LONDON 2012

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There can be no better arrival into London than being sat in a Black Cab, your Cockney Cab driver regaling you with stories of the Olympics to the point that I was wondering when he was going to give the famous line, “you’ll never guess who I had in the cab last week” when he actually said, “you’ll never guess who I had in the cab last week”. Turns out our cabbie was a pessimist when it came to London hosting the 2012 Olympics but after he had Leonel Manzano (Silver Medallist in the 1500m) in the cab with his medal round his neck his impressions changed. “Luved it Guv…great week…that Jessica Ennis…and Mighty Mo…tears in my eyes stuff”. Before he could facilitate a complete emotional breakdown he turned to us and told us to look out the back window as the famous Red Arrows were due to flyby. And flyby they did. Our challenge had been to get to the centre of London on one of the busiest afternoons the city had seen in years, as the country was saluting Team GB with a parade down The Mall to Buckingham Palace – the Red Arrows were the final act of what we subsequently learnt was an amazingly special day. As if on cue and in a selfish hope that it was just for us the famous formation of jets appeared in our rear window and out came the colour trails; it was amazing, and good enough to provoke one last joke from Mr Cabbie – “that’s on the house Guv”.



I love London in small doses. For over 20 years I have been visiting the city and each time I enjoy getting there but I am usually just as happy to be leaving it days after. It is an incredible place and in the same way that New York separates itself from the rest of the USA, London has become slightly aloof from the rest of England. It is fast, it is brash, it is alive with people, and it runs to the beat of its own drum. The authorities were turning it on this afternoon and many people had arrived in London wearing their Union Jacks or temporary face tattoos, and carrying placards celebrating their favourite athletes. We walked against the tide of people as they streamed from The Mall and the Palace – everyone seemed in a jovial mood, which may have stemmed from Mayor Boris Johnson’s unbelievable speech that had most in stiches. He is labelled a loose cannon but nobody could doubt his commitment to his city, and if anyone could wish for his style and popularity it would be his fellow Old Etonian, David Cameron PM who, along with The Princess Royal, was the warm up act to Boris. Oh what the PM would give for Boris’ support. To chants of “Boris, Boris” he hit every mark, dropped every cliché, and was a PR consultants dream. His shaggy white hair is seemingly iconic and more and more people are saying that he will be PM one day – how that will happen is anyone’s guess but if it does come to fruition it will have been one hell of a campaign. He was not the Mayor when London won the rights to host the Games but maybe he was the right Mayor for when they hosted them.



The day was the culmination of an amazing six weeks. We could look back to the start of London 2012 and the hilarity of the chocolate incident in Burgundy, the opening dinner on the terrace, the Gold Medals won by the NZ athletes and that famous of all moments with the Queen supposedly parachuting into the stadium. Six wonderful weeks, and as I have said before, in the time we have been here there seems to have been a concerted effort to embrace all the good ideals of being British – Sir Winston would have been proud. There will be others that will still cast doubts and dwell on the negative but for me the cabbie had proven it all – and if you can sway a London cabbie you have nearly shifted the mountain. And then to cap it off Andy Murray wins the US Open Tennis after his Gold at London. This was the moment not even the cheesiest of movie endings would have thrown up – he has come a long way since he sought shelter under his Headmistresses’ desk as the carnage of Dunblane erupted about his school. Now there is a movie. In fact he has come a long way since Roger Federer beat him at Wimbledon in July; perhaps that beating will be the catalyst for many a major victory. The British press have certainly had to eat some humble pie when it comes to ‘Our Andy’ – the apology in The Independent was sarcastically brilliant.



And so to London; our reason for visiting was to see people and to visit the Tower of London and that I will come to in due course. In a past life, before I became semi-fluent in the workings of second-hand furniture, websites, and ergonomic chairs, I plied my trade as a schoolmaster. My connections to Ellesmere College go back to 1990 and I have been fortunate to develop many friendships from my association with the place. One of my favourite aspects of the role was to be a tutor to the students – not necessarily solely in the classroom but rather for their pastoral care. I have managed to forge some lasting friendships from this and in London we caught up with one of my ‘tutees’ who now lives in London and runs a successful wine business – www.rdfinewines.com . I know teachers are not supposed to have favourites but Benjamin may nearly fall into that category. We got on from the moment he asked me to be his Tutor and when Narelle and I got married he sent one of the longest and nicest faxed messages – it took about 10 minutes to read out. We met Ben at the Thomas Cubit tavern near Belgravia and for two hours we caught up on all sorts of news. Ben knew where most of his peers had got to or what they were doing. Ellesmere will never go down as an academic factory that churns out robotic like scholars, which to me is great. To listen to where and what many of the Old Ellesmerians we knew were up to was a joy – Ed Lea a computer app expert; Mike Broadwood successful in New York; Andy Broadwood a website guru in London; Clare Bean in Finance; the famous Richard Barclay (Barcs) running his own ‘Manny’ company; Dave Pinches heading for the top at Singapore Airlines; Eleanor ‘E’ Aldwinckle seemingly looking after most of the property in Berkley Square; Lucy Noble a Physio; to name but a few. It was quite a collection of names that we had previously seen on a day to day basis and it was nice to hear of their success. Dave, Benjamin, Lucy and Barcs were my first tutees and it appears they have all got jobs and their future sorted – as Ben rather pointedly said, “it’s just you we need to sort out Stoney”. It is nice to see old students and even nicer when you can call them old friends.



Ben put us in contact with Eleanor who I had tried hard to teach the theory element of Physical Education to in 1997 and 1998. She has put much of my teaching to good use as she is now heavily involved in the property sector. Meeting people around the world is fun; meeting positive people as you travel is even better. ‘E’ is fun personified and has such a wonderful outlook on life. She has recently married another OE, Steph, and we were able to share in their wedding photos as we sat in Berkley Square and caught up on the news. Their wedding in France seemed to be attended by many of the people we knew so it was nice to see them all grown up – I may have grey hairs but theirs are not as far away as they think. I well remember a canoe expo when I drove the second minibus, which was labelled the ‘Barbie Bus’ due to its occupants. I am not sure many male teachers would be allowed these days but I drove E, Lucy and Olivia around much of Anglesey unaccompanied and like I was their chauffeur. Olivia was meant to be our guide as she was local – we got so lost and she upheld the age old principle that, ‘a little bit of knowledge is dangerous’.



When I was a Gap tutor in 1990 I became great friends with a number of students – some of whom we have stayed with or caught up with earlier on in the trip. Alex Cooper was the Captain of the 1^st Rugby XV and he and I got on well. We had communicated less and less over the years, which I put down to both of us being busy and many thousands of miles apart. Little did I know that it was actually his Grandfather who put a small (but understandable) spanner in the works. Grandad received a ‘phone bill one day that must have been quite large and, as he was paying the bills, knocked international calls on the head. Hence, I had not spoken to Alex since 1994. A few emails on this trip and we found ourselves meeting outside Liberty, and moments later we were standing outside a pub in Carnaby Street. It was great to catch up with him and hear what he has achieved – he teaches design students at a tertiary college in London and is settling down to domestic life in London. He was just the same – still spoke a million miles an hour but he was another breath of positivity. He made the observation, which I can only agree with, that I had ‘aged better than he had” – actually, I am not sure that is all true but, and I say this in the nicest possible way, I still think I could beat him over 100m.



We also caught up with John Clark, who when we were in Burgundy had told us to come and have a tour of Eton. It is quite simply a stunning campus in the shadows of Windsor Castle and John took us through the Chapel, through the oldest teaching room in the UK, and around the square that was made famous in the filming of Chariots of Fire. There is a quaint Eton tradition that names of those who have attended are etched or engraved into the wooden panelling – he showed us the most recent famous Old Etonians and the photo is self-explanatory. The Eton Chapel is incredible and I am not sure that I have seen organ pipes as beautiful as the ones that tower above the congregation. John has taught and been a Housemaster at Eton for 30 years and is now firmly entrenched as part of the community. We ended up in the Scholars’ Dining Room where we met the Butler who showed us some of the finery that the school owns - I am glad that I am not in charge of cleaning it. After lunch in the High Street John introduced us to Douglas Hill, a former school mate of Dads who has owned the pharmacy and Off License in the High Street for nearly 40 years. It was nice to finally meet him after hearing many stories – he showed us his Royal Seal that hangs above the door and confirms his service to the Royal family; not many NZers would have one of those. We also met up with Melanie in Carnaby Street who took us to a NZ run café called Sacred – what else could I drink when silver ferns are staring at you, but a Flat White. Melanie is heavily into her biking and running and had just completed the London Duathlon on a borrowed bike as someone had stolen hers on the eve of the race. Pete’s sister Catherine met us after her day of volunteering for the V&A, which was a nice chance to catch up and share in some photos and stories; many seemed to involve ballet and swimming news of Claudia Mary!



Our Tower of London visit was incredible. We were lucky enough to share in a private tour of the grounds and buildings that make up Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress. This was arranged through Narelle’s friend Lucy who is back in London after a few years living in NZ. Her father had struck up a friendship with one of the Governors while he was working for CBS News at the Royal Wedding and he kindly organised the tour to coincide with our visit to London. It was a mix of seeing public and private areas – in fact our first visit was to the office of the Yeoman Gaoler so he could take us away from the peering public to see the Queen’s House and Thomas More’s cell deep within the walls. It can only be accessed through the house and although it is a far cry from the way in which Sir Thomas would have experienced it; the space and light certainly gave you a sense of the cramp and isolation he would have felt and underlines why many people feel that he was a man of immense principle when standing up for what he believed in. Our other guide was Vic and he used all of his twenty years of working and living within the walls of the Tower to show us around and explain much of what we saw. As the man in charge of the Health and Safety onsite there would be little that Vic has not explored – he has crawled through tunnels and clambered through ceiling cavities. He knows of untouched secret rooms and passage ways, which if he can get his way at some point will be opened and explored by archaeologists. He could point out where the German bombs had fallen on parts of the walls – sadly killing two people; a warder and another warder’s wife, who had just happened to meet up at that point in the early hours of the morning. It took the notion of going out with a bang to a whole new level.



The most important of all items at the Tower are the Crown Jewels housed in the Waterloo Barracks. They are protected like nothing else and the chances of them ever being stolen must be zero at best. The depth of the steel doors as you enter and exit are testament to that as must be all of the unseen security. All Vic would say is that if an alarm goes off we would be locked in and we would experience activity like a movie, just better. The Jewels have been displayed in a new way this year to celebrate the Jubilee and they have made it very simple for you to observe each and every item from different angles – they really are stunning and even the most ardent of anti-Royalists (of which I am not) could only be captivated by their beauty. To keep them gleaming they are taken away for cleaning by jewellers employed for that precise reason. They are stripped of their jewels and photographed at every stage so that when they are reassembled they remain exactly as before. Some of the items like the silver wine coolers are so heavy that it requires a small hoist to move them. The most recent resident of the secure area within the Tower grounds had been the medals for the London Games as they were kept there until they were needed – a testament to their security and another great PR moment for the organisers.



The Tower was originally a prison and up until the 1950s it was used as such. The last known prisoners were the infamous criminal Kray twins; Reggie and Ronnie refused to do their National Service and as their regiment were based in and around the Tower they were locked up there. Knowing of the Krays and how they thought they most probably aspired to such ignominy. They have great historical company as Sir Walter Raleigh spent 15 years held in the Bloody Tower in fairly luxurious surrounds for the time; Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey were executed there; Rudolf Hess was imprisoned in the war years before being sent back to Spandau to see out his days; Queen Elizabeth 1 was also imprisoned here on the orders of Mary, Queen of Scots; it has an amazing past and much of England’s political and royal history can be tied to it. In fact some of its past may be coming to life again in a car park in the north of England. In recent weeks archaeologists have discovered what they believe to be the remains of King Richard III under layers of asphalt. If it is him then another piece in the jigsaw of who killed the young Princes in the Tower may be in place. It is one of the Towers most foreboding chapters in history and no one really knows what happened to the two boy princes who were never seen alive after June 1483. Bones found within the walls of the tower in 1674 have been attributed to them and buried as such; the question many historians are now asking is that if King Richard’s bones have been recovered does he get a Royal funeral if he is still thought to be a prime suspect for the murders? It is making interesting reading and is quite possibly an issue with no answer.



Vic’s tour took us through to closing and we left with the public. However, we were due to come back later in the evening for the Ceremony of the Keys. By the time we returned for a drink with Vic at the Beefeaters’ Bar it was pouring and due to our standard of dress we had to drink outside. I am a stickler for dress codes but I was thrilled the management could see our plight and offered us refuge inside – hence we can now tick off that non-public venue too. It was actually bowls night at the Tower and they had a visiting side there for post-match drinks and it was them that we joined for the ceremony. This is a ceremony that has taken place at the Tower for 750 years and they have never missed a night; they were six minutes late in WW2 due to the fact the tower had been bombed that night. It is the ceremonial locking of the Tower for the night and is carried out by the Chief Yeoman Warder and the duty foot guards. It is no more than ten minutes in duration but is carried out to strict timings. At 2152 the Chief Yeoman arrives with lamp in one hand and the Queen’s Keys in the other. He walks to meet the foot guards at Traitors Gate, they then walk to and lock the large oak gates before returning. As they approach where we are standing the famous word exchange takes place between a sentry and the Chief Warder:

Sentry: "Halt, who comes there?"

Chief Yeoman Warder: "The Keys!"

Sentry: "Whose Keys?"

Warder: "Queen Elizabeth's Keys."

Sentry: "Pass Queen Elizabeth's Keys and all's well.

At that moment the procession heads through Traitors Gate and the crowd follows to share in the Chief Warder’s Declaration “God Preserve queen Elizabeth” and the collective response “Amen”. The Last Post is played at 2200 and silence is observed. All done and dusted in ten minutes and we leave as the Keys are taken back to the Queen’s House. In an ironic twist we leave through a small door within the larger door that was just locked – I hope to God they remembered to lock it after. Any travellers to London can apply to observe the Ceremony; it is free but is on a ballot basis and only 50-60 people a night get to go. It is well worth it and a wonderful spectacle. We could not thank Vic enough for such an exceptional day – by the time we got back to our hotel we had been in and around the tower for 8 ½ hours. We are so pleased that Lucy suggested it all those months ago and that she allowed us to set the dates. It was a great day out with Lucy, David, Jackie and Tom and one that we will look back on as being very special.



So that is London ticked off – looking back it was quite an intensive few days but it was nice to have the time to see people. If there is a common thread to our trip then it has been the chance to catch up with friends. We seem to have friends spread far and wide across the country and many of them have some connection to or time at Ellesmere – in fact as we have travelled the country we seem to have adopted an unofficial tag of being the bearers of Ellesmere news. Some of which has been true and some we made up to see how long it takes to get back. We have even encouraged some to rekindle old friendships! Unbelievably our four months in Europe and the UK has come to an end and after our week in Eastern Europe we will be beginning our trip home through the Middle East, Asia and Australia; who knows when we will be back in the UK but from the dozens of cards we have handed out and invitations to come and stay in Melbourne we may have to open a B&B, or at the very least buy a wall calendar!

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