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Punts, Pints & Paras in Cambridge England   New Mobility, April 2008 Ned Fielden

I could see the gears turning in her head even before the words “Can I give you a push?” came out of her mouth. She was mid-twenties, too old to be an undergraduate but perhaps a graduate student, or maybe even a local resident. She had abruptly stopped to stare at me with a look that I knew would lead to some sort of interaction. I looked ridiculous and knew it. People had proffered help in far less absurd situations. It was a cold wet January night and I had been in Cambridge England less than 36 hours. The sun had already been down for five hours and the wind was coming out of the fens from the north. There are only two ways to get some uphill work in Cambridge, an area of East Anglia flat as a billiard table (corrugated billiard table if you want the metaphor to include the microclimate of sidewalks and pavement). You can go up Castle hill, a gentle rise to the north of town, or you can cross a bridge over the river Cam somewhere. I was heading home on Garret Hostel Lane, on the main pedestrian bridge over the river heading due west of the city center.

Only about five feet on each side of the forty foot bridge-span are very steep, but that’s enough to slow cyclists down to a crawl during the day. I have a grey beard, have seen fifty-some winters through, and the wheelchair, as we all know, inevitably makes people assume all sorts of things. I had a large box inelegantly strapped to my lap with a bungie cord and had “new in town” written all over my face.

The night before had been distinctly frigid. Miscalculating badly, I had brought along only a lightweight blanket to my lodgings, assuming that English heating systems were sufficient for winter comfort if cranked all the way up. Instead the Lilliputian radiator in my bedroom put out about the same heat as a family of mice breathing heavily in one corner of the room. I had shivered through the night and needed something more substantial, so I had spent £20 on a duvet (comforter) at a store in town and was trying to schlep it home. The bulky box on my lap prevented me from leaning forward and made pushing over the bridgework grade more daunting.

Before I could even mutter out a breathless “I’m fine, thanks!” her will began to waver. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t offer to help after all” she stammered apologetically, “it turns out I am pregnant and my doctor said I shouldn’t exert myself too much.” I tried to imagine how pathetic I must have looked. I waved her off, the first of many such offers I would get over the next six months. No matter how adroitly I dashed up and over the span, at least once a week there would be somebody willing to “help out.”

As an academic librarian from San Francisco State University, I was in Cambridge for a six month sabbatical. I loved how that phrase “sabbatical in Cambridge” rolled off the tongue. I had a whole semester to indulge my increasingly obsessive interest in the history of university libraries. I would spend my time in the Cambridge university library and those of the colleges, sifting through university records, old library catalogs, visiting whatever archaic libraries I could talk myself into (and wedge myself into,) with their dark-wooden interiors and alluring collections of leather bound books. All in the name of sorting out the history of university libraries for a future writing project. As a bonus, I would get a chance to see Stephen Hawking in town every now and then.

Wheelchair life in Europe is generally a challenge.  At home I might expect 20 percent of retail establishments to pose some difficulties. In Europe one has to double or triple that number, with many establishments having one or more large steps up from street level, even for places you might think would be automatically accessible, like medical clinics. There are cobblestones or uneven pavements to rattle your teeth and toss you off your mount. Doorways too narrow to get through. And a disability culture a generation behind the US, although the gap may be closing. If nothing else, there are just fewer of us around, and the wheelchair is more noticeable, especially, I suppose, when you are an auslander and speak American-accented English.

Cambridge is an ancient university town, hosting one of England’s two medieval universities, and remains an institution with an extraordinary reputation for learning. Oxford University came first, with the increasing influx in the 12th century of teachers taking on students for advanced study in town. Cambridge, oddly enough, owes its university heritage to a murder in Oxford in 1208. The story is complicated, but a tavern owner and a student got into a tussle with unfortunate, lethal, consequences. The resulting town-gown conflagration meant that the scholars and masters, disgruntled at their treatment by the town, stalked off in a huff, many to return three years later after tempers had cooled and things had been squared away. But some subset of the students and masters had moved shop to Cambridge, and finding it an agreeable place, decided to stay there. For two centuries Cambridge was second cousin to the larger and more prestigious Oxford, but a series of monarchs saw fit to devote serious attention, meaning money, to Cambridge from the mid-fourteenth century on.

While colleges existed within universities elsewhere on the continent, the system that evolved in England was unusually extensive. Initially little more than housing complexes, they gradually added chapels, dining halls, libraries: all the trappings of civilized, advanced study. The students and masters had a nice safe home, isolated from the rest of town. Many colleges developed their own endowments and some grew quite wealthy.

King’ College is one of the dominant landmarks at the city center, with its huge 15th century chapel. A visit is a must, and if possible it is a treat to go to one of the evensong services Monday through Saturday evenings during term. This is an Anglican service replete with world class choral music, and on Saturdays, besides the wonderful choir, an organ recital immediately follows the service. You can gaze up at the rib-vaulted rafters of the chapel while the reverberating chords of a Bach concerto crash over you. Wheelchairs are not only possible, but welcome. Despite my early attempts to wait in line with everyone else, college officials always noticed me immediately and whisked me to the front, so they could trot out the ramps to seat me straight away.

Not all colleges are easy to visit, and a few I never figured out how to get in at all, but some have taken special care to be friendly for wheelers. St. John’s is one of the most elegant, with multiple courts going in from its main entrance on Kings Parade with ramps over most of the hard parts. Other venerable colleges lie near the center of town. Trinity, the largest, was home to Isaac Newton and David Hume. Jesus College has soothing, rambling grounds, and counts poet Samuel Coleridge as a former student. Stephen Hawking’s Gonville and Caius College has elevators secreted inside to spirit one from floor to floor.

Not all my activities were work related. I got an unexpected bonus in April when I discovered that one of the island’s most celebrated beer festivals would be held on Jesus Green. For five days a huge tent had been erected, and breweries from up and down the island came with casks of their ales for the populace to sample. The variety was stunning, a huge treat. My American accent attracted the attention of some academic expatriates teaching at Cambridge and while sipping our pints we compared notes. They were working far harder than back in the states, with busy course loads, lots of time spent with graduate students, and wildly ambitious research agendas. What did they miss from home? Looks were exchanged. It appeared that baseball and burritos were the prime American elements missing in England. American beer was clearly not one of their regrets. On the other hand they directed me to a couple superb pubs in town that would have taken me some time to discover myself, as they were off the beaten path, for which I was most grateful. (See http://online.sfsu.edu/~fielden/cam/pub/ for an accessible pub guide.)

There is plenty to do for individuals and families with wheelchairs, although frequently advance notice is necessary. The Fitzwilliam museum in the town center is crammed with historical items, from Roman coins to renaissance artwork to knights’ armor. The zoological museum has a huge whale skeleton and a collection that would appeal to any age. Nearby is the Science and Technology museum, with display cases of sextants, chronometers, scientific measuring devices, and all manner of discovery apparatus, but you will need to be slipped in through the back door. The botanical garden provides a leisurely way to spend a sunny afternoon, with plants from around the world and one section devoted to a recreation of what the nearby fens looked like before they were drained in the 18th century.

Buses worked fairly well for transport. Most of them have ramps, low-tech but serviceable, and despite the occasional unhelpful bus driver, it’s easy enough to get around with them. The double-decker buses were usually inaccessible however, so it pays to check out the routes early. Easy bus rides from the town will take you to Histon, a beautiful town with a nice town-green to the north, and one of the Imperial War Museums in Duxford, where I took my nine year old son, with several large hangers crammed full of English and military aircraft. The medieval Diocese seat was in Ely, a small, handsome town with a breathtaking cathedral some twenty miles to the northwest, an easy train ride away. A bike path along the Cam leads to bucolic Grantchester, a few miles up river.

Trains to London are frequent and accessible with advance notice. You get a wheelchair discount, and if you have alerted the folks at the station to your schedule, they can trot out the ramps needed to hop on board. Trains to the rest of the island work well too. Some I could manage solo (exiting easier than entering) but most were impossible without a ramp, even requiring a push up due to their steepness.

In general the wheelchair user will find life a lot easier in Europe if jumping two-inch curbs is possible. Younger athlete types may find they can surmount many obstacles that stopped me, including four inch or higher steps up from the street to a variety of buildings.

It took me several months to figure out a good one-liner retort to offers of help getting over the bridge. Finally I arrived at the short and civil “Thanks, but I like my pint at the end of the day and need to earn it.” That seemed to strike the right note, and most folks nodded sagely as if the logic were unassailable.

That didn’t stop the offers, however, and I had two favorites. One came from a Scotsman who took one look at me one rainy afternoon and bellowed out “Cannae gie ye a pooosh, lad?” The most erudite and respectful offer I have ever received from anyone came from a gentleman in tweeds and woolen hat who paused, adjusted his glasses and began “I don’t know how to make this offer in a way that wouldn’t perhaps cause you offence, but if you would like some assistance up this diabolical grade, I would be more than pleased to help.” Hard to fault that offer for sheer elegance.The English were a conscientious lot, determined, cheerful, energetic and unfailingly polite.

Cambridge is a marvelous destination, combining a small scale beauty with all the intellectual delights of a university town.