An Accidental Birthplace?

In a kind of reverse walk down memory lane, The Lady and I searched for, and found, Worcester College where son Bryan completed six weeks of his study abroad program at  Georgia Tech in the Summer of 2002. As you can see from the photo below, it has the classic style you would expect from a college at Oxford University. The thing he remembers most fondly about that Summer was that classes ended Thursday at noon. By 12:01, he and his buddy Wes Smith were out the door and headed for the train station for all kinds of adventures for each long weekend.

Bryan's "Study Abroad" College

I have to back up and talk a little more about our walking tour of Oxford University yesterday. I was gently rebuked a bit my editor, The Lady, who was sweet about it but did not relent. “Your readers need more,” she said. “Yes, M’am,” I said.

Our docent was a lovely lady named Monica who just happened to be celebrating her 56th wedding anniversary yesterday. She and her husband met when he was an undergraduate at Oxford. We asked how they were going to celebrate. She said they had already had a night out with friends so last night they were going to order “take away” and watch a favorite TV show. True love at 56 years.

Her tour was quite lyrical at times. She pointed out the “Dreaming Spires of Oxford” remembering Matthew Arnold’s poem “Thrysis.”

She said that J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis attended Oxford at the same time and were known to take long walks together. I wonder how many plot lines were developed on their walks.

All was not sweetness and light. She spoke with velvet-glove disdain of Oxford’s main rival, Cambridge. She said the rivalry was not as vicious now as it once was, but it is still there, referring to them as “those people.”

Now back to today. We headed first thing to Blenheim Palace, the birth place of Winston Churchill. Much is made of that fact in very clever marketing. What we learned was that Winston’s birth there was a bit of an accident. His mother was attending a party there and she thought she was three or four weeks away from delivery. A little too much dancing brought on labor and she was not able to go back to London. A doctor was called to the Palace and little Winston arrived, probably with a cigar in one had and a shot glass of whiskey in the other.

Winston did spend considerable time there as he grew up since this was his family’s ancestral home. The Palace was built on land given to Winston’s ancestor, John Churchill by Queen Anne because of his success on the battlefield at Blenheim. Winston was not in the line of succession so he never inherited any of the thousands of acres of land around the palace. There were still those connections.

I never realized Winston Churchill came from such obvious wealth. Humble beginnings, not so much. A later descendant of John Churchill married a wealthy American and used her money to complete and maintain the Palace. It is beautiful both outside and inside as you can see from the photos below.

As we moved through the rooms we could hear the obvious sounds of an organ. At the end of the tour when we reach the “long library,” there was indeed a pipe organ consisting of 2300 pipes. We learned that it is the largest privately owned pipe organ in the UK and it certainly resonated in that magnificent space.

On our own, we visited the Palace’s Chapel and the Winston Churchill exhibit, ending with an opportunity to have a photo with a life-sized wax figure of the great politician.

Back on our bus we drove a short way from the palace to view Churchill's final resting place. He is buried in a family plot in a small English churchyard, surprising for such a great statesman.

Our evening dining experience was exceptional. We walked a couple of blocks from our hotel to Balliol College where Alex, a Ph.D. student and Zoe, a Masters student gave us a tour of the college and joined us for dinner. We learned that being a Masters or Ph.D. student at Oxford is very similar in structure to programs in the U.S.

Undergraduate programs are totally different than in the U.S. At Oxford, undergraduates use the tutor system. Instead of having large group classes, each student has one, two, or three tutors for each class they take. They meet two or three times a week, and the tutors check to see that they have learned the past week’s assignments. The are tested two times a year on the subject they are studying, those tests lasting as much as three to five hours.

We learned that being in a college is all important. Students receive all their necessary services from their college, including health care both mental and physical.

It is much more difficult for a student in the U.S. to apply and be admitted to an undergraduate program at Oxford because U.S. students must demonstrate mastery of the subject they wish to study. In the U.K. students to that with their A-Level exams and we don’t have anything the corresponded to those.

It was so enjoyable to sit and visit with a couple of real students and get our questions answered.

Tomorrow we head to Stonehenge and Bath. More adventures, for sure.