Beachcombing in London: Tales Told by Small Discoveries
By Rick Steves
Here's my favorite way to learn history: strolling with a local guide, like a beachcomber. We pick up obscure shards of a neighborhood's distant past, unlocking unexpected stories. On a bright, brisk January morning in 2003, I met my guide (David Tucker) on London Bridge. With myself in tow, David did exactly that — beachcomb and storytell.
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| Rick examines a wee olde pipestem along the Thames, as St. Paul's dome looms beyond the Millennium Bridge. |
Pointing down river past the Tower of London, David said, "During the Second World War, Nazi bombers used the Thames as a guide on their nightly raids. When moonlit, they called it a 'silver ribbon of tin foil.' It led from the English Channel right to our mighty dockyards. Even with all the city lights carefully blacked out, those bombers easily found their targets. Neighborhoods on both banks of the river went up in flames. After the war, the business district on the North Bank was rebuilt but the South Bank…it was long neglected."
Turning his back to St. Paul's Cathedral, David pointed to a vast complex of new buildings and continued, "Only now has the bombed-out South Bank been properly rebuilt. Our new Millennium pedestrian bridge connects the busy North Bank with the newly trendy South Bank. There's a real buzz in London about our South Bank."
The Thames is a tidal river and it was low tide. David led us down to the beach, saying, "The Thames is littered with history at low tide. Even today many of the beaches are red with clay tiles from 500-year-old roofs." Picking up a chunky piece of tile worn oval by the centuries, with its telltale peg hole still clearly visible, he explained that these tiles were heavy, requiring hefty timbers for support. In the 16th century, when shipbuilding for the Royal Navy made these timbers more costly and rare, lighter slate tiles became the preferred roofing material. Over time, the heavy, red clay tiles migrated from the rooftops to the riverbank…to the pockets of beachcombers like us.
Like kids on a scavenger hunt, we studied the pebbles. David picked up a chalky white tube — the fragile white stem of a 18th century clay pipe. Back then, when tobacco was sold with disposable one-use pipes, used pipes were routinely tossed into the river. David tossed it back down (and, thinking "King George may have sucked on this," I picked it back up).
Climbing back to street level, we prowled through some fascinating relics of the South Bank neighborhood that survived both German bombs and urban renewal. Scaling steep stairs into a church loft, we found a crude surgical theater from the 1700s. Down the street, the last surviving turret of the original London Bridge is the decorative centerpiece of an old hospital yard. Ever since the days when merchants stopped here (just outside the walls of London) to sell things tax-free, the still bustling Borough Market has been where farmers meet city shopkeepers. David led me into the quiet courtyard of a time-warp coaching inn. Looking up at the triple layer set of balconies, he explained, "Courtyards like this provided struggling theater troupes — like young William Shakespeare's — with a captive audience."
Hopping into a big black cab, we say, "Trafalgar Square, please"…and are immediately stalled in traffic. Downtown London has long been choked by traffic. Tourists taking the famous open-top bus tours have wasted countless hours of sightseeing time in this mess. Traffic can be so slow that the world's most talkative guides actually run out of things to say.
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| Ouch! Shortage of pigeon seed in London leaves tourists painfully shorthanded. |
But not David. He says, "This should be better for your next visit. To discourage driving into town and encourage the use of public transport, starting next month all private cars entering the center of London will have to pay a congestion charge. This will be monitored by cameras set up at each road entry point." Progressive mayor Ken Livingstone (a.k.a. "Red Ken") figures this is the only way to unclog London. The question is, how will the already overworked public transit system handle the extra pressure?"
Like just about every European I met on this trip, David was politely curious about American politics. Throughout my January 2003 trip — in both Paris and London — people would engage me in small talk. And then, at the first opportunity, they'd ask what I think about the American push to war. I've never been queried about my president as during this trip to London. No Brit I talked to understood Tony Blair's stalwart support of what they called "President Bush's war."
Hearing us talking, the cabbie slid back his window and, in a heavy Cockney accent, told us that Saudi Arabia is unstable, so America figures its control there is about to end. He summed things up with a simplistic K + I = SA equation: "Saudi Arabia has around 200 oil fields. Kuwait and Iraq have about 100 each. So, Bob's your uncle."
For Europeans, American foreign policy is like the weather — it affects their life and they have no control over it. This January, people in tourism moaned about the jittery economy…and blamed it on the push for war. My favorite small hotel in London, generally booked solid, was almost empty (six people in 14 rooms during our visit). While I felt no anti-Americanism, for the first time in 30 years of travel, being an American was not a social plus.
We hopped out of our big black cab under the statue of the one-eyed, one-legged and single-minded English naval hero, Lord Nelson, on the square named after his greatest battle: Trafalgar. For as long as I can remember, little children and tourists (acting like little children) have bought cups of seed to feed the pigeons of Trafalgar Square. For years, locals were reluctant to tell tourists that their "flying rats" had a disease. (Symptom: no toenails. Cause: standing day after day in their own poop.) Finally, it got too gross. London decided to pay off the guy who sold the seeds ($100,000 to break his contract) and end this "feed the birds, tuppence a bag" tradition — much to the dismay of Mary Poppins fans. The seed guy now runs a sausage stand outside Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square's venerable bird feed stand is gone. But locals report that — even without the seeds — London's flying rats are as numerous as ever.
Leaving me for another guiding appointment, David said, "War seems to be a part of life. Nelson fought the Spanish Armada, we all fought the Nazis, Red Ken's fighting traffic, you're fighting Iraq, and our war on pigeons seems endless."
Shooing away a dirty bird I said, "Peace, David. Thanks for the tour." I headed for another museum…and David's cab sat in traffic.
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