One Fine Day - Part II

As promised (threatened), I want to reflect for a few minutes on how Stephen and Laura work through their feelings about England in Mollie Panter-Downes (pictured here) "One Fine Day," given that their lives in this post war world will be very different. The focal point seems to be Barrow Down, the high ground still in a natural state where one can look down on the surrounding countryside. Perhaps somewhat ironically Stephen thinks about it on his way home from work not knowing that Laura is up there at that very moment without his knowing it.

Almost symbolically either being there or thinking about it helps them to think about England and what is going on their lives. Stephen starts to find some real clarity when he realizes that before the war they and their class were really puppets with their lives run by the servants who pulled the strings and now that no one was pulling the strings nothing works the way it had in the past. Perhaps this is a first step in moving towards how to live in this new world, but what seems even more significant is that they realize how important England is to them, how important it is that England won the war. And again, it is seeing and thinking about the land that is a major part of this.

Interestingly as an American of a completely different generation I can share some of these feelings. I have commented frequently about our trip to England earlier this year which was our third trip to England. Our first in 1976 was the traditional tourist guided tour of London and surrounding areas with one day around Stratford. The purpose of our second trip, almost 25 years later, in 2000 was to climb my family tree. We stayed in Tewksbury while visiting Horsely in Gloucestershire and Astley/Worcester in Worcestershire. Then we met my third cousin who graciously hosted us for a week in Audley in Staffordshire.

This trip was off the typical tourist path so we had to plan it all by ourselves and for almost two weeks we did not see or talk to another American. We learned and saw a lot about my English ancestors and the plan was to go back once I had gotten better organized on my research. The trip we made this year was for an entirely different reason - to see Shakespeare's entire history cycle at Stratford. While it certainly wasn't spur of the moment, it was fairly spontaneous ruling out any possibility of doing family history research.

We did, however, go a few days early leaving open the possibility of visiting my cousin in Audley plus some other distant relatives who I had met over the Internet. The idea was that on our first full day there, we would take the train from Stratford to Birmingham and then Stoke. For a while it seemed like the meeting with my relatives might not happen and I remember saying to Carol that if we couldn't do that I didn't want to make the trip since the only other reason to go was to do research and there wasn't enough time for that.

Fortunately we did work out the visit with my relatives which was wonderful. However, what I didn't expect in any way was how moved I was to be back in Audley. We had time both before and after our lunch and my cousin drove us around in her car plus we walked into the village looking for the site on the home of one of my earliest ancestors. My roots in Audley go back into the 1500's and I was surprised by the strong feelings I had about visiting there again and am very grateful that we got there.

Carol and I are planning another trip to England sometime in 2010. At present there are two goals, family history and visiting places related to our favorite authors, we especially want to visit Dartmoor, the site of "The Hound of the Baskervilles." On the family history side I want to do research as it is definitely time to write all this down in a form it can be passed on to future generations. But equally important I want to spend a few days in Nympsfield and Horsely in Gloucestershire as well as Audley - walking in the village and through the surrounding countryside, renewing connections that are hundreds of years old.

All of this helped me both understand and appreciate how Stephen and Laura come to a deeper understanding of what England means to them. I am very grateful to Elaine of Random Jottings for introducing me to this author. And the good news is that this was just the first of the authors she recommended - so many books so little time!