Dr Johnson's House (by Robert)

Dr Johnson is the famous writer of the English dictionary. But what's not so famous is how it all began and how his great idea became a book which everybody has.

It all started in Gough Square, which comes in from Pemberton Row in London. Dr Johnson's house is 17 Gough Square and here you can experience the story of  his life and those who knew him, from his friends to his humble servant. Even the door is interesting. There were no police in London at that time, so you had to be very careful. That is why the door is so thick and has spikes at the top and a really heavy chain across it.

You can choose whether to have an audio guide or not. I recommend getting the audio guide, which is £2 for two people. Without it you are wandering around without finding that much out.

My favourite bit was the dressing up. Below you can see a picture of me and my mum change from modern clothes to a proper gentleman and lady wearing really heavy outfits. Now I know why women had fans, men should have had them too!

You can also go into the top of the house where Dr Johnson sat with his cat and actually wrote his dictionary. He started it a long long time ago in the 1740s and it took him nine years. It wasn't actually the first dictionary ever written, but Dr Johnson felt that a better dictionary was needed. For example, the older one had "a colour" for the definition of "black" and "a well known animal" for "dog"!

You can feel and read a copy of one of the first dictionaries and see some of the originals behind a cupboard.

Dr Johnson's house was a great day out and I think parents and their children will like it.
It was very interesting and also fun.

It cost £4.50 for adults, and £1.50 if you are between 5 and 17, although a family ticket for two adults and two children is £10.

More by me! 

A visit to Cadburyworld

Gromits set loose

Dr Johnson's House (by Robert)

Dr Johnson is the famous writer of the English dictionary. But what's not so famous is how it all began and how his great idea became a book which everybody has.

It all started in Gough Square, which comes in from Pemberton Row in London. Dr Johnson's house is 17 Gough Square and here you can experience the story of  his life and those who knew him, from his friends to his humble servant. Even the door is interesting. There were no police in London at that time, so you had to be very careful. That is why the door is so thick and has spikes at the top and a really heavy chain across it.

You can choose whether to have an audio guide or not. I recommend getting the audio guide, which is £2 for two people. Without it you are wandering around without finding that much out.


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A Brilliant Time At Buckingham Palace (by Jessica)

My family and I spent an afternoon at Buckingham Palace. Here is what I thought...

We started our visit with a really cool audio guide, which takes you around the spectacular rooms of the palace and tells you a lot of facts. We did a lot of walking and it did take a long time, but the palace was exquisitely decorated and there was always something to look at. I loved this, as it was a lot of fun to do something different to normal .

I loved the throne room, as it was incredible to see the real throne that the Queen has sat on. The colour scheme was beautiful and I was surprised to know that many famous royal couples' wedding photographs (such as William and Kate) were taken there. Did you know that Queen Victoria sometimes used this room as a ballroom?

I was extremely interested to find out about the design and architecture of the Palace - especially the work of John Nash, who doubled the size by adding a new suite of rooms on the garden side. The picture gallery was amazing - so many pictures and loads of additional information. We probably spent about twenty minutes in there and (although it was great) Robert and I had to beg our parents to move into the next rooms!

The most exciting part of our visit was the special exhibition on the Queen's coronation. This consisted of many things, such as a film about the preparations, how the ceremony actually worked and - most importantly - a whole room full of real things from the day. These included: invitations, jewellery, hats and the stunning dresses and robes worn by the Queen when she was crowned.

The palace also has lots of things to do for kids, such as a children's audio guide which Robert used, a room full of things to colour and create and a difficult trail which takes you around the gardens.

Overall, I had a fabulous time at Buckingham Palace and I recommend it to everyone aged 8+. It really lets you appreciate the beauty and wonder of this magnificent building.

More by me!

Our fabulous day at the Science Museum

5 things you must do in Vienna

We have shared this post with Gretta Schifano on her Family Days post (this week written by Kate from London with a toddler).

A Brilliant Time At Buckingham Palace (by Jessica)

My family and I spent an afternoon at Buckingham Palace. Here is what I thought...

We started our visit with a really cool audio guide, which takes you around the spectacular rooms of the palace and tells you a lot of facts. We did a lot of walking and it did take a long time, but the palace was exquisitely decorated and there was always something to look at. I loved this, as it was a lot of fun to do something different to normal .

I loved the throne room, as it was incredible to see the real throne that the Queen has sat on. The colour scheme was beautiful and I was surprised to know that many famous royal couples' wedding photographs (such as William and Kate) were taken there. Did you know that Queen Victoria sometimes used this room as a ballroom?

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Vienna and my family history: the trip I will never forget

My sister, Jo (left) and myself, outside the Admiral Kino

It's hard to pick one trip or journey which changed my life. Or one that is more important to me than any other. I thought about the first time I visited New York with my boyfriend and realised, in that week, how much I loved being with him, enjoyed his company and didn't want to be without him. We have now been married for 17 years and when I think of New York, I always smile.

I also thought about trips with our children - taking our daughter to the seaside for the first time and hearing her squeal with happiness as the waves licked over her feet; waving at her as she sat in a baby chair on the back of my husband's bike or burying her feet in the sand on a beach in Lanzarote. And then there is the happiness as a family of four, the contentment of vacationing as the children grow up and are becoming increasingly good holiday companions.

Instead, I am writing about a very unusual trip which I made. It was just me and my older sister on a very important journey indeed.

We arrived in Vienna in November 2011 and it was all faintly unreal, especially as I walked into the Admiral Kino on the Burgasse, one of the last neighbourhood cinemas operating in Vienna which is not a multiplex.

My grandmother’s cinema licence for the Admiral Kino in 1938, dated a few months before the Anschluss

I felt as if I had stepped back in time as I explored this place, which is a strong part of my family’s history. Long ago it belonged to my grandmother, Margarethe Ebner. She ran it with my grandfather, Berthold.

However, that was another era. That was before my grandfather was arrested for refusing to show Nazi propaganda films. It’s before he was sent to Dachau and Buchenwald for 13 months, and it’s before my grandmother, left with a small baby (my father Henry, then called Heinz), somehow managed to get the three of them out of the country. They arrived in England two weeks before the start of the Second World War.

I had never been inside the Admiral Kino before that trip to Vienna. And I was unprepared when the current owner, Michaela Englert, showed me into the auditorium.

I expected a normal cinema, but instead felt a little light-headed as I walked through the door. It was as if I was going back in time and almost surreal as the room looked so old-fashioned, from the period lights on the wall to the plain seating and decor. I am sure that it hadn’t changed much since my grandparents were here in the 1930s.

My reaction caught me by surprise. I never met my grandfather, who died before I was born (my son, Robert, is named for him) and yet (and I know this sounds strange) I felt as if I could sense him and my grandmother in this small room. It was as if something of them remained there, before their lives changed irrevocably.

I was in Vienna, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but with a less than beautiful 20th-century history, for the screening of Double Exposure: Jewish refugees from Austria in Britain. This documentary is made up of interviews with 25 refugees from Austria who settled in the UK, including my father, who was the youngest to feature.

When she was arranging to take the exhibition to Vienna (where it was on at the Literaturhaus), the maker of the film, Dr Bea Lewkowicz, asked if there was somewhere nearby to screen it.

“When I was told that the nearest cinema was the Admiral Kino, I nearly fell off my chair,” she told me. “Your father hadn’t said that it was still going.”

Unfortunately my father couldn’t attend, so my sister and I decided to represent him. I don’t think I realised how emotional it would be, how strange to feel part of other people’s memories.

The exhibition is a photographic display of the 25 refugees. They include some well-known names, such as the violinist Norbert Brainin (famous for the Amadeus Quartet), historian Richard Grunberger (author of A Social History of the Third Reich) and the composer Joseph Horovitz.

Both film and exhibition are incredibly moving. Many of the people included have strong, clear memories of their Viennese childhoods, of coffee houses and delicious whipped cream. Then they recall the sudden, horrendous changes in their lives after 1938, the friends who deserted them, the whisperings of their concerned parents, and the struggle to leave their homes.

The Germans moved into Austria to widespread acclaim on March 12 1938. This was the Anchluss (annexation) and the Jewish population of Austria at that time is estimated to have been around 200,000, of whom around 180,000 lived in Vienna. Around 65,000 were killed in the war.

Some of the stories in the film are extremely painful. As most interviewees were children at the time, they recall leaving their parents and never seeing them again. Otto Deutsch, who, aged 83, also attended the Vienna screening, told of how his sister was eight months too old to be included on the Kindertransporte (where thousands of children, aged between 6 and 16, were allowed into the UK). He never saw her, or his parents, again, but remembers his sister running alongside his train as he left, telling him to be a “good boy”.

My father, Henry, on screen during the documentary

Another interviewee, Gina Gerson, left with her sister. At the end of August 1939, she was thrilled to receive a telegram from their parents, who had somehow managed to get visas and reported that they would arrive on September 6. War broke out on the 3rd and they never made it.

My grandparents were “expropriated” of their cinemas within days of the Germans’ arrival (they also owned the Johann Strauss Kino which is no longer in existence). The stormtroopers also took all their cash and jewellery. They were very fortunate to get domestic visas to England; many of their relatives, including my grandmother’s mother, were not so lucky and died in Auschwitz. Meanwhile, the Ebners ended up in the tiny Norfolk village of Binham, where they became butler and cook to the Reverend Carroll and his two spinster sisters.

Everyone’s story matters, wherever it is told. And yet hearing the stories while in Vienna gave them so much more poignancy. Many of the interviewees felt conflicted, still Austrian (Viennese in most cases) and yet so grateful to Britain for offering them refuge, for saving them. And I felt conflicted too, as if I shouldn’t have been there. As if, in a different world, I would never have been born, and my Viennese father might still be welcoming people to the Admiral Kino.

To find out more information about, and to access the interviews in the documentary, visit Refugeevoices.co.uk, which contains most of the Jewish-Austrian interviews featured in Double Exposure.

Vienna and my family history: the trip I will never forget

My sister, Jo (left) and myself, outside the Admiral Kino

It's hard to pick one trip or journey which changed my life. Or one that is more important to me than any other. I thought about the first time I visited New York with my boyfriend and realised, in that week, how much I loved being with him, enjoyed his company and didn't want to be without him. We have now been married for 17 years and when I think of New York, I always smile.

I also thought about trips with our children - taking our daughter to the seaside for the first time and hearing her squeal with happiness as the waves licked over her feet; waving at her as she sat in a baby chair on the back of my husband's bike or burying her feet in the sand on a beach in Lanzarote. And then there is the happiness as a family of four, the contentment of vacationing as the children grow up and are becoming increasingly good holiday companions.

Instead, I am writing about a very unusual trip which I made. It was just me and my older sister on a very important journey indeed.

We arrived in Vienna in November 2011 and it was all faintly unreal, especially as I walked into the Admiral Kino on the Burgasse, one of the last neighbourhood cinemas operating in Vienna which is not a multiplex.

My grandmother’s cinema licence for the Admiral Kino in 1938, dated a few months before the Anschluss

I felt as if I had stepped back in time as I explored this place, which is a strong part of my family’s history. Long ago it belonged to my grandmother, Margarethe Ebner. She ran it with my grandfather, Berthold.


Read more »

The real Gromit (and more on Bristol)

We loved Bristol (you may have gathered this by our last two posts, on Gromit-hunting and where to eat with kids in the city). Jessica has now written a lovely, more in-depth post about our trip for UK Travel Room, so please pop over there to take a look.

[caption id="attachment_741" align="aligncenter" width="940"] Brian with Gromit at Paddington station[/caption]

We were sad not to see all the Gromits during our trip, but decided that we must at least visit one more, even though we are now home in London. So, yesterday, Jessica, Robert and their dad popped off to Paddington Station to visit the one London-based Gromit and, although it was very busy, they managed to get a photo or two as well.

So, why not take a little trip too? Gromit is based on platform 8 and it is, as Jessica says, THE Gromit, or rather, the original.

Gromit hunting ends on September 8th.

 Read what Robert had to say about searching for Gromits!

Jessica's piece on our Bristol holiday for UK Travel Room can be seen here.

The original Gromit (and more on Bristol)

We loved Bristol (you may have gathered this by our last two posts, on Gromit-hunting and where to eat with kids in the city). Jessica has now written a lovely, more in-depth post about our trip for UK Travel Room, so please pop over there to take a look.

We were sad not to see all the Gromits during our trip, but decided that we must at least visit one more, even though we are now home in London. So, yesterday, Jessica, Robert and their dad popped off to Paddington Station to visit the one London-based Gromit and, although it was very busy, they managed to get a photo or two as well.
Read more »