A Letter from Cambridge

Blue skies and green grass

{Cambridge, England}

“Ticket, love?”

The ticket attendant catches me by surprise. I’m staring out the train window distractedly…probably looking for foxes. I’m always scanning the landscape looking for foxes when I’m riding the train in England. I have yet to see one, but it doesn’t stop me from looking. Anyway, it takes me all of twenty seconds or so to pull my Eurail pass up on my phone - but in the brief conversation that fills the ensuing space the attendant calls me not only “love”, but also “my lovely” and “my little poppet”. It makes me smile, and laugh a little bit to myself.

I’ve gotten used to being called “love” while I’ve been in England, and it seems people call perfect strangers “my lovely” more often than you would expect them to. But “my little poppet” is a new one.

I spend a lot of time on trains and buses while I’m in England, and I can’t help but notice a few differences between public transportation in the U.S. and public transportation in England. We’re not allowed to drink alcohol on public transportation in the U.S., for example. It never fails to surprise me when I’m sitting on a bus in the U.K. and someone next to me opens a cider or a beer. Or, as is the case with the older couple next to me on today’s train, a bottle of wine at 10:00 in the morning. As they joyfully drink wine from actual, real-glass wine glasses, they tell me that they’re celebrating their anniversary, and open a massive bag of potato chips.

(Crisps, they’re called here. And remind me to tell you someday about the variety of crisp flavors here in England. It’s simultaneously awe-inspiring and horrifying - unless lamb and mint crisps sound good to you. Or prawn cocktail crisps. Or wagyu beef crisps. Or roast beef and horseradish crisps. Any meat dish, it seems, can be turned into a crisp flavor. Whether they should be is, of course, another story - but since crisps and I generally don’t get along very well, I’ll leave it up to you to make that decision.)

People in England invariably, to a person, say “Thank You” to the bus driver when they disembark, even if they look like the kind of person who wouldn’t be bothered. And, of course, they are unfailingly polite and brilliant at standing in line. When I was in Italy - where people seem to think it’s their god-given right to be at the front of the line no matter what time they show up - I would have killed to hear a good-natured “Musn’t jump the queue!”

On the other hand, I’ve noticed that people on trains in England rarely give up their space or seat once they’ve claimed it. I commuted on the Chicago El every day for fifteen years, and it was natural for everyone to constantly shuffle to allow as many people on board as comfortably as possible. When I tried this maneuver out of habit during rush hour in London, I was loudly chastised by a man who claimed I was trying to take his space. When I explained that I was attempting to create room for other commuters trying to make their way onto the train, I was told, point-blank “Nobody does that here”.

It surprises me, too, how rarely people give up their seats for the elderly, pregnant women, people with luggage, or people who look plain exhausted. Is it just the natural reserve of people here, or are they just so occupied with their phones that they don’t notice? I don’t know.

In general, though, there is an aura of cheeriness on English trains, exemplified by the familiarity of the ticket attendant above. In fact -at the risk of making a very broad generalization - I think there’s an aura of cheeriness and familiarity in England, period. (Full stop.) Not everyone is happy all of the time, of course - people can’t be.

But smiling and laughing certainly seem to come easily to people here.

There are smiles all around in Cambridge today.

It’s a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon in August, and school has not yet started for the term. Restaurants have pulled their tables into the middle of the street for open-air dining. An organized scavenger hunt has people wandering the streets in full-on Alice in Wonderland costumes. Tourists line up to visit the colleges (pay as you go, just like in Oxford), and to have their photos taken. Posters advertise the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival, in which several of the university’s colleges stage Shakespeare plays in their gardens or courts. (I would love dearly to stay to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the garden of St. John College, but alas I wouldn’t be able to catch the last train out of town.) The city is buzzing with activity and everyone, it seems, is in a good mood.

The heart of the city is, of course, Cambridge University. Founded in 1209, it is England’s second-oldest university…and the third-oldest in the world. The university sits easily in the heart of Cambridge, its historic colleges lining narrow streets, mixing easily with local shops and cafes. Some of the university’s oldest colleges line the River Cam - their “backs” creating a welcome grassy parkland along its banks.

The River Cam is absolutely packed with punters on this sunny day. There are two ways to punt in Cambridge - the first is by guided tour. It seems like the private tours are mostly led by students, who mill about everywhere selling their skills. They glide effortlessly down the Cam, regaling their passengers with stories about the University and the colleges they pass along the way.

Alternatively, you can rent a punt and attempt to navigate the river by yourself - no license required. Honestly, these are the punts that look like they’re having the most fun. With no idea what they’re doing, the “drivers” tend to bounce off banks and spin in circles, narrowly avoiding the guided boats as they weave their way toward their destination. It is total chaos, but such fun to watch.

All of this to say that Cambridge is a very easy city to like.

If England were a romantic comedy, you might think, at first glance, that Cambridge was the pretty one…the one who makes a good first impression, but who lacks substance. Oxford is the keeper, right? The one that’s harder to get to know, but whose warmth and intelligence win you over in the end.

England isn’t a romantic comedy though and we all know better than that. Cambridge is, of course, one of the greatest academic institutions in the world. Pretty AND smart. Just look at a list of some of the people associated with the University…John Milton, Francis Bacon, Erasmus, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking. It’s extraordinary, really.

Lord Byron went to school here, and kept a pet bear in his room. Pink Floyd was formed here. The structure of DNA was discovered here.

Isaac Newton’s apple tree at Trinity College

Isaac Newton was a student at Cambridge, and later became a professor of mathematics at Trinity College. The plague hit while Newton was studying at Trinity in 1665, and he returned to his childhood home at Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire. It was here that he worked on the ideas that would later become his “Theory of Gravity”, which he famously pondered while sitting underneath an apple tree in the farm’s orchard. The apple tree that stands near the impressive front gate of Trinity College was planted in his honor in 1954, grafted from the original apple tree at Woolsthorpe Manor.

Isaac Newton’s name was also long associated with the Mathematical Bridge. Local legend had it that this intriguing bridge was designed by Newton, and built without the aid of nuts, bolts, screws or nails. Legend got it wrong, as it so often does, and the bridge was in fact designed in the 18th century by William Etheridge and used nuts and bolts aplenty for its construction. Still, it was a triumph of engineering for its time. If you are a different kind of nerd than me, you can read about it here, on the Queen’s College website, in a lengthy article explaining the bridge using all kinds of fancy terms like voussoir and tangential abutment.

The Mathematical Bridge can be found on the grounds of Queen’s College, founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou, queen to King Henry VI - who seven years earlier had founded King’s College, right down the way.

King’s College seems to me to be the heart of Cambridge, not least because it is the home of the extraordinary King’s College Chapel - for my money the most gloriously beautiful space in the whole of England.

King Henry VI started construction on the chapel in 1446, but it wasn’t finished until five kings later. The construction was finally completed in 1515, under the reign of King Henry VIII (there were a few Edwards and a Richard in between the Henrys). For centuries it was the tallest building in Cambridge - and yet, it is decidedly strange, bordering on homely, from the outside.

(American homely, not English homely for the record. American homely = ugly, English homely = homey. This caused me no end of confusion until I figured out the difference.)

Built in the “English Perpendicular Gothic” style, it is remarkably rectangular from the outside, with four spool-like spires on the four corners.

A 19th-century engraving of King’s College Chapel.

The buttresses obscure the astonishing walls of stained glass that line all four walls of the chapel - most of them dating to the mid-16th century. It’s not until you step inside the chapel and the windows surround you that their glory comes into focus. Towering walls of glass - it’s hard to imagine that they have the strength to hold the weight of the masonry. It’s the lace-like fan-vaulted ceiling that kills me though: beautifully intricate, extraordinarily detailed and running the whole length of the great chapel it is the largest stretch of fan vaulting in the world.

Here’s the thing about Cambridge: there is much history and so much accomplishment.

And yet, when I think about my visits to Cambridge, I can’t help but think about laughter and smiles. Green grass and boats gliding smoothly through the water. Blue skies. Charming bookshops and weeping willows. Joy and excitement. Curiosity.

Youth, I guess. Maybe it’s nothing more than that. But maybe it is…

When I left England after two months late last year, I posted a list here, to my Notes on Substack, about the things that I would miss most about this country that I have grown so fond of:

Sad to be getting ready to leave England after almost two months, so I made a list of what I’ll miss the most:

1. Hedgerows.

2. Blue plaques.

3. Funny place names. I’ll never forget one afternoon in particular when I drove through Cockadilly, Tiddleywink, Kent’s Bottom and a town called The Shoe.

4. Quirky architectural details. Quirkiness in general. There’s a lot of quirk, to be honest, in this country.

5. Flowers everywhere.

6. Marks and Spencer food hall.

7. Used bookstores, charity shops and vintage English books.

8. Hobbit doors.

9. Sheep.

10. The settled-in loveliness of the towns and countryside. To quote Bill Bryson: “Nothing - and I mean, really, absolutely nothing - is more extraordinary in Britain than the beauty of the countryside.”

And I stand by that list - although Brits everywhere may mock me for my devotion to the food hall at Marks & Spencer. What I stupidly forgot to mention, of course, were the people. England wouldn’t be England without its people, would it? And the people I have met in England have been unfailingly generous, friendly and funny. Full of laughter and not at all afraid to tell you what they think. It’s this straightforwardness that I appreciate the most, to be honest.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that the English are, actually, the very best thing about England…even beating out hedgerows. And you know how much I love hedgerows.

And so, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything, England - and cheers, for now. I will see you again soon…

XO

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