Remembrance Day

My grandmother used a number of old-fashioned expressions.  She used "for pity's sake" when she was exasperated, and she called Memorial Day, "Decoration Day."  She used "Remembrance Day" to refer to Veteran's Day, and I've come to believe that label seems more appropriate.

Here in the UK, Remembrance Day is marked by Poppy Sales and very somber displays marking the extent of the horror that was World War I. 

This was a display outside Westminster Abbey.

Throughout my time here in the UK, I have taken notice of the World War I memorials.

This was one of the first memorials I noted.  It is outside the Worcester Cathedral.

This memorial is located in the Malvern Priory.

This memorial is located on the path to Trelewis in Wales.

This one is located in Bath.

I found this memorial in the cemetery at Stokesay Castle in Shropshire.

This memorial is in Paddington Station.

Clearly, the focus on World War I has tremendous significance for the people of Great Britain.  I never felt that same intensity in the U.S.

My exposure to WWI started with All Quiet on the Western Front and its message of war's futility.  But it wasn't until relatively recently that I developed a deeper understanding of what this war did to the people on this side of the Atlantic.

My grandmother's sayings come back to me.  On Remembrance Day I think to myself--for pity's sake.  What a horror.

Getting to France

My daughter spent the year before she married in a small town in Burgundy called Digoin.  She was assigned to Lycee Camile Claudel, a secondary school.  She has told her story in her wonderful blog, Francey Pants, but the one piece of her tale I want to share concerns a family with whom she shared a particularly close bond.  She also made good friends with a retired English teacher.  

These friends were invited to her wedding, and the family actually made it.  It was such a great gesture of friendship.  When the family learned I was going to be teaching on this side of the Atlantic, they extended an invitation to me to visit them in Digoin.  Reading Week (the first week in November) seemed the best time for me to visit, so we made plans. 

The original plan involved traveling with my dear friend from Duluth with whom the French family had stayed before my daughter's wedding.  Unfortunately, ill health prevented her from making the trip, so I had to reconsider how I would make the trip.   The problem is, I do not speak French and my friend does, so I had to consider how I would fare on my own.  At one point I thought I could convince my French speaking daughter to join me, but that wasn't going to work given the fact that my daughter has a job with some time restrictions.  

As I have aged, I have developed a few travel anxieties.  About 10 years ago I participated in my daughter's class trip to France and Spain.  We started our trip in the UK visiting my sister and her family in Oxfordshire.  After a three-day trip to Edinburgh and day trips to Bath and Cirencester, my daughter and I were scheduled to meet up with the people from her high school who would be participating in the trips to France and Spain.  It was cheapest for us to take the Eurostar to Paris.  The only problem was, I have become increasingly more claustrophobic as I have aged.  I've also developed anxieties about getting places in time to make connections.  As a result, I was an absolute basket case getting to the departure point, and just about fell apart as the train entered the Chunnel.  I can't speak for my daughter, but I perceived her respect for me slipped considerably after watching me give in to my fears.  It was not pretty.

My daughter was able to visit me in the UK the week before my scheduled trip to France and helped me identify the train connections I needed to make, as well as to reserve a hotel room in Dijon on the way back to the UK.  The prospects were a little intimidating to me and I started chewing my nails in anticipation.

The first task was making the train that would get me to London in time to make my connection with the Eurostar.  The first train to London Paddington Station left Worcester Foregate at 5:32 a.m.  That meant, I had to arise at 4:30 a.m. and then walk in the pitch black dark to the train station about a mile from my flat.  I assume others go through the "night befores" I experience.  I tried to get to bed no later than 10, but sleep?  That's quite another story.  I probably fell off to sleep around 11:30 p.m., but I awoke at 1:40.  I might have dozed 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there, but for all intents and purposes, I got about two hours sleep for the night. I finally got up at 4:30 and dressed, leaving the flat by 5:00. The walk in to the station was fine, and I wasn't the only person waiting to board the 5:32-- there was also a young mother and child waiting to board.

I choose not to drink or eat while traveling alone because I want to minimize my trips to the toilet when I am in transit.  So...I didn't.  

I made it to Paddington by 8:00 a.m.  I found someone who directed me to picking up the Underground link to St. Pancras where the Eurostar departs.  I had booked my tickets via the Internet and had instructions to collect them at St. Pancras.  That was a very simple affair--it took maybe three minutes tops.  My train wasn't scheduled to leave until 10:23, and one cannot even enter the gate area until about 45 minutes before departure.  I dilly dallied for a little over the hour and then the magic time of entry arrived.  I found a perch and people watched until my train was ready for boarding.  

One thing I have done of late, is pack more effectively.  This wasn't true of my trip here to the UK;  I overdid it with two huge bags packed to the gills.  Going on weekend trips with the Study in England Programme has given me an opportunity to learn a more efficient system.  I now get everything in one backpack and this makes traveling a bit less complicated.

With my bag in front of me I watched families stream in to the waiting room en route to Euro Disney.  A young woman greeted these families with an invitation to collect "goodie" bags for the kiddies.  An announcer informed the assembled travelers that Eurostar offered discounted tickets for Parisian museums and the Metro. Unfortunately, those Metro tickets were for travel within the city and not for single station to station movement. People milled about here and there awaiting their boarding times.

The Eurostar ticket identified a particular coach number and assigned me a particular seat.  The train was quite crowded, but comfortable.  Once in my seat, I think I lasted about 10 minutes before falling asleep, so the Chunnel anxiety never had a chance to surface (yuk,yuk). I awoke shortly before we arrived in Paris ready to disembark and raced to the next station..

One of the challenges I faced was getting from the Gare du Nord where the Eurostar arrived, to the Gare de Lyon where I would board a train to Dijon.  The time frame was very, very tight.  The train from London arrived at 13:56, and my train for Dijon was scheduled to leave at 14:53.  My options were to take the Metro (which could take upwards of 30 minutes), or a train (similar time frame), or a cab.  Advice from fellow passengers on the Eurostar was mixed.  Some said, the train was fine, but a French woman shared how her husband had become hopelessly lost.  She recommended the Metro.  Another Englishwoman said--take a cab.  I chose to follow her advice.  My daughter's former Camile Claudel student warned that the taxi driver might take advantage of me as a foreigner.  Online, we learned that cabfare from one station to the other should cost about 10 Euros. The reality was a bit more--about 12.40 . Given the time limitations, I chose the cab--price be damned.  I approached a cabbie with my rather weak French: "Parlez vous Anglais?" to which he responded "A little."  Frankly, most of those who responded in this way were actually quite good--certainly worlds better than I am at French.  I asked the cabbie if he could get me to the station fast, to which he responded--"nooo, the police watch very closely."  I asked how long it would take him.  He said 15 minutes and that was perfectly fine by me.

Once at the Gare de Lyon, I had to find the gate for my train to Dijon. When I approached the Information station, I once again asked "Parlez vous Anglais?" but this time, the clerk's mastery was less than the cab driver, and coupled with a fairly significant 'tude.  Regardless, I comprehended enough  that I was able to find the gate and board the train.

My daughter had crafted instructions for train travel in France, which included something I haven't experienced elsewhere--sliding the ticket into a yellow machine on the platform before boarding the train.  I'm not sure what this is supposed to do, but I made a point of doing it.  

On both train trips, it seemed no one talked.  That was perfectly fine by me.  Both trips were smooth and uneventful.  The connections were seamless and I never panicked.

My daughter had suggested we meet at the Tourism Center, but they did that one better.  As the train pulled in to the station at Dijon, my hosts were awaiting my arrival on the platform.

I did it!  I got to France, I got to Dijon, I met my friends without incident and they whisked me off into the descending evening.

More to follow.

 

A Visit to the Worcester News

As I was planning my "Deciding What's News"course to teach here in Worcester, I learned that I would have some money to fund a field trip.  Initially, it seemed possible that my students and I could travel to London to visit the London Times and the BBC.  Unfortunately, I learned that wouldn't be possible given any number of variables, so I had to come up with Plan B.

Fortunately, Plan B was a LOT cheaper (free, in fact) and a LOT closer (just down the road in fact).  Worcester has a BBC radio presence (Worcester-Hereford) and the Worcester News (a daily).  After numerous phone calls back and forth, and some assistance from one of our student workers, bippety-boppety-boo, everything was arranged for one week ago yesterday--the representative from the BBC scheduled a tour before noon, and then the Worcester News tour was to take place in the afternoon.  The organizations are housed in neighboring buildings/facilities on the Hylton Road just a few blocks from the University of Worcester campus.

A week ago last Tuesday, I learned that the BBC tour wasn't going to happen.  Best laid plans...fizzle.  Fortunately, however, Worcester News remained viable.

Our class meets at 2:15, so that's when we planned to meet at reception.  Each member of the class received a pass, and we were guided to the Newsroom Bullpen.  Our host was the News Editor, Stephanie Preece.   She described the structure of the Bullpen with the news desks at the front of the room, Sports on the south side of the room, Social Media in the center, Photogs in the back.

Stephanie emphasized the extreme local focus of the paper.  When asked if there would be any coverage of the U.S. elections, she said there wasn't likely to be a local angle.  I found that a bit odd given that she had eight American visitors standing in the Bullpen, but I guess our visitor status doesn't make us sufficiently local.

I had asked the students to generate questions for our visit, but only two of the students obliged.  One of the questions concerned the importance of social media.  Not surprisingly, social media are extraordinarily important to the modern newspaper.  Stephanie identified it as a vehicle for story ideas and tips.

One student posed a question in the moment regarding the strangest story the News has ever run.  Stephanie said that one of the oddest stories they ever did focused on an individual who had used social media as a means of selling cocaine.

Another question posed in the moment concerned the potential rivalry with the BBC next door.  Stephanie indicated that there wasn't too much rivalry given that the Worcester News is a newspaper and the BBC is a radio service, but the potential to be scooped is real and does occur from time to time.

One of the big surprises was that the paper is owned by the Newsquest Media Group, which was acquired by Gannett in 1999.  NMG is the second largest publisher of regional and local newspapers in the United Kingdom.  The site on Hylton Road also publishes four other publications, including weeklies such as the Malvern Gazette and Ledbury Reporter.  It is also the publisher of the Berrow's Weekly Journal which boasts of being the longest continuously sponsored newspaper in the world having started in 1690.  Other publications produced newspapers earlier.

Claims of "firsts" are always tricky.  There are always interesting variants of what kind of "first" an entity claims--first newsletter, first newspapers (regularly scheduled and produced organ of information of interest to a particular population) first weekly, first daily, etc., etc.  It's important to ask why these distinctions are important.  I wrote a dissertation about a "first" and "continuously produced" media vehicle.  I concluded that endurance matters beyond longevity as it suggests continuing appeal and value. Audience loyalty counts for a great deal.

After the newsroom, we moved down to the production unit of the paper.  Our host, Steve, had obviously done a LOT of preparation. He had prepared a number of diagrams demonstrating how the pages are arranged.

He had thought through what he wanted to share and offered a very thorough and focused presentation.  He started by showing us how they produce the offset plates.

He also showed us how the paper travels through the machinery.

We learned about the paper contract with the Norwegian paper companies and the annual price negotiations.
We learned about the difference between the local operation and the parent company (Gannett) in terms of those negotiations.  Paper has been one of the biggest costs of running the newspaper for a number of decades. 

Steve told us about the forest management system and the recycling plan for newsprint.

The Worcester News is a four-color paper.

These towers are vats of yellow, red, blue and green ink.

I asked about unions.  Steve informed us that when he first started, union presence was much more significant and varied than it is now.  Some of the rules were borderline ridiculous--only certain people were permitted to handle certain items.  One couldn't return from holiday even a minute too soon or else incur the ire of the union, etc.  There's still a union presence, but it's greatly diminished.  I think there's a story there.

We ended our tour in the assembly room.

I was so impressed by the care Steve had taken in preparing for our visit--it had the mark of a thoughtful and committed professional.

So...while it might not have been as glamorous as the London Times or the BBC, it was a very informative presentation.  I hope my students valued it as much as I did.