British Illustrators 15: H.R. Millar ad Five Children and It

Off Prompt: British Illustrators 15: H.R. Millar and Five Children and It

Scottish illustrator H.R. Millar was the original illustrator for several children’ books written by Edith Nesbit. Edith Nesbit, or E. Nesbit as she was known, authored something like 60 children’s books before her death in 1924. Extremely popular in the first few decades of the 20^th century, her works are still read today. Her most enduring novel is probably “The Railway Children”, due in no small part to lasting affection for the popular film. However my particular favourite, “Five Children and It” was also made into a film in 2004, with Eddie Izzard providing the voice of the Psammead, or sand fairy, which you can see in the illustration, which resulted in a mini revival of interest in Nesbit’s work. “Five Children and It” has never been out of print since publication. My first contact with the book came through television. In the 60s and 70s the BBC in the UK used to broadcast a programme called Jackanory. In this, a popular story – e.g. Five Children and It – would be abridged into 5 ten- or fifteen-minute segments, - one for each day of the week, and be read out by an actor, and this where I first encountered the story. At least three Jackanory readers went on to win Oscars – feel free to suggest which ones in the comments section. Sadly, I can’t remember who read this story, though.

H.R. Millar was a prolific artist, and he worked with many famous authors including Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling. He’s probably best remembered for his illustrations for books like this and “The Phoenix and the Carpet” for E. Nesbit, though.

Victoria Line and Hamersmith and City Line

Please note that all of these London Underground sketching trips were made before any corona virus restrictions were put into place.

On paper, this task shouldn’t be so difficult. There’s seven stations between Goldhawk Road and Royal Oak, and once I’ve bagged them then the H and C line is done. However, the Victoria Line is an issue. There’s 6 stations between Walthamstow Central and Highbury and Islington, only one of which, Finsbury Park, I’ve already bagged. However there’s another 4 stations between Pimlico and Brixton, only one of which, Stockwell, I’ve already bagged. So the most time economical solution to this trip involves working the Victoria to Kings Cross, bagging stations along the way. From Kings Cross I take the H and C to Royal Oak, and bag stations from Royal Oak to Latimer Road. From there I plan to walk to Shepherd’s Bush Market station, bagging stations in between. Back on the train to bag Goldhawk Road, and then walk to Hammersmith District and Piccadilly station. By District train to Victoria, and from there to Brixton, bagging the last stations on the way. It sounds contrived, but believe it or not it is the most elegant solution I’ve come up with to complete the one day, two lines nature of today’s trip.

Now, to me, the name Walthamstow – which is Old English for Waltham Abbey, believe it or not – conjures up the looming bulk of Walthamstow Stadium, with its neon greyhound sign so clearly visible from the North Circular. It’s been gone for more than a decade now. I never actually visited the stadium, but I did spend a few memorable evenings ‘down Catford Dogs’ when I was a student living in Lewisham. When it comes to dog racing, I have maintained a proud 100% record – never made a penny out of it.

Walthamstow Central Station pulls off an unusual trick. It looks like a boring bus station, while the bus station looks like a modern interpretation of an art deco tube station.Following up from a photo on Wikipedia I take a walk around, and find the old building on the London Bound side. It’s surely Victorian or Edwardian at the latest, and quite similar to a lot of buildings I’ve sketched from the northern arms of the Bakerloo and Metropolitan. The original station built here opened in about 1870 – this may possibly be it. Like the bus station, this one also has tube signs on it, as well as mainline rail. So I set off on this final trip in a happy mood, knowing that whatever else the Victoria may present us with it has at least one striking station, even if we can’t count the bus station. Part of it.

Wikipedia tellingly observes that the Victoria Line stations built in the 60s had little money available to be spent on them, and my first thought about Blackhorse Road is that this is just what it looks like. Even donning my rose tinted spectacles to look at it more closely, it’s never going to win a place among my 135 best looking stations. But for all that the attempt to give this building some flavour or character is a half-assed one, the fact is that it is an attempt. The different levels of flat roof may give the appearance of having been designed by a child let loose with a lego set, but at least there’s something to divert the eye away from the concrete. While I’m in such a forgiving mood as well, I might as well note that I liked the tiles on the platform which feature a stylised black horse in a white cameo on a blue background. It’s probably something that regular users pay little attention to, but you just don’t get this sort of thing in most European metro stations that I’ve ever visited. The station, though, is the poor cousin of the Victoria Line. According to my research no Victoria Line station has fewer users.

A decade after I moved away from London, my Mum moved from Ealing to Tottenham. Well, to be fair, her husband, my step father lived there, so it wasn’t an unreasonable thing. Until they moved to Worthing in 2011 I visited them many times, and used the Tube, yet the closest station was actually Wood Green. So I’ve never previously visited Tottenham Hale, despite knowing the general area probably a bit better than I know many parts of London. What can I say? Well, it’s one of those stations I shouldn’t be too harsh about because it’s being remodelled and upgraded. At the moment, well, when I visited there really wasn’t much to see, which you can probably see from the sketch. All I can tell you is that if it looks like the artists impressions on the TfL website when it’s finished, then it will be a lot better and more attractive than the building it replaces. Don’t hold your breath, though, for in the artists impression the whole building seems to in rural Scandinavia, rather than the aesthetically challenged built up area of Tottenham Hale. To be honest, since I’ve know the area, Tottenham Hale has been crying out for a little bit of relief from crap buildings.

The sketch I made of Seven Sisters station isn’t really the station buildings, since it doesn’t really have any of those. The two exits just kind of vomit you out onto the street, and they’re little more than holes in walls, a la South Kenton. Near one of the exits, though is an empty retail outlet, presumably owned by TfL, since in 2017 they commissioned a pair of artists to hand craft the ceramic tiles which now cover it. Close up I like the marbled tiles very much. I’m sorry, but try to appreciate them as I might, the yellow tiles with random dark blue splodges don’t appeal to me at all.  But I like the idea. I like the sentiments behind the idea, that this was a way to enrich passengers’ journeys by doing this to a building which is part of their daily commute – although I can’t help thinking that passengers might say cheaper fares and a better service might do this rather more effectively. Cynicism – I’m sorry. Let’s lighten the mood a little with a wiki fact. The section between Seven Sisters and Finsbury Park is the longest between any two adjacent stations in deep level tunnels on the network. Woo hoo!

A really lovely section of the original station building at Highbury and Islington, next station after Finsbury Park, which looks contemporary with Leslie Green’s work, still stands. Wikipedia confirms it was opened in 1904, although it was part of the North London Railway, which was not to be part of the Underground network. Sadly, though, the station we actually emerge from is the original Victoria Line station from 1968. It isn’t ugly, it’s far too nothingy for that. Alright, to be fair the original station was highly damaged by wartime bombing, and as Wikipedia suggests, the line had to be built on the cheap, because they couldn’t afford to do it on the expensive. Highbury and Islington were of course another music hall duo, although despite the geographical connection they didn’t include a certain song not entirely unconnected with a North London football club in their repertoire.

All of which drollery completes the northern section of the Victoria line for me. From here I alight at Kings Cross, and take the Hammersmith and City Line for another trip along the oldest part of the network.

John Fowler, original Chief engineer of the Metropolitan Railway, was nothing if not ingenious. His original thoughts about the smoke produced by the locomotives were that since they were only being required to haul short distances, they could get away without using much coal to heat the boilers to make the steam. He designed an engine whose boilers would be brought to temperature through a normal firebox, but whose boiler was full of heat retaining firebricks. Steam was to be captured and condensed and the water thus used again. It’s a potentially brilliant solution which suffered from one main drawback. It didn’t really work. The condensing system leaked, the boiler ran dry and came close to exploding. Fowler’s prototype, nicknamed his ‘ghost’ years later, was ruled a failure before the railway ever opened, and was never used by the railway again after the trials. Let’s not be too harsh on Fowler. When it comes to innovative engineering the line between success and failure could be a very narrow one, and Fowler himself is one of the engineers we have to thank for one of the great wonders of the industrial age, the Forth Bridge. (NB – as Billy Connolly once pointed out, the bridge with the roadway is the Forth Road Bridge, the bridge with the railway is The Bridge.)  

We now zip through 5 stops, most of which are beginning to feel like old friends. Finally I alight at Royal Oak, incidentally the last station I visit which is named after a pub. Now, although I have never previously walked upon the station’s platforms, I have often observed them, since the mainline into Paddington passes underneath the same bridge on which the station is situated. In my early days of living in Wales, I would sometimes come back to London on the train. These were the days when I still qualified for a Young Person’s Railcard. If I may be permitted to get on my soap box for a moment or two, one of the great scandals of this country is the way that people are priced out of using public transport. What first brought it home to me was the first trip back to London after I passed my driving test in 1991. My Father in Law had gifted us his Ford Fiesta when he bought a new Escort, and I made that first trip to London with my wife, and the two children who were the extent of my family back then. It cost us about a tank and half of petrol – and I could fill that Fiesta for £10 back in 1991. Even with a family railcard, travelling at whichever ungodly hour would entitle us to the cheapest fair, we’d still have been paying several times that to use the train. Sadly the situation hasn’t improved the slightest since. In fact, the last time that I took a train to London was in the mid noughties to appear on a quiz show, and the only reason I did it was because the Beeb were footing the bill.

The exterior of Royal Oak is a nice old building, which must be a centenarian, but the details are difficult to photograph or sketch because of being obscured by the superstructure of the railway bridge. This gives it something of the feel of an old remnant from times gone by that everyone has forgotten about, and I quite like that.

To show you how out of touch I am, I’ll let you know that I thought that mainline services into Paddington still stopped at Westbourne Park. No, I’m only about 30 years too late for the last one to stop there, apparently. I used to take the local British Rail trains – sludgepots as we far from affectionately called them – from Ealing Broadway to Paddington for a bit of trainspotting, and Westbourne Park was always the last stop. Now it’s Acton Mainline. As for Westbourne Park, I believe the station building dates from 1871, and while I’m no expert I’d say that the style is more Great Western than Metropolitan Railway. It’s really rather grand, although the boarded up windows by the main entrance make it look slightly sad, like a dowager duchess who’s fallen on hard times. Wikipedia tells of industrial archaeology around the station which has revealed evidence of some of Brunel’s original Great Western Railway buildings in the area, but there’s nothing obvious revealed by my quick glance around outside. Time’s getting on.

Ladbroke Grove is a funny little place. I’ll admit that I couldn’t find out that much about it from Wikipedia. Yes, okay, it was originally named Notting Hill, but was renamed to avoid confusion with another station – Hammersmith, Paddington and Edgware Road take note, please. Renaming a station to avoid confusion, even on the London Underground it can be done! I mean, I’m guessing that the brickwork around the entrance way has some age to it. However the grey glazed section above it is more modern, and less interesting. Then there’s that canopy above the entrance – giving it that pointed gable is just a little half hearted in my opinion. Still, let’s stop moaning shall we, it’s perfectly inoffensive, which is at least something.

Latimer Road is where I’m going to begin my last walked section. My original thought was to get back on the train at Shepherd’s Bush Market, but considering that Goldhawk Road is at the other end of the market it didn’t make sense, and so I decided to bite the bullet and go the whole hog, walking past all my remaining H and C line stations, to the District Line at Hammersmith. Latimer Road, then, reminds me a little bit of Parson’s Green. There’s certainly a bit of age to it, but it’s swallowed by the viaduct that it’s built into. You can’t help noticing the fact that the Grenfell Tower is behind the station. I have nothing I can say about this other than to express my sincere sympathy for the victims before moving on towards Wood Lane.

If you're of a similar age to myself, then the street name Wood Lane is indelibly linked in your mind with BBC Television Centre. Before the BBC shut up shop and moved on, I had the experience of working in TVC, as we called it then, being an audience member, and appearing on a live show, although not at the same time. Wood Lane today, though, is almost all about the Westfield Centre. At the time of writing this, the Westfield is the largest shopping centre in Europe. Now, I may well be in a minority in my view, but my view is that shopping centres are a necessary evil, while shopping centres this size veer more towards the unnecessary. I’m sorry, but to me shopping is not a source of pleasure, either as a participant or a spectator. Wood Lane station itself, then, is a modern, stainless steel and glass confection. In layout the exterior is a little reminiscent of Farringdon, I suppose. It does lack the imagination of the best of the Jubilee line extension stations which we saw on our last trip, and that’s a shame considering the opportunity that was there. I don’t know if this is a coincidence but this station was designed by Ian Ritchie Architects, who designed probably the least interesting Jubilee extension station at Bermondsey. I can’t help wondering why this is, since their work in Europe often ticks all my boxes. Mind you, I don’t know what stipulations were made by TfL which had to be adhered to.

I decide not to pop into the Westfield, but continue walking to Shepherd’s Bush Market station. Mind you, if I were offered to choose an hour in the Westfield or half an hour sitting with a pencil in my eye I’d probably have opted for my 30 minutes with a Staedtler HB so that’s not saying a great deal. Shepherd’s Bush Market is what seems to be a solitary example of TfL renaming a station which has the confusing same name as a totally different station. Prior to 2008, although not connected to the Central Line station of the same name, this was called just Shepherd’s Bush. Of the two Shepherd’s Bush stations, this has the oldest building, but basically the entrance is just a covered over staircase leading up to the platforms on the viaduct. It's something of a nostalgic pleasure to walk through Shepherd’s Bush Market. It was here that I bought my second hand copy of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” from a bookstall when I was 16, and a fine 50p’s worth that proved to be. I don’t waste time looking for the stall, but power on, with the scent of victory in my nostrils, knowing that my last unbagged H and C line station is just outside the opposite end of the market.

Goldhawk Road, from which the station takes its name, played a small cameo role in my family’s history, when it was where my great grandparents were married in 1905. There’s a rather dog eaten family photo which shows the pair of them, my great grandmother resplendent in full Edwardian finery, even including a parasol – a little incongruous since it was the end of December when they were married. My great grandfather, seated, wears a formal suit, although rather incongruously he also has a flat cap on his head.

As for the tube station, well it’s another one built into the side of the viaduct carrying the railway overhead before its final descent into Hammersmith. The curved canopy imbues it with a modicum of visual appeal, but there really isn’t that much to work with, I’m afraid.

Back on the train then, only allowing myself a small celebration for completing the Hammersmith and City. Then I allow myself an even smaller one as I realise that I’ve also completed the Circle Line too – all of its stations being shared with other lines. All we have left to do is the southernmost section of the Victoria Line.

As I walk between Hammersmith and City Hammersmith station, and Piccadilly and District Hammersmith station, it seems like an awfully long time ago that I last passed this way on my third Piccadilly Line trip. Purely in terms of time it’s just been a few weeks, but in terms of experience it seems far greater than that. I tell myself that with three stations still to go this is no time to start reflecting on the whole experience. I concentrate on the route I’m going to take – which is not a difficult one, since it just involves changing from the District Line to the Victoria at Victoria. Now that sets me off on a train of thought, and not the most pleasant one either. Bearing in mind the other stations I visited at the start of the day, and other Victoria Line stations I’ve visited in previous trips, I have to say that unless the last three stations pull something pretty spectacular out of the bag, then the Victoria Line will be the most likely winner of the award from the least architecturally interesting line. And I don’t actually want to be horrible about the Victoria. Bearing in mind the state of the country at the time, it’s something of a miracle that a new line was built in the mid to late 60s in the first place, and bearing in mind the quick , cheap and crap building ethic of the time, the fact that it hasn’t all fallen to bits since is even more of a miracle.

Well, Pimlico does nothing to raise the standards, I’m afraid. It’s just a hole in the wall of a contemporary office or residential block. I don’t really know much more to say about it. Pimlico (noun - generic) Artificial flavouring used which, when applied to foodstuffs, makes them taste unlike whatever flavour they are supposed to simulate. UK crisp manufacturers are believed to currently use as many as fifty different varieties of Pimlico. Actually, the name Pimlico is redolent of the wonderful Ealing Comedy film “Passport to Pimlico”, which was mostly filmed across the river in Lambeth. As an Ealing boy myself, I feel very protective of the output of our eponymous studios. To a modern audience I wouldn't exactly describe them as laugh a minute, but they're totally engaging, and give a real flavour of what life was like in parts of Britain, and in particular, London in which my parents grew up. Coming back to Pimlico station, it is the handiest station for the original Tate Gallery, now called Tate Britain to distinguish it from all of the sequels which have spring up since. 

Across the river for the last time in our challenge, we now reach the station after which all stations on the Moscow metro are partly named, Vauxhall. Like Walthamstow Central at the other end of the line, Vauxhall tube station is just one part of a public transport interchange, and the bus station is particularly impressive. The ticket hall of the tube is Underground, but as you can see, at least one of the entrances is through a really interesting slice of modern architecture. Things sure have changed around Vauxhall Cross since it Used to cycle past on my way home from University. Which leads me to make an observation, while I think about it. I stayed in Lewisham, while attending Goldsmith’s College in New Cross. Even leaving out the section from Lewisham to the college, if I came straight home from the college for a weekend, the fastest way on public transport was to walk to New Cross or New Cross Gate station, take British Rail to Charing Cross, which was much quicker than taking what was then the East London Line. From there the tube to Hammersmith, where I’d change to the Piccadilly, and from there to Northfields, and then walk the rest of the way home. The fastest I ever did the journey was about 45 minutes. By the end of my first year, once I was fairly fit, on a Friday lunchtime I could do the same journey on my bike in 35 minutes. Mind you I did get knocked off twice, which didn’t tend to happen on the tube.

These times, mind you, pale into insignificance when compared with my first journey through Brixton. This would have been in the early 70s, when my mum and dad took me and my two brothers on a day out to Crystal Palace Park in Sydenham. This was a journey accomplished through the use of Red Bus Rover tickets – remember them? Didn’t think so, and at a conservative estimate it took about 3 weeks. Or that’s how I remember it.

I have to be honest, I was very pleasantly surprised when I emerged from Brixton station. To those of us of a certain age, I guess that the name Brixton carries some negative associations. There’s Brixton prison, for example. Then there’s the riots of the early 80s. But I have to say, this station really surprised me when I read that it was opened in 1971. Then I read that it was redesigned in the noughties, which made a lot more sense. This is a bright and fairly impressive modern station. I like the huge glazed frontage, prominently featuring the roundel – a nod to Charles Holden’s work on the South London stations of the Northern Line, albeit possibly a subconscious one. It ends the Victoria Line for us on a surprisingly upbeat note, and indeed that’s the challenge. Done.

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