Gunga- Alice, and Harry, and Kris Kristofferson, oh my !

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Sunday, May 4 th

Arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland late in the day. I'm taking this opportunity to play catch up on blogs...

What do the the names in the title all have in common? Oxford! The town itself is about 56 miles northwest of London and was the first stop of the day ( April 26). The big silver bus pulled up outside the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology. I did a double take and had strains of a Barbershop Quartet song about the 'Ashmolean Marching Society Band' going through my head. My brother, Don, has been involved with Barbershop singing for over 30 years and I have attended many of his performances. Whoa! I never knew there was an Ashmolean anything and now I was standing in front of a huge building with brightly colored flags flaunting the name. As Goober used to say, "Well, gollee"! But there was no time to investigate further as my tour mates were already crossing the street.

We were headed onto Broad St., one of the main streets with our destination being the Bodleian Library, said to have a copy of every book ever written. Progress was slow because groups of Morris Dancers were performing all along the way. Some had a drum and flute accompanying them while others had 5 or 6 piece bands. Some were all women, some all men, some had bells on their shoes while others had bells on their knee socks. My favorites were the ones who clacked two foot sticks together then did intricate routines throwing the sticks above their heads or behind their backs. It was great fun to watch and completely distracted me from hearing about buildings.

Here are some things I learned: Oxford is the oldest university in the English speaking world founded in the eleventh century; it consists of 39 independent colleges - some as small as 400 students; students can go their entire time there without ever actually attending a class. They attend 'tutorials' and as long as they pass their exams they are good to go; the University church, St. Mary's in Radcliffe Sq., has a sweet little cafeteria and cafe. You can climb its tower, up 124 steps, and have the best view of the campus; it is the setting for most of the Harry Potter movies and the Inspector Morse TV series. I assume the latter was a BBC show; T.S. Eliot , Oscar Wilde and Kris Kristerofferson (who knew?) were among some of its graduates.

Oh, another famous graduate was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was a writer, mathematician, ordained Anglican Deacon, and photographer. I think most of us know him better by his pen name, Lewis Carroll. Here is something else I learned, there was a real Alice, Alice Liddell. Her father was a dean at the college and Charles became friendly with the family. As the story goes, on a boating outing one day in 1862, Alice, then around 10 or 11 years old, asked him to tell her and her sisters a story. Thus began the adventures of 'Alice in Wonderland'. He wrote up the stories, illustrated them, and presented them to her as a Christmas present 1864. The rest is history.

The day was gloriously sunny and, after several days of cold, drizzle, and rain in London, I was raising my face to the sun like a blooming sunflower. The weather continued as we pulled into Stratford -on-Avon where there were people overflowing the streets. It was the 398 th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Actually, no one is really sure of the exact date of his death but they do know when he was buried so that's the date they celebrate.

The Main Street was blocked off and a giant puppet (maybe 20-25 feet high) was being manipulated by three men who moved it along on some sort of platform. We just started down the street to join in the festivities when the sky opened up, lightening flashed and thunder crashed. Wendy rushed us all into a near by store telling us it was "just a cloud passing by". She was right. In five minutes the sun came out again and we were off.

The town is a shrine to Shakepeare, his wife Anne Hathaway (no, not the actress), and Tudor and Jacobean half-timbered houses. His house has been fully restored and can be toured where it is full of 16 th century furniture and great memoribilia. I did not feel the need to go in. I was more fascinated by the Japanese and Chinese tourists who had multiple shots of themselves taken, including selfies, making the same silly 'V' sign that seems to be required in any picture they take of themselves. Call me a cudmugeon but why do people have to have a photo of themselves in front of every monument?

Guess who else was born there? John Harvard, the guy who founded Harvard University. I had no idea even though I passed his statue a lot for four years when I went to college in Cambridge, MA.

Both Oxford and Stratford-on-Avon were marvelous to visit. I felt as I was walking on hallowed ground. It gave me chills to think of all the incredible students who have gone to Oxford. As an amateur writer, it was humbling as well as inspiring, to see the small town where Shakepeare was born. It still confounds scholars and the rest of us how one man, with little formal education, could have produce such a body of work. Plays that are as relevant today as they were 350 (give or take a few) years ago.

Carolyn/ Gunga

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Comments

[Pat Walsh]

Inspector Morse
Hi Carolyn, very nice blog, informative and so nice to have a first-person account of such wonderful and well-known places. I'm a devotee of BBC mysteries and dramas, have watched Inspector Morse for years. You might enjoy watching them now that you've been there. My granddaughter Julia played Alice in her middle school's production of "Alice in Wonderland" this past winter; I'll have to tell her there was a real Alice and how the stories came about. Thanks for sharing your adventures! Pat

[Anna Viadero]

Thanks
Love these blogs and your adventures! I really loved Scotland when we were there during festival week. Saw the Tatoo and remember thinking "This is like being at the Superbowl!" Stay well and keep on traveling and writing!