An account of a walk around King’s Lynn, accompanied by photos. Also some important links.
INTRODUCTION
I am in the process of putting together a very large post indeed as an experiment, and meantime I offer you this little post…
THE FIGURE OF EIGHT WALK
I did this walk immediately after lunch yesterday. Setting off I headed through Baker Lane Car Park, across the upper Purfleet and down to the Great Ouse by way of the lower Purfleet. The first photo I got was this one of a bird that was perfectly positioned for the shot…
I headed along the river bank and across the Millfleet, then took the path that skirts old Boal Quay round to…
CORMORANT PLATFORM
This meeting point of the Nar and Ouse provided some fine photos…
Just beyond Cormorant Platform is the path through Harding’s Pits, from which I then headed across the Nar, stopping to photograph a swan…
Up through the South Gate, across the London Road, through a little known passage and along to Seven Sisters, at which point I entered…
THE PARKLAND
The water by the bandstand is generally good for a few pictures, and today was no exception…
After the bandstand I followed the path the exits the parkland by way of the church of St John the Evangelist, walked up past the train station and on to the second loop of the figure of eight, following another little river in King’s Lynn until the path diverged from it to go past the first of two ponds separated by the width of a road. The river provided a few pics, but nothing was happening in either pond…
From the second pond I followed the road I was round until I reached the path through the meadow that leads to a bridge across Bawsey Drain, on to another path that I followed back towards the town centre. This section of the walk yielded only one picture – a green insect that because of its size I was not sure I would be able to capture…
On the last stage of the walk I got a picture of the model spitfire that currently adorns the Trues Yard museum…
After I was home, I got one final picture of a military aeroplane that flew very low (by the standards of powered aircraft) overhead…
LINKS
My first link is to a document outlining Mr Corbyn’s mental health policy, for which I am using a quote from the document itself – the second bullet point to be precise…
A section on IDS and benefit deaths, a section on the Labour leadership contest and some other stuff including pictures.
INTRODUCTION
This post is about the recent revelations from the DWP of just how many people have died shortly after having their benefits axed – revelations that were carefully timed to coincide with the dissolution honours in an effort to minimize the coverage they got. Having finally had to admit defeat after fighting a long rearguard action against making any revelations at all (well done Mr Sivier and Ms Zolobajluk for your roles in making this happen) they produce the figures at this time of all times!
THE INHUMANE DESPICABLE SOCIOPATH
Others have done a splendid job of publicising the figures already, and most of this section is devoted to linking to the best of the many pieces that this scandal has generated. First however, a couple of pics to set the scene…
This, courtesy of Mike Sivier at Vox Political is devastating revealing of the kind of monster we are talking about.This is a partial acrostic of my own creation – I could not think of sufficiently opprobrious words to link to the secondary letters of each of his names!
When to comes the various articles and other pieces that have been produced, I have to start with the instigator of it all…
I finish with a brief comment of my own: these figures should without a doubt gain IDS the prize of a one way ticket to The Hague – they constitute ironclad evidence of crimes against humanity carried out on a shocking scale.
A PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE
Here are some photographs from yesterday…
This will be lot 251 in James and Sons September AuctionA close up of the two stamps – a 2d blue (quite rare) and a 1d red/brown (common as muck)
This coin is lot 560A few pictures from yesterday morning’s walk
Close ups of each face of the coin.
Lot 601
THE LABOUR LEADERSHIP CONTEST
This will be a brief section. I am not a part of this process, not because I have been purged (although the Labour right are currently purging with truly Vyshinskian enthusiasm in a desperate bid to win by foul means a contest that are being thumped in by fair means) – I never sought a vote in this contest. I have three links to share:
This piece in the Guardian about the way this leadership election has degenerated. The only time I can recall an election looking sillier than this leadership election has been made to look by those who are hell bent on ignoring the will of the bulk of their support was when Baldrick got 16472 votes – and that was funny on purpose.
A new find for me, scriptonitedaily, provide this account of someone who is precisely the type of person Labour should be looking to win back but who has been purged for having previously voted Green. The piece contains details of a very friendly and constructive exchange with her (Labour) MP.
In this section I have three links that I wish to share that did not belong in the main body of the post. After that I have a request, an advance notice and a closing picture.
My second offering courtesy of Cosmos Up segues naturally to my last link, as it concerns a discovery made by Stephen Hawking.
The Mighty, so often a source of wonderfully inspiring material today provide an account of a cashier who helped when an autistic child was experiencing sensory overload – a story that should not stand out, but in today’s world alas it does.
My request is that everyone who has made it through this post should please share it as widely as possible. In line with this request I encourage you to use anything in this blog post that appeals to you just so long as you, as I always try to, give credit where it is due.
My advance notice is that I am working on a post that will be much longer than anything I have previously offered for public consumption.
Bilbo Baggins was once reduced at a banquet to saying “Thag you very buch” – I now conclude this post by offering the clarfiied version…
The Metropolitan line’s Uxbridge branch, on which Ickenham is located, opened in 1904. The District line started running services along there in 1910, and these were subsequently switched to the Piccadilly line in the 1930s. Central line services were extended to their current western terminus at West Ruislip in 1948.
The two stations are quite close together (about 10 mins walk apart at surface level) and the largest depot anywhere on the London Underground network also provides track connections between them, as it used by the Piccadilly, Metropolitan (Uxbridge) and Central (West Ruislip) lines. Also, unlike some other interchanges that go unacknowledged (e.g Belsize Park and Gospel Oak) it is not especially difficult to think of journeys where this interchange might be useful (Uxbridge to Hanger Lane is one example).
Note the suffix the that the station name of West Ruislip once had.
An account of setting up and running an auction, with references where appropriate to being on the autistic spectrum.
INTRODUCTION
This is an account of yesterday and today (set-up and then the auction itself). Most of the pics are from yesterday – the exceptions are a couple of pictures of items that fared especially well.
SETTING UP AND RUNNING AN AUCTION
Yesterday was the day on which everything for the auction was transferred by van from James and Sons premises to the auction venue, on this occasion the Prince of Wales Suite at Fakenham Racecourse. Once there it had to be laid out to best advantage, and the person most responsible for sorting that out was me. Largely lots were laid out in number order, although there were breaks in the sequences for small stuff and stamp albums which were set up on a set of tables to which only staff were permitted access and also for the prizes (as deemed by yours truly) among the small items which were laid out in glass exhibition case. My ability to carry out this task comes from two attributes both of which are linked to me being on the autistic spectrum – the fact that I am exceedingly comfortable with numbers and the fact that I am very pattern conscious.
Fortunately the friendly and helpful folks who run the racecourse had already put out tables (although we did move a few) and provided us with chairs to set out as we deemed best.
I was able to get back to James and Sons for about an hour after we had finished setting up, and before leaving at the end of the day I disconnected the mouse from my work computer and took it with me because James and Sons do not have a spare mouse and for what I do on auction day, even though I use a laptop a proper mouse is much easier to use than the laptop’s scroll pad.
Here are some pictures from yesterday…
What the venue looked like when we arrived on Tuesday morning.The James and Sons banner.Set up for action tomorrow.The exhibition case.A close up of some of the things in the case.
Lot 160 (front cover item) and lot 94.
AUCTION DAY
I will not state exactly what time this morning my alarm clock was set for – suffice it to say that for some of you it would have been more like a ‘getting in’ time than a ‘getting up’ time. I departed King’s Lynn on the 6:50 bus, and of course at that time of day there was no traffic on the roads, so the bus arrived in Fakenham exactly as scheduled – just after 7:30. The walk from Fakenham town centre to the auction venue, which is quite scenic, occupied a further 20 minutes and as it happened I was the first of the James and Sons team to be at the venue. about 20 minutes later my colleague Andrew arrived and we able to connect all the wiring and get the computers set up for running the auction. In between locating lots for people who wished to see them in the flesh before bidding (a task to which I am well suited because of another of my autistic traits – a near photographic memory which means that I generally know precisely what I am looking for and have a jolly good idea of where it will be) I also carried out sound and video checks and made sure that the computers were working as they should.
The way these auctions work is that David runs the auctions, and has the auctioneers view screen open on his computer. I meanwhile use the live auction app from ATG Media (who run www.the-saleroom.com) and as well as recording bids, making sure that we are on the right lot and addressing any technical issues that may arise it is also my task to alert David to internet bids. I do find both the direct customer service work I do before the auction starts and then being up on the rostrum quite tough, but because it only happens once a month I can manage it.
Although this was one of our smaller auctions, there were a few highlights. Just a couple of examples: Lot 345 was a plastic box chock full of Panini Trade Cards, valued at £20-30 – and the hammer finally came down at £65. Even more remarkable to me, although there had been an inquiry about this item before the auction, lot 532 which was a “Pedigree of Hugh Fenne of Yorkshire” had been valued at £30-40 and sold for £80.
Lot 345Lot 532 in all it’s gloryA close up of the title portion of lot 532Another close up of part of lot 532.
Once the sale was over we then had to load up the van with everything that needed to go back to the shop, go back in to the centre of Fakenham, unload everything into the shop, and then make a trip back to the racecourse for the signs we had put up to advertise our presence, the stools on which David and I had sat at the rostrum and one or two other things.
Fortunately, this was all accomplished in time for me to catch the 15:38 bus back to King’s Lynn (there is a gap in the X8’s schedule meaning that the next bus back after that was not until 17:38 – and that bus can usually be relied on … to be late).
Tomorrow will be largely devoted to updating the database with details of everyone who took part in the auction – and what they bid on and what they won and so on,
A brief overview of the London Underground line that includes the original section that opened in 1863, with a few important links that relate to various statiions.
INTRODUCTION
Previously I have limited this series to coverage of individual stations, but now I am introducing something new – full line coverage in single posts. I will give a brief glimpse of this history the line and then a little journey from west to east along the current line. I hope you all enjoy this.
THE GREAT ORIGINAL
On January the 10th 1863 the history of public transport changed forever. It was then, having been constructed at the urging of city solicitor Charles Pearson in conjunction with a major road building scheme, that the world’s first underground railway, The Metropolitan Railway, opened for business. It covered just seven stops (about one fortieth of the number now served by London Underground) from Bishop’s Road (Paddington) to Farringdon Street (a little to the south of present day Farringdon). Only one line serves all of the surviving original stations (the circle and district station at Paddington is a later creation, originally called Praed Street), and that is the Hammersmith and City line. Although this was only officially separated from the Metropolitan line in 1990, it makes sense for the purposes of this section to talk about all the branches the relate to this section as though it had always been separate. Viewed in this way, there were a total of three branches that are no longer served:
Latimer Road to Kensington (Addison Road), which latter station is now called Kensington Olympia – the London Underground connection to it from the north was severed in 1940 and has never been reinstated. Goldhawk Road to Richmond, which was served between 1877 and 1906. The only station which was completely lost as a result of the cutting of this connection was Hammersmith (Grove Road). The final connection was a track connection via a long since defunct station called St Mary’s to Shadwell on what used to be the East London line and is now part of London Overground, though deeper below the surface than any of the remaining ‘subsurface’ stations on London Underground.
Before moving on to the journey, here are a couple of map pics…
The Hammersmith and City line’s historyIn its present day setting
THE JOURNEY
I am not going to cover every station – just those that have a particular association for me. Those who have read previous posts of mine about this subject will be aware that I was disgusted by Philippe Parreno’s failure to meet the brief (in my eyes) for his contribution to Penguin’s 150th anniversary series of books when he got this line and produced a book that contained no words, just a series of very ethereal pictures which bore little apparent relation to the subject.
HAMMERSMITH
There is a shopping centre here, also the Lyric theatre, and although I mentioned him in piece on Baron’s Court, you are withing easy walking distance of St Paul’s Girls School, where Gustav Holst was once director of music.
LATIMER ROAD
It was from this station that the line to what is now Kensington Olympia diverged, and because this is an elevated section, track heading towards Olympia is clearly visible from the train as you travel past here.
PADDINGTON
This is the only one of the London mainline railway termini where a London Underground line is structurally part of the station. This dates to the original opening of the Metropolitan railway in 1863, when they used locomotives supplied by the Great Western Railway before falling out with that company and switching to stock supplied by the Great Northern before finally developing some of their own.
EDGWARE ROAD
This is where the Circle line and a spur of the District meet the Hammersmith and City line (the District and Circle “Paddington” represents a decent interchange to the Bakerloo, but for the Hammersmith and City you are much better off travelling the extra stop to Edgware Road and making a cross-platform interchange.
BAKER STREET
The Hammersmith and City line platforms here (nos 5 and 6 out of a total of 10) have been restored to look as they did in 1863. This is also home to Madame Tussauds, The Planetarium and of course it is where the world’s first consulting detective had his practice.
EUSTON SQUARE
As well as being across the road from London’s first mainline railway terminal (Euston), this is the home station for University College London (UCL for short). Just round the corner from this station is Warren Street (Northern and Victoria lines), and a view at surface level that includes both the BT Tower and Centrepoint.
KINGS CROSS ST PANCRAS
At the surface a complete contrast in styles between the ‘fairytale castle’ that is St Pancras and the largely anonymous Kings Cross. The train from King’s Lynn to London terminates at King’s Cross, usually in the ‘side’ section that comprises platforms 8-11. It is here that claims to be the site for platform 9 3/4 from which the Hogwarts Express departs.
FARRINGDON
A cross-platform interchange to Thameslink services running between Bedford and Brighton. When I worked at Interpretations I used this station regularly. I also recall this area as home to the Betsey Trotwood, a pub that combined two things I love – Dickens and Real Ale.
BARBICAN
This station opened as Aldersgate Street, then became Aldersgate before finally getting its present name of Barbican. This is one of the venues where I listened to live classical music when I lived in London. I also saw various Royal Shakespeare Company productions here.
MOORGATE
There is a terminus here for mainline trains coming in from Finsbury Park, and there used to be a spur of Thameslink to here as well, but all of these were below the surface here, so there have never been any above ground tracks. With my home station being Tooting Bec, I used the Northern line platforms here more often than the others. Although St Pauls on the Central line is closer, I used to use this station on occasion to visit the Museum of London – accessible from there by way of the Barbican Centre.
LIVERPOOL STREET
An interchange to mainline railways, and also to the Central line. Also the point at which the Hammersmith and City diverges from the Circle and Metropolitan lines which go to Aldgate, while the Hammersmith and City heads to…
ALDGATE EAST
This is where the Hammersmith and City and District lines meet, and from the platforms here you can see Circle and Metropolitan line trains heading in to Aldgate as well. It was just beyond this station that a side branch used to diverge to St Mary’s and Shadwell, joining what was then the East London Railway, has subsequently been the East London line of London Underground and is now a section of London Overground.
WHITECHAPEL
An interchange between the District and Hammersmith and City lines and London Overground. Currently in the news because a museum supposed to be dedicated to women was actually a Jack the Ripper museum, which led to a petition and a project to create a museum that really is dedicated to the women of the East end.
MILE END
The only underground cross-platform interchange between a deep-level tube line and subsurface lines on the entire system. This station also has large enamelled maps from times past featuring the Metorpolitan and District lines.
WEST HAM
Interchanges with mainline railways, London Overground, The Jubilee Line and the Docklands Light Railway (this branch has taken over Stratford-North Woolwich, which was previously on Silverlink Metro (London Overground’s predecessor) with the addition of a trans-Thames extension to Woolwich Arsenal).
BARKING
This is the eastern end of the Hammersmith and City line, although the District continues to Upminster (logic would seem to suggest that the H&C with far less to the west than the District should do the longer haul east rather than vice versa). This station has interchanges with main line railways (to Southend and Shoeburyness) and London Overground (a branch line the other end of which is at Gospel Oak).
A sequel to the most popular post in this blog’s history, “Autism”.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to this post, which you may consider to be the official follow up to my most successful ever blog post, which was posted on Saturday under the title Autism.
WHEN BEING AUTISTIC GIVES ME AN ADVANTAGE
Yes – there are situations where having an autistic spectrum condition gives me a positive advantage (or so I see it anyway).
Having a very logical mind goes with the condition, and this works in my favour in several situations, including at the bridge table and in some situations at work. For example, when I am scanning lots of small items I place the packaging organised in the order in which the images will appear on the screen (and if you are scanning a dozen separate items in one go this is very useful). Also, this ultra-logical mindset comes in very useful when working on computers and indeed when (as I have done on a volunteer basis) helping others to learn how to work effectively on a computer.
My skill at mental arithmetic, which also relates directly to the condition. If I wish to ensure that, for example, a grocery shop does not exceed a certain limit that I have in mind I can tot up the bill as I pick out items and guarantee to be close.
Problem solving – precisely because a number of situations are problematic for me that would not be so for a neurotypical person my problem solving skills get more practice than the neurotypical persons.
Just one image in this post – one of my more recent cormorant pictures.
SOME AUTISM RELATED LINKS
A couple of links here that relate to my subject matter:
My other link, courtesy of scienceblogs, and therefore reflective of one of my biggest interests, about a victory in the war against quackery. Even if the treatment that has earned the person pushing it a jail sentence was not cruel, invasive and abusive (and in fact it is all three, in spades) it would still be bogus. Indeed, as those who read the original post to which this one is a sequel will be well aware I believe that it is based on an idea that is itself bogus – namely that autism should be regarded in the light of a disease and that therefore a cure should be sought.
AFTERWORD
I hope you have all enjoyed this, my second full-length essay in writing about autism from the viewpoint of an autistic person, and that some at least of you will share it.
Brief mentions of the Hanseatic Water skiing and the World Athetics Championship, with pics and links.
INTRODUCTION
This is in the nature of a catch-up post about events from this weekend.
WATER SKIING AND WORLD ATHLETICS
The water skiing reference is to the Hanseatic Ski Racing which took place on the Great Ouse right here in King’s Lynn this weekend just gone. Although my involvement was very peripheral I have a few pictures…
The World Athletics championship got under way this weekend. There have been many great moments already,none more so than Jessica Ennis-Hill regaining her world Heptahlon crown a mere 13 months after having her first child. The way she surged past Brianne Theisen-Eaton of Canada in the final stages of the 800m to win that event outright was reminiscent of London 2012. The other result that was greeted with near-universal approval was in the men’s 100m where Usain Bolt retained his title. People were rooting for him because of who his main rival was – if I was a betting person I would be pretty confident of putting my money on the proposition that no one not named Gatlin wanted Justin Gatlin to beat Usain Bolt – that is a penalty that one pays for being a twice-caught drugs cheat – even if bad rules which are badly applied allow you to return they do not make you popular.
A PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERLUDE
LINKS
On Saturday I produced two of my most successful ever blog posts. My most successful ever, which I will be referring to more extensively in my next post, was this one about autism. The other was the latest in my “London Station by Station” which, carefully produced to coincide with day three of the Oval test match, was dedicated to Oval and Vauxhall. This latter post attracted the favourable attention of historylondon who included it in their “gobbets of the week” post. One of the other posts that made the cut for inclusion in that list was londonist’s offering “the walker’s tube map”.
As someone who writes frequently about London Underground I finish this fairly brief links section by pointing you to this splendid defence of tube workers.
This is the first of a several posts I shall be producing today. I hope you will all enjoy it.
AUSTRALIA WIN THE BATTLE HAVING ALREADY LOST THE WAR
Australia won the Oval test match very comfortably to narrow the series score to 3-2 in England’s favour. Although it takes a little gloss of England’s overall victory this cannot really be considered significant – there have been many occasions when a side who have already won the series early have failed in the final match. Examples include England in 1928-9, 1986-7 and 2015, and Australia in 1902, 1924-25, 1968, 1993 and 1997. For the rest of this post I am going to look at England’s players through the series…
ENGLAND SUCCESSES AND FAILURES
So, who did what?
Alastair Cook: as captain he unequivocally did was required – his task was to win the Ashes and that objective was achieved with a match to spare. As a batsman he had an ordinary series, with no century and only two really significant scores, one of which was made with the match already lost (85 at the Oval).
Adam Lyth: he was an unequivocal failure at the top of the order. Nevertheless, while I would have no quarrel with him being dropped at this point, I maintain that the England selectors were right to give him the whole home season of tests in which to make his mark – and as a veteran of the second half of the 1980s and the whole of the 1990s, during which England were an international laughing stock I saw far too many occasions when selectors chopped and changed and changed and chopped so that no one ever knew whether they were coming or going I was delighted to see this example of consistency of approach.
Ian Bell: By his own standards a poor series – only three 50 plus scores and none of them a century.
Joe Root: Quite simply magnificent – his century at Trent Bridge on a pitch on which the Aussies had rolled over for 60 in 18.3 overs was a classic innings, made when runs had to be earned.
Gary Ballance: Only played the first couple of matches, but he will be back.
Jonny Bairstow: A fine innings at Trent Bridge, when he backed Joe Root splendidly, but not much else to show for his participation in the series.
Ben Stokes: Mr X Factor – runs, wickets and the moment of the series – that catch at Trent Bridge.
Jos Buttler: A shocking series with the bat, adequate behind the stumps.
Moeen Ali: A fine cricketer, but not in the way England used him in this series – he is not a front-line spinner. In the UAE where pitches are likely to take spin he could be useful as an opening batsman (a role he plays for his county) and back up spinner to Adil Rashid and possibly another.
Mark Wood: A good prospect, and Cook’s decision to give him the opportunity (which he took) to wrap up the Trent Bridge match was an excellent piece of captaincy.
James Anderson: The only England bowler to date to have taken 400 test wickets – it is a tribute to messrs Broad, Finn and Wood that he was not missed at Trent Bridge. The UAE would be a good tour for him to miss – there will be no assistance for him there, and he will be needed in South Africa.
Stuart Broad: Can one be player of the series almost entirely on the strength of one spell of bowling? Yes, if that one spell is 8-15 off 9.3 overs and makes the outcome of the series effectively certain.
Stephen Finn: After a couple of years in the wilderness he is back to some thing like his best, he achieved one of a run of four straight six plus wicket hauls by four different England bowlers (the others were Anderson, Stokes and Broad).
This autistic person’s view of autism and autistic spectrum conditions, leavened with a few photos.
INTRODUCTION
This post is by way of a public response to two blog posts that I have recently encountered. I am writing this because in twitter speak I am #actuallyautistic.
TWO IMPORTANT BLOG POSTS
The post that first planted the germ of an idea for this piece in my mind was published by Autism Mom under the title “Sometimes I don’t know what to think”. In it she mentions being at an autism related event and hearing someone talk about “curing” their son’s autism.
Be wary of “cures” and “recovery.” One of the first books I read about autism was a “recovery narrative.” It was well-wrttien, but what it told me was that if I just worked hard enough, poured enough money into chasing a cure, and found the right combo of supplements and therapies, my son would get over his autism. It’s a destructive mindset to have, and it caused me and my child heaps of stress. Autism is a neurology, it’s a different way the brain is wired. You can’t recover from neurology, and a more productive focus for everyone is helping your child become his or her best self.
and
Don’t get bogged down in the debates in the autism community. There are a lot of camps in the autism community. Some people want cures, other blame vaccines, and others demonize autism. Autism self-advocates are changing perceptions of the disorder through their advocacy. People will tell you to cut gluten, try cod liver oil, and the fights can grow nasty. I align with certain views, and I try to live those. But I tell my friends to keep the focus on their child as they wade through all the extra noise in the autism community. I also always recommend that parents new to a diagnosis read what writers with autism are saying as a way to navigate some of this debate.
A BRIEF PICTORIAL INTERLUDE
Here are a few of my recent photographs from in and around King’s Lynn
DISEASE OR DISORDER?: A FALSE DICHOTOMY
The common usage of the phrase Autistic Spectrum Disorder can lead to a suggestion that Autism can be treated like a disease and thence to talk of “cures”. Therefore save for the single sentence I have just written I used Autism or Autistic Spectrum Condition. In each case, although I have emphasised the words that I change in the phrase the key word of the whole phrase is “spectrum”, which implies, correctly, a broad range of attributes.
An Autistic Spectrum Condition is neither a disorder nor a disease – having one makes us different not lesser, or in some way incomplete. This is, if you like, my take home message to neurotypicals: learn to see beyond the condition we have and to appreciate the things we can do, rather than making the things the we cannot into impassable obstacles.
As I hope I have made crystal clear, I believe that any talk of a “cure” for autism is fundamentally misguided. I for one can say with no shadow of a doubt that even if some wonder drug was devised that had the power to make me neurotypical I WOULD REFUSE TO TAKE IT.
I end with a request to any and all of you who make it this far: please share this piece.
A piece principally about Ashes moments at the Oval cricket ground, with an introductory mention of the history of the two stations that serve it.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest post in my series “London Station by Station”. I hope you will enjoy this post and that some of you will be encouraged to share it.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE GAS HOLDERS
I am treating these two stations together because they are at opposite ends of the Oval cricket ground. Oval was one of the original six stations of the City and South London Railway, the world’s first deep-level tube railway, which opened in 1890. Vauxhall only opened as an underground station in 1971, part of the newest section of the Victoria line, but is also a main-line railway station and would have opened in that capacity long before Oval.
Today is the Saturday of the Oval test, by tradition the last of the summer. At the moment things are not looking rosy for England, but more spectacular turnarounds have been achieved (bowled at for 15 in 1st dig and won by 155 runs a day and a half later – Hampshire v Warwickshire 1922, 523-4D in 1st dig and beaten by ten wickets two days later – Warwickshire v Lancashire 1982 to give but two examples). The Oval in it’s long and illustrious history has seen some of test cricket’s greatest moments:
1880: 1st test match on English soil – England won by five wickets, Billy Murdoch of Australia won a sovereign from ‘W G’ by topping his 152 in the first innings by a single run.
1882: the original ‘Ashes’ match – the term came from a joke obituary penned after this game by Reginald Shirley Brooks. Australia won by 7 runs, England needing a mere 85 to secure the victory were mown down by Fred Spofforth for 77.
1886: A triumph for England, with W G Grace running up 170, at the time the highest test score by an England batsman. Immediately before the fall of the first England wicket the scoreboard nicely indicated the difference in approach between Grace and his opening partner William Scotton (Notts): Batsman no 1: 134 Batsman no 2: 34
1902: Jessop’s Match – England needing 263 in the final innings were 48-5 and in the last-chance saloon with the tables being mopped when Jessop arrived at the crease. He scored 104 in 77 minutes, and so inspired the remainder of the English batsmen, that with those two cool Yorkshiremen, Hirst and Rhodes together at the death England sneaked home by one wicket.
1926: England’s first post World ward I Ashes win, secured by the batting of Sutcliffe (161) and Hobbs (100) and the bowling of young firebrand Larwood and old sage Rhodes – yes the very same Rhodes who was there at the death 24 years earlier.
1938: The biggest margin of victory in test history – England win by an innings and 579. Australia batted without opener Jack Fingleton and even more crucially no 3 Don Bradman in either innings (it was only confirmation that the latter would not be batting that induced England skipper Hammond to declare at 903-7)
1948: Donald Bradman’s farewell to test cricket – a single boundary would have guaranteed him a three figure batting average, but he failed to pick Eric Hollies’ googly, collecting a second-ball duck and finishing wit a final average of 99.94 – still almost 40 runs an innings better than the next best.
1953: England reclaim the Ashes they lost in 1934 with Denis Compton making the winning hit.
1968: A South-African born batsman scores a crucial 158, and then when it looks like England might be baulked by the weather secures a crucial breakthrough with the ball, exposing the Australian tail to the combination of Derek Underwood and a rain affected pitch. This as not sufficient to earn Basil D’Oliveira an immediate place on that winter’s tour of his native land, and the subsequent behaviour of the South African government when he is named as a replacement for Tom Cartwright (offically injured, unoffically unwilling to tour South Africa) sets off a chain of events that will leave South Africa in the sporting wilderness for almost quarter of a century.
1975: Australia 532-9D, England 191 – England in the mire … but a fighting effort all the way down the line in the second innings, Bob Woolmer leading the way with 149 sees England make 538 in the second innings and Australia have to settle for the draw (enough for them to win the series 1-0).
1985: England need only a draw to retain the Ashes, and a second-wicket stand of 351 between Graham Gooch (196) and David Gower (157) gives them a position of dominance they never relinquish, although a collapse, so typical of England in the 1980s and 90s sees that high-water mark of 371-1 turn into 464 all out. Australia’s final surrender is tame indeed, all out for 241 and 129 to lose by an innings and 94, with only Greg Ritchie’s 1st innings 64 worthy of any credit.
2005: For the second time in Oval history an innings of 158 by a South-African born batsman will be crucial to the outcome of the match, and unlike in 1968, the series. This innings would see Kevin Peter Pietersen, considered by many at the start of this match as there for a good time rather than a long time, finish the series as its leading run scorer.
2009: A brilliant combined bowling effort from Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann sees Australia all out for 160 after being 72-0 in their first innings, a debut century from Jonathan Trott knocks a few more nails into the coffin, and four more wickets for Swann in the second innings, backed by the other bowlers and by Andrew Flintoff’s last great moment in test cricket – the unassisted run out of Ricky Ponting (not accompanied by the verbal fireworks of Trent Bridge 2005 on this occasion!).
The above was all written without consulting books, but for those who wish to know more about test cricket at this iconic venue, there is a book dedicated to that subject by David Mortimer.
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