'Broadway Baby'

Day 29

 

Ealing Broadway - Ealing Common - Earls Court - East Acton - Eastcote

 

Today has the potential to be both a reasonably easy, and an unusually difficult one.

 

'But how can this possibly be?' you may very well have asked if I hadn't so rudely butted in and asked it for you.

 

Well - it's easy because the first two stations are on 'home turf' so to speak, since I live in Ealing - just a fifteen minute walk from Ealing Broadway station. And the next two stations - Earls Court and East Acton - are hardly a million miles away.

 

On the other hand, the difficulty comes from the fact that it's going to be almost impossible to look on Ealing with anything other than very familiar eyes. I've lived here or hereabouts for over twenty years - how can I pretend I'm visiting for the first time?

 

Yet that's precisely what I need to do if I'm to preserve the sense of exploration I've so far adopted in this blog...

 

***

Ealing Broadway

So - first stop then is Ealing Broadway.

 

It's a large, 9-platform station where trains from both the District and Central Lines terminate, and Ordinary Passenger Trains pass through on their way to and from Paddington, although the entrance itself is fairly unprepossessing.

 

If however you approach the station as I do, from the north of Haven Green, and happen to glance upwards to the roofline of the row of shops and cafés you pass along the way, you might notice the words 'Ealing Broadway Station' more elegantly carved into the stonework.

Former District Line Station entrance

 

This is what remains of the former District Line ticket hall, which was originally separate from the GWR and Central Line building, but which was incorporated into the station that now exists in the 1970s.

I've seen so many examples of original station entrances, their stonework faded perhaps, but with gleaming red tiles or geometrically striking brick facades, that I think it's a real shame Ealing has settled for the dull concrete archway, complete with towering office-block above, rather than redeveloping the more elegant entrance next door.

*** 

Across the road from the station, down a narrow set of steps tucked between a couple of estate agents is a nightclub called the Red Room. Not being a 'clubbing' type myself, I've never set foot through the doors of this establishment, but a few decades ago I might have been rather more keen to do so, given the music I might have heard there.

 

Back in the 1960s, when it was known variously as 'The Ealing Club' or 'The Ealing Jazz Club', this was a live music venue, and saw one or two familiar faces pass though its doors...

 

Among others, Eric Clapton (with Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker of Cream), Rod Stewart, Paul Jones of Manfredd Mann, and a group called 'The Detours' (before they changed their name to 'The Who' all played here. But it is perhaps most famous as being the location of the first meeting of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards with their Rolling Stones co-founder - Brian Jones.

 

Among aficionados, the club is duly celebrated as being the birthplace of British Rhythm And Blues, but Ealing's musical history tour doesn't end there. We'll be coming back to it in a little while but I'll just mention the following few names - Ronnie Wood, Pete Townshend and Freddie Mercury - to whet your appetite.

 

I walk through the town-centre towards the Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre, musing as I do so on the town's changes of fortune in recent years.

 

When I first came to Ealing it seemed a fairly happening place - loads of pubs, a shiny new shopping centre, two cinemas, nightclubs, and a goodly selection of restaurants, cafés and (since I was on a student budget) take-aways.

 

Over the years things gradually changed, especially following the opening of the massive Westfield shopping centre in Shepherds Bush a few years ago. Pubs changed management, décor, clientele and even their names. Businesses closed down, the nightlife became a little rougher round the edges, and 'pound shops' seemed to sprang up everywhere on the main street.

 

But in the last year or so there seems to have been a bit of a revival. Several new - and rather trendy-looking - eateries have opened up, the streets look a little brighter and cleaner, and a few new shop-fronts can be seen in the Shopping Centre. Having gradually become an 'only-if-I-have-to' wanderer around Ealing's streets, the town is beginning to feel once again like a place I can imagine myself wanting to hang out.

*** 

The people who built the shopping centre obviously went in for bronze in a big way.

 

Slippery when drunk...

Many's the drunken student who's tried (unsuccessfully as a rule) to climb up onto the back of the Small Workhorse by Judith Bluck that stands outside Lloyds Bank. And in the open-air 'plaza' at the centre, is a sculpture by welsh artist Robert Thomas called The Family - a duplicate of a piece that stands in Cardiff's Churchill Way.

 

Thomas taught for a while at the art school at Ealing Technical College, but more of that institution later...

 

I have to say that, looking at the family closely for perhaps the first time, they don't look a particularly happy bunch. Not one of them has a smile on their face - and while I'm all for realism in art, I thought the idea of this sort of thing was to brighten up your shopping experience - not remind you of what a nightmare it is dragging bored and fractious kids around while you look for a new washing machine.

The Family - by Robert Thomas
(or 'I want some sweets, mum - pleeeeeeeeease!!')

 

Coming out of the southern entrance to the shopping centre, onto the High Street, and crossing over the road, I come to Walpole Park and the entrance to the former country house that stands within it - Pitzhanger Manor.

Pitzhanger Manor

 

East Face of Pitzhanger Manor

As well as being the former residence of the architect Sir John Soane, and later a public library and now an art gallery, it also happens to be the place where Mrs Nowhere Man and I got married ten years ago, so I have particularly fond memories associated with this place.

The spelling of Pitzhanger can often cause a little confusion, particularly since there is another area of Ealing called Pitshanger [with an 's'] Village - centred around Pitshanger Lane. It has also been, in its time, both 'Pits Hanger' and 'Pitts Hanger'.

 

Both the house and the park surrounding it have had many facelifts over the years, and I spend a happy ten minutes enjoying the greenery.

Walpole Park

 

There's a newly landscaped mini-lake with little wooden bridges, and where there used to be a coffee-shack, there's now what appears to be a small wild-flower meadow.

 

The park also hosts several of Ealing's 'Summer Festivals' which include a Jazz Festival, a Blues Festival, and if you can't make up your mind between those two - a Beer Festival...

 

***

Next landmark for me - and another very familiar one - is the amateur theatre where I first cut my acting teeth. The Questors Theatre, on Mattock Lane, was started in 1929 and for many years performed in a small tin hut. It has grown to one of the largest most-respected amateur theatres in Europe and has a purpose built theatre complex including two auditoria, a bar, café and various rehearsal rooms.

 

The Questors Theatre

The theatre runs a two year acting course - and this is where I first began to consider the possibility of acting as a career. As an amateur theatre of course, the actors, directors, stage crew and front of house are all volunteers, but the whole set-up is as good as any professional theatre.

 

***

I head south from Mattock Lane, down St Mary's Road and stop at possibly Ealing's most famous landmark - the Ealing Film Studios.

Ealing Studios

Best known perhaps for the series of comedy films - The Ladykillers, Kind Hearts And Coronets, Whisky Galore!, Passport To Pimlico and so on - known generically as 'Ealing Comedies' - the studios are the oldest continually working film production base in the world.

 

As well as comedies, the studios produced war films such as The Cruel Sea and today are used for both movies and TV production - the 'downstairs' segments of Downton Abbey are filmed here, for example.

 

The Red Lion
(or 'Studio 6')

 

 

 

 

Across the road from the studios is a pub called the Red Lion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NB not all actors are drunks...
(there's a woman in Basildon
who hardly touches a drop!)

 

 

 

 

A plaque on its front wall explains the proud link it has with the studios - and the beer swilling actors and crew who worked there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further south still, and we come to yet another location familiar and formative to me.

 

The sign on the front says 'University Of West London', but during the four years when I studied languages here in the early nineties it went from being the Ealing College Of Higher Education, via the Polytechnic Of West London, to the Thames Valley University. The discarded acronyms were beginning to resemble the name of a small Welsh village.

ECHEPWLTVUUWL... gogogoch.

 

In fact, prior to my own study here, it had previously had yet another name - Ealing Technical College & School Of Art.

 

And it's here that such luminaries as Freddie Mercury, Pete Townshend and Ronnie Wood studied art and formed the friendships that would lead to their future musical careers.

I don't know what it is, or was, about Ealing that attracted so many future 'celebrites' - but there's clearly something. As well as the aforementioned musicians, it's been the home of various actors, a former Prime Minister, erstwhile labour leader Neil Kinnock, Lord Byron's widow and his daughter Ada Lovelace, the novelist Nevil Shute, tennis star Fred Perry, and many others. Most bizarre of all however must surely be the Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh - who once worked in the kitchens of a pub in West Ealing called The Drayton Court.

I can only hope some of it rubs off on me...
 

***

Moving back northwards and eastwards I head to my next station - Ealing Common.

Ealing Common station

 

Charles Holden's design is at first glance typical of his work - but has one unusual feature. The ticket hall is heptagonal - i.e. seven-sided like a 50p piece - which seems a somewhat frivolous architectural embellishment, but does at least make the passage through the ticket barrier just that little bit more interesting. Assuming you look up that is...

 

The Common after which the station is named is a largely uncluttered patch of green bordered by the Uxbridge Road to the north and the North Circular to the East.

Ealing Common

 

At it's south west corner, on Elm Grove Road, is a smallish church called All Saints.

All Saints Church

 

And on one little corner of the church, up on the wall, is a small green plaque which explains that the church was built in memory, and on the site of the former home, of the former British Prime Minister - Spencer Perceval.

 

Plaque commemorating
Spencer Perceval

You've heard of him right?

 

No?

 

Well, perhaps I'm doing you all a disservice, but I certainly hadn't heard of him until about ten years ago, when someone first told me his story.

 

It should perhaps be shocking enough to fail to recognise the name of a former Prime Minister of your own country, but add to that the fact that he is the only British Prime Minister ever to have been assassinated (so far at least) and one begins to wonder why his name isn't as familiar to us all as John F. Kennedy or Abraham Lincoln.

 

The reasons for his assassination are no doubt many and complex, but the basic facts appear to be as follows.

 

An English merchant, named John Bellingham, was trading in Russia when he was arrested on what appears to be a trumped up charge. He had been accused of owing nearly 5000 roubles, but this seems to have been revenge for his own accusation against someone he believed had deliberately sabotaged their ship to claim on the insurance.

 

He was imprisoned in Russia, despite his appeals to the British Ambassador, and was held for some five years, during which time his business naturally suffered. When he was finally released and returned to England, he began petitioning the government, and in particular the Prime Minister, for compensation.

 

He met with little success. Spencer Perceval apparently responded that he had "no just ground of claim" and despite frequent lobbying of parliament, Bellingham was eventually, and fatefully, told by one official that he should "resort to whatever measures he thought fit".

 

At 5pm on 11th May 1812, Bellingham entered the lobby of the House Of Commons, with two pistols in his coat pockets, and waited. As the Prime Minister crossed the lobby, Bellingham stood, drew his pistols, fired, and then calmly walked back to his seat by the fireplace.

 

He was arrested, of course, but made no attempt to deny his actions. Even at his trial, he seems to have had an unshakeable belief that the jury would see the justification of his actions and release him.

 

Sadly for him, they didn't agree and he was hanged on the 18th May.

 

Interestingly enough, a descendent of his - Henry Bellingham - was elected as a Conservative MP in 1983. He lost his seat in the 1997 election, where one of his opponents, standing for the now-defunct Referendum Party, was a certain Roger Percival - a descendent of the former Prime Minister.

 

***

Leaving Ealing behind, finally, I catch the District Line to Earls Court.

 

Earls Court is also relatively familiar to me, having been the site of a theatre belonging to LAMDA, the drama school I attended. Though the theatre is now a building site, since LAMDA moved to its present home in Barons Court, the area still feels relatively unchanged.

Earls Court Station

 

Is there a Doctor
in the house?

The station has two entrances, as the platforms stretch between the Earls Court Road to the east, and Warwick Road to the west. I leave using the Earls Court Road exit, and stop to take a photo of a whimsical landmark.

 

These days the only thing that springs to mind when most people see a Police Call Box is Doctor Who - and since I'm a fan myself, I don't hold this against anyone.

 

Of course the original purpose was to provide both a quick and easy way to contact the police - via a telephone located in a hinged recess on the outside - and what amounted to a miniature police station on the inside. In these days of mobile phones and Tasers it all seems very quaint...

 

I head north and cross the A4 (or Cromwell Road as it is here) and then turn left into the small street known as Logan Place. This is where LAMDA had its MacOwan Theatre - where I auditioned, was accepted, and later performed as a LAMDA student.

 

A few doors further along is what would be an unobtrusive little doorway, were it not for the hundreds of messages left by admiring fans of the late Freddie Mercury - who once lived here.

Crazy little thing called obsession.

 

Messages to Freddie

Strangely, presumably in an effort to protect them from the elements, the messages have been covered with Perspex sheets. This effectively prevents anyone else from adding to the 'memorial' wall (although some have tried to slip their scraps of paper in at the edges) and seems to defeat the object of what is clearly a 'living tribute'.

 

Back across the A4, and this time heading down Warwick Road, I reach the Earls Court Exhibition Centre - opened in 1887 with the American Exhibition (featuring 'Buffalo Bill' Cody) and rebuilt in its present form in 1937.

Earls Court Exhibition Centre - soon to be demolished

 

The events it hosts (including regulars like the Ideal Home Exhibition) have long been a popular attraction. It was also a venue in both the 1948 and 2012 Olympic Games.

 

Sadly however, despite fierce opposition, it was finally agreed in 2013 that the Exhibition Centre would be demolished to make way for a housing development. A shame I think.

 

I leave Earls Court and head back to Ealing, where I catch the Central Line to East Acton.

 

***

East Acton is certainly one of the more 'tucked away' stations I've visited.

East Acton - can be somewhat tricky to find.

Despite the fact that the Central Line crosses over two main roads at this point - Old Oak Common Lane and DuCane Road - the station is hidden among a labyrinth of quiet residential cul-de-sacs, not two minutes walk from what would surely seem the more logical choices of location.

As well as the two roads I've just mentioned, the station is also just a few minutes walk from the 'Westway' - or 'Western Avenue - section of the A40, and this area has the typical 'next-to-a-motorway' feel. There are shops, a few cafés, a snooker hall, and so on - but the roar of traffic and the accumulated grime make it a rather unattractive location.

It's also the location of perhaps one of the most famous British prisons - Wormwood Scrubs.

H.M. Prison Wormwood Scrubs

The prison takes its name from the area of open common land of the same name (often known simply as 'The Scrubs') and was opened in 1875. It has of course seen its fair share of famous residents - Pete Doherty, Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas, Leslie Grantham and Keith Richards, to name just a few.

I stand in front of the main entrance and take a photo of the prison through the gates. As I'm turning to walk back to the station, the driver of the UPS van that has been delivering to the prison calls to me from his open cab.

'You know that's illegal, don't you - taking pictures of prisons? You can get arrested for that!'

Now, the whole area of photography and the law has become a little confused over the last few years, what with the heightened security since 9/11, so although I don't think the driver's comments are factually correct, it isn't until I get home that I can check them.

Unfortunately I don't get a definitive answer, although my opinion seems to be shared by every website I visit. This is that if I am standing on public land (such as the pavement outside a prison for example) then I can take pictures of anything and everything I see.

In any case, the idea that my photo of the prison gates would provide any particularly useful information - other than the fairly obvious facts that a prison has high walls, big gates, and lots of guards - is, I would say, pretty ridiculous.

***
And finally, I head northwest to Eastcote.

Eastcote

Eastcote - on the Piccadilly and Metropolitan Lines out towards Ruislip - has a very village-y feel. This might have something to do with the fact that the sun has just come out, and the schools have spewed out all their little charges to be met by their mothers, so the cafés and shops are bustling.

Eastcote Village

I stroll up and down enjoying the buzz for a while, and then over a coffee, scan the map for any likely looking landmarks to visit.

A place called 'Highgrove House' catches my eye, and I decide to take a look.

Highgrove House

Not to be confused of course with Prince Charles' Gloucestershire country home (which shares its name) the house was originally built in 1750 and rebuilt (following a fire) in 1881.

Winston Churchill spent his honeymoon here in 1900, and it was for many years a hostel for homeless families.

Times have changed however, as they usually do, and these days it's a block of 'luxury' housing for the wealthy.

And on that note of mild social disappointment, I make my way home. It's been a long old day, but with five out of twenty 'E' stations under my belt in one day, I must say I'm pretty satisfied with it. Let's hope the rest of the 'E's play so nicely...

'Past Lives'

Day 28

 

Denmark Hill - Deptford Bridge - Devons Road - Dollis Hill

 

Bit of a complicated start to the day, as my car's MOT is due and I need to drop it off at the garage near Boston Manor tube station before I start travelling. Also, I've got an audition for a TV commercial later this morning in Soho, which should fit in nicely between the first couple of stations on today's agenda - but will obviously add to the complexity of the route.

 

On top of all that, I'm writing all of this in my native Yorkshire accent, as the TV folk are looking for people with regional accents, and I need to get back into the swing of it tha knows...

 

***

I leave my car at Boston Manor and follow a rather circuitous route to Denmark Hill, involving a Piccadilly Line train to Earl's Court, followed by a District Line train to Victoria and finally an Ordinary Passenger Train to Denmark Hill.

 

The Ordinary Passenger Train, you may remember from previous posts, is not the same as the London Overground. The latter is really nothing more than an overgrown tube train, and its stations all appear on the standard Tube Map. The former is your typical British Intercity railway train, and very few of its stations appear.

 

Both networks pass through Denmark Hill, but to arrive here on the Overground line, I'd have had to add one or more further interchanges to an already complex journey - so the route from Victoria seems to make more sense.

 

Along the way, I pass the familiar chimneys of the former Battersea Power Station, and also the somewhat startling sight of a paddock with a few horses standing nonchalantly about. Not the sort of thing you expect to see in this urban landscape.

 

According to Google Maps, it's the Ebony Horse Club, and offers disadvantaged young people the chance to ride and care for horses, and as a by-product, improve their own life-skills and education.

 

Denmark Hill

A short while later, I arrive at Denmark Hill and, since I had an earlier start than usual this morning, I decide that my first port of call is going to be the station coffee shop for breakfast. The FCB (which stands for Flying Coffee Bean) Artisan Espresso Bar is one of a small independent chain of half a dozen coffee shops in stations across the South East. I'm a little bemused by the fact that the barista takes great pains lovingly creating the artistic flourishes in my latté's frothy surface, only to defeat the object by slapping a white plastic lid over the finished artwork.

 

Still, the coffee is good and the almond croissant is one of the best I've had in a long time (and I'm something of an aficionado).

 

Denmark Hill is a road in Camberwell, which over the years has also given its name to the immediately surrounding area. It used to be called Dulwich Hill but was renamed in honour of Prince George of Denmark, the husband of Queen Anne, who reigned from 1702-1714. Perhaps the most significant event in her reign was the creation of the formal Union between England and Scotland, resulting in the birth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

 

Given current events north of the border, the fact that I'm visiting a place with such a connection at a time when the Union could effectively come to an end, seems somehow significant.

 

William Booth - and his HQ

Immediately opposite the station is the solidly imposing structure of the William Booth Memorial Buildings - also known as the William Booth College.

 

It is the training college and museum of the Salvation Army, which was founded by Booth in 1878, and which grew out of his earlier 'Christian Mission'. Booth and his wife Catherine had been keen evangelists for several years but it was to be the Salvation Army that secured their place in history.

 

Mrs Booth -
the 'Army Mother'

Not merely preaching Christianity, but donning a uniform and conforming to a military-style hierarchy of soldiers and officers (with Booth as the 'General'), the Salvation Army soon spread worldwide. Social welfare, and in particular the problems of alcoholism and poverty, formed a major part of the Army's work - not entirely to everyone else's pleasure. Those members of the working classes who opposed the Salvation Army's denunciation of alcohol, set up their own rival 'Skeleton Army' to march against them. Clashes were frequent and violent.

 

Just up the road from the college is an odd little collection of animal sculptures. Odd, not because they are overly grotesque, but simply because there seems no particular reason for their being here in the first place.

"Run" by Leigh Dyer

 

There's a wolf, and across the footpath, a family of sheep - first a ram...

Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched...?

 

Then a ewe feeding its young lamb, oblivious to the watching predator...

Lamb for dinner anyone...?

 

I search in vain for an informative plaque or notice telling me more about them, but all I find is a tiny square of metal with the title "Run" (which at least makes sense) and the artist's name - Leigh Dyer.

 

There's nothing wrong with the sculpture, in fact I quite like it - I just wish there was a bit more information about it somewhere. Not even the artist's blog, which itself doesn't seem to have been updated since 2009, has any more than a passing reference to it.

 

Around the corner from this puzzling little menagerie is, so the estate agents would have us believe, the narrowest house in London. And it's currently on the market at £350,000.

 

Des. Res.?

87c Grove Lane is a 'one-bedroom house, with garden, high-quality fixtures and fittings'... and is a mere 99 inches wide.

 

 

Here's a picture of it. It's the bit on the left at the end. No, it doesn't include the bit with the bay window... It's just the lower bit stuck on the side. That's it.

 

 

 

And yet despite being the epitome of 'compact and bijou', it still, according to the estate agent's blurb, apparently manages - and I can hardly believe the cheek of this - to offer 'a spacious living area'.

 

Now, ok - at 99 inches (or just over 8 feet) it's big enough, as you can see, to allow for a narrowish door, and a narrowish window, plus a bit of wall to hold them up - but just picture, if you can, the room behind.

 

A sofa would instantly wipe out half the floor space. Add a coffee table and a TV on the opposite wall and the only way through to the kitchen at the back is swinging Tarzan-style from the light-fitting.



On the other hand, if you were to lose the TV remote control you could just lean forward and turn the thing off manually I suppose...

 

***

From Denmark Hill I divert briefly to my audition. It's the usual procedure, and I won't bore you with the details here.

 

Instead - fast forward an hour or so - and you'll find me arriving at Deptford Bridge.

 

***

Deptford Bridge

Deptford Bridge, my next stop, is on the DLR near Deptford Creek just south of Greenwich, and - like Greenwich - has seen it's fair share of maritime and non-maritime history.

 

Not that you'd necessarily know it from wandering its streets. Like so many pockets of London I've encountered, and no doubt will encounter on this journey, it's all looking a little dilapidated.



The station itself is named after the short stretch of the A2 of the same name. This runs between New Cross Road to the West and Blackheath Road to the East, and historically was the site of the decisive battle that put an end to the Cornish Rebellion of 1497.

 

The good folk of Cornwall took exception to the war-taxes imposed upon them by King Henry VII to finance his campaign against Scotland (before, the time of Queen Anne's Union - obviously) and some 15,000 of them, led by a blacksmith named Michael Joseph, marched to London, via Devon and Surrey.

 

Eventually, having reached Blackheath, they were engaged by the King's troops, and - partly through being outnumbered, and partly through lack of coordination - they were roundly trounced and eventually surrendered. The ringleaders were, of course, executed.

 

None of this is evident here today of course - it's just a collection of crumbling brickwork and peeling paint.

 

However, the location of another historical event - or at least, it's aftermath - does still survive, and it's here I'm headed after leaving the station.

 

The event in question was the death of the Elizabethan playwright and contemporary of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe. He was killed, according to legend, in a tavern brawl over a disputed bar bill, and St Nicholas Church, which lies some way to the north of the station, is where his body was buried.

St Nicholas Church

 

Very welcoming, I'm sure 

Unfortunately he was buried in an unmarked grave, but the gates to the churchyard seem appropriately macabre for the author of Doctor Faustus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alas, poor Marlowe...

 

 

I wander round the peaceful churchyard, but with little else to guide me I'm left with nothing but my imagination to mentally locate the mortal remains of the great man somewhere beneath the neatly trimmed grass.

 

 

 

 

Somewhere under here perhaps?

 

 

***

Devons Road is another DLR station, located in another rather shabby part of London - but sadly without the redeeming features of historical rebellions or literary deaths to appeal to the casual visitor.

Devons Road

 

There is history here of course - as there is everywhere, if you dig deep enough - and in this case, it's related to the pub that stands just a short distance along from the station.

 

The Widow's Son was built in the early 19th Century and is now a Grade II Listed Building.

The Widow's Son - don't complain about the buns being stale whatever you do...

 

 

It is also the location for a quaint little tradition that takes place every year on Good Friday. Legend has it that the old widow whose house once stood here, had a son who went off to fight in the Napoleonic Wars. He wrote to her often, like a dutiful son should, promising her he would be back home for Easter - and asking her to make sure she had baked some of her lovely Hot Cross Buns for his return.

 

Of course, he never did return, but the widow continued to bake him a fresh Hot Cross Bun every Good Friday, presumably on the off chance that he would be a bit peckish if he ever did come home.

 

After her death, the people entering her house were surprised to find a huge collection of stale and untasted Hot Cross Buns hanging from the ceiling in a net.

 

Of course, it's probably all a load of old codswallop, but this hasn't stopped the tradition being continued by the pub - to the extent that every year a sailor from the Royal Navy has the rather dubious honour of placing a fresh bun into the net that now hangs above the bar.

 

It's a diverting tale, but not enough to keep me on Devons road for more than ten minutes or so - so it's off to the final stop today: Dollis Hill.

 

***

Ah, Dollis Hill...

 

Dollis Hill

I always feel a bit sorry for the last station of the day, as I'm aware that tiredness and wanting to get home and put the kettle on can often skew my judgement and leave me with not very much to say about them.

 

It's particularly the case when what would, under any other circumstances, be a perfectly pleasant place to wander about - with neatly decorated houses on leafy tree-lined streets leading to what seems to be a popular bit of parkland - gets labelled in my mind as either 'sleepy' or 'dull', simply because it's a bit quiet.

 

The station, which is on the Jubilee Line, sits between Burnley Road to the north, and Chapter Road to the south and the platforms are like a little desert island surrounded by a sea of railway tracks. There are more tracks than usual here because the stretch between Finchley Road and Wembley Park is also shared by the Metropolitan Line, but the trains on that Line don't stop at all between those two stations, and therefore pass by on the outer tracks at high speed.

 

A narrow passageway leads to Burnley Road, and a couple of shops and cafés sit serenely on the quiet street corners. A car service station has its shuttered doors wide open, but no sounds of mechanical labour emanate from within. It's all very peaceful, and... dammit - sleepy!

 

I walk along one of the roads heading north from Burnley Road to the park I mentioned earlier. This is called Gladstone Park, after the Victorian Prime Minister, who was a regular visitor to the country house that once stood at the northern end of the park. The house is no longer here, having been left derelict for many years, largely destroyed by fire, and eventually demolished.

Gladstone Park - green and pleasant land

 

The park however is a pleasant spot, with the usual collection of dog walkers and pushchair-wielding mothers, and I enjoy a brief stroll along its pathways. Eventually though, I decide I've seen enough, and make my way back to the station.

 

It's been a funny day. A day of peeling back the cracked and flaky surface and revealing the turbulent history beneath. Murder, rebellion, religion, Cornish Peasants, Victorian Prime Ministers and Hot Cross Buns have all played their part. But at the end of the day, all I really want is to put my feet up with a cup of tea...

 

***

Still, I shouldn't be too downbeat about it, after all the one thing Dollis Hill can claim, which no other station can, is that it's the last station listed under the letter 'D'. I've finished another letter! The 'D's are d-d-d-done!

 

BOOM!!!

 

(As the young people say.)

 

 

'These Foolish Things'

Day 27

Dagenham East - Dagenham Heathway - Dalston Junction - Dalston Kingsland - Debden

After another week off (a long weekend in Prague with Mrs Nowhere Man) I'm back on track (pun very much intended) and attacking the 'D's with a vengeance.

There are just nine of them in total, and with a bit of luck I hope to have crossed off over half of them by the end of today.

***

It's a hell of a long old trek to Dagenham from Ealing. While the District Line takes me directly from the one to the other, it does so at its own rather sedate pace, and the journey takes a long time.

Correction:

It takes a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time...

It's nearly two hours after setting off that I finally arrive at Dagenham East, having passed through central London and out the other side - emerging into the daylight around about West Ham.

The overriding impression of this side of London is of tower blocks and graffiti. There don't seem to be many pockets of green to soften the landscape and although many of the tower blocks look relatively modern, the graffiti and the detritus left to rust by the side of the tracks lends it all an air of dilapidation.

I pass a couple of familiar sights along the way - the tube stations at Bow Road and Becontree and the Three Mills at Bromley-by-Bow - but by the time I arrive at Dagenham East I'm not exactly feeling optimistic about what I'll find there.

I know only two things about Dagenham - one is that Ford motor cars have had a manufacturing plant here since the 1930s (although it now only produces engines, rather than entire cars) and the other is that it was the birthplace of Dudley Moore, who with Peter Cook immortalised the name of the place in the series of 'philosophical' discussions which became known as the 'Dagenham Dialogues'.

I'll come back to both Ford and Pete and Dud in a little while, but first my initial impression on exiting the station.

Dagenham East

Well, unfortunately it seems my fears were well founded.

Even allowing for the grey clouds louring above, the whole place seems predominantly grey and industrial. I've had this experience in other places of course, and perhaps time has blurred my memory of them, but Dagenham seems to be the drabbest place I've visited so far.

I wander up the main road (passing row upon row of identically nondescript terraces and several boarded up or be-shuttered shops) but within minutes I'm resigned to the fact that this is as good as it gets.

The only flicker of amusement I get - and which eventually provides the theme for today's blog - is from a couple of the shops (also closed and shuttered) that stand forlornly a little way up from the station. Both have chosen to adopt (in something of a British Tradition) a pun-inspired name for their businesses. This sort of mild tomfoolery is something I've come to appreciate about our high streets, particularly since the institution was celebrated so enthusiastically by the comedian Dave Gorman in his erstwhile Sunday morning radio show on Absolute Radio.

The show, which can still be downloaded in podcast form (and I urge you to do so here or on iTunes), was instrumental in collecting together a huge number of punny shop names onto the fictional Pun Street. Some of the best include a dog grooming parlour called "Indiana Bones And The Temple Of Groom", a painter and decorator called "Luther Van Gloss" and a frozen haulage specialist called "Super-Calibre Frigo-Logistic Import-Export Davis".

Other streets were gradually added, such as Creepy Close (which housed a day-nursery called "Sticky Fingers"), Fail Lane (a Chinese take-away called "The Roman Empire" ?!), and Vain Parade (more of which anon...)

I've always liked a good pun (if that's not a contradiction in terms) and while not the best, the two I see in Dagenham this morning do at least serve to lift my mood just a little.

The first - actually a café - is called "The Girl Of Sandwich" and is not immediately obvious perhaps, although I think most people have heard of the Earl Of Sandwich and his apocryphal invention of the bread-based snack. The second is far more straightforward - an Ironing and Dry Cleaning business called simply: "Hot Pants".

***

I toy briefly with the idea of heading south towards the river, where I gather the Ford motor plant is located, but I think I've had enough grey industrial landscape for one morning, and I still have another station in Dagenham to visit.

However, for your information, the Dagenham plant was opened in 1931 and produced various models including Cortinas, Anglias, Escorts and Fiestas up until the early 2000s.

Increased production in other plants in Europe meant that the plant gradually became less viable until it was decided that it would only produce engines rather than full vehicles, and this is what it has done since 2002.

***

I give up on Dagenham East, and travel the one stop back westwards to Dagenham Heathway, hoping for a little more colour and interest.

Dagenham Heathway

And - for a brief moment - I find it. Well - colour anyway...

Dagenham Library - I suspect they have many copies of "50 Shades Of Grey"...

The library development also contains 82 flats, each with a coloured glass-enclosed balcony. It certainly livens up an otherwise average street corner, but the rest of the Heathway, which is the main shopping street here, is, I'm afraid, unable to raise my enthusiasm level for the place.

There are (paintwork peeling and graffiti covered of course) several pawn-brokers, charity shops, ethnic eateries and nail salons, but nothing which tempts me in. I can't somehow see Messrs Pete and Dud feeling comfortable sipping a cosy beer together in any of the local establishments, bemoaning the attentions of 'bloody Greta Garbo' or pondering the mysteries of film-stars' 'busty substances'. I decide to cut my losses and head on to Dalston and, hopefully, more salubrious surroundings.

***

I arrive at Dalston Junction (on the Overground) at 1.30 and immediately decide to stop at a venue very familiar to me, for a spot of lunch.

Dalston Junction

Although not primarily known as a place to eat, the Arcola Theatre (and in particular its bar) does a good range of food and I settle down with a hefty cheese and chutney sandwich and write up my notes on the day so far.

Arcola Theatre

The Arcola was my home for a short time back in January when I took part in a Rehearsed Reading of a new play here, so I know this place relatively well, but in fact I first appeared at the Arcola in its previous home a little way up the road. It started life in 2000 in a former textile factory on Arcola Street, but moved to its present (and more pleasant) location on Ashwin Street in 2011.

The theatre stages many plays by both new and established writers, often with a social or political bent, and is highly respected within the industry.

It's also a very relaxed place to have lunch and shake off the rather glum mood that settled on me in Dagenham.

Superficially, Dalston might be said to have much in common with Dagenham. Both have a widely multi-cultural demographic and the shops, cafés, market-stalls and mobile phone shops I see here are no more 'up-market' than the ones in Dagenham. And yet, there's a huge difference in the feel of the place. Whereas Dagenham felt oppressive and unwelcoming, there's a vibrancy here that reminds me of places like Brixton and Camden.

It's also the home of not one, but two establishments that have appeared on the aforementioned Dave Gorman show, coming up for consideration before the Pun Street Planning Committee.

The first of them is a halal butcher's shop called PAK Butchers. If you don't immediately see the pun, it may be that not being a devotee of the soap opera Eastenders the name 'Pat Butcher' means nothing to you. Or, more likely given that there's also a PAK's Hair and Cosmetic Centre just round the corner from the butcher's, it isn't actually a pun at all.

Punintenional?

This, unfortunately, was one of the limitations of the show. It relied on the general public (who sent in the names of the businesses they spotted around the world) to exercise rigorous scrutiny, which sadly they often failed to do.

PAK Butchers was considered by the planning committee, and if memory serves, was granted tenure very briefly on Pun Street before being ousted by what was generally agreed to be the far superior pun-named halal butcher's called "Halal: Is It Meat You're Looking For?"

Dalston Kingsland - Sorry, can't stop, I've got puns to find...

Passing Dalston Kingsland, the second of my two stations here, I continue my punny pilgrimage through the streets of Dalston, heading west along St Jude Street to an inconspicuous little coffee shop with a bit of an unusual name.

Tina, I salute you too...

While it clearly isn't a pun, the apparent overweening vanity of the name inspired Mister Gorman and his co-hosts to create an entirely new street - Vain Parade - on which to house it.

Assuming (as the Pun Street Planning Committee did) the eponymous owner of the shop, Tina, to have a rather inflated sense of her own importance (given that she had decided to enshrine these sentiments in the name of her coffee shop), it seemed a perfect inaugural candidate for Vain Parade.

Naturally keen to meet this paradigm of self-promotion I enter the coffee shop expectantly. Shelves full of purchasable plastic travel mugs emblazoned with the phrase 'Tina, we salute you' seem to confirm my expectations - this woman has her own merchandise for heaven's sake!

However, I'm sorry to report that though they do make a fine cup of coffee, there's sadly no Queen Bee preening herself on a throne behind the counter while her minions scurry around serving the customers, pausing every so often to salute their mistress in the manner demanded.

Tina, by J.H. Lynch

The chap behind the counter tells me that the 'Tina' in question is the subject of a painting (a copy of which hangs on the wall of the coffee shop) by an artist called J. H. Lynch. It's the sort of painting popular in the sixties and seventies - a bit like the 'Green Lady' by Vladimir Tretchikoff - which provided suburban households with an alternative wall decoration to the ubiquitous flying ducks.

It's a bit kitsch and a bit retro and a bit quirky - and therefore much like many of the coffee shops you'd find in neighbouring Islington.

Sadly, like PAK Butchers, it seems this place has also managed to find its way past the Pun Street Planning Committee under false pretences...

***

I walk back along St Jude Street and along Gillett Street (past the funky looking Vortex Jazz Club) and finally back to Dalston Kingsland Station. It's time to move on, and I catch the Overground to Stratford, and from there head out towards the far reaches of the Central Line - and Debden.

***

Debden station, like many of the more suburban stations, is tucked away out of sight down a narrow cul-de-sac. It's as if the locals don't like to admit that they're umbilically linked to the rest of the Capital and seek to conceal the station from view - if you can't find it, you can't use it...

Debden

At the end of this cul-de-sac the main road running north-south is Chigwell Lane, which to the south meets the M11, and to the north becomes Rectory Lane. It's along Rectory Lane that I head first - in search of another link to the acting profession - the East 15 Acting School.

Perceptive readers may perhaps have noticed that Debden, which is a suburb of Loughton in Essex, is not actually in the E15 postal area, despite the school's name. It is in fact in IG10 and the school takes its name from the fact that it was heavily influenced by the work of Joan Littlewood and her company the Theatre Workshop. This was based at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, which did have the E15 post-code.

The school is well-respected and has some very familiar names among its alumni, such as Alison Steadman, Marc Warren and Gwen Taylor.

East 15 Acting School



It's tucked away down a tree-lined and cctv-monitored driveway so I only venture far enough to get a photo of the front of the building before heading back down Rectory Lane, and then turning left onto The Broadway - Debden's main shopping street.

Among the usual collection of high street shops I spot the final pun of the day - a hairdresser's (who always seem keen to go down the punning route) called "Blow Your Top". It isn't the best or funniest pun I've ever heard, but it's functional - and having had my illusions shattered by some of the other establishments I've encountered today, I'm glad to end on a bit of genuine, honest-to-goodness, naff English word-play.

A little further along the street, on a couple of trestle tables set up on the pavement, I'm surprised to see a stall selling the sort of paraphernalia I'd expect to see on a Crimewatch report about a drug bust.

Proudly displayed in little Tupperware boxes are various brands of cigarette papers, 'roaches', small sealable plastic bags of various capacities, lighters, mini-scales and other accessories. I keep looking round, expecting to hear the scream of sirens and the squeal of brakes as half a dozen police cars surround the stall and officers pin the trader to the floor with shouts of "You're bleedin' nicked me old beauty!" But nothing happens.

I'm sure the owner of the stall would claim, no doubt correctly, that everything he sells can be used quite innocently by the everyday smoker. Perhaps, but it still looks decidedly dodgy to me.

But that's about it for Debden. The other shops on the high street are nothing exciting, and after stopping to buy a bottle of coke, I head back to the station - happy at least to have ticked off five out of the nine stations under the letter 'D' and well on my way to completing another section of my journey.

Until next time... Toodle-pip!