Of Bridges, RAF, and Lords

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

What an amazing day. It started rather inauspicsiously. While Lynda was sleeping in Tim got lost on public transportation trying to get to the Tower Bridge. When he did finally find it he was unable to spend as much time as he would have liked walking through the bridge. The Tower Bridge spans the Thames River next to the Tower of London. The Tower of London use to be a prison but now is a tourist site and the home of the Royal Jewels and the Beefeaters, Yeomen of the Guards. We are not sure what or who they guard. Maybe the Beefeaters Gin! At any rate, the Tower Bridge (see pictures) was the first draw bridge built across the Thames. You can climb, actually take an elevator, inside the large towers at each end and walk across the enclosed girder at the top of the bridge. Tim was able to get some great pictures from on high, including the enclosed picture of the Tower of London. An aside - Lynda didn't go because she and Jilayne toured the bridge on an earlier trip - Jeff, did you ever go up there?

The reason Tim did not have as much time as he wanted was because we were meeting our friends from Eastbourne, Clive and Angie Morris. Clive flew 747's for British Airways and Virgin Airline. This was after his stint in the Royal Air Force. We met Clive and Angie at the Royal Air Force Club on Picadilly Rd. It is one of those clubs that are all over London where you need a coat and tie to go in the main dining room. Tim & Clive forswore the coats so we ended up in the bar in the basement(dating from 1590) where we had drinks and a nice lunch. After lunch Clive did give us a tour around the club so we could peek in the posh rooms. He showed us one room where only men were allowed. He told us there is a person who goes through this room occasionally to make sure the the old fly boys are sleeping and not at the great air base in the sky!

After lunch we all wondered through art galleries around St.James St. Clive is an artist so he particularly enjoys all types of galleries. He's planning to exhibit again this fall in a London show. We will be staying with the Morris' for a couple of days later in our trip. After they headed for Victoria Station we headed to Westminster for a second attempt to get into the House of Lords.

Again there was a queue so we spent an hour reading and watching the boats passing in the Thames, in Queen Victoria's Garden at the south end of the houses of Parliament. We were then able to walk right in to the visitors' gallery at the House of Lords in the Parliament building. The room is quite opulent. This is the room where the Queen oversees the opening of Parliament each October. The front of the House of Lords is all in gold, including the throne where the Queen sits. Interestingly, we noticed that each Lord that entered the House turned and bowed toward the throne. When we first arrived a Deputy Minister of Energy was answering questions from the Lords about a new energy bill proposed by the House of Commons. There were only about 40 or 50 Lords in attendance at any given time. We found out later there are a total of 800 Lords, only 92 of whom are hereditary members (the majority are named to the Lords because of their expertise in a particular field). The next order of business was the most interesting for reasons that will soon become obvious. The House of Lords is not a policy body. That is the job of the House of Commons. The Lords are an advisory body but we were told by one of the King's Keepers of the Door, the doorman(!), that 45% of the amendments they offer to bills from the House of Commons are passed and included in the final bill passed by the Commons. The amendment we heard debated concerned the privatization of the Royal Mail and the private company's relationship with the post office network throughout the country. The amendment under consideration required all contracts between the two be for a minimum of 10 years. After about 20 minutes of debate, the Deputy Lord Speaker of the House, with no fanfare, announced a vote on the amendment. Bells started ringing and all hell broke loose. Four Lords were given sticks and everyone left the room. Almost immediately hundreds of people were filing through the room. As the aforementioned doorman explained, because there is not enough room for all the Lords to fit into the House, the voting is done as it has been done for hundreds of years. The hall on one side of the House is designated for the "yea" votes and the other hall for the "nay" votes. The Lords file by the people with the sticks who tap each and count off the number of Lords filing past them. The Lords have 8 minutes to come from where ever they are to cast their vote. There have been instances of Lords dying from heart attacks while running to try to get there in time to vote. After all, these are old people. The amendment was defeated 235 to 165. If our math is correct, 400 Lords voted even though we saw only about 40 of them in the House at any one time. It was all very fascinating to watch. After all this excitement we spent about 20 minutes in the House of Commons watching a debate but it was not nearly as interesting as what we saw in the House of Lords.

Our children and Tim's parents will chuckle when they read that we had dinner at the Chicago Rib Shack. On our first visit to London in 1984 we ate at the Chicago Rib Shack and Jil and especially Jeff immediately named the restaurant as the greatest restaurant in the world. The onion loaf is still as good as always.

Tomorrow we will start packing as Thursday we leave London for the last two weeks of our trip. We're not sure how much we will do so until there is something to report you may not see a blog for several days.