The town of Colchester

 

Spent the whole morning going around the town of Colchester a very small, cute and an ancient town in the typical English fashion. Colchester name to fame is as one of the first towns established by the Romans when they established their kingdom in this region around 43 A.D. and it is one of the oldest recorded town of Britain. It was also the capital of Roman Britain. In fact, it derives its Nam from the Roman word, Coloni means human settlement. Situated on the banks of River Colin it is about fifty miles from London and is in the Essex District. Destroyed and rebuilt many times today it has a war memorial of the first world war veterans with a number of beautiful laid lawns and gardens with bright coloured flowers. The Colchester Castle is an ancient castle of Norman times with beautiful laws all around it. It also has a Georgian House, called the Holly Tree House that has a museum in which one can see three centuries back utensils, clothing, portraits and a huge collection of watches. The Holly tree house was built in 1718 for a Elizabeth Corlinelsen, who died soon with in a year of marriage and then the house passed to Sarah Creffeild and her husband Charles Grey who was a member of Parliament from Colchester for five terms in the reign of King George II and King George III and who lived here till 1827.It is primarily his family collection that we see. He was the one who purchased a lot of land around the castle and planted a number of Holly trees around it. This house has preserved a number of potrarits, clocks and other items of that period.Thanks Deepti for taking time and showing us around this beautiful city, its castles and museums. Indeed a beautiful and lovely day.

Fitzroy Square

 

In London we are staying at Fitzroy Square. This is close, as per London standards to the University of London, which is at a walking distance. Most of the houses surrounding the area are occupied by Professors or students. There is a shopping area also near by and so are Soho Square and Trafalgar Square. It is interesting to see how the English commemorate their famous personalities and not necessarily only politicians as is done in India. There are a number of houses that have plaques in them with names of important people who lived there. I do not recollect any such thing in India which we have of people, literatures, poets, writers, painters, doctors other than politicians. One can connect to the house immediately as one sees these names.

Stonehenge

Stonehenge is the ultimate historical mystery that has baffled many and till today we are not sure about the details of this and many theories propound. Built on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, this is the largest human made circle of erected stones. This consists of thirty stones in an outer circle in a horse shoe shape and the stones are called Sarsens. Inside is an inner circle and then an outer circle called blue sarsens. The lightest stones weigh 3600 kg. and the heaviest one weigh 22 tons which is equivalent to the weight of four African Elephants. These stones were brought from 32 km. and 225 km. from Wales and this is a mystery as to how they were brought and for what purpose. Some say they were dragged through wooden made sledges and other say through wooden rafts flown across the river.The next mystery is that after being brought here, how were they made to stand. It is believed that a deep hole was dug and using wedges and ropes these stones were then made to stand erect. The very imagination of this boggles one's mind and this looks beyond one's imagination and one is no longer sure. However, what is known that all this was built in about 1000 years in several stages. Most probably all this began about 5000 years back as a simple earth work enclosure where pre historic people buried their cremated dead. The stone circle as per carbon dating is said to have begun around 2500 years in the late Neolithic period. Some theories propound that this was for measuring time with the shadows falling on earth, some say this was a healing place where early period people came for healing, to some this is a ritualistic place and others think it is a burial place. What ever the reason, it continues raise the awe factor and attract a large number of people. Even today on Summer Solstice, 21st June where the sun is at the highest point, 15,000 to 20,000 people gather at this site to observe the sunrise, which is said to be really beautiful. The first rays of sun fall on the Heel Stone a single stone that stands outside the main circle of rocks. However, I had visited this site earlier in 2005 or 2006, when I was in Bristol and had rented a room with a British Lady. Her son and his friend had come down from London and we had driven to this place. It was empty, there were no tickets and I am sure, I have a face book post some where or at least pictures, where we went inside, touched the stones and took pictures standing next to these stones. My only memory is that there was a lot of cow dung around and we had to be very careful where we were stepping but we went around taking a number of pictures standing near each stone and looking like pygmies. We were the only four people in the place. I have a very vivid memory of this visit for on our way back they decided they wanted to eat Indian cuisine for they loved Indian food and were looking for an Indian restaurant. I had then suggested to them that if they help, I would cook a meal which would be better than the restaurant for here ever Indian restaurant (be it of a Pakistani, Ceylonese or Bangla desi, they all called it Indian and add a lot of sugar in dishes). They very happily drove me to the market, we shopped and there was so much excitement in learning to cook an Indian meal. To me what was needed was a lot of onions, ginger, garlic, tomatoes and each dish was done in a similar fashion. The two boys had helped in cutting, peeling, crushing and we did indeed have a wonderful Indian vegetarian meal with Lassi added minus Haldi, which I could not find in the market. Every one had enjoyed the meal very much and the son had also noted down some Indian recipes and told me he would cook them back home. However, today, when we visited this site in 2019,there were thousands of tourists, we had to buy tickets, buses took us to the spot and the whole area is cardoned off and we cannot go near the stones. May be this is required to protect this cultural heritage for posterity. But this site always raises a lot of curiosity and one wonders as to how the earlier humans managed to drag these stones to this distance and place them erect.

The Victoria Pub

The Victoria Pub in Paddington also has a wee bit of History and little did I realise it when Prof. Michele suggested we meet here to have some discussion. I had also suggested him some other eating places.but finally I told him, I would like to come to The Victoria Pub and my, was I glad that we had narrowed down to this place. I have worked with Prof. Michele Chelleni who is an Economic Historian when I was in Paris and Arras for a Fellowship and was invited to his home in Paris many times and we spent a beautiful Christmas eve going to Church with him, seeing the ceremony being performed and where for the first time, I saw African Christian nuns dancing and entering the Church and then we celebrated Christmas with his s whole family. His wife Cristina is a well known painter and we got to know each other very well and I continue to work with Michele on his big History Project on Wages primarily focusing on Women's work in the unorganised sectors in India. He has also visited our home in India and both Suresh and I look upon him and his family, for we have met both his daughters and son, as very dear to us and our very close friends. By chance Michele and Cristina were in London and he suggested that we should meet at Victoria pub. Little did I knew that I was going to witness a piece of History. This pub is as old as Paddington built in 1838.Legend has it that Queen Victoria while going to Paddington liked this place and so it was named after her. A very famous drink here is called Drina, which is a nickname for Victoria given by Prince Albert. This pub has received the Fuller Pub Award in 2007and

2009 and many other awards for being the best pub. It has a library upstairs and lots of paintings decorating it's walls. Charles Dickens wrote part of his book, Our Mutual Friend sitting here. This was also the favourite pub of Charlie Chaplin and Churchil. I felt happy that we were partaking in this history as Michele discussed his progress on the Wage Project and I promised to send him some write ups after I return to India. We had an amazing food and the bartender was a boy from Ahmedabad who was working in this pub since 19 years and felt happy to see us from India. Suresh met a gentleman, about whom I am not sure as to what was his connection to the pub but he proudly took Suresh around explaining all the pictures in minute details as we did our official work.