Churchill Day – Day Three In London

We woke up, regretting some of the tequila based decisions we had made the previous evening, but ready for another day of fun in the city where the streets are paved with gold.

Titchy had booked tickets for the Churchill War Rooms as the final cherry on top of the icing on top of the fancy cake that was my Christmas gift.  Excited?  You bet I was.

We had breakfast in the sun, sitting on the corner of Birdcage Walk and Horse Guards Road, tucked into the corner of St James’s Park.  I needed a pastry and hot chocolate themed pick me up and it turned out to be the perfect spot.  Once again, if you were dropped into this spot at that time you would never have thought you were in central London, there was hardly anyone around and, save for the odd passing car, hardly any background noise apart from chirping birds and the slurp of hot chocolate.

We chomped at the flaky goodness and watched a police dog being trained in the park. He looked absolutely primed and ready to go should there ever be an emergency involving a missing tennis ball.  This dog had Wimbledon written all over it.  Not literally of course, that would be a dangerous endeavour to say the least.

Dusting ourselves off of pastry flakes and icing sugar topping, we made the short walk over the road to the War Rooms.  We dropped down a dozen or so steps, past security and ticket checks, popped our audio kit on and then spent the best part of three hours walking through history.

Every aspect of Churchill’s life was covered from birth to death.  The fact that some would try to talk this guy down when he was the one person brave enough to stand up to actual fascism is, in my view at least, a disgrace.  Without him, I strongly suspect that this blog would be written in German and I’d possibly be less able to write the words I want to with such freedom.

During the war years, the fear of aerial bombardment meant that the day to day of a lot of government administration was taken underground into the Cabinet War Rooms.  At the end of the war in August 1945 the doors were locked and pretty much left untouched until the 1970’s when they were handed over to the Imperial War Museum before being opened to the public in the late 1980’s.

They were so well preserved that in one of the draws in the map room, the sugar ration of Wing Commander John Heagerty was  found, undisturbed, inside an envelope.  It really did feel like you were walking through history, it was incredible to be in there and to be able to take in all the sights and smells.

Having spent a number of days almost drowning in history it was time to move on and make our way back north.  We wandered slowly through the capital talking in the history, reflecting on the backdrops we had just seen in black and white in a museum now stretching out in front of us.  Past Downing Street, along The Mall, through Trafalgar Square and up St Martins Way and to a lovely little spot called La Roche, right opposite The Duke of York’s Theatre.   From our window seat we could take in a heady mix of arty types, couples meeting up for dates at the theatre, odd bods and cracker jacks….they really were all out in the mid-day sun.

Fed and ready for home we made our way through to King’s Cross and I would love nothing more than to draw this entry to a close, but it wasn’t to be.  Standing under the departure boards, we found that there was a problem on the line, our train had been cancelled, and so we would have to check with staff for options.  

We were told, by a man that couldn’t possibly have been told by his careers officer that a life in customer services was his best option in life, that our best bet was to make our way over Euston Station and try our luck up the west coast line as the East Coast was closed, get to Carlisle, then head west was the best he could suggest.

We hot footed 10 minutes down the street to Euston and were directed to the ticket office.  After a brief wait we were summoned to the front of the queue where we were told to head to Manchester as, by the time we got to Carlisle we would have missed the last connection heading to Newcastle.

We ran, like the family from The Fast Show, through the station and onto the platform, jumping onto the train in the nick of time.  We headed to Manchester, not knowing what lay ahead other than a growing fear that it wouldn’t be an easy trip.

Manchester Piccadilly station was heaving as Man City had played their final league game of the season against Chelsea earlier in the day and the crowds were heading home.  We were battling against those crowds to get directions and advice and were told that we had to head back down to Sheffield, where we could get a connection to York and then York to home.

We doubled back on ourselves and headed down to Sheffield and dismounted there, perfectly in time to see the Sheffield to York train cancelled.  We headed to the stationmaster’s office ready for further instruction where we were joined by a Man City fan who had clearly spent all day in the heat, in his little polyester top, without the safety net of a little touch of deodorant.  Amazing, this was turning out to be a great day.

We were advised to head to Leeds, where we then picked up a train to York where, after nearly two hours on the platform, we got the last train up to Newcastle.  It was jammed.  This time it was Gateshead fans who had been to Wembley and been beaten in the cup final.  They were not in a great mood and kids who had spent all day in the sun and filled with pop and sugar were jammed into tables alongside adults that had been on the drink all day.

The atmosphere was heavy.

We got back to Newcastle in the early hours and then still had a taxi ride back home to face.  It had been a long day, but even this couldn’t take the shine off a wonderful weekend.