Is It All In The Name?
George Baker rode for C and myself a couple of times and he is one of the nicest and best. Even if he is perhaps a bit tall to be a jockey.
But yesterday, he won on a horse he also trained called George Baker. He didn’t own it, but it was partly owned by another George Baker. Read about it here in the Guardian.
This coincidence couldn’t have happened to a better person.
Only in Brighton
The Radio 5 commentators were complaining that at the new AMEX Community Stadium there are so many different teas, like camomile, nettle, ginger and mint, that they couldn’t find any proper tea.
Are they all Marxists in Brighton?
By the way they got chicken soup and fruit cake at half-time! Not very American! Although it’s probably quite quick to prepare and consume.
Planning for the August Bank Holiday
As I’ve said before, I hate bank holidays.
For next Monday though I have a plan. Whilst I was travelling in Tottenham, I saw on the map a building named as Markfield Beam Engine and Museum.
I shall be going as it is in steam on the Monday.
I could even go to the football in the evening at Ipswich!
But the aim is to enjoy myself and judging by the way they are playing at the moment, a team made up of eleven fit men in the North Stand could do better.
I Don’t Listen to Music Anymore
I suppose a lot of this is to do, that I don’t drive anymore, as that was where I used to listen most.
Do I miss it?
No! In a word!
I don’t record programs either, as if I want to catch up, I use iPlayer. Sport I always watch live, either there, in the pub or on my television.
The Man Who Could Have Changed History
I’m half watching a play about Hitler. But I’m finding it a bit difficult to follow, probably because of the hay fever’s effect on my hearing.
It is set in or about 1930 and I am reminded of another tale. It is in Lord Howard de Walden’s obituary in The Guardian.
He inherited 120 acres of London’s west end and bred and owned the 1985 Derby winner, Slip Anchor. But the story he loved to dine out on was when, as a young Cambridge student fresh out of Eton, he was driving a new car in Munich when a man walked out in front of him and was knocked down. “He was only shaken up,” recalled de Walden. “But had I killed him, it would have changed the history of the world.” The man was Adolf Hitler.
I never actually met him, but I knew a few people who worked for him, who never said any word about him that wasn’t complimentary. My last vision of him was shortly before he died, sitting in state in a wheel-chair at Newmarket races, immaculately turned out ciomplete with apricot coloured socks; his racing colours as suggested by Augustus John.
How Do We Revive Tottenham?
What caused the riots that happened last week is very much a matter for others to decide.
I’ve known the area for years and quite frankly parts of it haven’t changed much since the end of the Second World War. As an example, the scruffy garage where I parked my bike in the 1960s to go to see Spurs is still there and it looks as if it hasn’t been painted in the last fifty years.
Transport is a major problem and it is even worse when Spurs are at home.
In the short term, I’d do three things.
In the first place, bring the area maps and the bus information up to the same standard that Londoners expect and get in other areas like Islington, Hackney and Westminster.
And then I’d put some investment into the railway that runs between Hackney Downs and Silver Street, by trying to improve the dreadful and dangerous steps. Escalators are expensive, but certainly a single escalator with a double width staircase could be used to improve safety at White Hart Lane. Lifts should also be selectively installed, so that step free access for the disabled is available at probably White Hart Lane, Seven Sisters and Hackney Downs.
One of the problems of the railway is that entry and exit at some stations is quite low. Could this be because it’s a difficult climb, whereas the nearby buses are just a step on and off? Also the trains are not Oyster-friendly! That would be the thrd thing!
So perhaps as I said earlier, should this line and the other Lea Valley lines be added to the Overground? Yes, I think it’s a no-brainer.
Incidentally Hackney Central on the Overground has substantially more passengers going through its doors than the nearby Hackney Downs.
Lots of things need to be done, but let’s improve the transport first.
The second thing that must be done is that Tottenham Hotspur decide quickly what they are doing with White Hart Lane stadium and the derelict land north of it. If they moved the stadium further north, it would actually be nearer to an upgraded White Hart Lane station. The station could even be renamed as Tottenham Hotspur.
Return From White Hart Lane
I returned to central London, by taking the train from White Hart Lane station.
It is another station that has seen better days and it doesn’t seem to have improved much since I used it in the 1960s to go to see Spurs at White Hart Lane.
White Hart Lane Station
Note the stairs in the picture. In common with most stations on this line they are rather steep and given the numbers of people on match days at White Hart Lane, surely something better should be done.
The Class 315 trains were built in the early 1980s and despite being thirty years old aren’t that bad. They are certainly better than the slam door stock, that I used to use all those years ago.
The slam door stock did have the great advantage in that as you approached Enfield Town station, you could fold the door back, so that when the train had slowed to your running speed, you could jump and start running to be first in the queue for the old 107 bus for Oakwood. I never had an accident doing that and I won’t now, as sadly slam door trains are no more.
I can just about remember the old compartment stock used with the steam tank engines on that line and others out of King’s Cross. As the compartments on these trains were essentially private, one game played by many, but not me, was seeing if you could have it off between stations.
Along Tottenham High Road
As the cricket was called off today, I decided to go to IKEA today, as I needed to check out a few ideas.
The 341 bus, that I take goes along the Tottenham High Road, which was badly affected by the riots last week.
It looked to me, that apart from one or two notable exceptions, the damage wasn’t as bad as it had been painted by the media.
One of the pictures shows the entrance to the garage, where I used to bike for half-a-crown to see Spurs in the early 1960s. It doesn’t look to have been done up at all since.
The Tottenham area of Haringey was never the best, and as the pictures show, there are very few quality buildings except for White Hart Lane Stadium and that is too small and parts of it were built in the 1930s.
Spurs say they intend to build a new much larger stadium on the land north of the existing stadium, but whether they will is open to question. The stadium has always suffered from access problems, but then so has Chelsea and West Ham.
But developing the football club and the surrounding area could be a stimulus to the whole area, especially, if the Lea Valley Lines were upgraded.
India Goes Barmy
My next door neighbour was once a retired British Army Colonel. After visiting India and seeing the rehearsal for the Republic Day ceremony in New Delhi, I said it was the best military ceremony, I’d seen and that included quite a bit of the Guards in London.
He said it was debatable, whether the Indians copied us in this field or we copied them. It doesn’t really matter, as a good spectacle is always a good spectacle.
So now after a disappointing summer for their cricketers, Charaan Shetty has launched the Indian Cricket Dundee, which is talked about in the Times today as an Indian version of the England’s Barmy Army.
Brian Close on England
Brian Close made his debut for England a couple of years after I was born, so he’s seen a lot of cricket. He doesn’t rate the current England team as the greatest, but then he wouldn’t would he? They don’t contain enough Yorkshiremen for his liking I suspect.
I’ll give him this though. He played the bravest innngs I ever saw. Wikipedia describes the innings at Lords in 1963 to try to beat the West Indies like this.
Close was recalled to the England Test squad in 1963, and played his first full series of five matches, against the West Indies. His innings in the second Test at Lord’s remains his best known. When England were pressing for a last-day victory, Close took the battle to the fastest West Indian fast bowlers, Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith, daring to advance down the wicket to them. This was before body protection and helmets were in use, and time and again the ball struck Close firmly on his body. But he persevered. With no other England player but Ken Barrington scoring above 20, Close’s innings of 70 saved the game for England, and came near to winning it. Set 234 to win, England ended on 228 for 9, with Colin Cowdrey famously coming in to bat (for two balls at the non-striker’s end) with his broken arm in plaster.
Close had been dismissed going for runs to win the game, and his courage earned him many plaudits. His shirtless torso, black and blue with bruises where he had been hit, made the front pages of the newspapers the next day.
There has never been another innings like it. I don’t think that there has been any other batsmen, who would have attempted to do what he did.
The Anonymous Widower 