'Driving In My Car'

Day 15

 

Burnt Oak - Bushey

 

A break from the norm today, as for a number of practical and geographical reasons I decide to travel to my final two 'B' destinations by car.

 

"Cheat! Foul! Fraud! Humbug!"

 

Well - no, not really. I never said I would travel exclusively on the tube network. In fact it would have been impractical, if not actually impossible to do so - hence the several occasions already on this journey when I have made use of both buses and my own two feet. The car is just another mode of transport, and today at least, saves me a good two hours travelling time. Not to use it would be to impose a needlessly arbitrary rule on myself - and lord knows there are enough of those on this project already.

 

Which is why this morning I find myself driving round the North Circular to the Edgware Road (to within a short distance of where I recently stood on a footbridge overlooking the traffic at Brent Cross) and thence northwards to Burnt Oak.

 

***

I have to say that my first impression of the place (and indeed my second, third and all subsequent impressions) is not a good one.

 

Burnt Oak - I came, I saw, I didn't stay long...

The station lies at the bottom of a hill - a stretch of Watling Avenue - which consists of a multitude of shops and other businesses which, without exception, look run-down and shabby. Chinese, Afro-Caribbean, Arabic, Asian, Irish - the variety of food and drink available is impressive, even if the shabbiness of the shops themselves is less than inviting.

 

The main claim to fame this street seems to have is that it is the location of the very first Tesco store. Although the founder, Jack Cohen, had been a market trader for some time, and had created the 'Tesco' name in 1924 (using the initials of a tea supplier - T.E. Stockwell - together with the first two letters of his own surname) the first store actually opened here in 1931. The site is now a Superdrug, and there is no apparent indication of its historical significance.

 

I walk up and down both sides of the street, but without even the normally ubiquitous Starbucks or Costa to stop at, I decide to head back to my car. I do pay a visit to the Tesco store that now stands on Burnt Oak Broadway, to pick up a drink and a bite to eat - but that too is singularly bereft of any hint of the company's history, and seems to fit in with the general air of 'can't be bothered' that pervades the area.

 

I sit in my car, writing my notes and sipping from my bottle of coke - wondering how it is that some places seem to gradually, but inexorably, decompose, while others are continually rejuvenated. Is it the people who live there? The local authorities? The location of the place? Or is it a matter of history? And can the process be reversed?

 

In any case, there's nothing else for me here - so I plug in the SatNav and head over to Bushey.

 

***

Bushey Station is not, annoyingly, in Bushey at all, but in next door Oxhey. This causes a minor disagreement between me and my SatNav, but after a frank exchange of views (and the mediation of the nice Mr Google and his map) we settle our differences and I "perform a U-turn when possible". Five minutes later I'm parking a few streets away from the station.

 

Bushey - it's not in Bushey.

The station - originally called 'Bushey & Oxhey', since it serves both towns - was renamed in the seventies, for reasons that have been lost in the mists of time. There is a story that, during the war, when many signposts were painted out so as not to be of any help to a potential invading force, the people responsible for doing so here were unfortunately rather too literally minded. Ordered to 'paint out the names of the station', they took this to mean just the words 'Bushey' and 'Oxhey' and not  the '&' symbol between them. The station apparently therefore became known as Ampersand Railway Station - and had the signpost to prove it.

 

Whether the story is true or not (and the only authority for it is Wikipedia - so you can make your own minds up about that) it's an amusing idea, and certainly no sillier than anything else the British mentality has been capable of in its rigid pursuit of pedantry.

 

Having taken a photo of the station, I wander for a few minutes in the various directions available to me, but find nothing much here at all. Oxhey seems to have little raison d'être other than as the location (confusing as it may be) of a station that doesn't even bear the same name.

 



Clock Tower Weather-Vane

Bushey itself lies to the East of Oxhey (and the station) - although this seems to be designated 'West' on the weather-vane sitting atop the station clock  (perhaps there's still a desire to confuse any potential invading hordes). So, giving up on Oxhey, I get back into my car and drive the five minutes down the road to Bushey.

 

A more marked difference between this town and Burnt Oak is difficult to imagine. Where Burnt Oak was grotty, Bushey is genteel. Instead of Burnt Oak's huge ethnic diversity, Bushey is firmly and uncompromisingly white middle-class. If Burnt Oak is-in-your-face, Bushey is in-your-neatly-trimmed-back garden.

I wander along the High Street, past trinket shops, coffee shops, estate agents, a church, and a pretty little cottage that bears a plaque informing me that it was the first Metropolitan Police station in the town. I can imagine the cheery village bobby cycling back home from a hard day's ticking off cheeky youngsters for scrumping apples...

I lunch at the Red Lion, with a smattering of locals, and over a sandwich and a pint, read up on the area and its history.

As well as being the birthplace of (among others) Simon Le Bon and Michael Portillo, and the place where George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley went to school together before forming Wham, Bushey has featured in several films and TV programmes, including Monty Python, Grange Hill, and Little Britain.


St James's Church (and duck pond) - Little Britain indeed...

Nearby Elstree Studios has also used several local buildings as locations in films such as Monty Python's Meaning Of Life, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade and the Harry Potter movies. In fact, Bushey is so much the epitome of a (these days largely non-existent) picture post-card England, that it could easily be mistaken a for a film-set.

Is this art imitating life, or the other way round, I wonder...?

Leaving such philosophical questions behind me, I say goodbye to Bushey, and (finally!) to the letter 'B' - and, allowing myself a mild sense of achievement for crossing another letter off the list, I begin to look forward the next, even longer, leg of my journey.