Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish
in the Borough of Scarborough in the English County of North Yorkshire.
Situated at the mouth of the river Esk. Whitby has an established maritime,
mineral and tourist heritage. Its East Cliff is home of the ruins of the Whitby
Abby, where Caedmon, the earliest recognised English poet, lived. The fishing
port developed during the Middle Ages, supporting important herring and whaling
fleets and was along with the nearby fishing village of Staithes where Captain James Cook learned seamanship. Whitby therefore has become something of a mecca for
Australians and New Zealanders. The town also has a strong literary tradition
and has featured in literary works, television and cinema, most famously in
Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. Alum and jet were mined nearby for a number of
years and Whitby jet became fashionable in the 19th century.
We enjoyed Whitby with its narrow streets and
olde worlde shops. It has not become too tacky with cheap tourist attractions, although it was busy with weekenders while we were there. The fish and chip
shops were very popular.
There is a nice view to be obtained after
climbing the 190 steps from the village to the East Cliff where the abbey ruins
are located.
We visited the Cook Memorial museum on the
banks of the Esk River (see image below). Where Helen and Dani are standing the
ships would have been beached in front of the riverside houses to be refitted
and provisioned. The Museum was the house of John Walker to whom Cook was
apprenticed in 1746 and where Cook returned in 1771/2 after the First Voyage.
The collections in the museum original letters about the Voyages including
correspondence of Cook, Lord Sandwich, Sir Joseph Banks and the Forsters,
paintings and drawings by the artists who went with Cook to the Pacific,
including Hodges, Parkinson and Webber, artefacts from the Pacific Island and
New Zealand, original maps, and ship models. Parts of the house have recreated
the actual conditions that Cook would have lived there. He was a man that
lived many lives and I was surprised to learn one of his officers included
William Bligh of ‘Bounty’ fame.
We had some lunch, wandered the streets for a
bit and saw some street performers before we headed out of town for York.
York was on our list because Helen and I had
targeted a weekend there when we lived in Birmingham but it never eventuated.
We had only booked the two nights at Seahouses in advance and did the rest as
we went. We booked an apartment close to the centre of York. It was very well
appointed and close to the shops and the river York is located on (the
confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss). There was a kitchen/dining room and a
welcome washing machine. The only downside was no drying apparatus and
intermittent Wi-Fi. We had just left the apartment to go and look at nearby
shops when bicycle bells and excited voices heralded the passage of naked bike riders.
It was a cold afternoon and there was quite a bit of shrinkage apparent. A
group of Asian tourists were later excitedly scrolling through their images and
videos on their I-phones.
I purchased some shoes that I cannot obtain in
Asia and Helen and Dani did some shopping and sightseeing. York seems to
be a very nice place. The York Minster is hugely impressive and some of the
streets have the olde worlde feeling about them still. Outside the Minster is a
statue of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great who was proclaimed Emperor of
York in AD 306. The Shambles, a medieval street is still intact with dwellings
that almost touch across the passageway. It was where all the butchering of livestock occurred and the meat was displayed in the open. The buildings were
deliberately constructed in close proximity to limit exposure of the meat to
the sun. It must have really smelt bad anyway. York is famous for chocolate
factories (Rowntrees and Terrys), a centre for early photography and the
birthplace of Guy Fawkes. The Vikings inhabited York around 866 and called it
Jorvik. Eric Bloodaxe (what a name) was driven from the city in AD 954 by King
Edred in his successful attempt to unify England. There is a Jorvik Viking
museum as a major modern day attraction. Conclusion; York is a very nice, leafy city with a
good mixture of historical place and nude cyclists.
We had one more night before Dani had to be
back in Cambridge for her summer job so we opted to stay in King’s Lynn, which
was around an hours drive from Cambridge. We booked in a small pub that had a
reasonable sized 3-person room, poor Guinness on tap and average food. We had
lunch in the shopping centre and explored the town centre.
Kings Lynn is a historic medieval port dating
back to the 12 century. Situated on the Great River Ouse (not the ordinary one
in York) Kings Lynn was once the busiest port in England. The city was home to
Captain George Vancouver, born in 1757, and who famously founded the town in
Canada that now bears his name. The nearby Burnham Thorpe, just north of King’s
Lynn was the birthplace of Admiral Lord Nelson.
The medieval district was interesting but
devoid of people. The 12th century church of St Margaret had some
large stained glass windows but more interestingly inscriptions that indicated high water
marks left by various floodings of the river. Other interesting buildings
included the chequer-fronted Guild Hall and the adjacent town jail.
Despite what tourist information claimed there
was evidence, both written and apparent, that King’s Lynn had seen better days.
We departed for Cambridge early, which was
necessary, both to get Dani home and to avoid the traffic jams that plague this
beautiful old city. Helen and I stayed two nights in Churchill Collage and two
nights in a small terrace house near where Dani lives. Dani shared a house with
Jack and Will. Jack was doing the same course and graduated with her and Will
is employed as an aeronautical engineer…working on plane maintenance at
Cambridge airport.
The lodgings at Churchill were austere but
functional. We did have a fire alarm one night when some misguided cook had burnt dinner in an adjacent kitchen. The breakfast in the large canteen was excellent. From the College
it was about at 30 minute walk into the centre of Cambridge, crossing the Cam
and the many punts below that were doing good business with Chinese tourists.
In the next three days Helen and I explored the centre of Cambridge with its
old college buildings, nice restaurants and overwhelming Fitzwilliam Museum,
where we enjoyed paintings by the French Impressionists and watercolours by
Turner as well as many other exhibits. We had a nice dinner one evening at
Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant and admired the fudge-makers producing their sweet
product. We climbed the bell tower on St Mary’s church where we had an elevated
drone-like view over the heart of the University. There are 31 colleges making up
Cambridge University and each had its times for their graduation in the Senate
House below.
The art object below is a table inlaid with natural coloured stones.
On the Friday before the graduation Helen and I
walked along the upper reaches of the Cam river to Grantchester where we met up
with Dani and had very civilised cup of tea at The Orchard. Grantchester is
said to have the world’s highest concentration of Nobel Prize winners, most of
these presumably being current or retired academics form the nearby University
of Cambridge. Cambridge University has had 91 Nobel prizes awarded to its
academics. Lodgers at the Orchard House included Edwardian poet Rupert Brooke.
The village is also the setting for James Runcie’s sleuth novels ‘’The
Grantchester Mysteries’ now adapted as an ITV drama titled ‘Grantchester’ and
filmed on location.
Saturday 27th June was to be
Churchill Colleges graduation day. Graduands and their parents had dinner
in the mess on the eve of the graduation. It was extremely well coordinated and
the food and wine with each course was excellent. On Saturday morning excited
graduands assembled at the college. It was time for photographs with friends
and family. Ann and Gerry had travelled down from Scotland for the occasion.
Dani has been like a daughter to them and their hospitality is legendary. The
dress code is extremely strict and those outside the line are excluded form graduation.
Dressers even mingle with the students outside the Senate House to make sure
they remain correct. The students lined up in graduation order and walked to
the Senate House. It is highly organised in the grounds with parents and
friends being admitted by colour-coded tickets….one lot downstairs and one lot
upstairs. We had a good view from the upstairs gallery. The graduands are
brought forth by the Praelector of their college, who takes them by the right
hand, and presents them to the head of the college who is seated on a
throne. Up to four graduands at a time
are processed and each holds a finger of the Praelector. Latin phrases and hat
doffing to the Head are made. In turn each graduand kneels in front of the Head
and proffers their hand to the head who clasps them and confers the degree with
another statement in Latin. The now-graduate then rises, bows and leaves the
Senate House through the Doctor’s door, where they receive their certificate
into the Senate House Passage. The head of the college is escorted from the
Senate House in a procession with two staff-bearers and two staff Senate
staff-members. Churchill's current head is Professor Dame Athene Donald, an expert in condensed matter physics.
When all are processed the audience filed out onto the adjacent lawn where more photos are taken and celebrations occur. The traditional hat-throwing produced a hilarious conclusion when Lawrence’s hat decided to stay a while on the Senate House décor. A broom handle and some gymnastics were later employed to remove the tardy hat.
Later that evening we had a
celebratory meal with Dani and Ann and Gerry at a local restaurant. It is not
everyday that one of your children graduate from one of the World’s best
Universities that has a mega list of graduates that include; Oliver Cromwell,
Robert Walpole, Lee Kuan Yew, Rajiv Ghandi, John Cleese, Prince Charles, Prince
Edward, Louis Mountbatten, Charles Darwin, Francis Crick, Isaac Newton,
Frederick Sanger, James Watson, Robert Oppenheimer Ernest Rutherford…a full
list can be found here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Cambridge_people
Helen and I can claim some
tenuous connection to past giants when we had a drink at the Eagle Pub where
Watson and Crick discussed the structure of DNA. Francis Crick was a fellow of
Churchill College.
The sun Gods had smiled on graduation day but
they took a rest the following day when Helen and I said our good-byes and
headed by train to London. Because it was best to shelter we took the slow
train that stopped at every station in England before arriving at Kings Cross.
We then took the tube to Acton Town where Craig, my nephew met us. Craig and
Eve are expecting their first child in September and have a nice apartment not
far from the tube station. The weather had improved and a lively game of
cricket was in process on a field in front of their third floor apartment. We
later drove to Richmond, past Kew gardens and strolled along the Thames before
having a drink and a meal before returning to base.
The next morning Eve dropped us at the tube station, which was on the line to Heathrow. Our return journey to KL was via Etihad Airlines with a brief stopover at Abu Dhabi. The first leg was on the large A380, which was comfortable. The second leg however was quite cramped and the food was ordinary. At KL we managed to get on an earlier flight to Penang and were home around 8 pm.
We very much enjoyed our trip, which by any criteria is a significant milestone in our lives.
