Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Meanwhile, Francis Chichester sailed into Plymouth, in Devon (p. 392) in May 1967
to become the first man to sail single-handedly around the world—an incredible achieve-
ment in an age before electronic navigation systems. Aged 65, he had stopped only at
Sydney on his epic voyage, and was rewarded with a knighthood from the Queen a few
months later, in a public ceremony at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich. The college
was designed by Christopher Wren and built between 1696 and 1712. It is now part of
the UNESCO World Heritage site of
Maritime Greenwich
(p. 120).
The 1970s was a troubled decade of shortages and strikes. The oil crisis of 1973-
74 led to regular power cuts and the 3-day working week to save fuel. In February
1974 an all-out strike by the National Union of Miners was enough to bring Prime
Minister Edward Heath's Conservative government down, and by March there was a
new Labour government led by Harold Wilson. A recession from 1975 prompted
years of strike and unrest, culminating in the Labour government's Winter of Discon-
tent in 1978, when the country ground to a halt, a combination of public services
strikes and heavy snow. Punk music, a response to the decade's dire prospects,
peaked in 1977 with the release of The Sex Pistols' notorious “God Save the Queen,”
originally called “No Future.”
The Tate Gallery (now
Tate Britain;
p. 102) hit the headlines in February 1976
with its brick sculpture by American artist Carl Andre. The sculpture, 120 firebricks
laid out in a two-deck oblong, had been bought more than 3 years before but caught
the public imagination when the Tate's director refused to say how much the sculp-
ture had cost.
Then in 1977 the nation's most-loved racehorse, Red Rum, won the
Grand
National
at Aintree (p. 580) for an unprecedented third time. The
National
Horseracing Museum
at Newmarket (p. 506) near Cambridge has items associ-
ated with Red Rum, as well as other legendary racehorses and jockeys.
A General Election put Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives into power in
1979, and her economic policies divided the nation as unemployment dramatically
increased. Her popularity was only assured by the 1982 Falklands “War” (officially
only a “conflict”) and victory, when Britain defended its South Atlantic islands against
Argentina. Thatcher's political success was cemented by free-market agreements with
the United States, and her domestic success was underlined by the growing prosper-
ity of Britain's new homeowners and shareholders after council houses were sold off
and nationalized industries were privatized.
The 1984 miners' strike, over the closure of pits that were no longer producing
enough coal to be economic, was a bitter struggle and did much to cause the hostility
toward Mrs. Thatcher, which still exists today in the areas where job losses were
severe. The movie
Billy Elliot
, released in 2000 and now a West End musical, is set
in 1984-85 with the strike as its backdrop. By the late 1980s, divisions within the
Conservatives led to a leadership challenge, and Mrs. Thatcher resigned in 1990 to
make way for Conservative leader John Major to become prime minister. But among
her lasting legacies is the
Docklands
area of East London (p. 76), where London's
love affair with high-rise buildings began.
“New Labour” took power in 1997, under the leadership of the youngest prime
minister in over 180 years, Tony Blair (43 years old). This was an age of optimism and
Blair became Labour's longest-serving prime minister, but his tenure in the U.K.
became increasingly shrouded in his support for the “War on Terror” and actions in
Iraq. Gordon Brown succeeded his long-term sparring partner Blair in 2007 but by
2010 had resigned as prime minister and Leader of the Labour Party.
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