Traveling Troubadours: “London Calling”

By: Clare Buchanan

I’ve dreamt of London my whole life. 

I don’t know which Hugh Grant rom-com was my first introduction to the city. Was it Bridget Jones’ Diary? Maybe it was About A Boy, or it could have been Notting Hill. My mom showed me all of the classics. I might have fallen in love with Hugh Grant before I fell in love with London, but I’ve always been fascinated by the English. And I’ve always been fascinated with London.

Of course, the London we see in the movies isn’t the real London, is it? But when I first landed at Heathrow, I had to stop myself from smiling as I heard people speak in British accents all around me. I gawked at the first double-decker bus I saw and was amused to find beans on toast really is a thing. On my first trip to the city, I gazed up at Big Ben, which truly is a beautiful architectural achievement. I had afternoon tea with vanilla scones and cream at The English Rose in Westminster. I stood outside Buckingham Palace and quietly said some very nasty things under my breath directed at King Charles (Justice for Diana always.). I navigated the tube, quite effortlessly if I do say so myself, and bolted from one side of the city to the next in record time.

London felt like how it was supposed to feel. London is elegant. London is chic. London is wearing a Burberry scarf with Hunter wellies on a rainy Saturday morning at Tate Modern. London is a foggy cafe busy with people sipping warm beverages in the morning and a warm pub that smells like Guinness that projects golden rays of light from its windows onto rain slicked city streets at night.

But I am stubborn, and I am cautious. I cannot simply be a tourist in London. If I left London knowing I was merely a tourist, I would regret not delving in deeper. I want to immerse myself within the folds of the city, explore the streets until my ankles bleed, searching for something I don’t know how to find. The search for London’s genius loci won’t take one weekend, it won’t even take two. It might take me all four months here in England to understand this city. I must find out where the spirit of London goes in the morning, where it goes at night. I know that there is always more lurking beneath the surface, there is always more than meets the eye. London has got to be more than what I believe it to be.

Westminster is home to Victoria Station, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and tacky tourist shops attached to barber shops and cellphone repair shops. The main streets are littered and busy, but if you take the quieter streets, you can see the remnants of the Victorian age in the tall, tightly built apartments that sprawl endlessly down curved alleyways. Pubs line the corners with their dark green and blue paneling, flower baskets hanging from the humorously decorated signs near the front door. The names of the pubs call back to a time in England when the majority of the population was illiterate and could only find their way to the pub based on pictures carved on signs, hence the names we have today like Three Ferrets, Fox and Hound, The Blue Boar, The Red Lion, and The White Rose, etc.

Bordering Westminster and SoHo is St. James’ Park which has several entry and exit points near Buckingham Palace. St. James’ Park is vast, situated around a lake, and is home to the largest geese I have ever seen. Genuinely, think of a normal-sized goose and then imagine that goose about five times larger, and that’s what the geese look like at St. James’ Park. They are very forward creatures and will come up to you, honking, wanting bread or a pet. I did not dignify them with either. The pigeons here are also very bold and will follow you around, coming up to your feet, staring at you accusingly.

The pigeons are also larger than average and vary in patterns and colors, some are spotted and calico, others are almost striped. Just when you think you’ve seen the biggest bird you will ever see, you’ll pass by the pelicans nesting on a rock in the middle of St. James’ Lake. In 1664, a Russian ambassador gave King Charles II a few pelicans as a gift, and no one in England knew what to do with them, so they sent them into the park to fend for themselves. Seemly pelicans are very resourceful creatures because they are still there. They never left. It is clear they control the park now and its entire ecosystem of enormous geese, fluffy squirrels, and larger than average pigeons. I’ve heard horror stories about these massive pelicans eating pigeons. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but I believe it. They are certainly big enough to consume a pigeon, even larger than normal ones.

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The Pelicans at St. James’ Park. Photo Credit: Garden Museum

Primrose Hill is located North of the city center, on a significant hill that overlooks the city with a panoramic view. After Westminster, it was relieving to get away from the hustle and bustle of the tourist traps and find solace along the pastel colored streets of Primrose. My main reason to visit Primrose was not only because of the spectacular skyline views, I was on a pilgrimage to a place where one of my idols once lived. 

Sylvia Plath moved to London in December of 1959 and lived in Primrose Hill from 1960-1961, moving back to the neighborhood again following her divorce with British poet, Ted Hughes, the year she passed away in 1963. This is important for several reasons. The main reason is that I read The Bell Jar at age 15 and have been this way ever since. I always say my life began after turning the first page of that novel. It is strange, I haven’t read it since I was 15, but it has remained with me, as it has remained with so many other young women throughout the years. 

As I stood outside her apartment, I pictured Sylvia walking in and out the front door, carrying groceries, holding her children’s hands, or sitting by the window with tea watching people pass by the park across the street. It felt surreal to know that she’d breathed the same air I was breathing, in that space. I tried not to think about how London made Sylvia spiral even further into herself, how we lost her to this foreign city. I reverently bowed my head as I passed what was once her home and is now someone else’s home and wondered if the people who live there now know they live on holy ground.

Walking the streets of Primrose Hill, I managed to walk past Paddington Bear’s apartment, Friedrich Engels’ apartment, and Sylvia Plath’s apartment, all within the same city block. That is London in a nutshell. Every cobblestone, every brick, and every slab of concrete has been walked upon previously by someone famous and brilliant and long dead. This city is teeming with history, it is impossible to know it all. Blue plaques mark places where infamously important people lived, ate, or stayed for a night. It’s miraculous. You can’t help but feel like you’re a part of a very special lineage as you take it all in. 

Camden Market is the neighborhood West of Primrose Hill. The shops in Camden Market are bizarre and alluring. The tattoo shops have flashing neon signs even in the middle of the afternoon and a man wearing a Royal Guard costume stands on a street corner yelling something incomprehensible, ringing a giant bell at doe-eyed tourists walking by. The alleys and dark passageways of Camden smell like hot food. Wafts of curry, stir fry noodles, and sweet pork linger in the air. The cooks hold out long wooden sticks with pieces of meat attached to them, waving them in your face as you pass by. A statue of Amy Winehouse stands proudly outside the market as a busker belts “Back to Black” to bewildered families passing by at three in the afternoon.

I ended my first round of journeys to London at a random pub in Primrose called Sir Richard Steele’s. According to Google, Sir Richard Steele’s has gone through many different changes in management over the years and shares a back wall with Tim Burton and Helena Bonham-Carter’s former abode. Stepping into Sir Richard Steele’s is like stepping back in time. I sat in a back booth, observing the evening crowd when the most beautiful man I had ever seen walked in. I don’t compliment men often, but he deserved my praise.  

He walked into the pub and the air seemed to stand still. His hair was dark black and teased high like a lion’s mane. He wore heavy black eyeshadow and eyeliner. His nails were painted black. He was draped in the most chic, sheer leopard print blouse. He wore leather pants and leopard-skin boots. He was absolutely angelic. He casually leaned up against the bar and ordered a drink and I sat there with my mouth hanging open, convinced I had just seen God. His girlfriend arrived soon after in an equally raging get up, and I spent most of the night staring at them in complete awe. They made the pub look like it was an underground punk show in the late 70s or early 80s. I was confused as to how I was able to sit in the same space as them. 

When I got up to leave, I looked over my shoulder once more, just to make sure they were real. The man was leaned over, his hair over his face, his arm around his girlfriend’s waist. I giggled all the way back to my hotel.

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A few months before arriving at Harlaxton, we had to fill out a form about what we were expecting from the study abroad experience, what we were looking forward to the most, and what we had questions about. When asked what I was looking forward to the most, I without hesitation wrote: “I am most looking forward to returning home to Salem College after this experience so I can share with everyone what I saw.” When Sam found out about this, she made fun of me relentlessly. She told me I had a problem separating myself from Salem. She is not wrong. But I stand by what I said. I will not leave the UK until I have seen every corner and crevice of London so that come August, I will be able to tell everyone about it. 

August is a long way away. I count each day as it passes with gratitude, but I let myself sink into a routine here because I know I will never be 19 and living in England ever again, so I make the most of it.