomorrow we were initially planning to go to the Severn Valley Railway, but the evil machinations of film have forced us to go elsewhere – to the RAF Museum, and from there to Shrewsbury…

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Day Twenty-Five: More Nothing

I stayed in bed.

Riveting, I know.

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Day Twenty-Four: Under London

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St. Pancras – or to use it’s full name, St. Pancras International – resides among crowded real estate. Right across the road is one of London’s other major rail terminals – Kings Cross – and it’s just down the road from yet another at Euston. The reason for this was a phenomena known as Railway Mania, in which dozens and dozens of railway companies sprung into existence in Britain – the Midland Railway (St. Pancras) wasn’t about to ask for access to Great Northern Railway (Kings Cross) track, nor that of the London and North Western Railway (Euston).

Today, St. Pancras serves as Britain’s rail gateway to Europe, by way of the Eurostar high-speed train through the Channel Tunnel. As a result, it is one of the busiest in the city of London, and is served by no less than six Underground lines – on paper. In reality, although all of these lines serve the same station in theory, they’re often quite a hike a way from each other. The walk to the so-called sub-surface lines is a long one indeed, going right under Kings Cross to the other side of the complex. This is where I began my expedition this morning.

If you can find a Tube map, you should bring it up. You may want to follow along.

The first train I boarded was on the Metropolitan Line, the oldest underground railway line in the world – it opened in 1863, using steam power. This naturally caused problems and was thus electrified at the turn of the century. It’s called a sub-surface line (or a cut-and-cover line) because it is pretty much right below the surface – the builders literally dug up the street, built a railway line, and then covered it up again. In the modern day, there is very little difference between the Metropolitan and the other sub-surface lines – they use the same ultra-modern S-stock trains introduced a few years ago. They are smooth-riding, air-conditioned and comfortable, but one misses the older trains they replaced. They smelt, they were loud, they were hot, and they had character.

I went as far as Euston Square on this train – one stop down the line – and then changed to the Hammersmith and City line to Baker Street, which still retains much of its Victorian character. I got off there to wait for a Circle line train to carry on… and wait… and wait… and wait…

Thoroughly browned off, I eventually got in another Hammersmith and City line train to Edgware Road to try finding a Circle line train there, and as luck would have it, there was one on the very next platform. We passed Paddington – this is another famous London termini – this time for the Great Western Railway – and will one day be a key stop on Crossrail (or the Elizabeth Line, as they call it) – it’s also nearly completely on the surface, giving a rare moment of (cloudy) sunlight on this voyage.

The Circle took me to High Street Kensington, where I swapped trains again to the District line. I reached Earl’s Court, changed to another District train heading towards Tower Hill (despite being a ‘line’, the District has a bewildering number of branch lines) and finally got off at Victoria (yet another terminus – this one for shared by the South Eastern and Chatham and London, Brighton and South Coast Railway). Here I left the sub-surface and went down into the Deep Tube.

Here I boarded the Victoria line, perhaps appropriately. This is one of the newer Tube lines, constructed in the late 1960s. It is also the line I most rarely use, although I can’t really fathom why. There’s nothing wrong with it, the stock (2009-stock) is fairly modern – I suppose there’s just always a better route from where I happen to be.

This was the beginning of what I shall call a series of one-stop ‘hops’ – I got off at Green Park, near Buckingham Palace, and swapped to the Jubilee line, the newest on the network – it opened in 1979. As a result, it is probably the least exciting, yet it’s rarely too busy either. At Bond Street I changed trains again to the Central line. The Central line is always, always, always packed – probably because it runs right through the middle of both the City and Westminster, past the big banks and corporations. As a result, despite its vintage (1900), it’s probably my least favourite of the Deep Tube lines.

No matter, I was off it after one stop – Oxford Circus. I proceeded to the Bakerloo line – definitely my favourite. The aesthetic is perfect – the old, somewhat hazy stations; the smell; the trains, the oldest remaining on the network (1972-stock). It feels like an old noir movie or 1930s film. Alas, my time on the Bakerloo (so named because it connected Baker Street and Waterloo) was short – I got off at Piccadilly Circus.

From there, it was the Piccadilly line – which uses the almost-as-elderly 1973-stock. It was a quick hop to Leicester Square – realistically I could have walked, but I had no intention of leaving the Underground until I was done. At Leicester Square, I swapped to the Northern line, the oldest of the Deep Tube lines (the first section was opened in 1890.) From there, it was – appropriately – northbound, past Tottenham Court Road, past Goodge Street, past Warren Street, past Euston (not to be confused with Euston Square), until I reached my final destination…

I understand most of you are probably a bit confused. Mornington Crescent is something of an old in-joke – it gave its name to a spoof game show in the 1970s, in which contestants improvised stupidly complicated rules to the ‘game’ of Mornington Crescent; it basically amounted to shouting Tube stations randomly un til somebody got to Mornington Crescent and ‘won.’ It was also well known for being closed at weird times, although in recent years that hasn’t been the case, and for being a bit hard to get to (as you need to get on a specific branch of the Northern line.) Basically, Mornington Crescent is an object of great affection for rail and underground enthusiasts.

That meant it had to be the end of the line. Here I was, at the end of a journey that had taken me on every single regularly-operating tube lune on the network (the Waterloo and City is closed on Sunday and also doesn’treallycount), without visiting any stations or lines twice. How did I feel?

There was a strange sense of anti-climax, once the novelty of Mornington Crescent wore off. I was standing in a tube station, totally alone, looking at a station sign. I was hot, thirsty and sweaty from the humidity of the Deep Tube. I had completed this task that I had wanted to do for as long as I remembered, and perhaps in doing so, some of the magic of the ideawore off. What had I actually done?

I had ridden some trains, most of which were basically modern, past what was essentially a bunch of names with no real context. A lot of the old characterof the Underground of my mind – the dirty old trains on the Circle and District lines, the endless procession of buskers in the tunnels, the eccentric opening times for the various stations – they’re mostly gone now. Perhaps much of my ‘old Tube’ never really existed. Such is the power of nostalgia.

I travelled back to Oxford Circus, in silence for the most part. The trains (I had to change to the Victoria at Euston) rattled and rumbled, screeching on the curves, and all the masses of people around either stared at the paper or the map printed above them. Nobody looked around. Nobody took interest in what, to them, was just another aspect of life. And yet I was gripped by thoughts of the glimpses of mystery in the tunnel – strange lights, mysterious doors, tracks that led nowhere, brickworks covering closed stations. I wondered what secrets might lay beyond them, waiting to be discovered.

And you know what? I hope I never find the answer. The fictional ideas I form around them are far too exciting for that.

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And no, before you ask, I didn’t spend all day riding public transport.

After my voyage, I headed to Hamleys, because why the heck wouldn’t you go to Hamleys? It’s Hamleys. I bought a goods wagon and Bentley car for my layout, and then walked to Trafalgar Square. I recuperated from my experience there with a coke, and then went to the National Portrait Gallery.

Some people thing portraits are boring. These people are wrong and they suck, but they think that and free speech is a thing. Portraits reveal so much about people – artist, subject and the world they lived in. For example, the portraits of the Plantagenet kings in the gallery, painted long after their deaths and more based on Shakespeare than reality (which sucked for poor old Richard III.) Or you might look at the paintings of Charles II and William III, and compare the man who revelled in luxuries and riches and the man who revelled in soldiery and battle. It shows how much things have changed, too – the image of female beauty changing from plumpness to rail-thin stomachs, the rise and fall of military heraldry and dress; there’s a magnificent portrait of Clive of India in one room, and a plain bust of Nehru, one of those who tore down all he made, in another. Backgrounds go from plain, stoic black to sweeping panoramas of battle and lush landscapes. I’d recommend a visit – see it for yourself, make your own impressions.

Plus it’s free.

After that, it was off for home, where I write this now. It’s been a long day; tomorrow we do very little, before on Tuesday we set out west on the next stage of this adventure…

No, not to America. To the West Country.

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Day Twenty-Three: Bomber Country

Today we headed up to Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire for their 1940s Weekend.

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While all of Great Britain was affected by the Second World War, the east – Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire particularly – has a very specific connection to the air forces. It is what is known as Bomber Country. From 1942 onwards, it was the epicentre of the Combined Bomber Offensive, in which the RAF and the USAAF attacked German cities and industry in an effort to ruin their production and break their morale. Its debatable how much it worked or how moral it was, but the casualties were enormous – over fifty thousand RAF Bomber Command airmen lost their lives over Europe. Young men could be roaming the towns and villages in the east one day and go down in flames over Germany the next night. It left an enduring connection – perhaps even a scar – on the whole region.

Woodhall Spa in particular is connected with 617 Squadron, the Dambusters – the first raid by the enormous Tallboy bombs was carried out from the airfield there. Many of the transports involved in Operation Market Garden also departed for Oosterbeek from here.

For the most part, however, today was focused on the ground. There was a display of vintage cars and jeeps on the main street, living history camps and traders set up, and it seemed the whole town was very much in on it – they even got a Monty impersonator.

There was a reenacted skirmish after lunch, based on the Battle of Arnhem which Woodhall Spa has a tangible connection. This involved a couple of Paras running around a field trying to collect an ammunition cannister while being shot at by a very small group of Fallschirmjagers. The British won, because this was being performed in a British town.

Following this, a Lancaster bomber from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight came over, which left quite an impression.

After the Lanc had gone over, we pottered off home. Tomorrow, we head back down to London, which should be entertaining. I have something of a plan…

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Day Twenty-Two: Uh

As Louis XVI wrote on the 14th of July 1789; "Nothing."

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Day Twenty-One: Forty Shillings on The Drum

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Today we took a day trip to London, as one does in Britain.

We split up, they went to Aladdin and I went to something much more interesting – the London Transport Museum! That said, I really ought to stop going there when I go to London – it’s crowded, the exhibits never change, the kids run amok because the parents sit in the café and leave them unattended, and the gift shop seems to be less and less good every time. Also Covent Garden tube station is awful because there’s only a few overcrowded lifts to get up.

After braving that, I headed to Chelsea to the National Army Museum, which is much better because it’s a) free and b) quiet.

I’ve been thinking a lot about war museums lately and how they address their subject matter, having done a few courses on war and society in university (particularly one taught by the incomparable Bruce Scates – look him up.) I found myself comparing the way the National Army Museum presented itself compared to the Australian War Memorial.

While a lot of the information in the Army Museum is simplified, as it needs to address the general public rather than military historians, I found in many ways it was more introspective and willing to engage in conversation than the AWM. It’s broadly sympathetic to the British soldier (it would be silly to expect otherwise), but asks the visitor questions about the role of the army; it admits to the crimes committed by the army in India and Ireland, includes soldiers of the Empire (most prominently India) in its galleries, and has an entire permanent exhibition on the relationship between the army and British society.

Meanwhile, the director of the Australian War Memorial uses his influence to quash questions raised about SASR war crimes in Afghanistan, spends half a billion dollars to build new space for shiny new Chinooks and live video feeds from combat zones, and states that anybody who questions the sanctimony of Anzac needs re-education.

Oh yeah, and they also have the saw they used to cut off the Earl of Uxbridge’s leg after Waterloo. That has nothing to do with ethics, I just think that’s pretty interesting.

Anyway, after that I headed to Foyles, a big bookshop on Charing Cross Road (it’s book Mecca), and then to the Forbidden Planet comic shop. Dinner was at the Hard Rock at Piccadilly, and after that we caught the East Midlands train home.

Next time I go to London, I'm thinking I might try something I've always wanted to do...

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aroundtheworldinsearchofcoke · 5 years

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Day Twenty: Big Engines

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Now that’s a sight, isn’t it?

There are few things on Earth quite as exhilarating as a big Pacific (that’s a 4-6-2 for those not in the lingo – four front bogie wheels, six driving wheels, two trailing wheels.) To have imagined these thundering along main line railways, on crack expresses to Edinburgh, to Glasgow, to Dover and Bournemouth; it’s hard to comprehend in this day and age. Thankfully we have these preserved examples to show the world the sheer size, the scale, the majestyof these beasts of

wait no, Lapis, Lapis step out of the camera Lapis, I’m trying to hoodwink the audience Lapis, you…

…oh never mind.

So we the left the Hague very early this morning, for obvious reasons – it’s a four hour drive through Belgium to get to Calais and the Channel Tunnel, then a two hour wait before you can actually get on the Shuttle in a terminal that has a duty free shop and a Burger King – so not so great if you’re not interested in the same bottle of perfume they sell in every duty free ever.

After crossing back over the Channel to Britain (and because I am who I am, I had an argument over the semantics of calling Dover ‘Britain’ or ‘England’ – it’s both, obviously, but if you land at JFK airport you’ve gone to the US, not specifically New York State, right?), we headed up the winding lanes of Kent to New Romney, to perhaps one of the most delightful of Britain’s many steam railways.

The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway is not a preserved railway. It is a fully operational public railway, a serious enterprise created by serious men. The brainchild of Captain John Edward Presgrave Howey, race car driving landowning millionaire army captain, and Count Louis Zborowski, race car driving car engineer, the idea was to build a fully-working railway for no reason other than the fact that they were British, they had the means and they jolly well could. There was just one catch – it was at a gauge of fifteen inches, using locomotives that were one-third the scale of a normal ‘standard gauge’ engine.

This was not a joke. This was a completely serious, straight-faced endeavour. This is what makes the thing as delightful and glorious as it is.

The Count died in a racing accident before he could see the project fulfilled, but Howey – now assisted by Henry Greenly, who the RH&DR website calls ‘the leading model engineer of his day’ (a title that I’m sure had much competition) – opened the railway in 1927. They began with two locomotives, Green Goddess and Northern Chief, which were essentially scaled-down versions of Nigel Gresley’s famous A1 Pacifics. (By all accounts Gresley seems to have been flattered, and later donated a chime whistle used on the later A4 Pacifics to the railway.)

During the Second World War, the railway, being strategically located on the south coast, was taken over by the Ware Department and an armoured train was built to patrol this vital route. Again, this was a one hundred percent serious endeavour. It was also used in constructing the vital oil pipeline (the Pipe Line Under The Ocean, or PLUTO) that supplied the Western Allies with vital fuel. So yes, Captain Howey’s insane miniature railway was in fact a major part of Allied logistics during the liberation of France.

Can you tell I love absolutely everything about this?

We didn’t ride, unfortunately, as time constraints were an issue, but I managed to see and take pictures of No. 2 Northern Chiefand No. 8 Hurricane, both Greeley originals, as well as one of their two diesels, J B Snell.I also took a look in their model railway exhibition, which is honestly worth visiting on it’s own, and at only two pounds to enter is an absolute bargain.

After that brief delight, it was time to get back to Bedford, via the M20, the Dartford Tunnel, the M25 and the A1/M. It’s the driving equivalent of a visit from the Spanish Inquisition.

Tomorrow it’s a day in London, and I have a few interesting things lined up to do in the Smoke…

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aroundtheworldinsearchofcoke · 5 years

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Day Nineteen: Double Dutch

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Today we visited two Dutch cities. I shall endeavour to describe both of them.

Leiden is a city with canals. The buildings are old and made of red brick. There’s at least one windmill and a lot of antique shops. There’s a really big church and a lot of souvenir shops. It’s quite pleasant.

Delft is a city with canals. The buildings are old and made of red brick. There’s at least one windmill and a lot of antique shops. There’s a really big church and a lot of souvenir shops. It’s quite pleasant.

Okay, I’m being a bit unfair. They’re not exactly the same – Leiden has it’s connection to the pilgrims of the Mayflower, and Delft has it’s pottery and the crypt of William of Orange in its New Church (yes, I went there.) I think I’ve just reached the point where a windmill is a windmill is a windmill. I may be a bit Dutched out to be quite honest. The important thing is, of course, that we all had and are having fun.

Now our hotel, that can go suck a lemon. They charged us fifty euro for two sofa beds, one of which is actually a tiny roll-on bed, then had the audacity to tell us they’d cancelled one of the sofa beds in an email that we’d never actually received, and treated mum in a decidedly patronising way in the process. Never again.

Tomorrow we depart from the Hague bright and early, cross back under the sea, and return to Dear Old Blighty… with one stop on the way.

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