Notes From A Small Island

“London remains a vast and exhilarating mystery to me. I lived and worked in or around it for eight years, watched the local news on television, read the evening papers, ranged extensively through its streets to attend weddings and retirement parties or go on harebrained quests for bargains in far-flung salvage yards and still I find that there are great fragments of it that I have not just never visited but never heard of.”

An outsider, by definition, cannot ever possibly hope to have inside information about their destination. No matter how long the author resides in Britain, he will always be an American. He exists in the liminal space between visitor and long-term resident.

“In London, by contrast, the names nearly always sound sylvan and beckoning: Stamford Brook, Turnham Green, Bromley-by-Bow, Maida Vale, Drayton Park. That isn’t a city up there, it’s a Jane Austen novel. It’s easy to imagine that you are shuttling about under a semimythic city from some golden pre-industrial age.”

Bryson speaks of the London Underground, the network of train lines that weaves underneath the city. London’s stops sound like Arcadian wonderlands rather than urban boroughs. It becomes easier to mythologize a city when it applies 18th-century nomenclature to its modern developments.

“It has long seemed to me unfortunate—and I’m taking the global view here—that such an important experiment in social organization was left to the Russians when the British clearly would have managed it so much better. All those things that are necessary to the successful implementation of a rigorous socialist system are, after all, second nature to the British.”

Bryson goes on to list the characteristics of the British that make them suitable for socialism: “they like going without”; “[t]hey will queue patiently for indefinite periods of time”; and “[t]hey are comfortable with faceless bureaucracies” (52). Here, he uses humorous exaggeration to make a point about the British character as he sees it.

“At first glance, the town looked largely unchanged, but in fact progress and the borough council had been at work everywhere.”

In Bournemouth, the author recognizes the same processes he has identified before in other places: Urban planning usually brings about the destruction of historical sites and the implementation of modernization that he characterizes as ugly. In the author’s view, progress often represents the erosion of historical and aesthetic values.

“It’s a funny thing about English diners. They’ll let you dazzle them with piddly duxelles of this and fussy little noisettes of that, but don’t mess with their puddings, which is my thinking exactly. All the dessert entries were for gooey dishes with good English names. I had sticky toffee pudding and it was splendid.”

When dining in a rather fancy hotel restaurant, the author notices the contemporary flourishes on the menu (an example: “Fanned Galia Melon and Cumbrian Air Dried Ham served with a Mixed leaf Salad” [98]) followed by the familiar desserts. This dichotomy, between the elevated and the modest, expresses the spirit of the British well, according to Bryson. It is what he finds most appealing about certain destinations in England: the ancient, soaring architecture existing next to the homey pub.

“It is twelve miles from Lulworth to Weymouth. In The Kingdom by the Sea, Paul Theroux gives the impression that you can walk it in an easy lope and still have time for cream tea and to mock the locals, but I trust he had better weather than I.”

The author invokes one of his influences, another American who travels across Britain, recording its peculiarities and glories alike. They both partake of local customs (“cream tea”) and insist on ribbing the residents as markers of their authority; they are insiders and outsiders at the same time. Bryson’s comment about the unfortunate weather is also a trope of British travel writing.

“It wasn’t much—just a shallow chamber hewn by nature from a limestone cliff face—but I had a pleasing sense of being its first visitor in years. At any rate, there were none of the usual signs of recent visitation—graffiti and abandoned beer cans—which may make it unique in Britain, if not the world.”

The author visits a site called King Arthur’s Cave. It has the advantage of possessing natural beauty—always a plus in Bryson’s book—and being sufficiently remote. Any historical or natural site that is not overrun with tourists is a site that appeals to Bryson.

“Indeed, increasingly in Britain you hear the view that conservation of all types is fussy, retrograde, and an impediment to progress.”

The author’s views are diametrically opposed to the common view expressed here. He advocates for the protection of historical and natural artifacts, from the ancient architecture that one finds throughout Britain to the hedgerows which inhabit much of the landscape. He marvels that so much still is left in a country that has dedicated much of its attention to industrial development.

“But nowhere, of course, are the British more gifted than with place names. Of the thirty thousand named places in Britain a good half, I would guess, are notable or arresting in some way. There are villages that seem to hide some ancient and possibly dark secret (Husbands Bosworth, Rime Intrinseca, Whiteladies Aston) and villages that sound like characters from a bad nineteenth-century novel (Bradford Peverell, Compton Valence, Langton Herring, Wootton Fitzpaine).”

The author remarks on English place names throughout the book, alternately praising them (as above, in their creative excess, or previously, when describing the stops on London’s Underground) and poking fun at them. Names are descriptive markers of cultural values, of course, and Bryson makes the most of them, even providing a glossary at the end of the book.

“Nothing gives the English more pleasure, in a quiet but determined sort of way, than to do things oddly.”

This, according to the author, explains everything from the game of cricket to the rules governing the aristocracy. It is a peculiarly English trait, he argues, to ensure that outsiders can never hope to understand the byzantine systems by which English society operates—at any level, from sports to social divisions to political institutions. This ensures the English maintain the ineffable nature of Englishness, all to themselves.

“Bradford’s role in life is to make every place else in the world look better in comparison, and it does this very well.”

Bradford, in Bryson’s view, is a town in decline, having sacrificed its Victorian buildings in the name of progress and modernity. Its only attraction for Bryson is that the local cinema is showing a movie the author wishes to revisit—not coincidentally, a movie that mostly reveals the splendors of the US. Bryson is roused by the scenes of the Grand Canyon and the Rocky Mountains. He begins to prepare himself to return to his homeland.

“So what are we to do with Britain’s poor battered towns if I won’t let them have Mies van der Rohe or Walt Disney? I wish I knew. More than this, I wish the architects knew. Surely there must be some way to create buildings that are stylish and forward looking without destroying the overall ambience of their setting.”

 Modern architecture (as embodied in the work of Mies van der Rohe) disrupts the fabric of English towns, but prohibiting modernization risks turning these towns into kitschy museums of the past. Bryson wants to see a continuity between the past and the present, where history and tradition remain alive in contemporary culture, but he is not sure how this can be achieved.

“The result was an entrance that was bright and modern but pleasantly harmonious—precisely the sort of thing I’ve been going on about for all these many pages—and I was delighted to think that if this sort of thing is going to happen just once in Britain, it should be in poor beleaguered Wigan.”

He finds one such place in Wigan, where a “talented architect has managed to incorporate a new shopping arcade into the existing fabric of the buildings” (207). Thus, Wigan gets some welcome boost to the local economy while not sacrificing its cultural history. As a former coal-mining town, this transformation is well-deserved.

“The decline happened in a single generation. In 1966, Liverpool was still the second busiest port in Britain, after London. By 1985, it had fallen so low that it was smaller and quieter than even Tees and Hartlepool, Grimsby and Immingham. But in its heyday it was something special.”

Again, the author tracks the decline that has accompanied modernity. Liverpool, in particular, is impacted by the end of empire and the global trade networks that once flowed through Britain. Britain’s Imperial Century has given way to the American Century.

“Only one place, with a sign that said GWELY A BRECWAST/BED AND BREAKFAST, gave any hint that I was, at least in a technical sense, abroad.”

Though the author complains mildly about the lack of national distinction he finds in Wales, he also benefits from the prevalence of the English language, since he does not speak Welsh. He is now outside of England, and the cultural homogenization he has lamented throughout the trip is even more apparent.

“There is almost nothing, apart perhaps from a touching faith in the reliability of weather forecasts and the universal fondness for jokes involving the word bottom, that makes me feel more like an outsider in Britain than the nation’s attitude to animals. Did you know that the National Society for the Protection of Children was formed sixty years after the founding of the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, and as an offshoot of it?”

Another quirk of the English character also leaves the author standing outside of the mainstream: He implies that animal welfare is significantly more important to the British than child welfare. This is a stereotypical assertion that is often leveled at the British.

“Foolishly, but not unnaturally, Morecambe responded by trying to compete with Blackpool. It built an expensive dolphinarium and a new outdoor swimming pool, and recently there had been some half-assed plan to open an amusement park modeled on a TV character named Mr. Blobby. But really its charm, and certainly its hope, lies in being not Blackpool.”

Again, the author makes the distinction between tourist towns—wherein the attractions are manufactured rather than natural or historical—and actual towns. Morecambe would be better off, according to Bryson, should it focus on its own natural resources, like the tide pools, rather than invest money in misplaced infrastructure.

“The Lake District itself takes up less space than the Twin Cities. I think that’s just wonderful—not that these features are modest in their dimensions but that they are modest, in the middle of a densely crowded island, and still wonderful.”

Bryson acknowledges that Britain manages to keep these areas free of industrial development, clean, and accessible—even in the midst of a dense population. He notes that, in order to replicate Britain’s density in the US, one would have to fill the state of Iowa with the combined populations of Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Michigan, Colorado, and Texas (254). This density has only increased over the ensuing 30 years.

“I was heading for Newcastle, by way of York, when I did another impetuous thing. I got off at Durham, intending to poke around the cathedral for an hour or so, and fell in love with it instantly in a serious way.”

This reveals another trope of travel writing, the notion that travel is spontaneous, while tourism is planned. This also implies that travel is for people of leisure (that is, wealth); a traveler possesses the luxury of time, while a tourist has circumscribed vacation days.

“You can’t do that, you know. You can’t tear down fine old structures and then pretend that they are still there. But that is exactly what has happened in Britain in the past thirty years, and not just with buildings.”

Bryson is bothered by the misrepresentation on his maps. While the maps still depict the presence of historical buildings and landmarks, in reality, these have been destroyed or otherwise engulfed by the march of progress. He mentions this kind of historical whitewashing happening in Edinburgh and Oxford, among others.

“Above all, Inverness has an especially fine river, the Ness, which is green and sedate and charmingly overhung with trees, lined on one side with big houses, trim little parks, and the old sandstone castle (now the home of the regional courts) and on the other with old hotels with steep-pitched roofs, more big houses, and the stolid, Notre Dame-like grandeur of the cathedral, standing on a broad lawn beside the river.”

Inverness strikes all the right notes for Bryson: not only does it boast natural beauty, but that beauty is only enhanced by the familiar comforts of home (“big houses”); family-friendly destinations (“trim little parks”); and historically preserved buildings (“sandstone castle” and “old hotels”). This is all anchored by a cathedral, providing spiritual support and historical depth.

“Prolonged solitary travel, you see, affects people in different ways. It is an unnatural business to find yourself in a strange place with an underutilized brain and no particular reason for being there, and eventually it makes you go a little crazy.”

Another trope of travel writing, the lone traveler contends with the difficulty of solitude. Bryson exaggerates his experience, again to humorous effect, though the degree of the traveler’s solitude can always be called into question. Bryson does spend a night at his mother-in-law’s house and makes a stop, midway through his journey, at home.

“That’s the thing about Glasgow. It has all this newfound prosperity and polish, but right at the very edge of things there is always this sense of grit and menace, which I find oddly exhilarating.”

The author rarely identifies threats to his safety throughout the course of the book. His experiences are peaceful, if occasionally annoying, and his interactions with others are nearly always genteel. It is only in Glasgow—not London, Liverpool, or Edinburgh—where Bryson senses danger. It is also the only place wherein he feels he cannot communicate with the locals; their dialect is too different from his own. This lack of comprehension creates fear.