WHILE THE DOCTORS performed a tracheostomy on Mary Elizabeth the next morning as planned, we headed off to the City to meet Ellinor and John and their friend Teresa, who was in charge of object conservation at St Paul’s Cathedral. We had been kindly offered a personal behind-the-scenes tour of the cathedral by Teresa who of course had full run of the building.

Designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1673, to replace the earlier building destroyed by the great fire in 1666, St Paul’s was the miraculous survivor of the 1941 blitz when so much of London was leveled by Nazi bombs. Until the relatively recent rise of modern office buildings, the unmistakeable dome of St. Paul’s rose unchallenged over the City and came to be a symbol of faith and resistance against evil.

We met our friends in the Georgian parish house across from the cathedral and after a few minutes getting acquainted with Teresa, we headed into St Paul’s for a tour which would exceed all my expectations and then some.

We started by ascending the amazing Geometric Staircase, a cantilevered stair which winds around the circular inner core of the south tower.  According to Teresa, several spots in the Cathedral – including these stairs – had been used for location shots for several of the Harry Potter movies, which resonated with Charlotte, who had read almost all of the books in the series.  We emerged in the large gallery which although closed to the public stretched around the entire church building looking down into the nave, crossing and quire, revealing treasures and views not usually seen by tourists like me and Charlotte.

After crossing the gallery and marveling at the breathtaking view down the nave, to the crossing, choir and the apse glowing gold in the distance, we were treated to the whimsical sight of three pulpits lined up against the wall. It almost looked like there was going to be a simultaneous preaching competition. One of them had been a gift to the Cathedral and was embedded with a riot of differently colored stones with an effect that was both gaudy and dignified at the same time.  The highlight however, was the wooden pulpit designed by Robert Mylne, a Surveyor of the Fabric at the Cathedral in the late 1700s.  Much of the round pulpit’s dignified veneers were intact and it rested on a single sculpted column, supported by four delicately-scrolled architectural elements, which resembled the feathers from the Prince of Wales’ crest.  Apparently this pulpit was in use until the Victorian decorations took over in the late 1890s and it was retired owing to its lack of pizzazz. So it wound up in storage with a couple of other pulpits up out of sight of the people below.

We continued next to a room housing The Great Model of 1673, a scaled-down wooden rendering of the original proposed design for the post-great fire cathedral.  Although it was tiny compared to the actual building, the model was by no means small in absolute terms.  It stretches 21 feet from front to back and stands 13 feet tall from its base to the top of the dome.  As is still the case, Sir Christopher Wren, along with modern architects proposed designs by building scale models, this one just happened to be made of oak and plaster, not cardboard.  Although I hadn’t spent hours studying the architecture of St. Paul’s I could tell that the model looked very different from the building in which we stood.  Although they both had domes, the model was arranged like a Greek Cross, and embodied what Wren thought were the highest principles of renaissance design. However, the Church of England, relatively recently severed from Rome, was very distrustful of anything that seemed too European and therefore Papish.  Additionally, the cathedral would have to be built all at once, since the dome rested on eight central piers which surrounded the crossing.  Traditionally, cathedrals were built in parts, starting with the apse and moving backwards, so that the building could be used before it was finished. Wren, distraught, revisited the design, combining some elements of the original with more conventional elements and plans.  The revised design received the royal warrant and the cornerstone was laid in 1675, and construction continued for the next 36 years.

The level of detail in the model was amazing – ranging from individual roof tiles and sculptural embellishments to detailed moldings inside the model and even up inside the dome, where nobody could really discern it from without.  The model apparently cost over £500 to build in 1673, which would be close to £32,000 today.  Charlotte thought it would make an excellent home for some lucky guinea pigs, feeling it was the perfect size.

While we were marveling the model, I could hear the bells being rung in the tower over our heads.  I asked Teresa about the possibility of going up into the ringing chamber.  Among ringers, St Paul’s was seen as the ne plus ultra of towers, with a renowned and respected band of ringers.  While most towers welcome visiting ringers, attendance here was strictly by invitation only.  We waited while the intrepid Teresa went upstairs to see if the ringers would suffer this American fool gladly.  I suspected she would come back saying the ringers had suggested that I “sod off” much to the amusement of Jon and Ellinor, but astonishingly she came down telling us it was okay.  The bells were actually being serviced by several technicians, who had said they didn’t mind.

So we ascended the enclosed spiral stone staircase and emerged into a square room in the middle of which stood a large cloth covered table, heaped with vestments and altar frontals.  We looked around to see sewing machines and more vestments hanging on the walls, which were also hung with cork boards, crammed with illustrations, designs and fabric samples.  This was the textile room, where vestments and other cathedral textiles came for repair or restoration.  There was nobody in the room, but several sewing machines built into the table with items in various states of repair indicated that this was a well-used space.

We squeezed around the table and went through a small door in the far corner of the room and started up another stone spiral staircase, this one longer and I felt smaller that the previous one. After several turns, we went through a door into the ringing chamber. Twelve ropes hung through holes in the ceiling, each one sporting a red, white and blue wool sally – tufted wool, woven into the strands of the rope and resembling broadloom carpet in its texture. The sallies made pulling and catching the rope much easier as it went up and down in front of each ringer as the bell swung in its frame high above them.  One of the workers was in the process of ringing the tenor – the largest bell – and I introduced myself as an American ringer visiting from New York.  He asked if we’d like to see the bells themselves and invited us to climb yet another spiral staircase enclosed within the stones of the tower. Up and up we wound, the walls closing in and ceiling lowering as we got higher, to the point where I was stooped over for fear of banging my head on the stone ceiling. It became quite narrow and I was beginning to feel claustrophobic, but with Charlotte, Ellinor and Jon behind me, realized there was no way to go but up.

We finally started to see daylight reflected on the white stone walls and emerged on a narrow balcony overlooking the bells of St Paul’s Cathedral.  It was a breathtaking sight to see the bells hanging in their bright blue frames, mute for the time being, but full of immanance.  One pull on the rope would take the largest bells over their balance point and swinging in an inexorable circle, ending with their mouths gaping to the ceiling above and sky beyond.  On the other side of the balcony, we could see Paternoster Square far below us though the round window, which was mirrored by the round clockface in the other tower, preserving the symmetry of the facade. It was a thrilling moment and we were all happy to be there.

After a few more minutes looking at the bells and the view, we went back down the stairs (much easier this time) to the ringing chamber, where we admired all the peal boards painted onto the walls.  Each one commemorated a notable ringing achievement such as a peal – an extent of ringing a certain number of bells in a unique sequence only once.

As much as I wanted to stay, I was aware of our time constraints and that we were imposing on Teresa’s valuable time.  We descended the stairs back to the textile room to find it buzzing with activity. Three or four women of a certain age had arrived and were bustling about making tea and taking the covers off the sewing machines.  They looked and sounded like hens, clucking as they moved around the with energetic enthusiasm.  We stopped for several minutes to chat with them about their work.  There was a big service coming up and they were working on the frontal for the high altar – replete with threads made out of 14K gold and other precious metals. It was fascinating to see up close, and one definitely felt a part of history.

We said goodbye to the textile ladies and followed the gallery to the Library of St Paul’s Cathedral, which was exactly as you would expect it to be – crammed with ancient leather-bound books on dusty but elaborately carved wooden bookshelves.  Large comfy-looking leather chairs faced the fireplace, and library tables scattered around the room were piled high with books, many of which had paper bookmarks extending beyond the pages.  Ironically, on the way to the library we had passed a plaque reading, “Faciendi plures libris nullus est finis” a verse from Ecclesiastes 12, commenting that the making of books never ends.  The rest of the verse, not painted on the plaque goes on to say that too much study is bad for one and encourages sloth!  I wonder if its placement outside a library was a wry comment on scholarship.  Ellinor and Jon, both academics, wondered if the “nullus est finis” part applied to dissertations to which there never seemed an end.

We continued around the periphery of the space, walking through hidden passages and stairs until we came to Teresa’s office.  On the way we were fascinated to see a pile of carved stones on the floor in a hallway, which were part of the alterations made by Inigo Jones to the first St. Paul’s Cathedral destroyed by the great fire. We arrived at Teresa’s office which was a large space stretching the length of the south side of the quire.  Scattered around the room stood numerous wood and plaster architectural models, submitted by architects over the last 300 years for various alteration and restoration projects.  Many were cross sections and demonstrated all the moldings and color which would be incorporated into a proposed design.

There were several passageways which led to a small railed balcony overlooking the quire. Since these passages were doorless, it meant that Teresa would have to be quiet during services, but of course it also meant that the ethereal sound of the St Paul’s choir would serenade her several times a day.  Forsaking my career back home, I immediately volunteered to be her assistant, so enchanted was I with her job and work.

We visited a few other rooms, including the famous whispering gallery where Charlotte went to one side of the dome, and I to the other and exchanged softly spoken messages to each other. After profusely thanking Teresa for her morning and phenomenal tour, we left the Cathedral by its main steps and met my friend Malcolm with whom we had arranged to have lunch.  It had been years since I had seen him, and we had a lovely (and substantial) lunch in the crypt restaurant, catching up and relaxing in each other’s company.  Again Charlotte, normally shy, was quite chatty, telling stories and participating actively in the conversation.

As much as we enjoyed ourselves however, my mind kept going back to Royal London Hospital where Mary Elizabeth lay – far away from me and Charlotte and the rest of the world.  We had been given a respite that morning however by new friends and old, and for that we were grateful.