A White Elephant

The son who must not be named had to go to the dentist, so I picked him up from school and drove him to the surgery. Our route took us past a large traffic island and the edge of Abington Park, the traffic island was planted with daffodils and so was a wide slope at the edge of the park. I pointed out that the daffodils were in full bloom and I said that when I see daffodils the words of a poem pop into my head. My son said "yes I know" and he promptly quoted the whole first verse of the Robert Herrick poem To Daffodils. "Fair daffodils, we weep to see you haste away so soon, As yet the early-rising sun has not attained his noon. ...................." He went on to say that he doesn't like daffodils because they flower so briefly and then seem to stand there looking dead for months. I know exactly what he means, daffodils always make me feel sad too and I agree with his sentiments about the display of daffodils in the park. It has a big sign saying "Field of Hope" but he says that it inspires the opposite of hope because the daffodils look dead for most of the year, with just a couple of weeks of colour in early spring. I still find it fascinating when he allows me little glimpses of his 'aspie' thought process, I may only give a passing thought to contradictions such as the field of hope, but such things really trouble him because they don't make sense.


On our way back we somehow got on to the naming of pubs. I told him that I disapproved of the modern trend for changing pub names because the old names often had historical significance. He asked what I meant and I said that The White Elephant was a good example of a pub whose name reflected it's history. He asked if a white elephant had once died there; I glanced across at him because I thought he may be teasing me but he was completely serious. He has always struggled with idioms because he trys to take them literally, but he learnt the meaning of most of the commonly used idioms long ago, so it was a bit of a surprise when I realised that he did not know what a white elephant was. I explained that we use the term white elephant to describe something that has value but is of no practical use and a bit of a burden to the owner. 

The pub in question was built as a rather grand looking hotel in the days when Northampton had a racecourse. I expect they thought that they would build a good business providing accommodation and refreshments for racegoers. However soon after it was built the racing stopped; there were public access rights across the course and a series of accidents between 1901 and 1904 led to the banning of all races. The last race took place on 31st March 1904 and the racecourse became a park (still known as the Racecourse). So Kingsley Park Hotel was left on the extreme edge of town (at that time) without an obvious clientèle. It became known locally as the 'White Elephant' and in due course the name was changed to The White Elephant.

It is odd, a simple trip from the dentist led to discussions about poetry, linguistics and local history. There are many times when that boy has me tearing my hair out, but I treasure these special times when we have interesting conversations. He couldn't resist pushing his luck, as he got out of the car to go back to school he said that I knew so much about 'the olden days' that it sounded as if I remembered them personally - cheeky monkey!