Travels of a Born Tourist: EXCURSION Lichfield, Staffordshire, England

I arrived in Lichfield in the late afternoon of July 5, 2001. As I was returning to London the next evening to fly out on the 7th, the day in Lichfield was to be my last in the country, and as of today, still the last day I was anywhere abroad, not counting Canada. I came by train from Nottingham via Birmingham on one of those old clanking lines that reminds one somewhat of Thomas the Tank Engine. I know it is fashionable to eviscerate the British rail system, but except for excessive overcrowding on some of the trains in and out of London and the inconvenience that one can no longer store one's bags in lockers at the stations I do not have any great complaints with it. I am a train romanticist and am not much concerned with how up to date or efficient facilities and services are. Indeed the less up to date such things are generally the better as far as I am concerned.

Lichfield City train station I do not remember well, but it did not impress me as having a bustling air, and when one leaves it to go towards town the streets and the area around it are sleepy compared with other towns similar to it in size and historical import in the southern part of the country. I have not been in the north, which I imagine as being even sleepier. Lichfield of course is a cathedral city, though its current population is only around 25,000, which means that the spires of the cathedral are more or less visible the whole of the approach to town, which relieves the need to carry or refer to a map every two blocks. During the whole of the previous two weeks it had been extremely hot--85-90 degrees with 90% humidity, no serious air conditioning or even fans anywhere with the exception of one chain pub in Hucknall (the town where Byron is buried)--and finally that afternoon the heat broke, the sky grew overcast, and I could walk around in long pants with a moderate degree of comfort.

On the approach to town there was a mural on a long wall/fence of the kind that people frequently walk past in Britpop music videos in various degrees of angst that depicted Johnson and Boswell and was adorned with a couple of the great man's famous Lichfield quotes, the one about the residents of the city being the genteelest and speaking the purest English, and the other about how in his day all the best people in town got drunk every night. I took this as a good omen.

I had no accomodation reserved ahead of time. I like to think of myself as a disciple of the Dickens/Balzac method of travel, where one can arrive at 7 or even 11pm in London or Paris with a shilling in his pocket and find an inn both with a vacant bed and that is just about to serve dinner, or at least soup, at a table set for 14 fellow wretches. However the tourism boom of the 90s killed off even approximations of this technique, at least in the most popular destinations, and of late even I have taken to reserving spots well in advance and from across the ocean for my one and two star accomodations, which any real traveller or sophisticate would have to confess is pushing well into the regions of absurdity. As for Lichfield, however, I was confident that its fairly low profile in the game of tourism would make the competition for beds less grueling than it has become elsewhere. It being our last real night in the country as well, and I and especially the lovely Mrs Bourgeois Surrender having endured no air circulation and bad water pressure through most of the trip, I was prepared to be a little freer in my expense than is my habit. Having gotten therefore to the center of town, just around the corner from Johnson's house actually, the aforementioned lady suggested we look into what seemed the best, and turned out to be in any case the most historic edifice in town, the venerable George Hotel, which I later learned was the very same in which the opening scenes of The Beaux' Stratagem were set:

(Now I have to stop and tell my great Farquhar story, and really, how many people do you find nowadays who have a great Farquhar story? Many years ago now, when I had recently graduated from college and still lived close enough to Washington, D.C. to find my way into a house party in that town once in a great while, some friends I had took me to the house of this girl, who was one of those girls I have written about elsewhere that when guys like me are in high school they think they are going to be hanging out with all the time once they are in college and travelling and living the twenty-something hipster urban lifestyle, and then actually meet an example of three or four times in their entire life. She was a kind of groovy Jewish [I think] girl, medium height, normal, proportionate figure [this was by no means a common occurence among my youthful feminine acquaintance] long brown hair that curled at the tips, smart of course, a face moppetlike enough both to be interesting to me and to ensure that she would not be completely monopolized by aggressive Republican types. She had on a black dress, and I can tell you that this was not the same black as they wear either in New York or Spain, but a very particular D.C. style, which is long-sleeved with a knee length skirt and of a kind of tempera paint/Michael's Craft Store shade of black that brings one to mind of a Halloween witch's costume. I like the look however. This girl also had matching black little witch shoes on which she had sprinkled some glitter, which at the time just blew me away.

I should note here that I am telling a story, and in no way should the reader interpret my compliments to mean that this lady was more desirable than Mrs Bourgeois Surrender, nor that I imagine her husband, if she has one, which she probably does, is today a happier man than I am as a result of his selection. I am merely saying that long ago she once brightened what was shaping up as a dreary evening [I do think it may even have been raining] and had probably been a dreary couple of months, considerably, and that I was most appreciative of that at the time. Now to return to the account:

As I was looking over her bookshelf, I could not help but notice that she had the Oxford edition of the plays of Farquhar, which had no connection with any other book that was on it. I knew very little about this author, but I knew that he was most unusual reading for social butterfly, witch-dress wearing Washingtoniennes in the mid-90s. I had to know who the Farquhar fan was. Best of all, I had something to say to this woman that was a matter of genuine interest to me but was not obvious and did not center upon the desperate desire I was feeling to grope her, which was very exciting to me. She had never read Farquhar, she told me. Had I? No. No. Just heard of him. Old English writer. Born in Ireland, Northern Ireland actually. Died at 30. Her mother was the editor of this edition, she informs me. Really? (I am always astounded to come into contact, even at second hand, with people who have published books, especially scholarly ones). Yes, would you like to look at it? Oh, of course, I said, and dutifully turned over the pages and checked out Mama's notes, though daughter did not linger long with me. However there was one happy note, that the next day some members of this same party reconvened at a restaurant for breakfast and the Farquhar girl sat at the same end of the table as I, there was I think but one person between us and this was around a corner too. I never saw again, however.)

Though the outside of the George is apparently authentic dating to its days as a carriage inn, it is now part of the Best Western chain and the inside looks like any of their other hotels. The rate quoted me on my first entering was 125 pounds, at hearing which I mumbled thank you and turned to leave again, at which the desk clerk, having an idea now what sort of man I was, called me back and said that as the hotel was nearly empty they could give me a room for 85. As this was not impossible, and it seemed to me it would be bad form to sniff at an immediate 32% reduction (what was I expecting, to be invited to stay for free?) I took him up on it. Now I am going to attempt to show you a picture of me in the room, which is considerably more upscale than my typical accomodation. I am still at the stage of development where if my room has a minibar, I indulge feverishly in its contents:

This post was left unfinished.............................I am posting it October 15, 2007