Wednesday 6th March 2019 – London

In the UK, I-House New York alumni are organised by a wonderful set of Trustees into the Friends of I-House UK (FIHUK) so I was looking forward to the event kindly hosted by Maurits and Erika Dolmans at their beautiful home in Hampstead.

Between my visits to ISH London and Goodenough College I nipped down the Jubilee Line on the Tube to Westminster to visit Westminster Abbey. In his letter at the end of his trip, Harry picked out 3 spots that had meant a great deal to him on his trip for their links to the I-House “Brotherhood” prevailing moto. He writes “In Westminster Abbey, London, is a Plaque of the brothers John and Charles Wesley, Founders of Methodism, with the inscription, ‘The world is our parish’.” So I thought I would go and find it too.

Arriving at Westminster Abbey I discovered that to visit it is now £22! So I went and explained my mission to the door security who then arranged for me to be met by a colleague who took me straight to the plaque and the also showed me the YMCA window in memory of the founder Sir George Williams (I had always thought the YMCA was a US founded movement but it seems not), sadly I wasn’t able to photograph it but a picture available at https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/sir-george-williams-ymca

The Wesley Plaque was slightly obstructed by things being stored in front of it but I did capture a picture below. I am sure as a former employee of the YMCA Harry would also have been interested in the window too.

In the section in his memoirs about the 1966 trip Harry describes the London event, which was held at the English Speaking Union, https://www.esu.org. “there were 40 or 50 gathered, I wondered why there was so much enthusiasm, because I wouldn’t say the English are over-given to rah-rah-rah. But there was this very jovial atmosphere, and I discovered that there were 5 couples in the group who had romanced at IH, which had glorified the place to them beyond all description. It was most enjoyable.”  This was particularly relevant to our hosts for the evening, Maurits and Erika, as they met at the NYC House and their son also met his wife there!  In fact there were two further Sakura sweetheart couples represented at the gathering so we nearly matched Harry’s total.

The Dolmans have a very beautiful house in Hampstead which is perfect for a party and so we had a lively evening of reminiscences and conversation.  We were blessed with a good number of musicians who reminded us of how the diversity of institutions that people study at whilst living at I-House NYC is one of its great joys as the range of subjects and disciplines adds another layer of breadth to the range of nations represented. 

One area of interesting discussion was about the relatively recent addition of Televisions to the Dining Hall at I-House NYC and how bringing the outside in potentially distracts from the interaction over food that has so long been a key tenant of the Houses.  Not only do you get drawn to the moving pictures, but you also potentially loose the richness of the opportunity of hearing and debating news from many angles, sometimes with direct contact to the area the news is coming from, rather than the perspective of what is presented by a US new channel. (Note: that when I stayed at I-House on March 10th 2019 there were now no TVs again in the dining commons, as far as I could see)

Attendees in London: 

Patrick and Margherita Von Aulock, James Davenport, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Pankaj Kumar, Ruth Waterman, Thomas Hazleton, Adela Suliman, Diane Bickley and Jonathan Burton, Vish Wanaathg, Erol and Denise Gelenbe, Emily Rose, Annabelle Yap and Benjamin Lim, Barnaby Hughes, Fabian Graimann and Kim Chan, Patricia Hamzahee, Maurits Dolmans

Story Snippets….

I-House Musical – Emily Rose – Emily wrote a musical about I-House NYC and was part of a group that performed it in the great lounge that overlooks Sakura Park.  She described with enthusiasm the different songs as well as the artistic process to bring it to its audience.  Firstly as it is not possible to close the lounge, being a thoroughfare to other parts of the House, it meant that rehearsals which needed to be ‘site specific’ had to be done with an audience.  Groups of other residents would be ‘studying’ in other areas of the room whilst they were rehearsing.  The production was also a lesson in compromise and tolerance as director, choreographer, conductor and cast often had strong and differing views on how things should be done.  These discussions were often undertaken with some passion and volume, much to the delight of the rehearsal audience.  In fact the inter-cast and production team drama proved great fuel for the I-House grapevine.  The production was a great success and following Emily’s vivid descriptions, the FIHUK team are thinking that a production at the Freunde IH / FIUK events in autumn 2020 would be a good plan so watch this space.