Battling With Directions and the Muvver Tongue

A lot of the fun of travel, at least for my wife and me, has been based on misunderstanding and misdirection. The best examples of this involve some of our journeys to the United Kingdom.

In the British Isles my wife and I have managed to get some of the worst directions, occasionally no understanding at all and, consequently, some of the most memorable little adventures.

I believe it stems mostly from the fact that the average citizen of Great Britain thinks he, or she, speaks English. We, with our tourist feet very consciously planted on the soil where that language was invented, tend to believe they are right.

Wrong.

The English people do not speak English; they speak about two dozen varieties of English, almost none of which approximates American English. A good part of the time they don’t even understand each other. Why should we think we can go to their country from our provincial little communities such as Canoga Park or Chicago, Ontario or Manhattan and immediately understand? I don’t know why, but we do.

Beware Little Old Ladies

On our first trip abroad we were walking on London’s Oxford Street. It was 10:30 in the morning and we wanted to get to Buckingham Palace in time for the changing of the guard. I had my map unfolded and we were attempting, with little success, to reason together, when we were approached by a little old lady in a blue smock and with very chapped, pink cheeks. She asked if she could ‘elp us.

My wife immediately began telling the English lady about our need to reach the palace and why. The lady smiled so broadly that I thought both of her cheeks would crack.

She switched her shopping bag to her left hand and began pointing with her right while explaining, “ ‘ere, naw, tis sumat a walk ye duel to hrap hup, tyke the paff a way sumat by the harch ‘bout free squares. H’anyroad, whore va green. Loverly, loverly an keep a watch boy va paff, ya see. . . .”

Both Joyce and I bent a little closer and listened very carefully but understood not three consecutive words. Encouraged by our attention the lady went on until we convinced her we understood. Then, with a final cheek-cracking smile, assured by us that we would do fine, she went on her way.

Taking cues from her arm signals more than her words, we did not find Buckingham Palace, but on the strength of her directions found the Thames and a little later the Tate Gallery. It was a wonderful day. We made it to Buckingham Palace the next day.

Another year and another vacation we were back in London and going to the Ritz for High Tea. We were going ostensibly to stop the nagging of an English friend who rated it one of “life’s great experiences.” The only trouble was that we simply couldn’t find the Ritz.

Finally, after 20 minutes of wondering around Piccadilly, we saw a meter-maid.

“The Ritz?” she said, “Jist thah,” and she waved her hand vaguely in a northeasterly direction. “Jist thah. Cahnt miss it.”

Well, we could and did miss it. But during the hour we spent trying to follow the directions we saw parts of Central London I don’t think Dickens knew about. We finally took a cab.

The Ritz was half a mile down and across the street from where we’d received directions from the meter-maid.

Beware the Pink Tea

Our nagging English friend had been right. High Tea at the Ritz was a fun experience, but you’ve got to like pink tea and not mind cucumber sandwiches.

If you try it, though, and ask directions, just remember in one of those two dozen varieties of English, “Jist thah” means “half a mile down and across the street.”

One year we took a driving tour of the United Kingdom. We had a rental car and were driving north toward Inverness on a beautiful rainy day when we entered a little Scottish town. Thinking we’d just zip on through and come out the other side, I stayed on the main road, or so I thought.

We saw a pub with a sign on the side saying “Take Courage.”

“What’s that all about, you suppose?” my wife asked.

“Probably something left over from the war,” I answered. About 15 minutes later we saw another pub that looked remarkably like the first and bearing the same sign.

“Must be a franchise,” I ventured. Joyce nodded but I could see she had doubts. It was raining harder when we saw what I strongly suspected was not the third pub in a set.

“We’re going in circles. We’ll just have to stop and ask someone the way out of town,” she said.

“Swell, but who?”

The rain was a steady downpour and there was no one on the streets and apparently no open businesses. After 10 minutes we saw a woman walking next to the road. My wife offered her a ride but she smiled and shook her head, “No.” Then we asked her directions on how to get out of the city.

Beware the Direction Giver

The “No” was about the last thing she said that we really understood. She leaned on the windowsill of the passenger side, seemingly filled with the joy of being asked to help, and explained and explained.

She traced, with a wet finger, the lines on the map on Joyce’s lap, frowned, turned the map right side up and traced some more. She talked and smiled and the rain pounded down.

Both of us, feeling guiltier as the Scottish woman got wetter, kept nodding as if we understood completely but she seemed not quite to believe us. “Nay,” she rambled. “I fear ya no ken an I wi no gae ya a wrong tearn wa we petral so dear. . . .”

We finally convinced her we understood, and thanked her profusely in American, which she seemed to understand better than we did her English. When we drove away we really thought we had it; I think we were counting on subconscious infused knowledge or magic. At any rate, we couldn’t sit there in the car and let that kind woman get any wetter.

Ten minutes later we were passing the woman again. Joyce immediately slumped down in the seat to make herself invisible while I took off my glasses and screwed up my face, trying to look like a whole different person.

It didn’t work. I saw the woman in my rear-view mirror. She had stopped in her tracks in the driving rain to watch us. I saw her shrug, shake her head and then wave.

As we arrived at the pub again a giant lorry was unloading. It had a sign on the back that said “Take Courage” in large letters. The rest of the wording was an advertisement for Courage Ale. We stopped, had a little Courage--a pint for me and a half for Joyce--got another five minutes’ worth of directions and someone bought me another ale.

Noticing that I had become a little too courageous, Joyce elected to drive. She simply followed the ale truck out of town.

Strangely enough, I remember the incident as being a lot of fun.

I know what it is, this urge to give directions, this desire to help travelers even when we can’t understand them and don’t know the answers to their questions. It’s a kind of hospitality gone wild.

I work in the central part of Los Angeles. A few days ago a young couple with cameras and travel bags was standing on the corner of Temple and Broadway, near the building that houses my office.

They looked foreign, tired and very confused. When I approached and asked if I could help, both of the young people seemed to light up. All attempts to find a common language failed. Finally almost in desperation the man said, “Veery” and put his hands together next to his face in the international sign for sleep.

“Gotcha,” I said. “You’re tired. You’re ‘veery.’ ”

He looked at his female companion. She said, “Beverly.”

I held out my hand. We seemed to be getting somewhere. “Pleased to meet you, Beverly,” I said.

She shook her head. “Hostel Beverly,” she said.

The light went on. “You’re staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel?”

Both nodded excitedly. “Yaw, Beverly Heels Hotel.”

“If you’ve come all the way downtown from the Beverly Hills Hotel you’ve got a right to be ‘veery,’ ” I laughed. “We’ll get you home.”

At that moment the Los Angeles-to-Santa Monica bus pulled up to the corner. Smiling and nodding my assurances, I helped the young couple onto the bus and told the bus driver that the couple spoke no English but to let them off at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

It had been a pleasure helping those young tourists. Then I had that kind of an after-shot you sometimes get after seeing something significant; did that tag on the travel case the young lady was carrying say Beverly Hills or just Beverly Hotel. I’d seen it for only a second as the bus doors closed. The difference was about 25 miles in the wrong direction.

Ah, well. What comes around, goes around.

My wife and I have always had a better time because of the directions we’ve been given in foreign countries. Usually, even more so when those directions were a little wrong.

It’s said that when the Romans invaded the British Isles and went as far west as Ireland, a centurion in charge of the First Legion stopped and asked the first Irishman he saw for directions. Then he and the rest of the invading legions followed those directions, marched off into the countryside and were never seen again.

I like to think that all those Romans never left Ireland because they were having too good a time.

I hope the couple I sent to Beverly Hills did too.