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Emanuel M. Papper, M.D., Ph.D. Visit to BONN, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY UNITED KINGDOM – ENGLAND , WALES AND SCOTLAND By DR. & MRS. E. M. PAPPER 29th MAY, 1984 - 26th JUNE, 1984 Pat and I left Miami on Tuesday late afternoon, the 29th of May 1984 in the aftermath of many days of rain which left much of Miami flooded. Fortunately we were able to get to the airport with no trouble either from traffic, abandoned cars, or from the residue of the flooding. We flew to Bonn by way of London on Pan American Flight #98 (the same one we had taken to Copenhagen only three weeks previously). This time we were fortunate to be in First Class in contrast to the last trip in Business Class. The main difference is the ability to sleep on the flight. One can assume that Pan American Airways does not expect many regular travelers as frequently as we have gone to Europe in this month, since the films were the same and were not worth watching in any event. Pat and I talked much and I slept somewhat more than she did. The meals were of poor quality although very pleasantly served. We arrived in London somewhat late in a full airplane, a B-747, because of the delay in take-off due to the need to replace a flight engineer. The regular flight engineer had been called away due to some personal emergency and no standby was immediately available. Hence the late departure. At Heathrow Airport we went from terminal #3 on landing to terminal # 1 to take British Airways Flight #742 to the airport that serves both Cologne and Bonn . The flight was prompt, easy, one hour's duration, and in a few more minutes we arrived in weather in Bonn which was similar to that in Miami when we left. It was somewhat cooler but otherwise raining and the Rhine had risen a great deal because of heavy rains in this part of Germany. Joe Stoeckel met us at the airport and we were very happy indeed to see him. One of our pieces of luggage (the one containing all of the shoes and umbrellas!) was missing, but the other pieces were there. We were then driven to the Hotel Koenigshof in Bonn . It is on the Rhine River and is a very indifferent sort of hotel as to comfortable accommodations. It is very strange that in the capital of The Federal Republic of Germany there are or seem to be no really first class hotels. We checked in and promptly went to sleep and had some three and a half or so hours of sleep, not altogether restful, but better than not sleeping. We were then picked up at 7:00 p.m., local time, to go to the Stoeckel's home for dinner. It was a beautiful dinner, marvelous food consisting of Gravlox, smoked eel and a lovely asparagus soup. We had arrived in asparagus time in Germany which is a culinary delight indeed, and we remember very well our last visit during what is called the Spargel season. We had some veal and a very pleasant apple ice cream with some coffee. Among those present were Ken Mori, the Professor of Anesthesiology at Kyoto University; Ronald Miller, the new Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of California at San Francisco; C. Richard Chapman, the Head of Psychology in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Washington in Seattle; Patrick Foster, the Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of Stellenbosch in the Republic of South Africa; and of course, the Stoeckel's and us. The conversation was very pleasant and very interesting and eventually found its way into the discussion of the role of leadership in Anesthesiology, the attitudes of current chairmen, differences in the various countries in the way chairmen behave, and similar subjects. I think this will be an interesting place for both scientific and other intellectual discussions. We went home to bed and slept for some 12 hours, had a light lunch with Ole Secher, who just arrived, and we took a short walk with him. Tonight is the opening ceremony with the Rector Magnificus. Friday the 1st of June Pat went on a tour with the ladies which was rather fatiguing and since the weather was bad, she didn't feel that they saw too much. She did rest in the afternoon. The Meeting began at 9:00 a.m. and actually, with appropriate breaks for lunch and the like, went until approximately 6:00 p.m. The Program speaks for itself but it was essentially a review of the history, the theoretical basis of pharmacokinetics, and then some of the experimental work by leaders in the field. I chaired the first session and was very pleased to note how often our original work (the group of Brodie, Burns, and our other people both at New York University and Columbia), was referred to as being the Hallmark of modern pharmacokinetics and the beginnings of things which lead to the present state of the art. As a matter of fact, my book (with Dick Katz) on the uptake and distribution of anesthetic agents was referred to by more than one person as a landmark beginning of a modern scientific approach to these questions. There was much in the Meeting that was of great interest and it was a delight to meet some of the bright people who are doing great work in this area. I particularly enjoyed getting to know David Savage, a distinguished chemist who had synthesized some of the newer relaxants; Chris Hull, the Professor of Anesthesia at Newcastle; and Geoffrey Turner, an internist who is interested in clinical pharmacology at Sheffield who also referred to my earlier work with great praise. There were also some very difficult mathematical concepts for me, and I found that I was not the only one that had trouble grasping them. One of the distinguished features in the Meeting so far is that it is important to employ computer technology to deal with the advanced mathematics, but that essentially most of the work was still empirical and that data taken from measurements on patients or animals were treated by fitting various curves with computer help to the data, rather than having prepared and predictable mathematical models with which to use the data. It was a most interesting session. At the end of the session I spent a half hour or so with Ken Mori making tentative plans for a visit he wants us to make to Japan in the spring of 1985. From there we went to an absolutely lovely dinner at the Stoeckel household and had a very good time with all of the people. The food was delicious, the conversation was lively, and there was a very interesting concert of a brass quartet, sometimes using medieval instruments to play songs and chamber music from the Middle Ages onward up to the present. Since this was the day after Ascension Day in Germany, which is a National holiday, (Himmelfahrt which is a much more vivid expression of Ascension Day), it was very fitting that the concert ended with “Sing Low, Sweet Chariot.” June 2nd, Saturday The Meeting was a very full and interesting one, but a little over packed with knowledge and data. The Meeting ends this afternoon and there will be a closing ceremony at an elegant dinner. I have been asked by the Germans to organize the short speeches, and for various reasons, have asked Jean Lassner to be the opening speaker after dinner. He is the President of the European Academy of Anesthesiology and the number one person in the political side of Anesthesia in France. The second speaker will be Michael Vicker, who is the President of the Association of Anesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland. I will speak third and Dr. am Esch, who is the first person to become Chairman from the Bonn Department, will be the concluding speaker. He is Chairman at Hamburg. The dinner turned out pretty much as planned. It was held in an 18th Century building that was used by Beethoven for his concerts, and in due time, passed over to various government functions. At the present time it is used by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany for receptions, dances, dinners, and such things. It was rather a gay evening and all of the speeches turned out well. There was a great light touch to the first three, including myself, and we were very well received by the audience. The terribly serious Germanic impact still had to be felt, and when Joachim Schulte am Esch spoke you would think he was giving a funeral eulogy for Stoeckel, his boss of former times. It was a little bit on the maudlin side as well. We went back to the hotel and then had a good night's sleep. On Sunday, June the 3rd we took a trip (now our third or fourth) on the Rhine as far as Bacharach and had lunch at the beautiful Castle Schoenburg. It was a very pleasant lunch, a lovely boat ride on the Hydrofoil, and then we returned back to Bonn by bus where most of the people seemed a little bit tired, but I had a pleasant conversation about what I could do to improve my mathematical knowledge about pharmacokinetics with Helmut Schwindeln which he promised to do. Monday, the 4th of June The relatively large British contingent, including the Rosens and us, flew back to London from the airport at Cologne. It was an easy and pleasant trip and we drove directly to Leeds Castle from the airport with the Rosens and with Genevieve Barrier, who is a new Professor of Anesthesiology in the Necker Hospital in Paris. Leeds Castle was owned by Kings of Kent as early as the Tenth Century and perhaps even before that time and passed from one royal hand to another until the time of Henry the VIII of England. From that period onward it was owned in turn by the Fairfax family and the Wickeham-Martin family and later by another noble family. It was purchased in the 1920s by Lady Olive Baillie, the wealthy widow of Sir Adrian Baillie. Lady Baillie was the daughter of the Marques of Queensborough and one of the Whitney heiresses, bringing American money and English aristocracy together. Lady Baillie was very active on the International Social scene. She created a marvelous house of great beauty at Leeds Castle. It is situated on some 875 acres of gorgeous grounds and is stocked with birds of rare species as well as unusual ducks and black swans (purchased from the Churchill family) and other similar beautiful birds and animals. I met Lady Baillie when I stayed on the Riviera at Cap Ferrat (La Fiorentina) with Mary Lasker in the summer of 1974. She died soon thereafter, having been severely ill with heart disease as well as pulmonary emphysema. On her death, the Castle was turned over to charitable purposes, especially meetings for medical purposes. This state of affairs did not last too long because of financial pressure, and eventually tourists were allowed to come see the beautiful Castle and other organizations were permitted to have meetings there in addition to medical ones. However, our Meeting was really a very astonishingly good one because of the excellence of the presentations in so conducive a setting for it. The entire subject of Patient Controlled Analgesia was dealt with in a meeting which lasted some two days. We also had beautiful meals marvelously served at the Castle during our stay there. The scientific aspects of the Meeting and the clinical ones dealt with the matter of Patient Controlled Analgesia. Particular attention was paid to the concept that patients could do an excellent job if they controlled the dosage within carefully controlled safety measures, of intravenously administered potent analgesic substances (usually narcotics), and the apparatus to be used (some seven different ones were also discussed). One of my reasons for being interested in this whole program was the leading role that Michael Rosen had taken in the subject, as well as the much more recent interest of Abbott Laboratories in developing a machine which they expect to sell world wide for this purpose. I shall do a summary of the Meeting elsewhere in the report to Jerry Hrusovsky at Abbott and will attach a copy of that report to this journal. The Meeting concluded on Thursday, the 7th of June. In the meanwhile of course, we had had all of the celebrations of the 40th Anniversary of the invasion of Fortress Europe or D day on June 6th of 1944. The various heads of state of the allies were present both in Britain and in Normandy for this celebration. It was also the occasion of many demonstrations, including a postal strike, a coal miners demonstration, a demonstration against nuclear weapons, and also a rehearsal for the trooping of the color. It was kind of wild and therefore pleasantly confusing. Thursday, June 7th Had a dinner meeting at the Royal College of Surgeons Building. A kind of reprise of the Patient Controlled Analgesia Workshop was done at this time in the form of lectures and panel discussions before an audience, again under the joint jurisdiction of the European Academy of Anesthesiology, and this time the Faculty of Anaesthetists of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. The same kinds of presentations were made, and there is nothing new to add in this meeting as compared to the meeting at Leeds Castle . Friday night the 8th of June We, the Rosens and the Zatouroffs had dinner at Marks Club (a very elegant, private dining club in London) with Jayne Wrightsman. The food was absolutely magnificent and the champagne flowed freely and was great. On our way back to the St. James Club, where we stayed, we had a very pleasant discussion during that whole evening. Pat and Jayne talked a great deal about many things related to our long and close friendship. Michael Rosen discussed with her the establishment of the E.M. Papper Chair at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, voted by the Trustees at their meeting on the 4th of June 1984. We were generously informed of their action by Henrik Bendixen, who took the time and the trouble to call us from New York to tell us of his happiness of the establishment of the Chair. Jayne had not given money to the establishment of the Chair and it became quite clear to Pat and to me that her friendship with us was close and personal and her lack of interest in things medical is what prompted this negative kind of action. All of it is understood that people should follow there own kinds of interests in what they do with their money, and for that matter, with their activities. One of Pat's teeth got into trouble with a cap or a crown falling off and Michael Rosen very kindly and generously arranged for a very able young dentist to fix the tooth the following morning. Saturday, the 9th of June We left under difficulties, because the various demonstrations that were occurring in London made it impossible for a taxi to come to the St. James Club for us to go to the dentist and to meet the Rosens. We had to walk with a very nice young porter from the St. James Club to Picadilly where we were able to get a taxi and to carry on. After the dentist fixed the problem we went on our way to the Lake District in the Northwest of England. We arrived some six hours after we left, after having had a very pleasant drive through England heading entirely north and slightly west from London. We are spending the first part of our trip in this area at Miller Howe Hotel, and as this is being dictated I am looking across the absolutely gorgeous Lake Windermere at the water and mountains beyond it as the sun begins to set. This is, of course, a country made famous not only by its physical beauty, but by the presence of some of the great poets of England, including Wordsworth and de Quincy. Sunday, the 10th of June We arose at about 8:15 in the morning to a very beautiful sunrise, actually almost full daylight, overlooking Lake Windermere. After a rather fulsome typical English breakfast, we drove out to the edge of the Lake District National Forest which is beautiful beyond description. The fitted stonewalls separate the various properties and are the origin of the stonewalls that we see in much of New England and perhaps other parts of the United States. We walked to the highest peak in England, which is in the neighborhood of a little over 3,000 feet and had a very beautiful view of the green countryside with one large lake and several smaller lakes, visible from the top. The bay just east and south of the Irish Sea could also be barely visible some 40 miles away from where we were. We had taken along a box lunch of some smoked salmon sandwiches and cold meat, some fruit and other things, and had rather more than we needed. We then drove around part of Lake Windermere and were astonished to see how many people were here but it was, after all, Sunday and beautiful weather and near enough for the people in Manchester and Liverpool to come here for the day. We walked around part of the Lake in addition to the climb toward the mountain in the morning and had a good day's work out. We came back to the Miller Howe Hotel for tea at about 4:00 p.m., read the London Times in the Sunday edition, took a brief nap and went on to a fairly substantial dinner, in which these small hotels (13 guest rooms only) seem to specialize. Tomorrow we go off to Sharrow Bay for some three days. Monday, the 11th of June We drove leisurely through such places as Hawkshead where Wordsworth went to school in a building begun in the 16th Century. We took a remarkable walk around the beautiful lake called Tarn Harn, which is one of the great walking places in this whole Lake District of Cumbria. We eventually found our way up near the top of Lake Ullswater at a small village called Pooley's bridge and thence on to Sharrow Bay Hotel. This is an old and beautiful hotel with some 30 rooms, only 20 or so with a bath. The rooms are small and crowded, but the food is beyond belief. It is one of the absolutely best restaurants in the world, especially their dinners, which we had in ample supply the first night. Tuesday, the 12th of June Michael Rosen was sick with dizziness and its cause was not known, but could have been due to an excess of wine the previous night. He thought it might have been an attack of Meniere's syndrome which he's had from time to time. I think otherwise. Pat and Sally and I took a round trip five mile brisk walk along the lake, south from where the hotel is. The weather was somewhat threatening and by early afternoon it had blossomed into a full blown steady rain, which seems to characterize this part of England. Another very spectacular dinner after having slept much of the afternoon resting, and we also read some. In the afternoon before resting, Pat and Sally went to an old house in Pooley's bridge, called Dalmaine, where they very much admired the furniture. Another spectacular dinner that night and then to bed with the rain outside. Wednesday, the 13th of June Awoke to more rain but had a splendid breakfast as an offset to it. Michael was by this time recovered, and we took a very pleasant drive into Grasmere after having visited Rydal and Rydal Mount, which is where Wordsworth lived a long time and received many of the world's famous people. It is a marvelous house started in the 16th Century and built on at intervals including the present time. Wordsworth's study was most interesting and showed a strong evidence of how much impact his poetry and his writings had on Western culture and on the English speaking world. Wordsworth and his contemporaries had strong influence in the United States and particularly in the University of Pennsylvania, where the famous Inman portrait hangs. A Professor of English at Pennsylvania named Reed seemed to have stimulated all these contacts. Returned to Sharrow Bay Hotel after driving through the largest town in the Lake District, a placed called Keswick, where we looked at some shops and some of the local candies, cakes and sweets but bought very little exotic food. Thursday, 14th of June We got up early and had a big breakfast, our last one at Sharrow Bay Hotel, and started the very pleasant drive to the south toward Cardiff in Wales. The drive took us along the western border of England into Wales in the south. When we arrived in Cardiff there were no messages and no mail for us, happily. The Rosens and we went to a very pleasant Chinese restaurant and had a series of their favorite dishes at the Cantonese restaurant. Then to bed for a good night's sleep at the Rosen's house. Friday, the 15th of June Since the Mushin Lecture had been cancelled due to the illness of Mr. Roy Jenkins, the distinguished speaker, we were entirely on a social and friendly visit for this trip. In the morning we were taken by Bill and Betty Mushin to a lovely park in Cardiff called Cefn Onn. The trees were absolutely gorgeous and the Rhododendrons were in full bloom and magnificent. We spent just under two hours of walking and talking catching up on old times and exchanging views on what we were doing at present. Bill and I, of course, are old friends that go back to the immediate post-war days. When he was Dean of the Faculty he invited me to give the Clover Lecture at the College in 1964, at which time I was admitted to the Faculty by election. This was approximately the 20th Anniversary therefore of those two occasions. We returned to the Rosens for a very beautiful and pleasant lunch and more good talk about all sorts of things including the reasons for the large influx of bright young people into Anesthesiology. Bill Mushin rather shared my view that there was an element of concern about the difficulty of gaining positions in Britain, together with looking for those fields where "life-style" had more promise of being important than the traditional fields. Mike Rosen differed and had the general point of view of leadership in the United States, which was that at long last the virtues of this speciality had been recognized by young people due to intensive exposure of students in the educational process over a long time. I think he is wrong! We were picked up between 3:00 and 3:30 p.m. by a very nice young driver named Chris. We then drove with Chris in a British arranged Mercedes to Loders where the Hoods were happily awaiting us. We had a very pleasant dinner with them and enjoyed very much good talk about a whole range of subjects, dealing in part with Abbott Laboratories and in part with European and American political and economic matters. We had a good night's sleep. Saturday, the 16th of June In the morning we had a typically British breakfast with everyone reading the newspaper as is the custom in this country. Alexander had gotten up about 6:00 in the morning and had a swim, purchased the newspapers, and brought in some of the various foods for breakfast. We had a very pleasant and quiet lunch, and then went to the English Channel at this level, a ride of some eight to ten miles. We took a beautiful long walk on a ridge overlooking the Channel near a town called Abbottsbury. It is a medieval town and well preserved. It was just beautiful indeed to walk. In the afternoon Pat and I played a little bit of tennis (our first time since in Europe) and then we took a short rest. In the evening, they had some local friends as well as the Head Master of a local Public School (British style) named Tom Weir for dinner. Among all the guests also was Dr. Jolley, the distinguished British pediatrician. We then went to bed. Sunday, the 17th of June Began with the same kind of very nice breakfast followed by church in the church on their property. Since Alexander is Lord of the Manor, he read the lesson for the week. We then drove on together to London in their cars. It was a very pleasant drive of some three hours through very lovely countryside in the County Dorset. Being in the countryside continues to amaze me with its tremendous beauty and its different kinds of beauties. We had some good talk en route about British politics in the problems of the coal strike and other difficulties that were going on at the time. On arrival in London we checked into a pleasant suite at the St. James Club and things seemed a little bit more like home rather than our last visit. I think one can get accustomed to almost anything with reasonable experience. We met Michael and Diana Zatouroff at the Ritz Hotel nearby, and had a marvelous dinner at its newly renovated restaurant. The decor seemed to be in the French manner and possibly an effort to imitate that of Louis XVI. We had much brisk and good talk and had lots of fun in observing the various people around us and trying to deduce from the way they were dressed or the disparity in their ages, (as is often the case between the men and women) and what the rest of their lives might be like. Michael is extremely interested in these things and in perhaps the excellent tradition of the British physician in being educated to observe and observe and observe. We also had a piano concert by a lady named Rachael Franklin who is a Londoner by birth and has good credentials in the London Royal Academy of Music. Pat and Michael went to her table to wish her well, and I think she was quite overwhelmed that anybody would listen to her during dinner and particularly in such an admiring way. Monday, the 18th of June In the morning Pat and I went to see the branch office in London of the Northern Trust Company and met its Managing Director, Jeff Ruzicka. He showed us through the building and was very nice to us indeed and seems quite talented. He is being recalled to Chicago presumably for bigger and better things in the International Division of Northern Trust activities. We then did some hectic shopping at Mark's and Spencer's which was a bit more than I wanted to do. Pat and I then had a light lunch and she continued some shopping in the afternoon while I relaxed and read a bit. In the evening we went to the Connaught Grill Room for dinner. It is one of the best restaurants in London, and the meal was certainly outstanding. There was an additional couple with us, Lord and Lady Stamp. Lady Stamp is the former Frances Bosworth, a well to do American from Chicago, and Lord Stamp is medically qualified and is the Professor Emeritus of Bacteriology at the Hammersmith Hospital. He did distinguished work during World War II, presumably in bacteriological warfare. He received the Medal of Freedom from President Truman as a clear sign of his outstanding contributions to science. This is the highest civilian decoration that one can receive from the United States. It was a most pleasant evening and the discussion was good and interesting. Pamela Ruzicka was a very good hostess in the best Anglo-American tradition. Tuesday, the 19th of June In the morning Pat went to have her hair done, and I was on my way to Bloomsbury to look at some book shops in the hopes of finding "The One Shop," which might have good and old material. I picked a route of walking, intending it to be a short-cut which took me past the Museum of Man. This is a branch of the British Museum that deals entirely with ethnographic matters and is, in effect, a marvelous Museum of primitive societies. It is very strong in works that come from Polynesia, Micronesia, and to quite an extent of the northeastern American Indian peoples. It was a very pleasant interlude and by the time I had seen those things that I wanted to it was time to meet Pat so that we could join Alexander and Diana Hood for lunch at the House of Lords. The building is a relatively new one by British standards in that it was rebuilt after the old buildings were destroyed by fire in the early part of Queen Victoria 's reign. I think this building dates from 1820 or thereabouts. It is in the style which, at the same time, is ornate and impressive and overly done, which was the characteristic of the period known to many people, and a new phrase to me, of Victorian gothic architecture. But it certainly does give one the impression that much that is important is going on in the Houses of Parliament. We went to the Lords and had a pleasant but relatively undistinguished lunch. The restaurant of Lords is noted for its exclusiveness more than for its cuisine. After lunch Alexander showed us around a bit, and the room we had an opportunity to see was called the Royal Chamber and it is a place which the Queen walks with the Crown on her head to the opening of Parliament, which occurs on the throne in the House of Lords. We then went into the Chamber and saw its activities. There seems to be no order kept except spontaneously and with the Lords being respectful of one another in debates. The Lord Chancellor, who Chairs the body, seems not to function much as the Speaker of the House but more as its distinguished symbol of authority. We were not permitted to see the prayers with which the session opens but were permitted in the visitors' gallery to hear the debates. The debate takes the form of questions to the government and supplementary questions upon which all matters are brought out. The Lord Chancellor sits on a wool sack in lieu of a chair, although it does have a back to it. It must have some ancient history as to how it occurred that way. Around the throne there are steps and several people were sitting there, and we were informed that it is the eldest sons of the hereditary peers, presumably those who will inherit the title who are permitted to sit there. There were quite a few elderly looking first sons! The Lords certainly take their constitutional role very seriously, and attendance was on the whole quite good although there was much moving in and out of the Chamber. There are a substantial number of women present, most of whom I imagine are life peers. The Lords seemed to have a recurrence of influence in British political affairs by their ability to persuade rather than to enforce their will upon the Cabinet and the Government. It is interesting to see how important this role seems to be and it is certainly a new one for the Lords, since they have had very little influence on the decision process in Britain since 1911, if memory is correct. Tonight there is dinner at the Hoods and we will meet the eldest son Henry and their other guests who are coming as well. Among the guests present were Alexander's long-time colleague from Portugal, whose name I do not know but his first name is Luis. They have worked together on the Board of the Railway that Tanks owns in Angola. He is a very intelligent and a very worldly person and it was a great pleasure to meet with him. Henry Hood, the eldest son, was also present and he is a remarkably handsome young man and very intelligent and extremely pleasant and personable in every respect. Just a delight to talk with. He briefed Pat and me considerably about the things to see in Edinburgh, since he read political science and history at the University of Edinburgh. There were others of interest present but among them were General Sir David Fraser and Lady Fraser. David Fraser is a retired Army General of high rank who is spending his retirement years as a writer and literary person. His first book about Lord Allenbrooke, the Chairman of the Imperial General Staff during World War II, was a great success. He is now writing novels and they look as though they will also be successful. Pat talked much more with him than I did and was most impressed by his intelligence and his great ability and the unusual change of career. We then returned to the St. James Club for what turned out to be a relatively short night's sleep. Wednesday, the 20th of June We were driven to the airport relatively early in the morning to make a 9:10 a.m. super shuttle flight to Edinburgh. This airplane was a three engine trident and was completely full of obviously commuters between London and Edinburgh for business purposes. On arrival in Edinburgh we were met by Bill Mowray, a driver-guide, whom we had hired for the short trip in Scotland. He is a very nice young man and quite attentive and knowledgeable about his native city which is, of course, Edinburgh. We drove around the city for awhile to get some perspective about the old town and the new town as it is called here. The new town was established in the 18th Century by the then Provost (our word for Mayor) with the sympathetic support of the Prince Regent who later became George the IV. The long and short of it was that they planned an entirely new city with absolutely beautiful houses, obviously of the Regency period designed by Adams . The old part of the city seems considerably larger. However, it turns out that Edinburgh is really an amalgamation of some 70 odd villages and towns with the old and the new part being more or less the core of this development. The main things in Edinburgh are, of course, the famous Castle where among other things the future James the I of England and James the VI of Scotland were born to Mary Stuart. Some of the parts of the Castle go back to the 13th Century and others were added as recently as the 20th Century. Because of the long military history of Scotland, this Castle also has its famous collection of the Scottish Crown made in Scotland and first worn by Robert Bruce. All Kings were subsequently crowned with this crown until the Act of Union in 1707 when Scotland and England became part of the United Kingdom, and from then on the coronations took place in Westminster in London . We then walked down the avenue called the Royal Mile, which is an interesting and rather odd mixture of modern shops catering to tourists and old houses and things called closes, which are really narrow alleyways between the front and the rear of the house - apparently a way of getting a horse and carriage from front to back. One of these called the Lady Stairs lead to a small museum dedicated to the Scottish poets Burns and Scott, and it contained some of their personal belongings as well as a bit of their clothes. We also saw the famous St. Giles Cathedral where John Knox, the Calvinist Scottish Protestant Reformer, was the minister and we also saw the place where he lived for awhile just across the street from the Cathedral. It is a house of the 16th Century that we visited as well. The Cathedral is an ancient building going back to the 14th Century, but there are modern additions as is so common with these churches. The stained glass windows are absolutely gorgeous, and there is very little of works of art in the Cathedral in keeping with the austerity of the Calvinist view of Protestant Christianity. This, of course, is the center of the Presbyterian Church or the Church of Scotland as it is known here. We were fortunate to some extent in that the Cannon Gate Church, which is 17th Century and contains the grave of the famous economist Adam Smith, was available for viewing on the way toward the Royal Palace, which is called Holyrood. The Palace's private apartments are closed and, in fact as I understand it, they usually are. The Queen is coming shortly to Scotland for her annual visit and she lives is Holyrood Palace, which is an 18th Century building where the Royal Apartments are, and she gives one large garden party here in addition to the four at Buckingham Palace in London. The Queen's visit is taken quite seriously and preparations are going forth. We were able to see the public parts of the Palace including the famous Banquet Hall, which was built by Charles II upon his restoration to the British throne. He was very proud, according to our guide, of his ancestry of 1500 years of royal descent and had 111 portraits commissioned of his Royal Ancestors which hang in his hall. Various male models served for this purpose, since obviously no one, including the King, knew what these ancestors looked like. They were painted over a two year period by a relatively unimportant Dutch artist. We also saw the apartments of Mary Stuart and her second husband Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. We saw the place where the Queen and where Darnley lived, and the ceilings are original of the 16th Century. It is a place where the Queen's Italian courtier friend, and as some people have said lover, was killed by the Scottish nobles lead by Darnley. His name was Rizzio. We then went for a short drive in a place called the Queen's Park, which is a beautiful hill and also known in Edinburgh as Arthur's seat for reasons that have apparently been lost in ancient history. The beautiful sight overlooks the city and much can be seen of it, including the curious partial ruin built in the 18th Century by the Scots as an attempt to reproduce the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens. They ran out of money and the building was incomplete. However, they fire off a cannon at 1:00 p.m. everyday, and on this hill there is a ball which drives us to the top of a cross just a few minutes before the cannon goes off. This is an attempt to help people at sea. There is an additional tale about Holyrood Palace and the Royal Emblem over Cannon Gate Church (the Royal Church). Over the Palace and the Church is a stag's head. It is a legend that King David of the Scots centuries earlier went hunting and was separated from his companions. During the hunt a stag appeared, the horse was frightened and the King was thrown. The stag, therefore preparing to attack the King, was stopped by a blazing and fiery cross. The stag then retreated and from then on the stag's head was the Royal Emblem for this Palace and for the Church. When a new Monarch is crowned a stag's head is replaced on both the Palace and on the Church. The word Holyrood means Holy Cross in the Scottish language. We then returned to our hotel which is called the Dalhousie Castle. Parts of it date back to the 13th Century, but it has been completely renovated and we live in the tower which is on the sixth floor of the Castle. There is no access to this area except by walking, which is not the easiest thing in the world but is a good way of keeping, as the Scots would say, fit. Thursday, the 21st of June (Night of the White Nights or the summer solstice - the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere) This morning after breakfast we went to the National Portrait Gallery which was most interesting. It had portraits painted of Monarchs, writers and others important in Scottish history. While we were there, there were a small group of some seven or eight year old boys from a boarding school elsewhere in Scotland, with their Master looking at the various paintings and relating them to history. Among the more gruesome of the pictures was one of the execution of Charles I by an unknown artist. In this mix of paintings there were one or two relatively modern ones including portraits of George V and Queen Mary, as well as an exquisite painting by Sargent of a Scottish noblewoman. We looked briefly into the Museum of Antiquities which was in an adjacent corridor, and that area has many of the artifacts of pre-Roman/Scotland, at the time of the Picts, and going onward up to relatively modern times. It includes jewelry, weapons, utensils and similar things for daily and extraordinary usage. We then went on to the National Art Gallery which is reputed and deservedly so, in our opinion, to be one of the finer small museums of Europe. This area had a modest collection of very important paintings of all periods. It has an excellent collection of French impressionists and post-impressionists. There is a small but marvelous representation of Dutch and Flemish Masters, and a reasonable number of the Venetian painters as well. Particularly impressive to us was the small but very good collection of Rubens, Velasquez, El Greco, and Rembrandt. The collection of Scottish painters was not particularly impressive except for those of Ramsay, a marvelous portrait painter and a native of Scotland. From there we went to what is known as the Borders, which is in fact the southern part of Scotland adjacent to the northern part of England where many of the clashes and conflicts between the southern Scots and the northern English took place over many centuries. The countryside is very pretty indeed and we arrived at a house called Traquair, which belongs to the 20th Lord of the Stuart line known as Maxwell Stuart. This branch of the family are descended from Bonnie Prince Charlie and have remained Roman Catholics to this date. The house in which they live is the longest inhabited house by a single family in continuity, and elements of the house actually go back to the 14th Century, although there are said to be some elements even earlier. Part of the house which is privately lived in by the present Stuarts we did not see, but we were able to see much of the house including the library, bedrooms, sitting rooms and other areas which ranged in time from the 14th Century to Victorian times. There have been changes in architecture and furnishings over the period of time and one sees a curious mix of medieval to modern things in this house. The library is particularly peculiarly arranged in that the books are not filed by subject, author, or anything recognizable to librarians. Each book has a certain shelf number and a place on the shelf reading from left to right, and therefore the library is fixed in its positioning and its numbers. The library's books are mostly books on philosophy, nature and religion. There are no novels, poetry, or other fiction. The languages are well represented and there is a particularly strong collection of French and old Latin materials, as well as English. There was a very pleasant but small antique shop in which Lady Stuart put up for sale things that were either in excess in the house or that she had purchased then changed her mind about keeping. Most of these were early Victorian and we bought two plates, one mirror, one rather interesting snuff box, and one print with a very old frame. The prices looked very good to Pat, and we are very much pleased indeed with these purchases. From there we drove to Abbottsford, which was the home of Sir Walter Scott. It is a very large and elegant home very near the River Tweed (from which the name of the woolen material for clothing is taken). This very beautiful but small river enhances the large property a great deal. The house is an elegant one of very large rooms and furnished in ornate fashion, not unusual for the late Regency, and to some extent in the early Victorian period. There are many artifacts including weapons, suits of armour, guns, swords, and other things for military purposes which Scott evidently liked and collected. There are also personal artifacts, including some rather interesting ones which were said to have been the property, for example, of Mary the Queen of Scots during the last weeks of her life. One of Sir Walter Scott's possessions is a crucifix, which he has said to have used on the way to her execution. We then came back having acquired many pamphlets, booklets, and a few purchases during the day, for a short rest followed by dinner at a remarkable old house and restaurant called the Prestonfield House. This house goes back to the 16th Century and obviously has been refurbished and modernized. Among the many people who have dined there, one must include Benjamin Franklin, who by some odd chance had sat at the same table that we were put at. I'm sure the furniture was different but the location must have been the same. Tomorrow morning we go north to Inverness. Friday, the 22nd of June We left the Dahlhousie Castle at about 9:45 in the morning and drove through much of Edinburgh on the way to the north. We stopped at the Pringle Retail Outlet, a very large manufacturer of Scottish woolens. We got a few sweaters, some socks, and a Mohair blanket, all of which we sent on to Aspen . We then drove north over a very nice bridge crossing the Firth of Forth en route to the Highlands. The other side of the river is where Perth is located and it is a most interesting little town. There is an old Abbey which goes back into ancient times and was important to Robert the Bruce. In fact, his name is mounted in very large letters in stone on top of the Abbey and it reads on two corners of a Norman-like tower - King Robert. This is also the town where Andrew Carnegie was born, and there are many evidences of it. His house of birth, which is very modest indeed, is preserved as a museum, and there is such a thing as Carnegie's Hall in Perth, a Carnegie Library, a Carnegie Street, and similar evidences of his presence here and also of his generosity to this town once he became very wealthy in the United States. Just north of the town of Perth is the area which is lost in the mists of Scottish antiquity, but it is a place where the Stone of Sconce was said to have been located. It is a stone upon which Scottish Kings sat while they were crowned, and possibly even further into ancient times where the more primitive Chieftains sat while being made Chief. It is called the Stone of Destiny, and it is alleged to have important almost magical powers. It, of course, is now in Westminster Abbey, having been brought there in the 13th Century by Edward I, and the British Monarchs sit upon a throne in Westminster Abbey, which is ancient, to be crowned, and underneath the seat of the throne is the Stone of Sconce. The Palace is a working one with very large grounds and it is owned by the Seventh Earl of Mansfield. This Palace is very famous for its vast collection of beautiful ivory objects from all over Europe, dating back as far as the 16th Century to relatively modern times. It also has a vast collection of china and porcelain, much of which was bought during the conflagration and upheaval following the French Revolution when so much of the aristocrat's and Royal Family's possessions were sold literally for a song to wealthy Britons. There is a very long hall where most of the British Monarchs have come to visit. The Palace itself, apart from the crowning area which does go back very far into antiquity, has its beginnings in the 15th Century, but most of the house looks quite Victorian in style. The present Earl's grandfather seems to have furnished most of it. There is an ancient cross, which probably goes back to the 8th or 9th Century when Christianity first came to Scotland. We then drove north to the Highlands from the Palace over back woods beautiful country. Among the things we saw en route was the White Palace of the present Duke of Altholl, but we did not stop to see the Palace. He own 67,000 acres of ground and all of it very beautiful in the highlands. Also en route, there was the house of the elected head of Clan McPherson who resides there during his term of office. Further north we stopped at a town called Pitlochry, which is the site of a major hydro-electric development and an attempt to preserve the important salmon fisheries, which in this area is in one of the rivers that has been damned up for the hydro-electro power. Salmon abound in all of the Scottish rivers, and even at this time of year rain or no rain, one always saw fisherman in all of the various rivers and streams. In the early evening we arrived at our hotel, a place called Culloden House, which is a house that goes back certainly to the 15th Century, and it is the place where Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed just before his last battle to attempt to restore the Stuarts to the thrones of Scotland and England. The owners of the Culloden House where we are staying say that Prince Charlie slept in the room where we are sleeping, but I imagine that this story is told to practically everybody who stays here. The owner of this hotel wears a kilt, probably justified, and his wife runs the hotel. Their food is extraordinarily good, but quite rich as is the custom in the better restaurants in Scotland that we have seen so far. Our first visit just near the Culloden House was the famous Culloden moor, where in 1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie had his last battle with the Scots of the Highlands supporting the Jacobite rebellion against the British, who were commanded by the Duke of Cumberland. It was essentially the last gasp of that strange combination of Stuart's aspirations for the Scottish and English thrones together, with Scottish Nationalism against what they viewed to be the foreign domination of the Germanic kings of England from Hannover. The Act of Union creating the United Kingdom had occurred some 30 years earlier, and no longer was there any evidence of the Scottish uprising after the finish of Bonnie Prince Charlie's campaign. In the light of modern warfare, it seems strange that so much was decided with so few engaged. The Scots had some 6,000 men and the English some 11,000, and the total number of casualties was something under 2,000 on both sides. However that's how it went. There is a big cairn which is really a pile of stones which had been cemented by the Scots as a war memorial. In ancient Scottish warfare the highlanders came to battle with stones which they piled in a heap, and when the battle was completed they took the stones away, and this is one of the ways in which they could discover how many casualties they had and who they were. The remaining pile of stones is still known here as the Cairn. From Culloden moor we drove through Inverness, which is a lovely old town, and then drove north and eventually west to the Western Scottish Coast. En route we passed some absolutely gorgeous countryside, but it was stark looking. It looks almost like a surrealist view of another planet. Most of the terrain in this area in the west of Scotland and its north is boggy and has peat in it, and the land is covered with heather. The heather turns a beautiful purple in late summer and early fall and is looked upon with pleasure by these people. However the combination of rocky terrain and boggy land is a great waste to the thrifty Scots who are therefore deprived of agricultural areas. They keep petitioning the government for drainage of the swamps to improve the agricultural capabilities. We arrived in a very small fishing village on the west coast of Scotland called Kyle of Lochalsch. It is on an inlet to the Atlantic Ocean and is a very short ferry ride to the island of Skye. We drove over to the island and went its entire length, which is about 50 miles toward the west, and saw the Dunvegan Castle, which belongs to the Clan McLeod (undoubtedly Dr. Allen McLeod is a member of this clan also), and it has been the ancestral seed of the Chieftain of the McLeods for many centuries, probably as far back as the 12th Century. The McLeods were rather a war-like group and seemed fairly safe in their island fastness. However, they were invaded frequently, as was the entire island of Skye, by Vikings who've left their mark in the form of red hair and light complexions, and the names of streets and people are derived from the Scandinavian languages. The McLeods seem to have been descended, in part at least, from these Norse invaders, and they also claimed to have Celtic blood. The Island of Skye has a strong secondary educational system, which is very much devoted to trying to restore and preserve the Gaelic language and culture. Languages spoken here and the signs are in both English and Gaelic. We returned to the hotel at Lochalsch by way of the east coast of Skye and past its chief town, which is called Potree. There seems to be little or no industry other than what is still called crafting, which seems to be a total occupation around the sheep, i.e., woolens, food, and whatever other products one can get from sheep. The island has become quite a place for tourists to see, and there are even buses that go across with frequency. We had a pleasant dinner of the local fish and seafood, which is indeed very good, and on to early bed. It is quite cool here, almost cold, but the scenery is incredible. For instance, on the Island of Skye there are mountains called Cullin Hill, and they look rather black. They are always covered with varying kinds of mist, and they are forbidding indeed. The sun and the rain can be seen in rapid succession. As a matter of fact, if one does nothing but watch the scene, it is easy to see a minimum of three passing seasons within as short a time as a half-hour. It is really a remarkable place where there must be an enormous clash of weather forces. There is a Research Naval Base on the island and also on the mainland here and we did see a submarine returning from some sea duty to have itself checked out. Sunday, the 24th of June A little later after a very good night's sleep we left the hotel at Lochalsch, and we drove east along more of Scotland's very stark forbidding kind of mountains, where the peat, fogs and the heather and occasionally some rocks are the sole scenery. It looks like only relatively primitive plants survive on these mountains, but it is absolutely beautiful to look at. We continued along this direction until we got to Loch Ness, the famous lake in Scotland where a monster is alleged to have been seen several times over a long period of time. It isn't necessary to discuss the pros and cons of whether such a monster exists. Suffice it to say that a lot of argument has taken place, most of it irrational. We did look in on the museum which houses the evidence, and it was a very calculated, crass tourist place devoted mostly to souvenirs. It's most disappointing. However, the lake itself is of great beauty. It is some 27 miles long and a mile wide at its widest and is singularly unspoiled looking. Hotels are not allowed to be built near there, and there is only an occasional restaurant. There was very little boating or fishing on the lake, possibly because of the subconscious or latent fear of the Monster! After Loch Ness we drove on back to Inverness, and we went on to look at the Castle belonging to the Earl of Cawdor. This place is famous because it is the area and the castle where the then Thrane of ancient times was a man named Macbeth, and Shakespeare wrote his famous play about the murder by Macbeth of Macduff, which is alleged to have taken place at the Castle Cawdor. The Earl of Cawdor is of the Clan Campbell, and the castle itself goes back to the 13th Century. It is an absolutely beautiful place and has been changed and modernized over the centuries, but the ancient treasures have been kept intact. The present Earl of Cawdor is a man of great and rare humor. He himself wrote the guidebook of the various rooms, and the writing is witty and brilliant at times and always delightful to read, and at the same time quite informative. As an example, one of his ancestors apparently had a lady friend who was painted by a famous artist of the times. The official family records of the inventory of this picture is listed as "unknown by unknown artist". The gardens are equally beautiful, and Pat and I took a long walk through a very hilly path behind and around the Castle, which is completely covered by Rhododendron bushes on both sides as an archway for the path. We then went on the airport at Inverness and were greatly disappointed to learn that our flight (the only one leaving Inverness for anywhere!) for London was going to be an hour and a half late. It was 1 1/2 hours late, and we arrived in London in St. James Club with a few minor inconveniences like the elevator not working. However, we were quite accustomed to this problem since we had been walking up as much as six flights of stairs in the various hotels and castles we stayed in in Scotland. Unfortunately, we missed dinner with the Rosens because of our late arrival. Monday, the 25th of June This was a very pleasant day in that Pat and I went to Wimbledon, the All England Tennis Tournament. It was our first time at this magnificent occasion. Wimbledon is not just one of the world's greatest Tennis Tournaments, but it seems to be a way of life for the British. The first round was played today and all of the great tennis players, plus many of the unknowns were playing, and lots of the young people came to have picnics and to enjoy the day. It was in short, a total outing for a very large number of people. We saw the match between John McEnroe and Paul McNamee, the Australian player. It was a fine match, although McEnroe seemed to have won easily in four sets. There was a good deal of brisk competition, and he was really extended more than the score showed. We were the guests of Abbott U.K. and got to know David Gibbons better, the new Managing Director for the Company. I had met him when he worked in the Brussels and Paris offices before that time. It was a very pleasant afternoon with many of my British friends including the Rosens, the Nunns, the Dundees, the Bennetts, and others. We were driven to the matches by a car provided by Abbott and taken back to our hotel with the Rosens. It was our last visit with them on this trip and a sad one to part company from these very special and wonderful people, but we do hope to see them again in New York in December. This evening we went to dinner at Philip and Mary Lou de Zulueta's home in Westminster. They had other guests including Mr. and Mrs. Jack Heinz (he of the 57 varieties) and Lord and Lady Arnold Weinstock. He is an absolute genius in business and is the Chief Executive Office of General Electric Corporation of Britain, which among other things, owns the Picker Company. After dinner, while the men were together as is accustomed still in some British homes, we got a very interesting seminar-type of discussion that Lord Weinstock held forth in describing the problems, advantages and the other aspects of nuclear power. We then returned to the St. James Club for our last night in the United Kingdom for tomorrow when we return home. Tuesday, the 26th of June Quite uneventful, although a long ride home on the Concorde with one stop in Washington. It saves 21 hours and is certainly a very comfortable way to go. It is good to be home as it always is. One looks back upon the last few weeks abroad with great pleasure. So many good things happened. However, home is home and Pat and I are delighted to be here.
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