Oxford City - 15 July 2003

OXFORD CITY - 15 JULY 2003

I felt alive in Oxford. My first experience with Oxford was on a bus, travelling through the city centre to Headington (5mins out of Oxford), where CS Lewis stayed. Even though I was in the bus, the vibrancy of the place still managed to touch me and I knew I had come home.

The numerous bookshops that lined the narrow two lane High Street, the funky clothes shops, the huge amount of people milling on the streets and crossing the road without care…the culture, the spirit, the atmosphere. My heart sang and my soul felt revived. The historically rich university city with its many Gothic buildings, where thoughts and ideas met and flourished, a place where intellectual activities were encouraged and embraced – it made me feel alive.

The funniest thing of all was the fact that I experienced all these while on the bus. It could have just been my wild imagination and my idealistic nature, but I honestly felt an immediate bond with Oxford. We were on our way to a CS Lewis pilgrimage, an author I totally admire, but I was really looking forward to returning to the city centre to actually walk the streets of Oxford and soak up everything.

But firstly, we had to do the most important thing – visit the grave of Lewis. The only problem was, we knew that his grave, his house and the church he worshipped in are in Headington, but we had no idea where specifically. To make things even more interesting, we didn’t even have a map. All we had were the names of the church and his house, and a one paragraph sentence on how to get to church.

Despite that, we jumped on the bus, asked the bus driver to let us know when we arrived in Headington and lo and behold! We stopped right outside the Six Bells pub. What are the chances of that? From church, we end up in front of a pub. As luck would have it though, there were two guys sitting outside the pub who knew exactly where we were going, and the church was actually only a 3 mins walk from the pub!

The Holy Trinity Church is a really small country church, with lots of tombstones surrounding it. Try finding one person’s grave. Nat, Kristin and I split up to look for his grave and stumbled upon a sign that said CS Lewis’ grave and pointed in a general left direction. So we walked in the general left direction, home of at least 50 graves. Not much help there.

There were some old folks there though who we later found were actually transcribing what was writing on the tombstones. Nat and I were walking towards one of the old man when he looked at us and rather sternly indicated that we should turn around. Honestly. I thought we were being told off then for desecrating holy ground or something. But then he finally added, “it’s on your right.”. He was actually telling us we had passed Lewis’ grave!!

Kristin went mad when she saw the grave. Somewhat along the lines of how I reacted when I first saw the Colosseum in Rome. But honestly, it was amazing. It took a while for it to sink in that I was standing by the grave of such an influential, prolific and amazing author who had touched the lives of so many people around the world. For such a creative author, he had a really simply grave.

We just sat around the grave in silence, each lost in our own thoughts and then finally decided to do the touristy thing. Out come the cameras. Photos taken, we had to go into the church in which he worshipped and see the famous Narnia window. The church interior was really plain and simple, with wooden beams and cement pillars. Where he sat was even more interesting.

His seat was situated right next to a window on the left side of the church and the view he got…well, let’s just say if he looked straight ahead, all he could see was a cement pillar. I honestly have no idea where he chose to sit there, and remain sitting there.

Finding his house was actually more of a lucky break for us than anything else. It just so happened that the old folks transcribing the tombstones knew where he lived and managed to give us directions. Honestly, without it, we would have been hopeless lost. Not that we knew where we were going in the first place, since the only thing we had to work from was that his house, “The Kilns”, was 15 mins away from church.

Unfortunately for us, they were holding seminars in his house when we were there. One of the helpers did very kindly let us into his study as well as give us a glance of the dining room though. Then she told us about this lake that Tolkien (yes, Mr Lord of the Rings himself) helped Lewis clear just behind the house.

Happily, we trooped off towards the lake, only to be utterly horrified and disappointed. It was a rather huge lake, true. But it was d-i-s-g-u-s-t-i-n-g. It was dirty and smelly. Nevertheless, we sat by it and had our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Yes, we’re crazy.

Getting back to the city from Headington turned out to the most aggravating affair ever. Firstly, please note that it was blistering hot that day. Yes, I hear you say “Hot in England?”, but believe me, it was VERY sunny and VERY hot. I’ve since gotten browner because of walking in the sun the whole of yesterday.

Anyway, there was this bus-stop about 2 mins from the street on which The Kilns was on and we had actually ran to the bus-stop after the bus. We were so proud that we managed to catch the bus, only to have the stupid bus driver chase us off because although the bus was eventually heading towards the city, it was going by this other suburb in which the price of our ticket did not cover. We therefore had to walk in the stinking hot weather, with the sun shining into our eyes, for almost 30mins before we finally found a bus-stop in which the bus driver was willing to let us on. I honestly have no idea how the public transport system in England works.

Oxford City was, well, is amazing. They don’t call it the city of the dreaming spires for nothing. The academic buildings, and as you might have expect were numerous, all had Gothic architecture, with weird and bizarre gargoyles hanging on its walls. Well-manicured lawns, College shields, Latin phrases…they were aplenty in Oxford.

Walking down the streets, I can just imagine the famous writers from the past doing just the same. I even got to see the shop that Alice (of Alice in Wonderland fame) frequented to by sweets! I mean, to be in the very same place where all these brilliant authors…I realise that Oxford has also produced a great many other minds in the fields of sciences, math, law and what have you, but seeing that I’m a writer, I’m going to only focus on the authors. I really am finding it really hard to describe, but I am just absolutely awe-struck to be in a town overflowing with intellectual activity.

To get a glimpse of the colleges these authors resided in, some who actually studied there. To see the buildings that inspired the authors – we saw Radcliffe Camera, apparently Tolkien decided that this building, which is part of the Bodleian Library, looks like Sauron's temple to Morgoth on Nümenor.

And the Bodleian Library! Geesh! Never actually got to see the books. But I most certainly saw photos. Floor to ceiling of shelves and shelves of ancient books…gosh, I would actually be content to stay in there all day staring, fingering, reading the books.

We tried to find Tolkien’s grave as well. But seeing that we had a really useless map, we walked for close to an hour in the hot sunshine but was never able to even get a glimpse of what looked remotely like a cemetery. By the time we finally gave up, we could hardly walk, and were all dying of thirst.

Convenient excuse to step into the Eagle and Child pub, the very same pub in which a group of famous authors called The Inklings (Lewis and Tokien included) gathered to share extracts from stories they’ve written. It was your typical British pub (now, this is no indication that I frequent pubs) but its famous link just made it really special for us.

I know there is just so much more of Oxford that I have not seen. The walk by the River Thames, the parks, many more Colleges…but what I have seen was enough to make me fall in love with the place. Rome may be my favourite city in the world, but Oxford city just does something to my heart…