I won't bore you with a detailed description of my England trip, just stuff that was militarily interesting. The airfare (British Air) was $935, you say no big deal that's what it usually is, but that was for two, $467 round trip for one. Off season pricing is great. If we get a big enough tax refund again next year we will do it again unless I can go on business for a few weeks. Anyway, you can get around for $150 a day or less, without a car, take the trains, great systems.

On to the military museums. Most museums are easily accessible from the train stations by bus or walking. It is very nice not to see fast food places every corner, Nowhere we stayed was there a Macdonalds or Burger King, lots of mobile phones but it's against the law to talk and drive. They should do that here. And the way they drive, no offense, they're crazy. When the signs says "on coming traffic in middle of the road" they mean it. Fortunately it keeps you awake and on your toes, but get an automatic.

We drove to Winchester the second day and there saw the military museums at the Peninsular barracks. If you go and pull up to a gate and the guard at the barrier says you are at the Great Hall museum and you can't park there do not listen to him about parking facilities across the road, continue on up High Street about 100 yards to where High Street changes to Romsey Road and the military barracks on the left and you can park in front of the Gurkha museum.

There are five regimental museums here, we only had time for two but I stretched it to three leaving out The Light Infantry, who where out to lunch, and the Royal Hampshire Regiment.

The King's Royal Hussars museum was ok but not as good as any of the other regimental museums.

The Royal Green Jackets (43rd, 52nd, 60th and 95th) museum was great. It is full of all period uniforms and displays, portraits, dioramas, a shooting gallery with Napoleonic rifle and musket and the best, bar none not even Siborn's at the National Army museum, Waterloo diorama. Using large 25mm figures and an interactive audio presentation it was superb, on a table that was at least 15 by 25 feet were over 20,000 figures. WOW, go see it. The ground floor is concerned with the period from 1900 to 2000. The first floor (the second floor in the US) starts with the Seven Years War and goes to Ladysmith. Nearly a third of the floor concerns the Colonial period and has some great displays including things from the Ashante, Zulu and Boer Wars. The one I thought was really neat contained the Khalifa's coat and some Dervish Drums. The shop had a few interesting items.

We then walked to the Gurkha museum across from this building. The Ground floor displays are from 1814 to 1939 with miniature and life size dioramas with display cases of memorabilia and uniforms. The first floor displays went from the First World War to today. Both floors have interactive audio and video displays, very cool. The shop here was the best I can remember of the Regimental museums I have been to. They have all sorts of items made in Nepal for sale as well as regimental items and books. Most shops have some regimental items and a book or two on regimental history, but this was much better. They had at least 20 books on the Gurkhas, Nepal and warfare in India. They also have a collection of booklets/fact sheets on the Gurkhas and wars they fought in. I had a few from other sources already, but picked up 1) The Second Afghan War, The Third Afghan War, not super detail but gives an idea where the Gukhas were and what they did; 2) The Northwest Frontier contains facts on The Pathan, Piqueting, mountain artillery, armour, evacuation of wounded, communications, and animal transport; and 3) Kukri. Prices varied some on the booklets but typically about £ 2.50. They might deal with you on the phone and they take credit cards, to call from the US the number would be 01144 1962-842832. I seem to remember they have a list of publications/booklets which they might send you. Please be polite it goes a long way in the museum. Usually there are three or four Gurkhas working in the museum, unfortunately I did not get to see them as they had been given the day off, damn. It was a very good museum and the folks there, as with most of the museums, were very friendly and helpful. We must have spent a half hour just talking with the lady in the shop about the museum and the Gurkhas.

So when I use my Gurkha Regiment next I will appreciate them even more while drinking Gurkha tea specially imported to the museum and the Gurkhas from Nepal. We then drove to Monmouth, Ludlow, Chester and into the Yorkshire Dales to stay for a week on a farms/B&B near Richmond.

Richmond, UK

On the square at Richmond is the Green Howards (19th) Museum and as with the other regimental museums it too had been redone in the last five years. Very nice. Kind of dark for photographs, but I still took a few of the colonial displays. Unfortunately they are too dark for publication here. There were several cases of colonial displays with at least two dealing with Waziristan 1937, pretty nice. The museum has cases of uniforms from all periods, they provide an audio tour, have interactive video presentations and by appointment you can use their library. Well worth the visit if you're in the area. We spent a week in Richmond making daytrips out into the countryside. The scenery is spectacular and there is plenty to do in the area.

One day trip we went to Hadrian's Wall and three of the forts/museums. You can really be impressed here by the scale of Romano-Britain from 100 to ca. 450 AD. You can easily spend two days, or more, exploring the wall and its museums and recreations. We spent ten hours at three stops (Chester's Fort, Vindolanda and the Roman Army Museum) and a climb up to the wall at Walltown Crags. The area is probably as devoid of population now as then, the scenery is beautiful and museums well worth visiting even if you are not interested in the Roman period. Gives you ideas for the NW Frontier. An extra day would have been nice to visit the recreated Roman Fort in South Shields/Newcastle and museums on the otherside near Carlisle.

After a week in Richmond we had planned to stop in Nottingham to see the Foundry factory et al before ending up near London for the last day before going home. However, about a week before I left Howard Whitehouse told me that the factory was not really ready for visitors but might be by the time I got there. Two nights before we were to stop there I talked with Ian Heath and he said they were still not ready and suggested the Royal Armoury in Leeds as a replacement. I was kind of disappointed, I knew I could stop and buy some figures from the Foundry, as I had called the day before we left for England, but I had already loaded up on books and other stuff, so I decided not to stop. Ok, Ok enough harassing, maybe I should have stopped anyway, but I didn't. But I will next time for a day or two. It would be nice if someone who lives near Nottingham or who goes to England and stops in, tells us about it.

Leeds

Anyway, we went to Leeds. Don't look for the sign to the museum in the south bound lanes of the M1 because it is currently not there. After turning around and going back north on the M1 we finally found the signs to the museum. Find the M621 into Leeds go to junction 4 to the A61 to Black Bull Street to Chadwick Street and Bobs your uncle and all that. The aggrevation of turning around and trying again was well worth it.

Every 30-45 minutes there were reenactor demonstrations going on. They included for this day: Dunkirk 1940, Falconry, Georgian Sword Master, Arming the Knight, Medieval Jousting, The Buffalo Hunter, 15th Century Pollaxe Combat, and Yankee Doodle The American War of Independence. So that is eight demonstrations from 11:15 to 16:15 with no overlap so you can see it all, and if you are lucky you will have time to see the exhibits.

Each floor has films and computers to help you understand more of what you saw (totalling 40 films and 9 computers for games or databases). On one computer I played the British Commander at Isandlhwana and won in a computer simulation, I think the computer cheated to allow me to win.

The weapons displayed with the text were just right. There was also a fair diorama of Waterloo. I did have trouble with some displays that used enlarged xerox copies of contemporary art work, the lines bled in the purple copies and made everything fussy but not with the black and white. I think they need to fix that.

Outside the main building are craft and reenactment areas where they keep horses, dogs and hunting birds, very cool.

We saw in one demonstration a 15th C knight dressing in armor, pretty neat, then 30 minutes later they held a joust in their own special jousting arena, very cool. The shop was ok pretty much like most other museum shops but with some specialized stuff bearing on the subject of arms and warfare. They had some interesting books but nothing I bought. We finally had lunch in the Admiral Nelson Bistro in the main lobby (plenty of lunch areas on each floor plus the Wellington Resturant). We had a steak with ale gravy in a Yorkshire pudding that was outstanding, as was the desert. Very good food and not overpriced.

My overall impression is I WILL RETURN again next time.

We next went to the British Museum in London and spent three hours in the Egyptian, Greek, Roman and part of the Romano-British/Celtic collections. You could spend days in there, although its not as big as I thought. They have a very impresive bookstore that is accessible online. Finally, we went to Charing Cross road, not far from the museum, to Foyles bookstore. WOW! Five floors of books each the size of a Barnes and Noble.