Special Post: Southgate

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest post in my series “London Station by Station“. I hope you will enjoy this post and will be encouraged to share it.

A TUBE QUIRK AND A CRICKETING BROTHERHOOD

Southgate opened in 1933, as part of a northern extension of the Piccadilly line. The location is notable for two things, one underground and one a sporting connection.

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

As this picture from London Underground: The Official Handbook shows, the platform at Southgate is one from which you can see daylight.

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This quirk, unique for a tube tunnel (although the cut and cover tunnel at Hounslow West has the same feature), is because the station is in a small hill, which the line burrows through. Apart from the tiny stretch including Southgate station, the Piccadilly is in the open from Arnos Grove to Cockfosters.

A CRICKETING BROTHERHOOD

There were no fewer than seven cricketing brothers named Walker who came from Southgate. Vyell Walker, the most famous of the seven achieved an astonishing feat in 1859 when he scored a century and then followed up by taking all ten of his opponents wickets in the next innings. In the whole subsequent history of first class cricket only W G Grace achieved the feat.

The cricket ground at Southgate still bears the Walker family name, and Middlesex sometimes play county games there.

MAPS

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The Railway Detective Part 3: Books 9-12

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to this third and final post devoted to the doings of the Railway Detective, Inspector Robert Colbeck, as chronicled by Edward Marston. The to view the previous posts click:

1)For the post about books 1-4

2)For the post about books 5-8

3)Every post in which I have even mentioned the Railway Detective

THE FINAL LEG OF THE JOURNEY

BOOK 9: THE STATIONMASTER’S FAREWELL

The remains of Joel Heygate, popular stationmaster at Exeter St Davids are found beneath a public bonfire. Local opinion, including the powerful, deeply unpleasant bishop, is that Bernard ‘Bagsy’ Browne was the killer.

Colbeck typically keeps an open mind, making more than a few enemies by so doing.

The manageress of the station cafe becomes demented by grief and is confined to a local asylum. Colbeck eventually discovers that the stationmaster had found out about the fact that man in charge of the asylum had been taking advantage of young female patients and using a local couple to dispose of the unwanted progeny – and had been murdered to prevent him talking. Bagsy Browne was still going to prison for a long spell, as he was guilty of a huge variety of other crimes of varying degrees of severity.

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BOOK 10: PERIL ON THE ROYAL TRAIN

An act of sabotage on the railway in Scotland opens the action. Superintendent Tallis is reluctant to send Colbeck and Leeming to Scotland, but Colbeck wins the argument. One early group of suspects are the Sabbatarians, viciously opposed to trains running on the sabbath, and carrying out various acts of vandalism, petty theft and the like to make their point.

it turns out to be a lot more serious than that. A burglary in London reveals the plot against the Royal Train, and Colbeck eventually foils it. It is a very near thing – the people behind the crime even murdered the burglar once his work was done.

Nigel Buckmaster, the actor-manager, puts in another appearance, identifying likely elocution teachers who could have helped someone from Willenhall to lose their accent.

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BOOK 11: TICKET TO OBLIVION

A young women and her maid disappear from a non-stopping train between Worcester and Oxford. Colbeck and Leeming are duly sent out to investigate. Colbeck establishes that the couple must have left the train in disguise for a prearranged meeting. A ransom demand soon comes, and Colbeck impersonates the girl’s father in a bid to catch the culprits. Any hope of so doing is destroyed when the girl’s fiance from whom she had fled, Clive Tunnadine shoots the go between with whom Colbeck is negotiating.

The abductors then succeed in extracting two ransoms (one each from the father and Tunnadine) while keeping the girl and her maidservant. Colbeck works out that the villains are headed for Ireland, and runs them to earth, returning the girl and her maid to their family.

This has the best cover of all the books, so I have several pictures of it…

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BOOK 12: INSPECTOR COLBECK’S CASEBOOK

Unlike all the other books about the Railway Detective, which are single stories, told in full detail, this is a collection of short stories, spanning Colbeck’s career to date. This gives one an opportunity to see how the character has developed since Marston started writing these stories.

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THE FUTURE FOR COLBECK

I hope that the series continues at least into the 1860s and the beginnings of London Underground, with the Metropolitan Railway. Perhaps there is scope for a continuation series (a la Lindsey Davies with the Flavia Albia series) once Colbeck himself gets too old for detective work – Leeming’s children have expressed an interest in becoming detectives, and one imagines that the Colbecks will become parents, so Colbeck Junior doing detective work is not impossible. Certainly I hope we have not seen the last of these railway themed detective stories.

LINKS

I have three links to share with you:

1)A glossary of some LGBT terms.

2)The story of social media’s role in getting Jane Austen onto the £10 note.

3)A link to what looks like being excellent autism resource.

AFTERWORD

I hope that you have enjoyed this post and will be encourage to share it.

A Wonderful Weekend of Sport

INTRODUCTION

As well as the sporting events that I shall be writing about I have some important links to share. Faced with more sport than I had time to follow I had to make choices, and with I settled on cricket and athletics (in the form of the European Team Championships). I will write about each in turn starting with…

A FINAL MATCH THRILLER

To set the scene for Saturday’s action, the series was level at 2-2, and records had been tumbling left, right and centre throughout. The actual result was pretty much a secondary consideration given the quality of the cricket that had been on show through the series.

NEW ZEALAND BATTING

Very early on in their innings New Zealand passed their all-time record aggregate for a five match ODI series, a feat that England had achieved in the previous match. For the first time in the series batsmen found it difficult to really get going, and it took some big hitting in the closing stages to get New Zealand to their eventual 283-9, the lowest first innings score of the series.

THE INTERVAL AND DUCKWORTH-LEWIS

During the interval between innings it rained, and it kept raining for some time (this is England after all). Eventually, by the time play was possible again there was time for England to bat for 26 overs, and the Duckworth-Lewis calculation (a very complicated formula that has produced the least unfair way for resolving rain affected ODIs yet devised) gave England a target of 192 off 26 overs.

ENGLAND’S CHASE

The England innings got off to a disastrous start, with three wickets falling in next to no time. The fourth and fifth wickets did not take a whole lot longer to fall, and at that stage England were looking down both barrels. Then Eoin Morgan and Jonathan Bairstow, the latter only playing because of an injury to Jos Buttler (scorer of the first and second quickest ODI centuries by an Englishman) shared a good partnership. When Morgan was out, England were still second favourites, but Adil Rashid joined his fellow Yorkshireman Bairstow for a partnership that gradually brought the asking rate back to manageable levels. Seventeen were needed off the last two overs when for the first of them the ball was given to a debutant who until his late call-up had been playing Devonshire League cricket. Bowling the penultimate over in these circumstances would be tough for anyone, and in the end the last over was not required, as a combination of fine strokes from Bairstow and Rashid and a loss of nerve by the bowler settled the issue.

A RAPID TURNAROUND

Just a few months ago England were having their all-time worst ever World Cup campaign, being hammered by all and sundry and being exposed as being sadly behind the times in their approach to one day cricket. To have come from that to even taking part in a series that is a jewel in the crown of international cricket (and ultimately winning it) is an extraordinary transformation. What brought this about? Well England were forced to recognise by the sheer awfulness of that World Cup campaign that they had to change. The new picks for this series were guys noted for 20-20 (ultra-short form) success. Also, however there has been an attitude change. In this series, England never went on to the defensive, there was never a period of seriously slow scoring. Even when those three early wickets went down on Saturday, there was no ‘consolidation’. In the second half of the summer England have another set of visitors from the antipodes to contend with, and it will be interesting to see what kind of account they can give of themselves in that situation.

EUROPEAN TEAM ATHLETICS

The European Team Athletics championship, which I watched on i-player, is decided on a points system. The top nine countries from last year, plus three promoted from the second group, do battle. Twelve points are accrued for winning an event, down to one for finishing. A disqualification in a track event, or a failure to record a valid distance/ height in a throwing or jumping event results in a zero.

In the end, after a some excellent results, and some very bad ones, Britain finished in fifth place, behind Russia (winning comfortably on home soil), Germany, France and Poland.

Probably the person who overachieved the most for Britain was Rhianwedd Price who, on international debut, came third in the 1,500m.

LINKS

CAMPAIGN TO PROTECT THE FAIRY POSSUM

This tiny marsupial is on the critically endangered list, and the campaign to protect it by creating a preserved environment for it is being run by The Wilderness Society. I have two important links for you:

1)The article which gives full detail about what is happening.

2)A petition which I hope you will sign and share.

WAR ON WANT PETITION TO CANCEL GREEK DEBT

Just a single link, which I urge you to follow up.

AN ACCOUNT OF A TRIP TO THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

This is an excellent piece detailing both the visit and what was seen, and the differing approaches taken by Autism Mom (the author of the piece), the Navigator and Autism Dad. I have already shared this piece with my twitter and I am delighted to include this link to dinos-photos-and-his-own-world.

CONCLUDING REMARK

I hope that you have all enjoyed this post, and that you will be encouraged to share it. For those of you who have stayed with this post right to the end I have a final message…

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Clemency for William Underwood

This is a very important little post. Ebony Underwood seeks clemency for her father and I for one support her to the hilt. Rather than write about the case myself I offer two links:

1)An article on Huffington Post in which Ms Underwood explains events in detail.

2)A link to the petition on change.org that she has launched.

I urge you all to read the Huffington Post piece and sign and share the petition. Please also share this post.

The Railway Detective, Part 2: Books 5-8

INTRODUCTION

Welcome the second of three posts I shall be producing about The Railway Detective. The previous post covered four of the books and can be viewed here. As I warned in the introduction to that post, this is laden with spoilers. I hope you will all enjoy this post and be encouraged to share it.

THE RAILWAY DETECTIVE

BOOK 5: THE IRON HORSE

The Iron Horse refers to locomotives, but this story is also deeply concerned with flesh and blood horses, since it involves a crime that occurred during the Derby. Colbeck, operating with his usual flair and persistence, and with the assistance of the inevitable Leeming is able to bring a series of horrible crimes home to Lord Hendry.

BOOK 6: MURDER ON THE BRIGHTON EXPRESS

A derailment near Balcombe is the initial incident that opens this story. The railway police in the person of Captain Harvey Ridgeon reckon that the accident was caused by driver error. However, unlike Ridgeon was has formed an opinion and bends every new fact to fit that opinion, Colbeck notes that the driver of that particular train was known for caution, that he managed to instruct his fireman to jump off before the disaster struck, and that a section of track had been deliberately loosened. Colbeck also identifies two passengers on that train who had enemies, although it turns out that there was a third passenger on that train whose behaviour had caused one particular individual to want revenge on both him and the train that he regularly used. The book ends with Ridgeon, his errors cruelly exposed, apologising to Colbeck.

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BOOK 7: THE SILVER LOCOMOTIVE

A silver coffee pot in the shape of a locomotive, commissioned by a wealthy family in Cardiff goes missing, and the man entrusted with delivering it from London to Cardiff is found murdered. The young man identified as the murder victim is Hugh Kellow, apprentice to the silversmith Leonard Voke, and the original suspect is Voke’s disinherited son Stephen. Colbeck traces Voke junior and soon establishes that he is not the murderer. Having to rethink the entire case, Colbeck arrives at the notion the murder victim was not Kellow, but someone who looked similar and could be used to send the police down a blind alley. A trip to Birmingham’s jewellery quarter ensues, for which Colbeck enlists both the official assistance of Leeming and the unofficial assistance of Madeleine Andrews. The trip to Birmingham yields Kellow and his accomplice Bridget Haggs, a.k.a Effie, a.k.a Mrs Vernon. Additionally, Madeleine Andrews and Robert Colbeck become engaged. This book also introduces us to actor-manager Nigel Buckmaster, subsequently to provide Colbeck with valuable assistance in at least two further cases.

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BOOK 8: BLOOD ON THE LINE

Unlike almost every other book and story in the series there is no element of ‘who done it?’ about this story – it is a case of ‘will they get away with it?’. The action opens with Jeremy Exley being conveyed from Wolverhampton to Birmingham to be imprisoned. A young lady named Irene Adnam, his lover and accomplice, kills one of the two policemen guarding him, assists in the killing of the other and the disposal of the two bodies. The crimes having been committed on the railway, Colbeck is involved from the start. Colbeck has an extra reason to bring this case to a successful conclusion, since it was Exley who was responsible for him becoming a policeman in the first place. Colbeck had been a barrister, and in that role persuaded a young women who witnessed a robbery carried out by Exley to give evidence in court. Exley responded by murdering the young woman in a particularly horrible way.

Eventually, after a chase that leads all the way to America, the villains are run to earth, and Colbeck succeeds in dividing them by telling Irene the story of the earlier murder in full detail.

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Special Post: Notting Hill Gate

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series “London Station by Station“. I hope that you will enjoy this post and be inspired to share it.

A CARNIVAL, A THEATRE AND A FILM

The District and Circle line station at Notting Hill Gate was opened in 1868. In 1900 The Central London Railway, forerunner of today’s Central line, opened between Shepherd’s Bush and Bank, with a station at Notting Hill Gate. It was not until 1959 that the two stations were officially linked. There is no surface building at all, merely a staircase leading down from each side of the main road to an underground ticket hall. The District and Circle line platforms still have their original roof, a remarkable arched canopy.

NOTTING HILL

Probably these days this film is what most people think about when this area comes up. I did enjoy it the one time I watched it, but I am far from being convinced that it actually did the area any favours.

THE GATE

Taking it’s name from the pub above which you can find it, The Gate Theatre has staged some remarkable productions in its tight confines. I remember seeing several plays by Lope De Vega performed there.

THE NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL

Before the making of the film, this was what the area was most widely known for – London’s biggest annual street festival. Unfortunately beyond mentioning it I can say little of it because I never attended since neither vast crowds nor continuous loud noise have ever appealed to me.

ODDS AND ENDS

Before displaying a couple of pictures, a little more about the area. The layout and some of the names of the streets in this part of London reflect the fact that a racecourse was planned for the area but the developers went bankrupt. Now for those pictures…

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The Railway Detective, Part 1: Books 1-4

INTRODUCTION

As well as my title piece I have a couple of important links to share. I have mentioned the Railway Detective, Inspector Robert Colbeck, in various previous posts without going into much detail. Today I am devoting a whole post to him and his exploits, which will be the first of a three such posts. WARNING: THE REST OF THIS POST IS FULL OF SPOILERS.

THE RAILWAY DETECTIVE

BOOK ONE: THE RAILWAY DETECTIVE

This book, with the title that becomes a supertitle for the whole series, is the one that introduces Inspector Colbeck, his sidekick Sergeant Leeming, their irascible and dictatorial ex-army boss Superintendent Edward Tallis. The opening crime of the series features train driver Caleb Andrews as one of the victims, and also introduces us therefore to his remarkable daughter Madeleine who becomes one of the key characters in the series.

The initial crime, while serious enough in itself is but a part of much wider scheme hatched by a stalwart opponent of the railway network whose initial hostility to the new development has been inflamed beyond the point of insanity by the death of his wife which he blames on the railways. Another element of the master plan was to sabotage the Great Exhibition by blowing up the locomotives that formed a big part of it.

It is after Colbeck has protected the Great Exhibition and brought the villains to justice that the nickname by which he will be known for evermore “The Railway Detective” is bestowed on him. This book also introduces yet another running theme, the permanent friction between Colbeck and Tallis which regularly flares into open flames.

BOOK TWO: THE EXCURSION TRAIN

A murder committed on an excursion train (hence the title) leads to the uncovering of a grotesque miscarriage of justice in which the wrong person was hanged for a murder and the unmasking of the person who saw someone hanged in his place.

Madeleine Andrews provides her first unofficial service to Scotland Yard, Colbeck making use of her communication skills and her sex to gain extra information from a female who he feels has not told him all that she might. Knowing his Superintendent’s view of women, Colbeck is careful to make sure that Tallis does not find out about this.

The details that emerge of the first murder victim, particularly those associated with his role as hangman (hence the trail to the miscarriage of justice), are such as render him as unsympathetic a murder victim as any in detective fiction (with the possible exception of the loathsome Enoch J Drebber in A Study in Scarlet).

Time for my first picture (delayed because my copies of the first three books in this series are in omnibus form)…

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BOOK THREE: THE RAILWAY VIADUCT

The viaduct of the title is the Sankey Viaduct near Liverpool, and the story begins with someone being thrown out of a train and over the side of the viaduct to his death. It so happens that an accomplished artist was present preparing to paint a picture of the train crossing the viaduct, so as well as spoken evidence Colbeck gets a clear picture of the scene.

When it emerges that the victim was a French railway engineer making a clandestine visit to Liverpool, Colbeck’s follow up action takes him to France, where with the regular assistance of Leeming and the unapproved assistance of Brendan Mulryne he thwarts a sabotage scheme intended to prevent the completion of a railway there.

A fanciful sketch by a second fine artist, Madeleine Andrews, fires a synapse in the Colbeck brain that puts him wise to the motive for the crime.

It turns out that the scheme is the brainchild of an embittered old man who fought at the battle of Waterloo, and who was unable to adapt to the notion that the French were no longer deadly enemies. It was a planned extension of the French railway to Cherbourg, a port and the site of an arsenal, that our villain could not stomach.

BOOK 4: RAILWAY TO THE GRAVE

This one opens with a particularly gruesome suicide (achieved by walking into the path of a train). In the course of investigating the crime Colbeck discovers that the victim was driven to suicide by the murder of his wife. The locals are all certain that the husband was the killer and committed suicide because he was unable to live with his actions, and have closed their minds to other possibilities. Colbeck is able to establish that the husband was not the killer of his wife, and to locate the real killer.

This book also features a battle with a particularly unpleasant specimen of the clergy who is determined to bar the suicide victim from burial alongside his wife, to the extent of defying the law. It turns out that this person has been responsible for sending poison pen letters (dictated to his wife, so it is her handwriting that Colbeck identifies) to the man who killed himself, so Colbeck is able to force him to resign his ministry.

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AN OVERVIEW

These books contain a wonderful mix of fast paced action, plot twists and a large measure of railway lore. The characters of Colbeck, Leeming, Tallis, and Caleb and Madeleine Andrews, who feature in every book in the series are well developed. While it would be pretty difficult for a combination of detective fiction and railways not to appeal to me, nevertheless, these books are particularly outstanding.

LINKS

Just the two links today, firstly to the latest on the Justice for Kayleb campaign and secondly to a petition that now has somewhere around three million signatures calling for an end to the piece of barbarity known as the Yulin Dog Meat Festivial

Special Post: Tower Hill

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the the latest installment in my series “London Station by Station“. This post in a radical departure for this series contains a couple of photographs of old auction lots which happen to be of relevance to the subject matter.

BACK AND FORTH

A station opened on the present site in 1882, was closed in 1884 in favour of a new site at Mark Lane and then in 1967 the old site was reopened under the present name Tower Hill. I am going to mention two significant sites served by this station before talking about its other connections…

THE TOWER OF LONDON

Started in the reign of William the Conqueror and augmented consistently thereafter, this is one of the most famous sites in London. One of the more spectacular commemorations of World War 1 during the centenary year was the ceramic poppy display. One of these poppies, boxed and with a picture of the whole display as background, is Lot 1 in the Great Centenary Charity Auction. Although I do nat have any photographs of the Tower, I do have the complete gallery for this medallion which went under the hammer in James and Sons March auction…

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TOWER BRIDGE

The other site I mention here is Tower Bridge, most distinctive of all the bridges across the river Thames. If you manage to be there when this bridge opens up to let a boat through you will not forget the experience. Again I provide a picture in the form of an old auction lot. This plaque was part of a lot that went un der the hammer in February…

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FENCHURCH STREET STATION

The only square on the London Monopoly board to contain all five vowels, and the only one of London’s main line railway terminals whose name does not appear on the London Underground map, Fenchurch Street is just across the road from Tower Hill. Trains from this station go to Tilbury, Southend and Shoeburyness.

THE DOCKLANDS LIGHT RAILWAY

Tower Gateway, just across the road from our title station, was one of the original termini of the Docklands Light Railway when that network first opened. In those days, it was very much smaller than it now is, with the other northern terminus at Stratford and the only other terminus at Island Gardens. Until the southward extension to Lewisham was built one could visit Greenwich by travelling to the Island Gardens terminus, crossing the Thames by means of the foot tunnel and then tarvel back from Greenwich Station.

A FINAL WORD AND SOME MAP PICTURES

I hope that you have enjoyed this post and will be inspired to share it. I end with these pictures…

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A Classic Game of Cricket

INTRODUCTION

As well as my title piece, which refers to yesterday’s fourth ODI between England and New Zealand I have some links to share and some photographs from today at work. I hope you enjoy it all and will be encouraged to share.

TRENT BRIDGE THRILLER

Although in the end this cannot be described as a close game, since England won by seven wickets with almost six overs to spare, the word thriller is nevertheless well merited – it was one of the best games of cricket I have ever been priveleged to see or hear.

A New Zealand total of 349 appeared to present England with a very serious challenge, especially given that the previous biggest successful run chase by an Engalnd team in one day international was 306 to beat Pakistan in Karachi. However, the new (this series) opening pair of Jason Roy and Alex Hales launched a blitzkrieg that yielded 97 off the first ten overs of the reply. After both openers were out in a short space of time Joe Root and Eoin Morgan then shared an all-comers record for a third wicket partnership in an ODI at Trent Bridge of 198 before Morgan holed out just after completing an extraordinary hundred. Then, with the game already well and truly in England’s grasp Ben Stokes came in and provided some late fireworks to put yet more gloss on an already sparkling victory.

This result leaves the series level at two matches all, and given the cricket both sides have produced and the spirit in which the series has been contested I for one would say that the appropriate result for the final match up at Durham would be a tie, as neither side deserves to lose this amazing series.

What makes this series all the more remarkable is of course that only a few months ago English ODI stocks were at all time low, following a performance in the world cup that can only described as atrocious (with all due disrespect to the abysmal 1996 ‘effort’ surely the worst ever world cup for an England team).

LINKS

Just the two links today…

1)A petition via change.org calling on the Chinese government to put a stop to the Yulin Dog Meat Festival.

2)notesfromthenorth provides a detailed analysis of Britain’s Social Security spending to counter right wing myths.

PHOTOGRAPHS

All of the pictures with which I end this post are of items going under the hammer on Wednesday. A full listing can be viewed at the-saleroom.com…

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Special Post: Farringdon

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to another installment in my series “London Station by Station“. I hope that you will enjoy it and be inspired to sahre.

FARRINGDON

The current Farringdon station opened in 1865, when the Metropolitan Railway (as it then was) expanded eastward for the first time from the old terminus just to the south of here at Farringdon Street (it had already reached west to Hammersmtih in 1864). As the colours of the heading indicate it is currently served by the Hammersmith and City, Circle and Metropolitan lines. There is also an overground station served by Thameslink.

I have a couple of shots from an old A-Z to show the area at surface level…

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For three months in 1997 I worked (for experience plus travel expenses) at Interpretations, based in Bakers Yard, the near the junction of Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue, the first job I ever had.

Also, tying in with two of my interests (real ale and English literature), just to the north of this junction is a pub called the Betsey Trotwood, which I would recommend anyone to visit.

Just south of here is City Thameslink, a train station with exceptionally long platforms, owing to the fact that it was created by amalgamating two old stations, Holborn Viaduct and Ludgate Hill into one.

I end but setting this historic station in context with the aid of the Diagrammatic History…

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