Lolling in London: My encounter at Westminster Abbey

The entrance to its hallowed halls.

Grand, old, historic, significant. These are some of the words to describe Westminster Abbey. However, Westminster Abbey is all those and more to me. It is personal. No, I am not of the blue-blooded or even distantly related. I do not have relatives (distant or near) traipsing down the aisle of Westminster Abbey for whatever reason. Nobody proposed to me or did anything remotely romantic to me there. It is, just, personal.

I did not, in a sudden burst of epiphany, decide that the place is personal to me. Before the trip, Westminster Abbey is just another tourist destination that I must see (akin to Buckingham Palace). It is a historical building with beautiful architecture that I should visit if I want to call myself a ‘tourist’. However, at one point during the visit, it got deeply personal.

This is what happened.

Westminster Abbey is like any other tourist attractions. You go in one door and exit another. In between entrance and exit you shuffle along with fellow tourists in a line that snakes around the attraction. You will see small alcoves, dozens of chapels housing various Saints and the famous main hall where the Coronation Chair sits (which you might have glimpsed during the televised wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton). You will see lots of sarcophaguses, relics, stone statues. So there I was, along with hundreds (if not thousands) of other tourists, walking the same path with audio guides firmly by our ear as it droned on and on about this and that.

Suddenly, the words “Poets’ Corner” drifted from my audio guide. That caught my attention. I lost all interest in the current display, one of the many alcoves full of tombs, and hurried through it. Then I walked the path and came upon – the Poets’ Corner. It is a corner dedicated to the great poets, playwrights and writers. They were either buried and/or commemorated there. I immediately set about scrutinising each and every name inscribed in gold or silver on the floor, on blocks of stones, and on the walls. Each time I came across a name that I recognised (either through school or self-inflicted reading), thrill passed through me. By the time I arrived at the plaque that bore Jane Austen’s name (a very plain-looking one, really), I was overwhelmed with emotions great and small.

For here lay (some beneath my feet) the greats legends that I have studied and admired! Yes, an extremely minor association but a link nonetheless! I have read and reread and pondered upon and scratched my head over their words, trying to think ‘deep’ and tease out meanings. Their very words decided my future, directed my dreams and delivered me through one-too-many emotional rollercoaster rides. I have led an array of lives, travelled to parts of the world I would never have set foot on, seen with my mind infinite alternate universes and experienced the distant past. Their words gave the life I lead some measure of validity but pushed me to explore further, provided knowledge but the wisdom to not accept absolute ‘truths’ and instilled the ability to acknowledge the grey areas that exists in life. It is through their works (and many others – not just that in Westminster Abbey) that I am who I am today and that I do what I do. They gave me meaning.

Surely it is not only I who benefited from the writings of these legends. Surely it is not only I who found the meaning for life from their works. Voracious readers are aplenty (infinitely more voracious than I’ll ever be) and would probably have felt the same as I did upon encountering Poets’ Corner. I nearly cried standing in the hallowed halls of these legends. It is such an intensely personal moment. I am not sure why, but it was what it was and I accepted it as that. I supposed that it is the thought that these legends were humans too, just like me, frail, fallible and full of faults. Ultimately, they have lived and died just like I will live and die as well. The difference is that they left behind a legacy that would be impossible to match, but I will leave nothing. It is probably that realisation (and a host of other reasons) that got me choked up.

Thank goodness the Poets’ Corner is almost at the end of the tour, for after that I had no mood to continue inspecting tombs and chapels anymore.

I am glad, very glad, to be able to have such a personal experience in Westminster Abbey. Retrospectively, I seemed to be making something out of nothing and being oh-so-dramatic, but what I felt at that moment is real, and it made such an impression that I could recreate that feeling every time I thought about Poets’ Corner.

A tiny chapel outside of the main hall.

Reminds me of Frances Hodgson Burnett's Secret Garden.

Although we may never leave a lasting legacy to our name, we would have impacted (whether positively or negatively) those who know us. That’s enough I supposed.

(Note: This post does not provide visuals for the ‘inside’ of Westminster Abbey as photography is not allowed inside.)

Official website: http://www.westminster-abbey.org/