A Night at the Savoy

A chance reference in the Times to an Indian Professor, now living in Cambridge, brought to mind a trip to India some years ago when I first met him.

Holidaying with Don meant one might end up anywhere, sometimes wonderful sometimes not.

Once we spent a week in a Maharajaha's beautiful Summer Palace, now a hotel.  Another time we stayed at Mahabalipurum near Madras.  The English Test Cricket team had just spent a relaxing week there.  The waiter showed me the bedroom where Prince Charles and Mrs. Bandaranika - former president of Sri Lanka - slept.  "Not" he added hastily "at the same time".  When I complimented the chef he took me to see his immaculate kitchen with its tandoori oven!

On one occasion we hit rock bottom.  We went by bus to a small market town.  The bus was already full, but at each stop new arrivals crowded on.  They were obviously regulars.  Don gave up his seat to an elderly lady carrying a scrawny live chicken in a basket, who fixed me across the aisle with a beady malevolent eye (the chicken not the lady).

Don went to the bank and I went to find the Savoy Hotel.  It was in a small garden and didn't look very inviting.  I booked a double room with a bath.  Don came and we went to the dining room for a pot of tea.  There were dozens of flies.  We ate dinner there sitting at a table with a checked cloth - no flies!  Don said they were all in the kitchen.  We hoped the super hot curry would counteract the germs.  Don asked for a sheet for his bed.  He was brought a checked one suspiciously like our tablecloth.

Next morning we saw the aforementioned Indian Professor come out of our bathroom.  We later discovered this was the only bathroom in the hotel!  I hope the Indian Professor does not have to share his present bathroom in England with all comers.

London trams

I recently watched a programme about the history of the tram.  I loved the London trams. In truth they were noisy and took up a lot of road space and you had to walk out to the centre of the road to board them but there was something about their clanging.  They could be driven and braked from either end.  On one occasion I was on a tram in Upper Street, Islington when a van came to a sudden halt in front of us.  Our tram hit the van and knocked it off the rails.  This damaged our brakes and the driver rushed through the careering tram to the rear and put on the brakes at that end.  A hair-raising experience!

I used the tram in April 1939 when I first went to work at 16.  The number 33 went from the end of our road, by St Thomas's Hospital, over Westminster Bridge along the Embankment to the Kingsway Tunnel which ran under the road to Southampton Row.  There was one stop in the tunnel and you then had to mount the stairs to reach the street.  My daily journey was to Holloway Road.  I think my stop was Manor Gardens where the Royal Northern Hospital was opposite the Post Office National Savings Bank building, where I worked at a very boring job as a clerk.

When war was imminent volunteers were asked for to work in Civil Defence.  I hastily applied and was accepted.  I then took the tram in the opposite direction to Brixton Hill.  This was a perilous undertaking.  Being on shift duties meant travelling in the blackout walking to the centre of the road to get on a tram when cars had no headlights!  In 1941, I got transferred to the Home Office in Whitehall, so I just had to walk across Westminster Bridge.  No more trams for me.

I was sad at the demise of the tram in London - although there are some areas now, such as Croydon, where the tram has been re-introduced.

New Year

Here we are at 2016, the beginning of another year.  After more than a week of jollification, cooking and preparing delicious food, we are now getting back to old clothes and porridge.

The highlight of the Christmas holidays was the day when my three grown-up grandchildren came to visit, bringing my three little great-grandsons.  It seemed so appropriate to have a baby in the house at Christmas and to have three brought three times the joy.  Jack, Beau and Lucas met each other for the first time.

I am very fortunate to live to this age and to see these so-welcome additions to the family.

Today is rather a grey day but still not unduly cold.  A & M have been tidying the garage and various treasures have come to light, including my mother's set of brass-topped dominoes and two dolls - a present from Czech Folk Dancers from the 1960s.

I have been listening to my audio book - an account of a wartime diary.  For the first time ever I read about the ringing of church bells on November 15th 1942, the day Ernie and I got married.  Church bells had been silent for 3 years only to be rung if there was a German invasion, but after the relief of El Alamene in North Africa it was a great victory and a turning point in the war, so on that Sunday church bells were rung.  (It sounds unusual to be married on a Sunday, but during the war one got married whenever one's fiance had leave, and by then Ernie was training for aircrew.)