Well, been an interesting few days since my last post. The greatest fear around here, as on any campus, is the fear of fire. More than half the students live in the Manor itself, along with most of the visiting faculty, and the others live in the Carriage House about 100 yards away. While the exteriors of these buildings are brick and limestone, the interiors are all wood, and wood that has been drying out since the 1830s. So, we take fire safety very seriously.
On Friday morning at 6:45 a.m., we had a full fire drill for both buildings. The evacuation time to beat is 7 minutes, and we did so in good time, proceeding to the assembly point in front of the Manor where noses were counted using a color code system based on where your room is located. So, we were assured that there would be no more drills and that if we heard the alarm again, it would be for real.
Well, sure enough at 11:45 p.m. that night off it went in the Manor. Most of the students were still up, but yours truly was roused from his sleep. This time it was not a drill. Turns out a girl left her curling iron or hair straightener or whatever on in her room directly under the heat sensor and walked away. Ouch. The fire brigade duly arrived--and from considerably farther away than in Bethany--and they were not pleased as you might expect. The good news is no damage, and as a practical matter it did give the students a sober lesson of both the danger of fire and their responsibilities much more forcefully than a drill. Let us hope it does not go unlearned!
Then, yesterday for me it was off to Leeds, a city about an hour from here by train. I was headed north, but another group of students and faculty were headed for London the the Premier League match between Fulham and West Brom. Here they are across the platform at the Grantham station.
The student in the red shirt is in my World Civ class. Another group was out to Stratford-Upon-Avon for a day in Shakespeare country as well.
Anyway, my reason for going to Leeds was two-fold. First, I've gotten to know the night security officer pretty well because we take breakfast at the same time every morning, 7:30. His wife used to live in Leeds, and he told me of the Tetley Brewery, established in 1822, one of the biggest in England. They give tours, and they have a museum of the history of the public house (pub) in the country. Always up for a tour of a brewery. And, second, a branch of the Royal Armouries was recently build in Leeds, and I do love armouries.
So, off I go. Get to Leeds and find my way to the Brewery. Founded by Joseph Tetley, it had been producing beer in Leeds for generations. Looks pretty cool, right!
Wrong! See the Carlsberg sign in the center. The Tetley heir sold the place to them about 10 years ago as part of the globalization of the beer industry. And, of course, they ran it into the ground so that the rest of the complex now looks like this.
They've torn the whole place down, Tetley's is brewed elsewhere now, just like Rolling Rock and so many other American breweries bought out by the big boys. I suppose it will end when every single brewery in the world is owned by one company and we'll all be drinking Bud Lite or some such abomination.
After that disappointment, what a delightful surprise when I pressed on the armory. In the plaza outside the entrance, a group from the Civil War Society--their civil war not ours--had set up shop and were demonstrating the life of Cavaliers and Roundheads in the 1640s when Charles I tried to assert his "divine right" to rule and got handed his head, literally. Never a popular king or particularly accomplished, he did, however, mount the scaffold with great dignity, and it was said later that nothing in his life became him so much as his losing it. A couple of pix of their layout.
Anyway, those of you who have had the Weapons and Warfare course will understand what a treat it was, quite unexpected, to be there on this day because at 2 p.m. they conducted a demonstation of weapons and tactics of the period including pikemen, matchlock musketeers, and artillery. Here is a musketeer loading and firing his weapon.
Then a brief demonstration by the pikemen (a number of whom were pikewomen, by the way) necessary on the 17th century battlefield to protect the musketeers from cavalry, follwed by the artillery. They had two small cannon, introduced onto the battlefield by Gustavus Adolphus, that could be manhandled around the battlefied quickly by a team and brought into action against pike squares from a distance. The first pix is a close-up and the second is of the firing exercise. The concussion from the guns was enough to set off some car alarms nearby.
The second gun is obscured by the smoke of the nearer piece's shot. All in all a splendid display. Then a couple of hours in the armory which houses weaponry from all ages and areas of the world, as well as a display of hunting and sporting firearms and a somewhat peculiar display of guns made famous in Hollywood films such as the ones in various James Bond films, and of course Dirty Harry's iconic .44 magnum. Here is one of the displays in the main staircase This actually goes on for five floors!
Then a stroll through the historical district of Leeds downtown, a couple of pints at the Scarbrough Hotel and a safe trip home.
No comments:
Post a Comment