Scrumpy Jack

Scrumpy Jack, Sunday 3/12. [photo: Alice in front of Goddard’s Pie Shop.] On our first day we had visited the chapel at the Royal Naval College, been told about the marvelous organ from 1787, and were invited to return for a service. Today we went. There was enough sun to light up the windows and the interior and it really is a beautiful church. The ceiling is a pastel blue with those Greek revival ivory-white plaster overlays that Wedgwood Jasperware still features. Separations are mostly dentil molding, and the dominating ceiling features are huge circles made from small trapezoids of plaster, rather like monochromatic mosaics (it’s hard to describe; I’ll try for a photo). Anyway, the chapel was designed by Sir Christopher Wren but it burned about 20 years after it was completed, and the interior was redesigned by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart. The plaster sculpting work was one of the last ceilings to be done completely by hand.

The organ does sound great, and the choir equally so. It turns out that the St. Charles wing of the college has been leased to Trinity College of Music (the Navy left in 1998), so the musical quality of the services is very high. For the recessional the student organist played a very difficult piece that I’m pretty sure we heard at Disney Hall last year in their organ recital series. Very few people stayed to listen – too bad.

Afterwards we were accosted by a parishioner and invited down into the vaults for tea, and various gnarly tales were a’told then, mark’ee. Arrh. It seems one of the deacons (yeoman? warden?) was a wee Italian lad of 15 when he got a job as a gopher at the Naval College. On his first day he was sent upstairs to a room where naval officers were poring over plans for a torpedo. The one in charge looked at him, saw no nametag or worse, no security clearance, and had him literally thrown off the property. He had stumbled into a top-security project (bad marks to the one who sent him there). Fair broke his heart, he told us, and yet the wheel turned and everything was made whole.

30 years later he claims he was involved in the negotiations, before the Falklands war, where the Americans, Brits and Argentines agreed to let Argentina buy the battleship that became the Belgrano. Apparently he is a naval engineer in private practice. Comes the Falklands war and our friend is contacted by an agent for the British government to build a something (he wouldn’t say what) that would be used on board a submarine. This something was then used on the submarine that sank the Belgrano! The Argentine commander who had participated in the negotiations to buy the Belgrano was a captain (the captain?) on the Belgrano that day, and survived.

Several years later on, our friend was at a dinner mostly of naval people (he never served) and he sat next to an officer who told him that the ‘something’ was still being used, still a valuable part of a submarine.

Warming to his task, our friend then told a ghostly story about the subterranean vaults of the college. It was built on the ruins of an older palace where Elizabeth I and her sister (Bloody) Mary I were born, and underneath that are Roman ruins. There are a few stories about people in the excavations seeing Roman soldiers march by, but this is mere hearsay. The real story was about The Black Cat.

Every now and then the Maritime Trust, which actually owns the land today, allows tours away from the normal tourist areas. A few years ago one such tour took place near Halloween in the subterranean vaults. There were about 5 groups of a dozen or so, each led by a ‘yeoman’. They all went separate ways in the many corridors, in the dark. Our friend was careful to point out that they are several hundred yards away from houses, businesses, and the river, so loose pets are simply not encountered there. Nevertheless, during his trip a black cat appeared and followed them around for a while before it disappeared again. When the groups met up again his group asked the others if they too had seen a black cat. Oh yes, they said. When, he asked? One after another, they answered it was at 10:00 o’clock. They knew because they heard the bells chiming.

It turned out that every group had seen the black cat at the same exact time. Our friend turned to one of the ladies present and asked for verification, which she gave. Everyone saw it, and everyone saw it at the same time. If you don’t believe in ghosts, you have to believe that five real black cats appeared and disappeared at the same time in a place where cats are almost never found. What do you believe, mateys?

We followed another passageway out to the open air in search of lunch. The “Let’s Go” city guide told us about Goddard’s Pie House, the apparent equivalent of our own Philippe’s, where beefsteak and kidney, shepherd’s and other meat pies are served up hot and eaten on long tables, family style. Alice ordered the BS&K while I had a regular minced beef pie and mash with gravy. I also had a rhubarb pie (“Momma’s little baby loves rhubarb, rhubarb …”) with warm custard sauce. Alice ordered hard cider and it came in a bottle marked “Scrumpy Jack” which nobody understands, but ties in neatly with the title of today’s blog. 6% alcohol and felt like it. The food was just what we had been looking for – hot, good tasting, and by far the most calories per dollar yet encountered. They do like their crusts, though; next time I’ll have the shepherd’s pie which has mash on top instead.

No entertainment tonight. On Sundays most theaters are dark, so we’ll spend it in our flat admiring the view or possibly the soccer highlight show on TV.

PS: TV turned out to be Best In Show night at Cruft’s, and an Australian shepherd dog from California won it all. Border collies took most of the agility medals.