My Love Affair with England
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford - Samuel Johnson
I leave this Friday for my first real vacation this year, a week in England, and I can’t wait. This year has been very stressful on the day job front with many challenges, so I need rest and relaxation in one of my favorite cities, London. I have never tired of spending time in London, even after over forty years of traveling to the UK. There are always museums I haven’t visited, restaurants I haven’t tried, and shows I haven’t seen. While some travelers like to stay in the same hotels or neighborhoods, I always try to stay in a different neighborhood than my last trip. On my trip last year, I stayed in Sloane Square; this year, I’m staying in Shepherd’s Bush. In college, I lived in Notting Hill before it was famous, thanks to the movie. While at the British American Drama Academy, I lived in Bryanston Mews. Earl’s Court was my home away from home when I had my six-month work permit.
This trip is not all pleasure; I’m also attending the Historical Novel Society conference in Devon. I’ve never been to Devon, so I look forward to spending a few days out of the city. I will, of course, have a full report of the conference when I get back. Expect to see lots of pictures!
I don’t remember how my love affair with England started; it’s just been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. It could be all because of all the historical romances and fiction I devoured as a child, along with the classics, Bronte, Austen, and Dickens. Discovering Masterpiece Theatre in 7th Grade and all the fantastic British shows just fueled my desire to see England. I just knew that one day, I would see the land of King Arthur, Shakespeare, and Austen for myself. After all, the two patron saints of the school I attended, St. Hilda and St. Hugh, were English saints. I was obsessed for a while with Charles II and his glittering, thanks to the novels of Jean Plaidy. I probably knew more about English history than I did the history of my own country! 50% of my DNA is British, so there is definitely an ancestral link to England.
Just before my junior year in high school, a friend had spent the summer in England as part of a teen tour called Anglo-American. This tour was different because you lived with a family for four weeks. During the day, you took day trips around the country. There was even an option to spend an extra week in Scotland. It sounded fabulous, and my friend had a great time. This was precisely what I wanted to do the summer before my senior year. I just had to convince my parents to let me go. My parents told me I could go, but I would have to pay for it out of my savings. If they thought that was going to deter me, they were wrong. My response was, “When does the bank open?”
I was shocked that they were so open to letting me go since this would be my first time out of the country and my first time on a plane. Since I was underage, filling out my passport application at the post office with my mother was so exciting. Even more exciting for me was the summer of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer's royal wedding, which would take place in London while I was there.
We flew from JFK, I think, on TWA. It could also have been PanAm. I remember wearing a suit to fly in while the rest of my group wore jeans and T-shirts. I think there may have been about thirty of us on the trip. Most of the group was Jewish because the company had two Sunday New York Times magazine ads. One said, ‘Come to England and meet English youth.” The other ad said, “Come to England and meet Jewish youths.” When we arrived at Heathrow, we were taken by bus outside Central London, where we would stay with our host families in Redbridge and Gant’s Hill (on the Central line). I felt as if I had come home from the moment I arrived. Everything was familiar to me but yet different.
My hot family was the Mallins, with two young sons, Benjamin and Daniel. Martin worked for one of the tabloids, and Marian worked in Petticoat Lane. They were lovely people and made me feel welcome in their home. I had no idea what the food was like in England, so every day for lunch, Marian would make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at my request, and for dinner, the only vegetable was chips/french fries. Marian must have thought I was the strangest American she’d ever met because of the peanut butter and jelly thing, but I wasn’t taking the chance to get a sardine sandwich.
We had three guides in their early twenties, Malcolm, Sue, and Jeremy, who took us around sight-seeing. I had a serious crush on Malcolm, although I knew he was out of my league. He was 22, I was 16. Nothing could happen between us except in my dreams. He looked like a young Paul McCartney, my favorite Beatle (although I was also partial to George). I wasn’t the only one who had a crush on Malcolm. At the end of the summer, a group of us chipped in to buy him a T-shirt that read ‘Why are All these American Girls hanging on me?” I often wonder what happened to Malcolm. I spoke to him briefly during my semester abroad in college, but that was over 40 years ago. Facebook has yielded many Malcolms, but not one that could be him.
Our itinerary varied from day to day. Some days, we visited various museums in London; others, we traveled outside London to Oxford, Cambridge (Malcolm punting on the Cam), Dover, Brighton, Stonehenge, Arundel, and Salisbury. We even took a day trip to Calais, so I also got to go to France. Of course, we also attended the theatre. I saw Barnum (starring Michael Crawford), My Fair Lady, and Evita, and no trip would be complete without seeing Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap! Even though we weren’t 18, I still had my first experience drinking in a pub on that trip!
Everywhere you looked, there was royal wedding memorabilia for sale. I had mixed feelings about the wedding. On the one hand, it seemed wonderfully romantic that the Prince of Wales was getting married. Diana would be a princess but was only a few years older than me. I couldn’t imagine getting married at 19. It seemed impossibly young. The age gap between them reminded me of all the Harlequin Presents that I used to read. All the heroines were in their teens, and the heroes were at least 15 to 20 years older. Still, I was swept up in all the pomp and circumstance of the whole thing. I watched the wedding with some friends at the house where they stayed, and then we were off to Scotland the next day. When we arrived in Edinburgh, a copy of Diana’s dress was already in a department store window!
I returned home from that trip with so many memories. Unfortunately, the photo albums with all my pictures from the trip were destroyed a few years later when the shed on the front lawn of our house upstate that held all my books and albums collapsed one winter. I’ve been to England more times than I can count since that first trip, but that first trip will always be memorable.
Do you have a memorable first trip or a place special to you? I’d love to hear about it.
Like you, I've had a love affair with England since I was probably in middle school or earlier! I read all the historical romance novels, enjoyed watching British comedies and dramas on my PBS station (Thank you, Masterpiece Theater!). My first trip to England was in 1994 - I went on a literary tour with a group of people from college. We went all over England to visit homes of famous writers: Dickens, Bronte, Hardy, Austen, and more. I loved it. I've been there there more times since then, and every time, I want to stay. Someday I want to live there - that's the goal. Enjoy your vacation!!!
Such great memories! I took my first trip to England when I was 11 with my family and it always holds a special place in my heart!