The London Blitz

The Red Lion is listed in my new London Pub Walks book as having “the gravitas one would expect from a pub midway between Parliament and No 10 Downing Street.” We arrived here at the end (5:30pm) of what can only be described as a tremendous, incredible, interesting, very good day.

We have been amazed at how wonderful people have been to us - taking time out of very busy days to show us around, give us personal tours, share their knowledge and expertise, and give us a fascinating look behind-the-scenes at their collection and operations. Our day started at the Victoria & Albert Museum. We went in the staff entrance, and were awarded laminated temporary staff badges by Security with our photos on them - surely the coolest souvenir ever!!!!

We met with Suzanne Smith, Display & Collections Management Curator for Furniture, Textiles and Fashion. They have 85,000 items in her collection and 90% are in storage (estimated 25 tons stored in 2,500 drawers and state of the art “running racking” storage systems. We almost lost Audrey when she started talking about their 5-year assistant curatorial development program.- an apprenticeship program which trains museum curators who go forth and spread curatorial goodness around the United Kingdom and beyond. We traipsed through the museum to different storage areas, and as Howard Carter said upon opening the tomb of King Tut, we saw “marvelous things” in storage.

We also had the opportunity to see their special exhibit “Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970”. We were not exactly excited about the topic at first but politely went in to see it. My heavens - what a great exhibit! I encourage you to check it out on their website www.vam.ac.uk. Modern life after 1945 seemed to promise both utopia and catastrophe; modernist artists and designers responded to this dual vision, searching for ways to build a new and hopeful future while dealing the anxieties of the present. The exhibit covered architecture, art, fashion, entertainment, political movements, news event of the day, and basically everything from Pierre Cardin’s designs for “Cosmos suits” to portable living room helmets that contained video units.

Next stop was Westminster Abbey. Coming out of the underground at the Westminster stop you immediately are confronted with the London Eye (giant ferris wheel on the south side of the Thames), Big Ben and the buildings of Parliament.. We met Tony Trowles, the tall, blonde and handsome Librarian for Westminster Abbey Library, outside of St. Margaret’s Church. The church was beautiful, and we learned much about this smaller cousin to the Abbey that none of us had previously known. A Virginia connection: Morven Park’s Westmoreland Davis (Governor of Virginia 1918-1922) was married in this church, and Tony was generous enough to provide Tracy with a copy of the register.

Score!

In the Abbey itself, we were treated to a personalized overview of the conservation project to conserve the Medieval Cosmati pavement which fronts the altar used in coronations and famous funerals. One of the chief conservators, Paula Rawsar, provided an in-depth description of the trials and tribulations of the effort, and the history of previous efforts. It is a massive, and expensive, undertaking but with Paula we know it is in good hands.

Tony took us on a tour of the entire Abbey. Emotional connections abounded from the tomb of Mary Queen of Scots for Tracy and me, and the tomb of David Garrick (subject of Audrey’s master’s thesis), as well as the monument to Michael Drayton, British poet whose poem featured significantly in the courtship of Anna Holloway (we heard the whole story and it’s a good one!).
At the Abbey Museum, Peter turned us over to Diane Gibbs (Coordinator of the Museum) and James Who Was Reluctant to Have His Picture Taken But We Snuck It In Anyway. We were delighted to discover that they had Googled us and stumbled upon our blog - and “were prepared for us”. Diane was the quintessential museum person - bubbling with enthusiasm about her subject and full of fascinating stories about her collection. Then she took us for much-needed tea and chocolate in the cloisters - it doesn’t get any better!

Or so we thought, until we went through the imposing black door to the Abbey Library, up the winding staircase to a high-ceilinged chamber that had been the dormitory for the monks before serving as the Library. After exploring the Library (shelves were built in 1623!), we climbed a spiral staircase to Tony‘s inner sanctum an office tucked under the eaves of the cathedral with bodacious circular skylights that revealed the Abbey‘s highest reaches. We reluctantly allowed Tony to throw us out past closing time, and made our way to the pub chattering excitedly about all that we had seen.
After the Red Lion, where we had dinner, we ducked into the St. Stephens Pub on the way to the underground (well, it was raining…..).

We ran into someone who knew a good friend of Anna’s, we spied a former rock star (I will take their word for it - personally, I have never heard of Feargal Sharkey of the Undertones), and I got into a spirited debate about the Presidential race in the US with two half-American, conservative lobbyists at Parliament (yes they have them too). Another gentleman joined us who was even more “spirited” and the bartender (or “publican”) attempted to rescue us. A good time was had by all.