John Otway, Poetry & Jazz

A Visit To London.

It was pouring with rain on Monday morning as I headed for the railway station to catch the 10.37 train to London. Little did I realise what lay ahead. All went well until the train stopped at Basingstoke. We waited and waited, and the train didn’t move. After about half an hour the conductor made an announcement. “We apologise for the delay which is due to a signal fault”. I had arranged to meet my friends Jacky & Bill at Waterloo Station at 12.44, so I phoned them and said we had a delay.

 Another half an hour went by, and we were still in flaming Basingstoke. Luckily for me I was reading a book about Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hahn which stopped me from getting angry and losing my cool. Finally, they asked us to get off the train and make our way to platform 4 where another train would take us to Waterloo. We eventually arrived at Waterloo two hours late. It was great to see my friends who had waited patiently for me. Then we caught a bus to Dulwich where I was grateful to have two pints of cider and relax. I had enough of travelling for one day, so we just stayed locally that evening and went for a meal in a place called The Great Exhibition which is named after the Great Exhibition which was held in 1851 at the nearby Crystal Palace.

On Tuesday the weather had improved. It was a very pleasant sunny day, so after watching a World Cup game we went for a walk around Dulwich Park. London has some wonderful parks, and the trees look magnificent at this time of year. It was near here in Peckham Rye that William Blake claimed to have seen the Prophet Ezekiel under a bush, and he was probably ten years old when he had a vision of angels in a tree. His biographer, Alexander Gilchrist, told the story: 'sauntering along, the boy looks up and sees a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every branch. Returned home he related the incident, and only through his mother's intercession escaped a thrashing from his honest father, for telling a lie.' A month later, he had another vision of angels walking towards him through the rye.

Sadly, I didn’t see any angels, but I took quite a few photos of the trees. I got Jacky to take my photo under an oak tree that is classed as one of the ‘Great trees of London’. After that we had a look at Dulwich Picture Gallery which was opened to the public in 1817 and houses one of the country's finest collections of Old Masters, especially rich in French, Italian, and Spanish Baroque paintings, and in British portraits from Tudor times to the 19th century. I found some of the sculptures in the grounds quite fascinating as well. On the way back home, we passed an old burial ground where the village stocks stood in the middle ages. That evening we went to the local pub and then went home to watch another World Cup game.

On Wednesday morning I said cheerio to Jacky and Bill after my too short visit and caught the 175 bus back to Waterloo. I had plenty of time before my train, so had a look at the National Windrush Monument, which was unveiled in June 2022 by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. The monument memorialises the British West Indian immigrants who came to the United Kingdom on board HMT Empire Windrush in 1948, who subsequently became known as the Windrush generation. The inscription accompanying the monument includes a poem "You Called..and we came" written by Professor Laura Serrant OBE. I must say that it is a wonderful and moving tribute to the people who came to this country after the war to help rebuild Britain. It just seems a shame that it took so long for them to be recognised. Then I caught the 12.20 train home, and was grateful that this return journey was relatively uneventful.