Orating in Oxford

St. Hilda's College, Oxford

Tuesday June 18. Intensely busy day. Said farewell to Bath, and Jane Odiwe, took taxi to station rather than haul heavy suitcase, and boarded a train which changed at Didcot, but there my difficulties ended: my friend Jean met me at Oxford station. We went directly to The Grand Cafe, which advertises itself as the oldest coffeehouse in England, est. 1650, but looks vaguely Italian; and there I delighted in one of the best Victoria sponge cakes I ever ate, and tea.

 

 

 

 

Then we walked down to St.Hilda's College, to lunch with Jean's friends "in college," very handsomely on pasta and cold ham and cheeses. These were all St Hilda's fellows and media members, who were about to have a meeting; when they began their business I went off on my own for a walk, leaving my suitcase at the porter's office.

 

 

 

 First I happily inspected a charming but expensive antiques shop (where I bought nothing but a few cat post cards from the 1930s), and then visited the Ashmolean, to refresh myself with an exhibit of old master drawings - Michelangelo, Raphael, Turner, up to more modern ones.  I particularly liked a self-portrait of William Palmer, which has led to my liking of him in general - what a pity his son burned so many of his works!  The Guardian shows many of the drawings in this exhibition, here:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/gallery/2013/may/24/old-masters-ashmolean-museum-in-pictures#/?picture=409452754&index=0

 

William Palmer, self-portrait, 1824

 

John Ruskin, kingfisher

 

Michelangelo, ideal head

 

Rembrandt's wife Saskia, dying, probably of plague
 

After enjoying the exhibition, I ordered a cab at the Randolph across the street to go to the home of Allison (a journalist), where the talk was to be. I was quite amazed by the array of wonderful people who came: more accomplished and delightful intellectuals in a room than I might meet over the course of several years in Los Angeles (sorry, but it's true!). A famous publisher, the production designer for Dr. Who, a range of most interesting writers, including best-selling friend Elizabeth Aston. What would bring this knowledgeable, sophisticated group out to see me? Well - my talk was entitled, "A Life in the Story Department: Forty Years Reading My Way Through Hollywood." If anything interests writers and publishers, it's selling books to Hollywood!

 

Golden youth of Oxford

 

The talk went nicely, it was only hard, afterwards, to keep up any level of witty conversation during dinner (most delicious risotto...and an interesting exposure to Oxford dinner-table talk) while being assailed with waves of belated and rather severe jet lag! Never mind, it was very enjoyable. Lizzy kindly drove us and my suitcase home to Jean's house on Cumnor Hill and I plunged into much-needed sleep.

 

Oxford University Press

With Simon, "Stuck-in-a-Book"

 

Wednesday was a bit more relaxing!  I was excited to meet Simon of the Stuck-in-a-Book blog ( http://stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com/ ) at the Oxford University Press, where he has been working as editor of the Oxford Words blog (for which I was honored to write a piece

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/06/dorothy-l-sayers/ ).  We had a lovely lunch in the OUP's canteen, and I devoured delicious Scotch egg and smoked mackerel, and Simon his usual vegetarian choices, while covering a range of subjects with great dispatch and (at least in my case) delight!  

After lunch it turned warm, went to muggy 76F (it will get cooler and showery tomorrow), and I strolled back from Oxford University Press to the Bodleian where I saw a rather nice small exhibit called Magical Manuscripts - ancient tomes and manuscripts and how they influenced Tolkein, Lewis and Pullman. Some quotes:  "When in doubt, go to the library."   "Libraries are the half enchanted repositories of the strange and indecipherable scripts written in unfamiliar formats with which fantasy literature abounds."  There was the Ashburnham burnt fragment, an 11th century Anglo Saxon life of St. Basil that survived the great fire of Ashburnham House  of 1731. A heroic librarian, Dr. Bentley, escaped the blaze through a broken window clutching the Codex Alexandrinus.

 

Ashburnham House, 1880

 

There was also the Mirroir du Monde, a 1463 chronicle of world history up to Christ, which had a merman monster, quite hideous with big breasts. What I liked best though was an unpublished Lewis manuscript about Digory and his kindly godmother Mrs. Lefay, and how he lost the ability to talk to animals and trees. The squirrel Pattertwig is in it. Digory says he is ill and Pettertwig offers him a nut, even though it's a cold winter - "what kind of squirrel would you take me for if I didn't have enough of a pile to spare a friend a nut?" And Digory turned away as it is very bad form to look to see where a squirrel's store is.

 

 

 

After that I sat at the cafe at Blackwells where I could use my iPad, and Jean met me there. Chatted about the writing life till they threw us out, then had an elderberry sparkler at the Quod, a lovely restaurant garden. Then since Lizzy thought the riverside pub the Trout's food has gone downhill we took a cab to another riverside pub, The Punter, formerly the Waterman's Arms.  Lizzy's children, Anselm, science fiction author and editor, and Eloise, classics scholar going into neuroscience, came. They love cats and are altogether charming, talented, and very knowledgeable about publishing, so conversation was lively!  And the food was superb, as Lizzy had intimated. English venison, potatoes dauphinoise, beet compote, fresh press local apple juice, and crumble.  We looked out at the narrow bending river as the summer twilight set in about 10 pm, with relaxed, pleased with themselves Oxonians chattering on the grass. Lizzy drove us home again and I visited with Jean's lovely husband Tony who sadly missed dinner because of a town council meeting. He kindly helped me with maps for tomorrow though he gets up at 5 AM to go to London. Now I'm going to sleep - Cambridge tomorrow. My suitcase is lamentably getting heavier as I keep acquiring books... 

 

 

In the morning, Jean and I bundled up my cumbrous load and took a taxi into town where we met Lizzy and author Rosie Orr at Brown's.  We talked writing and publishing and I ate English free range scrambled eggs with heavenly smoked salmon and brown bread and butter. Then they took me to the bus stop, and waved me goodbye.  Very sorry indeed to leave this sociable clever and very nice set.  As Anne thought in Persuasion

when she met Captain Wentworth's friends, "These would have been all my friends," was her thought; and she had to struggle against a great tendency to lowness.

 

Goodbyes at Oxford Bus Station

 

View through window of Senior Common Room,

St. Hilda's College

 

 

 

The Bliss of Bath

With Jane Odiwe on Beechen Cliff

"They determined on walking round Beechen Cliff, that noble hill whose beautiful verdure and hanging coppice render it so striking an object from almost every opening in Bath." - Northanger Abbey

Flowery Bath

Moving so fast I'm breathless, but there's no time for jet lag or giving in to tiredness: time is short and I must make the most of every minute I am in England!  So today, on leaving the George Hotel after the requisite eggy breakfast, I embarked on the difficult journey to Paddington with my suitcase (no working elevator at the station, only stairs to drag up my load), and secured a ticket for the train that would take me to Bath at 10:30.  But the train ride was restful and lovely, gliding through the green English countryside with clouds changing every minute, and flowers nodding by the sides of the train.

My object was to visit longtime friend Jane Odiwe, well known Jane Austen author, artist and blogger, who very kindly invited me to stay at her flat in Bath.  I have visited that beautiful city several times before, but knew that to see it through the eyes of an enthusiast as knowledgeable as Jane would be a special privilege. I could not but be reminded of the scene in Northanger Abbey where clever Henry Tilney teaches the naive Catherine about artistic views and perspective:

"He talked of foregrounds, distances, and second distances – side-screens and perspectives – lights and shades; and Catherine was so hopeful a scholar that when they gained the top of Beechen Cliff, she voluntarily rejected the whole city of Bath as unworthy to make part of a landscape."

At 4 Sydney Place, one of the addresses where Jane Austen lived in Bath

 

 On getting off the train I was immediately struck with the freshness and restfulness of Bath after London: the air is purer, and the small, compact, hilly city, enfolding spots of greenery, looked really lovely, in cool sunny weather with a few clouds and the breeze changing every minute and June flowers everywhere - roses and foxgloves, forget-me-nots and geraniums.

 

Jane's flat is most beautiful. The house was here in Jane Austen's day and is right behind the house at 4 Sydney Place where Austen lived; you can see into the garden. With her historical eye and artistic sense, Jane has made her home reflect the beauty and the spirit of Austen's time. It was a rare treat for the mind, eye, and soul, simply to sit and enjoy the sumptuous English tea she so generously laid out, on exquisite and authentic Burleigh willow ware.  Shrimps and salad, cake and tea, while we talked a mile a minute about Austenesque writing, mutual friends, aspirations and family, rhinestones and travel - it was almost too much delight to take in!




Burleigh Willow pattern

To drink tea while feasting the eyes on a nosegay of sweet peas...

 

Jane thought I must need to rest, and I certainly did, but I said No! I will rest tonight: take me up Beechen Cliff where Jane Austen climbed! (She was a great walker.) I had seen the major sights of the city on previous visits, but had never done this walk and was inspired by a blog Jane had written just last week - so, since she had made the climb so very recently, it was most hospitable and generous of her to do it again so soon, to satisfy me.

Halfway up Beechen Cliff

 

Jacob's Ladder



 

We have just got back, from what was certainly one of the satisfying walks of my life. We probably walked several miles - four hours - right up the wood-shaded stairs (many beech trees, hence the name) known as Jacob's Ladder, to the forested cliff, or hangar, where spread out before ou is the magnificent prospect of Bath, that Jane Austen wrote about. It was a thrill and a half, exhilarating and beautiful and flowery and wild and 18th century and divine. Reminded me a bit of the hangar at Selbourne, Gilbert White's house, equally unspoiled, where the modern world recedes completely.

Up the hangar

At the top

Views from the top

 

After enjoying the views, taking pictures, and smelling the wild garlic for which the hill is famous, we walked down, returning along the Kennet & Avon canals.

 

Canal boats

 

Bridge that was built in 1800, so Jane Austen might have seen it

 

After a bit of a rest we went up the town again, to the beautiful semicircle of houses of golden Bath stone known as the Circus (just below the famous Crescent), and dined at a most attractive restaurant, the Circus Cafe, patronized by the well heeled and happy residents of the place.

And I slept to a miracle in Jane's beautiful bed.

Restaurant in the Circus 

 

An old circulating library sign

 

From Jane's window, on a June evening 

 

Darkness sets in - at nearly 10 PM

 

 Train station next morning

Welcomed by Woolf

Left my bag at the nice b&b in Gower St., had a look at the English Sunday papers in their corporeal, not online, form, and then sallied out with my new Oystercard. The Virginia Woolf walk was to meet in Dean's Yard, Westminster Abbey, at eleven, so I went early.  Hadn't been to the Abbey since my first trip, 1968, when I took little Paul, so I went in for the Sunday matins service.  Only a handful of worshipers, despite the hundreds of tourists staring at the Abbey outside, but it was quite lovely, magnificent setting obviously, beautiful singing, and fun to see the church bigwigs processing in their scarlet robes.  When the service was over, I joined the Woolfians in the Yard.



A couple of dozen people assembled, all wearing some green in honor of there being a lot of it in Mrs. Dalloway. The weather was nice for a walk, cool and refreshing, with gleamlets of sunshine.  Some grad students at London University and members of the Women's History Society and Literary London Reading Group had organized this, so it was a nice mix, and everyone was relaxed, enthusiastic, and friendly. The whole walk took over two hours, and was a fantastic walking tour of central London, for starting at Westminster it went past Buckingham Palace, along Bond St, and all through Regent's Park, which was very beautiful. We stopped half a dozen times along the way for short readings from Mrs Dalloway at the appropriate places, and finished with a picnic and book discussion under an ancient spreading chestnut tree. Simply lovely, and such a peculiarly English welcome to London.

I'd reread Mrs. Dalloway in preparation, and though I'm not much of a fan of Woolf's novels (it's the letters, diaries and essays I love), there's some beautiful writing and evocations of London in it, which were thrilling when well read on the spot. 

"It was June. The King and Queen were at the Palace. And everywhere, though it was still so early, there was a beating, a stirring of galloping ponies, tapping of cricket bats; Lords, Ascot, Ranelagh and all the rest of it; wrapped in the soft mesh of the grey-blue morning air, which, as the day wore on, would unwind them, and set down on their lawns and pitches the bouncing ponies, whose forefeet just struck the ground and up they sprung, the whirling young men, and laughing girls in their transparent muslins, who even now, after dancing all night, were taking their absurd woolly dogs for a run; and even now, at this hour, discreet old dowagers were shooting out in their motor cars on errands of mystery; and the shopkeepers were fidgeting in their windows with their paste and diamonds, their lovely old sea-green brooches in eighteenth-century settings to tempt Americans..."

She's got that right.  I could use a sea-green eighteenth century brooch right about now.  My rhinestones are 1950s, not 18th century, and this one's my most sea-green:

"...and she, too, loving it as she did with an absurd and faithful passion, being part of it, since her people were courtiers once in the time of the Georges, she, too, was going that very night to kindle and illuminate; to give her party.  But how strange, on entering the Park, the silence; the mist; the hum; the slow-swimming happy ducks; the pouched birds waddling..."

 

 

Here's a blog one of the organizers wrote about the day, I'm glad to see myself in the last picture:

http://www.andrewwhitehead.net/1/post/2013/06/clarissa-dalloways-day.html

Afterwards, as I hadn't brought picnic food, I had myself a lovely lunch in an outdoor cafe in the park. An exquisite egg mayonnaise sandwich, fresh chocolate cake, and tea. Everything was excellent; in the U.S. the equivalent would have been dreck.  Can't understand why that is so, but it is. Then I walked in Queen Mary's Garden, and as legs were getting tired, I took a bus along Euston Rd. using my nice Oyster card most of the way to the Gower St. Hotel. Retrieved suitcase there and wheeled it to the George, where I'm staying tonight. (That's my usual familiar b&b, and it's £60, a lot cheaper than the Gower.)  Now I'm resting on my bed, looking out at the trees and tennis players in the Cartwright Gardens evening sunshine.

 

"There were flowers: delphiniums, sweet peas, bunches of lilac; and carnations, masses of carnations. There were roses; there were irises..."

London is looking lovely! Well kept, plenty of tourists but not exhaustingly pushingly crowded like New York.  Very multinational, everybody looking happy, as if they're having a good time, and know they're lucky to be there.  I know I am.