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Scotland III: The End; England III: Yorkshire
Written yesterday, posted today that I finally got access again. Though unfortunately not much time; I love this journey, but the internet withdrawal symptoms are setting in severely, as I miss you all dreadfully....
While I was labouring in the National Library of Scotland, my aged parent managed to aquire tickets for the Military Tattoo that takes place next to Edinburgh Castle. Which was a minor miracle, but he managed it. Said event takes place between August 2nd to August 26th, at 9 pm, and the military bands playing aren’t just from British Regiments but apparantly from every Commonwealth army which still has Scottish regiments, such as Newzealand and Australia, or South Africa, or Nepal. There are also performances by enthusiasts from other countries, as on this evening by a Chinese school from Sezuan, by the choir from Uganda which as it turned out we had seen the evening before on the road. For Dad, who took pictures of every other changing of the guard in existence everywhere in the world he visited, it was a kind of apotheosis. (Don’t ask me how his passion for changes of the guard squares with his dislike of royalty. It’s just a thing.) As it turned it out, it was a splendid show. Dad was most impressed by the Swiss band which literaly juggled with their drumsticks while they were playing their instruments, and my own favourites were the New Zealand guys who weren’t announced as the world’s most innovative military band for nothing. They played film themes, starting with one which was a march before it became cinema history, I know that, but it’s still “the one from “Bridge over the River Kwai” for me, and I forgot the real name, and went through a selection which included the James Bond theme. (I was waiting for something from LOTR, but alas, no.) The grand finale was a display of the Maori war dance (don’t kill me, New Zealand people, I don’t remember the correct term!)
The traditional Scottish sword dance was performed by Scottish and South African dancers in unison. Given the occasional fireworks and canon salutes from the castle, I’m sure every citizen of Edinburgh was kept awake, for the record. We were lucky with the weather, because a very few drops early on aside, it remained dry throughout. Speaking of the start of the show, just a few minutes before the beginning a limousine arrived and out came, as the announcer put it, “her royal highness the Princess Royal”. Behind me, a woman of around fifty who sounded completely like Jackie Tyler got out her mobile and excitedly called her parents, demanding her father, and once she got him, said: “Guess who just walked in, Da! Princess Anne!”
(Mine own father, after the performance: “...so I figured the Duchess of Kent could just as well...”
Self: “Duchess of Kent? Was she there as well?”
Dad: “But she was announced, wasn’t she?”
Self: “Dad, that was Anne.”
Dad: “That was Anne? But I thought she had already died. Doesn’t matter. They all look alike anyway. Inbreeding. Get rid of them, I say.“ )
Gentle reader, she wore an evening gown in tourquois and my aged father took a picture of her anyway. The leader of each performing regiments saluted her at the end of their bit, and Anne rose to accept the salute accordingly. To me, she was a part of the show.
Our tickets were for places far away from each other, so we had arranged to meet at the church where the Edinburgh Festival has it s central office, and meet we did, returning to our hotel whistling Scottish tunes.
Tuesday started with a return to Edinburgh Castle. My father missed his traditionally dressed Scottish soldiers (as opposed to ordinary policemen), but was happy to discover that since he turned 60 last year, he now qualified for concession tickets whereever National Trust membership did not apply. The splendid view and the gigantic canon which killed off one Scottish king who tried it out did also appeal. Speaking of canons, we were a bit disillusioned to find out that those who we thought had been used the previous evening actually had modern weapons fixed on them to present just this illusion to the public. The oddest, most touching spot within the castle walls was the little cemetary for the dogs of the soldiers, complete with flowers and tombstones.
Walking down from the castle, we went to St. Giles, which I hadn’t visited before. Dad pronounced it the French way, which sounds like “Schills” when written phonetically in German. “DSCHAILS!” I exclaimed, being trained by Mr. Whedon in this. Anyway, next we went to the Writer’s Museum, which is mainly about the three big boys of the country, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and Robert Burns but also, until September 2nd, offers a special exhibition dedicated to Dorothy Dunnett. Which includes the typewriter she used until illness made her give in and go computer. Guiltily, I reflected I still haven’t started the Niccolo series, despite having the first volume for ages. But I did read “King Hereafter”, her Macbeth novel, which I loved.
In front of the museum, you have stone plates in the ground full of quotes of Scottish writers. DD aside, the one who caught my eye was Naomi Mitchinson. As far as the inside of the museum is concerned, what struck me was the Robert Louis Stevenson part and those photos showing him in Samoa, with Somoans. Somehow the clarity of the pictures of these islands at that age seems so odd, and yet there it was, and there he was, RLS, happy as a lark while wasting away. One of his quotes, about prefering to take Alexandre Dumas Pére as reading material to Shakespeare when it came to bringing something on his very literal island, made me smile and want to hug him. (Despite probably giving the Bard the preference myself though I love Dumas, just not as much.)
After a short stint at the Scottish National Gallery we left Edinburgh and visited Stirling Castle, where everybody and their murdered favourite seems to have shown up at one time or the other, whether it was Robert the Bruce & William Wallace, Rob Roy, or Mary the none too bright Stuart. It has a splendid view in all directions, and I’m happy to report that no statues anywhere look like either Mel Gibson or Liam Neeson (nothing against Liam, of course).
Moving back to the Edinburgh area we visited what has to be one of the most beautiful Gothic chapels ever, and I got a kick out of the fact it is called the Rosslyn Chapel, in Roslin. Like its namesake, it’s elegant and something of a mystery. Willam St. Clair, one of Robert the Bruce’s buddies, had it made by Portuegese masons and some Mediterranean playfulness and joyfulness shows in the incredibly rich detail. No one has figured out the meaning of many of the ornaments yet, though, such as all the Green Men ( = faces that look like they’re made of roots) which are presented all over the place, more than anywhere else in Britain.
Next we headed towards border territory, or, to use the phrase P. F. Chilsholm has taught me, Debatable Land. Abbotsford, the house Walter Scott build himself, makes Wahnfried (aka the place Richard Wagner build himself when he got the cash from Ludwig II) look small and modest. It’s one splendid medieval extravaganza. Sir Walter reputedly died of a heart attack because of all the stress caused by writing enough novels to pay off the expense. At least that’s what our guide told us. The garden still looks lovely, full of flowers and statues presenting characters from Scott’s work, and the interior shows off Walter the fanboy. Because he doesn’t have just any old weapons hanging from the walls, no, it’s “Rob Roy’s Sword”, “Rob Roy’s Dirk”, “Rob Roy’s Gun”, oh, and “Gun belonging to a lieutenant of Andreas Hofer”, for what few fans the Tyrolean guy fighting the French has.
Now Scott didn’t build his very own Gothic House into this area just by accident. He did it because Melrose Abbey is nearby. And who can blame him? We went there and were very much in awe. Like the nearby abbey at Jedburgh, all that’s left are ruins, but whereas Jedburgh comes across as somewhat solid and robust in yellow sandstone, Melrose is all slender elegance and a lyrical dream in red, with its pillars and high arches. And one suspects that reformation and border raids aside, it had to be destroyed just to become this way, so poems could be written about it.
(Oh, and the heart of Robert the Bruce was buried there as well.)
The B&B we spent in was probably the most lovely yet, with our hostess playing Die Fledermaus in our honour and the cat of the house coming to purr a greeting while we were sitting on the sofa sipping tea. Once I got to see our room plus adjoining bathroom, I was awed, because the bathroom had a bath with candles. I felt like a decadent soap opera character and had to try bathing with candles out at once. It was divine.
Wednesday was when we left Scotland for good and returned to England. Our first destination was Alnwick Castle, the home of the Percys, first Earls and then Dukes of Northumberland. Harry Hotspur had his statue in one of the courtyards and would have been gratified, one hopes, that it’s directly before the entrance to the kid’s training-to-be-a-knight-for-a-day area. Now the history of the castle and the fact it’s incredibly well preserved would have been reason enough to pay a visit, but it has also something of a cinematic and tv history. Blackadder, “Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves” (aka the one where only the villains sound English) and all of the Harry Potter movies, you name them, they shot them here. So I visited sort-of-Hogwarts. Which is very well preserved, and does a lot to entertain the kids, such as the above mentioned knightly training ground, plus “Harry Spotter” tours in addition to the normal tours in the offering. The state rooms which can be visited offer here a Turner and there a Tizian and here a Louis XIV cabinet and there a Florentine table until you no longer doubt the current Duke of Northumberland is one of the richest men in England. Incidentally, there are also a lot of photographs of the family which uses the castle as its residence in the winter months when it’s closed to the public. The Heir Apparent, called Gareth, I think, has just turned 21, so the guide in the room said. “Has to be the most in demand bachelor of the country,” my father said later, “without any of the disadvantages of the Royals and all the advantages.” “What, no ‘get rid of hm’?” I asked.
Sadly, the weather turned against us again when we really could have used some sun, i.e. when we arrived at the best perserved part of Hadrian’s Wall. But no, we got the proverbial cats and dogs instead. Never mind, though, it was clearly a case of getting the umbrellas out and empathizing with the Roman soldiers who were stationed there all those centuries ago. Though the tablets informed us they were actually Belgians and Germans, so spare your pity, Italians. Anyway, we weren’t the only ones walking between ruins and in rain – so were a couple of kids hunting down representations of Roman soldiers, which was another game the National Trust guys had invented to keep the children occupied while their parents were sight seeing.
By the time we made it to our next station, the weather was fine again. I knew precisely two things about Durham before – that it had a famous cathedral, and that Byron and Annabella Milbanke got married here. (They spent their honeymoon, or, as Byron put it, “treacle moon” in Seaham which as I could see wasn’t that far away, and two people less suited to another you can’t imagine.) We parked our car in the next parking house and walked through the town which, like Salisbury, managed to be old but not overrun by tourists (at least when we were there). The cathedral looks fantastic, especially when you cross the bridge and see it from the other side of the river. One big battleship of a cathedral as opposed to the more sleek sailing vessels that were Salisbury and Winchester. Though alas taking photos inside was forbidden, I can report that the columms were far more voluminous than those in the cathedrals I was used to, and each was carved differently. There weren’t just memorial plates for the bishops and for the nobility, either; one big one was for the Durham miners who died in the mines. Behind the high alter, in the apsis, there was a piece of modern art which I found very touching - a pieta which was made, or was made to look as if it was – of splindered old wood of a tree, one figure the mother, and one her dead son, with the material of the splintered trees from which the figures were carved adding to the death-and-life them perfectly.
Tonight’s B&B is a farm which alas offers the first room which is just too small to sit in, so I’m using the living room instead, typing my report. Who knows when I’ll be able to send it...
While I was labouring in the National Library of Scotland, my aged parent managed to aquire tickets for the Military Tattoo that takes place next to Edinburgh Castle. Which was a minor miracle, but he managed it. Said event takes place between August 2nd to August 26th, at 9 pm, and the military bands playing aren’t just from British Regiments but apparantly from every Commonwealth army which still has Scottish regiments, such as Newzealand and Australia, or South Africa, or Nepal. There are also performances by enthusiasts from other countries, as on this evening by a Chinese school from Sezuan, by the choir from Uganda which as it turned out we had seen the evening before on the road. For Dad, who took pictures of every other changing of the guard in existence everywhere in the world he visited, it was a kind of apotheosis. (Don’t ask me how his passion for changes of the guard squares with his dislike of royalty. It’s just a thing.) As it turned it out, it was a splendid show. Dad was most impressed by the Swiss band which literaly juggled with their drumsticks while they were playing their instruments, and my own favourites were the New Zealand guys who weren’t announced as the world’s most innovative military band for nothing. They played film themes, starting with one which was a march before it became cinema history, I know that, but it’s still “the one from “Bridge over the River Kwai” for me, and I forgot the real name, and went through a selection which included the James Bond theme. (I was waiting for something from LOTR, but alas, no.) The grand finale was a display of the Maori war dance (don’t kill me, New Zealand people, I don’t remember the correct term!)
The traditional Scottish sword dance was performed by Scottish and South African dancers in unison. Given the occasional fireworks and canon salutes from the castle, I’m sure every citizen of Edinburgh was kept awake, for the record. We were lucky with the weather, because a very few drops early on aside, it remained dry throughout. Speaking of the start of the show, just a few minutes before the beginning a limousine arrived and out came, as the announcer put it, “her royal highness the Princess Royal”. Behind me, a woman of around fifty who sounded completely like Jackie Tyler got out her mobile and excitedly called her parents, demanding her father, and once she got him, said: “Guess who just walked in, Da! Princess Anne!”
(Mine own father, after the performance: “...so I figured the Duchess of Kent could just as well...”
Self: “Duchess of Kent? Was she there as well?”
Dad: “But she was announced, wasn’t she?”
Self: “Dad, that was Anne.”
Dad: “That was Anne? But I thought she had already died. Doesn’t matter. They all look alike anyway. Inbreeding. Get rid of them, I say.“ )
Gentle reader, she wore an evening gown in tourquois and my aged father took a picture of her anyway. The leader of each performing regiments saluted her at the end of their bit, and Anne rose to accept the salute accordingly. To me, she was a part of the show.
Our tickets were for places far away from each other, so we had arranged to meet at the church where the Edinburgh Festival has it s central office, and meet we did, returning to our hotel whistling Scottish tunes.
Tuesday started with a return to Edinburgh Castle. My father missed his traditionally dressed Scottish soldiers (as opposed to ordinary policemen), but was happy to discover that since he turned 60 last year, he now qualified for concession tickets whereever National Trust membership did not apply. The splendid view and the gigantic canon which killed off one Scottish king who tried it out did also appeal. Speaking of canons, we were a bit disillusioned to find out that those who we thought had been used the previous evening actually had modern weapons fixed on them to present just this illusion to the public. The oddest, most touching spot within the castle walls was the little cemetary for the dogs of the soldiers, complete with flowers and tombstones.
Walking down from the castle, we went to St. Giles, which I hadn’t visited before. Dad pronounced it the French way, which sounds like “Schills” when written phonetically in German. “DSCHAILS!” I exclaimed, being trained by Mr. Whedon in this. Anyway, next we went to the Writer’s Museum, which is mainly about the three big boys of the country, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and Robert Burns but also, until September 2nd, offers a special exhibition dedicated to Dorothy Dunnett. Which includes the typewriter she used until illness made her give in and go computer. Guiltily, I reflected I still haven’t started the Niccolo series, despite having the first volume for ages. But I did read “King Hereafter”, her Macbeth novel, which I loved.
In front of the museum, you have stone plates in the ground full of quotes of Scottish writers. DD aside, the one who caught my eye was Naomi Mitchinson. As far as the inside of the museum is concerned, what struck me was the Robert Louis Stevenson part and those photos showing him in Samoa, with Somoans. Somehow the clarity of the pictures of these islands at that age seems so odd, and yet there it was, and there he was, RLS, happy as a lark while wasting away. One of his quotes, about prefering to take Alexandre Dumas Pére as reading material to Shakespeare when it came to bringing something on his very literal island, made me smile and want to hug him. (Despite probably giving the Bard the preference myself though I love Dumas, just not as much.)
After a short stint at the Scottish National Gallery we left Edinburgh and visited Stirling Castle, where everybody and their murdered favourite seems to have shown up at one time or the other, whether it was Robert the Bruce & William Wallace, Rob Roy, or Mary the none too bright Stuart. It has a splendid view in all directions, and I’m happy to report that no statues anywhere look like either Mel Gibson or Liam Neeson (nothing against Liam, of course).
Moving back to the Edinburgh area we visited what has to be one of the most beautiful Gothic chapels ever, and I got a kick out of the fact it is called the Rosslyn Chapel, in Roslin. Like its namesake, it’s elegant and something of a mystery. Willam St. Clair, one of Robert the Bruce’s buddies, had it made by Portuegese masons and some Mediterranean playfulness and joyfulness shows in the incredibly rich detail. No one has figured out the meaning of many of the ornaments yet, though, such as all the Green Men ( = faces that look like they’re made of roots) which are presented all over the place, more than anywhere else in Britain.
Next we headed towards border territory, or, to use the phrase P. F. Chilsholm has taught me, Debatable Land. Abbotsford, the house Walter Scott build himself, makes Wahnfried (aka the place Richard Wagner build himself when he got the cash from Ludwig II) look small and modest. It’s one splendid medieval extravaganza. Sir Walter reputedly died of a heart attack because of all the stress caused by writing enough novels to pay off the expense. At least that’s what our guide told us. The garden still looks lovely, full of flowers and statues presenting characters from Scott’s work, and the interior shows off Walter the fanboy. Because he doesn’t have just any old weapons hanging from the walls, no, it’s “Rob Roy’s Sword”, “Rob Roy’s Dirk”, “Rob Roy’s Gun”, oh, and “Gun belonging to a lieutenant of Andreas Hofer”, for what few fans the Tyrolean guy fighting the French has.
Now Scott didn’t build his very own Gothic House into this area just by accident. He did it because Melrose Abbey is nearby. And who can blame him? We went there and were very much in awe. Like the nearby abbey at Jedburgh, all that’s left are ruins, but whereas Jedburgh comes across as somewhat solid and robust in yellow sandstone, Melrose is all slender elegance and a lyrical dream in red, with its pillars and high arches. And one suspects that reformation and border raids aside, it had to be destroyed just to become this way, so poems could be written about it.
(Oh, and the heart of Robert the Bruce was buried there as well.)
The B&B we spent in was probably the most lovely yet, with our hostess playing Die Fledermaus in our honour and the cat of the house coming to purr a greeting while we were sitting on the sofa sipping tea. Once I got to see our room plus adjoining bathroom, I was awed, because the bathroom had a bath with candles. I felt like a decadent soap opera character and had to try bathing with candles out at once. It was divine.
Wednesday was when we left Scotland for good and returned to England. Our first destination was Alnwick Castle, the home of the Percys, first Earls and then Dukes of Northumberland. Harry Hotspur had his statue in one of the courtyards and would have been gratified, one hopes, that it’s directly before the entrance to the kid’s training-to-be-a-knight-for-a-day area. Now the history of the castle and the fact it’s incredibly well preserved would have been reason enough to pay a visit, but it has also something of a cinematic and tv history. Blackadder, “Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves” (aka the one where only the villains sound English) and all of the Harry Potter movies, you name them, they shot them here. So I visited sort-of-Hogwarts. Which is very well preserved, and does a lot to entertain the kids, such as the above mentioned knightly training ground, plus “Harry Spotter” tours in addition to the normal tours in the offering. The state rooms which can be visited offer here a Turner and there a Tizian and here a Louis XIV cabinet and there a Florentine table until you no longer doubt the current Duke of Northumberland is one of the richest men in England. Incidentally, there are also a lot of photographs of the family which uses the castle as its residence in the winter months when it’s closed to the public. The Heir Apparent, called Gareth, I think, has just turned 21, so the guide in the room said. “Has to be the most in demand bachelor of the country,” my father said later, “without any of the disadvantages of the Royals and all the advantages.” “What, no ‘get rid of hm’?” I asked.
Sadly, the weather turned against us again when we really could have used some sun, i.e. when we arrived at the best perserved part of Hadrian’s Wall. But no, we got the proverbial cats and dogs instead. Never mind, though, it was clearly a case of getting the umbrellas out and empathizing with the Roman soldiers who were stationed there all those centuries ago. Though the tablets informed us they were actually Belgians and Germans, so spare your pity, Italians. Anyway, we weren’t the only ones walking between ruins and in rain – so were a couple of kids hunting down representations of Roman soldiers, which was another game the National Trust guys had invented to keep the children occupied while their parents were sight seeing.
By the time we made it to our next station, the weather was fine again. I knew precisely two things about Durham before – that it had a famous cathedral, and that Byron and Annabella Milbanke got married here. (They spent their honeymoon, or, as Byron put it, “treacle moon” in Seaham which as I could see wasn’t that far away, and two people less suited to another you can’t imagine.) We parked our car in the next parking house and walked through the town which, like Salisbury, managed to be old but not overrun by tourists (at least when we were there). The cathedral looks fantastic, especially when you cross the bridge and see it from the other side of the river. One big battleship of a cathedral as opposed to the more sleek sailing vessels that were Salisbury and Winchester. Though alas taking photos inside was forbidden, I can report that the columms were far more voluminous than those in the cathedrals I was used to, and each was carved differently. There weren’t just memorial plates for the bishops and for the nobility, either; one big one was for the Durham miners who died in the mines. Behind the high alter, in the apsis, there was a piece of modern art which I found very touching - a pieta which was made, or was made to look as if it was – of splindered old wood of a tree, one figure the mother, and one her dead son, with the material of the splintered trees from which the figures were carved adding to the death-and-life them perfectly.
Tonight’s B&B is a farm which alas offers the first room which is just too small to sit in, so I’m using the living room instead, typing my report. Who knows when I’ll be able to send it...