The last two times I've been to York I haven't enjoyed it. But it wasn't York's fault. The first time I was on my way to Birmingham to get the Indian visa and the second time I was being given the runaround by those YHA jokers. Both times York was only a stopping off point, it wasn't the point itself.
A few weeks ago I went to the Taj Mahal. I wrote about it here. Sometimes, when I was trying to get my head round things in India, it helped me to try and think of a parallel situation in England. When I was at the Taj Mahal, I thought about York Minster quite a bit. I thought about what York Minster would be like if it was given the Taj Mahal treatment. Well, there would be a massive fence round it for a start, with metal detectors, and armed police, and you'd have to leave your handbags, packed lunches, sugar cubes and mints outside. And you wouldn't be offered a guide. You'd get carjacked by one about a mile outside York. And he'd tell you 'Trust No-one, speak only to me'. Well, in the light of the Taj Mahal experience, I went back to York today, specifically to have a look at the Minster. I've been going there for over 30 years, but after India I had a look it with some fresh eyes today.
I parked in Thornaby, I caught the train to York, and once off the train I headed straight for the Minster. I took a rucksack with me, but I didn't pack a guidebook for York, as I figure I don't need one. I didn't pack any lunch either and I'd forgotten it was pancake day, so I nipped into Baileys and had some pancakes with chocolate and cream for the bargain price of £1.95. All the staff were friendly, and the place had a nice buzz about it. It's an unpretentious place, and it was full of fairly ordinary English people making small talk and generally talking crap about their recent purchases, and what type of cake they like.
Once I was full of pancakes, I headed for the Minster. I decided not to go inside. I've been in loads of times, and I didn't want to pay the entrance fee to see stuff I've seen before. Unlike the Taj Mahal, where you have to pay to even get near it, with the Minster you can see the outside of it for free.
Mostly I walked round at the Taj Mahal, but I did sit down on part of it at one point, to try and soak up the atmosphere and to get some sun. After approximately 7 minutes I got whistled at by a stroppy PE teacher type, and told to move on. I'd read the chart with the 40 things I wasn't allowed to do before I went in, it was on display in the pointless golf cart, but I'd obviously missed the picture of my arse with a line through it.
So I just walked up to York Minster, with a rucksack, past the security that wasn't there and I went up to the entrance and sat down next to it. I don't know much about architecture, but one thing I noticed when I sat down is that the Minster seems to be made out of rock whereas the Taj Mahal is made of marble. My arse that I was allowed to sit on could tell the difference. Marble is smoother.
I sat down with the intention of staying there for at least 8 minutes. I wanted to beat my Taj record. After 10 minutes I was still there. No-one was whistling at me, and I felt quite peaceful, a feeling that was helped by being able to hear schoolchildren playing in the schoolyard nearby.
After 15 minutes some Geordies came out, complaining about the entrance fee. You should try the Taj Mahal, I didn't say. I saw some Chinese people taking photographs, and then some people from the Middle East. And I wondered how far people had travelled to be there. And I thought of my bike ride here last year. Today I came on the train, but this is somewhere I can ride my bike to in a day. And I felt grateful for that. Much as I did, when I was stood outside here last April with Stephen, Mark, Dick and Ruth. This is on my doorstep I thought. It's not a tortuous 5 hour taxi ride away, past men with monkeys on sticks and horrible service stations. It takes me less time than that to ride here. Brilliant And it's in the middle of York, not Agra. Even better.
20 minutes. More people coming out. Lots of people discussing not only the weather but the weather forecasts. Some guy from Yorkshire coming out laughing about how his wife had nearly put some bloke's eye out with a brolly, some Welsh people going in. No children approached me trying to sell me miniature York Minsters. There's a shop over there selling tourist stuff, but the shopkeeper appears to be staying in the shop there. She's not shoving York Minsters up my nose.
25 minutes. People keep coming out, mostly very quietly, as if they got something out of it. Not talking much, zipping up coats and taking a few more photos. Cyclists going past all the time, some with panniers so big they might be full of semtex, but then again probably not. The risk must be low. I just walked up here with a rucksack. It could have been full of polos. No-one cared.
30 minutes. I have a look around. I'm having trouble finding any rules. It appears I could have brought a torch or a packed lunch. It occurs to me, that there aren't many things as English as the term packed lunch.
35 minutes. I'm feeling pretty numb from the cold. I take some photographs of my own head next to the Minster. I've got loads of photos of me and York Minster, but I want some more to compare with the ones from the Taj. I'm pleased to discover these are still on my camera, so I look at one and then the other. I want to show someone the pictures of me at the Taj, but I'm not sure anyone would care.
The next thing I see. A beautiful Indian family wearing duffle coats and woolly hats are stood shivering on the steps while the dad takes some photos. A mum and dad with a young girl in a pushchair, and two grandparents. The grandmother has a limp and is walking with some difficulty, but like Indians do she just gets on with it, placidly and without making a fuss On the way in to the Minster, the mother tells her daughter to be quiet inside, because it's a church. They don't come straight back out, so I guess they must have paid the entrance fee. And I remember what I loved about India. It wasn't the buildings. It was the people. As for me, I went to the Taj Mahal, I stood in the sun and took some photos, and now I'm back home sitting next to an Indian family freezing outside York Minster and they're taking photos. The circle is complete.
40 minutes. By now I've got an ice cream headache, but no-one has tried to move me on. Just like yesterday and my aborted bike ride across the country, it's only the bloody English weather that's causing me any problems.
After 45 minutes I figure I've proved my point. I go and buy hot coffee at Starbucks and look out the window at the Minster some more, and not for the first time since I got back from India, I love England and I love being English. After a while someone calls me by name. At first I don't recognise her as she's wearing a hat but then I realise it's Louise Amende, and for half an hour or so we have a very pleasant and unexpected chat, about lots of things including India, China, the church youth hostel weekends and pancake races. She'd seen me in the window.
After she's gone I go back to a shop I'd seen called One and buy Ruth an ethically sourced purse with hearts on as a late Valentine's present. I photographed the shopfront earlier. After being in a country where I couldn't even tell where the shops were, in York you can see them from miles away. And a lot of them have not only beautiful shopfronts, but beautiful handwritten signs and blackboards telling you what's on offer today. Shopping has never been easier.
I do another couple of laps of the Minster, and out the side door pops the same Indian family I saw earlier. The mother opens a bag of sweets and they all take one. I can't resist. I cross the road and ask them if they're from India. Yes, they say, from Chennai in the south. I tell them I've just been to Delhi, and that I enjoyed it. They have that wary look of people who can't tell if the person in front of them is a nutter with an agenda or just a benign someone wanting to wish them well. It's a look I'm familiar with, because I recently wore it myself every day for a couple of weeks. I tell them I don't want to disturb their day, I just wanted to say hello. Somehow I feel connected to them, but I'm not sure they feel it too. The mother thanks me for my good wishes, and I leave them to it. I don't ask to have my photo taken with them. The last time I tried that with an Indian family was at the parliament buildings in Delhi, and today was too cold for those kind of protracted negotiations.
So that was my day at York Minster. It took me an hour each way to get there. And I can go back whenever I want. Apart from being a world famous historical building which people from all over the world come to see, it wasn't at all like the Taj Mahal. It's York Minster, it's not the Italian Job.
On reflection, I'm sure there are good reasons why security is tight at the Taj Mahal. Or at least, I'm open to the possibility that there might be good reasons. At the very least I hope that behind all the nonsense there are at least some good intentions at work. As with all things Indian, I never did really get the hang of the reasons for things.
And maybe the goings on at the Taj Mahal only look farcical to me because I can walk up to York Minster whenever I want, with a rucksack full of anything, and people can cycle past it with panniers full of anything, and no-one even notices. There's not a fence round it, I don't need someone to buy a ticket for me and take me for a ride in a golf buggy to get there and no-one searches me on the way in. When I get there, I can sit down for as long as I want without getting whistled at, and no-one tries to sell me anything.
And today that meant more to me than ever.
A few weeks ago I went to the Taj Mahal. I wrote about it here. Sometimes, when I was trying to get my head round things in India, it helped me to try and think of a parallel situation in England. When I was at the Taj Mahal, I thought about York Minster quite a bit. I thought about what York Minster would be like if it was given the Taj Mahal treatment. Well, there would be a massive fence round it for a start, with metal detectors, and armed police, and you'd have to leave your handbags, packed lunches, sugar cubes and mints outside. And you wouldn't be offered a guide. You'd get carjacked by one about a mile outside York. And he'd tell you 'Trust No-one, speak only to me'. Well, in the light of the Taj Mahal experience, I went back to York today, specifically to have a look at the Minster. I've been going there for over 30 years, but after India I had a look it with some fresh eyes today.
I parked in Thornaby, I caught the train to York, and once off the train I headed straight for the Minster. I took a rucksack with me, but I didn't pack a guidebook for York, as I figure I don't need one. I didn't pack any lunch either and I'd forgotten it was pancake day, so I nipped into Baileys and had some pancakes with chocolate and cream for the bargain price of £1.95. All the staff were friendly, and the place had a nice buzz about it. It's an unpretentious place, and it was full of fairly ordinary English people making small talk and generally talking crap about their recent purchases, and what type of cake they like.
Once I was full of pancakes, I headed for the Minster. I decided not to go inside. I've been in loads of times, and I didn't want to pay the entrance fee to see stuff I've seen before. Unlike the Taj Mahal, where you have to pay to even get near it, with the Minster you can see the outside of it for free.
Mostly I walked round at the Taj Mahal, but I did sit down on part of it at one point, to try and soak up the atmosphere and to get some sun. After approximately 7 minutes I got whistled at by a stroppy PE teacher type, and told to move on. I'd read the chart with the 40 things I wasn't allowed to do before I went in, it was on display in the pointless golf cart, but I'd obviously missed the picture of my arse with a line through it.
So I just walked up to York Minster, with a rucksack, past the security that wasn't there and I went up to the entrance and sat down next to it. I don't know much about architecture, but one thing I noticed when I sat down is that the Minster seems to be made out of rock whereas the Taj Mahal is made of marble. My arse that I was allowed to sit on could tell the difference. Marble is smoother.
I sat down with the intention of staying there for at least 8 minutes. I wanted to beat my Taj record. After 10 minutes I was still there. No-one was whistling at me, and I felt quite peaceful, a feeling that was helped by being able to hear schoolchildren playing in the schoolyard nearby.
After 15 minutes some Geordies came out, complaining about the entrance fee. You should try the Taj Mahal, I didn't say. I saw some Chinese people taking photographs, and then some people from the Middle East. And I wondered how far people had travelled to be there. And I thought of my bike ride here last year. Today I came on the train, but this is somewhere I can ride my bike to in a day. And I felt grateful for that. Much as I did, when I was stood outside here last April with Stephen, Mark, Dick and Ruth. This is on my doorstep I thought. It's not a tortuous 5 hour taxi ride away, past men with monkeys on sticks and horrible service stations. It takes me less time than that to ride here. Brilliant And it's in the middle of York, not Agra. Even better.
20 minutes. More people coming out. Lots of people discussing not only the weather but the weather forecasts. Some guy from Yorkshire coming out laughing about how his wife had nearly put some bloke's eye out with a brolly, some Welsh people going in. No children approached me trying to sell me miniature York Minsters. There's a shop over there selling tourist stuff, but the shopkeeper appears to be staying in the shop there. She's not shoving York Minsters up my nose.
25 minutes. People keep coming out, mostly very quietly, as if they got something out of it. Not talking much, zipping up coats and taking a few more photos. Cyclists going past all the time, some with panniers so big they might be full of semtex, but then again probably not. The risk must be low. I just walked up here with a rucksack. It could have been full of polos. No-one cared.
30 minutes. I have a look around. I'm having trouble finding any rules. It appears I could have brought a torch or a packed lunch. It occurs to me, that there aren't many things as English as the term packed lunch.
35 minutes. I'm feeling pretty numb from the cold. I take some photographs of my own head next to the Minster. I've got loads of photos of me and York Minster, but I want some more to compare with the ones from the Taj. I'm pleased to discover these are still on my camera, so I look at one and then the other. I want to show someone the pictures of me at the Taj, but I'm not sure anyone would care.
The next thing I see. A beautiful Indian family wearing duffle coats and woolly hats are stood shivering on the steps while the dad takes some photos. A mum and dad with a young girl in a pushchair, and two grandparents. The grandmother has a limp and is walking with some difficulty, but like Indians do she just gets on with it, placidly and without making a fuss On the way in to the Minster, the mother tells her daughter to be quiet inside, because it's a church. They don't come straight back out, so I guess they must have paid the entrance fee. And I remember what I loved about India. It wasn't the buildings. It was the people. As for me, I went to the Taj Mahal, I stood in the sun and took some photos, and now I'm back home sitting next to an Indian family freezing outside York Minster and they're taking photos. The circle is complete.
40 minutes. By now I've got an ice cream headache, but no-one has tried to move me on. Just like yesterday and my aborted bike ride across the country, it's only the bloody English weather that's causing me any problems.
After 45 minutes I figure I've proved my point. I go and buy hot coffee at Starbucks and look out the window at the Minster some more, and not for the first time since I got back from India, I love England and I love being English. After a while someone calls me by name. At first I don't recognise her as she's wearing a hat but then I realise it's Louise Amende, and for half an hour or so we have a very pleasant and unexpected chat, about lots of things including India, China, the church youth hostel weekends and pancake races. She'd seen me in the window.
After she's gone I go back to a shop I'd seen called One and buy Ruth an ethically sourced purse with hearts on as a late Valentine's present. I photographed the shopfront earlier. After being in a country where I couldn't even tell where the shops were, in York you can see them from miles away. And a lot of them have not only beautiful shopfronts, but beautiful handwritten signs and blackboards telling you what's on offer today. Shopping has never been easier.
I do another couple of laps of the Minster, and out the side door pops the same Indian family I saw earlier. The mother opens a bag of sweets and they all take one. I can't resist. I cross the road and ask them if they're from India. Yes, they say, from Chennai in the south. I tell them I've just been to Delhi, and that I enjoyed it. They have that wary look of people who can't tell if the person in front of them is a nutter with an agenda or just a benign someone wanting to wish them well. It's a look I'm familiar with, because I recently wore it myself every day for a couple of weeks. I tell them I don't want to disturb their day, I just wanted to say hello. Somehow I feel connected to them, but I'm not sure they feel it too. The mother thanks me for my good wishes, and I leave them to it. I don't ask to have my photo taken with them. The last time I tried that with an Indian family was at the parliament buildings in Delhi, and today was too cold for those kind of protracted negotiations.
So that was my day at York Minster. It took me an hour each way to get there. And I can go back whenever I want. Apart from being a world famous historical building which people from all over the world come to see, it wasn't at all like the Taj Mahal. It's York Minster, it's not the Italian Job.
On reflection, I'm sure there are good reasons why security is tight at the Taj Mahal. Or at least, I'm open to the possibility that there might be good reasons. At the very least I hope that behind all the nonsense there are at least some good intentions at work. As with all things Indian, I never did really get the hang of the reasons for things.
And maybe the goings on at the Taj Mahal only look farcical to me because I can walk up to York Minster whenever I want, with a rucksack full of anything, and people can cycle past it with panniers full of anything, and no-one even notices. There's not a fence round it, I don't need someone to buy a ticket for me and take me for a ride in a golf buggy to get there and no-one searches me on the way in. When I get there, I can sit down for as long as I want without getting whistled at, and no-one tries to sell me anything.
And today that meant more to me than ever.
Would you join us for the York Easter Arrow breafast?
ReplyDeleteSounds good to me. When is it?
DeleteSat 7th April. At the Punchbowl at 'breakfast time'. Would be great to meet you! Will be tweeting @swarm_catcher, so progress can be followed.
ReplyDelete