The Things People Do
As kids, my brother and I used to return home from our not-so-tedious school day to sit in front of the family computer and play an online game. The game revolved around the Year 1066, when the Saxons of England had to deal with invaders from the North – the ‘Vikings’; and invaders from the south – the ‘Normans’. It was a game entailing cunning tactics to beat my brother, the adversary. I played this game for months on end, fascinated by both the simplicity of its layout and the complexity of actually playing the game. I was baffled as to why England was so worthy of fighting over. Why couldn’t the Vikings have just stayed in their own land? Why did the Normans have to risk countless lives just to gain control over England? What was so special about England?
Turns out, there are many reasons to England’s specialty. England was thought to have had the most fertile soil in Europe and proud Earls and Countesses constantly roamed around the nation. The ruler of England would have unbelievable powers over many nearby kingdoms and better still, England was surrounded by a vast extensive ocean mass which made the country both unique and protected. At the time, Harold Godwinson (the last Saxon King) ruled England but William of Normandy and Harold Hardrada of the Vikings were also descendants of the Kings of England. Therefore, each of the three claimants had reasonable rights to the throne and, for them the only way that seemed to decide who would rule the fertile lands on England were a series of battles in the year 1066. Hence, this game was appropriately named – ‘1066’.
To this day, England is still a leading power of the world. Many people, including myself, dream of going there to tour, to study and to work. It therefore gave me great pleasure when my family decided to visit this land for a weeklong holiday. I had heard many stories of England and although I had even been there once before, I was only three years old, so I barely have any memories from that particular visit. Now older and no longer concerned as to where my milk bottle is, my family and I revisited this historically and financially rich country.
There are several ways to travel to London, the English capital, from Frankfurt, Germany. Initially my father insisted we take a plane but I felt our journey should be more memorable than a stodgy plane ride so I suggested a road trip on land and a ferry trip whilst crossing the channel. But since we didn’t have much time to spend on the journey, we compromised on taking a train.
A train ride would give us the opportunity to cross the English Channel Tunnel, the great link between the United Kingdom and mainland Europe. The amount of money needed to construct the Channel Tunnel is equivalent to around 18 billion dollars in today’s money. It stretches 30 miles long with the undersea portion being approximately 23 miles long. I have never quite understood how it is even possible for a tunnel to exist underwater. Surely some kind of devastating leakage was bound to pop up sooner or later, right?
As I woke up on the day of our departure, I thought to myself, “So here I am on my way to England, ready to find out what really is so special about the country”. As that thought drifted in my mind, I was soon zipping up the suitcase ready to board our first train.
Our transit point on our train adventure was Brussels, Belgium. It is an antique city, containing the headquarters of the European Union. As we passed through the security check, just before boarding our next train to London, an employee of the train station approached us. He told us there seemed to have been a problem with the Channel Tunnel, but did not know the details. As we made our way back to the road and got our passports stamped, we soon came to realize that each employee had his own opinion as to why our train ride was put to a temporary halt.
Figuring that there would be no more trains for the rest of the day, we hurriedly booked hotel rooms and laid down for an hour or two. I had never suspected such a thing to happen in our trip. I thought it would go on peacefully and uninterrupted, ending with a happy arrival at London in the early evening. Soon, we did go back to the station and it turned out that there now was a train leaving to London and thus, we cancelled our hotel booking in a flash. The train left to London and as I sat there going through the dark gloomy channel tunnel writing this very article.
It was posted online that the reason for the delay was a protest by people demanding that they be allowed rights to enter England. Mostly immigrants, these people were so desperate to make it to the fertile lands of England that they risked their own lives by throwing themselves onto high-speed trains. So it seems nothing has changed; even to this day 949 years after 1066, people are still risking their lives in desperate manners, just to make it to the UK.
(Anukrit is a grade 9 student at International School of Frankfurt)
