War and Humor

Today was a day of doing laundry. We have been fortunate that the ship and our hotel have laundry facilities. Otherwise we would have undies hanging in the shower. Maybe we won’t have to do laundry again before we go home.

Rising in the morning with the sunrise means waiting up between 4:30 and 5:00 AM. Anyone who knows Karen knows she is not an early riser. This has been hard. . . don’t know why the sun rises so early over here!

We have had characteristically unLondon weather so far. If not always sunny, it has been dry except for a brief drizzle. So we always left with our raincoats and umbrellas just in case. It was a marvelous idea this morning.

We decided today was the day to visit the Churchill War Rooms, from where he ran the World War II campaign. When we got there the queue was very long; Rick Steves had said pre-ticketing was not necessary, so we didn’t. One of the staff members said it would be about two hours before we could even get to the ticket area. . . after much debate, we decided to stick with it because there wasn’t anything else we were up for. Then it started to rain! As we all huddled under umbrellas, we talked with a couple and their son; they were from Canada, but lived in Houston where he was a medical imaging and artificial intelligence specialist. It turned out not to take two hours, but it wasn’t bad because we talked politics and medicine.

The War Rooms is a bunker only about twenty feet below the main street, where Churchill and his of the staff who spent thousands of vital working – and sleeping – hours from 1938 onwards until the end of the war. There was no real circulation of air, so you can imagine that the amount of smoke and smells, especially in the war room, must have been horrible.

Everyone lived in the lower level on army cots with blankets. The bathrooms were up one level, so women has to climb the stairs in their dressing gowns to use the facilities; those with private rooms had chamber pots.

Everyone had to sign a secrecy agreement, which if violated, meant execution; they were free to speak of their activities after ten years, but by then, most people didn’t care. It was a rough life for those who dedicated themselves to winning the war.

Of course, Churchill had facilities which could have been considered the ‘lap of luxury’: his own cook, a nice bedroom and his wife nearby.

The BBC had its own broadcast room, where Churchill gave speeches bolstering the resolve of British people.

Electricity had to be generated from within the building, so everyone had to get used to the constant hum. As a safety precaution, Churchill had reinforcements made to the building, including pouring concrete in stairwells. If a bomb had hit at an angle outside, the bunker could have been destroyed. When they opened the center, it took 3 weeks to drill through the concrete to open up passages.

Here are some of the command centers from the bunker.

An interesting fact at the end of the war, one of the officers in the Map Room always hid three cubes of sugar in an envelope in his desk at the suggestion of his wife. At the end of the war, everyone just left the bunker without tidying up. When t hey started digging and excavating the bunker, they found the sugar cubes in the desk, exactly where he left them.

We are our lunch at the museum and had some of the best Shepherd’s pie I have ever had. Notice the way they marked the order when they had to deliver your meal.

Overall, it was definitely worth the wait to tour the war rooms.

However, when we went to leave, what I thought was war sounds to add to the effects of the museum, turned out to be thunder. London was experiencing torrential rain – in fact, some of the M25 & A4 (their interstates) were closed because of flooding. And the royal police had closed the road to the front of the museum, so we had to walk around the corner to catch the Uber, getting absolutely drenched! At least we had rain coats and umbrellas.

After thoroughly drying out (and the rain stopping), we went to the Duke of York Theatre to see an original British play. For those PBS watchers, the main character was the nasty boss from Endeavor. It was a story about the founding of the Glyndebourne Opera House in Lewis, Sussex by John and Audrey Christie. This was and still is the only private opera house in England. The play, The Moderate Soprano, also includes Rudolph Bing (of the Metropolitan Opera), renown conductor Dr. Fritz Busch, and Austrian director Carl Ebert. For one reason or another, they all ended up in Sussex to escape the conditions Hitler put on the arts. They initially got their start here at Glynbourne before moving on to bigger and better things.

This play would probably not make it in America because of the wonderful, acerbic English humor, and because most Americans are unfamiliar with Glynbourne, but the sweet love story and commitment of this couple to one another and to their dreams to bring opera to England is touching and beautifully done.

The theatre was built in 1897 and has a lot of the embellishments of that time. It actually has three bars, and you pre-order ice cream to have at intermission. Not only was that a little strange to us, but for about four ounces of ice cream, you paid £12.5 for it!  everyone stood around eating their ice cream with little green plastic spoons.

After the play, we walked down the street to Jamie’s Italian, a restaurant owned by Jamie Oliver, one of Britain’s famous chefs. He has a program on the Food Network. We shared a small repast of Salmon Bruschetta (with smashed peas) and Truffle Tagliatelle with a delicious glass of Il Faggio Montepulciano Abruzzo (Henri, why couldn’t we have found that in Abruzzo instead of that swill we tasted?).

Then we toddled off to our hotel to get ready for another day.