My love for this country probably started about 1992. Nearly 20 years before Adam & I moved
over.
Having grown up a bit of a military brat, I was very used
to moving every 3 to 4 years. So when my
parents told me that we were moving to Plymouth, England from North Carolina
they might as well have told me that we were moving just two hours away or to the moon, I had no concept
of how far away England was. None the
less, off we went. I find it funny the
other things I remember. I can very
clearly remember the church we attended, the floorplan of our house, the grocery
store down the road that Mother & I would walk to every couple of days – it
used to be a Somerfields, but the whole chain has been taken over by CoOp in
the last 20 years. My parents claim that
we would walk to the local fish & chip shop nearly every Friday night for
dinner. I have absolutely no memory of
this. I don’t think it actually
happened.
In our two years in Plymouth, we also made some great
family friends. When Mother & Daddy
where here in November, the Rees’ came to Bristol to visit and were also kind
enough to invite Adam & I to their
home in Plymouth to see if I remembered the old neighborhood. So a couple months later we took them up on
the offer.
Our first stop was my old house in Plymstock. It looks exactly how I remember. A little bit of ivy down the side of the
house. Peachy pink stucco on every duplex down the street – this is military
housing at its finest!
Adam & Mr. Rees made me get alot closer to the front
of the house than I’d wanted --- hope the current tenants didn’t think we were
doing recon work!
We also had a garage down the road a bit. The car we had was too large for the garage,
so it had to pull up alongside the end.
We had a tire swing just around the corner from the
house. I remember it being the furthest
that Jonathan & I were allowed to go from the house by ourselves. The swing apparently has disappeared over the
years, but the tie to the tree branch was still there!
After leaving the old neighborhood, we headed up to our
old church. Besides the fresh coat of (rather
bright blue) paint, it was just how I’d remembered it.
Just around the corner from the church is a
newsagents. Every Sunday after church,
Daddy would give me £2 and I could go buy a Sunday Times paper. One Sunday I went in and they had sold out of
papers. I was so distraught that I
couldn’t buy one and started crying in the shop. Dad was nearby and assured me (and the shop
owner) that everything was okay. Fast
forward a couple of months and again the shop ran out of papers, but as I
walked in the shop owner lit up as he pulled a specially saved copy from behind
the cash register counter. I didn’t go
in this weekend to see if he might have saved one for me again. I’m going to guess after 20 years that they
may have moved on some.
Besides being the home of the Spencer’s for two year,
Plymouth is known by Americans for being the place where the pilgrims left
from. We went down to the Barbican area
of Plymouth to the Mayflower steps. The
actual steps the pilgrims left from no longer exist. A granite block bearing
the ship’s name marks the approximate site, while a tablet commemorating the
voyage was erected alongside in 1891. The portico was added in 1934. Taking a
couple of steps through leads to a mini-balcony, built in 2000, which has views
out towards the sea.
Despite being extremely cold that day, the sun decided to
peek out for a few minutes just as we walked through the Barbican moorings.
Yes, that is a picture with the sun out. Trust me.
From there we headed over to the Hoe. In the late 1500’s, the English and the
Spanish were having a little disagreement over (as most conflicts in Europe at
that time) religion, power and money...wait, maybe that’s the source of most conflicts
everywhere. I digress. Sir Francis Drake was vice admiral in command
of the English fleet when it overcame the Spanish Armada (the Spanish fleet) that
was attempting to invade England in 1588. The most famous (but probably completely
untrue) anecdote about Drake relates that, prior to the battle, he was playing
a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. On being warned of the approach of the Spanish
fleet, Drake is said to have remarked that there was plenty of time to finish
the game and still beat the Spaniards. Winds and currents caused some delay in
the launching of the English fleet as the Spanish drew nearer, perhaps
prompting a popular myth of Drake's cavalier attitude to the Spanish threat. No matter the validly of the story, the Hoe
is still a beautiful open green space overlooking the limestone cliffs and the
open sea.
A prominent landmark on the Hoe is Smeaton's Tower. This
is the upper portion of John Smeaton's Eddystone Lighthouse, which was
originally built on the Eddystone Rocks (about 9 miles out into the sea) in
1759. It was dismantled in 1877 and moved, stone by stone, to the Hoe where it
was re-erected. It no longer serves a
purpose as a lighthouse for navigational purposes, but is quite iconic within
the city.
As the evening progressed, Adam and Mr. Rees worked to
solve all the world problems as they discussed their way through politics,
religion, economics, and even pop culture.
They soon discovered that they both have a love for whiskey. So they then decided to take a trip through
(the drinks of) Scotland together.
Adam enjoyed his tour.
The Rees’ have a beautiful home. This is the view outside their guest bedroom.
I could wake up to that every morning!
In honor of their American guest, they even found the
flags from the 4th of July party that Mother & Daddy threw when
we lived here and put them on display.
We were also kept super warm by the lovely coal burning
fireplace.
Sunday morning we visited Dartmoor National Park with it’s
Tors (hills topped with an outcropping of rock), bogs, and leats (an artificial
aqueduct dug into the ground to supply water to neighboring towns). The very, very, very narrow road with just
enough moss to hide the hard stone walls on either edge (but not enough to cushion
you should your car get closer to the wall than you thought it was)!
It was actually so cold that day that water was freezing
as it splashed out of the rivers.
One more stop on the memory train. At 11 & 12, I attended Hooe (pronounce ‘who’)
Primary School in year 6 and 7 (5th & 6th grade). We had a quick walk by the school...it’s
smaller than I remembered.
Thank you to the Rees’ for a wonderful weekend and
allowing me to show Adam where I first fell in love with this country!
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