Discovering London

I’ve just finished my latest jigsaw – based on the A-Z of London.

My parents knew London reasonably well. Whenever they came back from the Far East a stay in London happened, especially after my brother was born. He was born with a heart problem & ended up spending quite a time as a baby & young child in Guy’s Hospital, which was then the only hospital specialising in such treatment. He never got transferred to a hospital in Manchester, where we moved to in 1957, until the late 1970s.

London is a place I’ve rarely visited. When I was in my early teens my parents decided it was time my brother & I should get to know the capital of our country. We did all the major sites of the time – the Tower of London, Hyde Park, Madame Tussauds, Baker Street (my brother was heavily into Sherlock Holmes at the time), the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace & the Changing of the Guard etc. We also visited some places outside London itself such as Kew Gardens & Hampton Court. However I was still of the age when you just follow your parents rather than really gaining an insight of where one thing is in relation to another – a sense magnified by the use of the Underground so you never walk from one to another.

While in my 6^th form at school, I did a course in France. This meant, I & a fellow classmate, went down on the overnight bus to London to join the main expedition from Victoria Station. Needless to say we arrived far too early for the train so we put our cases in lockers (there were such things in those days!), & had a stroll, discovering that Buckingham Palace was not far away.

One university vacation my brother & I had a few days' holiday in London, with the inevitable trip to Guy’s. While he went to the hospital, I visited St Paul’s & started to discover London for myself. I loved St Bride’s Church just nearby.

My next trip was down to London was for a job interview so I discovered Berkeley Square. Another interviewee came from the northwest & we were to work together. We decided to get to know each other a bit & agreed to travel back together. To fill the time in before the next train back we went to explore London a bit. She particularly wanted to see Monet’s “Waterlilies” which was on special loan to the National Gallery at the time. And so I began my love affair with Monet. We didn’t stop to look at any other picture. Instead we went on for a quick look at Westminster Abbey before heading back to Euston Station & home.

My next trip to London was for the Fox’s 60^th birthday celebration. We stayed in a hotel just off Regent Street & around the corner from Trafalgar Square. The main point of the trip was to go to see “Les Miserables”, which we loved. We also had a walk down to the Houses of Parliament & back along Horse Guards Parade & Green Park. The hunt for food got us to Leicester Square. While we had some time waiting we popped into the National Portrait Gallery.

Since then my only visits to London have been when we’ve gone to France by train. We never really saw London as we just quickly hopped into a taxi from Euston Station to St Pancras Station & vice versa.

Even now, I feel I barely know London. Many of the names I recognise from playing Monopoly as a child, or references in books & films. Doing this jigsaw has helped me, for the time being, to get some idea of where the various areas are. It also made me more aware of where this awful London fire occurred, & last night’s atrocity in Finsbury.

My mother always loved London. She reckoned one of the great things about the city was just the number of parks. You never seemed to be far away from an area of greenness. Looking at this map I can see why she said that, even in London of today.

However, I still don’t feel I’ve really got to know London. I feel I’ve just scratched the surface, but maybe that’s inevitable unless you live in a place, especially when it is the size of a city. And I have no desire to live in any city, preferring life by the sea up north. Strangely I almost feel I know Paris better than I know London. That’s saying something!