Greenwich: Two Places in One

Straddling the Prime Meridian in Greenwich!

Many of us have a bucket list. Some lists are more complete than others. I usually add to my list after the fact, just for the satisfaction of checking a few things off. Here’s a few of mine:

• ·      Travel around the world.
• ·      Ride an elephant.
• ·      See all seven of the Wonders of the World.
• ·      Be in two places at once.

Actually, that last one is pretty easy to do. Drive to your nearest state border and straddle that invisible line by the WELCOME TO SOUTH CAROLINA sign. I used to break up the long road trip to visit my grandmother in Mississippi by begging to pull over and stretch my legs … across state lines.

But this time around, while touring England, being in two places at once took on a whole new meaning.  Home of the Prime Meridian and the man who halved the world, only in Greenwich, England, can you stand at 0° longitude – one foot in the East and one foot in the West. Two hemispheres at once.

Two hemispheres at once!

As part of Carolina’s Honors Semester in London program, our flats are nestled in the heart of the city. Greenwich is just a bus/ ferry ride away! And so the weekend after arriving in London, our 25-person group took off with UNC traveling professor Richard Kendall for a day on the meridian. As we pulled from shore, the River Thames provided us with a beautiful view of London –St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Ben, the MI6 (the building blown up in Skyfall) and the Waterloo Bridge, among others – all shrouded in fog.

We soon reached Greenwich, a cozy contrast to busy London. Blanketed in snow, the town seemed to be on holiday – except that everything was still open. Heavily bundled children used trashcan lids as sleds and bounded down the steep slopes. Families built snowmen with flourishes – extra balls of snow (because there was just so much), carefully crafted sticks for glasses and a traffic cone for a rather colorful top hat. And groups of teenagers hurled snowballs at us as we made our ascent to the National Observatory.

Some people in our group had been to the Four Corners – and so being in two places at once seemed, well, like half the fun. But even the skeptics were hushed when we reached the peak. In the fog, it seemed as if we stood in the clouds. Our guide told us that in better weather you could see as far as London, but with our view obscured Greenwich seemed like a world upon itself, protected from the outside, insulated with little town wonders on the inside.

The streets of Greenwich ... in the snow. Can it get more magical than this!? 

How many other places can claim the honor and responsibility of both global standard time (check out the accuracy of your watch and match it to GMT, or Greenwich Mean Time) and the pocket watch? The answer is, of course, nowhere. After straddling the Prime Meridian, we headed to the top of the hill and peaked over at the River Thames. Then, wandering into what appeared to be a modest old country home – sparse but finely furnished with gilded mirrors and richly embroidered red curtains – we found ourselves guests of Sir George Airy, the man who in 1851 established the dividing line that helped bring ships home from sea. Climbing a short spiral staircase, we came into the Octagonal Room, which was built to help the astrologist observe the movement of the sun and stars – a method used to configure latitude. All of this – and much more – was explained to us by a man in white stockings and gray overcoat who was carrying a pocket watch that must have been right out of Alice in Wonderland.

In good 'ole Airy's octagonal observatory. Only problem is, it's hard to see
the stars with a roof over your head and narrow windows on all sides. So,
he didn't spend a whole lot of time in here. He kept to the outside!

That’s when he got to the clocks. Back in the 1700s, shipmen were still looking for a way to accurately measure time out at sea. On the waves, pendulum clocks would swing out of rhythm, distorting time. So, a £20,000 award – the equivalent of millions of pounds today – was promised to the first person who could create a time piece that worked on the ocean. John Harrison, a clock maker, spent decades trying to perfect different models of what he named the marine chronometer. Eventually, model H4 “Sea Watch” with a winding crank survived the test, and he received the award money, as well as the later acknowledgement of designing what would later be perfected into the pocket watch.

Goddards at Greenwich
Pie and pie and more pie, oh my!

But enough about measuring time and space. Greenwich is perhaps less-famously known for having one of the best pie shops in all of England … in my humble opinion. Goddards at Greenwich has been around since 1890, though, so at least a few people past and present must agree with me. We ordered traditional English delicacies like Steak and Kidney (or Ale for those who couldn’t imagine consuming actual organs) pie and mash (a creamier, more buttery version of our mashed potatoes). If it hadn’t been for the upstairs room with plenty of large tables, the 27 students and chaperones would have completely filled the downstairs of the quaint pie shop on 22 King William Walk.

Our pies came out on large platters, which we took upstairs. Picking out tables by the windows, which overlooked the small street, we cut into thick buttery crusts that encased savory slices of steak. Ale-flavored juices flooded our plates, flavoring the mash. The hearty pie and mash was good, but the rich chocolate pudding cake drowned in warm custard stole the attention of my (and just about everybody else’s) fork.

Katie Pindell and I outside Goddards, since 1890.

As we feasted, I couldn’t help but look around. So much history! The pale green walls and counters lined with pies almost hummed with stories – shared and lost.  We appeared to be the only outsiders in the shop. Most of the diners seemed to work in and around town. A quiet familiarity resonated throughout the shop, as if the staff knew Minced Beef Pie & Extra Gravy as George from the nearby pub and Rhubarb Crumble and Two Scoops of Vanilla as Nathalie, the florist’s daughter. Then again, maybe George and Nathalie were also just passing through. Maybe the staff is just that friendly.

Leaving Greenwich I found that I’d done more than stand in two places at the same time. I’d somehow managed to be in two places in one. With old time charm and the pleasantry of modern conveniences, Greenwich has embraced both past and present in a way that makes it distinctly both. So warm up with a hot pie from Goddards, take a stroll through the market place, go stand on the Prime Meridian, and then come home knowing you’ve straddled more than a line. You’ve straddled time.

Meeting the Portrait

I’m studying abroad with UNC’s Honors Semester in London program. The first week has been filled with a dizzying array of sights and sounds, top among them shows at the National Theater and West End, trips to the Tate Modern and Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard, camping out at the London Eye – one of the largest observation wheels in the world – to take part in a street artist’s endeavor to compile different viewers’ photographs of the capital – and, of course, taking that all-too-touristy photograph with the red telephone booth and Big Ben.

While studying abroad, I’m taking a course in "Contemporary British Art," which takes us to many of London’s most distinguished art galleries and museums. First stop: The National Portrait Gallery to become one of the first to see Kate Middleton’s infamous portrait after its unveiling earlier this month.

You can't get a more touristy photo than this!
Kate would have done well if her painter was as good
as my photographer/ friend, Liz Hawryluk!

While I thoroughly enjoy art galleries, I tend to skip over the portraits, preferring scenes that tell a story, that show interaction between people, creatures and places. Not just a posed and composed – often stiff – depiction of a person I’ve never met. But when I heard that we’d be touring the National Portrait Gallery and would have the opportunity to view Kate Middleton’s newly unveiled portrait, I was thrilled. Here was the opportunity to see an artistic rendering of someone whom I’ve actually seen before in real life. I’ve heard crazy stories about her – like how she always wears the same pair of shoes – and I’ve enjoyed the many photographs of her extravagant royal wedding. Plus, we all know that Kate stole the crème de la crème of the royal family. I’d take William over Harry any day of the week.

A brisk walk from Winston House (Carolina's own London hub for study and research abroad) to the National Portrait Gallery soon brought us face-to-face with Kate. Only it wasn’t Kate. At least not as I know her. She was hardly recognizable! If I hadn’t been told, “This is the portrait of Kate Middleton that you’ve heard so much about,” I’d have passed right by in search of it. The critics are right: In the portrait she appears older than she actually is, almost approaching middle-aged, when in fact she’s only 31. Apparently she approved of the portrait before it went on display. I think she needs glasses. The portrait depicted her with pursed lips and bags under her eyes. The only good aspect of the portrait was perfectly fluffed hair – bigger and better than even stardom will allow. I’m not sure what she was wearing, but I’m pretty sure that the drab blue shirt was a figment of Paul Emsley’s (the painter’s) imagination. Apparently, Kate only sat for two sittings and the artist modeled the rest from photographs. Not sure where he got the photos, but I’ve certainly never seen them.

Nearby was a portrait that really put Kate’s to shame. In a simple frame was a small portrait of Corporal Johnson Beharry, a soldier who served twice in Iraq and earned the Victoria Cross, the highest honor in the British military. Twice he saved his army vehicle of men from an onslaught of fire, the second time himself suffering from life-threatening injuries and still managing to drive his men to safety before losing consciousness. Beharry became the first living recipient of the Victoria Cross in more than 30 years, but the honor came at a high cost: serious brain injuries, which, in his own words, make him feel as if ants are crawling inside his head. The portrait – truncated and compressed – speaks volumes to Beharry’s persona and circumstances. The small proportions and simple framing of Beharry’s portrait are in stark contrast to that of Kate’s, but while Kate’s portrait tells the viewer nothing about her, just looking at Beharry, I felt as if I knew him and maybe even understood (a little bit) what he still goes through today. The narrow portrait focused my eyes on Beharry, calling attention to the scars cutting across his hair and the stiff posture of everything from his shoulders to his hands. With nothing to distract me from his features, I almost felt as if I, too, had ants crawling around in my brain.

After taking a look at painted portraiture, we moved on to photograph portraits of the royal family. Again, many of the girls were reminded of William’s merits over Harry’s. A black and white portrait of William on his 21^st birthday in a tux and white bowtie, head slightly ducked showed the man within – someone shy and introspective, a stark contrast to Harry’s “every man” color portrait, also taken on his 21^st birthday, posed by his motorcycle and grinning widely at the camera. We discussed the merits of black and white and color photography and why certain choices were made: black and white tends to allude to permanence, while color can add interest and make the viewers feel as if they, too, are present with the subject, and then continued on to the “Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait” exhibit.

We passed through a number of fine portraits, but I was particularly struck by one of Giles Duley titled “Becoming the Story.” Again, this one has its roots with the War on Terror, this time in Afghanistan. Duley is a photojournalist who lost both legs and one arm when he stepped on an IED while documenting humanitarian issues in the war. When he found out that he’d lost three of his limbs, he remarked that he was glad to have his right arm because he could still take photographs. For his self-portrait, Duley propped himself on a black plinth – an allusion to a famous sculpture that lost limbs to the dustbins of antiquity and now sits in the Louvre. Head held high and resolute, looking far into the distance, Duley’s was a portrait filled with hope. Although an amputee, his portrait was not about disability, but, rather, ability in the face of adversity.

From Kate’s new portrait – an example of everything that portraiture shouldn’t be – to the soul-moving portraits of those wounded in war and even the light-hearted photographs of the young princes celebrating a birthday not so significant over in the U.K., I learned a great deal about the importance of portraiture. The next time I go to an art museum, I don’t think I’ll so easily pass over the portraits. Even if I don’t know the subjects – as I didn’t know Duley before seeing his photograph – I know that, if it is a good portrait, all I have to do is take the time to look at the portrait, and I’ll meet someone new.