A Family Conspsiracy, Rupert Bear, and Mika

The one where my world falls apart and I visit a family conspiracy. Not a travel guide to Canterbury.

10th November 2019

As I promised, nothing with me ever goes as planned – especially when it comes to me and travel.

In October 2019 I was very happily set up in Tangier. I had a good job, a nice flat, not too far from London and the rest of Europe. I was happily anticipating getting my sister onto a camel during her visit in October, and trips to London and Paris for Mika concerts in November and December. My sister already had booked her flight and a stay at a beautiful riad (Moroccan house built around a central courtyard). I had already had several discussions with Manny – her cat – promising to take plenty of embarrassing photos when I got her onto that camel on the beach.

Then everything fell apart.

I suddenly had no job, a year-long rental contract obligation, and nowhere near the amount of money yet saved up for the euro-heavy trips to Europe, and a return ticket to a place I didn’t know if I wanted to come back to.

And five days to re-figure my life.

To be honest, I was still very much getting on my feet. The trip over from Australia had involved many occasions where I’d started to feel overwhelmed. So I had just sat down wherever I was until the anxiety passed. I wasn’t ready to launch into teaching. I wasn’t ready to jump on a plane to the other side of the planet. But then I’ve never been one to wait til I was ready. When it comes to travel the urges have always been stronger than logic.

And I was not ready to cope with teaching. I didn’t even know if I still wanted to teach.

The kids were difficult to manage, and I felt so culturally lost. From Australia we are exposed to Asia and Asians. Plus I have lived there a lot and had many close friends from different parts of Asia.

But Africa is so far from Australia. We don’t hear about Morocco, and only the odd thing about Egypt and elsewhere – usually something to do with bombs and guns or people starving. I didn’t know if I were to put my hand on a student’s shoulder to get their attention I’d be breaching some kind of etiquette. I couldn’t pronounce their names (still working on that one) – I didn’t even know whether a name was a boy’s or a girl’s name.

In short, I had no confidence. I can laugh at it now, but when the boss came up for a routine observation of my class I felt so out of control I literally hid from them behind a column in the classroom to “teach”.

So I took all my gear with me and hopped on that plane to London at the end of October 2019 without a clue of what I would do next.

Canterbury canal off the High Street

Because first I had a Mika concert to go to.

In Australia, even before leaving in August, I had booked a beautiful Airbnb for a week in Canterbury. It was in the High Street, a two story, 500-year-old Tudor building which used to be a bakery. It was the most gorgeous place to stay. I’ve always loved the Tudor buildings and history.

As was typical with my daughter, we mostly cooked ‘at home’ (both of us low on funds – though that was nothing new). Our day was to go out for an English breakfast or coffee, then decide the day was too cold and bleak and we had too little energy or inspiration for an adventure. So we’d walk to the supermarket for food and sugar supplies – sugar of both the fermented and unfermented varieties – and head back to cosy up with movies.

Canterbury High Street, looking to the West Gate to London (just visible at the end)

The cottage – we had the upstairs – had plenty of entertainment on top of the movies. It was absolutely beautifully decorated, perfectly located with a view over the High Street, and an absolute charm to stay in. (Did I mention that I have always adored the Tudor buildings ever since learning about the Tudors in history at school at the age of 14?) And the mere notion of staying in a building that was 500 years old was a thrill – you have to remember that I grew up in Australia where the oldest buildings are lucky to have been standing for 150 years.

But being 500 years old the floors were anything but flat. While the unit had been adjusted to accommodate the 21st century tourist, the building itself was still bending to the will of its fifteenth century construction. The top floor had been two households – albeit of one room for each family. So the pathway from the tv and kitchen area to the bathroom, toilet and bedroom area involved two steps down to a landing, and 2 up to the other rooms.

This delightfully quaint quirk took on an entirely different dimension, however, after 2 or 3 movies and more bottles of wine than is decent to admit to.

First there was the floor which was so wonky – maybe a 6 inch difference in level across it – that it gave the feeling of being drunk even in a completely sober state. So with a few glasses of wine, you can imagine the added challenges!

Then, as I mentioned, the landing. That landing which was the pathway from the tv to the toilet. The question on every occasion was whether to take the two steps down to the landing, then the two back up again, or to simply try the leap from one step top to the other. And as the night progressed this became an increasingly interesting decision.

But don’t get me wrong. We didn’t spend our entire week only negotiating the sea shaped floor and 2-step landing. We just didn’t do things to your normal level of tourist. (As an aside - normal is not a label I do very well). We thoroughly explored the High Street shops, the shopping centre, checked out a pub even older than our flat, and the museum and ex-dungeon over the old gate on the road from London.

The road to London from the top of the West Gate and dungeon. Apparently one fellow escaped by jumping from here into a passing hay cart!

The truth is, I have a family history in Canterbury. My family on my mother’s side comes from there. It is an intriguing family and was well known at the time. Their name was Caldwell.

In the late 1800s there were eleven children born, 4 of them survived to adulthood. I believe that is pretty typical statistics for the time.

The most famous of them (in the UK anyway) was Mary, born in 1874. I guess they really liked the name, since she was the third or fourth baby given that name. They just kept using it til a child lived past infancy.

She married a journalist from London named Tourtel – as Mary Tourtel she was the creator of Rupert Bear in 1920 (taken over and perpetuated by Alfred Bestall for another 30 years from 1935 when Mary’s eyesight started to fail, then others til around the 90s).

The English – and even older Australians – grew up on Rupert Bear. I was very disappointed to learn that the museum had closed just a year earlier in 2018, and had now become a small collection in the Beaney House of Art and Knowledge. It would seem it is now the end of an era. Needless to say, I grew up with a Rupert Bear and knitted Rupert Bear dolls, as did my kids.

The second sibling I will mention was Edmund Caldwell. He was also an artist and emigrated to South Africa where he painted the animals of the veld, as well as illustrating a favourite children’s classic there – I believe an equivalent of Australia’s Blinky Bill or Snugglepot and Cuddlepie or The Magic Pudding illustrated by Norman Lindsey.

The South African classic was called Jock of the Bushveld written by James Percy Fitzpatrick (friend of Rudyard Kipling), and based on a true story about a dog companion.

The cover of Jock of the Bushveld, illustrated by Edmund Caldwell

The third sibling was a very interesting fellow. His name was Samuel Caldwell. Also an artist, he followed in his father’s footsteps and went into the family business as a stained-glass artist and stonemason. Sam was responsible for the stained-glass windows of Canterbury Cathedral – took them down for WWI, spent years restoring them – just in time for WWII!

There is – or maybe was – a window which was actually called Samuel Caldwell’s window. I was told proudly many times by my family how he had discovered in the vaults of the cathedral a lost window of great workmanship and significance, restored it and painstakingly returned it to a place of prominence in the cathedral.

Part of the window of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, ‘Samuel Caldwell’s Window’.

Very curiously, when my mother and sister asked to see his window in the early 80s they were received with a very angry reaction.

When I was digging into the story some years ago I learnt that this hallowed ancestor of mine didn’t actually discover the window – it was a forgery. Apparently he was selling off and pocketing the proceeds from the ancient glass he was finding in the vaults and making fakes for the cathedral. It would seem that he was very good at his craft, but that may be all the good that can be said for that member of the family. That and longevity - he lived til he was 101.

That leaves just one of the four siblings – George – the one who came to Australia at the end of the 1800s and was my direct ancestor. I’ve no idea if he was the bad seed who fled the family, or the black sheep who fled a strange family. Either which way, with all the fame around his siblings, I have been able to learn absolutely nothing about my great, great grandfather George.

With my daughter, I of course went to the cathedral to see the window. And besides – it is a beautiful and famous cathedral – I studied the Canterbury Tales at school – The Wife of Bath’s Tale was mine, an oddly suitable one for me perhaps, if I remember it – at least the travel a lot and not the most elegant of ladies bit.

But the cost of entry to anywhere has gone up so much – £12.50. Each. £25 for the two of us to enter the cathedral just seemed like too much of a stretch for our beleaguered budget. My daughter had found San Francisco very expensive (it is in fact the most expensive place to live in the USA, including New York), and I was out of work and running on hot air and dirhams which don’t go very far against the euro and pound.

A Canterbury bookshop making a point of the wonky buildings. (did I mention that I loved Tudor?)

So after our lovely stay in our wonky-floored apartment (did I mention the 500 year old Tudor bookshop with the door at 60 degrees, and that I love Tudor buildings) we headed to London for our last few days.

And Mika!!!!!

Shepherd’s Bush. London. 10th November, 2019.

I like to think that many of you know the routine for a concert when you pay for standing room tickets – cos for a band, that’s the only way in my opinion.

The live music and visuals are just one part. Being able to move and dance is another.

After lining up for his one and only concert in the UK for 4-5 hours (even in November London is pretty cold) chatting with others – who seemed to mostly be French come over especially for this one concert – once the doors opened and we were in we engineered our way to the stage, just one ‘row’ back.

Needless to say, the concert was amazing, an absolute blast. I think I jumped for a solid two hours to a mix of old favourites and new ones from across his five albums.

At one point, with his song “Big Girls are Beautiful”, starting with his talk of the butterfly lounge, he came down off the stage and made his way through the crowd. He was singing in front of my daughter, just an arm’s reach from me standing behind her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDSK91mUNLU&ab_channel=MIKAVEVO

And I deny that I reached out like a school girl to touch his sleeve. (I just haven’t washed my hand since then)

My daughter was so close to him but dutifully giving him a margin. I couldn’t’ resist.

I pushed from behind.

After an amazing concert, on an incredible high, we were bubbling with talk as we made our way to the bus stop. Suddenly my daughter stops and turns on me.

“You pushed me, didn’t you!” she accused.

Guiltily I gave a slight nod.

My daughter threw her arms around me. “Thank you! I’m never washing my shoulder again.”

It’s not about a mid-life crisis, the men who suddenly buy sports cars and convertibles and the women who dress inappropriately to look like teenagers.

It’s about embracing life and living it to the max, whatever that means for you. If that means buying a sports car, then do that. But don’t dress up like a teenager. Dress up instead just how you want to. That might mean buying and wearing the same outfit.

The difference is that in the first case you are trying to go back to a place, and you will no longer belong. You are simply not that person any more. So don’t try to go back. Instead, go forwards as in the second case. Wear those miniskirts or hip jeans. Go to the concerts. Buy that sports car. Live your life, whatever that may mean to you.

The difference in our attitude is everything.