Time Travel

May 10 to 13:  We have been sight-seeing in different historical eras this week - time traveling, if you like - from WWII  at the Churchill War Rooms and Bletchley Park and an exhibit at the Royal Windsor Horse Show, to the Renaissance at a concert in St. Martin's in the Field and the guard change at Buckingham Palace, with a couple of stops in a utopian and dystopian present via the Horse Show and a play at the National Theatre called Suicide.

Tuesday, May 10th was relatively quiet - we traveled up to Baker Street (no sighting of Mr. Holmes, in fact there is no 221B) so Phil could look for a lightweight monocular.  Instead he bought a pair of good, lightweight binoculars; it is an early birthday present.  We wandered back towards Trafalgar Square, pausing to visit the National Gallery and buy concert tickets at St. Martin's for a Friday evening concert.

On Wednesday, May 11th we set off towards St. James Park and Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guards.  It started pouring as we walked and never really let up for the rest of the day - our feet and trouser legs were soon sopping wet.  The guard change was a bit of a let-down, probably because of the foul weather, but the ceremony at Windsor Castle the previous week had been more impressive.  We watched the water fowl in St. James Park, including one brand new baby coot and a couple of gosling batches.

Changing of the Guard in the rain

Our main destination for the day was the Churchill War Rooms underneath Whitehall which was very worthwhile.  The offices were set up in 1938, closed abruptly in 1945, and have been reopened and restored in the last couple of decades as a tourist attraction.  The tour goes past the Cabinet Room, Churchill's office, bed rooms, staff quarters, communications and map rooms, plus the dining room and kitchen.  There was also an extensive exhibit about Winston Churchill's life, starting with the war years, then backtracking to his early life and finishing with his final years.  It is a new museum that opened in 2005.  He really was an astonishing man who nearly went off the rails a number of times in his life but was absolutely essential to winning the war.  The War Rooms give a very realistic sense of the claustrophobia, technology, comradeship and urgency that the English government war leaders experienced.  Among other features, there were rooms showing the communication networks to other key war sites and a sample Enigma machine that provided a preview of our visit to Bletchley Park on Friday.

Churchill's War Room Bedroom/Office

That evening we walked over to the National Theatre on the South Bank.  We had a tapas supper in their Terrace Restaurant and then attended the 7:30 performance of Suicide.  In a nutshell, the main character is having a really bad day-week-year-life? and decides impulsively to kill himself.  The video of this pronouncement goes viral on social media.  The rest of the play is about the people with their own cynical or self-serving objectives who take advantage of him and encourage him to 'top' himself.  The set was very impressive and the production very well done, but the play seemed a little preachy.  The play is very contemporary, with lots of hiphop riffs, and very British, with references (mostly negative) to Maggie Thatcher, council housing, and English social (mental) services.

To our delight, Thursday, May 12th turned out to be a splendid day, both in the weather and our activities.  We caught a train about 10:00 am and rode to Windsor for the Royal Horse Show, which takes place on the Home Park, a meadow just below Windsor Castle and the Thames.  It's a very grand event, with 3 major arenas, food stalls and the classiest vendor displays we have ever seen - fine saddlery, classic woolen jackets, boots, helmets, and even a silver dealer.  This is not your typical street fair.  If you were a horse person (with money), you could buy everything you ever needed without leaving the grounds (and I'm sure they deliver).  Range Rover was there in style, with automatically driven autos that slowly moved around an obstacle course, showing their off-road capabilities.  There were fancy horse vans, too.

One of the many 'shops'

We navigated our way in after the obligatory bag search and grabbed seats in a low grandstand by the Frogmore Arena.  We watched several rounds of jumping, including introductory levels (the bars are lower and fewer) and master levels (potential Olympians).  Phil had fun taking pictures and timing them at the height of the jumps.  Our seats let us look over to an adjacent arena, which was hosting pony and cart parades for disabled youths and various other "judged" events.

Jumping clean

After 2 hours, we got up and walked over to watch the Fijian Band and Dancers, in grass skirts and formal uniform jackets.  We strolled through the shopping arcade and then got Cornish pasties and drinks.  We next moved into the Castle Arena, the largest and grandest venue and watched a number of "acts."  This is where the Queen has a royal enclosure and where "members" have a special seating area.  We saw: 1) the Oman Cavalry and Band - the band was primarily young women on horseback;  2) Range Rover's 'Lance, Sword and Revolver' contest, 3) Youth Club Pony Games, 4) the  2- and 4-Wheel Carriage contest, 5) the Royal Horse Guards Review, and 6) Chilean Horsemen and Dancers.

Oman Cavalry - note the bagpipers

 

Lance contest, after sword and revolver

Royal Horse Guards

Chilean Horse Guard

The revues involved lots of horses and riders trotting around in choreographed maneuvers, with flags and banners and rousing music piped in, though the Omanis had drums and bagpipers on horsebacks. (Note, while we were in Windsor earlier, we had seen buses unloading costumed members of the Omani team; women did not travel with the men.)  The Lance, Sword and Revolver contest was fun - each contestant was expected to thrust a sword at two upright targets, then shoot a revolver at 3 balloons, and finally use a lance to spear a two hanging rings and a peg on the ground.  The rings were about 3 inches in diameter.  All of this was done on horses at running speed and jumping over a couple of low fences, so it took a steady hand to succeed.  The youth pony clubs games involved seven well-organized events - a relay race weaving around poles, flag pick up and place relay, old sock relay (pick-up and place a sock in a hat), 'through the tire' relay (get off the pony and pass a tire over body and return to horseback),' 5-flag retrieval, balloon relay (pop a balloon while riding by), and a sack race (four kids hopping down field in a large sack after dropping off their ponies).  It was great fun.  The Welsh team won over Scotland, England, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.  The Northern Ireland were unlucky and obviously gaining experience.  To add to the challenge, if a contestant knocked over a pole or missed  an item, they had to return and correct the flaw.

The carriage judging was sponsored by the American Carriage Association.  The Royal Horse Guards and the Chilean reviews were theatrical with traditional music and horsemen riding patterns.   The performance ended at 6:00 pm,  and patrons were asked to leave immediately,  since a birthday party performance began at 7 pm.  Our landlord for the flat we rented in Windsor sings each night in this celebration, culminating in a Sunday night TV broadcast, which we are interested in watching.  (He told us the Wednesday night show had been cancelled, due to the downpour.)

We trained back to London, grabbed dinner at SeaFresh Cafe, an excellent restaurant in the Pimlico neighborhood.  

On Friday, May 13th, forecast to be a warm, sunny day but turned out cool, breezy and cloudy, we went to Bletchley Park.  This is where MI-6 and Naval Intelligence created a Government Code and Cypher School (HQ GC&CS) just before the beginning of WWII.  We had a great tour of the mansion with the main offices, the various huts built quickly in 1939-41, and the buildings built later for more permanent offices for the code breakers.  We had an audio player that went into great depth on how and who worked here.  There was even two rooms full of movie props and settings from the recent film The Imitation Game.  The movie, although presenting the gist of the story, oversimplifies and romanticizes it.  While Alan Turing was an important figure, there were many others who were huge contributors to the code breaking and the building of the BOMBE machine that streamlined the process.  The interactive displays were fabulous and very good at explaining the complexities of making and breaking machine-based cyphers.  Betsy doesn't remember who advised us to visit Bletchley (and told us it was right next to the train station) but it was great advice - so thanks.

The mansion, where it all began

BOMBE machine

ENIGMA

We rode back to London, got an early supper at an Italian cafe near the Mentone Hotel (familiar to those on the Coast to Coast trek), and walked down to Trafalgar Square.  We had tickets for a 7:30 candlelight concert at St. Martin's in the Field, a very nice music venue.  The performance, on period instruments, included:

• Bach, Brandenberg Concerto # 5
• Mozart, Divertimento #3 in F
• Vivaldi, Concerto for Sopranino (high recorder) in C
• Telemann, Concerto for Recorder in C
• Vivaldi, Concerto for Cello in B minor
• Bach, Brandenberg Concerto #4

The musicians on the violins and the recorders were great, but the cello seemed off-key.   Still it was  a pleasant way to spend an evening.

St Martin's in the Field Church