The Eaton Diary of London 2001
You know how some days just stand out in your memory.
Weddings, funerals, special birthdays, graduations, baptisms and the like. Well
we've had a few outstanding days since arriving in London, and by all accounts
today had 'red letter day' written all over it from the outset. Speaking of
Baptisms, it's interesting also, how that theme keeps coming up. Our Baptist
background again seemed to play a significant role as our day unfolded.
I'd had my baptism of fire a couple of weeks ago at
Chalk Farm School, but today we were looking forward to a resurrection of sorts.
We were eagerly anticipating the visit of some familiar and friendly faces of
folks from home. Deane and Margaret Woods, friends from Edwardstown Baptist
Church, flew in to Heathrow this morning and we arranged to meet them in the
beautiful hotel that was of a part of their airline package. What a treat.
We arrived in the hotel foyer at about 3.30pm, having
given them time to unpack and rest after their long flight from Australia via
Singapore. We called their room, but finding them out, we decided to enjoy a
cool drink with peanuts and olives in the ground floor bar, as we waited for
their return. Margie availed herself of the restroom facilities and reported
that, after our recent experiences, it was such a delightful restroom that she
felt she could have happily lingered longer, enjoying the refreshing
surroundings. Fresh and clean, light and bright, refreshing and fragrant, are
not concepts that have sprung to mind lately - and certainly not in reference to
restrooms.
This was especially brought home to me just this
morning, when I witnessed how the contract cleaners of our building remove the
rubbish. On each of the 4 floors in this old Nurses' hostel, bins lined with
plastic garbage bags are provided and are supposed to be emptied every weekday.
Today they were removing the weekend's rubbish. I observed the cleaners dragging
20 or so big plastics bags of rubbish down our stairs, spilling all sorts of
rubbish as they went. 'Charming!' I thought. They did come back and mop the
stairs a little, but the stains remain on the foyer carpet. Having come from
that, imagine our delight as we sat in the hotel foyer, awaiting Deane and
Margaret. They joined us before long for a joyful reunion. They seemed rested
enough to tackle a little of London's delights, so we planned to really make
this a red-letter day. Deanne was celebrating a significant birthday, so we had
to make it memorable, and London and the Eatons weren't about to let him down.
A Chicken and French Champagne dinner with silver
service, and London cab to the Savoy for some extraordinary theatre would seem
appropriate for a man of Deane's status and station. Well, we did our best at
short notice and came very close. The chicken, we managed, because Deane and
Margaret had picked up a hot chicken at the local supermarket. The Champagne -
well it was a party of Baptists after all, so orange juice from plastic cups
'borrowed' from the airline did the trick quite nicely. As for the silver
service – well the service was excellent, and plastic bags on our laps in the
hotel room worked just fine. The meal tasted just the same anyway, and we didn't
even feel obliged to tip the waitress. So far so good, our evening's celebration
was going well.
Having booked 4 seats at the Savoy to see Patricia
Routledge in Oscar Wilde's 'The Importance of Being Earnest', our next trick was
to get there. London cabs are so efficient and reliable, we thought 'How boring
is that - we need something memorable for this red-letter day.' So we headed for
King's Cross Tube station to give Deane and Margaret their baptism of fire.
Thirty minutes to go just 3 stops and short walk through Covent Garden Markets
to the Strand should be tons of time, and it would give them a taste of the real
London that we have grown to love these last few weeks - Tube stations!
We headed underground, following the signs for the
Westward Piccadilly line. The platform seemed unusually crowded, but we found
some space and waited patiently. Shortly the silence was broken by the all too
familiar announcement, 'Due to a security alert at Gloucester road station, we
are experiencing serious delays on the Piccadilly line. The next train is
expected in 10 minutes.' Margie starts thinking a London cab is looking really
good, but we've bought the tickets now, and Deane and Margaret need to
experience London underground. We wait and eventually a very full train arrives.
We've subtly moved ourselves closer to the front, to give ourselves a fighting
chance to get on. Some hot and bothered passengers force themselves off the
train, including one brave musician with his double bass, so that gave us some
hope.
All four of us manage to get in the doorway along with
many other hopefuls. The driver is very helpful, because he announces that 'due
to the security scare, another train won't be coming for at least ten minutes,
so if you want to go anywhere, you'd better get on this train now'. So another
hundred or so try to get on. Margaret in particular is beginning to question the
virtues of this system, which is now so dear to our hearts. There was one saving
grace. A young Japanese man was willing to sacrifice his place on the train, to
help all of us get on. He had obviously experienced the professional pushers who
spend their lives pushing bodies onto similarly crowded trains in Tokyo. He
graciously used all available hands, feet and hips to push as many butts as he
could through the closing doors. Deane just managed to duck his head to ensure
all essential parts made it safely inside. Baptism symbolises death to self, and
this certainly felt like it.
I was reminded again of that cute children's song I'd
done with the Junior Primaries at Craigmore about a baby sardine who encounters
her first submarine, and is comforted by her mother with the delightful line,
'It's only a tin full of people'. Sardines and submarines have already become
familiar images for us seasoned Tube travellers, so I was pleased that Deane and
Margaret could witness that I wasn't making it all up, and that they could share
in this classic example of 'a tin full of people.'
I suspect we'll only get Margaret back on a Tube train
between 7 and 8 am on a Sunday morning, but we did all survive and made it to
Covent Garden station by 6.55pm. The box office was holding our tickets until
7pm, so I ran on ahead following the 'A-Z' to the theatre on the Strand, and
Margie led the way for the others, asking directions where necessary. (Asking
for directions! - now there's another story we'll need to pursue sometime
later.)
With tickets in hand and reunited with the others, we
proceeded into the lavishly appointed, intimate Savoy Theatre. The empty seats
filled up surprising quickly and the curtain rose. From the outset, we all
enjoyed the experience and the performance. The baptism theme kept recurring
however, with the play's amusing references to the adult christening of the two
young men, and the passing references to dangers to one's health, if one were to
receive more than a mere sprinkling. This has been proven, it seems, by the
'morbidity among the Baptists'. With this fresh in our minds, the curtain fell
for Intermission. As if on cue to heighten the dramatic effect, the four of us
fully immersed Baptists, were singled out to receive a special sprinkling
between the Acts. We had joined the crowd in orderly lines up the Dress Circle
steps to purchase some refreshments, when suddenly the four of us were liberally
sprinkled with a refreshing shower from above. We quickly looked heavenward for
some sign of this baptism's significance, only to see a very embarrassed young
lady fretting over her liquid refreshment now spilt over the balustrade above
us. Our spontaneous reaction to this unexpected blessing was uproarious
laughter. We just hope that it doesn't get out that Principal Dr Woods and
party, whilst in the midst of a diligent quest into the matter of being earnest,
received a symbolic sprinkling from on high, dispensed by an unknown female
celebrant in the Savoy Theatre, London, and that just hours before the close of
his sixth decade. If you hear any such rumours, be sure to let everyone know
that Principal Woods’ position on Baptism has in fact not changed, and he is
not starting any movement known as the ‘Savoy Blessing’
The memorable celebrations continued through the rest
of the performance and back to the hotel, where Margaret W continue to promote
the Baptism theme by insisting that Margie and I should feel free to avail
ourselves of their lovely ensuite facilities and follow our previous sprinkling
with total immersion in a lovely hot bath. (Discretely of course.) You see, it
had come up in conversation that the boilers in our Hostel had broken down and
we were now in our 5th day without a hot shower. We were not sure whether her
kind offer was for our sake, or for their sake and all the others who were
forced to invade our personal space in that 'tin full of people.'
All in all, another memorable day.
© Copyright 2001 H Grant Eaton Contact: granteaton@usa.net