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19
Jun 13

White cliffs of Dover

Friends, please take this advice. If you have the opportunity to rent a car and drive out of London: Don’t.

Instead, find an Underground stop on the way out of town in the direction you want to go. Find a car rental place at that stop. Take that train and rent from there. And you are welcome.

It isn’t about driving on the left side of the road, which The Yankee did very well:

But that city wasn’t made for you. It was made for people on bicycles with a death wish. And cabbies. Who drink. And not your GPS. Just don’t.

Anyway, we rented a car, we got lost. We got lost while lost. The GPS had no idea. We drove about five miles in almost two hours. We finally made our way out of town in one of those mornings where nothing went right. (And this was the day we chose to rent a car!) Once you get out of London everything is fine. Hence my advice above. And so we drove about two hours to Dover.

No one in Dover knows where anything is. So that’s an adventure unto itself. Also, our GPS did not know.

We were going to take a tour on the water, but the guy that gives the tours was MIA. And also not answering his phone.

There is one other game in town, a speedboat game. So we donned splash suits and climbed into a Zodiac and bounced our way out to the cliffs. They look like this. (There is more writing below.)

Also, here is a panorama of the Dover castle above it all. As always, click to embiggen.

In this next picture, do you see that line that goes from the top of the cliff all the way to the shore? The cliffs are made of a chalk, and thus are soft. The locals, our guide told us, would often hoist up items from shipwrecks (or from smuggling) from the top of the cliffs. The ropes carved their way into the cliffs. In 1910 the Preussen, the largest ship of its kind in the world, found her fate on these shores. She was carrying pianos. The story goes that they all went into locals’ homes, via rope lines like these:

See the holes in the cliff face below? The British dug those out and mounted lights in there during World War II. Our guide told us that Dover never really recovered from the war economically, but not because of those lights. They were afraid of invasion from across the channel — France is only 26 miles away — and before radar they were lighting up ships at night.

Erosion happens. Thousands of tons fell to the shore last year.

This, we were told, is party of the area that always shows up in films:

This is one of the lighthouse markers that sits on top of the barrier wall at the harbor. These days fishermen pay good money to spend days or weeks on end out there, fishing and living in dank conditions. They made it sound miserable.

This is the old Customs Watch House, designed by architect Arthur Beresford Pite and built 1909-1911.

We ordered lunch from Sue, who works out of a truck. And her seafood is fresh.

Not sure what this is about, though:

But the seagulls approve.

The place we did not eat, but I wanted too. I’ve always wanted to try a burguer. But not a Donner.

adventures / history / links / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
18
Jun 13

Churchill War Rooms

And now we’re going to get historical and nerdy. I hope you’ll indulge me.

Today we visited the highly regarded and “You must go see” the Churchill War Rooms. Here’s the entrance, which is little more than a landing and a staircase underground. This is where Winston Churchill met with his war leaders during World War II. This was where the British ran their war from 1939 until 1945. It was reopened by Margaret Thatcher in 1984.

Generals and high ranking civilians and Royal Marines worked and lived down there. Previously it was a basement store, but was converted in 1938. Churchill’s name is on the name of the place, but he actually didn’t like it.

This is the first thing you see, is this authentic 500-pound German bomb. During 1940, in the height of the Blitz, the roof of the underground workspace was augmented with a steel-reinforced concrete layer. People in the area had no idea.

The tour is self-guided. They give you the device with the keypad and speaker and you just listen and linger at your own speed. I lingered slowly. Here is the cabinet room. They’d all meet here. That oak chair in the center back was where Churchill sat:

These rooms, with few exceptions, returned to storage after the war. But they were meticulously restored for museum purposes. Someone thought to take highly detailed photographs when the war room was still in service and the Imperial War Museums rebuilt the entire facility. It feels incredibly immersive, too.

This little room was the living quarters of Brendan Bracken, the minister of information. Bracken founded the modern Financial Times and was briefly the First Lord of the Admiralty. George Orwell worked for him. Bracken was the inspiration for Big Brother. He died of cancer in 1958.

This was Sir Edward Bridges’ room. A captain in World War I, Bridges became a senior official in the British civil service. After the war he was named Permanent Secretary to the Treasury and Head of the Home Civil Service. He was knighted in 1965 and died four years later, at 77.

Clementine Churchill, the prime minister’s wife, slept here. This feels about diagonally opposite of his room.

Other bedrooms belonged to Maj. Sir Desmond Morton (who was shot in the heart during World War I and still served, with the bullet lodged inside him), Cdr. Tommy Thompson and others. Secretaries and others working in the war rooms carried sheets with them and slept wherever they found a space.

This is an authentic map hanging in the Chiefs of Staff conference room. Note the Hitler graffiti.

Speaking of maps, try this one, which marked the battle lines. Just to the west of those white pins, about three-quarters up their path, is where my great-grandfather was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge.

Here’s the code for that map:

This map was in the map convoy room. This is the eastern seaboard section of a world map that ran the width of the room. Each day the location of Allied convoys were updated here. Note the hundreds of pinholes.

Some of the original electrical equipment:

Some of the keys that ran the joint:

Keys for these doors were there. But you don’t really know what these rooms were for. Some mysteries remain secret:

And now some kitchen shots. This is where all of the food was made for the people in the war rooms:

I went back, after our own snack lunch in the museum’s cafeteria, to take these individual shots. A group of students were working their way through. One said “I thought Churchill was rich?”

Time changes perspective on a lot of things.

Right after them came a group of six older folks. One said “We had one of those. Do you remember those?” Another, looking at this black stove, said “We had three of those. One was for the help.”

See those three stacked cans on the shelf? That was corn beef sold by Libby, McNeill & Libby, an American concern. They were founded in Chicago in the 19th century and were also canning fruits and vegetables by the time war broke out. By 1960 Libby’s had annual revenues of $296 million. As with everything, there have been corporate changes. Swift & Company sold to Seneca Foods in 1982. Nestlé picked it up a few years later. Then, just before the turn of the century came ConAgra to take over canned meats. The nectar side of the business was picked up by Tequesta Foods three years ago.

And they’re sitting there in the British war rooms kitchen. Corned beef in the famous trapezoidal can. That wasn’t what Churchill ate. He preferred prime rib.

Ronuk has been around since at least 1908. You can see a lot of old newspaper ads here. They are still around.

Tea? I’d just like everything to be labeled like this, please.

Bread? Not a big fan of the drop shadow font here. I wonder how authentic that is to the time. Anyone?

Whitbread started as a brewery in 1742 on the outskirts of London. They got in to coffee and then at the start of the 21st century dropped beer and pubs for the hotel and restaurant industry.

Sand. For fires and such:

A propaganda poster in one of the secretarial areas:

A scramble phone in one of the bedrooms:

This wax mannequin is manning the radio system. From here the prime minister could speak to the BBC and, thus, the world:

And here’s where Churchill delivered those speeches. This was his room and office. Supposedly the items here are authentic. When they closed the war rooms this was one of the few areas that were left untouched.

That’s Churchill’s bed. But he seldom stayed there. Hated it, remember? Had to put on the brave British front. He actually watched the London bombings from the roof above. History records that Churchill spent three nights here. And countless naps. The man loved his naps.

The man also loved his maps. Here’s a legend he kept in his room:

This clocked in at 1,000 words and 31 pictures. And there’s still more to go for the day …

adventures / history / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
18
Jun 13

Tower of London

This morning we went to see the Crown Jewels. They are in here. Unfortunately you aren’t allowed to take photographs of the shiny stones. They are, as you might imagine, a more than impressive collection.

This guy is guarding them — among a lot of other security, of course. He is a member of the Grenadier Guards, named in honor of the defeat of the Grenadiers of the French Imperial Guards at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. They started their service in the 17th century. Most recently they’ve been in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan for three separate tours.

This is the Bloody Tower, famous as a prison keep and torture site. Scottish King John Balliol, Sir Walter Raleigh, boy princes Edward IV and Richard, Anne Askew and others were held there. Or tortured there. Or died there. These were less than enlightened times. Now there’s a torture exhibit. And, nearby, a gift shop!

This bronze, nine-pounder was cast by Louis Ernest Maritz in the Netherlands in 1813 for Napoleon I. It was captured by the English at Waterloo in 1815. It was named “L’Etonnant” — The Thunderer.

This cannon was cast by Vallette in the French town of Metz in October of 1813, for Napoleon. It was named “Le Guebre” — The Fire Worshipper.

This one was also cast by Vallette in July of 1813. It was named “Le Cigne” — The Swan. The English captured a lot of guns at Waterloo.

Here’s the famous Tower Bridge. Built between 1886 and 1894, it is a combined bascule and suspension bridge. This is not the London Bridge that is falling down in singsong fashion. The bridge once opened almost 50 times a day, but now only opens about three times a day.

Our Beefeater, he gave us our tour of the Tower of London. In theory they are responsible for any prisoners in the Tower and safeguarding the British crown jewels. In reality they act as tour guides and are tourist attractions themselves. Ours was a funny guy. He told all the Americans “This could all be yours if you’d only paid your taxes!”

He also picked on me. And some Australians.

Chris Skaife is something of a celebrity as the Ravenmaster. The raven tradition dates back centuries, and are said to help safeguard the tower and the kingdom. Skaife made sure to let you know that you can follow him on Twitter.

This is the Tower Hill Memorial, a national war memorial for members of the Merchant Navy and fishing fleets. It commemorates those who died during both world wars and have “no grave but the sea.” The memorial lists 24,000 names.

And, here she is, in the famous phone booth photo. I bet no one ever does this in the States:

Later, a big museum post.

adventures / history / Monday / photo — Comments Off
17
Jun 13

Visiting London

We landed in Heathrow after a hard night in bad airplane seats. I think I slept about two hours. I fell asleep in the last Die Hard movie. Both the movie, and the flight, were that un-good.

Heathrow Airport was lovely, as it was on my first visit there. We boarded a train into the London city center. There were no garbage cans anywhere, but it was the cleanest public transportation you’ve ever experienced.

We got off at one train stop and hopped on the Underground. It felt like we’d walked into a Roma train station in the 1970s. If you remember the 70s or any Roman train station maybe that would make sense.

We left the Underground and walked just up the street to our hotel. We got checked in. This is our view:

The guy on the street corner pretending to catch cabs was dressed to the nines. It is so cute when the British try to be British:

As cabs go, this is a sweet paint job:

We made our way up toward Picadilly Circus, where they seem to be celebrating something about the queen. Hard to put your finger on it though. But that sure is a lot of banners. And while I like patterns, repetitious banners are a bit unsettling. Nevertheless.

We went here, for high tea:

Fortnum and Mason does tea the proper way, with leaves, not bags. That means you get a fancy strainer:

Here’s a part of our tea set:

And the food that comes with high tea. Pure carbs, but I was all about calories. Travelling around the world changes more than your sleep patterns.

Of course they sell stuff at Fortnum and Mason. Who doesn’t love a good tin?

I don’t know what Tawny Port is, but it makes a nice pattern. And I like patterns:

A friend told us to be tourists and take the double decker bus tour of downtown London, that it gives you a good lay of the land. He was right. If you find yourself in London, take the bus tour. Sit on top. And sit in the back.

One of the first things we saw on the bus tour was a giant horse. And it eats people!

London has all manner of architecture. There’s something for everyone:

There are three golden divers above Coventry Street. This site says they go mostly unnoticed. I don’t see how.

Columns? London has plenty of the Greek classical influence:

You want a weather vane topped by a ship? The British call this building Eclectic Baroque. There are domes, Greek elements, flying buttresses, Egyptian influences … so … yeah.

And then there’s terrible post-modern stuff in the financial district.

And here’s the tallest building in London, the Shard, topped out in 2012 at 1,016 feet and 72 stories. It is the tallest building in the European Union and the second-tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom. Qatari investors run the joint. No one talks about how the top doesn’t all join together. The view is a good one.

And then there’s this thing, which should return quietly to the 1960s:

How about the buildings you know? Sure, we saw those. Here’s a glimpse of Westminster Abbey:

The Marble Arch was designed in 1825 as ceremonial entrance to the courtyard of the new Buckingham Palace. It was moved a few years later. Now it sits in a traffic island.

And a V-2 rocket attached to the side of the building. Nearby is the German flag. I wonder how that goes over.

The London Eye is the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe, and was the tallest in the world when it was built in 1999. It is still third. More than 3.5 million people ride it each year:

Look kids, Big Ben!

Here’s a bit more detail of the tower, which was completed in 1858. That’s the largest four-faced chiming clock in the world.

And the Palace of Westminster, where the House of Commons and the House of Lords meet.

From a different angle:

And a closeup of some of the detail: Check out those animal sculptures:

Here are my three favorite signs we saw today. Robertsons is, and always has been, a pawn shop. It stayed in the family until the 1960s. Suddenly you’re a lot less interested. Me too.

Scottish paper, great message on Fleet Street. It has been around since 1877:

This is the best sign anywhere, and it should be sold to fans of ale and pie. It’d be a hit.

family / history / links / Monday / photo — Comments Off
27
May 13

“We’re just kin to everybody.”

Below are 1,500 self-indulgent words. But also a lot of interesting old photographs. If nothing else, scroll down for those.

Visiting with my grandmother, I asked her if she remembered the DVD that someone made her of all the old family portraits. She did. And would she mind going through them with me again, telling me the names of the people she knew. She said she would, but she didn’t know them all since that was a collection of her in-laws.

We never did get around to that DVD today, but we did trace her family back quite a way.

This is a cell phone picture of what is probably a Xerox transfer into a vanity publication. Two people in the family, one of whom I know and the other who doesn’t even sound familiar, spent countless hours putting together an amazing book. That tome probably proves my great-grandmother’s point, “We’re just kin to everybody.”

When we tried to make sense of it all, you could see the wisdom in her argument. But it also seems to go back to 1820 Tennessee for that branch of my family tree, and this wedding license:

Prior to that, the few traces of evidence only leave us with more questions. So we’ll just start with Samuel and his new wife Nancy. They raised a family, including this man, whom they named Pleasant, who was born in 1836.

He joined the Confederate Army in 1861, was mustered in as a private in Co. H of the 26th/50th Alabama Infantry, where he became the company musician. The book suggests that Pleasant was a fiddler and says all of his kids played instruments.

History tells us the 50th was a bad unit to be in:

Ordered to Tennessee the unit fought at Shiloh, saw light action in Kentucky, then was placed in Deas’, G.D. Johnston’s, and Brantley’s Brigade, Army of Tennessee, and was active in North Carolina. At Shiloh the regiment had 440 effectives, but because of casualties, sickness, and exhaustion, the number was less than 150 by the second day. It lost 4 killed and 76 wounded at Murfreesboro, 16 killed and 81 wounded at Chickamauga, and totalled 289 men and 180 arms in December, 1863. The unit sustained 33 casualties in the Battle of Atlanta and was badly cut up at Franklin. Few surrendered in April, 1865.

But Pleasant lived through it. He got married to Martha Ann in 1863 and after the war they raised a family of eight children. Six of those children, born during Reconstruction, lived until after World War II. Pleasant was a farmer, his wife a seamstress, a very typical lifestyle, which becomes common up this branch of the family.

Pleasant was my grandmother’s great-grandfather. He died at 52 and is buried in Tennessee.

One of Pleasant’s boys was Jim. He was born in the winter of 1871, a year when the crops didn’t come in and the cotton caterpillars ravaged what was there. Jim married Sarah in 1904 and and they lived on a farm that her grandfather bought in 1854. These are my grandmother’s grandparents. There’s a story in the book about a neighborly dispute. A dog killed some sheep. The neighbor was upset about his dog being killed and is said to have put his foot on the doorstep, and Sarah cleaned his clock with a liniment bottle. It says she was “Wild Tom’s” daughter and she had heard enough. So leave that lady alone. (Tom’s grave. Tom married Elizabeth. Her father, Jesse, Jr., was born in Lauderdale County in 1820, the year after Alabama gained statehood. His father, Jesse, Sr., was born in 1787 in Virginia, the year the Constitution was signed.) Sarah’s exclamation of surprise, the kind of detail that should last longer than dates and cemeteries, was “Well, Goodnight Isom!”

They were from the same community, as was often the case, and much of the family still lives within 20 miles of there. These were my grandmother’s grandparents, and she remembers them with a sweet smile.

Here’s Jim as a young man, and I’m going to blame my cowlick on him for a while:

And here he is a few years later, looking like he wants to ride with Jesse James (to whom I have some distant relation on the other side of my family):

On this side of the family that we’re discussing today they were just normal salt-of-the-earth types. The recorded history has a lot of farmers and working-folks. Here’s Jim’s wife, Sarah — my great-great-grandmother — as a young woman:

And as a much older couple, my grandmother’s grandparents, Jim and Sarah once more:

(I think my grandmother favors her grandmother a bit, myself.) This was recorded sometime before 1953, when Jim died. Sarah passed away in 1970, the mother of 11 children. And while it is hard to imagine people your mind only registers as “old” being young, here is a picture of four of those 11 kids. On the far right is my great-grandfather, who was playing in the mud or had a sunburn or something:

Horace, the little guy on the right, was born in May of 1909 and would grow up to be a dashing young man and a farmer. He’d meet and court and marry Lela Mae who was also born in 1909. My grandmother’s parents were married in 1928 in Giles County, Tenn., 10 months before Wall Street fell. This photo is undated:

They both lived into my lifetime, though I don’t have any memories of either of them. If I did, that would mark 12 grandparents or great-grandparents I knew. Horace and Lela Mae had seven children, including my grandmother.

Here are Horace and Lela Mae at their 50th anniversary party — an event I was apparently at but don’t recall:

So that is my paternal grandmother’s father’s side of the family. What about her mother’s side?

Lela Mae’s parents were Pink and Sarah. There are two poor photos:

Apparently, if you’ll notice Sarah’s long hands and fingers, you’ll see a distinguishing family trait. I did not receive this gene. All of Pink’s family moved to Texas, but Sarah’s father offered him a farm to stay in Alabama.

Pink was born on October 19, 1867. There was a lot of rain that spring, the rivers had been up, but the crops were bad. Sarah was born in 1872, a year when the crops were recorded as above average. Both were from Tennessee.

They were married in either 1889 or 1890 in the community of Prospect, Tenn. Google suggests the church isn’t there anymore. They’d eloped on horseback, though, and the rivers were up again that year. The story apparently went that Pink and Sarah were almost drowned, but they went on with their wet clothes to the church and said their vows. Pink and Sarah P. had three of their children in Tennessee before moving to Lauderdale County, Ala. in 1896 or 1897, where they would have seven more children. They were together for 40 years. Sarah died in 1930 and Pink died of typhoid in 1932.

So those were my grandmother’s other grandparents. They died a few years before she was born.

Pink’s parents were Thomas and Louiza. Thomas was born in 1849 in Tennessee, Louiza was from Alabama. They were married just days after the official end of the Civil War. They moved to Alabama and had 12 kids, all of which, except for Pink, moved to Texas. Pink stayed because his father-in-law offered him a farm to keep him in Alabama, a big moment in family history.

Sarah’s parents were Ben (who was born in 1827 in Alabama and buried at a family cemetery in 1899) and Sarah Ann (which confuses things) who was born about 1841. Sarah P., the younger, was born in Lawrence County, Tenn.

Ben, by the way, was a noted card shark. At one time he won a sawmill in a hand of cards. At another table he won a farm. He also served as a private, Company A, 53 Regiment Tennessee Infantry, which served at Fort Donelson over the Cumberland River to protect the approach to Nashville. Some 11,000 rebels were captured there, but I’ve no way of knowing if that happened to Ben. The unit would later fight in Louisiana, Jackson, Mississippi, Mobile and the fighting north of Atlanta, including the Battle of New Hope Church (We have a lot of family history there.) just north of Atlanta.

Ben’s dad, Burgess or Bergus, was born in South Carolina in 1800. His wife, Margaret, was born between 1800 and 1805 in Alabama. Burgess’ dad was Johnston and his mother was Rhoda, both thought to have been born around 1874 in Edgefield, S.C. There’s a mention of a paternal grandfather, Jeff (or John, depending on the document). He was born before the Revolutionary War. After that the haze turns to murk. We’re back to the 1700s, though, in South Carolina, with my grandmother’s great-great-great-great grandparents. Yet another side of the family tree that has been around for a while.

Since you’re still reading, three more pictures. This is Horace, my grandmother’s father, in his buggy, which is being pulled by Ader the mule:

This is Horace’s father, my great-great grandfather, Jim:

And finally, the last one, the one that’s worth it. This is my grandmother, in the foreground, as a baby:

The hand-written caption reads “Every time someone tried to take this picture her diaper feel down. So what? Let’s get the shot anyway!”