'Hello Again'

Day 5

 

Arnos Grove (Take 2) - Arsenal

 

Determined both to make amends for my frankly shoddy efforts so far this week, and also to complete the 'A's once and for all, I'm back on the Piccadilly Line this morning, heading North East once again.

 

By a happy coincidence (and it tells you something about how seriously I'm now taking this project that I can see the following as a 'happy' coincidence) my car needs some work doing to it and the garage I've had recommended to me happens to be just a few yards from Boston Manor tube station, which happens to be on the Piccadilly Line.

 

So at 10.47am I catch a train that terminates at Cockfosters. I've decided that I didn't really give Arnos Grove enough of an opportunity to prove itself on Tuesday, so I'm heading back there first. It takes just over an hour to get there, and this time I'm prepared.

 

Having looked at the map (the real one, not the tube map) I've seen that there's a park called Arnos Park a few minutes walk away from the station, and that's going to be my first port of call.

 

***

 

A word or two about the name Arnos Grove.

 

Originally the area, or at least part of it, belonged to a family with the surname Arnold, and was known as Arnold's Grove, or simply 'Arnold's'. This name persisted even when the land was built on by later owners, although the locals knew it more colloquially as 'Arno's'.

 

This nickname must have caught the fancy of the next owner, Sir William Mayne, although perhaps his grammar wasn't all it could have beeen, since when he renamed the estate Arnos Grove, he forgot the apostrophe.

 

Nowadays the name is pronounced as if the apostrophe had never been there in the first place, i.e. Arn-OSS rather than Arn-OZE, which I for one think is a shame.

 

***

 

It's another gloriously sunny spring day, with forecasters predicting temperatures which could reach 17 °C. After the rotten weather we had over the winter, this feels almost too good to be true.

 

Having taken a photo of the station exterior on my last visit, I don't feel obliged to take another one now and instead head straight for the park I spotted on the map earlier.

 

It's a nice one. Lot's of open spaces in the centre surrounded by trees of various types, but predominantly weeping willows and trees bursting with blossom.

 

The park also features a viaduct which carries the tube trains to and from the station, and a small brook, known as Pymme's Brook (so how come the Pymme family merit an apostrophe, eh?) which runs pretty much parallel to it. The whole place was just aching to be photographed, so I set up my camera and snapped away.

 

Arnos Park - A Viaduct, a Weeping Willow, and a very friendly dog walker

As I was taking a shot a very friendly dog walker stopped and chatted about other potential photo spots in the park, in particular the pond into which Pymme's Brook eventually fed. He gave me directions as to which path to follow, and I thanked him and set off in the direction indicated, musing on how pleasant it was to meet someone so unconditionally helpful.

 

Pymme's Brook - not related to the cucumber and strawberry laden summer beverage

 

I never did find the pond... I'm sure I just misunderstood his directions...

 

But along the way I was treated to a gorgeous display of blossom along the banks of the brook, and my camera and I spent a happy half hour photographing the blossom as the sunlight dappled (as it is wont to do) through the branches.

 

THERE NOW FOLLOWS A SELECTION OF ARTY, AND INDEED FARTY, PHOTOGRAPHS OF "BLOSSOM DAPPLED BY SUNLIGHT". SHOULD THIS NOT BE TO YOUR TASTE, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SCROLL DOWN TO THE NEXT SECTION OF TEXT WHERE HOPEFULLY YOU WILL FIND SOMETHING MORE ENTERTAINING...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further along the path I come across the work of a would-be Banksy, which, while not perhaps up to the satirical artistry of the well-known

(or rather, well-known for being not-well-known) Bristolian graffitist, it nevertheless raises a smile as I pass by.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

Of course, now that I'm aware of the missing apostrophe, I find it impossible to forget, and am mentally inserting it whenever I see the word Arnos. Everything in the area (or at least, everything named after it) suddenly becomes the personal property of our absent friend Arno. Arnos Park becomes Arno's Park, Arnos Road becomes Arno's Road - even the local pool, from the sign of which some wag has removed the letter 'L', becomes in my mind a long lost stool sample waiting to be reclaimed. (I think I've been out in the sun too long...)

 

Time to head off to my next destination.

 

***

On the way I'm sat opposite two young Asian... well the only word I can think of that adequately describes them is "yuppies".

 

They sit in almost identical outfits - you could almost call them uniforms - blue and white pinstripe shirts, sleeves rolled up and open at the collar; pullovers tied loosely round their necks by the sleeves; leather shoes (but no socks); and even identical leather-strapped watches. Only the trousers differentiate them. One is in cream slacks, the other in salmon pink - practically the badge of the truly wealthy.

 

In the five minutes I'm forced to endure their company, they sit there playing "mine's bigger than yours" by comparing their respective prowess in the gym.

 

"I do 100 squats after my run, you only do 30"

"Yeah, but I do it with 60 kilos on my back"

"Nah, you'd never survive my workout"

"Rubbish, you wouldn't last five minutes doing mine"

 

And so on...

 

Thankfully they leave at Finsbury Park and I can relax - momentarily at least...

 

***

Once you're in a tunnel on the tube, and the view is necessarily limited, what's going on outside the windows has a funny way of almost ceasing to exist. If you register anything at all, it's a kind of blank, black nothingness.

 

It's rather startling then, to see (as I did only a few seconds out of Finsbury Park) a second train coming out of the blackness and running alongside yours for a few seconds. Fleetingly the words "Ghost Train" pass through my mind, before I realise there must be parallel tracks and occasional gaps in the tunnel walls to allow access.

 

I'm quite relieved to be getting off this train at Arsenal.

 

***

On my last, abortive, attempt to see these two stations, I ended up passing through Arsenal station on my way home, having run out of time. I mentioned gazing wistfully at the mural on the platform walls as we went through the station, but I now realise that what, in my memory, was an abstract design in brown and cream blocks, is actually the words "Gillespie Road" picked out in brown bricks on the cream wall.

 

Gillespie Road was the name of the station up until 1932, when it was renamed in honour of the football club that has had its home there ever since. The Woolwich Arsenal Football Club, as the original name suggests, was founded in Woolwich at the Royal Arsenal Factory but moved here in 1913.

 

The platforms at this station are therefore rather confusingly signposted both "Arsenal" and "Gillespie Road"  - that'll fox the tourists...

 

Another peculiarity of this station is that it has no escalators or lifts taking you to the street level from the platforms, but instead a long, sloping passageway. This is partly because the tunnels aren't in fact that deep at this point, but also because the platforms are not directly below the station entrance, but some distance away.

 

The first thing I decide to do on arrival at street level is look for some lunch. Unfortunately I don't have much luck - this must be one of the quietest stations I've been to (although I'm sure it's a very different matter on match days) and there don't appear to be any shops or businesses of any kind nearby, other than a (closed) kiosk by the station entrance.

 

I'm also disappointed with the area itself. Try as I might, this part of Highbury (which is the district in which Arsenal football club has chosen to base itself) resists all my attempts to find anything of more than passing interest.

 

Admittedly, it might yield more if I cared remotely about the team (or indeed the sport itself) but I'm afraid I have about as much interest in football as the abbreviated name of its English governing body would suggest.

 

All I do know about Arsenal is that for most of their history, they played at Highbury Stadium, but a few years ago (2006 in fact) they moved to a brand spanking new home called The Emirates Stadium, just round the corner.

 

I do a circuit of the old stadium, which has now been converted into residential apartments, which surround what used to be the pitch and is now landscaped gardens. When I pull out my camera to take a photo of the old frontage, I'm hailed by a motorcyclist in his late 50s who is just about to get on his bike across the road. He must assume I'm a fellow supporter on a pilgrimage (and I don't trouble to disabuse him of the notion) as he indulges in several minutes of nostalgia - mainly wistful but occasionally tinged with anger - for the good old days of the former stadium.

 

The Old Arsenal Stadium -
The New Arsenal Flats

He won't, he says, set foot in the new stadium, as the ticket prices are apparently exorbitant, and, in any case, it just wouldn't be the same...

 

It seems it's not only football that's a game of two halves - the old and the new seem to be finding it an uneasy match.

 

 

 

 

 

I had hoped (indeed expected) to feel a certain amount of elation, or at least mild triumph, when I left Arsenal, having completed the first major leg of my journey and finally ticked off all the 'A's.

 

Instead, the memory of the motorcycling football fan, heaving a sad and heavy sigh before mounting his bike and wishing me farewell, remains foremost in my mind as I take a photo of the station and make my rather deflated way back down the sloping passageway to the platform, and my tube home.

 

Arsenal - a station of two halves.