In 1955 -56, I studied about London in my S. S.L. C. English text book at Board High School, Kundapur . In those days visiting London wasn't a joke. I never thought I would visit London at that time . It was a dream.
Now a days, tourism has grown by leap & bounds.
It was 7-6-2014, we were in Radisson BLU near Heathrow Airport. It was the last leg of a tour. My wife & I landed at London with Thomas Cook 15 days European tour troupe after touring Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, Venice, & Holland. It was a dream come true.
At that time my son-in law & daughter were in Swindon. It was about 20 days stay. My eldest son & his family from U.S. A. too joined us there. It was a family get together. It was an opportunity provided to visit many important places in Great Britain. It was really memorable to us.
Swindon is a large town in Wiltshire, South West England, midway between Bristol, 35 miles to the west and Reading, 35 miles to the east. London is 78 miles to the east, and Cardiff is 78 miles to the west. Trains & busses ply between Swindon & London. Its population was 2 lakhs & odd at the time of our visit.
Swindon was once famed for being the world centre of railway engineering is today a charming cultural centre with festivals ranging from the Swindon Festival of Literature to the Summer Breeze Festival. The town is also the setting of the best-selling book by Mark Haddon, S . Swindonians are good at football.
The Swindon Museum and Art Gallery are housed together in a building in the Old Town area of Swindon.
The remarkable art collection now has a reputation as one of the best of British 20th Century Art outside London. It was established by local benefactor, H J P Bomford, during 1944 from a generous donation of works.
The museum has displays of local history, archaeology and geology. They tell the story of Swindon's Jurassic past, its connections with the Roman Empire and the more recent social history of this thriving town.
The town and wider borough also has the headquarters of the Nationwide Building Society and a Honda car manufacturing plant.
Swindon appeared a strange town to me . It was not even. Our residence was on Kent street. It was on the top of a hill. It was rented. It was well furnished. Down town was at the bottom of hill. There were countless streets at the top as well as at the bottom. In down town there were bazaar ,shopping complexes. There after there was coach station & Swindon train station.
While coming down from Kent street we come across on left hand side Commonwealth War Graves at Radnor Street cemetery . Here we come across graves of soldiers who laid down their lives in World war .It contains 86 First World War burials and 14 from the Second World War scattered throughout the cemetery.
Gardens are jewels of a place. Swindon has beautiful gardens.
I could visit three parks namely
1) Coats Park 2) Town Park & 3) Swindon Park
Coate Water is a country park situated 5 km to the southeast of
central Swindon. It takes its name from its main feature, a reservoir Originally built to provide water for the Wilts & Berks Canal.
We spent lot of time in its vicinity & enjoyed. Water, Greenery & birds made us forget ourselves. That is why it seems we find more number of great poets from this part of world. We walked back to Kent street.
Town park is off Bath Road. It is not far away from Kent Street. In U.S. A . national parks have admission fees. But here there was no admission fees. However it had timings. Town park is full of rose gardens. In the whole of Swindon there can be few places that are as attractive or as well-loved as the Town Gardens in Old Town.In it here & there we come across benches gifted by citizens of Swindon in memory of their kith & kin who left for heavenly abode.
We visited Swindon at the right time. The weather was not either rainy or chilly. It was pleasant.Our stay in Swindon enabled us not only to go around London but also enabled us to visit other places like Stonehenge, Bath, & Lake District etc. We flew back to India through Gatwick airport.