Beneath the Grave – Ghosts of the Central Line

Good evening, fright-fans, it is I, Tom, your extravagantly-cleavaged Master of the Dark [picture inadmissable]. As Halloween approaches with the inevitability of death, I thought an appropriately-themed entry might be in order. As last year’s entry on the ghosts haunting the Northern Line was so popular, I figured I might continue the theme with the hauntings on the old Central London Railway or, as the kids call it nowadays, the Central Line. Mind the gap…

Northolt

You’ve all heard of the Beast of Bodmin, but did you know there was a Beast of Northolt? In the early 1990s, there were several sightings of a big cat alongside the Central Line between Northolt and Greenford. Accounts vary as to the species of cat, although most seem to settle on “puma.” Whence it came and how it got to Northolt without being noticed remain to be explained.

Marble Arch

If you should find yourself leaving Marble Arch late at night, when the station is quiet, you may find yourself being followed up the escalator. Several people have reported a sinister man in 1940s clothing who they sense close behind them on the escalator and see out of the corner of their eye. Upon turning around completely, the man vanishes. Again, no explanation has been offered as to who this restless spirit might be.

British Museum

Perhaps the most unlikely ghost out of the many on the Underground was sighted at this now-closed station. The ghost would, so the story goes, appear at one end of the platform and walk to the other, wailing mournfully. What marked this particular spectre out, however, was the fact that he was dressed in the clobber of an Ancient Egyptian. Being the intelligent and probably very sexy reader that you are, you’ve no doubt figured out why there might be an Ancient Egyptian haunting British Museum Station. To be more specific, the Egyptian is said to have some sort of link to the so-called Unlucky Mummy (pictured right), a sarcophagus lid in the Museum that is said to be cursed. This is just one of many legends attached to it, the most interesting of which says that it was responsible for sinking the Titanic.

Even bearing in mind that I’m a sceptic, I’m inclined to take this one with a pinch of salt. The accounts are lacking in detail and only emerged shortly before the station was closed down. I’m inclined to believe it was the invention of a journalist looking for a spooky story. Nevertheless, the story persists, albeit with the ghost now haunting Holborn. Why Holborn and not the closer Russell Square or Tottenham Court Road stations? It is a mystery.

Chancery Lane

Chancery Lane has plenty of secrets of its own, but in the tunnels between here and Holborn, there’s said to be one more surprise. During the 1960s,drivers stopping at signals here would often be freaked out by the appearance of a man standing next to them in the cab. Apparently some sort of fellow crewman, he would be staring straight ahead, and would vanish as soon as the train pulled away.

Bank

I covered the manife-stations (see what I did there) at this stop in last year’s entry, but I thought I’d mention that it’s a haunted station on the Central Line for those pedants who’ll leave comments if I don’t.

Liverpool Street

This terminus is built on the site of a plague pit and one of the several incarnations of the notorious Bedlam. The building of this and neighbouring Broad Street Station involved the disturbance of many final resting places, so really it would be surprising if there were no hauntings here. Sure enough, Liverpool Street and environs are said to be haunted by the ghastly screams of a woman.

The most popular suggestion for the screamer is one Rebecca Griffiths, an inmate at Bedlam in the late 18th century whose illness included a compulsive need to hold on to a particular coin. Upon her death, one of the staff (who were not known for their selflessness) stole it from her lifeless fingers and Rebecca’s inconsolable spirit searches for it still.

More recently, in 2000, the Line Controller sighted a man in white overalls in the tunnels who should not have been there. He sent the Station Supervisor to investigate, who found nothing. What made this particularly peculiar was that the Supervisor found no man down there – even though the Controller could see the man on the CCTV screen right next to him.

Bethnal Green

I’ll finish with the Easternmost of the haunted Central Line stations that I’m aware of, and one of the most frightening hauntings. This one is traceable to a specific incident that took place on 3rd March 1943. As often happened in the East End at that time, when the air raid siren sounded, the local people made for the Tube station. Unfortunately, on this night it had been decided to carry out a test-firing of an experimental new type of rocket in nearby Victoria Park. Panicked by what sounded like a very nearby explosion, the crowds surged forward. A woman on the stairs lost her footing and fell, taking several others with her and causing further panic, which in turn worsened the stampede and the crush inside the station. 173 people were killed in the disaster, crushed or asphyxiated. For reasons of morale, the Bethnal Green incident was covered up until 1946.

From 1981 onwards, however, there were reports of an extremely unnerving nature from the station. Staff working late at night spoke of hearing screams – at first one or two, then more and more, clearly identifiable as women and children. These screams would go on for up to fifteen minutes before dying down.

There you have it, readers. I hope you enjoy your Halloween this year and whatever you do, don’t have nightmares…

Fairies, schizophrenia and other distractions

The other day I found myself at a loose end and so, as I’d been meaning to do for quite some time, I went with Hurricane Jack to the Richard Dadd exhibition at Orleans House in Twickenham, which as it happened was in its final week.

Richard Dadd is primarily famous for two things – fairy paintings and being insane. Outsider art, particularly that produced by the mentally ill, holds a strange fascination for me. I suppose it’s because art, perhaps more effectively than any other form of expression, offers a view into the mind. Art is heavily reliant on emotion and imagination, and as such is an ideal gauge of the mind. I’m not the first one to suggest this, of course, and art therapy is these days a popular form of psychiatric treatment.

In the 19th century, of course, there was no such thing as art therapy. Hell, there was hardly anything you’d even call therapy in the modern sense. However, during Richard Dadd’s periods in Bedlam and Broadmoor, he produced a number of works of art that are these days regarded as classics of outsider art – although given that he was an established and respected mainstream painter, it’s debatable whether you could really call him an “outsider artist.”

Come Unto These Yellow Sands, 1842

I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. Dadd was born in 1817 and, from a young age, was considered a highly talented artist. A number of his works were put on show at the Royal Academy and he received several commissions from wealthy patrons. Unfortunately, he also exhibited a number of unusual personality traits which were amplified during a trip to the Middle East. He became violent and deluded, hearing voices and developing the belief that he was descended from Osiris and obliged to fight the Devil. The Devil, he believed, was capable of taking human form, and one of the forms he took was that of Dadd’s own father. Therefore, on 28th August 1843, he murdered his father and fled to France. He was arrested and put in Bedlam. Among his personal effects were a number of sketches of friends and family members with their throats cut and a list of people who he felt had to die. The general consensus now seems to be that he was afflicted with paranoid schizophrenia.

The Fairy Feller's Masterstroke, 1855-64

During his period in Bedlam he produced his most famous works, including the intricate fairy painting, The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke. This is commonly regarded as his masterpiece, inspiring a song by Queen and the Terry Pratchett novel The Wee Free Men. The intense detail in this and his other fairy paintings tends to be seen as a sign of an obsessive mind (although you might also argue that it’s a sign of someone with a lot of time and very little to do, but then, I’m not an art critic or therapist).

The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke wasn’t in the exhibition, nor were any of Dadd’s other fairy paintings. Actually, the exhibition seemed almost apologetic about this fact. I think this was unnecessary – it’s very often the case with artists, particularly notorious ones, that a particular work or type of work they did has been allowed to eclipse other, equally worthy works.

Sketch to Illustrate the Passions: Agony – Raving Madness

So what we have in this exhibition is, basically, The Rest. A selection of Dadd’s art from before his arrest and throughout his time at Bedlam and Broadmoor. Quite a lot of it is, I’ll be honest, rather pretty. If you didn’t know its origins, you wouldn’t be able to tell it was the work of a schizophrenic. I rather liked his stained glass work. However, there were a number of works seemingly produced as a deliberate expression of his mental state – the evocative “Passions” series stood out for me, which features allegorical figures representing various negative qualities. Some of these appear to have been painted from life, including a couple of representations of the architecture of Bedlam.

 

I wouldn’t have described the exhibition as what I was expecting from a Richard Dadd show, and that actually doesn’t bother me at all. I came away with what I felt was a fuller understanding of a very complex artist. Frankly, the chap deserves better than to be known simply as a mad artist.

 

Oh hey, look at this

Izzi has a new blog devoted to art. Take a look at it, do.

Fortissimo

A friend of mine recently introduced me to the strange world of Forteana, suggesting that it was the sort of thing that would probably appeal to me. She was right in this belief – in fact, I’d come across the work of Mr Charles Fort before. I’d often passed the house in Bloomsbury where he lived in the 1920s while studying at the British Library (it’s on Marchmont Street, marked with a silver plaque, if you’re interested). I’d looked into the work of this fellow, and discovered that, unconsciously, I was already familiar with it.

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by weirdness – ghosts, alien abductions, monsters in lakes, the lot. Believed in most of it, too. It was only when I got a bit older, developed the ability to think critically and learnt the difference between “true” and “things you really want to be true” that I developed that healthy level of scepticism that has prevented me from, e.g., giving heinous amounts of money to a homeopath every time I get the sniffles.

Charles H Fort is legendary in the circles that take an interest in strange phenomena – in fact, he more-or-less invented the concept of paranormal studies (or Forteana, as such studies are often called in tribute to the man). It may come as little surprise to sceptics among you to learn that he was not a scientist himself – in fact, he was a writer by profession. As anyone who’s read Dianetics can tell you, few things are more irritating than a writer who acts like he has scientific expertise without any actual academic study.

However, he did read widely. From a young age he took a great deal of interest in science. Like Yr. Humble Chronicler, he would appear to have been a science groupie rather than an actual scientist. He was born in New York in 1874 and, from a fairly young age, showed an independent streak (which I think is a polite way of saying “obstinate little bugger”).

His interest in science, combined with his rebellious tendencies,logically led him to take an interest in anomalies that science couldn’t explain. Anything weird and paranormal seems to have entered this field of interest, from spontaneous human combustion to rains of fish to UFOs. The only thing uniting his collection of oddities was the fact that science did not have a definitive explanation for them.

This, disciples of Fort are keen to emphasise, was the point of his work – that science does not have all the answers, and we shouldn’t mindlessly accept the opinion of the scientific establishment. This, I think, is a very fair point. After all, some of the greatest scientific discoveries in history have come from going against what is generally accepted as truth. It used to be accepted that the sun revolved around the earth and that ants have eight legs, but now we know better. Similarly, what we now consider to be a scientific truth may tomorrow be equally discredited.

Unfortunately, it’s here that Fort’s lack of a scientific background makes itself evident. The trouble is that, for all his impish mischief, Fort’s assembly of strange phenomena doesn’t really say anything to the scientific establishment that the scientific establishment doesn’t already know. No legitimate scientist would claim to have absolutely all the answers. Even theories that are pretty well established are constantly being refined and modified as new evidence comes in – consider the effect that the discovery of DNA had on studies of evolution, for instance.

In fact, I’d argue that a lot of the time, it’s the Forteans themselves who more closely fulfil the stereotype of the stubborn and short-sighted student of science. There is a tendency among believers in paranormal phenomena to say “If not X then Y,”  e.g. “If those lights in the sky are not any of these things, they must be alien spacecraft!” That is to say, they have no evidence specifically for their conclusions and don’t admit to the possibility that there may be yet another explanation that hasn’t been considered. This, to me, is just as narrow-minded as outright denying the existence of flying saucers, sea serpents, the Duck Beast of Wincanton &c, &c.

One wonders how seriously Fort himself intended his theories to be taken. His sources were often very dubious, he seems to have simply taken every record of weirdness at face value with no discrimination between scientific studies and anecdotal evidence. Some of his followers view him as a genius shining a light on the falsehoods of the scientific establishment, others view him as a Swiftian satirist out to troll everyone. Perhaps the final word on the matter should come from the man himself.

My own notion is that it is very unsportsmanlike to ever mention fraud. Accept everything. Then explain it your own way.

Make of that what you will.

The Beasts with Two Backs

Saturday was a busy, busy day. It started when I woke up in bed with two women and an empty champagne bottle. However, because this is the real world, the reason I was in bed with two women was because we’d passed out watching Moulin Rouge. The champagne is more complicated, and remind me to tell you about it some time.

Rashly, I had agreed to meet the Da and the Sis in London for lunch, and so I had to stagger back from Fulwell to Colliers Wood to get myself into some sort of respectable state. On the way, I decided that mobile phones should be banned on buses, purely because when you have a pounding headache and rising nausea, there is little that is more annoying than a guy sitting directly behind you, babbling non-stop for the entire journey. Well, actually, screaming kids are more annoying. There was one of those, too.

I had hoped a shower, a snooze and some lunch would take care of the hangover. Even a hair of the dog at the Princess Louise in Holborn didn’t help. This was particularly lame, as I was supposed to be meeting some of my theatrical chums at the Natural History Museum.

Our destination was the Sexual Nature exhibition, and after half an hour in line in the sun (with a hangover, I don’t think I mentioned that before) we were in. The exhibition, if you haven’t seen it, is basically devoted to the subject of reproduction in the animal kingdom. Reproduction is a hugely important part of life – if you go with Richard Dawkins’ Selfish Gene theory, it’s basically the meaning of life. But what makes this such an interesting exhibition is the incredible variety of it out there.

The exhibition covers a very wide area, from mating displays to pheromonesto  The Deed Itself to birth and those early days of life. Each section in turn covers a huge and incredible variety. Take the seahorse, where the males are the ones who give birth. Or ducks, in which the females have evolutionary strategies to deal with gang rape. Or the angler fish, for whom the males are so much smaller than the females that scientists initially thought they were parasites (any radical feminists in the readership?).

Isabella Rossellini is a strange woman.

Although such a broad topic is by necessity going to be unable to cover any individual topic in great depth, it certainly brought home the incredible variation among the many, many species with which we share the planet. We were particularly taken by the section on scent, including a rather pungent exhibit enabling you to experience the smell of jaguar piss. And there were a number of very strange short films by Isabella Rossellini from the Green Porno series. Good fun.

Following a swift cheap-and-cheerful Chinese meal, we headed over to Holborn, to the Princess Louise. As I think I’ve said before, this is one of my all-time favourite pubs, due to its pure Victorian decor downstairs, its luxurious lounge upstairs and, not that I want to sound like a cheapskate or anything, the fact that you can get a round of drinks for a tenner without descending to the accursed levels of Wetherspoons. Here, we met Shoinan for more alcohol and inappropriate conversation. At this point, my hangover finally subsided and I could return to damaging my liver in earnest.

After this, Shoinan and I decided to move on into sinful Soho to see where a couple of reprobates like us could get some more booze. We came upon the Nellie Dean, a pub we’d visited once before. This is another old-skool place, unkempt, disreputable-looking, not too crowded and not remotely trendy. Therefore, ideal for us. It’s also open until midnight, which helps. We continued to put the world to rights over a jug of Pimms (executive decision by Shoinan) before heading home.

I feel we all learnt a lot that day. Unfortunately I can’t remember any of it. Hey ho.

Science Fiction Single Feature

I love science fiction. I was first introduced to it at the tender age of 8, via the glorious medium of Thunderbirds repeats on Friday afternoons. From there, I discovered Doctor Who and Star Trek. Then, a couple of years later, I was directed to the works of Asimov and Clarke (and Douglas Adams, of course). And from there, things just sorta grew. Despite the best efforts of secondary school to wean me off this juvenile nonsense, it’s an interest I maintained into adulthood and, indeed, even had the opportunity to study at university.

So when my good chum Succubusface drew my attention to the Out of This World exhibition at the British Library, I figured it had to be worth seeing. One of my flatmates recommended it, and so the decision was made. On Saturday, Succubusface and I made our way to St Pancras.

I tend to be a little wary when serious literary folk start talking about science fiction because, as I suggested in the intro, there’s a tendency to be rather snobby about it, to assume that it’s a juvenile genre of square-jawed space heroes firing ray guns at marauding robots. I once came across a critical essay which suggested that Nineteen Eighty-Four wasn’t science fiction because it was too good.

I couldn’t disagree more – I believe that science fiction is as valid a literary genre as any other. It grants the licence to explore questions that could not easily be answered in other genres. What does it mean to be human? How do we know what’s real? What if humanity isn’t superior in the universe? What responsibility do we have to that which we create? How might political systems work when played out over centuries? One of my favourite novels is Michael Moorcock’s Behold the Man, the story of a man who struggles with Christian faith all his life, only to find himself transported to first century Galilee and the reality of the beliefs he’s fought – a story that inherently relies on time travel, but whose subject matter (religion and idealism) is universal. Another is, as I said above, The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in which Douglas Adams uses the broad canvas of space opera to satirise and absurdify (is that a word?) our society.

Of course, there’s a lot of junk lit out there, and this was particularly prevalent before the 1960s and the rise of the New Wave sci-fi movement. The picture on the right is a fine example. However, I am reminded Sturgeon’s Law. Science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon was once confronted with the suggestion that ninety-nine per cent of science fiction was crap. His response was to look at the interviewer with an expression of mild bewilderment and say, “Ninety-nine per cent of everything is crap.”

The exhibition takes a more enlightened view than many critics, and as such would be enjoyable both to hardened geeks and relative newcomers. It describes itself as “science fiction, but not as you know it,” a mission statement which it fulfils admirably. A lot of the works covered therein are not what one would traditionally consider science fiction (although, when you think about it, they are). Things like Thomas More’s Utopia, J. G. Ballard’s High Rise or Stanley Kubrick’s film Doctor Strangelove. The classics you would expect to see are in there – Childhood’s End, Foundation, Flatland, Metropolis, Doctor Who, War of the Worlds, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (spoiler: yes) and the like. There were also quite a few of the less widely known and yet equally worthy works, like Jane Loudon’s The Mummy and Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker.

The exhibition is ordered by subgenre – dystopia, apocalypse, alien invasion, time travel, steampunk etc,which I think serves to make it all more approachable to the casual non-geek. It also showed the many different approaches to different concepts – the utopia/dystopia section featured works as diverse as The Handmaid’s Tale, Brave New World, Utopia, Nineteen Eighty-Four and V for Vendetta. The displays explained the basics of each subgenre in an understandable and non-patronising way.

Speaking as a geek, I found it utterly absorbing, and might even make another visit. I found a load of titles that weren’t familiar to me, but which are now firmly on my reading list.

The only caution I would give is that it’s not really a great exhibition for young children. There’s the funny sleepy robot and the draw-an-alien activity, but the displays are very wordy and I suspect that boredom would quickly set in for a child. For everyone else, though, I can’t recommend it enough.

Further Viewing

Here, the subject of Yr Humble Chronicler’s literary man-crush, China Miéville, takes us on a tour of the exhibition for the BBC.

VandAlism

Last Friday I was saved from a fate worse than death (boredom) by an event in which the Directrix, a recurring figure in these pages, was participating. And so it was that I, together with a chum we shall refer to as “the Easterner” found ourselves en route to South Kensington. The Directrix’ event was taking place at no less a venue than the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Victoria and Albert (or “V&A,” as it’s known to friends) is, I have to admit, not my favourite museum by a long shot. I don’t know why, it focuses on art and design, and I’m quite interested in design as a subject. I think the problem is that it covers so very much – from the Classical period to the modern day, and with exhibits from all over the world – that you have to be really into design to take the whole thing in. Compounding this is the fact that it’s quite an old-fashioned museum in terms of the way its exhibits are laid out. There doesn’t seem to be any attempt made to really “wow” the casual visitor in the way that other museums in London do. The whole thing feels like a place you ought to visit rather than a place you visit because you really want to. You know, you go there with your grandma who’s down from Yorkshire for the first time in twenty years or something.

The Great Exhibition

The museum was opened in its current location in 1857, and like its friends the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum, was funded by the proceeds of the Great Exhibition of 1851, seen on the right. The Exhibition was Prince Albert’s idea to showcase all of the greatest innovations of the day under a single roof. The venue was Hyde Park, in a massive building known as the Crystal Palace – an edifice made all the more spectacular by the fact that its designer, Joseph Paxton, had no formal training in architecture. The exhibition made a profit of over £180,000, which in modern money is lots, and Albert oversaw the purchase of land in then-largely-undeveloped South Kensington to establish an area of culture and education. This area became known to the satirists of the day as “Albertopolis.” Albert’s progressive aspirations for the British public were not universally acclaimed, perhaps not least because the German Prince Consort was not felt to be “one of us.” It’s like, what does a guy got to do to get some respect around here?

Prince Albert. His facial hair may also have worked against him.

Anyway, the other permanent legacy of the Great Exhibition was that many of the items therein formed the nucleus of the V&A. Lest you think the Royals were incredible egotists, the institution was known at its opening as the South Kensington Museum. However, you’ll notice that like the later title, “the South Kensington Museum” gives no clue whatsoever as to what the museum is actually about.

Anyway. The Directrix’ show was an experimental-type theatre piece as part of one of the events known as “V&A Lates.” These are, as the name suggests, late night openings. In this case, the theme was theatre, and the Directrix’ show was one of a number there. The Easterner and I spent the evening in fear of being audience-participated-with. Much as I enjoy theatre, I have a pathological hatred of audience participation. Actually, I don’t think anyone apart from the actors themselves actually enjoys it.

There were a number of events of great interest there – the one that really stuck for us was a reading from Shakespeare’s First Folio by father-and-son acting duo Timothy and Samuel West. The First Folio is the first halfway-decent edition of Shakespeare’s plays ever published, only omitting the lost texts Cardenio and Love’s Labours Won and the existing plays you’ve never read The Two Noble Kinsmen and Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The readings were unpolished and not particularly rehearsed, but even so it was superb to see two highly acclaimed actors showing their stuff. It’s unusual to see Shakespeare’s comic scenes played in a manner that’s actually funny – most actors attempting them tend to go at them as if attempting to bludgeon the jokes to death. The Easterner at one point commented on West Sr, “Why doesn’ t that guy have a knighthood?” I concur.

Sadly, though, we ended up missing the Directrix’ show as a consequence of the labyrinthine layout of the museum and the limited timeframe. We were somewhat berated for this, and were informed that our punishment was that we’d missed out on the chance to meet Dame Judi Dench, who had been there to see it. Other Tom demanded to know why the Directrix had not attempted to capture Dame Judi – I forget what the answer was.

Then we went to the pub, where one guy was so drunk he pissed on the stairs. A good night, all in all.

And if you liked this…
… why not come and see the play I’m in? No audience participation, I promise.

Sell out and stay classy

There are a number of stereotypes attached to railway enthusiasts – socially inept, anorak-wearing, middle-aged loners with NHS spectacles and plastic lunchboxes. While undoubtedly this stereotype is vastly exaggerated and largely inaccurate, it is fair to say that there are certain qualities which might fairly be attributed to the average rail nut. The majority of active rail enthusiasts (not all of them, before you leave angry comments) tend to be middle-aged, politically conservative, technically-minded, musically retro, male and white.

Yet there is a subsection of rail enthusiasm to which these stereotypes are not generally attached. I refer to the Tubeheads – enthusiasts of the London Underground. While there are plenty of technically-minded Tube enthusiasts, there are seemingly just as many if not more who are not – perhaps the best-known Tubehead is the esteemed Annie Mole of Going Underground.

I came to reflect on this phenomenon on Saturday, when I visited the Museum Depot at Acton, where the London Transport Museum keeps its reserve collection. Twice a year it’s opened to the public. While I have reported on this before, today I saw some exciting new things that gave me an insight into the Tubehead phenomenon.

You see, I think the reason there isn’t a Tubehead stereotype comparable to the trainspotter one is because there is a lot more to being a tube enthusiast than just the trains. The sign on the right depicts the Roundel, which has become a symbol for the entire city. Similarly, the Underground itself has come to represent London. One of the iconic images of the Blitz is Londoners taking shelter in the stations. It was no accident that the 7/7 bombers chose to hit London’s transport, so dependent is the city on its network. Indeed, Christian Wolmar argues that the Underground was instrumental in the shaping of modern London – it encouraged the development of the suburbs and enabled commuting as we know it today. The Underground is the city.

Actually, Christian Wolmar was there at the event, and I saw his lecture based on his book The Subterranean Railway. Wolmar claims not to be able to tell one end of a locomotive from the other, being more interested in the social aspects of railways. However, his enthusiasm for the subject shines through and the talk was Most Enjoyable. I recommend his books for railway nuts and anyone with a passing interest in the subject.

Yet even the social aspect of the Underground doesn’t cover the full spectrum of Tubeheadedry, as was brought home to me by another of the Things To Do on Saturday. You see, the Underground has always had a very strong design aesthetic.

This was the case right from the days of Charles Yerkes, the American magnate who bought up the Piccadilly, Bakerloo, Hampstead and District lines to create Underground Electric Railways Limited. He engaged architect Leslie Green to create a distinctive unifying style for the company to make it instantly identifiable. Green came up with the distinctive oxblood station frontages still visible throughout Central London.

However, the Underground’s image as a kind of corporate style icon really came about when Frank Pick became Managing Director of the Underground Group in 1928. He hired Charles Holden to create up-to-date art deco stations, Edward Johnston to devise a special alphabet and some of the brightest new stars in graphic design to come up with posters. Pick was not really an engineer, but he understood well that good design is good publicity, and his legacy is felt right up to the present day.

So when it was announced at the Depot that there would be a tour of the poster art collection, I leapt at the chance (not literally, that would be stupid).

The collection is nothing short of spectacular. According to the chap giving the tour (the Head of Collections, no less), the London Transport Museum can only put approximately 2% of its collection on public display at any time, although they do try to rotate the exhibits (again, not literally). The rest is kept at the Depot. “The rest” consists of almost every poster that London Transport has ever produced.

So in this back room in an industrial depot building in suburban Acton is perhaps the most impressive display of commercial artwork in London. It’s utterly spectacular, and I’m presenting here just a few of the photos I took. Posters line every wall, they’re on every table, they are literally all over the place.

I noticed a few art students among our party, and that’s not entirely surprising. Some of the names hired by Pick and his successors include Jacob Epstein, Man Ray and Edward McKnight Kauffer, often when they were fresh out of art school.

Consequently, original poster prints can be worth tens of thousands of pounds each.

You can therefore only imagine how jaw-dropping it was for us when we were taken through to the room where the original artworks were kept.

The original artwork of John Hassall's 'No Need To Ask a P'liceman,' the first Tube poster.

Here, on wire racks, are the original paintings from which some of the most highly-regarded images in the history of graphic design are taken. The experience is utterly surreal. By rights, these should be housed in some airy, purpose-built art gallery. But in fact, they’re just stored in a back room. Utterly bizarre. It’s like rummaging in Grandmother’s attic, if Grandmother was a multi-multi-multi millionaire.

One of these days I’m going to have to get around to robbing the place. [NOTE TO SELF: Don't leave this in the finished entry.]

So, to wrap up, it seems to me that the reason Underground enthusiasts are not limited to the technical types is simply because the Tube was very good at achieving its publicity aims – it’s not just a means of getting from A to B, it’s an integral aspect of London life. For all we may complain about engineering works and suchlike negative aspects, it’s a vital part of our historic, geographical, cultural and aesthetic identity as Londoners.

God, I do go on.

Further Reading
The London Transport poster collection is now online. Explore it for yourself, why not?

I get a kick out of you, part 2

Hullo all, this is just a quick entry to alert you to something that may be of interest. Regular readers will be aware that the Wellcome Collection is currently holding an exhibition entitled ‘High Society,’ which Yr. Humble Chronicler recently visited.

Well, for those of you interested in exploring further, might I humbly suggest – if you find yourself at a loose end this weekend – that you take a stroll over there for an event entitled ‘High Society: Drugs in Victorian Britain.’ On Friday, there’s a magic lantern show on the subject and on Saturday there will be a series of discussions from eminent and knowledgeable folk on the subject of what got our ancestors high. For those of you with an interest in drug culture in Britain, who are into that whole Victorian decadence scene, or who are just curious about what the dickens Lewis Carroll was on, you should take a gander.

See the website for further details.

I get a kick out of you

Last-minute changes of plan are always good for a laugh, as I discovered on Friday when the event upon which I had anchored my weekend was moved. I shook my fist and generally cursed the fates until I received a call from Izzi asking if I’d like to go to see the High Society exhibition at the Wellcome Collection.

The Wellcome Collection is a real oddity. I never know quite how to describe it to someone not already familiar with it. Describing itself as “a free destination for the incurably curious,” it’s part museum, part art gallery. The basic theme is medicine, human biology and their position in society. There are sculptures, art installations and historical artefacts relating to these themes. Its purpose seems to be to make you think rather than to supply you with information – there is no explanatory text beyond basic captions for most of the exhibits.

Morphinomane by Eugene Samuel Grasset, one of the paintings on display.

The High Society exhibition is the Wellcome Collection’s exploration of mind-altering substances. I hesitate to use the word “drugs” because one of the points the exhibition makes is that one man’s drug is another man’s mainstream stimulant. In this country, alcohol is generally considered to be a perfectly acceptable substance, provided you don’t make a tit of yourself. In many cultures, it’s considered to be four-star Satan fuel. Is the go-getter who takes a quadruple espresso to wake them up in the morning any worse than the stoner who lights a joint to relax? These are the questions the exhibition invites you to think about.

At the start of the exhibition, we’re presented with a load of drug paraphernalia, for the broadest definition of “drug.” As well as syringes and bongs, we see coffee and absinthe (which, incidentally, is nowhere near as crazy as it’s made out to be). We then go on a tour of drugs in medicine, in self-exploration, in social interaction and in law. We see prohibition posters, photos of pro-drug rallies, psychedelic light shows, tribal rituals, paintings and books, grouped by theme but not necessarily by stance or source.

No attempt is made at any kind of moral judgment, except that portrayed within the works themselves. The overriding message seems to be that nobody knows who’s right. We see that views on drugs depend who you are, where you are and when. The Victorians thought nothing of giving opiates to help baby sleep. In the Andes, coca tea is a popular cure for altitude sickness, seen as being no worse than regular tea over here. In the USA, coca leaf means cocaine (and Coca-Cola, but that tends to get glossed over when they take the moral high ground and spray defoliant over every back garden coca plot). Maybe none of us are right. Maybe Bob Dylan was right, and everybody should get stoned.

It certainly got Izzi and me talking. Like many people, I’ve done my share of experimentation, and Izzi’s done a lot more than me. I rather wish I hadn’t been talking about this experimentation so loudly, as while I was doing so I looked up and discovered that, by a million-to-one chance, my boss was attending the same exhibition. Shit.

Anyway, yeah, both Izzi and I are fairly liberal on the subject of drugs. Speaking personally, I think there’s quite a lot that could or should be legalised. I think it’s hypocritical that I could get in legal trouble for possessing a couple of joints’ worth of cannabis, but I could then drink two bottles of whisky and seriously endanger my life with no legal intervention whatsoever. Quite apart from such moral considerations, there’s the practical fact that with certain substances legalised, they can be taxed and policed more effectively.

But maybe I’m wrong as well. I invite you to take a trip (har har) to the Wellcome Collection to see for yourself. High Society runs until 27th February, entrance is free and it’s just a short walk from Euston and Euston Square stations. It might expand your mind.

Further Reading

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/high-society.aspx - The official website

Going home?

Going home, as in returning to the place where you grew up, tends to be a weirdly alienating experience. Almost melancholy, in its way. Everything is slightly uncanny, at once familiar and yet different. It’s a bit of an odd time to make this observation, given that it’s not like I never see my family, and in any case I only live about an hour and a half away by public transport (20 minutes by car – what the hell, Boris?). Perhaps it is the march of age that makes me so reflect, or perhaps it’s the fact that I forgot to mail myself the entry that was originally going to go here and needed to come up with something else in a hurry.

I grew up in Twickenham, you see. The first few months were lived in Baron’s Court in a flat overlooking the Underground line, which perhaps explains a lot about this blog. But the vast majority of my childhood was spent in that leafy suburb. Oddly enough, I’ve never been a rugby fan – to me, all a rugby match meant was that the buses weren’t running and it would be a bugger getting a train.

Eel Pie Island, back in the day

The thing I particularly noticed on returning today was how very swish it’s all become. Very gentrified. I remember when the waterfront at Twickenham was mostly notable for the derelict swimming baths that my mate Tim swore were inhabited by vampires. These have now gone – there was an uproar when it was suggested that they might be replaced with a shopping complex, but happily a garden now stands in their place (do gardens stand? I don’t know).

I was also pleased to note that the waterfront now boasts a sign concerning Eel Pie Island. The Island, less well known as Twickenham Ait, has a significant place in the history of British music, with artists as varied as the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Hawkwind, Black Sabbath and Long John Baldry among many others playing at the Hotel. If you speak Internet, Long John Baldry was the one responsible for the “PINGAS” meme. If you don’t, then don’t worry about it. These days, it’s the closest thing Twickenham has to a bohemian quarter. Well worth a look if you get the chance.

Twickenham, King Street. The bank is still there, virtually everything else has vanished or been rebuilt.

Also nearby is Twickenham Museum, which is a really excellent museum given that it’s basically two rooms in a house. That sounds really patronising, but it genuinely is worth a look if you have an interest in the West London suburbs. And the Mary Wallace Theatre, in what was once a soup kitchen, has some good (albeit amateur) stuff on. So gutted I just missed a production of Glengarry Glen Ross there.

During the day, York House Gardens are a pleasant place for a walk. If you’ve ever seen Alfie, the sanitarium scenes were actually filmed here. I’ve heard there was a remake of this film starring Jude Law, but this seems ridiculous and I think we should all agree that such a thing could not possibly have happened, maybe burning anyone who says otherwise. The area is very popular for filming, due to the proximity of Twickenham, Teddington and Shepperton Studios. Off the top of my head, two of the Beatles movies (Help! and A Hard Day’s Night) were filmed here, as were A Fish Called Wanda and The Krays. There have been many others.

The reason I was here was to celebrate the Bro’s birthday. We were dining at a little Italian restaurant called La Serenata. By not being called La Dolce Vita it instantly gains a couple of points in my book. The thing I like about this place is perhaps the thing that most people would hate about it – it’s a proper retro Italian place. Faux wooden beams, family-run, wax-encrusted wine bottles as candle holders. You know the drill. The food is robustly Anglo-Italian, the menu clearly dating from an era when people were just starting to get the hang of Italian food but weren’t yet familiar with concepts like “balsamic vinegar.” Some would call it unpretentious, others would call it basic. But what they do, they do well – I particularly recommend the steak in any of its forms. I’m told that it’s to die for in the brandy and dijon sauce. The only things that were rubbish were the chips, but this was one black mark on an otherwise superb meal. As I’m no foodie, you can take or leave my recommendation.

Alas, it rarely seems to get much custom – we were the only ones here tonight, and reviews of the place seem to be singularly lacking. It’s the sort of place that Gordon Ramsay would come to and totally revamp while exclaiming “Faaahk me!” as often as possible. But I like it.

The trouble with this diet is that when I actually do get an opportunity to indulge myself, I can’t do so quite as much as I used to. This three-course meal has left me feeling utterly bloated, and more than a little stretched. I guess you can never really go back.