Miscellany from York

The city council organises free guided walks around York, and I decided to join one. There were about 30 visitors, from various corners of Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world. The guide was an ancient local woman called Hazel, who when she said she was going to die soon, got no disagreement from any of us.

She looked at her audience, all white with me the dash of brown, and with her eyes squarely on me, said, "Do we all understand English? I know it may not be a first language for some of you. But it's the only language I speak."

Small chatter followed. Then again turning to me, she says, "Clearly we have some visitors from overseas," encouraging me to reveal my foreign origins. As it was, I was the only one in the audience actually living in England, but poor Hazel had not yet caught up with the last 50 years of developments in her country.

That should give you some idea about York. It's an old town with lots of history, and one that maybe still lives a little in the past.

* * *

At the ruins of the 11th century St. Mary's Abbey, Hazel explained the importance and significance of the Catholic Church in those early days, and how it was then the only religion of the people of the british isles.

While it later became apparent that she was probably contrasting this to the later emergence of protestantism (which she viewed as a separate religion from catholocism, rather than a schism), I beg to point out what she missed - the Jews. In 1190, a mob in York decided to get rid of the town's Jewish population, matters eventually ending with the deaths of around 150 Jews, murdered or burned alive. It happened only a kilometer from the abbey too, and the ruins of the castle where the Jews hid for protection still remain too.

My point? Merely that if Christians of the time were busy persecuting Jews in England , why, there must have been some jews in england too.

***

In the tour group was an incredibly beautiful and divine smelling (i don't know what fragrance she was wearing, but i could distinguish it from every other smell in the crowd and around us, and I was aware of its presence the whole time) woman and her boyfriend. that is not in itself unusual, but this one had a remarkable resemblance to the girl who forgot me. She was a european version though, and many times during the walk she ended up standing right next to me, and i would just have to squeeze my eyes shut and concentrate on remembering this was a stranger, someone i didn't know and who didn't know me. and yet i couldn't help wonder, why didn't she recognise me, surely she must have once known a european version of me, surely these things happen with symmetry...

And then the tour ended, and we all went our separate ways, some of us marvelling at and troubled by the strange twists of the world, other seemingly unaware.