Holyhead, Wales
July 27, 1983

Dear Folks,

The giant, multi-decked ferry ship that had just arrived in the middle of the night from Ireland unloaded what seemed the entire population of that country. It wasn't scheduled to return to Ireland until 3 a.m. My only option of sleeping in the noisy, packed waiting room was out of the question, so I entrusted my backpack to a young Swedish couple and took to roaming the streets of this old sea town.

Like any coastal fishing town, the smell of rot and fish was as heavy as the fog. Combine that with the dark dress of the locals and their gruff expressions, and I began to wonder after a while from which shadowy alleyway an attacker was going to leap at me.

Down about the middle of a street running along the docks, I spied the flashing neon sign of a fish-and-chips shop, and I made for it, not so much because I was hungry, but more because it looked warm and free of suspicious shadows.

I took my order of fish and chips (fries) and sat on the step of the tiny shop. They were the first fish and chips I'd ever had outside of the United States, and they were almost too delilcious to be true.

In the USA the fish from a fast food restaurant was always small and previously frozen. The newspaper-wrapped piece I had in my hands was a good one-foot long and six inches wide, and as fresh as the water slapping aginst the dock pilings. The fries were not thin, limp, and lukewarm but, rather, thick and crisp and so hot I had to wait several minutes before my tongue could tolerate them.

At least a dozen times, while I was eating, the locals walking past smiled at me and amusedly asked, "Enjoyin' yer fish and chips, are ya'?"

How in the world could they tell I was an American eating my first English fish and chips? It was quite obvious by their looks I was doing something that to me was out of the ordinary. I tried crossing my legs, eating with my left hand, not blowing on the fries, but the locals strolling past kept smiling and asking. Finally I just concentrated on enjoying my meal and only answered with a grunt each time a question was put to me.

While returning to the ferry station, a teen-aged boy with thick muscles and unkempt black hair stepped from a doorway to block my path. He stood perhaps only to my chin, but he acted as if he was the bigger man.

"Wha' be yer name?" he asked in a voice only the devil would have thought friendly.

"Steve," I answered, all the while watching his hands.

"Would ya be takin' the boat to Dun Laoghaire tonight?"

I nodded.

"Steve, do ya 'ave a quid to gi' me fer a box?"

"A box?"

"Smokes."

I'd forgotten that here many of the brands of cigarettes are packaged in cardboard, instead of in paper and cellophane.

"Well..." I started to shake my head no.

"Are ya on 'olidays?" he pressed.

"You could say that."

"Why Ireland?"

"Never been there."

"Better ya take yer 'oliday in this country."

"Why?"

He edged closer and spoke with a tone of disgust. "The Irish are a lot of dumb trash. There's nothin' over there worth seein' or speakin' to."

"I take it you don't care for the Irish too awful much."

He laughed harshly. "Tis aren't no secret that there's not much love lost between the Irish and the British." His voice grew louder, more serious. "Ever' time they kill another of our men, I'd like to see the whole of their murderin' lot pushed into the sea!

"Is it any wonder we look down on them? When all's they's good fer is making babies and murderin'?"

I sensed I better move on while his thoughts were occupied with the Irish, not quids.

He grabbed my shoulder. "What of me quid, Steve? It's two miles to me house, and I got no money on me."

I gently pulled away. "Maybe the walk'll cool you down. Besides--" I smiled ever so slightly. "my ancestors were from--"

"Ireland?" He backed off, as if I was diseased, then spun about and sulked off uttering profanities.

I wondered if many other young people in the British Isles thought likewise of the Irish. He hadn't been the first Englishman I'd heard call the Irish lowly, and dumb, and no good. But he'd certainly been the most vehement.

Several hours later I was asleep on the ferry, as it plowed its way across a calm Irish Sea toward Dun Laoghaire, which is about fifteen miles south of Dublin.

The weather when I stepped ashore in Ireland in the dawn was blustery and spitting a cold rain. Hardly the greeting a tired soul needed. I added a little excitement, though, to the bland setting by riding a double-decker bus to the center of Dublin.

Dublin struck me as a "small big city." There was a heavy mixture of old structures with new ones, none of which was very tall, say over twenty stories. With the usual bumper-to-bumper traffic and crowded buildings, it hardly struck me as a very quaint place. And yet it had something that definitely set it apart from every town and city I'd seen in England or Wales.

It had color. All of the drab conformity of the British was absent. Everyone I saw heading to work was dressed as they pleased and in whatever color and style and degree of orderliness they felt comfortable with.

Dublin was by all appearances a city of individuals, not an institution like London.

But were the people as friendly as I'd always heard them to be?

Steven

Posted by at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

London, England,
July 25, 1983

Dear Folks,

Somehow it all seemed too cliche--the fog, the hedges, the green pastures. And yet there England was, only a few thousand feet below and coming closer every second.

Every one of the other 399 passengers on the 747 from Boston seemed to be buzzing with excitement, and there I sat as calm as a statue. Strange. But then perhaps the magnitude of my project is such that I can't allow myself to get excited over every little thing. If I did such, I'd likely wear myself out in no time.

It was not until my luggage was secured that events began to happen which helped to make me realize what an undertaking I was stepping into.

First, there was the passport inspector.

"How long do you plan on visiting?"

"Five weeks, I replied without hesitation.

"You say on your card you'll be in Dublin, Belfast, and London."

"Yes, I plan on walking from Dublin to the others."

"Walk! Why?"

"I'm a writer, and I want to learn about the people in a special manner."

He stamped the passport and handed it back. "Well, the best to you. I expect to be reading about you," he said in such a cheery voice that I couldn't help but grin from ear to ear.

I glanced at the retangular stamp mark. It was good for six months.

"Thanks."

He winked and flashed the thumbs-up sign. I nodded, very impressed by the cheerfulness exhibited on his part. And yet in the back of my mind I felt a sudden unexpected twinge of apprehension: The door to my American past had just clicked shut. I had "officially" entered into the foreign phase of the worldwalk. From here on I was on my own to a degree that I had never experienced in America. Home was not longer just a car or a bus ride away, should I find myself in any trouble.

Home, it hit me, was no longer here, but over there, as far away in time and distance as once the rest of the world had been. And it was only going to get further and further away, at least for a while.

In the afternoon, I returned to Earl's Court, after making the rounds of such tourist-packed sights as the Westminster Abbey, the Parliament Building, Fleet Street, The Tower of London (which is actually the original fortified city of London, not a tower), and the adjoining Tower Bridge (which I had always thought was "London Bridge").

On the whole, what struck me the most about the city was the overbearing grayness of it. The gray sky, gray soot-coated buildings, black taxis, dark blue- and gray-suited businessmen (especially in the Fleet Street district), and the smoggy air all combined to make London hopelessly neutral. Sad to say, the most colorful feature of the city was the Thames River--not its parks and boats, mind you, but the unbroken stream of trash which floats down it to some growing mound beneath the Atlantic.

More and more, as the day wore on, I grew anxious to be in the green countryside of Ireland. Quite frankly, one day of stone gray settings and overcast skies was all I cared for.

From Earl's Court I traveled by train to Uxbridge on the western edge of the Greater London area. Then from Uxbridge I went to Oxford by bus.

Since no more buses were going westward from Oxford after 11 p.m., I slept that night in the center of town, in some bushes beside a large paking lot. Twice during the night the sounds of patrolling Bobbies with noisy walkie-talkies strapped to their belts woke me.

Each time, however, their flashlight beams passed over and around me, and I escaped detection.

Steven

Posted by at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)