By Carla Kelly

Since my recent trip to England and Scotland, I now have a refrigerator magnet – a red circle with “Mind the gap” on the blue bar bisecting it. The circle and bar form the sign for the London Underground: easy to spot at entrances to what we would call subway stations.
Before you can even get to that gap you have to mind, you need an Oyster Card. Heaven knows why it’s called that. The Oyster Card is a smart card commuters use to travel the 253 miles of track both above and below ground that makes up what might be the world’s oldest subway (1863).
To get on the Tube, you press the Oyster Card to a round yellow reader on the turnstile. At your destination, you do the same to exit the system. When the card gets low, you add pounds at an automated kiosk.
The Underground has really polite robotic voices. When you reach your station - one of 253 around London with evocative names like Baker Street (for Sherlock Holms fans), Piccadilly, Hammersmith, St. Pancras, King’s Cross (for Harry Potter book 7 fans) – you discover how polite the British are, and how our common language can be baffling.
Before the doors open to spew you onto the platform, a disembodied voice advises you to “Mind the gap.”  I quickly figured out the “gap” is that space between the car door and the platform. I minded it.
Is that polite or what?  Said with a British accent, it’s almost as though the queen herself is concerned about her loyal subjects who (unlike her) actually travel on the Underground: “Have a care, dearies; you, too, colonials.” 
My sisters and I decided the American equivalent to “Mind the gap” would be “Watch your step.” Which one sounds nicer? No contest.
The British weren’t always so polite. In the 13th century, King Edward the Confessor swiped the Stone of Scone (pronounced skoon) after a defeat of the Scots and took it to London. That sandstone rock had been the coronation seat for Scottish kings. Bummer.
King Edward had the Stone of Scone put in a compartment under the seat of his gilded chair, the one used ever after as England’s coronation chair. I suppose he wanted those pesky Scots to get used to the idea that Scotland and England would henceforth be one country. Two subsequent Acts of Union specified the two nations should be called Great Britain (1707), and then the United Kingdom (1800).
Not so fast. In 1950, some Scottish students somehow swiped the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey, determined to return it to Scotland, where it belonged. You have to hand it to those guys. That was maybe the ultimate student prank.
The Stone, broken in the process, traveled around a bit like the Travelocity gnome before it was safely returned to Westminster Abbey and tucked back into King Edward’s chair. It was in place when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in the Abbey in 1953.
Not so fast again. In 1996 – only 700 years after Edward kiped it - England returned the Stone of Scone to Scotland, where it now resides in Edinburgh Castle with the Scottish crown jewels (older than the British jewels). When it’s time for the next coronation, the Stone will be escorted to the border and turned over to the British for a few days. I guess maybe if the British don’t return it on time, the Scots will force them to eat haggis once a week until it shows up. That’ll take only one week.
The Stone of Scone isn’t much to look at: just a hunk of rock. It’s plenty safe in Edinburgh Castle, a massive fortress, built 1,000 years ago on an extinct volcano that soars over Edinburgh. Steal anything from there? Nope. In fact, during World War II, the British crown jewels were removed from the Tower of London and hidden in Edinburgh Castle for safekeeping from the Germans. Good choice. Who in the Wehrmacht would be stupid enough to mess with fierce-looking guys in skirts?
Mind that gap, too; the queen says so. But between you and me, England and Scotland are two countries. Scotland has its own parliament now, and can legislate on issues involving Scotland. Clerks in stores would rather take Scottish pounds than British ones. Around Edinburgh I noticed “Scotland is not England,” scrawled on walls. It’s not a big gap, but a meaningful one.