Lazy in London

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For reasons that elude me, I was groggy, grumpy and sloth-like the next morning. Total mystery. I had an idea for what I wanted to do that evening, but not much on the agenda for the morning. Or mid-morning as the case might have been when I finally got up. I decided to head in a vaguely southern direction and across the Millennium Bridge. It was thankfully Dementor-free.

The weather was less than favourable, and I decided to make my way to the nearby Imperial War Museum to get out of the imminent rain. I'd visited it on my previous trip, but a big section of the more interesting bits had been closed in preparation for the an upcoming anniversary. It was my hope that I'd get a chance to see more.

For a geek like me, a place like this can take up a number of hours. And it did. The collection is quite something, and they do a wonderful job of presenting the history without really glorifying war. They had a lot of stuff for kids that neatly side stepped the whole issue and discussed things in abstract ways, like how ships find submarines in the water but without going into why they might be looking for said submarines in the first place.

At other times, no sugar coating. There was an 'interactive' blitz exhibit that consisted of listening to the sounds of an air raid in a cramp recreation of a shelter, before being led out another door into the bombed out streets of London where more audio played the sounds of post bombing chaos and re-enacted biographies of people who lived through the Blitz. A little kitsch for a adult, but seemed to make an impression on the kids.

There was a special exhibit going on at the time on General Montgomery who was (for the non-geeks) a big important war guy. Among a variety of interesting tidbits and trinkets from his life were his collection of medals which was pretty huge. There was a diamond and ruby encrusted one from Russia that was some serious bling, yo.

One of the last things I visited was the exhibit on the holocaust. It was incredibly well designed and made you feel like cattle as you were ushered from one set of memorabilia to another relentlessly, as the list of atrocities grew. It was just a very powerfully piece of historical presentation that left me emotionally drained.

It had stopped raining by this point so I headed back out and started to head back to the hostel. It was ok for a little bit and the sun almost came out before it started raining again. I took shelter under an awning to put the rain cover on my camera bag and cursed myself for not having brought a rain cover for my me. By the time I got back I was drenched as I'd chosen to walk a route that was in a Tube free zone. I took a hot shower to get the chill out and then took a nap.

I woke with a start sometime later and realized I was running late for my plans. Not too late to do what I wanted, but late enough that I would have to skip dinner. So be it... I would have to live off my blubber for a few hours. I got dressed and headed out the door.

My destination was the Tower Hill tube station, where I would be meeting up with a small intimate group of people for The Jack the Ripper Walk, a tour lead by Donald Rumbelow who is considered one of the top (if not the very top) experts on Jack the Ripper.

In the hopes of trying to find something to snack on before the tour, I got off one stop early, at Monument station. There wasn't much in the way of fastish food to be had between there and Tower, but I did get to see the Monument to the Great Fire of London which was interesting as I had no idea it existed. I made my way from there to Tower Hill.

I strolled around the area a bit as I had 20 minutes or so until to tour. Tower Hill station is located right across the Thames from the Tower of London, which was a nice view as the sun slowly set. On one side of the station was a memorial park, dedicated the Merchant Marine and British Navy. On the other was a large segment of the Roman Wall built by the (you guessed it) Romans when they ruled this part of Britain. It was an interesting little crossroads of history and set the tone for the evening quite well.

I have mixed feelings about the tour. The guide seemed as knowledgeable as he claims, the content of the tour was interesting and informative, there was a good mix of education and entertainment, it wasn't too long, wasn't too short (mostly)... it was overall all a quality tour. My complaint would be the number of people... so many showed up that it really dragged out the process of moving from place to place and how long it would take before Mr. Rumbelow would be able to start telling us about the site we were at. It also meant it wasn't possible for him to narrate between the sites an we had to hurry from place to place a bit. Not enough to make it unenjoyable, but it definitely gave the sensation of being rushed. My other minor quibble is that he ran out of copies of his book to sell. Which isn't too surprising given there were about 100 people trying to buy it and he could very well have given the tour with close to 100KG of books on his back.

After the tour I had the desire to look around a bit more, but it was getting late and I still had to repack and get to bed to catch a train the next morning. I was continent bound.

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Photos

'Road Signs' from the Trenches of WWI
Imperial War Museum collection

Canadian Expeditionary Force uniform (circa 1918)
Imperial War Museum collection

Small intimate tour group
The Jack the Ripper Walk

Ripper's haunt
An alley where Jack the Ripper took the life of Catherine Eddowes

Decortive Windows
Old Spitalfields Market

Morbid poem
Imperial War Museum

Dedication
Imperial War Museum

Life in the trenches
Imperial War Museum