England Travel Journal – Day 5

The Radcliffe Camera, where I heard things a person ought not hear

Today was the Sabbath, and we only planned a few items on our agenda.

We walked to the Radcliffe Camera only to find signs in front of both entrances saying only “Readers” could enter. I consider myself a “reader”- I try to read 50 books a year – but I still felt the sign was not referring to me.

While standing there with the GSB team contemplating our options a gray-haired gentleman (and I use that word loosely) standing no more than 6 feet away crepitated, or as they say in the UK, “broke wind.” And in no small way, I might add; it was sustained and sonorous.

I looked at the rest of the team, but I was apparently the only one who heard it. And when I told them what he had done, no one else seemed surprised or offended. But we were at Oxford. In England. What about manners? Propriety? The Privy Council?

We stil had the Bodleian Library on our agenda, but there again we were turned away. We were told we were too late to get tickets. I used the opportunity to stress to the rest of the team again the importance of getting an early start, but that was met with the same disinterestedness they had shown to unrestrained flatulence.

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England Travel Journal – Day 4

King Alfred Statue, Wantage

Our study of the conversion of England to the kingdom of God has been moving in reverse order. We started with Windsor Castle and England’s most recent and longest serving Christian monarch, Elizabeth II.

Then yesterday, we focused exclusively on C.S. Lewis, a predecessor of Elizabeth. Today, we continued the journey backwards in time, this time 1,150 years, to visit the places and person of Alfred the Great.

Our first stop was at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The Ashmolean holds The Alfred Jewel. It’s believed to be a pointer Alfred sent to each of the bishops in England, along with his English translation of Pope Gregory the Great’s book, Pastoral Care.

The Alfred Jewel, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

The inscription on the jewel reads, “Alfred ordered me made.” The jewel was made in the 2nd half of the 9th century A.D. and is considered one of England’s greatest treasures from this time period.

We spent only a little over an hour at the Ashmolean because we had to leave for Wantage, the birthplace of Alfred the Great.

The drive through the English countryside was accompanied by interesting discussion. Ann mentioned an article in the London Times about a person tried and found guilty of “misadventure,” the British legal term for an injury caused by someone engaged in an otherwise lawful act. We chuckled at the English’s strange use of their own language, just as we had yesterday with the phrase, “privy council” – is it advice given about use of a toilet or something else?

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England Travel Journal – Day 3

New Building, Oxford

C.S. Lewis spent 29 years in Oxford, and although we had visited Oxford before, we had not fully explored the sites of the life of C.S. Lewis. Today we did.

Thanks to the C.S. Lewis Foundation for publishing a wonderful self-guided C.S. Lewis walking tour of Oxford on its website. It directs you to the places Lewis lived, worked, and worshipped, as well as the place of his conversion, all in a very orderly fashion. You can find the walking tour guide here.

We began at Blackwells, one of the oldest and largest bookstores in the world, which sits between two pubs Lewis often visited with J.R.R. Tolkien and other friends: The White Horse Inn and the Kings Arms. We then followed Holywell Street to the place where Lewis stayed his first night in Oxford.

The best stop on the tour though was Magdalen College, where we saw (from outside) the room in the “New Building” where Lewis converted to theism in 1929, later writing, “I gave in and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England.”

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England Travel Journal – Day 2

Windsor Castle, Changing of the Guard, August 31, 2023

We started our first day in England at Windsor Castle, which, none of us knew until we got there, was founded by William the Conqueror, one of the subjects of our tour. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.

Inside, we visited St. George’s Chapel, where we saw tombs of kings and queens of England. The highlight was the tomb of Queen Elizabeth II, England’s longest serving monarch, who died in 2022. Reportedly, she prayed daily and read her Bible and considered herself a servant of King Jesus, which is a testimony to the leavening work of the Kingdom in the country we will be studying on this tour.

After leaving Windsor, we drove a few miles to Runnymede, home of the signing of the Magna Carta, where British nobles forced King John to acknowledge certain rights, including trial by jury, as well as the rule of law. This is stuff that gets us lawyers very excited.

There are actually two Runnymedes. There is the commercialized place, where you can buy a cappuccino and see the JFK, American Bar Association, and Duke of Cambridge monuments. And then there’s a place called Ankerwycke.

Ankerwycke can be found not far away on the other side of the Thames, at the end of a narrow, poorly marked road at the end of which is a small car park. To find the actual spot where the Magna Carta may have been signed requires a trek through a field with no signs or markings, except “Bull in field.”

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England Travel Journal – Day 1

I had a “chance” meeting with someone in this small town outside of London

Day 1 is always a travel day on GSB study tours. I usually focus on all the inconveniences of travel because they seem to preoccupy my thoughts. But this time I was distracted by something else.

The Greater Houston Area, all in, has about 6 million people. Given the number of people, it is unusual to see someone you know when you are out and about in the city.

So, I’m at the gate in the Houston airport waiting to board our flight to London, and I look across the way and see an employment attorney I know waiting to board a flight to Amsterdam. She is, in fact, one of the two employment attorneys in Houston to whom I refer plaintiff’s employment cases. So, I walked over and we chatted, both noting the coincidental nature of the meeting.

The GSB team and I then boarded our plane to London. As I am getting settled in my seat, I look up and see the person in the seat in front of me is an attorney/mediator I know, who is also from Houston. She is one of 5 mediators I typically use to mediate employment cases. She is also the mother-in-law of another employment attorney in Houston I have known for years. We both commented on the coincidental meeting, got caught up, and then settled into our seats for the nine-hour flight to London.

After arriving at London’s Heathrow airport, we picked up our rental car and headed to our first destination, the town of Windsor, where the GSB team planned to visit Windsor Castle.

As we are walking up the street toward the castle entrance, I see an attorney I know from Houston, an attorney many consider to be the best personal injury attorney in Houston, perhaps in Texas. We’ve known each other for years. He refers employment cases to me, and I refer personal injury cases to him.

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