I help welcome Obama to London

Scooping the London Times by Marjorie B. Harrison
St. John’s Wood, London 31 March, 2009

Hundreds of ex-pat Americans lined Grove End Road this evening to welcome their president to London for the G20 Summit. They were joined by curious passers-by and other members of the American School in London community in a throng of happy well-wishers who cheered and waved at the presidential motorcade.
A well-kept secret around the school was that Obama would be making an appearance there on the night of his arrival in London for the economic summit with other world leaders. Staff and students who knew of the visit several days in advance kept the news from leaking, even to their own parents.
I first became aware that something unusual was going on at the school when I arrived for a 3 pm meeting with my 15 year old daughter’s dean. I went to the school a bit early, and as I walked up the road I noticed signs that nearby resident parking had been suspended for “an event”. A silver minivan whooshed by, parked near the school, and many dark-suited, serious-looking men emerged as if from an overcrowded circus car. I noticed that some of the vehicles parked nearby had signs indicating they were canine police units. Clumps of metropolitan police offers milled near their vehicles, and as I glanced through the fence toward the playground, I noticed officers and bomb-sniffing dogs there, as well. I searched through my handbag for my school ID, and found that I did not have it with me. I phoned my daughter, who had not yet left our flat for the meeting, and asked her if she could dig it out of my other handbag. “There is something going on at school today” I reported. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get into school without my ID. There are an awful lot of security people around.” Although we had been away on a school trip all weekend, she had checked her email upon arriving home and knew what was afoot. “Oh yeah, it’s the Obama thing” she casually mentioned. I was stunned. It made perfect sense.
She couldn’t find my other handbag, so I decided to run home and get the ID myself. I also decided to change out of my exercise clothes into something a little more appropriate for a presidential visit. I returned with my daughter to the school, which was now crawling with security people on the inside. We had our meeting with the dean and left. There were a lot more people in the vicinity of the school.
Eventually the knots of onlookers coalesced into a queue. By half past six there must have been hundreds of people waiting patiently. The queue stretched up one side of the playground, around the corner, and around another corner and down that street. I recognized some of the parents who were walking in the vicinity. Everybody knew somebody who knew somebody who knew what was happening. The report was that Obama wouldn’t be arriving until 9 pm. I waited around for a while in front of the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth, near St. John’s Hospice where I volunteer on Friday mornings. There were hospital and hospital visitors milling about, but the only crowd was in the queue for ticket-holders to the Obama event. I decided to go home for supper .
Around 8:40 I headed out again. As I crossed the famous pedestrian crossing on Abbey Road to get to the school, I could hear the choppers overhead. In the darkness it was still clear that they were military helicopters and not TV news or traffic choppers. I had heard that there are always multiple helicopters that act as decoys, so knew that Mr. Obama was on his way to the US Ambassador’s residence in Regent’s Park.
Upon arriving back in front of the hospital, I noticed that the queue of ticket-holders had all been processed through security and had entered the school. The police presence appeared to be much smaller. There were now several hundred people lining both sides of Grove End Road. People talked excitedly to perfect strangers. Families had brought their children. The accents were predominantly American, but there were also Canadians and many other nationalities in evidence, as is usual in the American School community and in St. John’s Wood as a whole. There was much discussion as to the route the motorcade would take, or whether Mr. Obama would arrive by helicopter and touch down in the playground, as Med-Evac helicopters have been known to do in the past.
The police presence became more visible. Bobbies began moving people back behind the rows of parked cars. Our nearest policeman was chatty and friendly, saying he wouldn’t be told exactly when the motorcade would be coming. One of the other policemen asked members of the crowd “if it would be possible” for us to move back a little further. I decided not to get snarky with him and say that it would be possible, but not probable. Our nearest policeman asked us to move back “so that we would not get hurt” by the cars that were trying to make their way down Grove End Road, as they had not yet cut off the flow of traffic.
Several cars went by with people headed toward the nearby synagogue for evening services. One car stopped and a man asked me where to park. “For what event?” I asked. He seemed as confused by my question as I was by his. I finally guessed that he was looking for synagogue parking, and directed him further down. Other drivers slowed and wanted to know what was happening. A middle-aged, graying man in a gray, middle-aged man’s open-topped convertible drove past slowly, looking confused. “We are waiting for Obama, not for you!” I chided.
Finally, we heard the tweet-tweet of multiple police whistles. “Here he comes now” our Bobby informed us “you can tell by the whistles”. Within two seconds, a succession of motorcycles with blinding blue strobe lights whizzed past at an enormous rate of speed. Our Bobby was right; we would have gotten hurt if he hadn’t be there to block our access to the road. They appeared out of nowhere. Next, several large black vehicles appeared. The crowd began to cheer. There must have been five or six cars, also travelling very very fast, and just on the other side of our nice police officer. We were only three or four feet from the motorcade. It was travelling so fast, and our policeman was so near, that it was hard to see much. I held out my American flag with peace symbol in the blue field. I shipped here in August as part of my 21 boxes of personal effects that I could not live in London without. I never dreamed I would wave it at the Presidential motorcade.
It was all over in a flash, perhaps twenty seconds. One of the cars, I’m not sure which, contained my President. It is probably the closest I will ever get to him or any other world leader. The dark glass combined with the flashing strobes and the night arrival meant that I could not see any of the occupants of the vehicles except for the men sitting facing rearward in the opened back hatch of a vehicle. They must have been in the car immediately preceding the President’s. They all turned the corner and disappeared from view as a large police van blocked that road off again.
It took longer for the excited onlookers to discuss and dissect the experience than it did for the motorcade to drive up from Regent’s Park. Finally we all began to drift off, but not after discussing with each other which route the motorcade was likely to take when it left the school in about twenty minutes. I chatted with a family who had been standing next to me, and made some new friends. It turned out that their daughter knows mine, and that their lockers are directly adjacent.
As I passed the hospital driveway, I noticed another couple chatting with a woman. She was asking a lot of questions about why Obama was coming to the school, and without realizing who she was I began chat with her and answer some of her questions. After a few minutes, I noticed she was writing on a steno pad in shorthand. “Are you from the media?” I asked. Yes, she was a writer with the London Times. She kept asking questions phrased in a way that made me realize that she thought that Obama was still on his way. I told her that the motorcade had already come and gone and that she had missed the whole thing.
So, if you read an article in tomorrow’s London Times that makes it seem like Laura Dixon was there when Obama's motorcade went by, it’s not really true. And if she recounts “eyewitness reports”, you’ll know where some of that information came from. I fervently hope that I am not mis-quoted!

I am proud to be an American abroad as my president strives to reach concensus with the 19 other summit members to rebuild our economic infrastructure. As someone who is married to an experienced auditor and risk manager who deals with these issues on a daily basis, I hope that proper regulation of the existing market system AND a restructuring where necessary will be the solutions that help us rebuild our economies and provide economic security and political stability for all the citizens of the world. Welcome to London and your first G-20 summit, Mr. President!