The Mohave-Colorado River Sun

London Bridge Rekindles Memories, July 8, 1981

A brief chat at the famous London Bridge in Lake Havasu City turned two strangers into instant friends Saturday as they rekindled memories of their youth in their motherland London, England.

Eric Galloway and Ted Ware strolled the bridge they crossed daily when in London, and the desert setting served as a springboard for a nostalgic journey into the past.

"I was just a boy of 15 then," said Mr. Ware, a foreign missionary who is pastoring in Tucson and serving as visiting preacher at the Lakeview Community Church in Havasu. "I would lean over the bridge everyday and look at the ships below."

In London the bridge spanned the Thames River in a north-south direction and on the opposite end stood stately granite structures, some with steeples piercing the sky, where hundreds of thousands worked daily in the financial district.

Galloway and Ware said, "You walked the bridge. You could take a bus, but it was easier to walk over the bridge."

"Isn't it much cleaner now?" asked Galloway, a former show biz personality in London and Hollywood.

"Yes," said Ware. "But I thought it was wider. It looks so narrow. That's the only thing that plays a trick in my mind."

"No, it's always been two lanes," said Galloway, owner of the Gallery of Glass in the English Village and publicist for the bridge.

As he stood almost motionless, Ware, who hasn't seen the London Bridge for more than 20 years, said: "Isn't that amazing. There it is. What a different setting. It's fantastic."

Both Ware and Galloway leaned over the bridge and glancing at the paddle boats and canoes below began talking about the barges and wharves they've seen in London.

"It's just amazing," said Ware, rubbing his hand along the English granite.

Galloway explained the legend that Robert McCulloch Sr. envisioned the splendour of the bridge in Havasu which is part of the Sonoran Desert and decided to bid to buy the bridge.

In submitting his bid, Galloway explained, McCulloch decided to add an extra $68,000 as kind of a good luck gesture, $1000 representing each year of his life. He was the top bidder.

The bridge was then taken apart stone-by-stone with each piece properly marked, placed aboard ship and transported to its new home. It was one of the biggest jugsaw puzzles in the world and took approximately two years to reassemble.

"And look the original gas lamps," said Ware. "I can remember the lamplighters."

Reconstruction of the London Bridge in Havasu is considered locally as one of the world's major engineering feets.

"When I left London, I never dreamed I would see the bridge again. It takes American ingenuity," said Ware.

"When I first heard about it (bringing the bridge to Havasu)," Ware said. "I said, 'How are they going to do it?'"

"At the time one would think it was idiotic," he explained. "But it was brilliant, a brilliant idea."

Looking over the side and glancing down at the English Village below, Ware said, "I'm getting inspired. I'm thinking how nice it would be to have a small English Chapel there."

Galloway agreed it would add a touch of England to the scene and noted that the bridge area is the setting for numberous weddings.

"You come up with the money," Galloway told Ware, "and I'll promote it."

After and brief and private conversation the two parted, but publicly shared a little of perhaps why more than one million tourists a year visit Havasu and why Hollywood film makers also are lured to the area.

"If anyone had told me that one day I'd be standing on the London Bridge in the Arizona desert, I'd of said yes and someday we'll be walking on the moon." Ware said. "And look here I am."