London Town with Scotland The Brave: Towers and Crowds

Scotland the Brave spent months planning to visit the United Kingdom. He flew all the way from Perth in Western Australia to London. On arrival, his Guardians had carried Scotty through Hyde Park and Kensington and to the gates of Buckingham Palace. (Guardians are very useful in this way).

They walked a long way and discovered Monopoly Board place names like Mayfair and Park Lane. But London was too big to keep exploring by foot. They set off again by bus.

It was summer and the days were warm. It rained but not for long. They saw all kinds of monuments and buildings. There was a small crowded roundabout called Trafalgar Square guarded by lions.

Some buildings had pointed roofs, some had rounded roofs, some had statues and decorative facades, and all of them were really squashed together.

A lot of people waited to get into places like St Pauls Cathedral. Many of the people looked hot and bothered. Scotty’s guardians had considered visiting St Paul’s too but after they saw all the people they changed their minds.

The buildings were very impressive but it was quite hard to get good pictures of them as they were obscured by trucks and buses and huge signs and sometimes scaffolding.

There were people, people, people everywhere. They swarmed over footpaths and roads and into doorways. Scotty had never before seen so many people on a bridge (see above). It was like a river of people crossing over the river of water.

People jostled one another to buy tickets for just about everything including the river cruises and the huge wheel and exhibitions and to get into certain buildings. They jostled for ice creams and they got really excitable, Scotty thought, about getting hold of their coffees.

Westminster and Bobbies: There was a lot of excitement at one huge, long old building by the river. There were towers and pointy bits all over it. They called it Westminster. There was a clock tower too and the clock had its own name, Big Ben. There were bits of Westminster that usually tourists like Scotty were allowed to see usually but they weren’t allowed to on that day. Police stopped them.

There were Police stationed all around. Scotty had never seen so many police in one area before: police on motor bikes, police in cars, police on horses and on bicycles, police standing by the gates and by the barriers looking very serious indeed. Scotty recalled that in their own hotel lobby they had seen a lot of tough looking men with he words “Police” sewn on the pockets of their tough leather gear. They turned out to be motor bike police from other parts of England who had arrived in London especially. But especially for what?

One of the Guardians asked a constable about it. He didn’t say, ‘What ‘ave we ‘ere ,then? A little tourist?” But he did say that the new Parliament was to open the next day because there was a new Gov’munt and the King would be King-ing there. But the King wasn’t there yet. Once again, Scotty had missed the King. (And he would just miss him again in Edinburgh too.)

River boat cruise: They later discovered that it was ever so much easier to see Westminster and Big Ben and the bridges and all the fine buildings while gliding down the Thames in a boat.

From their comfortable seats, sheltered from the rain, they observed a large grim old house that had once been a citadel and a palace and a prison. It was called The Tower of London.

An odd name, Sotty thought, for it obviously had several towers of all sorts of shapes and sizes, not just one. It really should be called The Rather A Lot Of Towers of London.

Not far away there was a wonderful old bridge. (Most things in London are Really Old. London itself is roughly 10 times older than Scotty’s home of Perth city in Australia, which probably explains it.)

The bridge had towers on it too. And, of course, they had called it ‘Tower Bridge’. It seems that London people like towers. They put towers on a lot of things. Then they call them the Tower of this or That.

In the next episode, you can see Scotland The Brave visiting the Museum of Natural History. There were dinosaurs there! Don’t miss that one.

BOOKS with Scotland in them (our Scotty, that is)

Scotty is the star of a very special book called When A Brave Bear Fights Cancer: A Get Well Soon Gift by Carola Schmidt. In the book, Scotty a little bear who gets a bad sickness called cancer. He’s worried and often scared because cancer is scary.  But the doctors and nurses and other patients help him. The book is to help kids feel much more brave when they are getting treatment. It’s available in paperback and Kindle. Look for the brave little bear wearing trews on the cover.

Scotty in books by Mawson

You can also see Scotty in all the books by Mawson. One is called It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In (in that one he delivers the post) and another is She Ran Away From Love (he delivers the post again.) In Dreamy Days and Random Naps you can see him being a king and also a superb guitarist. Don’t miss that one! This is what the books look like:

Mawson’s Guardian says: You can find Mawson’s books on this Link here, and on his Writer-Bear Page on Amazon.

You have wandered into Mawson Bear’s web-den. Mawson is a Ponderer of Baffling Things (between naps) and the Writer-Bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In  and She Ran Away From Love.

‘This little story made me well up. A lovely, poignant story with delightful illustrations.’ Jackie Law, Amazon Top 500 reviewer, about It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost in.

The book brings back such nostalagic memories that it made it comforting, like a  old security blanket.’  FNM Book reviews about Bright World.