London- day one

On the 14th we caught the train early in the morning from Cambridge to Kings Cross. From there we caught the tube. Mum, Elsie, Rebecca and I getting off at Piccadilly, and Dad and Lydia staying on until Green Park, from where they walked to Buckingham Palace. While Dad showed Lydia around Buckingham Palace, St James's Palace, Downing Street and Westminster, we joined a Sherlock Holmes tour that visited locations from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's life, his short stories about the detective, and places used for filming many of the movies and TV shows based on his works. The tour guide was clearly very knowledgable about Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle, and I learnt a lot. After the tour we met Dad and Lydia at the Foundling museum, once London's foundling hospital. Parents who did not have the means to look after their children would be forced to leave them in the care of the hospital. They would leave tokens with there children, so if they returned years later, they would know which child was theirs. For the children, their token was their only link to their parentage. At the hospital, the children would be taught practical skills, and be educated so they had a chance at getting a job after leaving the hospital. The children we're treated with what was then, advance  and groundbreaking medical techniques, and would be given good food to eat, even plum pudding on occasion. George Frideric Handel, the famous composer would perform his Messiah to the children every year, and even wrote a piece called "the Foundling Hospital anthem." He would also have fundraiser performances of his Messiah to raise money for the Hospital.
Next, we walked to the British Library, but in the way stopped at North Gower street, which was used as Baker Street in BBC Sherlock. The real 221b Baker Street being too far away. At the British library we saw many famous manuscripts of books, one of my favourites was Jane Austen's Childhood journal, which contained many short stories. Shortly afterword we caught the train back to Cambridge.