July 19, 2011: Thomas Hardy Land I

By 2PM – again, a half-day late! -- we left Winchester to explore the Land of Thomas Hardy.  (Not completely sorry to say goodbye to the one-way streets and pedestrian walkways of that lovely city!) 

This was the one leg of our trip which was not a straight shot from Place X to Place Y.  Hardy was an architect and lover of landscape, as well as a writer.  He knew the cities and villages, the churches and pubs in a 180° arc from his coastal city of Dorchester. As he wrote, he gave each city and town a fictional name and ultimately created, like Faulkner, a fictional county (actually a territory encompassing three or four southern counties) which he named Wessex, after Alfred’s lost kingdom.  So our goal for this afternoon was to wander (with the help of Gladys) through the valleys and villages of Wessex; ultimately, we hoped to arrive at Dorchester, explore Hardy’s homes, and finally arrive at the seashore town of Lyme Regis for the night.

At the beginning we were on A roads, driving through Hampshire and Wiltshire; we were actually surprised to pass a casual football field’s length from Stonehenge, but we did not stop since we had those precious tickets for Sunday morning.  Soon the route became narrow and windy, roads squeezed by hedgerows and topped by ancient trees meeting overhead.  I persist in believing that humans borrowed the idea for Gothic cathedral ceilings from the natural arches created by the embrace of two trees, branches entwined ….  If I had not spent my time digging my fingernails into the upholstery of the Kia every time Al cut  too close to the left hedge wall to avoid an oncoming car, I would have taken 20 pictures of these glorious, arched-ceiled lanes.

After more than an hour of sinuous road, we arrived at the town of Shaftesbury.  Our goal was Gold Hill….an extremely steep cobblestone walk past fairy tale cottages.  At the top, a lovely café, The Salt Cellar.  I think I remember having a delicious Panini and tea, but the view was all… I asked one young waiter whether we were looking at Blackmoor Vale (Tess’ territory).  His answer:  “As far as the eye can see is Blackmoor Vale.”  Squares of green and golden fields with ribbons of hedgerows.

 In Tess, Hardy describes the valley this way:  “Here, in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass. The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine..… with but slight exceptions the prospect is a broad rich mass of grass and trees, mantling minor hills and dales within the major. Such is the Vale of Blackmoor.”

Hardy wrote/published this in 1891.  The Vale has not changed.  At one point an ominous dark cloud loomed over the Vale – incredibly appropriate, given the novel’s naturalistic predisposition.

From Shaftesbury, we wound down and do3wn and down through the valley to the tiny village of  Marnhull (pronounced “Marnull” by the locals).  I had thought, from some online research, that we might find the cottage that was the inspiration for Tess’ cottage, but after driving through the village several times, we finally spoke to a lady who pointed us to the Crown Inn.  The Crown is a lovely pub with a newly renovated bed and breakfast, but, more to the point, one end of it was the original Pure Drop Inn, the local pub where Mr. D’Urbeyfield went to celebrate his newly-found nobility, where his wife went to bring him home, becoming just as intoxicated in the process, with the result that Tess, having brought them both home, wound up making the delivery that her dad was too drunk to undertake, with the disastrous results which ultimately propelled her into her tragedy.  At 3:30, the Pure Drop was empty, and Chloe, the pub manager, kindly gave us a tour and allowed us to take pictures.  Old wooden tables and booth benches, a huge fireplace, and a priest’s hole tunneling all the way to the church.  The plaque we read told of priests holed up for days, cold and hungry and cramped, petrified to move for fear that a piece of brick or plaster would fall and alert the Protestant officials who were hunting for Catholic priests – which would have resulted in death, not only for the priest, but also for the keepers of the pub as well.  Since Chloe had been so welcoming and informative, it was only appropriate that I should indulge in a half pint of Badger’s at the bar.  I lifted this half pint to Thomas Hardy, to Tess, and to the fugitive priests.

We then stopped briefly at the church – St. George’s turned St. Gregory’s.  I wanted to wander in the graveyard, remembering the parson’s refusal to allow Tess to bury her baby there.  Thin, leaning gravestones under trees which cast green shadows.  I’m guessing that since the time Tess was written, many “holy” people have been buried beyond the original graveyard limits, yes, even in the originally “unconsecrated” outskirts where, in the novel, Tess was forced to bury her illegitimate child. 

It should be apparent by now that I connect very deeply with the settings of stories, even if they are fiction (in fact, last night, 8/31/11, I pulled out Mary Stewart’s Touch Not the Cat again, simply to find her descriptions of riding narrow lanes with hedgerows at 5AM ….  Incredibly accurate, of course!).  I have usually been able to conjure the presence of saints, authors, and assorted other real people in their home settings.  I suppose it may seem weird that I do that with fictional characters as well.  Very weird, except to me, that I looked for the desolate spot on the edge of the graveyard where Tess was “allowed” to bury Sorrow.  But as I have read Hardy, I have come to understand that he deliberately set his fictional characters in real places.  He did on location research.  He visited.  He chose.  He intended that those places, despite a change of name, would hold the spirits of his characters.  He was terribly successful, at least from the perspective of a literary pilgrim who can view a valley, caress a table top, or inhale a garden, and touch the spirits of human beings, real and imaginary.

Tuesday, July 19: Jane Austen II

On Tuesday, we unexpectedly fell in love with Winchester, although we almost killed ourselves in the process!

Having been given directions down the hill to the most convenient car park in Winchester, we blithely decided that we did not need Gladys for such a short trip. Mistake!

Winchester is a city of many one-way streets.  In order to navigate, I needed to process street signs more quickly than Al was driving.  Not possible.  Let’s just say that we ultimately wound up, in our car, one block too far on the High Street – that is to say, in a block that was only a pedestrian walkway.  We were a bit confused by the sight of an armored car on the pedestrian walkway, but by the time we realized that we were in a real mess, the only alternative was a right turn onto Upper Brook Street, a one-land pedestrian walkway with (gasp!) a barricade at the end!  Meanwhile, we had a sweet little old lady chasing us with “What are you DOING?” and a less-than-sweet young man chasing us with “What the f___ are you doing?”  Al made the only possible choice; he turned right onto the sidewalk, squeezed through the barricade, and landed on an actual automobile-compatible street.  From then on, we never travelled without Gladys.

We finally found a parking garage and proceeded, a bit exhausted already, to explore the city.  Winchester was the 9^th C Saxon capital of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, who united many of the disparate Anglo-Saxon kingdoms against a series of Danish invasions.  We wandered through streets which featured medieval buildings as well as later buildings finished with flint, up the hill beyond the medieval Westgate to the Great Hall.  The Hall, described as “the first and finest of all 13th century halls,” is the surviving remnant of the castle that dated back to William the Conqueror.  In itself it is gorgeous, with its Gothic arches, inner gates which appear to be made of chain mail, the jewel-toned stained glass windows featuring the arms of the major players in English history who either contributed to the hall or who were Hampshire natives.  One entire wall was so perfectly painted with a “family tree” of Hampshire Members of Parliament that it might have passed for printed wallpaper.  But of course, the main attraction in this space is the Round Table of King Arthur, a massive oak table (18+ feet in diameter) hanging on the main wall of the Great Hall.  The table was built in the 13^th C, a time when the mythical Arthur was becoming a symbol of all that was great in Britain.  It was repainted on the orders of Henry VIII for a 1522 visit from the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V; the painting features the Tudor colors, green and white; the Tudor rose as a centerpiece; and a portrait of Arthur which looks remarkably like the young Henry himself.  Not King Arthur’s Round Table, but awesome nonetheless!

We also spent time in Queen Eleanor’s Garden, named for two queens of that name.  I was particularly intrigued because the garden was planted only with 13^th C plants and reconstructed as a pleasaunce, or pleasure garden (as opposed to a kitchen garden):  flowers, color, fragrance, water.  Many surprisingly familiar plants, a number of hideaway seats, a tunnel fashioned of woven tree branches….  I was sharply reminded of the pleasaunces in Anya Seton’s Katherine, and in particular, the line spoken in that novel about the saint and mystic Julian of Norwich:  “God has made a pleasaunce in her soul.”  This is a digression, but I (although the complete opposite of a mystic!) have often imagined the place in my soul where God dwells as a pleasaunce: much red and purple and yellow and white; fragrance of roses and lilies and lavender and, of course, boxwood; paths and a maze and tiny garden rooms with fountains and places to sit and BE.  Something rather like Queen Eleanor’s Garden….

At this point in our journey, we realized that we would be a half-day behind on any given day of our itinerary. (Those of you who know me:  isn’t that exactly how I teach???)  From the Great Hall we descended back through the town to the marvelous cathedral which evolved from an early 7^th C Anglo-Saxon church to the 16^th C masterpiece we were privileged to visit.

For me, of course, the high point of the visit was the grave of Jane Austen.  We found the grave rather quickly, in the floor of the left aisle.  Someone had left a small yellow flower on the slab which marks her grave. 

 

I sat for a while (yes, I suppose people had to walk around me) out of a need to be with, to feel her presence.  The epitaph spoke of “the benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extraordinary endowments of her mind,” as well as “her charity, devotion, faith, and purity.”  Nothing about her writing.  I have since learned from the cathedral website that her early-morning funeral was attended by only four people.  It was not until 1870, when she was more highly regarded as a writer, that her nephew Edward had a brass plaque installed in the cathedral that acknowledged Jane as a writer; by 1900, according to the cathedral website, she was famous enough that a window was installed in her memory above the plaque.  But I was most deeply touched just sitting on the floor and reading, on the simple slab, how much she had been loved by the people who mattered most to her.

I discovered two other people of note in the cathedral.  Isaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler, is buried in The Fishermen’s Chapel (marvelous wooden altar carved with, of course, fish).  Then there was the burial chapel of Henry Cardinal Beaufort, Chancellor of England, but important to me because he was the son of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, heroine of one of my absolutely favorite historical novels, Katherine (see the reference to pleasaunce, above!). 

The rest of the cathedral itself --  the Great Screen, the choirs, the ceiling – was breathtaking.  The 12^th C Winchester Bible, a glorious illuminated manuscript (gold, lapis, corrections inserted) was a miracle of art and stamina, written by a single scribe, edited by a second, and illustrated by six visiting artists – until the noble sponsor died and the money ran out.  Unfinished – a victim of the economy.  We can relate.

At this point in our exploration, we were acutely conscious of the clock ticking in our parking garage, so we left the cathedral, rounded the incredible flying buttresses and the Chaucerian-era Pilgrims’ School in search of Jane Austen’s final home on College Street, the place where she moved to be near her physician, the place where she died.

We ran back to Friarsgate carpark and arrived with one minute to spare.  And so, having immersed ourselves in Jane Austen’s Hampshire, we proceeded to explore the Wessex of Thomas Hardy.

Jane Austen Land 1 1/2

I had never thought about  Jane’s Austen’s own religious or spiritual stance, except for the fact that she was a clergyman’s daughter.  While her important heroines operate out of a moral stance of kindness and truth, there is very little overt religion in the (admittedly, not all) novels I have read; meanwhile, her clergy characters are not, to use a bit of Austenian understatement, exactly role models.  So it intrigued me to discover, in several places we visited, a prayer that she had written.  Upon further exploration, I discovered three prayers that she had written for Evensong.  (I am also tracking Paula Hollingsworth, a scholar whose master’s thesis explores the spirituality of Jane Austen). 

Evensong prayers, by tradition (and I remember this from the Compline prayer of my convent days) deal with examination of conscience and requests for forgiveness in case one should not survive the evils of the night – there is a certain dark = evil stance which is characteristic of night prayer.  I say this because if there is any “darkness” about Jane’s prayers, at least some of it may be attributed more to the style of night prayer than to Jane’s own world view.  Having meditated on the three prayers we have available, I have chosen to include her third Evensong prayer as perhaps more reflective of Jane herself than of Evensong style (admitting, as I say this, that I need to research this much more carefully!):

“Father of Heaven! whose goodness has brought us in safety to the close of this day, dispose our hearts in fervent prayer. Another day is now gone, and added to those, for which we were before accountable. Teach us almighty father, to consider this solemn truth, as we should do, that we may feel the importance of every day, and every hour as it passes, and earnestly strive to make a better use of what thy goodness may yet bestow on us, than we have done of the time past.

Give us grace to endeavour after a truly Christian spirit to seek to attain that temper of forbearance and patience of which our blessed saviour has set us the highest example; and which, while it prepares us for the spiritual happiness of the life to come, will secure to us the best enjoyment of what this world can give. Incline us oh God! to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow-creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves.

We thank thee with all our hearts for every gracious dispensation, for all the blessings that have attended our lives, for every hour of safety, health and peace, of domestic comfort and innocent enjoyment. We feel that we have been blessed far beyond any thing that we have deserved; and though we cannot but pray for a continuance of all these mercies, we acknowledge our unworthiness of them and implore thee to pardon the presumption of our desires.

Keep us oh! Heavenly Father from evil this night. Bring us in safety to the beginning of another day and grant that we may rise again with every serious and religious feeling which now directs us.

May thy mercy be extended over all mankind, bringing the ignorant to the knowledge of thy truth, awakening the impenitent, touching the hardened. Look with compassion upon the afflicted of every condition, assuage the pangs of disease, comfort the broken in spirit.

More particularly do we pray for the safety and welfare of our own family and friends wheresoever dispersed, beseeching thee to avert from them all material and lasting evil of body or mind; and may we by the assistance of thy holy spirit so conduct ourselves on earth as to secure an eternity of happiness with each other in thy heavenly kingdom. Grant this most merciful Father, for the sake of our blessed saviour in whose holy name and words we further address thee.

Our Father which are in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. “

Jane Austen Land, I

Monday, July 18:  Jane Austen Land (on her 194^th death anniversary)

The fifteen-minute Heathrow Express from Paddington Station is expensive, but ever so much better than dragging four bags (two of them at fifty pounds each) on the Tube with its long halls, sometimes-working escalators, and three transfers.  At the Hertz rental center, we walked our luggage out to parking space 67 to load up our car just in time to see the little blue car we had supposedly rented drive away!  Not sure what happened there, but as a result, we were given an upgrade (another of those serendipitous events) to a white Kia Soul.  We set up the GPS (Al’s decision to buy a TomTom with international navigation was brilliant, as you shall soon see!) and embarked on our 700-mile pilgrimage.

Driving on the left side of the road in a right-handed driver seat is, shall we say, an adventure of its own.  I spent much time gripping the seat when we cut a little close to whatever was right outside my left-side passenger window: another car, a curb; most often, when we were not on an M or an A highway, those lovely but unforgiving hedgerows which border the usual one and a half lane roads with walls ten feet high or more – no shoulders on either side.  And while it was breathtaking to ride on country roads over which the trees meet in glorious vaulted cathedral ceilings over our heads, it was rather more breathtaking to come around a curve of hedgerow and meet a car coming in the opposite direction.  In such cases we either tucked in under the hedgerow or did a very slow and wary dance of one car past another, praying in either case.  Before too long, we caught the rhythm of which car was better able to stop and let the other go.  But there were many times when I wished for Harry Potter’s bus (here’s where I show my ignorance of HP!), the one which had the capacity to “inhale” as it squeezed through traffic ???

The TomTom, now dubbed Gladys (don’t ask!), took us into Steventon, and after turning around a few times , we finally discovered the left-hand turn that led past fields which still looked remarkably 19^th C to St. Nicholas Church, where Jane Austen’s father and brothers were the rectors and where Jane worshipped until she was 25.

Although a former rector of the church had confided to me in an email that the church was never locked, it seemed to be when we tried the door.  Disappointed, especially since it had (of course) begun to rain, I began to take outdoor pictures of the church, the graves of several of her family members, and the iconic 900+ year-old yew tree.  At this point, Al, refusing to be deterred, discovered that if one turns the large metal ring in the door before trying to pull it, the door will open – just in time, as the skies opened as well.

The 12^thC church is small, whitewashed with dark wood beams, and little changed since Jane’s time.  Ironically, the changes include the remnants of a medieval painting, uncovered during restoration of the church wall, and a three-foot-high piece of a ninth-century Saxon cross, discovered in the nearby manor in the 19thC and placed in the church in 1952.  There was a plaque commemorating Jane on a side wall and some of the individual needlepoint kneelers below the pews were worked in a full-length silhouette of Jane.  There was a stack of programs in the back, left over from the previous night’s Evensong, a celebration of Jane during the week of her death.

I sat in the first pew, trying to conjure up Jane, the second youngest of eight children, sitting and listening to her rector father’s sermons each week.  My picture was more of a seven-year-old trying hard to sit as appropriately still as would have been expected, particularly from the rector’s daughter.  I didn’t think of her as a 20-something, in the same pew, still listening.  Did her father vary his sermons?  Did she ever sit there conjuring Lizzie or Elinor or Marianne instead of listening?

Outside again, we explored the yew tree a second time, its tortuously twisting trunk, and its great hollow in which the church key was kept for years until it was stolen.  A tree that probably existed when the church was first built, and was already 700 years old when Jane played under it.  Incredible. 

From Steventon, we drove 30 minutes to Chawton, where Jane lived with her mother and sisters in a cottage given by their brother Edward, then heir to the Knight Family estate.  Jane was 33 when she moved to Chawton on July 7, 1809 (having lived for the past 8 years in Bath – more later!) 

I had imagined the cottage, even from the pictures, as being in a more rural setting, but it was at an intersection in Chawton, right on the street.  We lunched at The Grey Friar pub across the street, then joyfully explored the bookstore.  We chose to wander in the garden before entering the house; discovered, as previously mentioned, the dyeing garden where I discovered the blue woad plant and several other plants that I photographed for the 7^th grade Gathering Blue unit. 

I will probably let the pictures speak for the inside of the house:  drawing room with piano, the dining room set with some of the china she helped pick out, which looked remarkably like our cobalt and gold dishes, and her desk, round, worn, obviously loved…  I had to run my hand over it to feel – what?  The penmanship, the pages, the thoughts, the characters….?  There have been times when I have felt the presence of an author most palpably outdoors, in the garden (Shakespeare, Thoreau), but with Jane it was indoors, at this little table…. There was a door near where she wrote which, in her days, creaked; she asked that it not be repaired so that she would have notice of anyone coming, whereupon she slid her novel draft under a letter to keep her work secret…. 

The title pages of the first editions, also exhibited here, read as follows: 

Sense and Sensibility.  A Novel.  By A Lady.  

Pride and Prejudice.  A Novel. By the Author of Sense and Sensibility. 

Mansfield Park.  A Novel.  By the Author of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. 

Emma.  A Novel.  By the author of Pride and Prejudice, etc., etc. 

Seemingly a matter of importance not to reveal her identity.  Was this only because a real lady did not dabble in fiction?

Cabinets which displayed locks of her hair, a topaz cross brought to her by her brother, a needle case which she made for her niece.  In her bedroom, a sewing table, a water closet, a facsimile of the parish registry pages in which she (much to her father’s dismay, I’m guessing!) recorded the banns of marriage between herself and two or three fictitious men.  Bedrooms devoted to displays of her admiral brothers although they never lived in the cottage.

We then walked in increasing rain to St. Nicholas Church (somehow St. Nick is popular in this area) to see the graves of Jane’s mother and sister, both named Cassandra.  The church was the first of several buildings we saw in this area that were finished with flint.  At first we thought the stones were oyster shells, but a lovely lady in Winchester explained the use of flint to us on our Tuesday visit there.  When the rain subsided, we walked to the gate of Chawton House.  This was the 16^th C manor inherited by Edward Austen, Jane’s brother, when he was adopted by the Knight family.  A large, elegant estate.  I can see clearly where Jane might have drawn her inspiration for the dichotomy between Barton Park and the cottage given to the Dashwood ladies in Sense and Sensibility.  No matter how often they may have been asked to dine at the manor by her brother, Jane and her mother and sister would always have felt themselves second class.  Blessedly, the manor has since redeemed itself:  it is now, thanks to the work of American philanthropist Sandy Lerner and others, a library dedicated to early English women writers 1600-1830.  I took pictures of it in a threatening rain; I got no closer than the gate.  If I had been able to make an appointment for a visit, I would have been in my third or fourth heaven of the trip.  Someday.

We puddlejumped to our Kia and reset Gladys to take us to the Holiday Inn, outside of Winchester, where we spent the night.

In the footsteps of C. S. Lewis

Friday, July 15

From the time Meg was 3, Al began reading The Chronicles of Narnia aloud, and the stories have been a necessary part of Reichelt family lore ever since.  So on our last afternoon in Oxford, Al and I decided to explore further in the footsteps of C. S. Lewis, who studied, taught, wrote, and, of course, drank, in Oxford for most of his life.    After much map-wrestling, we found the bus that would take us out to Risinghurst, the neighborhood about 20 minutes outside Oxford where Lewis lived.  A lady on the bus overheard us asking the driver about the route and promised to show us where to get off.  Another of the serendipitous moments on this trip:  she happens to be one of the volunteer administrators of the C. S. Lewis Foundation living at the house, so we received escort to the front door of Lewis’ house, The Kilns.

The Kilns originally belonged to the family of Lewis’ friend Paddy Moore, who was killed in WWI.  Lewis moved into The Kilns with Paddy’s mom and sister, and when Mrs. Moore died, he took over the house.  During WWII, it was a house owned by a crotchety old professor (guess who?) who sheltered children from the London Blitz – certainly the inspiration (though on a much smaller scale) for the setting of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Since the house is now used as a residence for scholars working on C. S. Lewis, we had not expected, from the web info, to be allowed inside, and had hoped at the most to be allowed to take pictures of the outside and then to walk through his wooded property, now a nature preserve and the inspiration for Narnia.   However, Debbie Higgens, our bus-companion-turned-escort, hearing of our family and scholarly interest, left us for a few minutes in the garden while she went into the house to see whether the common rooms might be free for us to visit. 

While we waited, we took pictures of the house exterior, including Lewis’ punt, and the garden.  While we were in the garden, a cat decided to make friends with me, rubbing against my leg.  For once, unfortunately, I did not shake him off.  A sudden gust of wind slammed the front door of the house shut, and the cat, spooked by the noise, raked across the first 2 toes on my left foot and leaped, leaving slice lines which immediately poured blood into my sandal (Charlie Marlowe in Heart of Darkness, except that my blood-in-the-shoe experience involved my own blood. OK, so how bizarre is it that, with toes looking and burning as if they could be amputated on the dotted line, I was alluding to Heart of Darkness?)  But meanwhile, after much solicitous Neosporin-and-British-Band-Aid care from Debbie, we were brought into the common rooms of the house:  Lewis’ parlor, where the mustard-colored ceiling witnesses to the years of smoking and conversing by Lewis and his associates, where his desk still sits at the window; and the dining room, which shows the more feminine influence of his wife Joy Gresham (a late-blooming romance chronicled in the movie Shadowlands).  Random digression:  how appropriate that his semi-autobiographical work, Surprised by Joy, the account of his conversion from atheism to Christianity (an experience he referred to as “Joy”), should contain the name of his wife, whom he met, unexpectedly, late in life.  Mysterious are the workings…. We also received information about the all-night walk-and-talk with Tolkien, which was instrumental in Lewis’ conversion decision.

After our lovely time with Debbie in the house, we rambled through the nature preserve.  Narnia, indeed.  Wooded pathways, tangled trees under which I expected to see a badger or at least a beaver….  Al shot several pictures of a tree whose roots, if examined closely, could have been any number of slumbering animals!

After our wandering through Narnia, we hiked (yes, my toes hurt!) to Headington Quarry, the next town over, to Trinity Church, the site of Lewis’ grave.  This was the first of several churchyards we visited.  Intriguing to find that many grave plots have a headstone, and then a stone border around the burial plot in which a miniature garden is panted. Lewis’ grave is not a mini-garden, but a simple rectangular slab in the ground.  A simple, sacred spot.  I found a tiny pine cone nearby, which I picked up for Meg.  A bit of life in death.

Could not get into the church to see the plaque which indicated that Lewis worshipped there.  The story goes that he and his brother used to leave after communion and let the door slam behind them…  But we did find the Narnia window (created in memory of two parishioners who died very young).  Al shot a series of pictures through the outside bars:  Aslan, Mr. Beaver, Reepicheep, etc.  A glorious collage.

Limped back to the bus stop.  Al went to his final dinner with his class.  I, having finished my class at 11 that morning, returned to the garden at Worcester.  Walked along the pond and wished desperately that I had the camera (Al had it for his farewells) so that I could capture the water lights flaming up the trees which bordered the pond.  Wonderful solitary dinner at The Duke’s Cut for a final Oxford pub experience.  We took a late train back to London that night.

Saturday in London: rain, just slept and hung out.  Lovely to read, nap, write a bit.  Saturday night to Ariel and Peter’s club (Home House) – felt as if I was in one of the private London gentleman’s clubs of the 19^th C – completely elegant in décor, completely comfortable bar with plush leather chairs and sofas around small tables.  Corsican pizza down the street for dinner afterward. Wonderful conversation at all times.

One of the longest, most relaxing Sundays in ages – to the market (cheese, fish, flowers), nap, reading, sharing the cooking with Ariel and Peter – amounted to a Far Eastern cooking lesson (Cambodian fish curry; potatoes and spinach w wonderful spices).  Ariel and Peter work way too long and hard during the week, but I am envious of their weekends.  What I would give for weekends without grading and without both computers!!!!!

And so we prepared for our southern pilgrimage.

Oxford: the non-academics

While our AP Oxford community had a wonderful experience around the huge, toffee-covered table in the Rose Garden Room, we also enjoyed Oxford outside of class hours. 

During most lunch hours, I discovered an easy walk to a coffee shop for a flaky ham and cheese croissant for lunch, or, alternatively, cream tea with a scone.  Many of us found each other in the iconic Blackwell’s Bookstore, especially after we discovered how many of the books we were discussing had been edited by David Bradshaw, our Oxford don. (Heaven must include a series of Hampton Court and Worcester College gardens … and a Blackwell’s.)  Dinner at various pubs throughout the week, including The Eagle and Child.

On Monday evening, James led us in a walking tour of Oxford on which I took so many pictures of so many incredible limestone college buildings that I can no longer identify them all.  Of the 38 separate colleges, we passed Trinity, Braenose, St. John’s, Magdalen (pronounced “maudlin,” from which rose the connection between that word and a penitent Mary Magdalene), Christ Church (site of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Great Hall), Oriel, and Merton Colleges, as well as the Rhodes Scholar Center and J.R.R. Tolkien’s last home, 21 Merton Street (hearing, as we passed, the stories of how James and his fellow young Oxford students used to stalk J.R.R. when they saw him in the streets). 

It was important to James that we arrive in Magpie Lane (site of his first student lodgings in Oxford) by 9:05 PM.  He told us that every night at 9:05, the Great Tom, the loudest bell in Oxford, hanging in the Tom Tower of Christ Church, rings 101 times, signifying the 100 original scholars of the college plus one (added in 1663). Apparently the original signal was intended to indicate that all 101 had arrived back within the gates in time for their curfew!  It was also said to be a signal to all of the Oxford colleges to lock their gates; the Latin inscription on the bell is “Great Thomas the door closer of Oxford….”   Great Tom rings at 21:05 rather than at 21:00 UK time from back in the days when “Oxford time” was calculated at five minutes later than Greenwich time.

 So of course, we waited with anticipation.  But the bell never rang.  We never found out why, and considering the fact that the 101 bells have rung for centuries and in a completely unbroken sequence since WWII, we were disappointed.  Still haven’t found out what happened.  Meanwhile, we ended the evening at the oldest pub in Oxford, The Bear (1242).  Ironically, in the pub garden, a banner hung on the wall which read, “Living the Questions.”  It was an ad for a church community, but let’s just say it resonated with me for obvious reasons.  Perhaps a sign from God that I was meant to be imbibing and engaging in with excellent conversation in the pub garden before returning to Worcester!

Tuesday evening, we had a pub talk at The Duke’s Cut (a much more modern pub), followed by a performance of Macbeth in Trinity College Garden.  They sold blankets because it was so cold!  The performances were not as strong as we had hoped, and the use of the nine (?) witches in other parts of the play was, dare I say, “wyrd.”   We were a bit put off by the use of bright blue body paint (Fleance looked like a cross between a Loyola guy at Turkey Bowl and a member of the Blue Man Group (the drummers) who had forgotten to finish his paint). I discovered later, in Jane Austen’s garden, of all places, that the blue dye of the woad plant (our ML seventh graders will recognize this from Gathering Blue) was actually used as war paint by the early Britons, so, I’m sending silent thought-wave apologies to the Oxford Theater Guild!.  But it was lovely to hear the words again and to discover that I still have this play inside, probably from seven years of teaching it five times a day at St. Dom’s and three years of teaching it at St. Mark.  It may still be my favorite, strangely enough!

Wednesday afternoon and evening were free; after Blackwell’s shopping, just read in the dorm room and nursed the cold that had hit 3 days earlier, probably a result of the flight and the sudden temperature change (58-75 degrees F the whole time we were there).  Thursday evening, we had a private dinner at the High Table in the Worcester Great Hall – felt very like the Harry Potter faculty!  Avocado, tomato, and roasted pepper salad, guinea fowl with gratin potatoes and summer vegetables, a tart with clotted cream, good wine, and wonderful conversation.  Sat with James and discussed our links to Salesian spirituality and education, his wife’s struggle with cancer, etc.  A good final community evening.

We have all decided to stay in touch and share ideas; Mike Carson from Canada has, during this past week, created a Facebook page for us!  Nice!

Oxford: The People and the Methods

My wonderful classmates for the AP course were not as international as I had originally predicted.  In my American ignorance, I hadn’t realized how North American AP is.  IB is the more international direction – although we at NDP determined, a few years ago, that IB would not allow us to educate young woman in the particular direction that is our individual charism ….   There were 16 of us, including 2 Canadians, and those who taught further abroad (England, Berlin, Istanbul) were Americans teaching at American military-based schools or in comparable situations.  However, we were a marvelous mix of age and experience.  Although there were, of course, common readings, I came to realize, quickly, that for every work I had not read, there were works I knew better than many others.  (This is the kind of situation in which it is easy to feel yourself inferior when someone says, “The last time I read Virginia Woolf’s letters all the way through,” if you don’t perform an immediate reality check re: your own strengths.)

As I mentioned earlier, most of my colleagues have more hours/week scheduled for AP.  Many of their schools subscribe to the AP Equity Statement which stipulates that AP should be open to any student who is willing to put in the amount of work required.  I feel a bit guilty when I hear comments such as this:  “Students who score a 4 or 5 would have done so despite your teaching.”  I can’t help wanting to take a bit of credit for the eight 4s and eighteen 5s my 2011 students earned ….

Additional discovery:  the Oxford education operates on an intriguingly different pathway. I did not experience this in my Americanized AP class, whereas Al did in his course.  An Oxford (and, I am assuming, a Cambridge) education consists of courses in which one attends seminar classes on a particular topic.  However, each student also engages in a tutorial with the professor.  The professor provides a set of readings to the student.  Each week (or twice a week) the student writes an essay and meets one-on-one with the professor.  The meeting consists of a presentation/critique of the student’s essay and discussion of further direction.  There is incredible accountability, as well as an incredible relationship potential, in this model of education.  I now understand the source of the university model which dictates that a professor teach only 2-3 courses and maintains a large number of office hours (although I believe that the university tutorial model has devolved drastically in the US).  I also finally appreciate, 40 years after the fact, what my dear mentor Dr. John Hertz was trying to do when he asked me to skip the usual undergrad second-semester senior Chaucer course in favor of an independent study which involved a weekly meeting/discussion of medieval lit and which resulted in my thesis on water imagery in The Pearl.  My niece Carolyn is gearing up for a semester at Oxford which includes 3 tutorials; I think the experience will be an incredible turning point in her education.