A LETTER FROM HOME.

Otago Witness, Issue 3890, 2 October 1928, Page 65

A LETTER FROM HOME.

By

Sheila Scorie Macdonald.

(Special for the Otago Witness.) August 5. I am writing from Chester, sitting on the hardest of stone benches, on the Roman wall which surrounds this wonderful old town, and alternately blessing the warmest and sunniest of summer evenings, and lamenting the unaccountable behaviour of what has hitherto been London’s most dependable of fountain pens. From my perch I can look over the wall at the streets beneath, and only a few yards away gaze at King Charles’s Tower, projecting as solidly as the day it was built. From out of the angle of the stone wall a flight of worn steps leads up to it, and over the entrance is the following inscription:— “ King Charles stood on this tower, September 24, 1645, and saw his army defeated on Rowton Moor.”

What a world of tragedy and despair behind those few words! Can’t one somehow conjure up a picture of the king, fingering his pointed beard, consulting anxiously with his counsellors, and then —hope gone—gazing in sick apprehension at his fleeing army. Even in King Charles’s time this same wall on which I am sitting must have been a thing to examine closely and marvel at, for the Romans built it, and as it was built so it remains to-day. Nine feet in thickness it is, and it extends in an unbroken line for more than two miles. I haven’t attempted to pace these two miles, for if I had done so I shouldn’t have been here—writing pad on knee, with the evening sunshine streaming down, and the noise of a modern city deafening me —recording my impressions. Before I came here I wandered into the museum, there to browse over an cient memorial tombstones erected to members of the Second Legion under X espasian—which legion, incidentally, left the shores, of Britain before the end of the first century. As well as these memorial stones there are carvings and sculptures of immense interest showing scenes of Roman and British civil life —imprints of masters, slaves, children, ladies, officers, horses, camp followers — just the usual everyday people and objects that are part and parcel of civilian life to-day. And they lived and died here or hereabouts nearly 2000 years ago!

Everything about Chester is unusual, for one does one’s shopping above street level in covered-in alleys with balconies overlooking the street below. These alleys are called “the Rows,” and are quite unique. The floors of the buildings above, which, from their roofs, are supported by oak pillars, black with ago some quite rough and unplaned, some tery elaborately carved. I bought some chocolates at one shop, exactly under neath which, and having no connection with it whatever, was a men’s outfittin" shop. Every here and there a flight stone steps leads up to these “Rows,” and. the double, street effect is verv quaint, as an addition to the general picturesqueness the upper fronts of the houses above are carved and panelled in the ancient style common to the Con tinent, but so rare in England as to be quite unusual.

A great deal of the town land is owned by the Duke of Westminster. We passed quite close to Eaton Hall, which appalled me by its size. How any human being could want to lay themselves up such a peck of troubles in the house line passes my understanding—also, I am told, the understanding of the present duke, who inherited the vase pile from a building-mad grandfather: and is considerably depressed by it. Incidentally, as I pondered on the horrors of inheriting an Eaton Hall, I Smiled to think of the revolt of Prince and. Princess Arthur of Connaught against the mode of residence (and cost, too) of Victorian times. They are building a house at Chipstead, a Surrey village not far from my home—an eightbedroomed, three living-roomed house which will free its royal mistress from the tyranny of the white elephant home which has hitherto been her lot.

But to return to Chester and the motor coach which brought us all the way from London this morning with no further mishap than ‘a burst tyrejt which gave us a half-hour’s laze in the sunshine on the banks of the Thames at Henley. We started from Piccadilly Circus at 8 o’clock—such an odd, quiet Piccadilly, with only a few buses and a taxi or two about. We had made a very early start from home, and taxied across St. James Park from Victoria in a blaze of sunshine. The park was green and lovely after recent heavy rain, and the flower beds in front of the palace were as P a y with red dahlias as the barrack yard opposite was with scarlet-coated soldiers. My heart sank as we reached Piccadilly, and my eyes fell on our huge motor coach, and on the little group of passengers all mixed up with suitcases huddled together oh the curb.’.'/

However, we sorted ourselves out, wer° seated, and off we went up Regent street, down Oxford street, and out and awaj along the Great West road. Behind me was a Scotch minister of the old school, top-hatted, coated in shining, beaming black broadcloth. At Stratford-on-Avon. Shakespeare memorials, he tapped my when the rest of us were all agog for shoulder.

. “ Ask the driver if this is no’ Strat-ford-on-Avon,” he commanded. I obeyed, and into the bargain made further inquiries which I thought were of considerable interest to us all. Primed with knowledge, I turned- “ This is Stratford, all right,” I answered, “ but Ann Hathaway’s cottage is at the other end of the.town. We’ll have to see the house where Shakespeare was born first, and ” The padre frowned.

“ A’ am no concairnt wi’ Shakespeare,” he answered testily, “but according to the itinerary we get oor dinner here.” Some Australian passengers in the rear of the coach laughed immoderately, but the Americans, all schoolmistresses who took their pleasure seriously, frowned, and, simultaneously pulling out fat notebooks, made an entry and glared at the quite unconscious padre.

So that was how we entered Stratford-on-Avon, to find it en fete, given up to a dreadful pageant, which we were told was to last a week. There were so many people in and out and round about Ann Hathaway’s cottage that we were lined up like sheep, and shepherded through at a breathless pace, four abreast. Shakespeare’s house ditto, and to be quite candid I like tho top of my Roman wall in Chester much better. There are very few people about, eveir the Americans and their cameras being little in evidence. One of the species, passing King Charleses Tower only a few minutes ago and pausing to read the inscription, remarked to a companion—• “NoW, I call that interesting. Say. what kind of relation would that., guy

be to King George. I’d like . -fit down and figure it our right now.” However, mercifully, she didn’t. To-morrow we go' on to the lakes, Carlisle, and Gretna Green. I wLh our driver were more communicative, bur he hails from the land o’ cakes, and is, moreover, of the “ dour ” persuasion. He persists in stopping for meals at dull hotels In duller towns, when here and there along the King’s highway are Old World farms and hostelries where I would much liefer make a halt and pass the time of day with some “ancient” cram full of interesting gossip of past times. But dinners and teas at regular times and ordinary places arc an obsession with our Jehu, if such a term can be applied to the driver of a motor coach, and Evilly nilly we must eat and sleep .as he commands. The divine who sits behind me is of the same opinion as the driver, and all he wants is to reach Edinburgh, for, as his wife explained to me, he has “twathree sairmons ” to prepare before next Sabbath, and even in these hustling days the preparing of a sermon is no light undertaking in Scotland. I am thinking that the “ twa three ” will have London and Londoners as a pivot for thought, for I heard the future preacher telling an interested American that it was “ a sinfu’ city—sinfu’.” He must be nearly 80 years of age, and more than a little bewildered by modern problems.

And now to leave my wall perch, for the sun has set, and even the tobacconist, whose little shop in the attic of his house is just behind me, is putting up his shutters. All he has to do' is to go downstairs to his supper, for in Chester things are reversed, and shops are on top, and living rooms below.