Fun and education
Thorpe Park
22 August 2006
Falling from the sky
After lots of culture lets have a break. To get down to Anton and Debbie's we have to drive past Thorpe Park; so as the weather was looking reasonable and Jean-Jacques was interested in going we decided to part with yet more money and give it a go.
I am fine if the rides are going somewhere but the moment they start going backwards and forwards or just spinning around they make me ill and those I avoid like a half cooked pizza with extra topping and mozarella.
There is a high drop water ride which looked like fun and with the sun out I suggested we tried that first so that we would have time to dry off.
I had not counted on getting completely soaked and I am sure I was still wet in places when we finally got back into the car.
According to the screed you drop 28 metres at 1.5g in a 4 tonne boat displacing 3 tonnes of water into the air - most of it, I would reckon, landing on you moments later.
I would have to say that I was glad that their new ride called Stealth was not running. I could have had kittens just looking at it. I was prepared to give some of the others a go though.
Nemesis is the ride that has you hanging on underneath whilst whistling round at 4g hanging upside down and cork screwing at 70 kph. It was fun but I did come off fairly dizzy. Not dizzy enough though that we didn't give it another go later on.
As with all parks we found ourselves spending a lot of time queueing for two minutes of ride, and the novelty of that starts to wear a bit thin. We did however have fun without making ourselves ill and by the end of the day we were looking forward to the roller coaster of the M25 down to Chatham.
Down House
23 August 2006
Anton had suggested that we might like to visit Charles Darwin's home as it was not too far away, and having been there we could move on to Chartwell the home of Sir Winston Churchill.
Darwin's life is certainly fascinating and it still strikes me as quite incredible that within the past century people have been prosecuted for teaching his theories.
Down House is not exactly a huge mansion when considering that Darwin had ten children (Three of whom died early) but it did feel like a family home.
A lengthy audio guide takes you around the ground floor whilst upstairs displays take you through his work and theories On the Origin of Species.
Darwin was very meticulous about his life, even drawing up a list of pros and cons for getting married, but it was the wealth of notes that he took whilst voyaging for five years on HMS Beagle that gave him his scientific data.
It was a good thing he took all his notes and collected specimens because he would spend the rest of his days suffering from severe bouts of illness caused by insect bites and in all probability the stress he was under.
In 1859 Darwin published his theories on evolution to the world with his arguments carefully backed up by his observations and notes. He explains for example, how he had seen that in the cluster of the Galapagos islands, although the finches derived from the same family they had all adapted according to their individual needs.
If man can breed dogs, cattle or fancy pigeons, it stood to reason for Darwin that nature could do the same all by itself. In essence a simple theory but one which shattered many foundations in theological thinking.
Chartwell
A few minutes drive away from Down House are the grounds and mansion of Sir Winston Churchill. Whilst Darwin came from two prestigious families (Darwin and Wedgwood) Churchill was never going to worry about being reduced to cigarettes.
The house is large and the grounds enormous but to my thinking there seemed to be little in the way of a family home present. Lady Churchill had her rooms and he had his. The idea that they ever sat down together in front of the fire with a hot cocoa seems unlikely.
Churchill was a great reader of books as well as a writer and the library is packed from floor to ceiling with historical titles. His other passion, for painting is well represented in the large collection of his works in the studio overlooking the grounds.
For all that he disliked General de Gaulle, Sir Winston obviously found something to admire in the French people and his interest in things Napoleonic is marked with figurines of soldiers and a bust of Napoleon.
The museum displays personal belongings, many of the gifts he received by grateful nations and his medals and honours. The photographs on the wall with various world leaders acknowledge the debt that was owed to this one man in stirring his nation to continue the fight against Hitler and fascism.
In a general run through of the history of WW2 it is easy to gloss over the fact that for a critical moment Britain stood alone and I am glad to see that French children are taught about Churchill, the Blitz and the Battle of Britain.
Out in the grounds you can see the various fish ponds that Sir Winston had installed and the rose gardens created for their 50th wedding anniversary. We had a rather miserable day for walking about outside but even so you could see that Churchill had in Chartwell somewhere to get away from the world and to find some inner peace in order to lead the nation in its darkest hour.
Brompton: RE Museum
24 August 2006
JJ wants to be a soldier and like lots of young men, being anything less than at the pointy end of the stick means that you must be a bit deficient in male hormones.
His time with the Reserve working with his Route and Circulation Regiment have dulled that feeling a wee bit and I thought he might be interested in visiting the Royal Engineers museum to show how armed to the teeth, fighting, pointy bit, infantry have serious difficulty crossing rivers to bite the enemy's ankles without the aid of people to put bridges across, and people like his own unit to show them where the bridge is.
I have visited the museum before and it is well worth the entry fee. Displays take you through from the earliest days of warfare when engineering meant tunnelling under other people's walls or taking cover behind a makeshift container of rocks, right up to modern times.
Not all of the Engineers work is to do with wartime and they were responsible for railways, bridges and roads in many places throughout the British Empire.
Paintings and personal belongings testify to the bravery of many an engineer and the medal room displays numerous Victoria Crosses. In the courtyard are a number of dioramas showing incidents from modern conflicts, whilst out the front are some bridge laying tanks and other vehicles.
See also