Post Thirteen

How we loved London with its ancient walks, churches, and buildings, and its garden and parks. We stayed at the Park Lane Hotel, which is just across Park Lane from Green Park, a beautiful hotel and an excellent place to explore the city. I remember the wonderful bathroom with its enormous towels – you could wrap yourself in one entirely and be dry in minutes – never had seen one so large before.

We went to all the famous places and were impressed by the Wren Churches, especially St. Paul’s. We walked through Chelsea and loved the Kensington Gardens and Kew Gardens. In Kew, the lilacs were in blossom and I wrote a poem about it on my return home.

One day, we drove to Oxford with Dr. Cole and Nelly Eales, friends of my brother, Oliver. Dr. Cole was a graduate of Oxford and was eager to take us there, and I don’t wonder he was proud of the ancient University – its colleges, its walks and its river made a deep and lasting impression on me. Then we went into Bodleian Library. They were conferring honorary degrees on eminent men from all parts of the world. Everything was spoken in Latin. I deplored the modern education that excluded Latin from the curriculum. Such a memorable day and not a drop of rain to spoil it.

Shortly after we left London to visit the North and my relatives, Uncle George and Aunt Amanda, my mother’s sister. They met us in Manchester with a car and we drove through the murky, sodden atmosphere of Manchester and the cotton manufacturing valley, seeing the huge mills and one that made me reminiscent of our days in Edenfield. The “Mitchell-Ashworth and Stansfield “sign over one of the huge mills – not cotton, however, but woolen. The Stansfields had for hundreds of years had been “in wool”. I don’t think there was a Stansfield there, then – but they kept the name.

There isn’t much to tell about our visit there except our trip to York. Uncle George had a car and we – Aunt Amanda, Uncle George, Aunt Susanna (my mother’s other sister) and Claude and I started out joyfully – except for the fact that and Ennis (aunt Susanna’s daughter) refused to go. It being Sunday and she felt she had to teach her Sunday school class. Aunt Amanda was furious and said she could get a substitute, which she had planned to do. It was dreadful, but she was adamant and we left without her.

But that wasn’t the worst of the day. In York we visited the beautiful cathedral and explored the ancient Saxon ruins which lie beneath the cathedral. I remember going into the waiting room of some minister of the cathedral and seeing a set of Chinese paper mâché chairs, almost as beautiful as my inlaid table. We walked on the old Roman wall and visited Bootham School nearby, where my brother Oliver went to school. And finally, we went to the old street called the “Shambles” where one could buy all sorts of old things. I came away with a lovely old pewter serving dish or rather platter.

Coming home, we thought it would be nice to go through Harrogate – the famous Spa, or Watering Place – a rival of Bath. A beautiful place with woods and walks For the seekers after health could take the air. We had tea there, and there began our troubles. Apparently, Aunt Susanna had diabetes, but she ate all the good things set out in a tempting array before us, with the result of a violent upsurge of these goodies into the car. Poor Daddy and Uncle George! How manfully they cleaned the mess, each time it happened. Probably Uncle George had done this before, but I knew Daddy never had, and I silently praised him.