There And Back Again – Again

I was in the UK last week visiting family and seeing old friends. Martin stayed at home to look after Watson and the garden.

Long-distance travel was entirely by train. First travelling from home to Amsterdam to connect with the Eurostar direct to London. Then after an overnight stay in London and lunch with an old friend and his partner in Stratford (my god, how Stratford has changed…), back to Euston to catch the Avanti West Coast express to Lockerbie, where my brother collected me and drove me to his home.

I spent a few days in the area seeing family and taking short walks, for example down St. Mary’s Isle (actually an isthmus), where wild raspberries grew in abundance in the woods.

At the end of the isthmus, southwards is the Irish Sea:

I paid a visit to the Dark Space Planetarium in Kirkcudbright – highly recommended.

When I graduated from Liverpool University in July 1970, I worked for a couple of months in a Summer job at the Liverpool Museum. I had been a member of the Astronomical Society at the university, so I was lucky enough to be selected to operate the newly-opened planetarium in the museum as one of my tasks. That planetarium was fitted with a Zeiss projector; at its heart was a light source that shone through tiny holes in copper foil and then focused through an array of lenses to display the night sky on the inner surface of the planetarium’s domed roof. It was, I suppose, the “analogue” version of a planetarium – at the Dark Space Planetarium the system was fully digital. A series of projectors mounted around the rim of the dome were controlled by a computer. That meant that trips through time and space could be simulated. Very sophisticated in comparison with what we had back in 1970. I mentioned that I had operated a Zeiss projector to the young man giving the show in Kirkcudbright, and his response was: “what’s a Zeiss projector?”… Time marches on and I felt old.

At the end of the week I travelled back to London for the weekend. I was staying at The Standard hotel on Euston Road. Once again I was made to feel old – the marketing of the hotel seems to be aimed exclusively at hip young people. However, it was comfortable and the staff were pleasant. The building was originally the annex to Camden Town Hall, and once housed Camden’s public library. A remnant of the library has been preserved in the hotel’s lounge area and I felt right at home there…

On Saturday I met an old friend for lunch in Brasserie Zedel and then we viewed the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy.

Saturday evening was spent in the company of John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London at a Prom concert in the Royal Albert Hall. The programme was English music: Vaughan Williams, Bax, Walton and Elgar, with a new piece by Huw Watkins.

The Elgar was the old warhorse of the Enigma Variations, but John Wilson found things in it that I had not heard before – he is an excellent conductor and the Sinfonia of London (with members hand-picked by Wilson) is a very good orchestra. The audience cheered and stamped its appreciation at the end.

Sunday morning was spent at the Wellcome Collection. I only had time to see three of the exhibitions and one installation there:

• Medicine Man
• Being Human
• In The Air
• The Archive of an Unseen (installation)

The Medicine Man gallery houses (a very small part of) the collection of Sir Henry Wellcome – a real cabinet of curiosities. The most bizarre (for me) was the tobacco resuscitation kit. In the eighteenth century the Royal Humane Society of London placed these kits along the river Thames for use in drowning incidents. It was believed that blowing tobacco smoke up the arse of a drowned person would revive them. I loved the deadpan caption that read “[this practice] might seem strange to us…” – no, it is bloody insane…

And then it was off to the British Museum to (re)visit some of the galleries before meeting three old friends for High Tea in the Great Court Restaurant. I hadn’t seen them for years (in one case I think it has been 30 years since we last clapped eyes on each other). Thankfully, we were all still recognisable to each other – green carnations were not required – and a hugely enjoyable time was had by all.

Monday saw me catch the early morning Eurostar to Amsterdam, and then back home to the Achterhoek and the reunion with Martin and Watson. It was a very pleasant break, and now back to our usual routine – with extra watering of the garden needed in the current heatwave…