London, Thatcham and Pinner 1997

London
On August 14, 1997, we commemorated our 15th wedding anniversary by arriving at London Heathrow at 8:30am. It was our third trip to London, so we knew what needed to be done first—validate our London Visitors Travelcard to allow us to travel the Underground into London.

We stayed in a very nice small hotel near Hyde Park and Harrod’s. Knightsbridge Green Hotel is a small family owned and managed hotel, conveniently located near the Knightsbridge underground station. This was our second stay there, and we were not disappointed. It’s a moderately priced hotel that we found in Hilary Rubinstein’s Europe’s Wonderful Little Hotels and Inns.

The London portion of our trip was specifically to find books by British authors (primarily humor and light/satirical SciFi) and videotapes of British comedy for Tom. In addition to stopping in every Waterstone’s, Dillon’s and W.H. Smith’s bookshops we passed, we traded at The Talking Bookshop near Oxford Circus and Books, etc. near Covent Garden.

The remainder of our four days was spent with friends: the Family Dunwell in Thatcham and the Jones Family in Pinner.

Thatcham and the Family Dunwell

In 1989, Patty took her very first Apple business trip to London, where she met face-to-face Kevin Dunwell. That summer, Kevin was in Cupertino, and we invited him for a home-cooked meal. Six months later, he had left Apple. But we managed to stay in touch—first through letters, then through email.

Eight years later, we made our third trip to spend time with the Dunwell Family.

This is three-fourths of the family: (clockwise, with Patty) Kevin, Julie and Joanne. James was away at scout camp.

We spent the afternoon at Whitchurch Silk Mill, a working museum near the Dunwells’ Thatcham home. The Mill is on a island on the River Test in Whitchurch. Silk is produced to order for theatrical costume, interior designers, and historic houses.

In front of the mill was a duck and trout pond, doing what ducks do—look cool.

Pinner—With the Jones Family

In April 1997, Anthony, Jeannie and Sarah Jones moved from San Jose, California to Pinner, England, north of London, where they kindly hosted us on our last night in London.

Meet almost-two-year-old Sarah.

For this family portrait, Tom first said, “Say cheese!” It got a marginal response. “Say salmon!” was obviously the better thing to say. It just happens that smoked salmon is Sarah’s very favorite food.