Year after year I’d planned a pilgrimage to London, only to have it canceled at the last minute by some crisis, usually financial. This time it was different.  From the beginning, heaven seemed to favor the trip.”–Helene Hanff’s The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

I  am reading Helene Hanff’s The Duchess of Bloomsbury, a sequel to 84 Charing Cross Road, the story of her 20-year correspondence with the buyer of an antiquarian bookstore.  Hanff, an autodidact, was unable to find the books she needed in New York, so she ordered dozens from London.

After the publication of 84 Charing Cross Road, she finally traveled to London, though, alas, her friend the buyer had died and the bookstore closed.  The publishing company set up a mini-book tour for her (signings and interviews).  Though Helene was terrified by the flight, her many friends and fans made her comfortable in London:  a fan who worked for the airline whisked her through customs (“She’s a friend”), and then Nora from the store and her daughter Sheila drove her to the Kenilworth Hotel in Bloomsbury (at Russell Square near the British Museum.)

Her adventures at the hotel are very amusing.  Why is it so hard to be an American traveling in London?  It’s because we don’t know how to work the gadgets.

She is baffled by the shower.

The shower stall is a four-foot cubicle and it has only one spigot, nonadjustable, trained on the back corner.  You turn the spigot on and the water’s cold.  You keep turning, and by the time the water’s hot enough for the shower you’ve got the spigot turned to full blast. Then you climb in, crouch in the back corner and drown.  Dropped the soap at once and there went fifteen dollars worth of hairdresser down the drain, my shower cap was lifted clear off my head by the torrent.  Turned the spigot off and stepped thankfully out–into four feet of water.

I was similarly bemused by the shower. When I reported that only cold water came out of the spigot, the clerk explained one handle was for the temperature, the other for the pressure. Then I managed to get hot water (only hot water), which was preferable to cold.  Regulate the temperature?  Couldn’t be done.

Helene was constantly getting lost.  She couldn’t read a map.

Sallied forth with my map after breakfast and saw the sights of Bloomsbury.  Got lost several times; it seems a street can be on the left on your map without necessarily being Left of where you’re standing.  Various gents came out from under umbrellas to point me where I wanted to go.

I got lost, too.  It was easier after I figured out that if you’re not on the side of the street where the signs are you’ll never find your way.   And you never know whether the sign will be on the left or the right!.

Helene didn’t take the tube.  She walked, took cabs, and her fans sometimes picked her up in cars. The tube is much easier than cabs, I think.  The one time I called a cab (the black cab company recommended by the guidebook), I was waiting on the steps when a clerk came out to say I had a phone call.  The dispatcher told me there wasn’t a cab in the area. So even if all the others were rogue cabs, as my guidebook suggested, I could not lug my books to the shipping store on my own. The third company sent a cab.

By the way, after a bracing first night sleeping in jeans and sweaters, I  experimented with the white thing on the wall.  Fortunately it was a radiator.

And then there was blessed heat!

I’m an inexperienced traveler, as you can tell. I’m used to bicycling in the country.   But I loved London and hope I’ll go back someday.  My husband says he’ll go if I can find a boat.

Hanff’s book is a wonderful travel book, and I wish I’d read it before I left.  Nothing much has changed since the ’70s…  And I laugh at her adventures, because we are/were both inexperienced travelers.