The Written Word
for June 2, 1999

It’s a subtle thing but when you travel to one place – for example the United Kingdom – a lot (like three times a year) you see something different every time. This is very noticeable for me in London especially where I have spent the last six years showing the place to Wendy. Wendy’s first trip over to the UK was in 1993 when we met and this is her 18^th – it must be close to 80 for me - and we’re still exploring the place. People ask me in amazement why we would continually go to London when there are so many other places to see – these are often the same people who go to Maui every chance they can – and I have a number of answers. I just like the place – while most of my ancestry is Scottish, London is the capital of the English speaking world and was when my ancestors painted their faces blue. It is like an onion or artichoke – peel off a layer and there is another and yet another.

We’ve come to regard London as personal property – for example, when a very lovely ladies store on Piccadilly was, this year, closed down in favour of a computer shop we were enraged! This in the same block as Fortnum and Mason’s, the worlds most exclusive grocery store? And the Lladro store! It was sacrilege – how could the city fathers permit it?

And there are other changes. When I started what is now a thrice annual visit back in 1964 London was different. A Canadian wore a maple leaf lapel button so as not to be mistaken for an American. Now there are so many French, German and Italian visitors that Canadians and Americans are really one in the mind of the Brit who longs for the day when his moat, the English Channel, meant something.

The European Community has made a big difference. But London only changes on the surface and the change is paper thin. Peel off the first few layers of that artichoke and you’re back exploring things that never make their way into guide books and yet are what London is really all about.

I’ve noticed the difference in my attitude to Britain as Wendy and I travel around the country. It’s amazing, for example, how many stone circles there are in the UK and Ireland. One thinks of Stonehenge, of course, but though one should see that once just so it’s done, there are more interesting old relics than that about if you look. And the churches – yes the famous cathedrals are well worth the trip – but, just as an example, there’s a parish church in Wells which is just as old as the marvelous and justly famous cathedral. Indeed there are such parish churches throughout the country.

There is scenery too that one might easily miss even after a dozen trips to one part of the country. In Somerset, for example, there are the Mendip hills which, if one is bound for Exeter or perhaps Plymouth, one can easily miss. Yet in these hills is the breathtaking Cheddar Gorge which I first saw a couple of years ago after many trips to the West Country.

I think one of the unfortunate tendencies of most travelers is that they fear going home and hearing "what, you were in such and such a place and didn’t see such and such?" There is this feeling that some things are musts. But ti succumb to this is to miss the essence of Britain.

There is, then, but this piece of advice. Always tour Britain as if you’ll be back some day so that you can enjoy the country to its fullest even though you didn’t tramp through a cathedral or castle that day.

Our best day so far this trip was a visit to a small town called Milverton where one of Wendy’s set of Grandparents were married in 1910. We found the church – a lovely one stated in the 1300s – and what used to be the hotel in which the reception was held. Then we had to find the school which, we were told, was now two private residences. The directions were a bit fuzzy – such as Yogi Berra’s advice, "when you come to a fork in the road, take it." We’re not sure if we found the school or not but before we were through we had not only walked the entire village but had would up on a country lane and were taken back to town by a couple walking their dogs on a public footpath through several farms. If we had been hell bent to see something just because it was expected of us, we would have missed a wonderful day.

So things do change when you visit then revisit a place but the best news is that if you do nothing but explore a small English village you will have had what we all want from a vacation – a memorable day.