Home at a Price
I got to Cambridge on time, had time to do food shopping for Sunday lunch in the M&S at the station and then took a taxi home.
But it was a price worth paying for an exciting day! But it does seem wrong, that to get from Cambridge station to my home, cost nearly twice as much as all the rest of the travel. But there is no other way! There isn’t a bus at all between Cambridge Station and the nearest large village. Surely someone, could come up with an Internet-based share taxi service!
Keep Right
Keep right is the rule of the Underground and it was introduced in the Second World War to make sure that American servicemen used the escalators properly.
It works well with my good right hand always on a rail, except where for some reason , some of those coming out of a station say use a keep left-rule of their own making.
But thinking right meant that when I went down the escalator at Leicester Square, I chose the up escalator, possibly because it was on the right and aqlso because there was no-one on the way up. But holding on to the handrail, I was able to turn easily and quickly, and walk the few paces off.
So at least it was 9/10 for balance and agility, even if my eyes and brain perhaps scored a seven.
Chaos In Trafalgar Square
I left the National Gallery and walked down the side of the square to the Trafalgar Studios to get details on Shirley Valentine.
According to another bus stop, from outside the theatre, i should have been able to get a bus to King’s Cross for the train home. But works in Whitehall meant that the bus stops had been suspended. So I walked towards Parliament Square to find a bus to take me somewhere in the right direction.
Five minutes later, I found a 24, which would take me to either Leicester Square or Warren Street.
I boarded and then spent forty-five minutes stuck in a traffic jam caused because car drivers couldn’t turn up the Strand or use the bus lanes because of road works. So they just illegally parked or blocked the buses instead of retreating south down Whitehall. The chaos wasn’t helped by all of the tour buses trying to do similar things. So we just sat and waited and fried. A lady in a burqa told me she might faint, but luckily we limped to Leicester Square and we all got out safely.
If I Could Own Just One Painting
I had come to Charing Cross, so that I could go to the National Gallery to see the Acts of Mercy paintings that used to be in the Middlesex Hospital. I’m no art expert, but they have to be seen to be believed. You might think art has no place in hospitals these days, but Addenbrookes has an extensive collection, which I think makes staff and patients feel better. Addenbrookes also marked 800 years of Cambridge University with the unvieling of a mural by Quentin Blake, showing various alumni of the University.
They also say this on their web site.
The arts have the potential to distract, amuse, enlighten and engage patients, staff and visitors. In recent years, a growing body of evidence has been compiled proving the value of the arts in healthcare settings. Earlier this year, this resulted in the Department of Health issuing its first ever review of arts in health which recognised that the arts “are, and should be firmly recognised as being, integral to health, healthcare provision and healthcare environments, including supporting staff”.
It is sad that those paintings from the Middlesex, couldn’t have been found a home in the new hospital on Euston Road.
I also had time to visit my favourite painting and the one above all others, I would own; Whistlejacket by George Stubbs. Noone has ever painted horses like Stubbs, capturing their power, feelings and character so well!
Bumping My Way Back To Civilisation
My friend had to go to see his MP near the Horniman Museum (Worth a visit I’m told!), so about three we took a bus, that would both drop him at the museum and take me to a station, that would allow me to get to hopefully Charing Cross, as I wanted to visit the National Gallery.
I got off the bus at Forest Hill, crossed the road and tried to find the station entrance. It was confusing and not very well signed. But it did have a brick flower bed in front, which I bumped into, as it was about knee-height and obscured by the other people in front of the station. If there had been flowers in the bed, I would have seen it. Luckily no harm was done! I then found the door, opened it and used my ticket to open the barrier and get myself on the platform. My friend had told me that I should take a London Bridge train and then walk over the bridge to get a bus or a tube train, as the Jubilee Line wasn’t running.
I didn’t wait long for a London Bridge train and before long I could see the familiar sights of the City.
Approaching The City
Note Tower Bridge peeping over the buildings in front.
I got out at London Bridge when the train terminated and started to look for someone who might know where I could get a train to Charing Cross. I couldn’t find anyone, but I did see this obstacle kindly placed in the middle of the platform.
Seats on London Bridge Station
Luckily I saw them and had time to get the camera out to photograph them. But to illustrate my hand problems, note the finger in front of the lens.
What idiot decided to put seats like that in a place where someone with limited visibility might miss them? If they had had seat backs or hand been occupied, then they would have been easier to see. As they would have been if they had yellow arms, like London Underground ones do!
When I found the platform for Charing Cross, I asked a helpful stationman and he said that the seats don’t have backs because of health and safety issues. Obviously not mine or others with limited visibility.
I suppose that yellow or orange arms, as that would break corporate colour-scheme rules!
An Expedition to the Deep South
London is a city split by the River Thames into two distinctly separate sub-cities.
If you were born and have lived a lot of your life in the north, then you rarely cross the river into the south. I’ve got friends in the south, who feel exactly the same about the north. Although, we would both admit that we might just cross the river to see the attractions just on the other side. I did think that this might be a white middle-class thing, but discussing it with a man of Caribbean extraction, who had lived most of his life in Tottenham, he felt exactly the same.
There are two big differences though between north and south.
The north relies heavily on tubes, such as the Piccadilly, Northern, Central, Victoria, and Jubilee Lines, whereas the south depends largely on the suburban electrics of the old Southern Railway, which wind their way everywhere in a pretty comprehensive manner. But the old Southern Railway never had the Underground’s organisation and welcoming corporate identity!
The north too, has a defined ring road, the North Circular Road, whereas the southern equivalent is just a signposted route on inadequate roads. So northerners going south, always end up getting frustrated and lost. Especially as most from the north only ever go to the south to get through it to go to places like Gatwick or Brighton.
You can also argue that most of the major attractions are in the north. If you take major sports venues, only The Oval and Wimbledon are in the south and both can actually be reached using the Underground, so you don’t have to fathom out how the electric trains work!
So it was with trepidation that I set out from Canary Wharf to visit some friends, who live in the deep south near Croydon. Their nearest station is Anerley, so that would mean taking the DLR to Shadwell and then walking a few yards to the East London Line station of the same name.
Shadwell Station on the East London Line
The new station is functional and pleasant, but suffers slightly because of a cramped site, penned in between Listed buildings and the Thames Tunnel.
Shadwell Station looking North
The platforms looked a bit narrow and they are certainly not as wide as those on the North London Line. But I suppose they are well within safety limits.
I had to wait about twenty minutes for my train to West Croydon, as I had just missed one, but soon I was off south through the Thames Tunnel and on to Annerley.
It was at Annerley that my problems started, as all the old prejudices about the impenetrable jungle of South London kicked in. I misread the map at the station and instead of turning left out of the station approach onto the main road, I turned right and walked a couple of kilometres before I called my friend for rescue. At least he realised what I’d done wrong and thankfully came to get me in his car.
So there was no harm done and a couple of coffees warmed me up and got me ready for the return.
An Affordable Breakfast With Style
When you are a coeliac and like me recovering from a stroke, you have to be careful where you go for a meal. You must be sure of the food and because you might get into a mess and drop something or even everything all over the floor or yourself, it is probably a good idea to go to an establishment with staff waiting at tables.
All of this was illustrated very well, when I turned up at Carluccio’s in Canary Wharf for a late breakfast or was it an early lunch?
It was sunny, so I sat outside and then ordered an Eggs Florentine without the bread and an orange juice. I’ve done this several times now in various of their cafes and no-one has minded, that I have modified their standard menu.
Gluten Free Eggs Florentine at Carluccio's
It was delicious and after adding cappucino, it cost me just £11.95, although I did add a generous tip for good service and such things like an extra serviette to make sure the mess was kept to a minimum.
I’m afraid that I tend to plan my trips around places where I know that I can eat well, easily and gluten-free. Unfortunately, not many places I hope to visit on my travels have one of Carluccio’s caffes. But it’s getting better as Leicester has no joined the list. But I suspect, I’ll be long gone before they reach Midlesbrough. They won’t be there for my trip in two weeks time.
Cinderella Will Take You to the Ball!
If ever there was a railway that was built on the cheap and was very much an ugly duckling, that has metamorphasised into a swan, it is that Cinderella of London’s transport system, the Docklands Light Railway.
It is a unique concept in the United Kingdom, in that the small trains are driverless and generally run between unmanned stations, to cut down both the capital and running costs. Each train has an onboard customer service representative for security as well as dealing with the passengers, He or she can drive the train in an emergency.
It may in some ways be a Cinderella, but over the twenty years or so it has been running, it has grown like Topsy from its original routes linking the City, Canary Wharf and Stratford to serve Lewisham and Woolwich south of the Thames and the City Airport and other places to the east.
Docklands Light Railway at Canary Wharf
Now that the Olympics are just two years away, this line has new and larger trains and will play a major part in moving people to and from that big party in Stratford. Even now, some of the best views of the Olympic Park are from the DLR.
Olympic Park From the DLR
I travel the DLR a lot if I can, as it is the best way to explore the east of London. Views are superb, as unlike the Underground, very little of the line is in tunnels and much of it is on viaducts or bridges raised above the ground. No trip by a tourist to London is complete without using London’s most unusual and unique transport system.
I can’t understand, why the concept has not been copied elsewhere. I feel that the badly-designed, implemented and built Cambridge Busway could almost now have been built as a smaller version of the DLR. Trains might be just two coaches and running at ground level from Trumpington, via Addenbrookes and the city centre all the way to Histon, Long Stanton and St. Ives. The DLR has shown that such a concept will work and in the end, people get to love it.
Towards The Olympic Park
When I left Dullingam, I had had the vague intention of taking the newly rebuilt North London Line, either to Richmond or Stratford to see the Olympic Park for 2012. Access to the line is just one stop away from King’s Cross at Highbury and Islington.
A few minutes later, I was on the platform there waiting for my brand-new train to Stratford.
What impressed me was the attention to detail. Look at this staircase for example.
Stairs at Highbury and Islington
Now I am not disabled, but the grip in my left hand is not good and I have some issues with my eyesight, in that I miss objects at a low level. But here the rails and step edges are in bright orange, so I had no difficulty negotiating them at all.
Have they also have decided that on an outdoor station, that flowers rather than art is the best way to decorate the stations. Note the hanging baskets shown here as the train arrives.
The Stratford Train arrives at Highbury and Islington
The trains are a far cry from the old stock that used to creep around the North London Line, when I used to take it from Broad Street to Willesden to get to Metier at Stonebridge Park. They were third rail electric trains then, but now they are fed from an overhead catenary. This is a first for London Underground or Overground, but it is so they can get freight trains from East London to the main West Coast Main Line.
Here a load of containers are trundelling towards Stratford and then probably up the Norwich line to the port of Felixstowe.
My train was on time and I took it all the way. The last part of the journey is through the Olympic Park.
Here the main stadium is rising towards completion.
The Olympic Stadium Rises
And this is the aquatic centre.
Aquatic Centre
It is all very different from when as a child, I used to go to Stratford to bunk the engine sheds to collect engine numbers. I don’t think kids do that any more!
At Stratford, you have several choices about how to continue your journey.
- North London Line – You could take the line across the city, with its superb views of central London, to have a walk in Hampstead Heath.Kew Gardens or along the river at Richmond.
- Central Line – This is the quickest way back to the City and central London.
- Jubilee Line – This will take you to Greenwich, Canary Wharf and the West End, through some of the most spectacular stations on the planet.
- Docklands Light Railway – This is the route for people, who like to explore. Get a good guide book and just go to a station and walk around what I say is the real London, with its markets, churches, canals and historic buildings. And of course, its rich tapestry of people!
I chose the last and took the driverless train to Canary Wharf.
The Anonymous Widower 