British Illustrators 11: Sir Quentin Blake

Sir Quentin is in his 80s now, and still going strong. He’s indelibly associated with the works of Roald Dahl – I picked an illustration from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, the first Dahl novel I ever read. For me it’s difficult to think of Roald Dahl’s books without thinking of Quentin Blake’s illustrations – as writer and illustrator they were an absolutely perfect match. However, Sir Quentin’s portfolio is much wider and more varied than that. Sir Quentin was the first ever Children’s laureate in the UK, and a good choice for that honour too.

Like Ronald Searle and Peggy Fortnum, his style looks deceptively simple. Yet when you try to make a copy of one of his illustrations you start to realise just how clever and precise it actually is. No single pen stroke is wasted, and as a result all of his pictures crackle and sparkle with life and personality.

British Illustrators 10: Beatrix Potter

Any discussion of great British illustrators of children’s fiction in the 20^th century can’t ignore the claims of Beatrix Potter as one of the finest. She was arguably the greatest writer illustrator. Beatrix Potter wrote some thirty books, starting with The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Now, I’ll be honest, while I loved “The Tailor of Gloucester” and “The Tale of Jeremy Fisher” when I was a kid, I really didn’t like some of the other stories very much. For example, I thought that “The Roly Poly Pudding” was very weird, and not a little disturbing for that matter. But I still think that Beatrix Potter’s illustrations were never less than engaging, and some of them are absolutely enchanting.

British Illustrators 9: Thomas Henry and Just William

Richmal Crompton was a teacher in south east London who took up writing seriously in the early 1920s after polio forced her to give up her teaching career. It was about this time she created her 11 year old anti hero William Brown, popularly known as Just William after the title of her first collection of stories about him. She continued to write stories about William for almost 50 years, although it’s said she became somewhat resentful of the stories’ popularity, as she really saw herself as a writer of adult fiction.

Maybe it was the fact that I was generally a very well behaved, studious kid myself which made the scruffy, anti-authority, anarchic William appeal to me so much. Maybe it was just because the stories were so funny and well written that I loved William. I think it’s quite possible that Thomas Henry’s illustrations had something to do with it as well. Thomas Henry, although barely remembered now, was already a prolific and successful magazine illustrator by the time he was commissioned to illustrate Just William, and the William books kept him gainfully employed until his death in 1962. I’m a little frustrated that I just haven’t quite captured William’s face correctly in this copied sketch. Not quite.

British Illustrators 8: Peggy Fortnum ad Paddington Bear

If we’re discussing British children’s illustrators of the 20^th century, we can’t really ignore Peggy Fortnum. Peggy Fortnum, who passed away in 2016, illustrated over 50 books, but she’s best known as the original illustrator of Michael Bond’s charming Paddington Bear books. The idea of anyone else having illustrated Paddington is about as outlandish as anyone other than E.H. Shepard having illustrated Winnie the Pooh.

Copying this picture was an interesting and surprisingly challenging experience. It looks simple, yet I found that every one of her lines was precisely placed, and imprecision on my part rendered the sketch far less effective than the original.

British Illustrators 7: Stuart Tresilian and Enid Blyton's Adventure Series

Most British children who grew up enjoying reading at any time from the 1930s until as late as the 1980s will probably have gone through an Enid Blyton phase at one time or another. She was an incredibly prolific writer, although she did come under increasing criticism from critics as her fame and success progressed. Some of the criticisms are valid. She was a middle class Englishwoman whose social attitudes were formed during the early decades of the 20^th century, and to modern readers it is possible, for example, to read paternalism, and even mild racism into her books. Myself, I was never hooked on her more famous series, such as The Famous Five and The Secret Seven. However, for my 7^th birthday I was given “The Sea of Adventure”, and I was hooked, and devoured all 8 of the – of Adventure – novels.

The picture is my copy of an illustration from “The Sea of Adventure” by Stuart Tresilian. He’s little remembered now, but worked prolifically for magazines from the 1930s until the 1960s, and served as president of the Society of Graphic Art in the mid 60s. Just looking at his work brings a warm glow, and reminds me how thrilled I was by the adventures of Jack, Philip, Dinah, Lucy Anne and Jack’s parrot Kiki.

Jubilee Line

Please note: All of these sketching trips on the London Underground were made well before any Corona virus restrictions were introduced.

When it first opened in 1979, I think that the full extent of new tunnels for the line totalled something in the area of two and a half miles. Which makes it a little surprising that the line took 8 years to build. There was some extensive remodelling to combine the old Strand and Trafalgar Stations into Charing Cross station, which also meant that the existing Charing Cross Station was renamed Embankment. In terms of length, though, by far the majority of the original Jubilee Line ran on existing tracks, which had previously served the Bakerloo line, and before that, the Metropolitan. So it’s little surprise when I arrive at Stanmore station early doors to see that this 1930s Charles Clark station resembles his stations on the Watford branch of the Met. 7 Years after the station opened this part of the Metropolitan was transferred to the Bakerloo. I don’t really know what prompts me to say this, but I can’t help seeing being transferred to the Bakerloo line as something of a demotion in terms of importance.

I’m determined to get my walking in early while I’m still fresh, or at least less stale than I might be later on. It’s an almost straight walk of about 20 minutes to Canons Park, and since it’s not raining this time and I don’t therefore have to control an umbrella, I take the opportunity to google this next station. Apparently it’s the least used station on the Jubilee Line, which isn’t bad going since at this point I can’t help thinking it’s probably up against some pretty stiff competition. The station itself looks old and tired enough to be the original, and I’m afraid it’s a bit of a sad brick box, which is not enhanced by the concrete panels above the entrance. Nor is it really helped by being built onto the side of a viaduct either. Due to the small number of people ever buying tickets from the station, the ticket office has been closed for over a decade.

A glance at the Jubilee Line Map brings the thought that this stretch of the Jubilee Line lends itself peculiarly well to a mental diversion which I like to think of as the Personfication Game ™. Basically you have to take a station’s name, and then describe the imaginary person who the station might have been named after.  So Stan Moore (Stanmore) turns out to have been named after the first used car salesman in Greater London. He is also credited with having been the first to affect the sheepskin coat/trilby hat/fake cockney patter combination.  Canon Spark, on the other hand, is named after a 19^th century cleric found in the pages of novels of Anthony Trollope’s lesser known novel “Can You Believe it’s Not Butter?”, a well meaning soul who falls into all manner of scrapes from agreeing to be the guarantor of a loan made to one of his less trustworthy parishioners.

I continue walking for another half hour or so, until I reach Queensbury Station. Queen Sperri, I decide, was the titular head of the tiny Pillock Islands protectorate, who would have made almost no impact whatsoever when she appeared in the procession of foreign monarchs and heads of state  for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, were it not for the fact that she fell out of her carriage due to over indulging on fermented coconut milk, her islands’ chief, indeed, only export. I can’t imagine that the Metropolitan’s chief architect, Charles Clark, wasted much midnight oil on this design, if indeed it is one of his, which I haven’t been able to find either confirmation or denial of in my research. It’s an original 30s station, but it’s little more than a hole in the wall. It’s like the street level of, say, Northfields or Acton Town, but just one small part of it, with no tower rising above it, just an uninspired commercial or residential block which I’m guessing was built at the same time.That’s enough walking for now. Back to the platform, and a ten minute wait for the next train.

King Sperri (Kingsbury) after whom our next station was named, was the previous title of Queen Sperri before the gender realignment procedures. Sorry, that one was too easy. My faithful phone connects me to Wikipedia, which doesn’t actually reveal whether this is a Charles Clark original, but if it isn’t, it’s very much in his suburban vernacular, as I hope you can see from the sketch. You could plonk this station between Watford and Croxey, and it would fit in perfectly, if there were any need of such a station, which there isn’t. Wikipedia does say that this station is actually further away from the Kingsbury district proper than Neasden station. Well, there’s a lot to say about Neasden when we get there, so I think I’ll leave that for later. As for our trip, well, the next station after Kingsbury is Wembley Park, and the first station of today’s trip that we’ve already bagged on a previous one. Don’t worry, there will be a few more of them before the day is out.

Neasden is an inversion of Den Knees, of course. He was a fourth rate stand up comedian from Bootle, who disgraced himself during his one and only appearance on the bill at the Royal Variety Performance by singing the ribald song “If you pay me fare you can take me . . . “ Sorry, I think I’ve flogged that particular old grey mare enough now. Speaking of which, apparently the Jubilee line was always planned to be grey on the map. Its proposed original name was the Fleet Line, and it was going to be a darker, battleship grey – sort of a pun on the word Fleet, which as we all know is also the name of one of London’s lost rivers. When the decision was made to go with the name the Jubilee Line, after the Queen’s 1977 silver jubilee, the decision was made to go with a lighter grey. ‘It represents silver’ spokespeople explained, thus giving us all a foretaste of the moment in Blackadder II when Percy invents green gold, only to be told “That’s the thing about Gold, Percy. It’s gold. What you have invented, if indeed it has a name, is some green.” They may have intended the line to be silver, but what they gave us was grey. Now, I don’t remember a grey jubilee. I do remember the silver one.

Thinking back, maybe it was because I was 13 at the time, but the Silver Jubilee seemed like a much bigger thing to me than the Golden Jubilee of 2002, or even the Diamond Jubilee of ten years later. Perhaps it was because even in 1977 people were a lot less cynical or critical about the Royals. Perhaps it was because it had been 42 years since the previous one, a period which encompassed a World War , and the prolonged economic aftermath. Whatever the case, I remember doing my paper round and milk round in the mean streets of Hanwell and West Ealing, and for months it seemed a lot of houses were decked out with red, white and blue bunting. By way of contrast, in 2002 I was living in Port Talbot, on the main road from the station to local publicly owned stately home Margam Park. As part of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee visit to the provinces, she was to be driven from the station to the Park in the late afternoon. When I left for work that morning, there was not a single piece of bunting or union flag to be seen in the street or on the houses. When I returned from school that day, the Council had been up and down the street, which was now festooned with bunting and flags. I think the one they put in my front garden is still in my garage. If they want it back they only have to ask. I’ve heard it said that the Queen thinks that the world smells of fresh paint, and I can understand why. About 50 yards after she drove past our house, her motorcade was brought to an unexpected stop when Port Talbot’s most famous prostitute jumped out in front of her car, and removed her coat to flash Her Majesty and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh.

This display of lese-majeste wouldn’t have happened in 1977. Back then, the occupants of a house in Leighton Road had tastefully cut out letters of red, white and blue, with which they tastefully spelled out the message ‘Sod the Jubilee’ in  their front window. My Nan, by no means an ardent royalist, knocked on the door and calmly informed the residents that they deserved a brick through their window, merely expressing to their faces what most residents of the street were saying behind their backs.

Back in the present day, I’m tempted to take a wander, since Neasden is home to an absolutely wonderful Hindu Temple. London has been a truly multicultural city since well before my birth, and the Hindu community can be justifiably proud to have contributed such a building to our shared architectural heritage.

Less impressively, Neasden is also home to Private Eye’s fictional Neasden F.C. and their two biggest (for which read only) fans, Sid and Doris Bonkers. 

Dollis Hill takes its name from another performer, a contemporary of young, working class actors like Michael Caine and Terence Stamp (only nowhere near as good). He made his only film appearance in “Hey, Pretty Baby” in 1965, a half soaked story about a young fashion photographer’s adventures and misadventures in and around Swinging London, ending with his character, Mik, committing suicide by jumping to his death from the revolving restaurant at the top of the Post Office Tower. The station named after him, then, is our first example of a Jubilee Line subterranean station, and the two entrances really are nothing worthy of note. It strikes me that if the majority of tube stations were subterranean like this, then there’s no likelihood that I would ever have embarked on this challenge, yet my experience of European underground railways is that this is the norm, rather than the exception that it is in London.

When Willesden Green station was first built in the late 1870s, named after a well known late Victorian thriller writer, it was part of the Metropolitan railway. Willesden Green was the pseudonym of Hilda Gusset, who is widely seen as an influence on the early works of Agatha Christie. Green’s most famous novels, “The Music Hall Murders”, “More Music Hall Murders”, and “Why Do These Idiots Keep Coming to the Music Hall when People Keep Getting Murdered There?” were later made into early British silent movies, which many believe were responsible for the start of the demise of the British film industry.

Okay, so back to reality. The current station was built in 1925, and its one of Charles Clark’s Edwardian throwback stations. If that comes across as an insult, it’s really not meant to be, bearing in mind that this period of his work also encompasses Paddington Praed Street and Great Portland Street stations. According to my research this one is a listed building not so much for the exterior, impressive though this is, as for the original green tiling inside. Personally I think the very art deco diamond shaped station clock on the exterior is worth the price of admission by itself, but then considering the fact that you don’t have to pay to walk through the entrance the station, then that’s maybe not so much of a boast.

Kilburn was named after ‘Mad Billy Kilburn’ a semi mythological highwayman who plied the roads leading to the capital from the North in the early 18^th century. A one time colleague of the more famous and successful Dick Turpin, Kilburn perished from exhaustion after making a drunken bet that he could run from London to York faster than Turpin could ride there on horseback. The station itself is a bit of a strange looking beast. Most of it seems to be from the 30s, but I’ve never yet seen a canopy which slants across the entrance like the one here, between the two bridges carrying the lines over the road in front. The canopy, and the two bridges, give the station a gloomy, wedged in feel, and it looks most uncomfortable. However I can forgive the station a lot because it has those art deco shelters on the platform, with large thin canopies and rounded, streamlined ends.

While I’m waiting on the platform I toy with reversing the name of the next station, West Hampstead, to give me Hampstead West, an 18^th century industrialist and philanthropist, but this is all becoming too contrived now, and so I give it up as a bad job.

When I alight at the station I notice that it too has the platform buildings that I like so much. However there is no similarity between Kilburn’s exterior, and this station’s. Wikipedia isn’t exactly clear, but it does say that when the platforms were rebuilt in 1939, the original station building was retained. Well, the original building dates from 1879. This could well be it, the whole thing has a kind of Arts and Crafts feel to it, which stylistically would be about right for it. Confusingly, there is also a West Hampstead Overground station, which, although stylistically quite distinct from the Underground one, appears to be of a similar age. Apparently there have been plans to link both stations for decades, but when I visited I couldn’t find any link between the stations which didn’t involve physically leaving one and walking to the other.

Between West Hampstead, and the next station I need to bag, there are no fewer than 8 other stops. This is not so much a trip through hyperspace, as a voyage through a wormhole now. Not only will we cross Central London from north to south, we will also cross the river again. I pick up my paper, and pretend to read the TV listings, which allows me to indulge in one of my favourite tube pastimes, earwigging other people’s conversations. This is not something you get to enjoy very often on the Tube. There’s an unwritten etiquette which I think all regular tube users pick up via osmosis at an early age, which can be boiled down to a few simple rules:-

*You do not talk about tube etiquette

*In fact, you don’t talk about anything on the tube

*You do not stare at your fellow passengers

*In fact you try to look at them as little as possible

*You should in no way, no matter how crowded, let any part of your body impinge on any body part belonging to anybody else

*Should anyone else around you break said rules, you must in no way acknowledge their transgression. Doing so only encourages them.

Alright, I’m maybe exaggerating a little, but not by much, I’d say. How this came to be, I don’t know, but it’s so engrained in me that when I moved to Wales, sitting on a bus where it was quite normal for complete strangers to try to strike up a conversation with you was quite a disconcerting experience.

I read in 2016 of an American chap called Jonathan Dunne. In 2016, after several years working in London, he still hadn’t really come to terms with the tight lipped nature of tube travel. He printed up leaflets, and created badges, with the roundel and the words ‘Tube chat?’ the point being to signal to other passengers that the wearer was open to having a conversation. The upshot? Well, this may come as a surprise, bearing in mind the usual calm and reasonable views regularly expressed by Twitter users, but there was some thing of a storm of negativity unleashed, and photos of various mock ups of similar badges saying “Wake me up if a dog gets on” and the like. I don’t know how Mr. Dunne fared in the long term, but I have to say that I haven’t yet seen a single one of these badges on any of my trips, which doesn’t suggest an overwhelming success rate.

But the two ladies of indeterminate age in front of me don’t seem to know any of this. Or they don’t care. They’re already in the middle of a conversation as I sit down, and I soon find myself engrossed in the darker one’s narrative, which seems to centre on her father’s recent funeral.

“Would’ve been alright,” she announces to the carriage,” if the wheel hadn’t come off the undertaker’s trolley getting the coffin out of the back of the hearse. “

“Oh no!” gasps her friend, “that must’ve been awful for you!”

“S’alright,” she sniffs, “Dad wouldn’t’ve minded. He always loved it when things went wrong. He told me that he spent two of the happiest hours of his life when he got stuck in a lift which broke down in John Lewis’s once.”

I’m all ears, but she doesn’t elaborate on exactly what made the time stuck in the lift so memorable for her father. However her friend comes out with a comment which I in no way pretend to understand the connotations of. “Well, he would, I suppose, what with him being in the Masons.”

Not being a member of the most templaresque of charitable organisations, I cannot even begin to explain why it is that she believes that a Freemason should derive more pleasure from being trapped in a lift than the rest of us hoi-polloi, but the dark haired lady seems to know what she means, as she nods in agreement. I wonder what conversational gems the rest of the journey to Southwark will yield, but am quite disappointed when the pair of them alight at Swiss Cottage.

From Green Park onwards we’re on the late 90s Jubilee Line extension. The former terminus, Charing Cross, is now completely bypassed. I remember watching a contemporary TV documentary at the time when the extension was being tunnelled, which expressed what was, at the time, a very genuine concern that the line passing through Westminster could undermine the Houses of Parliament. The extension line was created through a modern tunnelling technique which, if I understood it correctly, involved spraying the concrete lining of the tunnels as they went, made possible by freezing the tunnel walls during construction. Officially named the New Austrian Tunnelling Method, this was a controversial choice for the extension because critics believed it significantly increased the risks of collapse during construction. If I remember correctly the Elizabeth Tower, known as Big Ben after the clock bell, did develop a tiny lean during the construction.

If I’m correct, every station we pass through from Waterloo to West Ham, with the exception of London Bridge, is a new build specifically for the extension. This surprised me when I was doing my pre-research, since I thought I remembered passing a Southwark station once or twice when trying a different cycling route home to Ealing from New Cross in the mid 80s, but my 1985 tube map confirms that no such beast existed at the time. Heaven alone knows which station I’m thinking of.

Southwark turns out to be a very good place to start our contemplation of the new stations of the extension, though. When Frank Pick initiated the Northern Line extension in the 20s, and then the Piccadilly Line extension in the 30s, we’ve seen that he was inspired by following the most modern trends in architecture, principally by engaging the services of Charles Holden, and at the time these stations might well have appeared as something out of the future. Maybe they don’t appear to us in this way now, but to my eyes they have stood the test of time. Well, I can’t predict how we’ll view the Jubilee Line extension stations in 70 years time, but I can certainly say that although totally different in style to Holden’s work, the best of them too have an ultra modern appearance, and even though they’re already over 20 years old, most of them still appear fresh, and like something out of the future.

I’m not familiar with Sir Richard McCormack, the architect who designed Southwark station, but I like what he’s done here in a rather cramped site. As you’ve probably already figured out, I like curves, and this design uses them rather well to my opinion. If you must use concrete, then this is a pretty good way of doing it, and the light blue tiles of the canopy, curving gently upwards to the dark blue strip with the station name work very nicely in my opinion.

I wish I could feel as positive about Bermondsey station. This one was designed by Ian Ritchie Architects, and they can point to a very prestigious prize winning body of work throughout Europe. In fact when you look at the work they have produced in Europe, you can’t help wondering why they designed Bermondsey station in such a conventional, nondescript way. It’s a big, low, square shed basically, and it wouldn’t look out of place in any out of town retail park across the UK. It’s such a shame considering that I had high hopes for it after Southwark. The architects, to be fair, have done a good job of bringing natural light into the main building, but once you step outside it’s a real case of – oh, is that it, then? Its lack of imagination is highlighted by its proximity to St. James’ Church. I used to see this from the raised section of track outside London Bridge on my way back to New Cross, and it always struck me as a good thing that such a fine church could be standing in an area which was undergoing radical transformation at the time. It was built in 1829, but looks much older, a cousin of the sort of thing that Christopher Wren was churning out just over 100 years earlier.

Thankfully my sense of disappointment is completely dispelled by Canada Water Station. If I’m looking for a station which, in 80 years time, another sketcher might approach with the same sense of admiration with which I approached, for example, Holden’s Arnos Grove station, then I’ve found it. The comparison with Arnos Grove is deliberate. Now, I don’t know if Buro Happold, who designed it, were specifically inspired by Arnos Grove, or any other existing tube station, but the construction of the drum which forms the main part of the station buildings is inspired. Of course, Arnos Grove’s drum is brick, with glass panels, while Canada Water is completely glazed. This makes it a wonderfully light and airy construction, as impressive inside as it is outside. Arnos Grove’s entrance block is above ground, while Canada Water’s is below, and constructed with the strength to bear the building of a 9 storey block above it. I kind of hope this never happens. No building is perfect, but Canada Water comes pretty close as it is.

Waiting for the next train, I play the meaning of Liff game, and define Canada Water thus: ‘Canada Water (n. colloquial) Canada Water is a term used within the brewing industry to refer to any terrible beer which sells in inexplicable quantities, despite the fact that nobody actually seems to like it. Famous Canada Waters of the second half of the 20^th century include Kestrel Lager, Watneys Red Barrel and Ind Coope Double Diamond. ‘

I visited Canary Wharf Station a couple of years ago, when playing in the Brain of Mensa Final in the London Hilton. The best way to get there, I’d found, was tube to Canary Wharf, then ferry across to the hotel. Now, if Canada Water looks like the futuristic child of Arnos Grove, then it’s fair to say that Canary Wharf station looks like the futuristic child of Newbury Park. The gracefully arched entranceway isn’t on the same scale as the earlier Central Line Station, but it is reminiscent of it. I’m not all that surprised to read that Canary Wharf is the busiest station outside Travelcard Zone1. I’m rather more surprised to find that the station was actually built with this in mind, and that it usually copes admirably with the peak flow of passengers each day. Where the design aesthetic wins over Newbury Park is that there are actually two of these canopies, with a very agreeable green space in between them. The views across the river are great, and I have to say that this is one part of my home town which makes me feel more like a tourist than any other. Docklands was being developed in the mid 80s on the occasions I passed through on my way back to uni, but all of this was still in the future.

I’m tempted to try to walk as close to the Thames as I can on the way to North Greenwich, but it’s mid afternoon, and I’d like to finish with the Jubilee Line now while I’m feeling comfortably tired, before it develops into uncomfortable fatigue.

I did visit North Greenwich station some years back, when taking my youngest two daughters to the Treasures of Tutankhamen exhibition in the Dome, which would have been about 2007. Back in 1972 I was really disappointed not to be taken to the Tutankhamen exhibition at the British Museum, so there was no way I was going to miss this one. Very good it was too, apart from the absence of the famous death mask, and the incredibly expensive prices in the gift shop.

The Dome, or the O2 Arena, or whatever you wish to call it, is of course the main reason for the existence of North Greenwich station, indeed for the fact that the Jubilee line extension did actually get built. You see, the thing about Greenwich, especially the part where the Dome is, is that until the tube reached here, it was a bit of a bugger to get to. Not exactly difficult, but it could take ages. There was no way that the Dome could ever expect to attract the 12 million visitors it projected in 2000 without the Jubilee line. In the end, only about 6 million people visited the Dome. So this was either a crushing failure, or, considering the fact that this made it by far and away the UK’s most popular attraction in 2000, a huge success. I tend to recall that the Dome itself was originally given a shelf life of 10 years, after which it would need extensive work, or being pulled down. Fact is that it now looks to be as permanent an attraction as any other London landmark. I was intrigued to notice that it takes up almost exactly as much ground area as its Victorian predecessor, the Crystal Palace. We can only hope that it never suffers the same eventual fate.

With the nearby Dome to content with, North Greenwich station is always in danger of being overlooked in architectural terms. The station is another gleaming metal and glass job. I really like the canopy which curves around the back of the station, then undulates across the front in a series of graceful waves. This station was designed by Alsop, Lyall and Störmer, and I have to say that they have designed a modern station which sits comfortably alongside Southwark, Canada Water and Canary Wharf. As with those stations, it’s 20 years old but the design still seems fresh and inspiring.

The Jubilee line carries on all the way to Stratford, but my last unbagged station on the line is Canning Town, and so it’s where this trip officially ends. I have to say that the Northern entrance, which is the main entrance to the station, looks tired and uninspiring. Concrete panels rarely look inspiring, and once they’d had a few years to get dirty, as these have, they look even less appealing. Even the parts which make less conspicuous use of concrete and more use of glass and metal are flat and rectangular, and speak more of dull bus station than imaginative tube station design. Thankfully, though, the station also has a southern entrance, and this is the one I’ve sketched. Okay, this is little more than a lift entrance, but blimey, it displays more imagination than the rest of the station put together. Curves always play well with me, and circular structures even more so. The glazed panels around the top of the drum below the canopy are a lovely touch, and the sort of thing which lifts this little part of the station  and allows it into the ranks of those which have gone before.

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So ends my penultimate trip, and the last trip which involves concentrating on one specific line. Looking back, I’m agreeably surprised to find that the trip has given me a new found respect for the Jubilee which I didn’t have before. When it was originally opened, I felt that it was a little bit of a cheat, considering that it didn’t have one new station, and those which now belonged solely to the Jubilee had been taken without so much as a by your leave from the Bakerloo. Mind you, for many of those, they had originally been taken by the Bakerloo from the long suffering Metropolitan, so I suppose turn about is fair play. However with the extension to the line, the Jubilee seems to have come into its own, with a run of quite distinctive stations which approaches the Holden stations on the southern end of the northern line for impact. Indeed, I think it’s fair to say that generally the south of the river punches far above its weight in terms of station quality. Granted, I have yet to bag the Victoria Line duo of Vauxhall and Brixton, but out of the 27 stations south of the river that I’ve already visited, I’d say that Kew Gardens, Richmond, Wimbledon Park, Southfields, East Putney, Elephant and Castle, Kennington, Clapham Common, Clapham South, Balham, Tooting Bec, Tooting Broadway, Colliers Wood, South Wimbledon, Southwark, Canary Wharf, North Greenwich and the southern entrance of Canning Town are all attractive stations which are worth going out of your way to see. That’s 18 a whopping 70%. Even if Vauxhall and Brixton turn out to be complete duds, that will still leave us in the high 60s. A less impressive fact, although no less significant, is that of the  other stations – London Bridge, Borough, Oval, Stockwell, Clapham North, Borough, Morden, the worst that you can say about them is that they’re a bit boring or nondescript.

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One more trip to do then, and I have half an idea that it may actually prove to be the trickiest of all. It isn’t the number of stations, although 8 Victoria Line stations and 7 Hammersmith and City Line Stations make a significant total of 15 to do in one day. No, it’s the logistical nightmare of not using the same stretch of line twice in the same day. This will require some thought.

British Illustrators 6: Ronald Searle and Molesworth

In a reversal of the normal practice, the illustrator of the ‘Molesworth’ books, Ronald Searle, is far better remembered than the actual writer, Geoffrey Willans. Ronald Searle is best remembered for his St. Trinians sketches, which gave rise to some successful popular British films in the 50s, and several desperately unfunny remakes since. Searle’s loose, anarchic style perfectly fits Geoffrey Willans’ antihero Nigel Molesworth, schoolboy protagonist of “Down with Skool!” and three sequels. Molesworth is a pupil at the fictional boarding school St. Custard. Sadly I don’t think many kids still read Willans – the books are fondly remembered and treasured by any adults of a certain age, like myself , who discovered them for themselves, albeit they were already 20 years old when I first read them in the 70s. Incidentally, J.K. Rowling is about the same age as me, and I can’t help wondering if she read a lot of the same kind of books that I did at a formative age. I say this, because Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books is a direct lineal descendant of schools like St. Custard, Greyfriars in Billy Bunter, Linbury Court in Anthony Buckeridge’s Jennings books, and Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers.

British Illustrators 5: E.H. Shepard

It’s unthinkable now that A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh books could have been illustrated by anyone else than Ernest Shepard, yet it nearly didn’t happen. According to one source I read, Milne originally believed that Shepard’s style was unsuitable, and only agreed to allow him to work on the verse book “Now We Are Six”. When he saw Shepard’s work for the book, though, he changed his mind, and indeed, once he became convinced that Shepard’s illustration was adding to the popularity of the books, then he voluntarily paid Shepard a percentage of his royalties.

Shepard’s most beloved work after his Winnie the Pooh illustrations are surely his illustrations of Kenneth Grahame’s evergreen novel “The Wind in the Willows”, and it’s one of these that I’ve chosen to copy.

British Illustrators 4: Arthur Rackham and "Alice in Wonderland"

British Illustrators 4: Arthur Rackham and “Alice in Wonderland”

Arthur Rackham, a near contemporary of E.H. Shepard, is synonymous with a fairytale style of illustration combining strong ink work with subtle watercolour. Rackham was the illustrator of J.M.Barrie’s first ever Peter Pan story “Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens”. He also made illustrations for an edition of “The Wind in the Willows”, although I’ve chosen to copy one of his illustrations for a later edition of “Alice in Wonderland”. 

Tenniel is my hero, and for me His illustrations ARE Alice in Wonderland, however Rackham’s style is also highly effective at portraying the fantastic elements of Carroll’s story, even if for me they lack a little of the sinister quality of Tenniel’s work which I like so much.

Rackham is an illustrator whose reputation and popularity has only increased in the decades since his death.

British Illustrators 3: Pauline Baynes and the Chronicles of Narnia

Yes, you might not have heard of Pauline Baynes, but she was the original illustrator of C.S. Lewis’ enchanting Narnia books. I was fortunate enough to attend a primary school in the early 1970s whose library hadn’t been updated since the 1950s. I picked up the library’s copy of “Prince Caspian” because I liked the look of the front cover, and from then on I was hooked. Pauline Baynes came to the attention of C.S. Lewis through the recommendation of his good friend, and fellow Oxford don, J.R.R. Tolkien, (no mean illustrator himself) for whom Pauline Baynes had illustrated his highly enjoyable “Farmer Giles of Ham” tale. 

I love the cleanness of her work, and her effortless ability to conjure up epic landscapes with a few strokes of the pen. As a kid, one of the first sketches I made that I was ever really proud of was a copy of a Pauline Baynes illustration of a little sad dragon from “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”. This is a copy of an illustration from “The Magician’s Nephew”, not the first to be written, but the first part of the series in terms of the ongoing narrative. An utter joy.

Great British Illustrators 2: Edward Ardizzone and "The Land of Green Ginger"

Edward Ardizzone was an English illustrator of French-Italian extraction, who illustrated a very large number of children’s books through the 40s, 50s and 60s. “The Land of Green Ginger” by Noel Langley, is an absolutely wonderful book, full of wit, whimsy, humour and adventure. Although it’s called a children’s classic – which it is – it’s sadly out of fashion now. It continues the story of Aladdin, through his son, Abu Ali, focusing on Abu Ali’s quest to win the hand of the beautiful Silver Bud. It’s just great, an utter gem, and I can’t wait until my grandson is old enough for me to read it to him. 

The illustration I’ve copied shows Abu Ali and Silver Bud on the left, while his rival suitors, TinTac Ping Foo and Rubdub Ben Thud look on from the right. Noel Langley, who wrote the novel, was a South African writer, who wrote the original screenplay for the smash hit film “The Wizard of Oz”, but this book, I think, is his most inspired creation, and it’s perfectly portrayed in Ardizzone’s unique and distinctive style. It's a style which is light years removed from my own, with relatively few bold lines, and a range of shading and just suggested outliines which give his figures a shadowy, indistinct quality, almost like sfumato in its effect. If you look at this particular illustration I've tried to copy, the two foregrounded figures to the left are the two villains, Tintac Ping Foo and Rubdub Ben Thud, and I think that you can still clearly start to get an idea of these villains particular qualities. 

Great British Illustrators 1:Sir John Tenniel and Alice in Wonderland

We must all do our best to find ways to stop going stir crazy while protecting ourselves from the Covid 19 virus. One way that I've come up with is to revisit some of my favourite illustrators from books and other forms of fiction I loved as a kid. I have to start with the great Sir John Tenniel. Tenniel was the principal illustrator for Punch Magazine for over 50 years, and was the first illustrator to receive a knighthood. However for most people he is remembered for his original illustrations to Alice in Wonderland.
I grew up in my grandmother's house. She had a number of classic books which my grandfather had bought. In time I would read several of them, but was too young for all but Alice in Wonderland for a long time. This book fascinated me, and even though it was a while before I would even try to read it, Tenniel's wonderful illustrations hooked me from the start.
The first sketch here is a detail from his illustration of the Mad Hatter's tea party in "Alice in Wonderland". As I've said, for me the archetypal images of the book are from Tenniel's illustrations, the Disney film notwithstanding. Others are copies of Tenniel's illustrations for the book I made on earlier occasions (See if you can spot which one is copied from "Through the Looking Glass") :-

Last year, during my marathon stint of producing at least one sketch every day for a whole year I made a copy of a very famous Tenniel Cartoon concerning Benjamin Disraeli's purchase of shares in the Suez Canal, while he was Prime Minister.

Also, through his work for punch, John Tenniel made many images which I've recycled for my hand drawn Christmas cards for friends and families - these are just a few examples: -

Tomorrow: Edward Ardizzone and "The Land of Green Ginger"

Bakerloo Line

Bakerloo Line – Harrow and Wealdstone to Elephant and Castle

There are 17 stations which I haven’t yet bagged on the Bakerloo. That’s a long trip, however the Bakerloo is ideal for this undertaking for one reason. It has no branches or arms, and is the first line which is just the one line that I’ve encountered during the challenge. Apart from the Waterloo and City, I suppose, but that doesn’t count because I completed that line as a consequence of doing other lines.  Of course, we need to build a walk into the trip, and on reflection I’ve decided to walk from Kilburn Park to Warwick Avenue, via Maida Vale. I’ll maybe say a little bit more about that when I get there.

Still, best not to get ahead of myself. So, Harrow and Wealdstone, then. I’m tempted to suggest that this station was named after an even more down at heel music hall act than Chalfont and Latimer, but you’ll probably be pleased that I won’t. While I was working my way through the Metropolitan I did mention that one of the things I cherish the Tube for is its individuality. Well, I think I can safely say that one of the two Harrow and Wealdstone station buildings is quite different from anything else I’ve seen so far. In some ways it reminds me a bit of a late Victorian or Edwardian police station. This station was the scene of the worst peacetime rail accident, when two national rail trains collided, killing 112 people, and memorial plaque which was erected to mark the 50^th anniversary can clearly be seen on the station. So it’s with fairly sombre mood that I await the train to Kenton.

Despite the old fashioned canopies above the platforms at Kenton, it doesn’t really have the countrified feel of a lot of the outlying stations of similar Edwardian vintage that we’ve visited so far on other lines. The wee Edwardian station building, quite charming in an understated way, seems really out of place, situated as it is on a wide, modern main road, and dwarfed by a modern office block. It’s not a listed building, so I can only hope that nothing happens to convince the Underground to pull it down and put a bright, shiny new station in its place. This area needs something like this station to humanise it a little bit. I return to the platform and find that I’m unable to come up with a new tube based game. Kenton doesn’t really lend itself that well to rhyming slang, so I come up with the definition, Kenton: verb (intransitive) – of politicians – to admit that you are unable to fulfil a specific manifesto promise, which everyone knew to be complete Balham in the first place.

There’s nothing of an Edwardian air about South Kenton, which is hardly surprising since it wasn’t even a glint in the architect’s eye until the 1930s. The platforms are functional then, serving Arriva Rail London as well as the Underground, but no better than that. As for the building, well, from the surface, well for want of a better word it’s like a hole into a tunnel underneath a bridge. But once you get up to the platform level ticket hall things improve considerably. This is pure art deco, streamlined curves at both ends, with glass panels absolutely typical of the period. If this building was out on the street, then I reckon it would have a chance of being one of the network’s more striking stations. As it is, at least it stands as a reward for the rather depressing walk in from the street. As for rhyming slang, the best I could come up with was South Kenton- Sergeant Benton. Fans of the original 1963-89 incarnation of Doctor Who will understand, and others really shouldn’t worry about it.

Sometimes you emerge from one station to think you’ve gone the wrong way, and arrived back at a station you visited a couple of stops ago. This is how I feel when I come out of North Wembley, as the station, and its situation are pretty similar to Kenton. However the buildings to the right, which stylistically look as if they may have been originally built in the 30s, are at least a little more in sympathy with the Edwardian station. I’m interested to learn that the station only opened as a mainline station in 1912, and didn’t connect to the underground until 1917, during the first world war. I’m tempted to play rhyming slang with the station name, and being a Spurs fan, of course I come up with North Wembley – Ossie’s knees were trembly. Mind you, so were mine when I kept shouting at Ricky Villa to pass the bleeding ball before he scored one of the most memorable goals in the history of the FA Cup. Apologies to Chas n’ Dave for that. 

So we arrive at Wembley Central. Various schoolboy suggestions for rhyming slang come to mind, but then I’ve had my own mental health issues in the last 10 years, so I’m definitely not going down that particular route. Wembley Central – can’t stand lentils? True, although not the funniest. As for the station entrance itself, well, what do you say. The station itself is unremarkable, it’s modern, rectangular, bulky grey tiles at street level, white block with tall narrow windows above it. However, the station is in a block where at least some attempt has been made to relieve the drab awfulness that is the characteristic of the residential blocks of the second half of the 20^th century. Random blocks of red and orange have been painted around some of the windows, and my heart and spirits lift a little bit to see that someone has had the sense to do something which does nothing to hurt the block for the residents, but hugely improves it for the poor sods who have to look at it on the way into the station. When I was a kid I used to rather like Wembley Central. I can’t remember why I was on the platform a few times, but I remember liking the fact that you could see the British Rail Electric locomotives passing through on their way North. My part of Ealing is graced only by the routes out of Paddington, which predominantly head West, and at the time you were only going to see diesels. Mind you, for the most part I did find the diesels rather more interesting, and as for steam locomotives, which had been phased out during the previous decade, I could wax lyrical – but won’t.

Stonebridge Park is one of a surprisingly small number of stations whose buildings were destroyed by bombing during world war two. Or so says Wikipedia. I can only conclude that I misread this, or it meant that parts of the station were destroyed, since the entrance, which I sketched, is clearly an Edwardian structure, and very unlike anything likely to have been built in 1948. I take a closer look, and find that the Wikipedia entry does admit that the booking hall seems to be the original building. It’s a fair cop, guv. All in all it’s a rather lovely little building, similar to Kenton and North Wembley, although nicer due to where it’s sited. It’s all the more surprising considering it is literally metres away from a depressing brick viaduct over the North Circular. I can’t quite remember if this is the same viaduct which proclaimed M.KHAN IS BENT in defiant graffiti for so many years in the 80s, but it might be. I google further, and find out that no, this was much closer to Bounds Green. Ah, nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

My Dad, although born in Battersea, of Scottish extraction, grew up in Acton, and he was always far more familiar with the Acton, Willesden, Harlesden area than I ever was. I remember the only times I was ever anywhere near the area when I was growing up was when the old fellow used to take my brothers and me to Old Oak Common depot, to see if he could blag his way into getting any of the drivers of the class 52 ‘Western’ Diesel Hydraulics, and the brand, spanking new Intercity 125s to let us look in the cabs. It was one of very few things I can remember him being conspicuously good at. I remember it as being a determinedly industrial area, not unlike the Great West Road and the Western Avenue, and the Cheeseborough Ponds factory particularly sticks out in my memory. By the look of things, Harlesden Station predated all of that. My initial thought is that it’s another 1912 job, and that’s exactly what it proves to be. The first station on the site, though, was opened a mere 69 years earlier, in 1841. Putting that into perspective, Queen Victoria was still in her early 20s at that time, and the opening of the world’s first steam powered passenger railway, the Stockton and Darlington, had happened a mere 16 years earlier. Today, the walls of the platform I face are pretty much devoid of advertising, making this one of the most featureless overground platforms that I’ve visited, so I’m not sorry when the train pulls in.

There’s some really rather nice period features I notice on the platforms of Willesden Junction, with ornamental ironwork holding up what I’d guess could be the original canopies. However, when I emerge from the station it’s as if I have come forward over 100 years in as many seconds. My usual inadequate research fails to tell me when this modern building was opened, but I’d be surprised if its celebrated its 20^th anniversary yet. It’s perfectly pleasant, but, well, how can I put it, if you removed all the signage, put up Tesco Express signs and painted it in the appropriate colours, this would easily pass for one. Which is fine and dandy if you want to catch a train in a station that looks like a supermarket. Willesden Junction – never mind the form, feel the function. One thing that my research does reveal is that this station (and its predecessors) has had more than its fair share of incidents and accidents over the years, no fewer than 14 bullet points’ worth on its wiki entry.

I’ve found a photograph on the net taken in 1980 which shows the current Kensal Green station well on the way to being finished, and the old station, shortly to be demolished. The old station was a small, 1916 one, not totally dissimilar from others on the line. The new station just looks like a large shed. It still does. It says a lot for the 70s and 80s that demolishing one and building the other would have been seen as progress. Now, I do know that ‘modern’ and ‘bad’ are not interchangeable terms. I’d like to think that I’m as quick to praise striking modern stations like Hounslow East, as I am to condemn 70’s/80’s eyesores like Gunnersbury – several times voted the ugliest station on the network. But I’m very sorry, in my opinion, any station which looks more like a medium sized warehouse than a station is just plain wrong. Kensal Green – best left unseen.

My rather grumpy mood really doesn’t improve as I get out of the train at Queen’s Park station. As a rough rule of thumb, I do think that stations which have platforms that are above ground shouldn’t try to pretend otherwise. The platforms where I get off here are glazed over, and frankly, bearing in mind the uninspiring design ethic here, so am I. The station is shared with London Overground, and I’m afraid that, from the outside, it looks just like any 70s/80s British rail town station. Not a curve anywhere, and precious few diagonals. I did actually know that Queen’s Park Rangers FC, now comfortably based in the Shepherd’s Bush/White City area, did once have a ground nearby, hence the name. Mind you, I may be wrong, but I think that QPR had more grounds in their time than any other London club. Queen’s Park Station – pointless creation. Hmm, the negativity I’m feeling towards the Bakerloo line at the moment is starting to worry me. I’ve done 10 stations so far, but with this being a marathon trip, I’ve still got over half a dozen to go. At this stage I can only hope that the rain, which seems to about to start at any moment, holds off on my walk from Kilburn Park to Warwick Avenue.

Thankfully, my mood starts to lighten as I alight at Kilburn Park. I know that this is an early Stanley Heaps station, when Heaps took over Leslie Green’s in house style and ran with it in his own direction. Hence, when you first look at it, you can recognise that this is a tube station from the first couple of decades of the 20^th century. It certainly looks superficially like a Green station, with the ox blood terracotta tiles, and semi circular windows. However if you look for a moment longer, you begin to notice that the windows aren’t the same as any Green station. The semi circles are just the arches at the top of longer windows than Green typically used, and the glass is attractively leaded in diamond patterns. The station name in the cream banding along the top is very attractive too. According to my research this station, built in 1915, as one of the underground’s very first to be built to incorporate escalators rather than lifts, which meant that there was no bulky lift machinery to have to house. I like the ornamental lights as well. For me, this is a great and stylish station. Poor old Stanley Heaps – he tends to sit in the shadows behind Leslie Green and Charles Holden. His own distinctive style in stations like Edgware probably didn’t produce the finest stations on the network, and his best stations tend to owe to the work of Green or Holden. Yet he was more than just a hack imitator of other architect’s work, and Kilburn Park is a good demonstration of his versatility, and his ability to add originality to a particular style. I start to feel better as I set off along Cambridge Avenue, even though a light drizzle starts as I skirt the Paddington Recreation Grounds.

Now, I have a particular fondness for Maida Vale Station. A few years ago, not long after I began urban sketching, I made a visit to London, during the course of which I made an ink and watercolour sketch of Maida Vale station, which I sold. Yes, dearly beloved, I do sell my stuff. My artistic soul is for sale, and the price is a lot cheaper than you might expect. Back then, I pretty much divided all London underground stations into three mental piles – the ones with oxblood tiles, the Charles Holden ones from my childhood, and everything else which wasn’t worth bothering with. I’d call this attitude the folly of youth, if it wasn’t for the fact that I’d already turned 50 by this time. So, now I know that this is another early Stanley Heaps station, another very distinctive one considering that it’s on a corner site. I don’t know exactly what it is, but this is just a particularly picturesque station. It’s grade II listed – rightly so. I’m rather charmed to see that the exterior of the station became the fictional Westbourne Oak station in the rather charming 2014 Paddington film. It’s just that kind of station.

It’s only about half a mile from here to Warwick Avenue Station. The wind’s blowing quite hard now, making my umbrella less of a portable shelter than an offensive weapon. So I don’t take especial note of the rather nice residential buildings in these parts. All I know at this point about Warwick Avenue tube station is the song by Duffy. I’ll be honest, I loved the song when it first came out, but to paraphrase the lyrics – When I get to Warwick Avenue I’m a bit disappointed to find out that there’s not a lot to see, the station being underground. The stairs, well, what do you expect? They’re steps. Come to think of it, though, the song is about a final meeting with a girlfriend/boyfriend, to say it’s over, and being honest, in the long run it’s probably better to be brutal by dumping someone in a dump like this, rather than trying to soften the blow in a more attractive station like Maida Vale or Kilburn Park. To be a wee bit fairer, there is a large, rectangular brick ventilation shaft, but its plainness is only highlighted by the fact that there’s what appears to be a delightful original cabmen’s shelter right next to it.  

There’s 6 minutes for me to wait on the platform for the next train, which is more than enough time for the cabbie’s shelter to set me off on a train of thought. When the Bakerloo Line was first built, horsepower literally was the most popular – if not only – form of surface transport. That and Shanks’ pony. Alright, the internal combustion engine had been invented, and London’s first double decker motor buses, the estimable type B had been plying the capital’s streets for several years. My great great grandfather wasn’t actually a cabbie, he was a ‘carman in vestry’ in Hammersmith, which I found out was the late 19^th century equivalent of a corporation dustman. Why the cabmen’s shelter brought him to mind was that he died of pneumonia at the age of 29. So the shelters were surely a great boon to those working the streets, even if a water trough was all that was on offer to the poor horses.

I already sketched the Bakerloo Praed Street station since it’s shared with several other lines. On the same trip I also sketched the Bakerloo Edgware Road station. So I get what is the equivalent of a trip into hyperspace as I hop forward as far as Marylebone Station. Hmm. Marylebone Station. Would those words have any meaning to the vast majority of Londoners had it not been included on the original London Monopoly Board? I rather think not. In my fifty plus years on this planet I had never before had any cause to visit the station – and I was a train spotter too. As a matter of fact, in all likelihood Marylebone was only included on the board because it was an LNER terminus at the time, like Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, and the even more obscure Fenchurch Street, which doesn’t even have its own tube station. I’m told that this was one of the last, if not the last mainline terminus to open in London. As a tube station, it’s very large. As a mainline terminus it’s a little on the small side, and when you compare it with the gothic exuberance of, say, St. Pancras and the Great Midland Hotel, its very late Victorian gothic is rather restrained. In one way at least I’m glad to visit, since this was where the opening scenes of the Beatles’ best film “A Hard Days Night” were made. The Harry Potter films were actually shot at Kings Cross though, although next door St. Pancras was used for the exteriors. Well, there we are, that just about wraps it up for Marylebone Station. I did not pass go and I certainly did not pick up £200.

Baker Street is one of those stations that just keeps giving when you’ve visited it once, and so I pass through without getting off the train. Next stop is Regent’s Park, and this is the last Bakerloo line station that doesn’t connect with any other line, until we’ve crossed the river. The next – and last time it happens is at Lambeth North, which, incidentally, is the least used station in travelcard Zone 1, according to Wikipedia. Regent’s Park is the 2^nd least used. The ticket hall has always been subsurface. Apparently in the original act of Parliament for the building of the line, no station was to be built here. The ticket hall was dug beneath part of the park itself, which did cause quite serious subsidence.

I head back down towards the lifts, and it strikes me that I’ve been on the go for several hours now, and haven’t got round to eating my rolls. Yet I look at the map on the platform, and realise that although there are 5 stations between here and Lambeth North, I have actually visited all of them before. In fact, Lambeth North is the only Bakerloo line station I haven’t yet bagged on this or a previous trip. Lambeth North is a station I remember only due to its proximity to the Imperial War

Museum. In fact, bearing this in mind I can’t help wondering why it’s the least used station in zone 1. It’s funny the things you remember. The first thing I remember from childhood rips to the Imperial War Museum is passing by a house which a blue plaque announced used to be the home of William Bligh, of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. A superlative navigator, Bligh safely brought an open boat full of his loyal men to Timor after a journey of 3000 miles. He was honourably acquitted of any wrongdoing in the events leading to the mutiny. Didn’t do him that much good. Some 16 years after the mutiny he was set as Governor to New South Wales, where he was deposed in another mutiny. Despite this, though, he did eventually rise to the rank of Vice Admiral.

My other memory of Lambeth North is of a joyous occasion when my O Level History class were taken on a day trip to the Imperial Museum. We were trusted to be able to go on the tube – a trust which proved rather misplaced. Changing to the Bakerloo at Piccadilly Circus, Mrs. Crichton warned us all not to go running off. So Steve Jansz and Kwinny Sanger both did exactly that, got an earlier train than the rest of us, and were laughing their tripes off waiting for us. A stern talking to from Mrs. C. had no effect as they did the same on the way home. And headed off to Elephant and Castle by mistake. Mrs. C. sent the rest of us to make our own way home, and waited to rendezvous with the others when their train returned.

The station itself is a little bit of what my dear old Nan would have called ‘fur coat and no knickers.” The façade is a nice, though fairly small, 3 arch Leslie Green job. However, if you walk round the side you soon see hat this station’s beauty is only skin deep. I’d imagine that the buildings originally next door have since been removed, so when you look you can clearly see where the tiling ends, and what’s left on the side is a bare cliff of a wall unrelieved by anything other than a large billboard.

----------------------------------------------------

There we are, then, a whole line in a single day! I’ve come through a seriously grumpy stretch between Willesden and Kilburn Park, and the realisation starts to dawn on me that with two more trips I could complete the challenge. Looking back, I think it would be difficult to make a case for the Bakerloo being one of the most architecturally interesting lines, but I’ve generally enjoyed the trip, and to be fair, some of the most impressive Bakerloo stations had already been visited on earlier trips.

Here’s a thought. With the exception of the Circle Line, which to be fair isn’t really a line, but a service, which has no distinct stations of its own, the three lines left are all lines which have been created in my lifetime. The Victoria Line first opened in 1968, the Jubilee in 1979 and the Hammersmith and City gained its independence in 1990. My plan is to go middle for diddle, taking one trip to do the Jubilee Line next. Apart from anything else, I know that there are some very distinctive Jubilee Line stations in Docklands built for the Jubilee Line extension.