Day 9 – July 26 – Kenmore to Inverness

A short distance from our hotel in Kenmore (in fact the church steeple seen in the picture was about 100m. from our hotel) is a historic site called a Crannog.  They are manmade or modified natural islands, found throughout the lochs of Scotland and Ireland.  Today, they appear as tree-covered islands or remain hidden as submerged stony mounds.  These dwellings were first built as defensive homesteads in Scotland as early as 5,000 years ago.  Some were inhabited periodically up until the 17th century.

Their remains are found in many shapes and sizes, and the nature of their construction varied with their environment and the period of their occupation.

There are hundreds of crannogs in Scotland, but few have been examined.  Although we were looking at a recreation, it is modeled after a settlement found nearby where piles were driven in to the lakebed and then the round teepee-like structures were built on top of the piles.  The thatched roof is designed to shed the water and snow but still porous enough to allow the smoke form the fire to escape.  An entire family, as many as 15-25, would live there.  The livestock would live in the dwellings as well.

As we left Loch Tay we travelled north and we really started to understand why they call this area the “Highlands”.  It is much more mountainous and you can start to see the tree line identifying the upper limit for trees to grow.  Due to a variety of factors this line is at a much lower elevation than we see in Canada.

Enroute to Inverness we stopped in the rolling hills of the Highlands to the Leault Family farm.  Here we got a live demonstration of sheep dogs at work.  The shephard, Neil (seen in the far left of the photo) directed his dogs with several different whistles and a few commands.

As about a dozen boarder collies ran around 12-15 sheep, Neil gave commands to get most of the dogs to lie down and do nothing while one or two dogs worked the sheep, moving left then right then left again, based on their master’s command.

One of the dogs is blind so he works the sheep by their smell and listening to his master’s commands.

One of the most impressive displays was when he sent several dogs out into the field and had each one lay down as a pylons with about 15m. between each.  He then had another dog weave the sheep through the dogs like a slalom course.

He then invited people to come up as he sheared one of the sheep that was looking particularly woolly.  Once the shearing for that sheep was finished he took the fleece and rolled it up like a bedroll and put a loose tie on it to keep it from unravelling.

After this Neil took the opportunity to enlighten us on the plight of the sheep farmer in Scotland and how the National Trust for Scotland is trying to save the heritage and look of Scotland (in his case the Highlands) by paying the sheep farmers like himself not to farm.  One example was that there used to be 60,000 sheep in the Highlands and today there are only 5,000.  He and one other fellow are the only ones left.  He also noted that the price for a fleece used to be 5 pound when his Dad was doing it but a few years ago it got as low as 20 pence.  It has since risen to as high as 3 pound and now he’s getting just over 2 pounds per fleece.  He didn’t however draw a correlation between the drop in the price for a fleece, the reduction in the number of sheep farms and the reduction in demand for wool as more synthetic alternatives become more popular.

Our hotel can be seen as the 4 storey building on the right side of this photo of the Ness river.

An opportunity to brush up on our Gaelic on the local street signs.

From there we headed to Inverness to stay for the next 2 nights.  A trip to the Blackfriars pub by a few members of the tour to taste the local Bitter and Ale was a great end to another wonderful day.

Day 8 – July 25 – Waterfalls and Whiskey

We awoke to the sounds of birds singing in this beautiful setting at the mouth of Loch Tay.

After a brief drive we arrive at Hermitage and wander up the river to see the Black Linn Falls. With all the rainfall the Falls were running pretty good, but there weren’t any salmon making a break for it by heading upstream.

Jeff was really intrigued by the forest of Douglas Fir trees.  Pseudotsuga menzesii is native to the west coast of British Columbia and it is unusual to see such a large number of them growing to such heights.  Having spent many years walking in the forests of BC, Jeff felt quite at home here and many of the old memories came flooding back to him.

After the falls we headed for Dunkeld and the Cathedral.  Originally established by Celtic missionaries in 570 AD as a monastery it was rebuilt in 848 in stone by Kenneth MacAlpin, King of the Scots.  The cathedral itself was built over a period of 200 years from 1260 to 1501, but has had a turbulent history. Following the Reformation in 1560 the Privy Council issued instructions to local lairds to destroy “images of idolatry”.  They interpreted this order freely as an excuse for widespread destruction.  The building was partially re-roofed in 1600, but the Nave has never  been restored.  In 1689, during the Battle of Kunkeld which follwed the Jacobite victory at Kilecracnkie, the Cameronians, fighting against the Jacobites, won a significant victory but at a considerable cost – the Cathedral with most of the town was devastated by fire. Note the scaffolding on in the center of the picture and the height of the Larch and Douglas Fir trees surrounding the cathedral

What caught our attention was the large portion of the church that had been left to the elements and the size of the trees on the grounds surrounding the cathedral.

Now this is our first formal Tour, but we’re thinking it’s a bad sign when the Tour Guide (Roy–right) and Coachman (Roddy-left) are both studying the map before we re-board the bus.

At the Public Restrooms we learned that they have awards for almost everything here in the UK.

Next stop was the Grouse Distillery, carefully nestled in the hillside so as not to arouse suspicion from the tax collectors.  We learned a considerable amount about the distilling process required to produce Whiskey (or as we know it, Single Malt Scotch).  There was even an opportunity to taste the various brands under the Grouse name, including Glenturret.  It was a very enjoyable education!

End of the day got an incredible surprise.  Roy an Roddy (almost sounds like it could be a comedy team like the Two Ronnies!) managed to get us access to the Taymouth Castle, which is very close to Kenmore.  This castle is several hundred years old but has most recently served as: a military hospital in WW II and also as a base for the commanders during the same war.  In the 1970’s it was used as a school.  We were given a tour of most of the building and saw the restoration and rehabilitation in many phases.  Such a restoration effort requires considerable sums of money which have required replenishing from time to time.  As this beautiful castle has not been completely restored we were asked to restrict any pictures to the outside of the building.

Why was this castle significant, besides the fact that it is in a beautiful setting just below Loch Tay?  Well maybe because this is the castle where Queen Victoria spend part of her honeymoon.  Once the renovations are completed and the site becomes public, there will be other pictures available.  Possibly, some day this site will be featured as part of an official PGA golf event.

Later we learned that two of the architects responsible for this wonderful castle had contributed to the Georgian area we stayed in while we were in Edinburgh and the other was responsible for the architecture in the British Houses of Parliament.

Day 7 – July 24 – Edinburgh to Kenmore

As we left Edinburgh for a short drive to Culross (Koo-ross) Roy talked about the education system in Scotland.  One of the benefits of the “Reformation” was the belief that every person should be able to read the bible without the aid of the clergy or church.  As a result, Scotland became one of the leaders in education with noted Universities, such as St. Andrews (more later today) taking a place up there with Oxford and Cambridge.

Scottish Reformation (reformation of Christian worship)– while England’s King Henry VIII was separating from the Catholic church to create the Church of England (we know it as the Anglican church) Scotland was still an independent country.  Henry’s separation was a mandate from the highest authority in the country.  In Scotland it was more of a grassroots movement that lead to the creation of the Church of Scotland which was led by groups of elected leaders called “presbyteries”.  On continental Europe two of the noted reformists were John Calvin and Martin Luther.  In Scotland, John Knox (1514-1572) was a follower of Calvin and was one of the leaders of the Scottish Reformation.  Knox gave sermons from the pulpit encouraging people to dispense with the “trappings” of the Pope and Vatican and any worship where the church suggests that communicating with God can only be done through the clergy.

Some notable dates in Scottish history:

1559 – John Knox – stirring sermons from the pulpit, as part of the “Reformation” which was designed to remove the trappings of the “popalty”

1603 – Uniting of the Crowns of England, Scotland and Wales

1707 – Act of Union – the centralization of the Parliament was made in London.  Scotland and Wales have their own government, but not over issues of State, only local issues.  This was resisted by many and why Scotland is scheduled to undertake a Referendum in 2014 on whether to once again be separate from England.  Many of the arguments, on both sides, of the debate sound a lot like the discussions in Quebec regarding separating from Canada

Culross (koo-ross)

In Culross we found a quaint little village on the banks of the Firth of Fourth.  Originally this was a port for shipping coal to the Continent. In the early 1600’s they even built a breakwater out a few hundred feet from shore.  They then dug a mineshaft under the Firth to reach a coal seam and then brought the coal to a platform that extended above the high tide level so that they could load the ships directly from this point.

The orangey colour is a sign of the wealth of the owner as this was a significant expense to tint the exterior coating (looks like stucco). The red tile for the roofs where brought back from the Continent.  Ships carrying raw materials, such as coal, to the continent would have to return across the North Sea virtually empty and therefore they would load up with these very heavy red clay tiles to provide a form of ballast on the journey.

The “palace” is not as elaborate as some of the ones we’ve seen but is given this name more because it belonged to the owner, Sir George Bruce of Carnock, of the coal mine and it was the biggest home in the village.  If you look closely at the picture of George Bruce you might notice that something isn’t right.  Apparently it was popular in those days to have someone come in to paint your portrait and to save time they might even have painted the body first ….. but you think they might have been able to match the gender.

Inside the palace has been rebuilt by the Historical Society of Scotland as many of the panels and ceiling materials had been removed and piled in the yard, exposed to the elements.

The doorways were low and several of the ceilings had a distinctive barrel shape.  There were two separate dining rooms, one for the men and a second for the ladies.  From a brief description of the boorish things the men did around the table we could understand why the ladies might want to eat separately.  In one of the rooms the ceiling was adorned with pictures an little sayings.  In the one pictured below the caption appears to say

“Men’s pleasures rond, do promise only Joys. But he that yields, at length himself destroys”.

The other notable portion of this site is the garden that was built behind the palace against the south facing retaining wall.  The gardener for the property was good enough to give us a tour of the palace as the regular tour guide was not available today.

St. Andrews

From here we made had a short drive to St. Andrews.  We had already been to St. Andrews, but we only had time to see the golf course the first time.  St. Andrews is a town of approx. 16,000 and grows by another 5-6,000 students when the University is in session.  Word is that when Prince William announced that he would be attending St. Andrews, the number of requests by females to register went up 65%.  There is even a shop claiming to have been the location “Where Kate met Wills (for coffee)”. With their first child being born just 2 days ago this seemed worth recording.

The Castle at St. Andrews was built by the bishop in the late 12th century to entertain visiting diplomats.  It was home to powerful bishops and cardinals over the years.  In 1546 the cardinal burned a Protestant preacher, George Wishart, at the stake in front of the castle.  The Protestant Reformers then captured the castle and killed the cardinal, hanging his body from the ramparts. In 1547, the French attacked the castle on behalf of their friend and ally Mary, Queen of Scots.  There was a siege and a young Protestant named John Knox was captured and put to work rowing on a galley ship headed back to France.  He would later return as one of the strongest leaders of the Scottish Reformation.  The Reformationists and the elements have been hard on the castle and very little remains today.  If you look north from the castle you can see a long strip of beach that was used in the opening scene of the movie “Chariots of Fire”.

In the early middle ages, the presence of the remains of the Apostle Andrew made the cathedral one of the most important pilgrimage sites for all Christians. However, that same importance for the church, originally the Catholic church, made the cathedral the prime target for the Reformationists.  The cathedral was started in 1160 which is all the more impressive when you see the size of the remains.

St. Andrew became the patron saint of Scotland.  St. Andrew chose a cross in the shape of an “X” because he didn’t feel worthy of being crucified in the same way as Jesus.  Thus the white X on a blue background used as the flag of Scotland.

At the end of the day we drove to Kenmore at the mouth of Loch Tay.  This is a very small town nestled between the hills in a beautiful valley.

Day 6 – July 23 – Edinburgh

For our introduction to Edinburgh, our Tour guide Roy put us in the more than capable hands of Ken Hanley, a local Blue Badge Guide.

Kenny did an excellent job of immersing us in his love of Edinburgh and showing us some of the subtle things you wouldn’t normally see.

We started the tour in the “New Town”.  It’s easy to know when you’re in the Old Town vs the New Town because the New Town follows the grid systems you find in younger cities.  The Old Town has the winding streets that follow the topography more closely.

Kenny pointed out how the architecture in the New town was a bit of mix of several styles.  Note in the picture how the columns are worked into the facade of this block of homes.  Apparently the idea of having bedrooms between the columns was long considered a “no-no”!

As we walked along, Kenny pointed out where some of the homes have stoned up windows that they didn’t need and thereby reduced their tax bill because it was based on the number of windows in your home.

In some cases they painted the outside surface to hide the fact that they were bricked up.

As we walked towards the Edinburgh Castle the sound of “God throwing coal on the fire” (according to Ken) quickly accelerated to frequent strikes of lightning and a torrential downpour.  As we pulled out our umbrella we watched as Kenny tried to find refuge for his 28 charges and keep us from getting soaked to the bone.  We briskly made our way into the Princes St. Gardens where the canopy of trees provided some shelter.  Here Kenny took some time to provide some insight into the Edinburgh history.

Most cities divert a river around the city core and this allows them to use the river to carry away their effluent away from the city. Edinburgh used a volcanic plug as the site for the castle and surrounding buildings. This prevented the traditional technique and instead the waste was allowed to collect in a toxic dump that led to widespread disease, often referred to as “The Plague”.  It was determined that a new development needed to be undertaken to remove this source of disease and from this the New Town was born.

Kenny walked us around the base of the castle on the west side and we started to climb through the streets to the south.  We passed through squares that continue to be used as markets however the goods being sold has likely changed considerably from the local produce that would have been available centuries ago.

There’s a story of a small terrier that was the devout companion for a local policeman. Stories tell that when the policeman died in 1858 the dog, affectionately referred to as “The Greyfriars Bobby” walked ahead of the coffin in the procession to the cemetery and slept on his master’s grave each night until the dog finally passed in 1872, some 14 years later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kenny noted that because all dogs had to be licensed there was no one to claim ownership of “Bobby” and therefore pay for the license.  Ownerless, Bobby was in danger of being put down but there was such an outcry from the public that the case went to court and many witnesses were called.  It is from the court records of these court proceedings, still viewable today, that we are able to read about the testimony given during the court case.  Ultimately it was determined that Bobby had was a valued member of the community and he was granted a license that would last the rest of his life.  There was even a plaque put up to commemorate the spot where a couple who owned a restaurant near the Greyfriars Kirk (Kirk = church) had fed Bobby every day for 14 years.

Roy recommended that we spend some time in the Royal Museum of Scotland getting a better understanding of the history in Scotland through the transition periods in Scottish history.

Kenny then led us up the steep streets to the Royal Mile.  This is the road connecting Edinburgh Castle (where the royalty could be protected) to Holyrood Palace (where the royalty could relax). Today it is very busy, much as it would have been when it was a center for commerce and trade.  Apparently, if you were to look at the Royal Mile from above it looks like the spine of a fish and then all the streets radiate from there.

On the way up the Royal Mile Kenny took us into the Court house to show us the Scotland legal system in action.  As solicitors wandered back and forth in a magnificant hall we speculated on the conversations taking place between potential rivals.

Kenny took us through a few back streets before we reached the Castle and as we looked at the outside of the buildings you could see how a lack of “indoor plumbing” was solved.

From the Castle (protection for the Royalty) to the Palace (place for Royalty to relax) runs the Royal Mile, which if looked at from above looks like the spine of a fish and then all the streets radiate from there.

In the Edinburgh Castle, the Crown jewels of Scotland are on display in a similar way to the English Crown jewels held in the Tower of London.  Although we couldn’t take any pictures of the jewels we did happen to be present for a surprise audience with Mary Queen of Scots.

On the way back to our hotel we managed to find some sun and the opportunity to take a picture in Princes St. Garden with the Ross Fountain, that was first shown at the Exhibition of 1862 in London.

Day 5 – 22 July – St. Andrews – Golf

We got up early to walk to the St. Andrews Links Golf course Clubhouse in plenty of time to collect our rental clubs and shoes prior to our 7:20am tee time on the Jubilee course.  Last night we had picked up a book about St. Andrews Golf Links and we noticed that on the opening page for the Jubilee Course it asked the question “Is this the toughest course at St. Andrews?”.  So we also approached the clubhouse with a little trepidation.

It turned out that there weren’t any golfers visible in front of us and with just the two of us golfing we quickly lost sight of the foursome behind us.  It took a little to get used to how hard the fairways were and the manner in which a ball could bounce in front of the green, roll across the green, past the pin and continue right off the back.

But after making a par on the 2nd hole, Deana was feeling pretty confident with her play as seen on her approach shot on #2.  Note the bunker on the left side of the picture.  We began to think that maybe the bunkers of St. Andrews were used as models for building bunkers in WW I.  They are so formidable that sometimes the best strategy is to hit the ball back the same way it came in, rather than trying to clear the layers of turf stacked between your ball and the pin.

We didn’t bring any balls with us, so we purchased what we felt would be enough balls to play the round.  But you still worry about hitting the ball into the long grass.  In addition, there is the occasional clump of “Gorse” which looks like some low growing evergreen bush until you discover the thorns protruding from the branches.  I’m not sure these are considered out of bounds, but even if you see your ball under a gorse bush, you should consider using a new ball.

The best way I can think of to describe the 3 courses that start from the Clubhouse that is just a stones throw from the beach used in the opening scene of Chariots of Fire, is the shape of a golf club.  You head east (down the shaft of the club), parallel to the beach, until you get to the 8th hole at which point you turn 90 degrees to the right and the same again for the 9th hole.  The 10th starts the route back to the beginning, essentially parallel to the front nine.  The “New Course”, so named because it was the second course built and not the “Old Course”, was built next to the Old course, but closer to the beach.  A few years later the Jubilee Course was placed on the last piece of land available between the Old/New courses and the beach.

It soon became apparent that avoiding bunkers …. at all costs …. was a good strategy.

We walked off the 18th green having hit a few more strokes than we normally would but the entire experience was absolutely fabulous.  It’s tough to describe, but we both thoroughly enjoyed our round of golf and the entire experience.

The Women’s British Open is taking place after our Tour of Scotland is over, August 1-4, so there isn’t even an option to put our names into the ballot to play the Old Course before we head to Wales.  That just means we’ll have to come back again … and we will!

After the golf, a little bit of food and a beer to replace the electrolytes and a little shopping in the golf store we returned to our B&B, grabbed our bags and headed to the train station to return Edinburgh.

Our tour group was to meet up at 5pm at our hotel so we arrived with enough time to relax.

Roy, our guide for the tour introduced himself and told us how he took a job as a guide for just one summer during University and that was 25+ years ago.  He’s now working on his PhD in Landscape Archaeology and thoroughly enjoys guiding the Rick Steves tours.  We then started around the room and as it appeared that all of our fellow tour members were from an assortment of the 50 United States, Jeff introduced us as being from the 51st State, just a little north or most of them, in Canada.

We then took a short walk to a local restaurant and we both tried Haggis for the first time and enjoyed it. We certainly had a positive experience with Haggis and it’s possible that we may not push our luck by ordering it again, but at least we can say we’ve had it once!

Day 4 – 21 July – Travel to St. Andrew

In order to get a reservation on a train to St. Andrews (Leuchars station and a £12 taxi fare into St. Andrews) we had to leave earlier than Eirwen had originally anticipated.  She was disappointed that she wasn’t able to cook us a traditional English breakfast. We got a picture of Eirwen and Peter before they drove us to the train station to start our journey, first south to London and then north to Scotland.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time with them and Jacqueline and Gareth.  Every time we get together we have a terrific time and the time seems to fly by.  They had a number of very interesting things for us to see within a reasonable drive from Princes Risborough.  We hope we can encourage them to come and visit us sometime soon.

We took the train into the London Marylebone station and then used the Tube to get us to Kings Cross.  We’ve been in London enough times now that navigating the Tube is very straight forward ….. at least for Jeff ….. it really is an excellent way to get around this rather large city.  We settled into our reserved seats for the 4 1/2 hour train ride to Edinburgh.  The weather was overcast but as we got closer to Edinburgh the sun started to break through.  We got a some views of the English coastline but train was a little too far away to say we ‘saw the coast’.

Edinburgh was an easy change of trains and we were soon off on a train destined for Aberdeen (the former capital of Scotland).  After a quick 1 hour journey we arrived at Leuchars and caught a cab to our B&B.  We dropped our bags and headed out on foot to familiarize ourselves with the route to the Clubhouse for St. Andrews Links golf course.  Our tee time is at 7:20am so we don’t want to take any wrong turns on the way to the course in the morning.

We walked around St. Andrews and purchase some of the local holy water GlenKinchie (distilled in Edinburgh) and then had a lovely dinner at a pub just around the corner from our hotel.  Deana took a liking to a brew called Tennant and Jeff had one called Belhaven Best. ….. the GlenKinchie was for later!

Day 3 – 20 July – Buckinghamshire

We walked into the center of Princes Risborough to see an exhibition of Morris Dancing.  Although the exact origins of Morris dancing are now lost they were probably celebrating the return of Spring.  Recent research has found references to Morris dancing back as far as 1458.

Until the mid 19th centrury, almost every village in the English Cotswolds had its own team, dancing at Whitsuntide its own version of the Morris dances.  In other parts similar dances survived, such as Longsword and Rapper sword dances.  Late Victorian social change brought about the abandonment of Morris dancing in most of the country but the revival dates from 1899.  This group calls themselves the “Travelling Morrice”.  It appears that they have maintained the centuries old tradition of only including men in their dances.

They dance an intricate series of steps to the music created by a lone accordion player.  They have bells attached just below their knees and use sticks and handkerchiefs to augment their dance moves.  In this particular group it appeared they had all met at university quite some time ago and have been dancing together ever since.  They suggested that their dancing exhibitions tended to coincide with locations with pubs nearby.

At the beginning of each dance the music and name would be announced and the specific village would determine the actual steps to be used with that music.  While the dancers were concentrating on their steps and arm actions a fellow in a top hat mimicked their moves and carried on like a court jester.

After walking back to the house we discovered that Sunday afternoon is a very popular time for people to travel from London to St. Andrews (via Edinburgh).  After numerous attempts to secure a reservation for two from the “overseas” train helpdesk, including one that would have gotten only one of us to Edinburgh but both of us for the one hour trip from Edinburgh to St. Andrews (Leuchers train station), we finally got on an earlier train.  Lesson for the future, don’t assume there will always be a pair of spare seats on every train.

In the afternoon we drove to the town of Aylersbury for an authentic “pub lunch”.  We then wandered through the streets to see the local museum that featured some excellent views into the history of the local buildings.  As they started doing some restorations to the museum structure they discovered several centuries of history, actually in the walls themselves.

We then went down the street to the Parish Church of St. Mary.  The right hand side of the street was pretty modern, but the buildings on the left showed a variety of styles over many years.  You see so many churches that have been beautifully restored and maintained that its painful to see one that has fallen on hard times. It appears that the parish has had difficulty raising the funds necessary to maintain the structure of the building. 

Day 2 – 19 July – Buckinghamshire

After a great sleep we were awakened to the sounds of bird singing and what promised to be another hot day.  Peter and Eirwen had put together a number of local sites that they felt we would enjoy within the surrounding area.

First stop was St. Dunstan’s Church which is reputed to be the oldest recorded parish in the UK.  The church as been kept up wonderfully although there are signs that the internal design has changed over the years.  The name St. Dunstan’s also had special meaning for us as we were married in St. Dunstan’s church in Fredericton in 1986.

Outside there was work being carried out to expand the cemetery.  However, before that could be done an archaeological dig was being carried out to learn more about the inhabitants from the 10th century and possibly as far back as the Bronze Age as there are many monuments from this era on the hill above the site of the church.

The following statue was situated inside the church showing St. Dunstan using a blacksmith’s pliers to pinch off the nose of Satan.

A short distance from the church we came upon some excellent examples of thatched roofs, that reminded me of a bowl haircut.

In the afternoon we learned about more recent history at Bletchley Park.  This area was recently dubbed “Home of the Codebreakers”.  In 1938 the British Government bought part of the much larger Bletchley Park Estate with the most notable feature being “the Mansion” pictured below.

It was at Bletchley Park and its associated out-stations that the British government employed up to 10,000 people at its peak.  It was interesting that this work began in 1938, before the start of WW II.  A wide variety of people were hired from various backgrounds.  Cambridge and Oxford, being quite close by were a good source of recruits.  They also utilized the local newspapers to run competitions to find people who could solve their crossword puzzles in under 12 minutes.  As this work was highly secretive, the ability to keep one’s mouth shut was also an important attribute.  They recorded the signals being sent by the Germans to their bases all over Europe and N. Africa and then the code breakers were responsible for cracking the code being used in order to decipher important transmissions.  Later the work done here also led to breaking Japanese codes and affected the outcome of the war in the Pacific.

http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/content/hist/worldwartwo/captridley.rhtm

In some cases a small team might work on a single transmission for 6 weeks in order to break the code.

The German’s originally created the Enigma prior to 1932, when the Polish army broke the code.  However, in those days the cipher was only altered every few months, but in July 1939 the Poles were worried that Germany was going to invade them so they met with the British and gave them the information they had.  With the start of the war it was learned that it was being changed at midnight every day.

The core of the Enigma was 5 cylinders that contained a series of numbers and wires connected to each number.  By rotating the cylinder to a different number the wiring would change the signal that would be created by selecting a given character. Connect up three of these cylinders in series and the signal will get changed 3 times from the original letter selected and therefore the number of possible outcomes becomes larger.  Then select only 3 of the 5 available cylinders on a given day and the chances of breaking the code become even smaller.  The three-rotor Enigma was capable of generating 158,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible combinations.

To help break the Enigma code in a timeframe that was useful for the armed forces they built an electromechanical device (starting to sound like a computer) that could run through the possible Enigma combinations and reduce the number of probable solutions to a number that could be examined by hand. They called it the Bombe and over time there were many of them running to cover each of the branches of the German military, Army, Navy, Air Force, etc.

These Bombe machines were literally invented by Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman shortly after Turing joined the Codebreakers in 1939.

The Colussus was a semi-programmable computer that was developed to break the more difficult codes produced by the Lorenz cipher used for communications between Hitler and his top field commanders.  The invention of the Colussus was effectively the first programmable computer, instead of what is more widely thought of as the first computer, the ENIAC, which was announced to the public in 1946.  It could be argued that the ENIAC was ‘programmable’ whereas the Colussus was ‘semi-programmable’ but due to the secrecy around the Codebreakers the Colussus has never really received it’s rightful place in history.  The breaking of the Lorenz has a Canadian connection as the design of the Lorenz was deduced by Bill Tutte, a Cambridge professor who later taught at the University of Toronto and then later at the University of Waterloo.  It was Tutte’s work that provided the basis for Tommy Flowers design for the Colussus.

After a very enlightening afternoon we went to visit Peter & Eirwen’s son Gareth, his wife Jacqueline and their 11 month old son William.  Jeff first met Gareth in 1982 when he stayed with Peter & Eirwen and we met Jacqueline in 2008 when we visited London with our family.  William had just come back from swimming lessons and was a little bit tired at first. After some dinner and more than a few strawberries he came to life and almost took his first steps.  It was a terrific visit with our extended family and an excellent chance to get to know them better.

From top:  Jacqueline and William; William and Gareth, Eirwen and William, Jeff – William – Gareth.

Day 1 – 17/18 July – Princes Risborough

As we waited for our flight to take off a thunder and lightning storm rolled past the airport and they temporarily suspended ground operations until the rain subsided and the threat of lightning diminished.  By the time we boarded the flight the clouds had moved off and the sun was shining brightly.  A good omen we thought.

Fast forward nine hours and we were riding the Tube in London around the northwest corner of the city to finally reach the end of the Metroplitan Line at Amersham.  There we were met by Eirwin and Peter, Jeff’s cousins who ‘downsized’ from their place in London to live in Princes Risborough, a short drive from Amersham.  Peter and Jeff aren’t first cousins, their grandmothers were sisters, so I suppose that makes them second-cousins, but “cousin” seems easier to say.

We had an easy day of it, relaxing on the outdoor patio and enjoying the 28 C weather under bright blue skies.  A little nap before dinner was the perfect way to shake off the “red-eye” flight.

Earlier in the day Eirwen had cut up a barbequed chicken and deboned it.  The scraps were spread on the lawn and we waited for the Red Kites to make their “dive bomb” attacks to pick up the pieces of meat.  Apparently these birds, with a 5-6 ft wing span fancy dead meat, but don’t hunt for live meat, except for the odd unfortunate small bird.  The Kites would spot the meat with their keen eyes and wait for more friends to arrive.  Finally, once about 8-10 Kites were circling overhead they began to make their runs to pick up pieces of the chicken without actually landing.

When you look at the feathers curled up at the end of their wings, you wonder where the airlines got the idea to add those little “winglets” to the end of their wings …..

It was great to spend some time getting caught up on all the developments in our respective families since the last time we got together during our visit to London with Jessica and Andrew in the summer of 2008.  ( http://2008europe.wordpress.com).

Rough Itinerary for our Trip

July 17 – Depart for Heathrow at 7:20 pm

July 18 – Arrive in Heathrow at 11:05 and make our way to Peter and Eirwen’s home in Princes Risborough

July 21 – Train to St. Andrew’s

July 22 – Morning round of golf at the St. Andrew’s Jubilee course

– meet up with our tour group in Edinburgh and start a 9 day Tour of Scotland

July 31 – Tour concludes in Edinburg

August 2 – Train to Conwy, Wales

August 5 – Take the ferry from Holyhead, Wales to Dun Laoghhaire, Ireland (Dublin)

– drive from Dublin to Belfast, Northern Ireland

August 6-9 – watch Ron compete in Squash at the World Police and Fire Games and see sights near Belfast

August 9-14 – tour around Ireland, counter-clockwise, ending up in Dublin

August 14-16 – Dublin

Ron and Marsha return home on the 16

August 17 – Deana and Jeff return home

August