Day Thirty-two from Melissa - War

I woke up bright and early at 3:41. And again at 5:45. And again at 6:15. And 6:30. And 7:00. 

Then I almost slept in past my get-up time at 7:30. I think something's wrong with me. 

Anyway, today we went to the Churchill War Rooms museum. I'll admit, I wasn't sure how they were going to make it exciting for non-Churchill enthusiasts, but they did a very good job. 

Here's the background. Before WWII even started, they could tell trouble was ahead. So they picked a strong, new, inconspicuous building and started expanding and reinforcing the basement. Astonishingly, they managed the whole reconstruction project without anybody noticing, even daily passers-by. They essentially dug a whole new basement complex below the existing basement, and then filled the existing basement with cement six feet deep and yard-wide steel beams, so the new, deeper basement had a really reinforced level right above it.

 This is looking up the wall. The big rectangular chunk missing is about the size or a refrigerator, and was cut out so you can see behind the brickwork. The white corrugated looking bit is the metal playing with cement filling it, and you can see one of the big metal beams right under it. 

Down there were telephones, scramblers, typewriters, switchboards, maps, meeting rooms, sleeping quarters - everything they thought they might need. 

(That's a wax model, not a person.)

Then war was declared, and for six years, they were frantically busy down there - it was the top-secret hub of the British war effort. At night, some people slept in the basement of the War Rooms - essentially the basement's basement's basement. Apparently there was awful air circulation down there. 

One typist told a great story of being down there. Every night she would change into her nightgown and dressing gown in the bathroom, and then hurry down a couple levels with her sheets, find an empty bed, and catch a few hours of sleep. 

Apparently the risk of running into people at night was less. 

The next morning, however, she would invariably run into the nicest, most dapper officers as she made the dash to the bathroom in her dressing gown. 

Anyway, after the war, the entire place was photographed, and then the lights were turned off in the map room for the first time in six years, and the door was closed. Some of the other rooms were cleared out and used for storage, but the map room stayed closed and untouched for years, until it became a museum. 

Researchers who came in found everything exactly the same, all the way down to an officer's sugar rations, hidden in an envelope at the back of a drawer, and then forgotten. In the picture they're in the closest table, sitting on a piece of greenish paper. 

There were interviews playing of some of the men and women who had been stationed there. They talked about translating morse code and choking on the smog, and knowing if Churchill was nearby by the scent of his cigars. Sometimes they would leave work and head for home, only to find the roads they always used had been bombed, and they had to find a new way home. 

The one lady made me laugh. "I hated Morse Code by the end of the war. I still hate it. Even when I hear it in movies, I hate it."

It was so secret, most of them couldn't even tell their families. One girl told her mother she just worked in an office. "I knew they wouldn't give you anything important to do," her mother responded. 

Anyway, it was a very interesting museum, and I learned a ton about Churchill. 

I was thinking: at home, most people my grandparents' age were affected by the war. They went over or their friends, and there was rationing and Glenn Miller. 

Over here, most people my grandparents' age were getting bombs dropped on their heads, or the heads of their friends. It's so much of a bigger deal here, I can't even tell you. Every church, every bench, every crossroads has some kind of memorial or monument or plaque. It's incredible. 

Anyway, after that, we came out and it was raining. So we abandoned our plan to go to the park, and went to the British Library instead. They have a room they call their "treasures" room. That name is absolutely accurate. Sadly, no photography allowed, but I can tell you some of what we saw:

One of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier fugues in his own handwriting,

Mozart's index of his own work, with the  date, title and first couple measures of everything he did,

Sir Edward Elgar's handwritten score of the iconic theme of Pomp and Circumstance (I almost cried. Miriam did.)

A page from Puccini's score of Madame Butterfly. It was hilarious. You couldn't read the notes, find the bar lined, or read his handwriting. It looked like a piece of modern art!

The first page of Chopin's Polonaise in his own handwriting,

The 11th century copy of Beowulf (Miriam had to drag me away!!!),

The handwritten pages from Jane Austen's Persuasion,

The handwritten pages from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (beautiful handwriting!  It had a crossed out bit where Jane compares herself unfavorably to Blanche Ingrahm in a conversation with Mr. Rochester. He contradicts her, saying she's small in might and means, but he'll excuse her deficiencies. She responds that she's quite good enough for him.)

Pages from Da Vinci's notebook, filled with sketches for a four-voice mechanical organ, written in his backwards Italian,

A letter from Michaelangelo to his father. "I have finished that chapel I was painting. The Pope was very pleased."  I bet he was - that's the Sistine Chapel he was talking about. ("When will you make an end?") 

And a copy of Tyndale's translation of the Bible. One of only three surviving copies! It was really, really neat. We didn't even make it through half the room, so we need to go back. 

Then home for dinner. Macaroni and cheese that tasted more like Parmesan than anything else. Best with lots of pepper, I decided. 

Then a rush to The Museum. Excuse me, I meant the British Museum. We needed to fulfill an assignment. I've been there twice, but neither time was I able to hunt down my own personal list of things to see. We need to go there again too. It's so neat though, to dash through between Egyptian heads and Babylonian - things, and Greek statues that desperately need humanitarian aid packages - they must've lost all their clothes in some disaster or other. 

I was going to take pictures of the Greek statues, but I was in too big a hurry to stop and find an angle where they were decent. 

After that, home and chocolate and leftover Parmesan macaroni with pepper. A girl accidentally threw her retainer away at breakfast, so I watched the dumpster dive. She hasn't found it yet. 

Anyway, big day tomorrow. Bye!