Much like Charles Darnay, until recently, mine was a tale of two cities. While born and raised in London, I spent the first two years of my life in Paris, only to return there for my first year of university. By twenty I had moved my life out to Los Angeles, confusing the mix even further. However, firmly European at heart, this is about me and the two cities I love most.
Having absorbed much of these two, very different, cultures throughout the course of my life I naturally felt very confident going into our first week of book packing London and Paris. While I definitely had a head start in the explorations of London, I came rapidly to the conclusion that I really am a Notting Hill girl through and through. I realized how much of my perception of London was based solely around my home turf. When, in fact, Notting Hill houses a mere 3.5% of London’s population. By day one it had dawned on me just how much of London and London’s history I had yet to explore. In all honesty, this week has humbled me.
On our first day of exploration, we walked through a part of London I knew relatively well – the quintessential tourist’s side of the city. We hit Piccadilly Circus first and then walked down regent’s street, through Pall Mall and into Green Park. We stopped at Buckingham palace; where the flag was flying high – this was the first time I visited our new King at home. We then moved down towards the river, visiting Westminster Abbey, and passing by Parliament and 10 Downing Street. Having spent much time away from the UK in the past few years, the first day for me, was an opportunity to reconnect with the roots of this city. There is simply no better way to take in our history than to literally walk right through it.
Westminster Abbey had been a Year Four school trip destination, but it was far more appreciated this time around. As a creative writing major and an aspiring poet, Poet’s corner was especially exciting for me. I spent a few minutes looking around for Charles Dickens’ memorial plaque only to look down and realize I was standing right on top of him, comfortably nestled between Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy. Having now visited the man of the hour, I was ready to begin my immersion into Dickensian London.
Day two had Fleet Street, the Inns of court, Temple Church, and Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on the agenda. We emerged on Chancery Lane and made our way through the roaring hustle and bustle of London onto Fleet Street. As a Notting Hill native, I am used to the quieter and quainter side of the city, and this was quite the opposite. Our first stop was lunch at Dickens’ favorite Pub: ‘Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese’, also the believed location of the conversation between Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton after Darnay’s trial. As promised, we got to see a first edition of ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and the chair ‘most frequented by Charles Dickens’. It was striking to see how fast the city faded into 18th Century London just by turning down a small alley and entering this pub. This was the first time the words contrast, and perspective played on my mind. We refueled here briefly before our afternoon exploration into the heart of Dickensian London.
Our next mission was to locate Tellson’s bank and the original site of Temple bar – two crucial locations in the opening chapters of Dickens’ ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. Both located on the teeming Fleet Street, it was challenging to imagine Dickensian London between the red buses and the swarms of tourists and corporate soldiers. In Temple Bar’s place, between the Royal Courts of Justice and ‘Tellsons Bank’, now stands the sculpture of the Griffin – the mythological creature we use to symbolize London. On the Tellson’s bank side of Temple Bar stands a closed ‘Child & Co’ Bank, which we might assume was the original inspiration for Tellsons.
Nevertheless, Temple Bar can still be found today, but in a very different part of London. Around the side of St Paul’s Cathedral on a small side street the reconstruction of Temple bar still stands, and it is quite spectacular. It felt almost as if a small fabric of Dickensian London had been unfurled under the newly sewn dress of the modern London I know. This seemed to be a continued theme in our explorations this week.
Just as I had been silently criticizing the busy Fleet Street, we were led into Middle Temple Inn, and everything seemed to halt. Suddenly there were no big red buses, no hordes of people and no rush of the city streets. It was all replaced by an acute sense of serenity. Just behind Fleet Street the Inns of court offered us a walk through 18th Century London. We passed through ‘Kings’ Bench Walk’ and the ‘paper buildings’ where Sydney Carton and C.J Stryver work as lawyers.
This leg of our Book Packing experience was critical in my forming a new perception of London. It is easy to forget even the richest history when you are accustomed to a modern metropolis of a city, but these little sanctuaries that are the Inns of court forced me out of that perception and allowed me to take in the original beauties of my hometown. From then on I began to look for contrast – for those parts of London where the roots and results of modernization intertwine.
This theme of contrast was particularly salient on day three. We got to visit the Tate Modern (my favorite gallery in the world) and we spent an hour walking through their contemporary collections. There was one piece that really caught my eye: ‘reborn sounds of childhood dreams’ by El-Salahi. Contrasted to its yellow canvas, dark, abstract figures hold the center of the piece. There was something innately haunting in the piece – perhaps the menacing faces composed of hollow eyes and shallow cheeks, or the indistinguishable ghostly bodies, or perhaps because it took me to a place I hadn’t visited for some time – my childhood nightmares. This piece, reminiscent of post-colonial modernism, managed to transport me into a world similar to that of the revolution Dickens describes. Themes of destitution, vengeance, violence, and death came powerfully through and made me reflect on the French Revolution Dickens describes. Then, I turn around and am faced with a contemporary piece of aggressive installation art, blinding me with pink and purple strobe lights, pulling me back into the abrasive and flashy world that we live in.
On our final day, we began at Bank; the site of the Royal Stock Exchange and The Bank of England and walked only a mile or so down Whitechapel. We very quickly found ourselves immersed in the heart of the Bangladeshi community of London. Within the hour we saw the soul of old London and the heart of new London intertwine. This was my main takeaway from this week – how quickly things can change and how with a little bit of perspective London’s identity can deepen, encompassing its past, its present and its future.
