Family matters...

30 July 1969

Today, we had a picnic at Mow Cop, drove by the radio telescopes at Jodrell Bank Observatory that had helped track Apollo 11, then took a time trip back 500 years to Little Moreton Hall– a 16th century half-timbered country manor house located in the southeast of Cheshire.



I was fascinated by the place the moment I laid eyes on it. Unfortunately, our visit was marred right at the outset by some juvenile misbehavior on my part.

I'd gotten myself into trouble on this trip before– at the porno bookstore in Denmark– but that was by accident. The incident at Little Moreton Hall, however, was very much my fault. For some reason, I thought it would be fun to throw a big rock into the moat surrounding Little Moreton Hall and scare some ducks. Unbeknownst to me, my misdeed had been witnessed by the caretaker, who came out to confront me just as I was having my picture taken by Mother.


Busted!

It was impossible for me to avoid guilt, because at the moment my photo was snapped, I was holding another rock in my left hand ready to repeat my offense. Thankfully, though, my trespass was forgiven, and our party were allowed to enter and tour the ancient building and its grounds.





Supposedly, the addition of the Long Hall on the top of the building is what gave it its peculiar bent appearance. It was really something to walk along it all the way to the end. The floor felt solid, but the sloping and odd angles of the walls made the space a little disorienting!





As we walked around, I remember being constantly in awe of just how old this building was. I mean, it was one thing to be in a stone or masonry structure of that age, like a castle or cathedral. Something made of those materials should be expected to endure for 500+ years. But wood burns and rots, and structures like this just aren't supposed to survive half-a-millennium as this one has. I felt far more transported into the past here than in any other place we visited during our trip in 1969.

Tomorrow, we would tour the city of Chester, itself, then say goodbye to the Carringtons and return to Skipton via Mother's home town of Burnley the day after that.

 

28 July 1969

Today was a travel day, visiting relatives in the North West whilst on our way to our ultimate destination of Cheshire.

Although I didn't know the genealogical terminology at the time, Isabel McCabe Smith and Mary McCabe Messer were my first cousins once removed– my mother's father's sister's daughters. They both dwelt in the greater Manchester area: Isabel lived with her husband, Jack, in Worsley, and Mary and Eric Messer were shopkeepers in Salford.


With the Messers at home.

I wish we had a picture of their corner shop, as it looked in 1969. This is the place today, on Langworthy Road. The Messers' store was in the space at right in this grand old Romanesque Revival building. Sad to say, although the structure still stands, the neighborhood around it has not improved with time.

Anyway, our lunchtime with the Messers was short and sweet. I always enjoyed visiting Eric and Mary, as did Mother. We'd been there previously in 1967, and we'd visit again during our last trip to the UK together in 1974.

The afternoon visit with cousin "Smithy" was also brief, but unfortunately, the opposite in mood. I never understood why, but Mother and Isabel just never got along– in person, at least. Which was ironic, because Mom probably wrote to Smithy only slightly less often than she wrote to Florence, and their correspondence was always cordial, but in person... the chemistry simply wasn't there. In fact, it was downright toxic.

Mother could be oh-so-warm and wonderful when she wanted to be, but she also had the unique ability to instantly lower the temperature of any room by at least 20 degrees when the blood in her veins turned cold, and that's exactly what happened the moment we entered the Smith house. Never mind that Isabel was the perfect hostess; something about her just rubbed her the wrong way. It was actually pretty embarrassing, seeing Mother behave like that. As far as I was concerned, our visit couldn't end soon enough.

As a consequence, I have no photograph of Smithy in 1969, nor a picture of her charming old red-brick row house in Old Wells Close, now apparently demolished and replaced by bland council housing.

In any case, I was very relieved when we finally set off on our late afternoon drive to Cheshire.

Our destination there was Frodsham, and Jack and Rene Carrington. Jack had been Florence's next door neighbor when we'd visited in 1967. He was a schoolmaster before his retirement, and had been a widower for several years when we first met him. Florence and Jack were great friends, and they got along together spectacularly. Mom and I both thought they were made for each other, but as fate would have it, Florence would never consider marrying anyone who wasn't Catholic, so that was apparently that. Then, in 1968, Jack married Rene, and moved to Cheshire to start a new life with his new wife.

Whatever his choice, we were happy for Jack, and couldn't wait to meet Rene! She turned out to be just as charming and fun-loving as Florence, and Jack's two lady friends got on from the moment they met.


Rene and Jack Carrington carrying on with Mother. I'm guessing Mom bought that mod dress in Denmark.

The Carrington's bungalow at 14 Lime Avenue in Frodsham still stands, and looks almost exactly the same now, 50 years later. So nice to see!

 

22 July 1969



For our last night in Ireland, we stayed at the ritzy Gresham Hotel. I'm quite sure budget-conscious Mom did not plan on booking at a ★★★, but being peak season and cheaper alternatives full, she had no other choice. And we had to take a suite, to boot! I certainly didn't complain. It was nice having our own private bathroom for a change.



Speaking of the bathroom, in this one was a contraption I'd never seen before. Why were there two sinks, I wondered, and one of them down near the floor? Mother told me it was a French invention called a 'bidet'. What's it for? It's for cleaning your backside after you've used the toilet. Then she turned on the water, which made a little mini-fountain in the middle. I guess she thought that demonstration was all the explanation that was needed, but I still didn't quite get it. I remember trying it out later. I sat down on it, turned on the water, and jumped right off! So much for that.



At lunch at the Gresham, I was introduced to another French invention: a soup called 'Vichyssoise'. I think it had to be a standard course, because a cold potato and onion soup is nothing I would ever order for myself. I recall it tasted surprisingly good, but it wasn't hearty or hunger-satisfying at all. Never had it again since.

The dining room at the Gresham was lovely, by the way– very large, open, and opulent. The whole space was bathed in sunlight from the atrium windows above. I've tried to find a picture of it online, but there's nothing at the Gresham now that even remotely matches my memory, so I imagine that grand dining room is no more.




Mother at leisure at the Gresham. The newspaper on the coffee table appears to have photos of the moon landing.

My diary says we stayed in that night. I don't recall Mother actually saying this, but I can just hear her remarking something like this room is so expensive that we can't afford to go out tonight, which I guess is why we ate dinner in our room. That must have come with the suite, too, because I can't remember Mother ever paying for room service if it was extra.

I was probably pretty excited tonight, as tomorrow we were finally on our way to my favorite place in all of the UK: Florence's home town of Skipton in the Yorkshire Dales!

 

20 July 1969

The whole time we were visiting the Ring of Kerry, Apollo 11 was on its way to land men on the moon, but because the area was so remote, I hadn't been able to see a thing about it yet on television. That would have to wait until we got to Limerick on the 19th.

Our reservation was at the Shannon Shamrock Hotel, in Bunratty, west of Limerick proper. We'd enjoyed our stay there in 1967, and looked forward to our return. Despite being an American-style hotel with all modern conveniences, though, the Shannon Shamrock did not have a TV in every room, at least not in 1969. Instead– like almost every hotel in the British Isles at the time– they had a public lounge where guests could go to watch television.


Florence and Mother outside the Shannon Shamrock Hotel, snapped on 21 July 1969 with my brand new camera: the absolute worst I have ever owned.

The Shannon Shamrock's TV lounge was very small, though– less than half the size of a guest room– and on the night of 20 July 1969, people were packed in there like sardines, with even more spilling out into the hallway.

When I told this story here before, I did say we were watching the reports of Apollo 11 on the BBC, but more likely it was Irish Television, RTÉ. Whichever, it was vastly inferior to any space mission coverage I'd ever seen in the US. The was no video feed, nor even any audio feed, just a commentator sitting in a giant transparent inflatable chair, uttering banalities whilst pressing his finger to an earpiece and relaying reports to us on-air.

From time to time, he'd pause and say things like, "Stand by!", or "Any moment now, any moment now!", but when he finally issued forth with the announcement that the lunar module had landed, all that happened was one of those early chyron-type things popped up at the bottom of the screen with big white capital letters reading, "MEN ON MOON."

Cheers and clapping ensued from those assembled, but once the landing had been announced, I couldn't get out of that crowded, cigarette-smoke-filled room fast enough. I went outside into the fresh air, and looked out at the moon setting in the west and thought to myself, there are men actually there right now. There would be more moon missions to come, of course, but none would ever send tingles up my spine like that first time, 50 years ago tonight, in Bunratty, Ireland.

 

I think I'm going to do the same with Ireland as I did with Denmark: just write about highlights. Reason being, I want to keep this interesting, and too much detail tends to make people's eyes glaze over. (Same with me, for that matter. I don't want to burn myself out here.)

So here was our Irish itinerary:

14-15 July: Dublin
15 July: To Waterford
16 July: To Cork, Killarney, & Kerry
16-19 July: At Sneem
19-21 July: At Limerick
22 July: Dublin
23 July: DUB -> LBA, Skipton, Yorks.

14-15 July 1969

Dublin was unremarkable compared to our visit in 1967; this time it was basically just an overnight stop before we began our car trip to the South and the Ring of Kerry. In the afternoon, we did a bit of shopping, toured Dublin Castle, then, in the evening, we walked along the quayside before going to the Abbey Theatre to see 'The Quare Fellow'. In terms of the story, it was a little over my head, but I liked it. It was one of only two non-musical plays that I ever attended.



Setting off to Waterford on the 15th, we took a route which is today's N7/R445 out of Dublin, where I took this snap of a road sign on the outskirts that we'd seen the last time, the wording of which had made us giggle.

 

 

12 July 1969

Denmark wasn't all bad. In fact, 50 years ago tonight was one of the most fun times I ever had: not only of my trip, but of my whole life.

It can all be summed up in one word: TIVOLI! Opened in 1843, it's one of the oldest amusement parks in the world; a direct ancestor of Disneyland over a century later.

We visited Tivoli twice: first on 10 July, then again on the 12th. That was my night to remember! Mother actually dropped me off there in the late afternoon to let me wander around the park by myself. (It was a different time then, for sure. But, for exactly that reason, I was perfectly safe!)

I loved the arcades at Tivoli the most. I couldn't believe they let kids play slot machines! You could only win tokens, and exchange them for knickknacks, but still, it was definitely gambling! I still have all the prizes I won, and a bunch of the tokens, too.

Anyway, here's a picture of Mom and me at Tivoli. I've actually posted this here before, and the story that goes along with it.



Notice, the same sign is still there now, and is still painted the exact same colors, too! (Or at least it was as of 2017.)



Pretty amazing, huh? At least I think so!

 

10 July 1969

As I mentioned before, I'm not really sure why Mother was so motivated to go shopping in Denmark. The country is not known as a fashion mecca, and although they do produce some nice ceramics, up to that point, Mom only owned a single Royal Copenhagen porcelain figurine, so it's not like she had an existing collection she wanted to grow.

Anyway, the main shopping area in Copenhagen– at least back in 1969– was a pedestrian street known as Strøget, and according to my diary, we visited it twice (though it might have been thrice). As you can tell by my expression in these pics, I am absolutely thrilled to be there.




The same location today.

I do have one amusing anecdote of Strøget, though. Mother knew I didn't particularly like going shopping with her, so when we were at places like Strøget, she might let me wander off on my own. When at liberty like this, I would typically go looking for antique stores (which often had coins), and bookshops. Either of those could keep me occupied for long periods of time.

Whilst exploring, a block or so off the main street, I found a corner bookshop. Cool! As I walked around, I soon noticed that the books in this place were unlike any I'd seen before. The paperbacks on the shelves all seemed to have the same generic covers, with no pictures on the front. There didn't seem to be any illustrations inside the books, either. How odd. In the center section of the store, though, were stacks of what we now call 'coffee table books'. At least these had pictures, so I started browsing the books there.

One caught my eye immediately. It appeared to be an oriental art book. Now, I don't read Danish, but I didn't have any trouble translating its title: „Sex i Japan”. Inside were page after page of extremely explicit antique woodblock prints depicting people engaged in sexual acts. (An art genre I now know is called shunga.) Most strikingly, the genitalia in these artworks were often drawn extremely exaggerated in size, and looked frankly grotesque to me. Geez! I wondered how the store could have such a book on open display like this, but reasoned this is Scandinavia, and even back then, this part of the world had a reputation for being libertine.

It was right about then that I was approached by a man who appeared to be the proprietor. He seemed rather upset about something. I couldn't understand a word he said, but as he kept berating me and pointing to the door, I got the message that he wanted me to leave, and right now. I didn't understand. I wasn't misbehaving. But despite my objections, and without any further hesitation, he physically escorted me out the door. I was pretty upset about being thrown out so rudely, so when I hooked back up with Mom, I told her about this mean old man kicking me out of his store for no reason.

Mom to the rescue! Indignant, she went right in and confronted the man. She seemed to calm down quickly, though, then the man showed her around the store. She came back out and, without saying a word, took me back to the main street. Then, she explained to me what a PORNOGRAPHIC BOOKSTORE was, and that a boy my age wasn't allowed in a place like that. Whoops! Then it dawned on me, I guess that's why there were no women in there– it was all men– and maybe that's why everybody was so hush-hush about things, too. I had no clue! Just goes to show how naive I still was at that age about sex!

As a footnote, off an on over the years since, I've tried to locate a copy of „Sex i Japan” for old times' sake, but no luck yet. If anyone who reads this ever finds it, please let me know! I'm old enough to buy it now, I promise! ;-)

 

I'm not sure if I want to go to the trouble of doing daily blog posts about our week in Denmark. Simple reason being, I didn't much care for the place. Plain fact is, I was just bored there most of the time. There were some enjoyable moments, and I will definitely write about those, but largely, looking back, I would just as soon have stayed in England or gone to Scotland for that week. I really thought then– and I still do now– that Denmark was a waste of our time.

I frankly don't know why Mother wanted to go to Denmark to begin with. Unlike the UK, we have no family ties there. My guess is, Mom went primarily to sight-see, and to shop. That's actually why most people do the tourist thing in the first place. But, in all honesty, I can think of many other countries in Europe that would have been more worthwhile in those regards than Denmark. I would much rather have gone to Italy, France, or especially West Germany, since I was learning the German language in school at the time. But, Mother chose Denmark, and I had no say in the matter.

In any case, this was our basic itinerary:

7 July: Rosenborg Slot, Strøget.
8 July: Helsingør (Elsinore), Kronborg, Fredensborg Slot, Den lille Havfrue (The Little Mermaid statue) at Langelinie.
9 July: Roskilde, Vikingeskibsmuseet (Viking Ship Museum), Sorø.
10 July: Strøget again, Tivoli.
11 July: Frilandsmuseet, Hillerød, Frederiksborg Slot.
12 July: Magasin du Nord, Kanalrundfart, Tivoli again at night.
13 July: Church, Cirkus Schumann.
14 July: To Ireland, CPH -> LHR -> DUB

I think that'll be it for today. Still trying to decide in what detail I want to cover this leg of our trip.

 

5 July 1969

I've become a little doubtful about the dates written on the back of some of these photos. Reason being, although I've gone through our albums and read my little diary literally dozens of times over the years, this is the first time I've actually looked at and compared them concurrently, and a few things puzzle me– most of all, my clothes. I'm wearing the same shirt and slacks in photos labeled 3, 4, and 5 July. However, I find it difficult to imagine that Mother would allow me to wear the same clothes for three consecutive days. Yet, if my diary is to be believed, she almost had to've. And I do believe my diary is correct. I know I wrote those accounts on the days the events took place. But all the same, it is odd for me to see me wearing the same clothes all three days we were out and about in London...

Anyway, this morning we basically just killed time around town while we waited for my mother's cousin Florence to arrive from Skipton in Yorkshire to join us. I say 'cousin', but Florence Stevenson wasn't actually a blood relative. When my mother and her sister went to school in England from 1924-1926, they lived with Pat and Grace O'Leary in Burnley, Lancashire, and Florence was Pat's niece. Florence had lost her parents early in life, so she moved in with Pat and Grace (who had no children of their own), and was for all intents and purposes their foster daughter. Later, the O'Learys moved to the U.S., and for several years lived in Bingham, Utah, just down the road from Mother's family. So Mother and Florence largely grew up together. But, given all that complicated history, it was much easier for Mom to simply introduce Florence to others as her 'cousin'.

I first met Florence in 1962, when she accompanied the O'Learys to America. I confess, even though I was only 8 at the time, I had a major crush on Florence, which only got worse when we visited England for the first time in 1967. I think you can tell in these photos just how enamored I was of her.


Florence and Yours Truly, at Bolton Abbey (left), and the Regent Hotel in Leamington Spa, July 1967.

She still remains to this day the most consistently cheerful person I have ever known. When I was growing up, Florence was also remarkable to me because she never married. In my young mind, I put 2 and 2 together and decided that remaining single might be a viable path to personal happiness. (Which turned out to be largely true, I believe.)

But I digress. According to my diary, today's first stop was Westminster Abbey, a repeat of our 1967 trip.



Alas, likely due to the fact that we weren't allowed to take pictures this time, I have no specific memory of our second Abbey visit, other than I remember making a point of going to the gift shop adjacent to the Great West Door (above) to buy duplicate copies of two books I'd acquired the last time we were there and had virtually worn out since– this one, in particular– a fascinating and incredibly fact-laden book about the ancestry of the Royal Family which I have referred to countless times over the years...



Then we took the Underground back to the Tower to see the Crown Jewels; again, something we did last time, too, and where apparently we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, either. When we went back to the hotel, I remember we came in the side door to the lobby, and there was Florence standing there. She had arrived just minutes before we had. Perfect timing!

After getting Florence settled in our room, we went for a walk down to Trafalgar Square, then over to The Mall and St. James Palace, past Spink's again, then back to the hotel to rest and change clothes for our night out.


On Trafalgar Square. I have a vague recollection that hippie in the red shirt said something rude to me.

For supper, we went to the famous Prospect of Whitby public house. (Mother had doubtless read about it in a travel magazine.) I remember we had a table with a view of the Thames, and that I either had scampi or a hamburger: the two dishes I always looked for on UK menus.



After imbibing our "elegant sufficiency," as Florence used to say, we went to Royal Festival Hall for some reason (I have no memory of that whatsoever), then we went to the ritzy Hotel Savoy, where we ended up getting a personal tour of the place from the hotel manager.

After returning to the Regent Palace, I think that's when we took these pictures. (Looking out the window in the top one, I can see it's nighttime.)





Thus ended our Day 3!

 

3 July 1969

When we visited London the first time in 1967, Mom and I stayed at the Regent Palace Hotel– at the time, the largest hostelry in Europe– and we enjoyed it so much that Mom decided to book our stay there again.

Unfortunately, our first night in 1969 was awful. In addition to jet lag, we were in a 1st floor room directly over the sidewalk on busy Sherwood Street off Piccadilly Circus– a section of town that literally never sleeps– so consequently, neither did we. I remember about 330AM, Mom got up to take a sleeping pill (which I later learned was actually a valium), and I asked her if I could have one, too. She reluctantly agreed. I did manage to fall asleep after that, but we were both so groggy the morning after that we didn't get started on our day until after noon.

After lunch, the first order of business was to change rooms. We moved up to 843, far above the hustle and bustle below. When we were finally settled in, I turned on the radio in the room, and heard it announced that Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones had been found dead that morning.

I have to give Mom credit. She did go out of her way to make me happy. In those days, I was a rabid coin collector, and the first thing Mother and I did in London was go to one of the premiere coin dealers in all the world: Spink & Son. On my first trip over in '67, I acquired my very first Roman coin– a silver denarius from the 2nd century AD which Mom bought for me in Bath. Now, I had my sights set on obtaining a fine piece of bronze Roman coinage: a great slug of a coin known as a sestertius, which was equal to 1/4 of a denarius. By 1969, I had also acquired a couple of early English hammered silver pennies (purchased mail order via Spink's), but now, I wanted to add a large silver groat (4 pence) to my collection. So, as I said, our first stop in London on our very first day was to visit Spink's and find my new treasures.

Upon arrival, we were escorted into a private room filled with ancient wooden cabinets made specially for displaying coins. I was a little overawed by the formality of the place, which is to say I was nervous as heck. As usual, I had trouble making up my mind which specific coins I wanted, which made our representative a bit impatient with me, but finally, I chose my groat and sestertius and we were on our way. (The groat cost Mom £10, and the sestertius £15.)




The receipts for my sestertius and groat.

[Before I moved here to Humboldt county in 1983, I sold almost all of my coin collection, but I couldn't bear to part with my sentimental treasures from Spink's.]


My silver 4d of Henry VI, minted in Calais, and Æ sestertius of Emperor Trajan.

On the night of 3 July, Mother and I went to see a show: 'Man of La Mancha', which was playing at the Piccadilly Theatre across the street from our hotel. I can still visualize a couple of scenes from the musical, but what was most memorable was how high up in the balcony our seats were. I'd been in movie theatre balconies before, but these seats at the Piccadilly were in the upper stratosphere in comparison.



I remember keeping this program because I liked the caricatures of Don Quixote's horse and Sancho Panza's donkey. :)

So ended our first day in London.