The Written Word
for May 26, 1999

A man who is tired of London, is tired of life said the great Dr Johnson - and he was right. I can assure you that by that yardstick at least, I have some years to go.

Wendy and I are fortunate to be able to travel a lot and we seem to make it to the UK three times a year and this is our first for 1999. We will be doing some work for the British Tourist Association and then for the Northern Ireland Tourist Board but first it's five days in London.

There are plenty of things to like about London but one thing that stands out is the stubborn refusal of any Londoner to obey a stupid law.

Now generally they are an orderly lot forming, as one wag once put it, a queue of one wherever there is a bus to catch or service to be meted  out. But our regular Tube station has and exit and an entrance - on the  entrance one there is a sign which says "no exit" and on the exit it says "no entrance". Londoners, including sometimes ones like us, pay absolutely no attention to these signs.

When you go down the escalators in the big tube stations like Piccadilly you will often see a busker happily playing a saxophone right under a sign which says "No Busking - 200 Pound fine." It makes you understand how these people formed that huge Empire across so many seas.

I have always said that London is like an artichoke … every time you peel off a leaf there is another one. And you are often quite surprised to learn what you have missed on past occasions. I have been to London between 70-80 times and only once had I been to Hampstead Heath which is a high hill smack dab in the middle of greater London.

It is an enormous heath with the village of Hampstead at the south end on the Northern Tube Line. I was by myself that day many years ago and it was misty so it really didn't seem such a big deal.

When Wendy and I met in August 1993, curiously in London - she living in Abbotsford at the time - that was her first trip. This one is her 18th! Last November, racking my brains for something brand new to show her, I thought of Hampstead so away we went. It was a beautiful sunny Fall day and the walk was breathtakingly beautiful. Rolling grassy knolls festooned with huge oak trees, punctuated by half a dozen lakes and ponds.

When you get on the southeast side of it, the views of London below, St Paul's Cathedral poking her majestic dome skyward, truly does take the breath away.Last Sunday we went to the wonderful choral Eucharist at St Pauls then, it being a jetlagged Sunday, we decided to take it easy and go back to Hampstead Heath - except now, of course, it's Spring and the flowers are out as is every variety of dog known to man and then some.

There is lots of open space yet plenty of paths through the woods. There are bathing lakes, one for women only, one for men only, one mixed. Since one must be suitably clad in all three just why the segregation I have no idea except this is England, the land where eccentricity is normal!

They tell me the water is 60F degrees which to me would be a death sentence but there were lots of swimmers! The village of Hampstead is very toney indeed and very expensive. It is the land of what my father would call the "parlour pinks" - wealthy socialists like Glenda Jackson, playwright Harold Pinter and his author wife, Lady Antonia Fraser, and the delightful John Mortimer. It is also wonderful shopping.

So, if you're in London and it's a nice day, take the Northern Line to Hampstead and start walking. You will be surprised to find such a spot inside such a huge metropolis and you'll be even more surprised to find that it is still one of London's better kept secrets.