The Oxford Journal
by Michael O’Connor
Being an account of events taking place in and around Oxford between 4th and 8th July 2012 including celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the boat trip on which the original story of Alice was told [A slightly different version of this article appeared in the October 2012 issue of Bandersnatch.
Wednesday 4th:
It was on 4 July 1862 that Lewis Carroll and his friend Robinson Duckworth took the three Liddell sisters on a rowing trip up river from Folly Bridge to Godstow, and during this trip extemporised the story that would eventually become Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It is thus a very significant anniversary for Carrollians, because without that trip, it is unlikely most of us would have heard of the author. Consequently it was good to see such a large number of LCS members (almost 50) gather on the pontoon outside the restaurant, Number 1 Folly Bridge, and subsequently climb aboard the steamer Serafina II in time for its 11.30 am departure to retrace the route taken by Carroll’s rowing boat. The journey enlivened by talks and readings and even – a la Carroll himself -- some conjuring tricks (courtesy of Ken Salins) and mathematical puzzles (Edward Wakeling), we made our way through Osney Lock and then on to Port Meadow and up to Godstow where we dotted ourselves around the field there to picnic, presumably on the basis that if we covered enough of the ground between us, we would be reasonably sure of one of our groups sitting in exactly the same spot as Carroll and his party did all those years ago. The weather had not been kind to us on the journey, with a steady fall of rain, but it relented in time for the al fresco dining, and the rain conveniently returned at precisely the time for us to get back on the steamer!
The present writer had written a superb and definitive account of the 1862 trip, which had been printed in a booklet called All in the Golden Afternoon and handed out to all the participants in this day’s event, many of whom asked the author to sign it, probably because they realised that he would sulk if they didn’t. Said booklet would subsequently be sent out to all LCS members, and additional copies will be available for sale from the LCS website to LCS members at the ludicrously low price of £3 plus postage – I don’t yet know what the non-LCS member cost will be, but I am sure the booklet will be worth it, whatever it is! All monies made from sales go into LCS funds. [When did I agree to that?!]
Thursday 5th:
A dozen or more Carrollians had elected to stay in Oxford for the full week, many of them having come from far afield, most notably Japan, Canada and America, so
ark and Catherine Richards had arranged extra events for us on the two days between the 150th anniversary on the 4th and Oxford’s official Alice’s Day on 7th. The first of these events was advertised as “a gentle walk round places in Oxford with Carrollian connections …” but once again our plans were somewhat tempered by recurring rain showers, so the walking was rather swifter than intended. Nevertheless, we were able to see everything on the schedule, a number of the less visited sites associated with Carroll, including the exterior of Pembroke College, Grant’s Grave, the back of Christ Church, Corpus Christi, the Examination Schools, the back streets around New College, and Holywell Music Rooms. The mural in Blackwell’s Bookshop featuring the White Rabbit inter alia was well worth the visit too.
The most interesting part of this most interesting tour was our visit to the University Church of St Mary, where we climbed up the stairs to sit on tiers of benches for the back rests of which, Edward Wakeling then told us, Carroll had ordered and paid for so that the congregation would be more comfortable. As far as I am aware, this visit was a first for the Society, as Edward has only relatively recently found out about this kind act on Carroll’s part, and it thus made the day particularly special for those of us present.
A few hardy members then chose to climb the church tower, while the more sensible among us repaired to The Mitre, there to await the arrival of local historian and author of Alice in Waterland, Mark Davies. He gave us a talk on Miss Prickett’s (the Liddell’s governess) long connection with the ‘pub as landlady, and was then happy to sell and sign copies of the newly revised edition of his aforementioned book. Go to Mark Davies' website - Oxford Water Walks.
Unwilling though I was to tear myself away from the art and architecture merely to attend to the baser matter of lunch, I felt it would be churlish not to accompany the group to The Ashmolean Cafe and partake there of a morsel of sustenance. Apparently there is some sort of Museum there that one can look around too, but one has to get one’s priorities right.
Our immediate post-prandial visit was to the History of Science Museum to look at Carroll’s camera case and other photographic exhibits of the period.
The day ended with us all descending on The Story Museum in Pembroke Street, where we were treated to a short talk about their facilities and plans, and then let loose to visit their current exhibitions. One of these was a wonderfully imaginative fantasy called The Story Loom based on the concept that a Victorian inventor had made this machine that could create stories and that it upset a lot of human writers including Carroll. The Loom itself is a marvellously Heath Robinson-ish contraption, and its ‘history’ is told on pages pinned up along the walls around it.
The other exhibition was ‘Tea with Alice’, the primary feature of which was a unique display of about 100 pieces of original art from illustrated editions of Alice. This was accompanied by two “installations”, a Victorian-study-like reading room, and a long dining table surrounded by chairs, every one of which had an eccentric hat on an adjustable metal holder behind it which those sitting on the chairs could thus put on. The purpose of both exhibitions, and of the Story Museum as a whole, is to show children the power of imagination and encourage them to interact with the exhibits, and although they will not be fully open to the public until 2014, on the evidence I have seen so far, this will become a marvellous resource for the city of Oxford and a place well worth travelling to visit. Vist their website at The Story Museum.
Friday 6th:
I suspect I was not the only Carrollian in Oxford who rose and looked out of the window that morning, and brought to mind the opening words of Jane Eyre: “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.” Which was disappointing, as a walk along the riverside to Iffley and back was what had been planned, but the heavy rain meant that only someone as mad as a hatter would consider venturing out. Nevertheless, we brave souls gathered at 2.30 pm as appointed at Alice’s Shop in St. Aldate’s to learn what alternative entertainment we would be enjoying. We had reckoned without the doughty single-mindedness of Mr Richards, who appeared oblivious to the precipitation, and who led us on the walk regardless. Well, some of us at any rate. Others softly and suddenly vanished away. The rest put up umbrellas and pulled hoods over our heads, and strode briskly along the riverside path to St. Mary the Virgin Church in Iffley, wherein we took shelter for a while. In the churchyard there is a large hollow yew tree with a three foot tall opening in its trunk, like a doorway. It had featured in a number of books and magazines of the period, and would have been known to Carroll. Alison Gopnik in the LCSNA’s Knight Letter, Winter 2011, has suggested that it was the inspiration for the door in the tree in Alice’s Adventures under Ground, so most of us ventured out to take a look at it. (I am indebted for this to the informative leaflet Iffley Connections written by Catherine Richards and handed out on this walk.)
Leaving the Church, we then continued to a very welcome refreshment break in the Prince of Wales ‘pub. The highlight of the event was our subsequent visit to the home and gallery of Iffley sculptor David Goode, who kindly allowed us to tour round his workshop and gallery, where a wealth of his fantasy sculptures were on display. There may not have been any direct Carrollian connection, but I think Carroll would have loved them. See www.david-goode.com
The rain eased off for our return walk back to St. Aldate’s, which we reached around 5.30pm. The final event of the day was a preview of the exhibition of works inspired by Alice by women artists (including LCS member and ‘Queen’ of the Lewis Carroll Society of Brazil, Adriana Peliano) held in the O3, a small gallery within Oxford Castle. There we mingled with luminaries like the Mayor of Oxford whilst admiring (or being wholly bewildered by) the inventive and imaginative works on display.
Saturday 7th:
Alice’s Day arrived with intermittent showers of rain, to which we were now inured. Most of the day was to be taken up by our second boat trip of the week, but I managed to get into Oxford early enough to see a ‘Ten Minute Alice Musical’ at The Story Museum, which was very lively and must have involved most of the children in the city. Alice was played by 13 year old Pandora Dewan, and her father Ted, the artist in residence at the Story Museum, was subsequently reported in The Oxford Times as commenting, “There were crowds beyond our expectations despite the weather.”
Crossing the road to Tom Quad, I next joined my fellow Carrollians as we paraded, shortly after noon, across Tom Quad, through Schools Quad, and down to Christ Church Meadow, where we picked up a small group dressed as the five original participants in the 1862 boat trip. (The Liddell sisters were portrayed by Lottie Bell, Saskia Frayling and Beth Bowden.) They led us down Broad Walk to the river, where after posing for photographs, they got into a rowing boat and glided up and down in front of us and under Folly Bridge for a few minutes, setting the scene perfectly.
Before we also ventured out on the water ourselves, we betook ourselves to Number 1 Folly Bridge restaurant for a magnificent lunch, joined by the members of the Oxford rowing club City Barge, who had provided all the boats we would be using, and who would provide all the muscle to row them! We owe a very special thanks to City Barge, who went to a great deal of trouble to get all the boats there, some of which were extremely difficult to obtain and transport to Oxford, and who made this entire event possible.
Our flotilla departed about 2.30 pm, comprised of a number of long rowing boats, one or two punts, and a larger canopied craft (called, I am told, a ‘shallop’) that had appeared in the slightly bigger flotilla on the River Thames marking the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee a few weeks earlier. I had the good fortune to be in this latter vessel, so experienced the trip up river in some comfort. The original plan had been to row all the way up to Godstow Bridge and back, as Carroll et al had done, but the recent rain had made the river run very high, and the experienced rowers felt it would be unsafe to proceed any further than Osney Lock before returning us back to Folly Bridge by the early evening. It was a magical experience, and if you closed your eyes, it was easy to listen to the splash of oars in water and the lapping of the river against the side of the boat, and be instantly transported back to the lazy, sunny, golden Victorian day which had brought us all to this spot.
A (sizeable) handful of us congregated at The Head of the River ‘pub for the rest of the evening, for food and conversation and no small quantity of alcohol. We exchanged views and opinions and e-mail addresses, then we said farewell to old and new friends, and meandered on our separate ways into the evening twilight, reflecting on the unique and unforgettable day we had had.
The Oxford Times reported that the city’s Alice’s Day ended with a nine mile charity “Midnight Stroll’ around the city in aid of Sobell House, in which hundreds of walkers took part. I wasn’t one of them! The ‘Stroll’ is an annual event, apparently, but this year was Alice-themed.
Sunday 8th:
The final event that Oxford had arranged was a Caucus Race on Sunday afternoon, in Christ Church Meadow. This took the form of various groups of enthusiastic entertainers, made up of circus performers and people from local performance groups, teaching attendees a variety of dances (all to a repetitive tune written for “The best way to explain it is to do it” which I have been unable to get out of my head ever since!) that eventually came together in a huge ‘dance-off’. The race itself turned out to be a stately mass walk around the perimeter of the meadow, after which everyone got prizes of sweets and badges. There were numerous costumed characters wandering around and interacting with the attendees, and the whole event had a very nice atmosphere. This may have been helped by the unexpected appearance of the sun for much of the afternoon!
And then it was all over. I’ve not had such an enjoyable Carrollian experience since the 1998 Conference, and was very sad to return to reality at the end of it. There were two constant elements throughout the week that I believe Carroll would have been especially pleased with. One was the delightful Eva Salins, (left) daughter of Ken Salins and Ellen Salins-Schaefer and the grand-daughter of the renowned David Schaefer, who was happy to appear in Alice costume at any point, and to pose for photographs uncomplainingly day after day. She became a great favourite with everyone there, and I really do not think we could have had a better Alice. The second constant element would, I think, have piqued Carroll’s interest as a photographer, because throughout the week Canadian member Andy Malcolm and his camera crew had been filming and interviewing us, to make a documentary about Alice in popular culture, which I cannot wait to see: Andy has promised to let us know where and when it will be shown, in due course.
So, for once, because of this filmed documentary, an LCS event will live on beyond its actual duration, and it will be possible to visit and revisit it at will. I am sure I shall do so many times in the coming years.