The Tour

Antique Masted Ship in the Dockyards

Chatham Dockyard, Kent

Throughout the next days, our fearless leader Andrew lead us through the historic Chatham Dockyard where Call the Midwife, Les Miserables, Mr. Selfridge, Sherlock Holmes, Oliver Twist, and Grantchester movies and television shows were filmed.

Fame Comes to The Dockyards.

We stood in the alley between the tall brick buildings that were set during filming as the East London poor homes the nuns and nurses bicycled through in Call the Midwife. Our guide, dressed like a 1960s nurse, explained how they made snow for the winter scenes and took us through the low, long, dirty rope factory that provided ship riggings for over 400 years. The covered 1848 slip museum of rescue boats augmented the other displays at the Dockyards, which were still in use.

Sunset in Cambridge

Cambridge

We went to the Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester, where the television show was filmed, toured an ancient small church where the pastor played the old organ for us as his little boy ran around in stocking feet and a kilt. I marveled at the timeworn gravestones in the cemetery. What had their lives been like? Did they ever leave this small town?

In the city of Cambridge we toured the university grounds, marveled at the architecture of the numerous colleges’ buildings, and hired punt boats to cruise the Cam River at sunset. My punt driver was a clean-cut, well-off young student. I wondered what his future would be? His life was ahead of him and I did not envy his coming years of turmoil, questioning, conflict, and confusion. I was contented to be my age, in England, on a little boat on the Cam River at sunset in the spring.

The Cambridge grounds were emerald green, the gigantic weeping willow trees trailed their leafy fingers into the Cam, and all around birds sang. The peacefulness of Cambridge was a welcome respite for me after the congestion, noise, and energy of London. As I struggled to pay for college in Colorado, I had sometimes fantasized about going to a college in Cambridge. I wished I was smarter, richer, perhaps a man. I felt an innate peace in the folding hills, was calmed by the slow gurgles of the stream, and sat on the patio of my hotel room, overlooking the parks and water as another evening unfolded of my fantasy-come-real. Would my intellectual abilities have flowered better in Cambridge than they did in my little colleges in Colorado? Did they admit women in the era I sought higher education?

The Cam River in Cambridge

Like James Herriot, I had wanted to be a veterinarian. I did not have the money, the grades, or the correct gender. Instead, I forged a path in self-employed businesses and struggled to establish financial and emotional stability. When I obtained my dream house, insurances, retirement, and wisdom, I returned to my first love—animals. For thirty-five years I had conquered multiple areas of animal welfare. Without being a doctor of veterinary medicine, I had built up experiences in myriad areas of animal care and advocacy. Still, I could not help wondering if I had been born in a different time, different place, and a different gender, what might have been?

Not many women were not admitted to veterinary schools when I was ready for life. Now, in the US alone, 85% of graduates are female. Even in business, I had to fight for education, financing, ownership, and independent management ability. I knew back then, schools like Cambridge were never going to open doors for a poor country girl from Colorado.

Chatsworth Country House

Chatsworth

A remarkable woman was on my mind on Day Three when we arrived at Chatsworth, the home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. It was one of the only surviving great country homes of English peer families. I had read the long history but remained especially enamored of the Lady Georgiana Spencer during her lifetime in which King George III went mad and recovered, the American Revolution separated us from English rule, the French Revolution brutally massacred thousands, and Georgiana’s close friend, Marie Antoinette was executed.

Georgiana had been banished for two years by her philandering husband for having a child out-of-wedlock, and had no way to support herself but by men’s charity. She had been a leader in designing clothes, millenary, gardens, buildings, politics, music, poetry, and during her banishment in Italy had become an expert in botany and geology. Somewhere, in this immense building there were archives of her writings, censored, partially destroyed, and some in whole—evidence that later generations of authority had been threatened by the woman she was.

Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire

Gardens at Chatsworth

I wandered agog, trying to soak up the invisible voices that floated through the air of Chatsworth for hundreds of years. I photographed and filmed the interior art, sculptures, rugs, furniture, architectural features, and the immensity of the house. I spent fantasy time walking the gardens, breathing the fresh air, gobsmacked by the flower gardens, and utterly unable to imagine the wealth necessary to sustain such a lifestyle. Thousands of people had lived and died there. Some were the wealthy, some the working poor. They had skills, talents, training. They had children, spouses, parents, friends, enemies. The spirits of all those gone seemed to fly by as I, an unimportant nobody from a faraway place, invaded the peace of this opulent, surviving center of human history.

The York Minster

City of York

Day Four we arrived in the walled city of York. We set out on a walking tour of the great York Minster and weaving streets of the old town. Once again, I was transported into history, bewildered by the people of the past as they constructed the complex cathedral. I was enthralled by how the oldest stained glass windows in Europe were taken out, hidden in area citizen homes and barns, and then returned after the Blitz bombing of WWII. The goodness of the people, the skill of the artisans, the teamwork of those who wished to save something bigger than their own tiny lives, juxtaposed against the cruelty and violence of other human beings called Nazis. I was left in a puzzlement I knew my small mind could never comprehend. In every parcel of human history, people had tried to muzzle others. What in our limbic, primitive human brains continued to breed through such ability for cruelty, hatred, and fear?

York Minster Stained Glass Window

That afternoon, a group of us converged on Betty’s, a famous English tea house. Never a tea drinker, I decided to go with the flow and order “the works.” I found English tea with cream, sugar, and a three tier fancy serving dish of sandwiches and sweets was worth the experience! I wanted to know all things English and afternoon tea was the ticket. The others who were at our table were fun, and everyone had the same adventurous spirit—Coloradoans with humor, joy, and comradery I would have missed if I did not open myself to a group experience.

High Tea in York

Our afternoon was free so I headed out on my own self-guided walking tour with a list of places I wanted to see in York. Unfortunately, the streets were confusing, the signage poor, and I had no internet for GPS. I never found any of the places I wanted to see but instead did find myself hopelessly lost. Again, the old panic nipped at my mind, but when I gave up, I took a deep breath, entered a hotel and asked for a taxi. I had been walking for two hours, on top of the three hours that morning. I reminded myself I was just over three months out of major surgery. My anger at the fatigue I felt had to be tamped down—I was not twenty, or forty, years old anymore. I had to face the fact that reality bites.

The hotel concierge called for a taxi but informed me it would be forty-five minutes to get one. I knew that wherever I was, my own hotel was within a forty-five minute walk. I headed out, retraced my track and asked directions to the Minster from two plumbers on the street. Once there I knew I could find my way back to the hotel. Again on familiar roads, I was on the edge of collapse when the sign for my hotel appeared above the traffic.

That evening at dinner, everyone compared notes on the day. I felt embarrassed to have missed some of the largest attractions of York because of getting lost. However, I did see areas no one else had and experienced talking with local people when I asked directions. It was humorous that world-wide, people who live in an area rarely know where their tourist sites are. They are too busy living their lives. No one could give me directions to the sites I asked about and no one had heard of my hotel. But everyone without exception was friendly and tried to be helpful. Not one had met someone from Colorado, USA.

The Walled City of York

My experience was unique, local, and different than I planned. But it was good. My former panic about getting lost had been met and concluded successfully. I was safe and had met nice home-grown people. I had been a silly ambassador for my state and country. Best of all, my frustration dried up in the comfort of knowing I could always come back and do it again.

Next Post: The Perfect Day