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London Update 5

  • February 10, 2025
  • KK

London Update: Jan 1 – Jan 22

Well, Christmas is over, and now the January gloom has set in. Both Jack and I forgot how cold and wet January was. The sun rises late (8 am) and sets early (4 pm), so to keep up our sunny spirits, we must look for indoor activities. Besides staying home and watching recorded football, we also go to our daily gym classes and play a lot of pickleball. And since I couldn’t get tickets for the Christmas Pantomime in December, I booked for Jan. 2nd. Before I go any further, I bet you’re asking—what the heck is a “Panto”?  Jack didn’t know either; it’s a very traditional Christmas theatre production, usually based on a well-known fairytale with a lot of slapstick and way over-the-top humour. In the evening, it gets a little more “adult,” with lots of innuendos for the adults, and political jokes—under 16s must be accompanied by a parent. There’s always a good vs evil plot where the bad guy is always booed by the audience. In fact, there’s a lot of audience participation: shouting, heckling, and singing along. The “Dame” (narrator) is usually a man in drag with a flamboyant comic personality.  This year’s Panto was Robinhood, which had the most outrageous costumes I have ever seen; they were truly spectacular. There was a great ventriloquist who added so much to the show, and of course, lots of singing and dancing. The actors must love performing these Pantos with all the ad-libs going on. Our friends Vince & Claire came down from Tring and joined us for dinner and the show. I can truly say I’ve never been to any West End Theatre like it!

Panto Robinhood
Panto Dame
Panto Ventriloquist

Living for an extended time in a city with so much to do, we obviously waited until the last month to try to cram everything in before we left. We’ve taken a few day trips to squeeze in the last bit of travel. Bletchley Park was first on our calendar, and we headed North for a 40-minute train ride. It was so cold that day! I had at least three layers on, an oversized wooly scarf and hat, and I was still freezing.  It didn’t help that the tour we signed up for was completely OUTSIDE! If this is the first time you’ve heard of this amazing place, I highly recommend watching The Imitation Game with Benedict Cumberbatch. Most of you know that I am no mathematical wizard, and the information at Bletchley was way above my skill set. Watching the movie really helped. This place was crucial to winning WWII and super Top Secret; it only became declassified in 1996. Basically, Britain was losing the war and was desperate to break the German Enigma codes, and Bletchley Park was set up to do just that; hundreds of staff (over 75% were women) worked around the clock trying to break the codes by hand. Everyone who worked there had to sign the Official Secrets Act and vowed to keep their work secret for decades, even from their families. The Enigma machine sent out strategic information to the German military by coded messages using rotors and a plugboard and offered a possibility of 159 quintillion different settings to choose from. The rotors and plugboard were changed every 24 hours, thus nearly impossible to decode. The Germans were so confident in their codes that they transmitted their messages freely over the radio airwaves in Morse code. Stepping onto Bletchley’s hallowed grounds felt like embarking on a journey back in time, where the air was thick with burdens of the past and lots of cigarette smoke. The once-secret hub was the central site for British intelligence during WWII, where Alan Turing and a team of codebreakers successfully built “the Bombe,” a machine that would crack thousands of Nazi daily messages. The whole area has been meticulously preserved and transformed into a museum, offering visitors an interactive experience in the world of clandestine codebreaking. An imposing Victorian mansion was our first stop, where codebreakers pored over intercepted messages and pivotal decisions were made. There are also many other exhibits featuring reconstructed codebreaking machines and personal items of those who worked there. However, the section Jack and I spent more time in was the Enigma exhibit, where the mechanics of this legendary encryption device were on display, which completely blew my mind. The trillions of combinations of code – cracked! No wonder Bletchley was located on a central rail line between Oxford and Cambridge Universities, where brilliant professors were recruited with their theoretical mathematical and engineering genius laying the foundations for the computer age. The intelligence produced at Bletchley is estimated to have shortened the war by two to four years. It not only is the birthplace of modern computing, but it is Britain’s best-kept secret! Winston Churchill said Bletchley workers were the “geese that laid the golden eggs and never cackled.” If you have a few extra days in London, Bletchley Park should definitely be on your list of interesting places to visit.

Bletchley Park Mansion
Enigma Machine
The "Bombe"
Cold Tour at Bletchley

Next up on our day trips was Rochester, about 30 miles southeast of London and less than an hour by train. When I think of England, I think castles, cathedrals, and a few good authors, all of which I found in Rochester. Due to its strategic location on the Medway River, Rochester Castle was built shortly after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and it is one of Britain’s most impressive surviving medieval castles. It is a magnificent example of 11th century Norman architecture with the tallest square keep (125 ft) to survive in Europe. Many sieges were laid to the castle, but King John (1199–1216) devised an ingenious plan to attack, and one of the stone keeps came tumbling down. After much fighting between the King and rebels who had taken over the castle, King John built a tunnel underneath one of the tower keeps, stuffed it with hay and forty fat pigs, and lit everything on fire, causing the pigs to burst like a big fat sausage and one corner collapsed. After almost 900 years, a few sieges, and centuries of post-medieval abuse, it is a shell of what it once was, but it’s still imposing, with an impressive 100 feet of stonework in the sky above. Climbing the spiral staircases that run the outer walls, I could ascend to the top, marvel at the view beyond, and imagine what it was like to live here during those 300+ years of turbulent medieval history. I don’t think I would like it—too cold, drafty, and no modern conveniences!

Rochester High Street
Rochester Castle
Rochester Castle
Rochester Castle

Almost directly across from the castle is the second-oldest cathedral in England after Canterbury. I love cathedrals and their fascinating history, with Rochester being one of my favourites. It was founded in 604 AD and was personally consecrated by St Augustine. King Henry VIII met his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, in the cloisters there. (but we all know how that turned out—she was lucky—only divorced!) Exploring the castle, we found so many rich treasures. On the choir wall is a painting that should never have survived Henry VIII’s reformation, where most sacred paintings and objects were destroyed. However, one of the best-preserved paintings in the cathedral was half obscured by a pulpit; thus, the reformers only destroyed the half they could see. (Truly a man-look) The “Wheel of Fortune” painting shows the “ups and downs” of life, and the Medieval Rose Wheel Windows was based on this concept. As the female figure of Fortune turns her wheel, man’s life also turns upward but then spirals down. It was a reminder that the sin of ambition could bring him tumbling down. This is not the only treasure I found in the church.  The wonderfully preserved “Book of Rochester” is on display. Written by a single scribe in the 12th century, it is over 100 years older than the Magna Carta and contains the only surviving copy of English law. In it are the laws of trial by combat, laws of the Church (with a forged document to preserve the security of the church), laws of excommunication (with an appeal to the supernatural), and even a charm and directions on how to deal with the theft of livestock. We were very lucky as the Cathedral was closing for a choral practice, but a wonderful docent took us to see these treasures and gave us a brief history lesson of the Church. Between the Castle and the Cathedral, I was already in historical heaven, but every step I took on the cobblestone High Street led me to stop every few seconds to take another photo of the picturesque High Street.

Rochester Cathedral
Cathedral
Wheel of Fortune
Book of Rochester

If you are a Dickens fan like I am, you’ll love walking the streets and seeing building after building with iconic blue plaques confirming those quirky, half-timbered houses, the centuries-old alms and pilgrims’ houses, and the pubs and hotels they identify are the same places that fueled Dickens’ imagination. I seriously expected to see Estella and Miss Havisham looking out the window of the Restoration House (Satis House). Rochester really does tick all the boxes for a superb, fun-filled day trip. It’s a unique town with a local spirit, where cute shops and tearooms have kept most of the chain stores out. In less than an hour on Southeastern trains, you are in the land of castles, cathedrals, and a literary icon.

With the few remaining weeks left, we not only crammed in a few day trips, we also hit the London Transport Museum and booked a tour of  the world’s first “Tube” station—Baker St. Jack has always been fascinated by all that is under London— the tube stations and trains, the sewers and water mains, and all that keeps London a modern-day city. The transport museum was great and I highly recommend it—especially on a cold, winter’s weekday. We happened to go on a weekend, and every mother, father, child, and extended family unit enjoyed all the old busses, trams, and hands-on exhibits.  The tour of the old “Tube” station was fascinating. We were able to go behind the scenes—literally! We found out how the original stations were conceived and built with the Metropolitan Railway opening the first on Jan 10th, 1863. Today, Baker Street Station has 10 total platforms serving five line, more than any other in London.

Miss Havisham's House
London Transport Museum
Baker Street Station
Baker St. Underground Tour
Baker Tube Underground

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2 Responses

  1. Susan DeCorpo says:
    February 10, 2025 at 6:36 pm

    Well done! You have surely made the most of your London return, actually living there again, and with lots more insights than before. You will leave saturated with a new wealth of experiences and revived memories of the great life we enjoyed as Londoners! Travel on; I’m eager to hear about the next stop on the “Edge”! Cheers to new adventures!

    Reply
  2. Wayne says:
    February 10, 2025 at 5:08 pm

    Where are y’all off to next?
    Looking forward to seeing you guys on the 19th-!!

    Reply

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  • Home
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      • Carnoustie – Long Journey Home
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      • Croatia: Rovinj, Porec & Pula
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      • Christmas in Garmisch, Germany
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