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There was a time in my life when London was a place of ambition and desire for me. As a teenager I was obsessed by all things British. Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Young Ones, Leeds United, Cat Deeley, Countdown, Prime Minister’s Questions. You name it, I was in to it. Growing up I made numerous trips across the pond to visit my Uncle who had lived in London since the 1960s. I was so enamored with the place that I almost went to Richmond University in London. Upon acceptance I even journeyed over to see the campus. And if not for the meager offerings of the dining halls compared to the all you can eat smorgasbords that awaited me back on American campuses I might have actually gone.
London was also the first place I travelled abroad without my parents. Following my freshman year, I enrolled in a three-week theater course in England and Ireland. After the course was over, I tacked on five weeks of travel with my best friend from high school throughout Ireland, Scotland, and England. It was on this trip that I really began to feel the first inklings of a travel bug.
At the end
of that trip I remember telling my aunt that I didn’t want to visit any country that didn’t speak English. Hey, I was eighteen at the time. That stance was short lived. There has been a lot of travel and life since that day. I am not who I was, but the memories and sense of how everything felt fresh and exciting during that time in London stays with me. However, I hadn’t been anywhere in Britain since 2012 and even that visit was really was just an unplanned weather-related stop on my way back from Greece. If you take that away I hadn’t been there since 2002. 17 years!
Back in England once again I observed some of the old familiar differences. The small bottles of coke, the warm tepid water. The separate faucets for hot and cold water. The necessity of wearing sweaters indoors during the British winter months. There were things that had changed though. The iconic red phone booths were still there, but now were generally just there for tourists to pose in front of and take pictures. They have tried to find a modern use for them and equipped some with free Wi-Fi and
allowed free phone calls. However, on a local BBC report I learned how dealers and users were now accessing them to make drug sales. This was causing problems in many local neighborhoods. The Law of unintended Consequences strikes again.
I was staying with my uncle like old times. There was nothing in particular that I was dying to do. Having seen everything major site twice three times over I randomly suggested we visit St. Paul’s Cathedral. So we hopped in a black cab and went. The outside of the building was still impressive and iconic, but what once had been free now cost an outrageous 20 pounds. What once was a house of worship was becoming some sort of theme museum. This point was further made as we went downstairs and were confronted by the “Crypt Café” and giftshop, which of course you were forced to go through on the way to the exit. We observed the tombs of many past military figures and wondered what they would have thought of all this.
That evening I went out for a stroll around my uncle’s neighborhood near Sloane Square. My uncle and I had been planning to go to
the theatre, but weren’t sure what to see. So I did what I would have done back in 1997. I headed out to the local newsstand to pick up the latest Timeout magazine. However, I couldn’t find a copy anywhere. I wound up asking the seller behind the counter for one. He just looked at me with a bemused smile and told me that he didn’t have it, but they now gave them away for free every Tuesday.
Feeling like a relic of bygone days I walked along Eaton Square and the King’s Road. I thought about how everything changes and how here I was walking the same city streets I once had, but things were not quite the same now. Places and people change. Jetlag was also weaving its hazy spell. Somehow, the jetlag seemed stranger walking around what should have been a familiar place. I came upon a war memorial to the soldiers of the Great War with an inscription that read “We Were Heroes.” Who had they been? What adventures had they gotten up to in their London of old?
The next morning my Uncle and I took pastries and cappuccinos to a good friend
of his in Clapham. The friend had recently had to install a security camera outside his flat due to a recent rash of burglaries along his street and had been shocked by the astounding number of acts of debauchery and fornication right outside his door. He had no idea his neighborhood was so lively after hours!
That afternoon as my uncle napped I went for another walk. This time to his old apartment in Knightsbridge on the Brompton Road where I spent so many days starting at age 5. There was the McDonalds just across the street which I often frequented to satisfy my Big Mac cravings. Except of course for that time during the Mad Cow hysteria when they refused to sell me anything but chicken. All around Harrods had sprouted up quite a large number of Middle Eastern hookah shops. There were many more Chinese people on the streets than I remembered. The whole area no longer felt quite as obviously British as it once did. It now belonged to the wider world.
As I turned off the busy main road to the garden filled square, I became conscious of a long ago feeling. Outside the apartment itself, I meditated on the old times. About my aunt who passed away back in 2003. About the youth I had been. About how this doorway had been a launching point to a life full of adventures and discovery.
Once I flew And the angels were my friends They would grant me every whim Now I can't believe that was true Once I flew Though it’s easy to forget I don’t seem to have managed yet. And I don’t think I ever will.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Loving London
I understand your love of London and heading there as soon as you graduated from high school. Amazing people and architecture. Thanks for sharing family stories.