The Anonymous Widower

Going Back to the Barbican

Sometimes it is wrong to go back.  But I’m thinking of going back to the Barbican to live.

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I lived there, with my late wife and our three sons from about 1974 to 1980, on the 11th floor of Cromwell Tower.

It was a good place to be and we enjoyed it.  My middle son has said since that he did too and he has encouraged me to think about going back.

The one thing we avoided whilst in the Barbican was seeing the tragedy of the Moorgate Tube Disaster.  We were away with friends in Edinburgh.

This accident, which killed 43, has never been satisfactorially explained.  I don’t have my own theories, except to say that we may learn more in the next few years about how the brain works and this may provide a clue.  Wikipedia says this.

The autopsy found no evidence of a medical problem such as a stroke or heart attack that could have incapacitated Newson; he did not appear to have taken alcohol, although post mortem testing for this was hampered by the 4½ days it took to retrieve his body from the wreckage. Dr P A B Raffle, the Chief Medical Officer of London Transport, gave evidence to the inquest and the official enquiry that Newson might have been temporarily paralysed by a rare kind of brain seizure (known as “akinesis with mutism” or “transient global amnesia”). In this situation, the brain continues to function and the individual remains aware although they cannot physically move. This would certainly go some way towards explaining why Newson held down the dead man’s handle right up until the point of impact and made no attempt to shield his face. This explanation also supports witness statements that Newson was sitting upright in his seat and looking straight ahead as the train passed through the station.

Even if they did find more, it would all be too late.  Remember though, that now we have MRI scans and the one I had at Addenbrooke’s showed I’d had a previous small stroke.

But I did travel back to Whittlesford from Tottenham Hale once with a very experienced London Underground driver/supervisor, who gave me a very plausible theory.  Nothing I have heard or saw in the last twenty years, conflicts with what I was told.

So has the Barbican changed?

When we were in Cromwell Tower nearly forty years ago, we were rather cut off from the main part of the estate, by the construction work for the Barbican Centre.  Now that is complete and forms an integral part of life in the Barbican.

And they’ve now got a Waitrose in Whitecross Street!

Whether I do return is open to question, but it is a fascinating area in which to live, work and explore.

But in some respects it is more than going back to somewhere that I lived.  Many of my mother’s family were born just north of the Barbican in St. Luke’s.  This was because her father, an engraver, had had his business in the area of the Barbican.  The premises and all of the family’s records were destroyed in the bombing of World War II.

April 11, 2010 Posted by AnonW | World | Barbican, London, Second World War | 21 Comments