Walton-on-Thames, England, Friday August 29th

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We set off a little earlier than usual because we wanted to do a little shopping for our Tanzania trip before we moved on to my cousin’s place in Guildford in the early evening. The drive through the suburbs showed us various sides on London, from the places where race riots created scars in the social fabric to areas with large homes set on manicured grounds. Eventually we reached our destination, Eltham Palace, only to find that the opening days had been different in Stefan’s information. We pressed our faces to the railings and had to be content with a view of the gardens and the moat.

As an excellent substitute we visited the Observatory at Greenwich. We had to make a selection between The Royal Observatory, where the Astronomers Royal worked, The Queen’s House, which houses an art collection, and the National Maritime Museum, which is full of memorabilia such as Nelson’s bullet-ridden coat and details about Sir Francis Drake. Keith’s long term interest in astronomy made the choice easy and we joined a very detailed and excellent guided tour which included the saga of how a way of measuring longitude was discovered. King Charles II offered ₤20,000 for the solution to the problem of determining longitude, hoping to inspire an invention that would prevent the tragic losses of life at sea that happened regularly because navigators were not able to plot their positions with accuracy. The actual observatory building, built by Christopher Wren, was not at all suitable for taking astronomical measurements or making observations because it had a fixed dome ceiling and only a few windows around the perimeter. He didn’t even put windows in the north and south sides, so no observations regarding longitude were possible from the room. Within a short time the first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, had taken his telescope out into the courtyard so that he could actually have a clear view of the night sky. The funding was atrociously low, with short cuts having to be taken with the building construction, and a remarkable similarity between the bricks in the observatory walls and those purchased at the King’s expense for the more ‘important’ project of a bridge, not so far away. Poor Flamsteed had to purchase all his own scientific equipment and, when he finally died, his widow took the lot with her, leaving the new Astronomer Royal, Edmund Halley, with nothing to look through. The life of an astronomer was not appropriately remunerated, and must have been very trying, with observations all night and recording and analysing most of the day, and the king breathing down your neck in the hope that your observations would lead to a longitude breakthrough, or at least some discovery through which he could hold his head high in front of the French.

It was worked out that there would be fifteen degrees of longitude for each hour of time because in 24 hours the earth turns around 360 degrees. So if they had a starting point, which they made a north-south line at the observatory, now famously the site of Greenwich Mean Time, and they could work out what the difference was between the time where they were and Greenwich time, then they would be able to work out their exact longitude. Unfortunately there were no clocks that were accurate at sea and so that was the next challenge. I felt the need to sit down after the first two attempts by John Harrison to make the perfect timepiece. I could still hear and I agonised with poor John, who had nearly recognised faults with his third try just before it was finished. His final effort overcame the problems that changes of temperature would create and was a small and unimpressive looking item compared to his first three creations.He was made to take his chronometer to pieces and put it back together again in front of a panel of the best watch makers so that they would have his knowledge. As honourable men, they refrained from benefiting from his intellectual property until he was dead and his family had received a good part of the prize money, and then they went on to develop his ideas more for the mass market.

At this point we all rushed outside to witness the dropping of the red Time Ball on the top of Flamsteed House. It is dropped at one p.m. exactly and nowadays, due to some mysterious computer cause, does a little bounce half way before dropping down fully. One and a half hours of cogitating on the problems of longitude measurement had made me realise how very dangerous sea travel must have been in times not so long ago and how very clever astronomers, telescope makers, mathematicians and inventors are.

We had a bit of a rushed visit to other parts of the observatory section, admiring various phallic telescopes and the different meridian lines that different astronomers had used. There was a wonderful series of exhibitions in the Astronomy Centre, with lots of hands-on interactive displays and a meteorite 4.5 billion years old – all aimed at helping visitors understand the how and why of astronomy and space exploration, and the significance of the knowledge that has been gained.

Stefan dropped us off in Walton-on-Thames and we attempted to buy some presents for people in Tanzania and for the school there. It really came home to us that we did not have a strong idea of what they already have, what is easy to obtain and what is needed and would be appreciated. Choosing books in English for adolescents in another culture, whose English skills and background knowledge are unknown to us, was very difficult. Eventually we decided to buy a reference book for the school library about animals, with excellent pictures and no too much information in English, which included some African animals. The time flashed by, with some purchases made and at least the others thought about.

We waited to be picked up outside an estate agent’s office, where it was quite clear that a house here was beyond our means, and then we enjoyed a last cup of tea and a chat at the motor home. Stefan kindly drove us over to my cousin’s place in Guilford, south west of London. He is a dear member of our family and had looked after us with so much care and thought and we had really enjoyed both getting to know him and all our time together.

Adrian, my cousin Rachel’s husband, greeted us warmly and took us upstairs to their apartment. It is in a wonderful spot, only ten minutes walk into the centre of town, two minutes from a cemetery and five minutes to be out walking on the Surrey hills. Rachel arrived from work at the University where she teaches and we both started off from the very comfortable spot that we had left off on the last occasion we met. Unfortunately Keith was suddenly overcome by a ten hour bug and had to go straight to bed, missing our first evening of delicious soup and hours of fast paced catching up.

Hemispheres apart: Christine is in the west and Keith is in the east.

This grey squirrel in Greenwich Park is very cute, and is one of millions now living in the UK and Europe after being introduced from the USA. Like all such ventures it was disastrous, with the grey squirrels gradually displacing the smaller native red squirrels in most areas.