Mailly-Champagne to Paris

We had breakfast with three Spaniards and an Ecuadorian who currently work in Belgium as consultants on all things EU, so they had interesting work stories to tell. The breakfast part of 'bed and breakfast' was a bit bare, consisting of only baguettes and jam, served with coffee of tea. Not quite an ironman's breakfast.

We drove the sort distance to Reims (pronounced "hor-ence") to drop the car off. I had made it. Five days driving cack-handed and not an incident! The station was beside the rental car office, so it was a simple matter of taking our bags twenty metres to the station. The train got us to Paris in 45 minutes and a taxi made the last leg much easier, putting us Charles de Gaulle airport seven hours before our flight.

Oh well, at least we wouldn't miss it!

We had thought of doing some final things in Paris during the day but in the end, catching the plane home seemed like the best choice.

We fly out of Paris at 21:50 local time. I won't begin to identify how important this last few months has been for us. That will come but despite all that, we are looking forward to home. You get sick of living from suit cases and climbing stairs (often with suitcases) and you miss those things which are distinctly home. I can't wait to hug my children and tell my Dad I love him.

Most particularly, I can't wait for that first Sam Kelly mocha on Wednesday afternoon. In two months, nothing has come close.

Villers-Bretonneux

It’s a strange thing chasing ghosts, yet in and out of a small town in northern France, their vapours are everywhere. Our full day in and around Villers-Bretonneau was stacked with emotions but not all were bent to the side of pathos. There was also humour, admiration, anger and frustration.

It’s an odd little town. Largely rebuilt in the 1920’s after being so badly devastated by the First World War, its attracts so much regular attention particularly from Australia tourists and of course, is inundated during a week of celebrations each Anzac Day. Many British and American tourists come to read its plaques and stand in the beautiful but sombre graveyards.

The message the kids at the Victoria
School cannot forget even
94 years later

We started our day in the beating heart of the town, the Franco-Australian Museum, built above the school hall. This is no ordinary school. For starters, very few French schools have an assembly hall, as such gathering places are more in the English public school tradition and subsequently then, Australia. This school hall was built from donations of Victorian (Australia) school children in the 1920’s. The school was destroyed in the war and on hearing their plight, a Aussie teacher started a campaign to build them a hall. Pacific Maple was sourced and largely donated but the guts of the place was raised from the ground by the pocket money pennies of primary school children in Victoria during the decade after the conflict.

The result is a magnificent hall, with exposed maple feature columns and carvings made by senior students. It is said that the initials of each student is engraved behind the carvings. Today, the hall is festooned with large photographic posters which highlight the spectacular physical features of Victoria and why not? After all, in response to the generosity of this Australian state which gave their children a school which still functions today, the town renamed their new school the Victoria School. As we peered from the windows of the school hall and watched children at play and a teacher with hands on hips maintaining order, there above them, emblazoned in gum tree green over wattle yellow, were large words in upper case English “Never Forget Australia”.

This was the first of many lumps in my throat that the distinction of my countrymen bought me on this day. It was also the first of many tears.

Upstairs, despite a delivery practised for weeks, I managed to stay calm and even in speaking to staff right until I mentioned my Pop. Saying his name - Arthur George Langston - broke down my veneer and I cried helplessly in explaining our family connection to this place. Sue stood beside me magnificently, allowed me to compose myself, knowing the responsibility I felt to my Dad at that moment and silently squeezed my hand. The staff, slightly bemused, had seen this before, so waited for me. I eventually staggered the moment  forward and they were able to help me with information.

The museum is sparser than you might imagine such a place to be but contains well organised and well chosen displays which explain the protracted battles for the Somme. The fighting which removed Germany from this village is featured but only in equal share with other conflicts across the region, as the Hindenburg Line was destroyed by the dogged Allies. We watched an hour of video on loop about WWI, with V-B was mentioned only in passing and vision of the destroyed village shown briefly.

As it was lunchtime, a recommendation from staff took us to a pub on Rue de Melbourne that didn’t sell food; their recommendation took us to a Kebab shop that sold food but we wouldn’t eat (a local restaurant with no locals at lunch time is not a glowing commentary); and the recommendation of a local couple walking their child to pre-school, sent us to the Victoria Restaurant which was crowded and the waitress waved us away with a resounding “non”. The only supermarket, ironically owned by a well-known German supermarket chain, seemed like the perfect combination of cheap and nasty. We must have walked and driven every byway and which way for the next hour. Eventually, the fellow at the petrol station sent us to a pub in Corbie (5kms away) because “they look after Aussie boys”. We arrived 15 minutes after the kitchen closed and they had never heard of “Alaine”, whose name he insisted we drop and just shrugged when we said we were Australian.

We found a supermarket at 3:00pm and gorged ourselves on fruit, yoghurt, nuts and potato chips.

On the return trip from Corbie, our day took on a sterner note.

The Australia War Memorial
at Villers-Bretonnaux

From the moment you arrive at the Australian War Memorial, located on Hill 102 between Corbie and V-B, you are overwhelmed by the headstones. There are just so many of them. There are other grave sites across the region but this is by far the biggest as the battles here were among the bloodiest, the most brutal and the most costly of the Somme campaign. Other allies are buried here, but they are a handful compared to the row, upon row, upon row of Aussie boys and men.

Up one end. a single headstone marks more than ten thousand other dead Australians because their graves sites will never be known. They are just scattered across the green fields which can been seen from the top of the memorial, buried in haste and concern for hygiene for those surviving, as the artillery shells sent shrapnel into new chests and bullets claimed red arteries until they bled dry.

The thousands upon thousands of Germans who died are not represented at all but as my daughter reminds me, history is written by the victors. The vanquished are forever silenced.

Built in 1938 by the Australian government and opened by King George VI, the memorial was still on a strategic hill when Hitler’s shindig took place and the damage to the structure from shell fragments and bullets has been left as one more poignant reminder.

We climbed to the top of the Memorial tower - a super effort for Sue with her bad back, but she was determined to be beside me in case my hand needed another squeeze. It was that wing man thing again. The view was spectacular but you are continually drawn to the graves at your feet and in the direction where the sun would set every day of what is getting close to 100 years.

I have held the view for some time, emphasised on Anzac Day, that even though I am against war for the reasons any pacifist would quickly amplify, I haven’t the slightest hesitation to be both proud of and grateful for, men and women, who in courage and determination gave up their way of life and in many cases lives, so that I have the luxury of holding my views.

It’s not just those who died either. How did my grandfather, his abdomen opened up by machine gun fire, left in the mud for hours before a ceasefire and finally taken to England three weeks later for surgery to close his chest … how did he survive? Apart from that, how the hell did he return to life in Australia and live with the memories of that ordeal? There was no counselling in 1918, no support groups. These (mainly) men just had to straighten up and fly right. In the process, many crashed and burned themselves and their families and those that made it, like Pop, must have hated closing their eyes.

I was conflicted so angrily by the pride I had for the dead and the survivors, that they could make such a choice and an anger at governments who place these people in positions where they have to choose. It boiled over in an impromptu speech to no one but my long suffering wife, more’s the pity. I rarely allow myself the dangerous luxury of anger these days, but it raged in me as I walked back past these men who will never come home.

How dare we do this to them … still.

There was no hope of coffee to steady myself for the final task of the day - one I had prepared myself for some time ago.

I could hear their screams

Returning to the spot I had found the previous day, about halfway between Bois Abbey and Memorial Farm with its two story chateau hidden now by a large modern machinery shed, I found a spot about halfway up the narrow one lane road which spanned the field between the village and the highway. A farmer was harvesting sugar beet and adding to the large pile of them quite near us, at the end of each run across the field. I shot some pictures of the area and a video piece that I hope will survive long enough for my Dad to see it. Somewhere ahead of me, in a harvested field of red-brown dirt, which stretched half a kilometre to Memorial Farm, my grandfather and his mates fell during the first battle for Villers-Bretonneau on the 4th April, 1918.

I removed three sets of medals from my pocket – replicas of those he was awarded – one for my Dad, one for my brother and one for me. I walked onto the field, placed the medals at my feet and prayed the Lords Prayer my mother had taught me and private prayers of gratitude for a man I never met but believe I’d found; for his son, who allowed me to walk in his shadow until I could stand the sunlight and then stepped aside; and for me, whose journey to this field in northern France has been so much harder than my grandfather’s but so much easier once I got here.

Pop's campaign medals

I kicked the medals into the dirt as they shouldn’t be pretty things polished for parades but gritty reminders of cost. Then despite my pacifism, I picked them up, folded them into paper bags and vouched them safe until I hand them over in a few weeks.

Our return to our accommodation in the chateau - destroyed in the first world war and rebuilt before the second - was met by a few hours relaxing before dining out. We made use of the pool and spa.

By comparison to our lunch, we dined in a Michelin rated restaurant which Sue thoroughly enjoyed but I soon tired of. No one spoke English, I have little idea what I ate and it cost more than small countries need to fund their annual budget. Like an auction, every time I lifted a finger a smiling waiter attended me, gave me a fresh bread roll, filled my water glass, tidied up my conjunctive clauses, expressed a "oui" and retreated to his standby position. Phrase books arrived with every coming of a waiter. Maps of France were shown from old school text books so Sue would know where she was drinking from and she kept inadvertently ordering wine, thinking she was asking for directions to the toilet. I couldn’t drink as I was driving, so once the fourth glass arrived with two and a half glasses still needing Sue’s attention, I made it clear there would be no more. Five minutes later he was back offering more. This was very much Sue’s night and I’m afraid I may have been grumpy and disinterested at times but then, I have never been a happy diner in posh surroundings. Common as muck I’m afraid.

TODAY'S PHOTOS

The tally for the wine made up half the bill.

A long, worthwhile but difficult day.

Courselles sur Mer to Villiers-Bretoneau

Juno Beach

Courselles-sur-Mer was overcast and windy by the time we finished our breakfast - not served until
8:30am – and packed the car. My cold was a little worse, not helped by lack of heat through a night when I put on layer after layer to get warm and woke several times in a sweat. Our room was equipped with a heater but it had been turned off at the switchboard. Break and tea for breakfast didn't improve my demeanor.

Before leaving town, we drove out to the Juno Beach Centre. On the 6th June 1944, Juno Beach had been at the northern end of the largest invasion force ever assembled. Crossing from England, men leap into the water in order to try and breech the Atlantic Wall, a defensive barrier on the beaches which the Germans had spread from Norway to Spain. It consisted of a series of objects designed to block landing craft and vehicles such as tanks and to slow soldiers down long enough to make them easier targets. Behind this usually on the beaches, were bunkers from which the German Army could fire and defend the lands they had over run.

At Juno, a force predominately of Canadians stormed ashore. They lost two thirds of their tanks, intended to break through obstacles and provide cover for the exposed foot soldiers. Several of their landing craft sank, drowning 95% of the men who stood waiting but died without ever firing a bullet. The crossing had been rough and the ride to the beach rougher and half were sick and weak from vomiting. Those that made the sand had a long, ragged run up the low tide beach.

Despite enough handicaps to doom them and more than a third of the force at Juno killed or wounded in the first hour of the operation, they made it ashore and captured the first four kilometres of the twenty to their objective Caen by the first sunset. The remaining sixteen kilometres took two months.

This was all outlined for us by our guide. Like all of the guides working at the Juno Beach Centre, she is Canadian, a university student, twenty and bilingual (French and English). The Centre was established by Canada to honour their men who raced ashore in 1944. Most of the qualifying characteristics are obvious but why are they all aged twenty? That was the average age of the men who came ashore at Juno.

We were shown the defences and how they worked, including time down in the key observation bunker between the centre and the beach. The technology was ingenious for the time.

The museum in the Centre is a very good one and worth the hour or so needed to take it all in.

Leaving Juno to its ghosts, we drove for most of the afternoon inland and to the north east and accommodation for the next two nights at the Chateau Omiecourt, about twenty kilometres from Villers-Bretonneux. Our room is on the second floor, facing the woods and there are indoor pools and spas and saunas - a little spoiling before we head for home.

It was six o’clock before set off for a recon of Villers-Bretonneux. I couldn’t be this close and not see it until the morning. I found more than I bargained for immediately. Without maps other than the one in my head from studying in the months before leaving Australia, I found the railway line, chateau and wood which were my markers for the spot where my grandfather, Arthur George Langston was wounded and should have died on Anzac Day 1918. Following my nose, ten minutes later I was standing in light rain on a narrow road south of the town. The railway line was between us.

To the east, I could see him crouching in the woods, with his tin hat and gun and hundreds of mates. Ahead of them, straight past where I stood, the ground rose from the wood, flattened for a long while and then rose sharply for the last quarter of the distance before a short, flat space to a two storey chateau which I had driven past only minutes earlier. It was there and in haystacks to the left, that German machine guns waited for Pop. At the whistle, I watched them break out into open ground, running for their lives up past me and into the range of the machine guns. I could hear them cranking out death and watched the first men fall as the wave went on, reached the sharp hill before the chateau, slowed under full packs and the incline and entered the killing ground.

Somewhere on this field of mown stalks, brown and dry, my Pop fell, split from hip to opposite nipple by the machine guns. I could see him fall, hear men screaming and yet all I could do was cry: for him surely and the pain that lasted well beyond the hours he lay there in that field; for death and waste that is still perpetrated on individuals in and out of uniform in the name of causes which are always claimed just; but mostly for myself, in shame, that it had taken so long for me to know this story and meet my grandfather.

TODAY'S PHOTOS

I’ll go back there tomorrow with copies of his medals, place them in the dirt and talk with him awhile.

Berck sur Mer to Courselles sur Mer

I never met my paternal grandfather. He died eight years before my first breath from an aneurism. Despite serving in two world wars, despite surviving the great depression with four kids, despite being skint several times and despite having his chest opened up by machine gun fire from left hip to right nipple and surviving two weeks with no antibiotics with the would held together with running stitch, it was a thin-walled blood vessel which killed him quickly but in its own time.

If I had no opportunity to know this small statured man, my Dad had little more for Pop died when Dad was 19. I often wonder at how their relationship might have blossomed as Dad bought grandchildren home, shared his highlights, laughed together. As it was, Dad fulfilled much of that role as the eldest, particularly to his only brother. Its not hard for me to conjure up the image of them sitting together in a quiet place at family functions. When I asked once, Dad told me they were “chewing the fat”, something the old man was denied by circumstance and bad plumbing.

Today, I think I saw my Pop wave to me in La Havre. I was standing on the dock where he arrived with mates toward the end of 1917. He looked young and cheeky and full of adventure. The sea spray was blowing across the dock from where it crashed on the outer sea wall, making the air more dense than usual. The inner harbour was quiet and a few of the old buildings remained where they were built nearly a hundred years ago, watching troop ships arrive and brave boys disembark from Australia via Panama via Glasgow : boys with wide smiles and rife for a rumble. Apart from the time it took to get here, what did they know of France or war or dying?

Pop knew a bit. He was here to chase his brothers killers from Gallipoli. It didn’t matter that they wore a different uniform. Growing up in the sunshine in Australia, danger was something talked about but rarely experienced and these boys didn’t see themselves as heroes, before or after. This was a job and hard work didn’t worry them and if they could have some fun in the process all they better. These were Ginger Mick and The Sentimental Bloke which CJ Dennis recorded for us.

These were my Pop and his mates.

The old dock in Le Havre

We spent most of our time at Le Havre at the dock. The Seine hurries past and into the sea after its long journey from Paris and beyond. Little wonder then that Parisians have been coming here for so long for summer vacations. They come for the air and choppy surf of the southern part of the English Channel. They change in the collection of dressing sheds spread across the ocean pounded round rocks which substitute for sand on French beaches. The sheds are all white, unlike the individually coloured sheds you might see on the Mornington Peninsular at the bottom of Victoria. Like most aging ports, much has gone into the redevelopment of the foreshore area with new car parks, speed hump controlled roads, large paved areas, new vegetation, purpose built shops and entertainment areas … and one toilet.

The crossing of the Seine, as we headed south, was spectacular. The Pont Normandy is a superb suspension bridge which rises in as steep an arch as any bridge I have driven across. The old Rolls Canhardly would never have made it up the slope to the apex. It’s a beautiful design and puts to shame even the Anzac Bridge in Sydney.

Early in the day we took in delicious country, green from summer growth still, despite so much of it now in giant rolls of silage. The cottages are more recent, with less stone and more brick and most of them with some form of rendering. Perhaps the proximity to the ocean requires more protection from salt spray erosion or perhaps bombardment destroyed their ancestors. Almost everything built is either white or a variation of it. The roads roll through the landscape at 90kms/h, making for pleasant driving. By comparison, our dashing later in the day on freeways at 130kms/h was frighteningly hectic.

We stopped at Fecamp for lunch, finally finding a restaurant which was open. It was about then that I discovered 100Euro missing which I had taken from an ATM in Berck. After recovering from the shock of it being missing, I remembered I had been in a hurry and had put in my coat pocket. Somewhere at a roadside toilet stop, it must have fallen out. I was not a happy chappy, despite having a delicious pizza served up to me. However, Sue, forever the optimist, took advantage of a tourist placemat which was a drawing of the local area and things to see. Taken by the sketch of the coastline, she suggested we detour to a small place on the coast with a near unpronounceable name.

Beach at Etretat

Etretat (pronounced ett-rar-tu) – a small coastal town of old buildings, narrow streets and a keen knowledge of its tourist potential. Without being trashy, they have maximised an amazing ocean frontage. Where the village meets the sea, a rocky pebbled beach is bookended by massive white/yellow cliffs, grass-topped and punched with huge arches which have gone back to the sea. At the very top of one, a church - Notre Dame de la Garde - looking over the English Channel. It was rebuilt in 1950 after being destroyed during the Second World War. Monet came here and painted. No surprise really. Adjectives fail me. You’ll have to look at the photos.

We arrived at our overnight stop - Courselles-sur-Mer - at six o'clock, a little later than planned but were welcomed by our host. Tonight we'll sleep in a quiet little sea side town which jumps and jives in the summer months but slips back into its shell come autumn. Our room has been purpose built for guests inside the walled courtyard of an older home and is decorated in quirky transfers of bees and flowers and the like. We walked down toward the English Channel and watched the sunset, found a restaurant and settled in with the good company of an American couple from Montana. Both had worked for the equivalent of the national parks, so we had an immediate accord in terms of the environment and politics. They even had children the same age as our three. Red wine and steak for me; sauce aux trois poissons for Sue.

TODAY'S PHOTOS

Tomorrow, I’ll stand where my grandfather stood when machine gun fire split him open, just south of the village of Villiers Bretonneau, as he and his mates pushed the Germans back home and away from this small, rural village. I have his medals with me. I figure I might see him a little more clearly.

London to Berck-sur-Mer

Since the day when I finally submerged under a mountain of black depression and gave up on living, Sue has always keep a watching brief, never really convinced that I was able to function free of the possibility that I might crack again.

Today, she says, she believes its unlikely. All it took was a difficult day with the weather, with people and then having to drive a strange car on the wrong side of the road through traffic and safely to our destination. Apparently, now she believes. I've lived without trust for such a long time, I never believed it would be offered again, so tonight, I'm feeling pretty happy.

The rain which arrived in earnest in London yesterday mid morning, showed no sign of abating as we moved from our hotel to St Pancras railway station after an earlier than usual breakfast. We had chosen an easier option and spent extra on a private transfer from the hotel to the station. It allowed us to control time factors. As a result, we arrived in time to catch an earlier train to Dover and even better, the earlier ferry to Calais. In the end, all this gave us was a longer time to wait in Calais Ferry Port as the high car operators didn't arrive until just before our previously arranged time of arrival.

No blue birds but still the white cliffs

Leaving England, the White Cliffs of Dover were impressive. Regardless of driving rain and fog and cold, to stand on the open deck and watch them recede was one of the most dramatic physical sights we have observed in the seven weeks since leaving Australia. At one stage, a small area of sunshine tried to break through, illuminating just a section of the cliffs and the sea in front of it. It was dazzling.

We crossed the Channel almost completely enveloped in rain or fog and sometimes both and we arrived to a terminal which emptied quickly and left us alone with the workers for two hours while we waited for the car rental place to open. It was teeming down whilst we had lunch, at times blocking our vision of the ferries at dock less than 300m away. It was bleak, cold and threatening because soon I had to go out in it and drive a left hand drive car, everything about it foreign (literally) to me and among the manic French, who drive their cars like Bengal tigers are in the back seat.

Raining cats, dogs and the rest
of the vet's surgery

Not only did we lose our time advantage but it went into negative as the car high attendant had all sorts of trouble with technology and asked us questions like "when did you finish your driving lessons?" Once I figured out he needed to know how long we had been driving we made some approximate dates up, although in my case, I actually knew the date I first got my driving licence. All during these enquiries, he was mostly underneath the counter trying to get his computer system operating because, he said, no computer and "you iz karput. Viola!"

Once we cleared the terminal, we sat in the car for thirty minutes, learning how it worked. Tomorrow we'll do that again because its making beeps and whistles which I have no control over! We gave up on the SatNav as theirs seemed to be only one button and how I was supposed to access it's 25 functions wasn't at all clear. Strategically, I had bought a new GPS in Australia and equipped it with French maps and it was soon in place and programmed with our destination.

Luckily, my first three turns were at roundabouts, which had whopping big arrows on them pointing which was to go and the 45 minutes afterwards was pretty much open road driving, so I had the chance to settle in. After that, we left the motorways and travelled back roads down the French west coast. By the time we got to Berck-sur-Mer, I was feeling pretty comfortable. Dad had told me not to worry because in his opinion I could drive anything, except possibly a nail. He was right. For the record, the anything in this case was a new Peugeot 308 auto.

The beach at Berck

Berck is a coastal town (sur-Mer means "by the sea") of about fifteen thousand people. There has been a settlement here since at least 1301 but it rose to prominence when Parisians started taking notice of it in the 18th Century. Many fine painters - notably Eduard Manet - came to the coast to paint as it was an easy part of the coast to reach from Paris. In the 19th Century, it became known for the healing benefits it offered tuberculosis sufferers and several hospitals were set up along the coastline. Later, it also became the place where Dr Francois Calot, an orthopaedic surgeon, worked on patients with chronically crooked backs. The Calot Institute is less than a km from our digs and is a specialist orthopaedic clinic for research and operations.

Some of the hospitals have fallen into disrepair but many are still working.

After arriving and meeting our hosts at Villa Anemone, we set of for a walk along the beach. We got as far as the back of the beach and realised we would have been blown to one end and never have been able to walk back against it, so abandoned the idea and walked into town. We never actually found it, despite our hosts kindly giving us a map and with rain threatening after an hour of walking, I resorted to Google Maps to plot a route home.

TODAY'S PHOTOS

Our hosts are a friendly German couple from Dusseldorf, who moved here when one of them had serious problems with asthma. The cleansing air has done the trick and his last medical report was virtually clear. Both are investigating and writing a book about one of the Popes and both have undergone training in theology. They seem like nice chaps and met us with a cuppa and home made gateaux. We have a first floor bedroom facing the direction of the beach, although the door to the balcony won't be open in these conditions. They have been renovating the house since they arrived three years ago. Its a credit to them.

London - Abbey Rd, Harrods

"That crossing" in Abbey Rd. Studio
is the white building behind. The 28IF
Volkswagon was parked on a then
narrower footpath in front of the studio

Oh boy, did we get the real London today. After light rain during the night, most of the late morning through to late afternoon it was tipping down in oversized buckets and driven by a determined wind which grabbed your umbrella from your hands in gusts that were twice as strong as the wash from a passing truck.

That's not to say it was all bad.

In the morning, after an unintentional sleep in, I led the way back to St John's Wood. That's where I found Lords Cricket Ground waiting for me earlier in the week. This morning, Sue and I were aiming to avoid one of those "so near but so far episodes". Research since my Lords visit indicated I had been very close to Abbey Studios and the infamous pedestrian crossing which was the subject of perhaps the most iconic album cover of all time: the Beatles walking over a pedestrian crossing on the cover of the last recorded Beatles album. (Note: last recorded, not last released. "Let It Be" was recorded before Abbey Road but was released afterwards)

The rain was light but annoying by the time we got there and the live webcam mounted outside Abbey Studios at 3 Abbey Rd, St John's Wood, picked us up as we arrived at the corner. The webcam is live but points nearly 180 degrees in the opposite direction to the famous photograph. The photo was taken on a rare day when all of the Fab Four were at the studios. By that time, they were barely functioning as a group and hadn't played to a live audience in two years. They were destined to never play to a paying audience again. A photographer had sat about ready to take the cover shot but in the end was given only ten minutes. He hastily arranged for a passing Bobbie to stop the traffic, put a step ladder in the middle of the road and snapped the shot, without the benefit of a digital camera to review it and the deed was done.

When we arrived, Sue realised why I had been so distressed at not understanding the importance of my location a few days earlier. I had crossed the double angled crossing at a three way intersection and turned right to walk to St John's Wood Station. Had I walked left instead, less than ten metres, I would have been on the Abbey Road crossing!

Abbey Road Studios where
James Taylor recorded "Fire & Rain"
in between Beatles takes for "Abbey Road"

As always with such places of cultural reverence, there were already people beside and on the crossing, with their friends trying desperately to get run over by standing in the middle of the road and ignoring traffic. Most of the cars and buses which arrive at the crossing know the story and cut pedestrians a lot of slack but many of the tourists present this morning seemed rude and inconsiderate that this is still someone's suburban street.

Thanks to Marcus Wilson (Tamworth), I was aware of the live webcam and had alerted family to both it and our arrival. Sam organised a phone hook up and we were able to share the moment with them, making it immeasurably more special but it left me with an aching hole that won't be sated until I can hug each of them in a week or so. The silly buggers laughed and giggled as we crossed a few times, striding out, as Sarah described it, "like two rain-soaked hobbits". I even managed a silly jump or two.

After signing off from the kids, I took a few photos of the front fence which is stuffed full of messages to the Beatles in all sorts of colours and with all sorts of promises and descriptions which give substance to images of screaming faces from the sixties, who long since discovered what they were screaming about and what to do about it. How many Englishmen must have continued to be laid on the Beatles rebound is anyone's guess but I'd be happy to suggest most of  their girlfriends and wives have scrawled suggestions on these walls since. As I took photos, Sue got herself ejected from Apple Studios - apparently the signs on the fence, gate and front door telling her not to enter didn't convince her she shouldn't go in.

The big security guard inside the door had more success but not until after Sue had argued with him.

Chased, thrilled and excited at having made a family connection, we made our way to St Pancras Station to purchase our tickets for the trip to Dover in the morning and have a dry run at where to go.

Into town then for Sue's excursion to Harrods. It was pouring by the time she kissed me goodbye and was swallowed up by a world neither of us belong to, nor regret abstaining from membership. I walked through heavy rain, armed with an umbrella and a stout coat until I found a pub. Guinness and steak and ale pie and a room full of people to watch was enough for me. I ate, drank, wrote and was merry.

Back at Harrods, Sue started out with confidence but was soon struggling. Her clothing didn't inspire much affection from the staff and she began to find the prevailing attitudes of staff and customers of the nature which we in Australia delicately describe as "up themselves". By the time she rang to say she'd had enough, my pie was gone and a third Guinness was under destruction.

TODAY'S PHOTOS

Back together and with the rain still hammering down as the last part of the afternoon started, we gave up on plans to visit the Tate Modern which would have meant a walk through the rain of about a kilometre. To cap it off, when the train arrived to take us close, it was sardine capacity and another crowd pushed on. No thanks. We went back home to Gloucester Road and had a coffee at a local restaurant.

Packing tonight and leaving here at 7:30am for France.

London - Churchill's War Rooms

Big Ben

Sue woke feeling well, after fears that she would deteriorate over night. Unfortunately I barely slept, the next week weighing heavily on me. Regardless, the promise of rain tomorrow got us out on a cloudless Saturday.

Walking up the stairs from the Westminster tube station, the first thing we saw was Big Ben. We had emerged right across the road from the tower clock. Its such a beautiful building and the decorations above the clock are as ornate as anything we saw in Paris.

Our destination was one of our last three must do's for London, the Churchill War Rooms. Located below Whitehall, the rooms were used throughout the second world war but intensely for periods when London was under the sternest attack from the Luftwaffe. When Churchill began as Prime Minister in 1940, England was already in trouble after the previous Prime Minister - Neville Chamberlain - had been duped into believing Hitler had no intention to conquer Europe. Churchill was already 65 and a veteran of being the cabinet minister responsible for the armed forces in the first world war. He was a decorated soldier, an author, an orator of note and a member of parliament for thirty years. Add to that, a credible painter who took to the brushes when suffering from depression during WWI.

A war headquarters was set up under the government buildings at Whitehall, protected by a steel reinforced six foot slab of concrete poured under the existing building and designed to withstand a 250 pound bomb. Modern experts say it would never have performed its role with success but in the event, it was never tested.

Communications, map rooms, dining, sleeping and conference rooms were all installed under the watchful eye of Sir Hastings Ismay, using a technique commonly used to repaired the hull of damaged ships. Huge rough cut timber props (30cm sides) were jacked into position under similar suspended roofing timbers and then held by triangular bracing timbers and 25mm x 450mm bolts. One in place, walls were lined and heavily braced brick and stone walls were constructed to partition rooms.

Churchill lived and worked down there, spending much of his legendary 19 hour days pouring over maps and in meetings. A special room which most of the staff thought was the only flushing toilet in the complex and therefore reserved for Churchill, was in fact a transatlantic phone hook up with President Roosevelt of the USA. Despite the need for his security, Churchill would regularly leave the bunker and go to the top of the above building - right at the heart of London - during air raids and watch his city be attacked. It was from his office in the war rooms that three of his most famous and most rousing speeches were made via special outdoor broadcast facilities the BBC invented for the purpose.

The amazing map room

The map room - the central nervous system of the entire complex - has become famous for its authenticity. The week after the war ended, the lights were switched off, the doors closed and neither were left untouched until the late 1970's, when the locks were removed and the rooms opened. Then, as now, the maps, the papers on desks, the push pins, telephones and coloured wool lines strung across the maps, are all still in the place they were when left. Apart from adding lighting and a few dummies in uniform for effect, what you see in the map room is how it was nearly 70 years ago.

Each room had its own entertaining and informative commentary from a hand held, easy to use device(included in the admission price) and you are invited to take all the pictures you want.

Five years ago, the adjunct of the Imperial War Museum, added the Churchill Museum to the underground complex. Its a very modern display space with subdued lighting and many different interactive displays about Churchill's life. There is a certain degree of honesty in describing him from the time he was a boy through to irascible old age. The recent conclusions that he was more than a sufferer from depression and almost certainly had bipolar, jumps clearly from the information available. His mood swings were legendary. He was an author of many books and good enough to win a Nobel prize for Literature in 1953. He was an artist of some ability. His oratory was probably matched only by his greatest adversary, Adolf Hitler. His ability to problem solve was both ordered and careful and then equally reckless and without consideration. He could be harsh and generous within moments. He slept little, drank as much and as well as any man with a frequent thirst and professed a great passion for his wife of more than fifty years, Clementine.

His naming of his depressive side - the Black Dog - is now recognised throughout the world as the standard, but just as clearly, he was always happy at the sound and resonance of his own voice. "We are all naught but worms," he once said, quickly following it with, "but I am a glow worm."

Cometh the hour, cometh the man but without the illness, its doubtful any man might have had the capacity to beat a foe who was better equipped and rendered twice as mad from non-selective sexual activity whereever he could get it. The next time you think of bipolar as a quality which might make you have doubts about the suffer, think of Churchill.

Downing Street

While your at it, you'd best consider that down here in Australia, making a stand against Churchill's desire to keep our Australian boys from returning to defend their country against the Japanese flooding through New Guinea, was John Curtin.

He was also a member of the bipolar club! Between the two of them was America's FDR ... and you guessed right ... like Churchill and Curtin, FDR fought bipolar mood swings all of his life.

By the time we left the War Rooms, the afternoon was well past halfway, so instead of heading across town to the Tate Modern Art Gallery, we walked up Whitehall and stopped at Downing Street. Heavy security, with Police armed with automatic rifles but never the less, happy for us to take photos. We watched a reporter file his report live to camera from the main gate and I had a chat with one of the coppers. He was telling  me how the force is hurting after the shooting of two unarmed policewomen earlier in the week. Coming from a community which has undergone the same shock, I expressed sympathy.

Nelson took the high road,
I took the low

Down Whitehall a little further was the Horse Guards Parade, which seemed open to the public so we wandered through the parade ground, watching a besieged guard keeping a strait posture and face as woman tried to kiss him for photo opportunities. He would have only had to fix bayonets to scatter them.

We eventually made our way up to Trafalgar Square, with many of the roads still closed following the running of the London Marathon. People were all over statues and a seething mass of them were populating the forecourt of the National Gallery. We got some snaps of Nelson, who, for the record, had a longer column than the Duke of York but then he lost ten thousand men.

Retreating, we walked up to Leicester Square - familiar territory by now - and caught the tube back to our digs, stopping for a meal at our local and an abbreviated chat to some new chum Americans who had arrived in London today. They seemed expert enough without our assistance.

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I'm certain we will leave London knowing that there are things undone owing to circumstances which over ran us but, so what if we can reflect on the things we have done and their significance to us.

London: Lords Cricket Ground

For Sue, this trip was very much a case of emptying her bucket list ... a list which she began writing as a 15 year old student at Armidale High School. As she sat watching slides of Paris in Art classes, she made mental notes, suddenly attentive to something other than those cute boys who had been the only reason she could find for being happy about after moving from the sun and surf of Yamba to the heavy pleated skirts of an Armidale winter. Each slide added another entry to a list she promised she would one day action by going to Paris.

In the first three weeks of this trip, she stripped the list bare and with interest.

Thanks to Sue, I shared desires some of her list spoke of, namely the Musee d'Orsay and its Fort Knox of impressionist painters and the glorious curves and representation of the human form in the Musee Roddin.

Despite being able to share these riches, my own list had them at position three and four. Today, I attended to number two and fulfilled the missing leg of a promise I made to mates during the heat of backyard cricket, even before I reached long pants. Admittedly, I claimed I would play on all three of Sydney, Melbourne and Lords, something I can confidently recognise I have failed to do. At the time, I had only ever been to the SCG, watching Doug Walters score those historic twin centuries in February of 1969, the memory of which eventually found its own place in the museum at the SCG.

Instead, I have watched glorious deeds too many to name from the boundary in Sydney and done tours in, around and under the SCG so often, I would be happy to substitute as a tour guide. In my thirties, I finally added Melbourne to the list, touring the ground with my Dad. Today, I completed the third leg, nearly fifty years after bragging to my playing companions between overs of a Test at the LCG.

It was a overcast day: rain threatening but unlikely to arrive until the evening. Sue was to share the event in much the same way as I had stayed at her elbow at the Louvre but, at the last, she had gone to bed with a cold which treated her badly during the night.

Reluctantly, I left for the tube station by myself.

Members Pavilion

After first returning to Charing Cross Road, carrying the ball that I had dropped yesterday - our London passes - I switched tracks and arrived at St Johns Wood for the walk to the WG Grace gates on the southern side of the ground. The vibe started spreading over me as I walked up to the ground museum, behind stands which don't impose like Melbourne or Sydney but still keep the ground hidden. After flashing my pass at the front desk and removing my jumper to reveal my colours - my official Australian supporters shirt - I dove into the memorabilia. There was the hand-stitched bag made for the blessed little urn that grown men will fight over in less twelve months, at this very ground. Nearby was the first World Cup, sponsored by Prudential but not enough insurance to provide an England win. Won twice by the West Indies and then by India, it was discarded in favour of a replacement trophy. Bats belonging to Geoff Boycott, Bradman, Viv Richards ... WG's cap ... well, this would be a forever list, so I'll leave it there.

Eventually, we were called to order by Graham, our tour guide and showed the little urn itself. The age old debate about the Ashes never leaving Lords surfaced but I let it run, even the claim that the MCC is simply following Ivo Bligh's - the original owner - instructions. He  raised the doubt some people have that what we were looking at was a copy and went on to say that the urn had gone to Australia in 1988 for the bicentenary and a few years ago because Richard Branson made the price right. It was then I expressed doubt that the real McCoy traveled on either occasion and was met with a rye smile.

The media centre

The visit to the Long Room was, for me, the best moments of the ninety or so minutes we were under guidance. So many ghosts rattling the silver wear and a soft hush of boots walking over carpet and the same hush as members stilled their conversation to allow Bradman to pass between them like a flanneled Moses. On the wall at the back the room, a quartet as famous as any: Jardine, Bradman, Miller and Hutton. Across the players entrance from them, Pelham Warner and Gubby Allen, the Australian by birth and one of five fast bowlers who toured with England during Bodyline but the only one who refused to bowl it. Many stories on that wall alone.

The guide chose to declare his disbelief that a young lad in our party from South Africa not only didn't recognise the Little Bugger from Bowral but had never heard of him. His father was declared negligent, admittedly in a friendly way. I took exception to the naming of Bradman as the greatest batsman of all time and when challenged to name an alternate, had no hesitation in declaring my innings on Tendulkar, a selection the Indians in the tour delighted at.

We inspected the visitor's dressing room and spent some time dissecting the honour boards. I wasn't aware but "The Colonel", Dillip Vengsarkar, is the only visiting player to score three centuries in three consecutive tours. Australians feature strongly on the boards, this being a happy hunting ground for the Aussies since WWII, despite losing here last time. Graham Smith has the highest score at Lords but it was generally agreed, even by the South Africans present, that no one knew how!

The slope on the ground is obvious from either end and stands out when you take photos down at ground level.

The media centre stands out like that part of a dog which suffers the most during spading. Mind you, apart from the Members Pavilion, the rest of the stands are plain and undistinguished and frankly inadequate by the stands of modern stadium grandstands but then, this isn't a stadium and never will be. In Australia, we make arenas but England have small grounds to fit gently into their landscape, often controlled - as Lords in - by old clubs who own their grounds and therefore set their own agendas. No flags or musical instruments at Lords but you can bring your own food and either four bottles of beer or a bottle of wine. The dress standard has been relaxed everywhere except the Members Pavilion and Lords even allows women into areas previously reserved for more that 150 years for men.

The retractable light towers 

At least they had the sense to put the modern media centre at the opposite end of the ground to the Members Pavilion. That way, at least, both can never be in your line of site simultaneously.

We finished with a visit to the media centre and then below it, were given the chance to walk onto the ground. The young Sarth Efrikan did so, with his father promising a greater scope to his future cricket education. I declined to transgress the turf. I hadn't earned the right.

Lovely tour and as I purchased my England cap - odd choice I know, but it looked good on me - I knew I had sated a thirst, closed the last side of that boldly stated triangle of promises and ticked the second number on my bucket list for this trip. Two, three and four are now completed.

Despite all of these considerations, the SCG is still a better ground and its tour more interesting, more informative. I may have walked about the home of cricket, the place where Father Time looks down the years and affirms the game and the single place which has influenced the game more than any other, on and off the field. Even last week, in a committee room which shares a wall with the Long Room, England's selectors dropped Kevin Pietersen.

It was great but Sydney is greater.

Home for a late lunch at the local - the Stanhope Arms in Gloucester Rd - and short walk around the neighbourhood with she on the sick list, in order to convince her out of any further activities for the day.

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Maybe tomorrow.

The remaining part of my bucket list? The number one item?

Bringing Sue home happy.

London: Let It Be The Musical

Pub lunch and a few bevies

Late start this morning because washing had to be done. By the time we got underway, travelled to Leicester Square and found the place where we had to redeem our three day London Pass and Travel tickets, we were fed up. One of those days I guess, when everything seems to go wrong.

It was half past twelve by the time we found the office, after walking up and down the Charing Cross Road for an hour. The office we were looking for was not only unmarked by number or sign but was also down a set of stairs inside another building. With the desk in sight, I was chipped by the security guard for standing on the wrong side of an organising barrier ... when we were the only people in the room!

Of course, it was at that point that I realised I had left the voucher we needed as a trade for our London Pass etc back in our flat. There was no negotiation ... we were stuffed for the day!

Really wanted to scream loudly. Didn't but felt I had earned the right through my own stupidity!

Sue, always the problem solver, did the only possible thing she could to repair the damage: found a pub and ordered lunch.

An hour later, things looked better, so after lunch we wandered towards Piccadilly Circus and plethora of entertainment there. At the Princess Wales Theatre, we found London's most recent West End musical, "Let It Be" ... the life and times of the Beatles. Whilst waiting for show time, we walked down to Covent Garden and the markets there. We found a couple of T-shirts we liked but markets the world over are just markets: cheap jewelry, T-shirts and shysters.

"Let It Be" was an interesting show. Without doubt the best tribute band I have seen, accurately recreated the Beatles music over four sets of approximately two years each, showing the transformation in dress and musical style over the 7 years they were in public life as a band. Before the show and at interval, trivia questions and answers were displayed on big screens which doubled as TV sets showing a "broadcast" of what we were seeing on stage. The music was sharp and the vocal and instrumentation was true to the original, although there were extra licks in "George's" guitar.

Look, they got the audience on their feet and listening to the music was fabulous, but it left me empty. For starters, there was no spoken narrative. Their story was told only through the music and the costume changes and key elements were completely ignored such as Brian Epstein, Yoko Ono, The Yogi, drugs, the rivalry between Paul and John. As a result, I felt I had paid too much to watch a tribute band - all be it a very good one - excellent lighting and staging but little else. This wasn't a musical and it was marginally theatre but as I said, the music was splendid.

We walked down to Piccadilly Circus after the show and checked out the famous Eros Statue at its centre and the meeting place for lovers since the 1960's. It was covered by yobbos this afternoon. Red buses and London cabs jammed the place and above the huge video screens lit the place with garish ads. Big crowd considering it was Thursday afternoon.

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Tube home, again without incident and the threat of a visit to the local which evaporated as Sue's health deteriorated in the early evening.

Then there was the matter of the missing voucher, which I sought out immediately we got home, so I could place it in my backpack for tomorrow. More panic as I couldn't find it anywhere until I discovered in the safety of my money belt ... the same money belt which had been living under my left arm pit this morning as I stood cursing my memory at the London Pass counter.

Feck it!

London - Red Bus Tour, Blood Brothers

St Paul's Cathedral

We took advantage of some of our purchased treats today, starting with bus tours of London.

Leaving from Gloucester Rd (100m away), we took a route which goes west from the centre of London and includes all of the main museums. Reaching Picadilly, we swapped to the original tour and were treated to three hours around the city... on a tour that was planned for two! Roadworks and a huge traffic jam ate up the additional hour as the weather got cooler on the open top double decker. By the time it finished we were freezing.

Despite this, the second tour was an excellent way for us to make decisions about what we want to see more off. Westminster Abbey, St Pauls Cathedral, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and even the more modern buildings such as the Shard and The Gerkin were very impressive but unlike the prominent building in Paris, many are crowded out by their surrounds which detracts greatly from the magnificence of their architecture.

We stopped between Picadilly and Leicester Squares and as a last resort, had afternoon tea at a certain Scottish restaurant which proved too much for Sue.

Breaking our West End duck

We caught the train home and after an hour, caught it back again for dinner in the West End. It was a restaurant too good for the likes of us but the food was good and the service outstanding. We walked the remaining two hundred metres to the Phoenix Theatre and settled in for a production of Blood Brothers.

To say it was fantastic would be to master understatement. We knew the show - having seen Chris in it in Tamworth - but it still didn't prepare me for the ending. I had become so enmeshed in these boys lives, I cried as the last ten minutes of the second act ran down and sobbed as the boys died. Shredded, absolutely shredded I left the theatre in tears. The best production I've ever seen.

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After beginning its current run at the Phoenix in 1991, it has shown continuously there since - more than ten thousand performances and the third longest running musical in West End history behind Les Miserable and Phantom of the Opera. I'm sad its ending but glad I saw it only a month before it finally closed. This present cast loses nothing to the famous players who have occupied roles in the past and their performances both individually and as an ensemble were superb.

Home without incident on the Tube.

London

Bummed out for the day. Slept in and then spent hours on the internet. Both so exhausted from the relentless pass of the tour.

Would you believe we bumped into a couple from South Australia who had been on our tour around UK? Just walked up the same street in opposite directions!

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Went to the pub for lunch - The Stanhope Arms in Gloucester Rd - about 1:30pm and came home about 5:00pm ... oops!

The apartment is lovely. It up in the loft of the building which means we don't have any views but its fully self contained and we can unpack for a whole week!

Watching TV, a luxury we haven't had for a long time.

Sheffield to London

Sue & Nessy at
Anne Hathaway's cottage

After 15 days, we returned to London after flipping through Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England, mostly for one night stands and early starts. It would be easy to find the things wrong with touring life, if only for the fact we are so attuned in the modern life to whinge. Several people on the tour had succumbed to this mode during the tour and seemed numb to the places and people around them. I guess it's hard to step outside your comfort zone and sustain your happiness.

Nothing's perfect. Fact. I had a few days myself when I was in doldrums land but then, I have a few more peccadilloes than most to tame. In the end, those including son Chris and mate Baz who encouraged me to look out the window, probably had it right.

We engaged with this tour to gain an overview of the UK, not to see everything and sit opposite Eddie Maguire as the resident expert. That's what we got. Into the bargain, we met some nice people, some of which were on the tour, some serving in pubs and shops. I took lots of photos and gathered one or two stories which will end  as poems in print. We laughed a lot, had a memorable birthday banquet in a medieval castle, listened to glorious Welsh singing, watched remarkable Irish dancing and listened to pipers in Ireland and Scotland ... and then there was the scenery. We feel we have had the best of all of the nation states which make up the UK and that includes the weather (even the rain and wind in the Scottish Highlands).

You make your own luck but given the past fifteen years and it's constant coastline of hidden rocks which has tried to sink us numerous times, being here is the achievement.

Shakespeare's birthplace

The last day of the tour was lots of driving separated by two hours at Stratford-on-Avon, the birthplace but hardly the home of William Shakespeare, a writer of some note. Will was born here and is buried here but in adult life, spent most of his time in London (from 1585), acting and writing. His plays are widely considered the best of all time, many of them lampooning the carrying on of royalty and the infamous treachery associated with power and position. Despite this, he became a darling of the well to do, the Lords and Ladies. Meanwhile, his wife Anne Hathaway, lived a simple and largely ignored life in Stratford, raising their three children and it wasn't until 1613 that he returned to live in Statford at the age of 49. He died three years later a few days short of his 53rd birthday.

There has been much written and said about his life and lifestyle and even the authorship of his writing. Many good cases have been put that perhaps others such as Francis Bacon may have penned some of the work but as it will never be proven either way, its hardly worth worrying about. The more likely conjecture is that Shakespeare was bisexual and entered into same sex relationships with high profile admirers who effectively cuckolded Anne. His burial in Holy Trinity Church, Statford and not in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, is said to further suggest a dissfavour with Crown and Church. His grave features a warning, written by the bard himself, that the removal of his bones from their gravesite will incur a curse. Perhaps that put them off?

The markers for Shakespeare's links in Stratford are obvious. Apart from his grave inside the Holy Trinity Church, in the chancel before the alter (2 quid to see it), his birthplace is right in the heart of town (12 quid to see it) and Anne Hathaway's cottage (15 quid to see it, even though the original was burnt down by an arsonist in the 1960's). Everywhere else, tudor style buildings abound and just about every shop has worked the bard into their name. The theatre for the Royal Shakespeare Company is by the Avon (previously noted as meaning "river") and not far from that, the Black Swan/Dirty Duck pub is on the shores of the River River.

The Dirty Duck

We stopped at the pub for lunch. One bar (The Dirty Duck) contained signed photos of actors who have spoken Bill's words down the road at the RSC headquarters. Dame Judy Dench was at the door to meet us ... well, she had just stepped out for an M & M (the Broccoli's pay well), so her portrait did the welcome instead. The other bar (The Black Swan) was decorated in the same early dingy, low ceilined, stained wall style that you come to expect from British pubs. Rather fetching really. We ordered lunch and a few drinks (me a Guinness, Sue a Pims and lemonade) but lunch was distressingly slow, despite ordering it 55 minutes before we had to be back at the coach.

Someone else ended up eating it, as we couldn't be late again.

The afternoon was a long few hours into London and the ultimate break up of the touring party. We had previously thanked both director and driver but did so again with a genuine warmth, grateful for their experience adding to ours.

Tower Bridge

We had only a two hour turn around, before heading out to dinner and a cruise of the Thames. The dinner was pleasant, with Kevin and Amanda from our tour and the cruise of the Thames which followed, was spectacular. Big Ben, the parliament buildings, The London Eye, The Globe Theatre and especially the Tower Bridge, we very impressive on this autumn evening where the rain waited until we were back in our transport before smearing the windscreen. It was an awesome way to end the tour, especially with new friends. We are determined to look them up when we are back in Oz.

 Despite confusing the cabby (don't call them taxis), we managed to get home to our digs, a very nice three room serviced apartment just below Kensington Gardens in the inner west of London. Both cab driver's we struck last night were brilliant.

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We intend to be bums on the first day in London. So sick of being on the go! Sightseeing day off.

Tomorrow night, Phoenix Theatre on Charring Cross Rd for "Blood Brothers", a West End production and a chance to see how bloody talented our Christopher really is.