A Decent Pint of Old Toejam

Bill Bryson is one of the people I’d like to be when I grow up. He’s a very funny, very smart author of bestselling, well-received books, and like me, is an American with a profound love of things British. I had read his A Walk in the Woods right before I left for Britain which amused me immensely, and then enjoyed his audio commentary installed in the Roman Baths in Bath. I don’t know how I avoided his love letter to Britain for so long, since I understand and agree with so many of his sentiments—negative and positive—about Americans and Brits.

I wish I had stumbled onto a job in Britain like Bryson did in 1973, even if the job was at an outrageous sanatorium (you can almost see the characters from Life on Mars there) like his was. Then he somehow managed to land a bunch of copyediting jobs until there he was, working for The Times, living in the Yorkshire Dales, and in 1994-ish about to leave the country where he’d lived for twenty years in order to give his children a taste of America. (Encouragingly he managed to find the love of his life—he doesn’t say as much, he just calls her his wife—in Britain.) You can see why I heave a sigh of envy.

But the beauty of the book is that it works on two parallel storylines—the “present” (1994-ish) when Bryson is bidding goodbye to his adopted country, and 1973-on, his arrival and all the curiosities that coming to a new country always affords. He begins the book brilliantly by poking fun at the following inescapable truth: The fact is that the British have a totally private sense of distance. I encountered this myself and continue to encounter it, which is at times quaint and frustrating but believably natural. Bryson also uses this hook to introduce his dead-on comic parody of British place names. “Nice little pub,” someone will interject—usually, for some reason, a guy in a bulky cardigan. “They do a decent pint of old Toejam.”

Bryson landed first in Dover in 1973, having hitchhiked across Belgium and coming over from France. His first experiences in Britain, revolving around a memorable stay at a house owned by a formidable, demanding landlady, need little exaggeration for comic effect. Unfortunately, when he returns to Dover twenty years later, The whole town center seemed uncomfortably squeezed by busy, wide relief roads . . . there was now a big tourist edifice called the White Cliffs Experience, where, I presume from the name, you can discover what it feels like to be 800-million-year-old chalk. (All the more entertaining if you have come across descriptions of the White Cliffs Experience in guide books.) Certainly, as you see, Bryson is full of strong opinions, especially about town planning and historical preservation, and can even be surprisingly rude sometimes in expressing them.

Bryson’s journey back through Britain is not exhaustive by any means; he travels by foot, rail, and bus (which he says is much harder than years ago, though I have nothing but admiration for the huge majority of British public transportation I’ve experienced). His stay in London is surprisingly short, confined to an arrival in Victoria Station with which I can entirely sympathize—On my way out, three separate people inquired whether I had any spare change—“No, but thank you for asking!” –and staying in William Hazlitt’s house. Hazlitt (sp?), William (?), English (poss. Scottish?), essayist. Lived: Before 1900. Most famous work: Don’t know. Quips, epigrams, bons mots: Don’t know. Other useful information: His house is now a hotel. He has London cab drivers nailed, though my personal experience with them is limited to having once been driven by one and once been almost run over by one.

Other destinations of Bryson’s include seaside resorts like Blackpool. Though I’ve never been there—no, not even to see the Doctor Who exhibition—I have never quite understood the reason for its existence. Bryson’s opinion is much the same—It all seemed tacky and inadequate on a rather grand scale, like Blackpool itself. It’s at seaside resorts that Bryson comes upon another inescapable truth: And the British are so easy to please. . . . They actually like their pleasures small. I have found this to be the case and often charmingly so. I, too, am all about the joy of cream cakes and a cup of tea. Sigh. There is also an excellent section on Stonehenge. In trying to get a bus there, he is told, “I believe you’ll find the local taxi services will take you to Stonehenge, wait for you there, and bring you back for about 20 pounds,” he suggested. “A lot of our American visitors find this very satisfactory.” Perhaps even more stunningly, he sums up the whole Stonehenge experience exactly as it played out for me: Impressive as Stonehenge is, there comes a moment somewhere about 11 minutes after your arrival when you realize your fascination has peaked, and you spend another 40 minutes walking around the perimeter rope looking at it only out of a combination of politeness, reluctance at being the first from your bus to leave, and a desire to get £2.80 worth of exposure from the experience.

Having been to Stonehenge twice in the same year (on a busload with other North American students from Swansea the first time, with a coachload of North American and Australian tourists the second time), I can only speculate that the value of staring at a bunch of rocks must be diminished by the fact they can be accessed only by walking around a track. However, at the same time, I understand why access to them is designed that way and can’t think of a better way to leave the view virtually unobstructed and yet safe. In February, Stonehenge is dreadfully cold, but less crowded and more atmospheric.

Having never been to Oxford, I have no idea if Bryson’s dismissiveness of it is justified or not. In Cambridgeshire, he waxes poetic on the idea of really old hedgerows: without them, it would just be Indiana with steeples. Though Bryson seems much less interested in museums and galleries than I am, some of his must-sees would go on the list for me as well. Such as the house of the fifth Duke of Portland, who was an obsessive recluse, and visiting the set of Coronation Street in Granada Studios in Manchester. I am always pleased to relate that the first time I saw Coronation Street (a repeat, it must be said) was on BBC World in Spain and how disappointed I was! I infrequently caught it on TV last year, but like Bryson I had no idea what was going on, of course, but I found myself strangely absorbed by it. It’s less annoying than The Archers, in any case.

I of course took a personal interest in Bryson’s experiences in Wales, which I found to be slight indeed. There is a meeting with a steam train maniac on a train to Llandudno, but then he gets it utterly, utterly right in summarizing Pobol y Cwm: Occasionally, I was interested to note, they dropped in English words—“hi ya,” “right then,” “OK”—presumably because—a Welsh equivalent didn’t exist, and in one memorable encounter a character said something like, “Wlch ylch aargh ybsy cwm dirty weekend, look you,” which I just loved. A Welsh person might find this a trifle patronizing, but the beauty of Pobol y Cwm is that you can watch it with no Welsh vocabulary—besides bore da, tê, and diolch, obviously—and still enjoy it. At least I could.

However, Bryson is quick to suggest that Scotland is more of its own country than Wales is. Having not visited much of Scotland, I can’t really say, but I think that’s bollocks. While Scotland—and indeed Ireland and Wales!—has an enormous “rollcall of worthies” for its size, I find myself nodding at Bryson’s ambivalence about Edinburgh. While he finds it charming and picturesque by late afternoon light and a bit commonplace and ick by morning light, I found the inversion to be true! He does relate a rather hilarious anecdote about backstreet Glasgow: “D’ye nae hae in May?” the man went on. “If ye dinna dock ma donny.” “Doon in Troon they croon in June,” said his mate, then added, “wi’ a spoon.” (Shades of “Smith and Jones” there, I think.) Geordie is the accent I have trouble with, though I won’t pretend thick Scottish brogue hasn’t given me occasional head-scratching.

Despite setbacks of all kinds, Bryson relates his real understanding and affection for Britain and the British people. On weather: I like knowing that so long as I do not go walking up Mount Snowdon in carpet slippers in February, I will almost certainly never perish from the elements in this soft and gentle country. On politeness, and this I can honestly say is true because with the possible exception of London suburbs, I was met with politeness, helpfulness and a seemingly genuine interest in my well-being wherever I went in Britain (and a minimum of chavs and yobs). This is in contrast to Chambéry in France where I lived for a semester; while not exactly unkind, there is definitely a certain reserve and “take-care-of-yourself” attitude in France. Somewhat amazingly, however, is that in both countries I managed to avoid the anti-American attitude that everyone says you will find Europe: . . . a well-worn rant about the shortcomings of Americans. I never understand what people are thinking when they do this. Do they think I’ll appreciate their candor, or have they simply forgotten that I am one of the species myself?

One of the last ideas Bryson conveys in the books is his affection for the people of the Yorkshire Dales. He says of the American Midwest, there are people who move house every six months just to get the pies. This pie-giving, welcome-to-the-neighborhood approach (which, believe me, does not happen in Albuquerque!) would not happen in Yorkshire, but nevertheless he paints them as friendly and polite. With a final assertion that he will be back, Bryson gives us a really great glossary with some of my favorite British slang words like berk, naff, and twee (which I still use here, to much consternation from my American friends) and ponders the impossibilities of why a truck is called a lorry and why it’s a milk float when it doesn’t float. The whole book, when not making me shake with laughter, makes me nostalgic for chocolate digestives, fish and chips, and I hope I, like Bryson, will be back. And soon.