The title for this postcard is a take on the 1951 film ‘An American in Paris’, which was itself inspired by the wonderful 1928 orchestral composition by George Gershwin. I am sure Gershwin wouldn’t have minded my appropriation. Its content is simply a repeat of only one side of a conversation, overheard whilst having a cup of tea at a nearby table in the garden of the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath (See postscript below). I have added some personal photographs where it helps.

I surmise that an American couple, Ted and his wife Glenda, are on another visit to the UK. They have ‘done’ Oxford this year and then tomorrow drive down to Tenby in South Wales before finishing a week later in The Cotswolds. He’s talking to his son Russell who lives in Boulder, Colorado.

“You remember we were last here in 2019, Russell? Such a special place and the hotel’s just got better and better. We spoiled ourselves this time and had a minor suite with views over the lawns in front of the crescent.

What? You’re asking whether a crescent’s a semi-circle, right? No! No! It’s very clever, it’s a semi-ellipse. You’ll remember that stuff from school but I had to look it up and found this diagram. It’s a brilliant design for a row of houses ……

…. and I have noticed that the three central houses are slightly wider, with four windows across and not three. The central point in the crescent is marked by two pairs of columns and the rear elevations of the houses are all different.

Each rear elevation is different!

There used to be a huge Magnolia tree growing from the basement in the front of Number 15; so big it reached up to the second floor. (Note 1)

Before!

Sadly the roots were obviously causing too much of a problem and it’s been cut down; looks very bare now and, you know me Russell, I wonder just how much damage it was causing or was it simple expediency? Probably been there for 90 years or more.

Now!

What’s that? Is your mother around? No! She’s treating herself to a 90 minute massage in the Spa here, while I’m gorging myself on the hotel’s tea; a snip at US$50! Tonight we’re going to eat in the hotel’s restaurant; wonderful English name – ‘Montagu’s Mews’. It’s the same place where we eat breakfast and where my tea this afternoon comes from. Interestingly there is not one English-looking waiter!

Rear of No 15

‘Montagu’s Mews’ used to be garages for first coaches then cars and there’s a rear entrance onto Julian Road. In the hall there’s a photograph of one of the cars, Thomas Tizzard’s large Humber Super Snipe – almost as big as some of our American gas-guzzlers.  He owned Number 15, now part of the hotel.

Last time we came we didn’t have time to visit the Roman Baths but this morning your mother and I spent a couple of hours immersed in this magnificent example of Roman building and planning. Used by the great and good of the time, so it was OK if you weren’t a slave I guess! Apparently they are the second largest existing example in the world, the other being in Rome itself.

I find this stuff fascinating Russell – hope you do too? Bath’s Roman name was Aquae Sulis (meaning the Waters of Sulis) and a temple was constructed over the hot springs sometime between 60 and 70 AD. The baths were used until the Romans withdrew from Britain in the first decade of the 5^th century (about 410!), variously in the following centuries and then they became a famous tourist and health attraction in the C18th. Major renovations took place in the 1980s and the whole complex is brilliantly shown.

While we were down there in the city centre we popped into the Abbey. I think I showed you photos from our last visit. Major renovations were going on then, lifting all the flagstones and skeletons from under the floor, installing under-floor heating pipes and connecting them to the hot natural spring hot water. Incidentally I learned that the spring water gushes up at over a million litres a day at 46°C – Mother Nature at its best huh!

Some of the pews have gone back in and I overheard someone saying to his wife and another couple that he used to attend the Sunday service back in 1955 as an 8 year old school boy, the pupils filling the pews just where I was standing. Here he was, 68 years later, sitting in quiet contemplation.

Bath is built of a wonderful local honey-coloured stone and the centre of the city has a great buzz about it, albeit sometimes the 1.3 million visitors that pour into it every year are slightly overwhelming! Tourists mingle with shoppers and I have noticed virtually every High Street chain in the UK has a presence here. Then I saw this student from Bath University sitting on his little stool, earning some beer money!

Pulteney Bridge is another photogenic place and it’s only when you come to places like this, Russell, that you realise how young a country the United States is, well to us white folk. The Native Americans wouldn’t agree. We think Boston and New York are old but Bath ……. now that’s old. Hang on, your mother’s just surfaced and she looks like she needs a glass of champagne. Talk to you later from Tenby. Love you son.”

So Ted ordered a glass of Tattinger champagne for Glenda and one for himself, I finished my tea and later, much later, took this evening photograph of the famous Royal Crescent in the City of Bath.

Richard 2^nd June 2023

Bath

http://www.postcardscribbles.co.uk

PS See also PCs 164 & 165

PPS I have used English spelling despite the American origin of the conversation!

Note 1 The Americans call what in the United Kingdom would be the ‘ground’ floor the ‘first’ floor. The Magnolia reached the UK first floor!