“You know, the English are not very nice,” she told me. “I was there, you know. And they were cold and uncaring.” The woman speaking to me after church at my wife’s congregation the day I flew out to England told me this sincerely.

I was struck how easy it is for us to define a group by an encounter with a person and wondered what had given her this impression.

I have only met gracious hospitality in those I know in England. And based upon those encounters, love the people!

I flew out October 16th, arriving at 2 pm on October 17th in England. My dear brother, David, 89, met me at Heathrow. He looked terrible. Face ashen grey. Lips blue. I was not clear what had happened. We sat for me to have a cup of tea and snack upon arrival. He told me, “It’s that wretched jab. I got the fifth booster Saturday and it has knocked me for six!” His nose running like a faucet.

We got lost making our way to our train, so it took much longer than intended. David was having trouble getting off the moving sidewalks. He’d stumble with several short steps each time, so I offered to take his suitcase as well as mine. And positioned myself in front of him to arrest his fall if needed. We made it onto the Elizabeth Line for London.

On the train, David threw up a bit into his handkerchief, on his sweater, jacket and shirt. We gathered the handkerchief and stuffed it into my empty tea cup. He was not doing well, indeed. I was concerned. We had quite a walk before us through the train and tube stations to make our hotel.

We took it slow making it out of Paddington Station to the tube for St Pancras Station. The last stage was an up escalator which brought us to street level. I went ahead of David wanting to be there to help him get off. He was a few people behind me. I had just reached the top, when, I heard someone shouting, “Yes, there, at the top, push the stop button.”

A Brit ran up the stairs and hit the button just as the stairs reached my level with the man who had yelled standing there. I looked down at the feet of that man standing on the escalator and there I saw the bottom of David’s shoes! He had fallen when getting onto the escalator. He was coming feet first, on his face, head downhill on the escalator. I abandoned our luggage, threw down my backpack, and ran to help the Brit who was standing over David, as he now bent down, saying, “Sir, sir, are you alright?”

Slowly with the help of the now two Brits, we helped David sit up and stand. It was slow going.

“Oh my, oh my,” he was saying, “I don’t know how that happened. I’m okay. I’m okay.” But he was not really okay. His legs would hardly work.

His rescuers crowded around. “Do you know him,” the first man asked me.

“Yes, this is my dearest friend,” I told him. “We all call him Pops.”

“Well, Pops,” the rescuer said. “You okay? Are you both okay then for me to head out?” I assured him we were and I thanked him and the others who helped. What a gift.

I thought back to the woman’s account of how cold the British were, and I was struck with the many who had assisted Pops and me in this incident. In addition, someone had guarded my backpack which I had flung on the ground in which was my passport, phone, money, etc.

“Pops, we are getting a taxi from here,” I said. He agreed, saying, “Yes, that will be wise.”

There was a stand of cabs in front of where we stood. We got one. Pops hardly had leg strength to climb up into the cab and back out of it. Don’t die on me, I thought.

We had to cross a busy London street to get to the hotel. Pops kept pausing as he crossed. I stayed right with him, whispering, “You have to keep taking another step, Pops.” When we got into the Premier Inn, I had Pops to sit down while I checked us into our room. When we got to the room, I helped him get out of his soiled clothes and into bed. He fell asleep and slept for 16 hours, except for getting up once to eat a bit of food I brought to the room about 8:30 pm.

While he slept I realized this would be a different trip to England.

On the others, Pops and I have toured, visited York and other places. In fact, we had planned to go to York this trip. But, with him not doing well, this did not seem wise. I texted his daughter and asked her advice. She and her husband said they could meet us at a stop on our train to York the next day, and give us a ride home. This sounded like the best plan. During the night I awoke a few times and listened for his breathing.

At 9:17 a.m. the next morning I awoke having slept 12 hours myself. Our train was due to leave at 10:30 a.m. I awoke David. “How are you doing today?”

“I’m feeling much better,” he said, sounding chipper.

“Well, we have just over an hour to get downstairs, eat breakfast and get to the train, so perhaps we need to get moving.”

He was able to do so easily that morning. When he wanted to leave our suitcases in the room and come get them after breakfast, I countered saying we had to bring everything with us as we wouldn’t have time to get back to the room. Over breakfast I suggested we just head back to Nottingham and skip York.

“Prudent,” said Pops as he looked up from his bowl of cereal and mug of tea with milk, “That sounds prudent.”

We caught another taxi even though it was a short walk to the station. We arrived at the platform three minutes until departure, and got onboard. “Well,” Pops said, laughing, “I don’t usually cut it quite that close!”

We got off at Newark and Hugh, his son in law, met us. On the drive back to the house, David began to feel sick to his stomach again. We stopped, but he rallied, and then continued the trip getting home. He crawled into bed and slept for a few hours. The next day Hugh and Phil, Pops’ daughter, left for a 7-day trip. I was in charge.

The days were quiet, simple, and filled with joy. David and I took short walks, went to the grocery store, to David Lloyd’s, the gym, so I could swim, and sat around the house. There were many times of quiet. I read books, rested, wrote in my journal, prayed and enjoyed “being”. It was the most unusual vacation. Totally relaxed.

The folk at David Lloyd’s love David. One day upon entry, the girl at the front desk said,

“Are you David’s friend?”

“Yes,” I told her.

“Ahhhh everyone here at David Lloyd’s loves David” she said, smiling.

As do I. The blessed Englishman.