Around Hanwell and up the allotment

A Hanwell walk 8 – from Boston Manor tube down to Brentford

Where exactly am I?

Strictly speaking this is a Brentford walk, not a Hanwell one. For some reason I’ve always thought Hanwell extends down as far as Swyncombe Avenue, or maybe even The Ride. As I got ready to start this second part of my Hanwell stroll down Boston Manor Road, the new infographic just outside Boston Manor station caught my eye. There, at the top, it boldly stated ‘BRENTFORD’. So Boston Manor station isn’t in Hanwell; it’s in the top-left corner of Brentford. I’ve lived just up the road in Hanwell for just shy of 20 years and I didn’t know that.

The new infographic sign.

Well, wherever it is, Boston Manor station sits on top of the bridge where the Boston Manor Road rises to cross the Piccadilly line, then dips again. To the left, or northwest, the road bends on up towards Hanwell Broadway.

Boston Manor Road looking north-west.

About 120 years ago it looked like this – a country lane with grass verges under hedge, fence, trees and fields. Must have been some upheaval when that was all built on in the 1930s.*

The same view 120 years ago. Not sure what that bloke is up to.

Boston Manor station reminds me a bit of Thunderbirds’ Tracy Island HQ, well perhaps at night, with an unreliable memory. A glimpse of the imagined future we felt as children but that never came to pass.

Ghostly neon glow – this flight tonight.

The ‘real’ Tracy Island – memories are uncertain friends.

Ahead, under the station bridge, the Piccadilly line skirts the sheaf of track lines, spaghetti fronds that lead to the long shed of Northfields depot. The new infographic just outside the station shows the pattern of the tracks in all its glory. Behind me, inside the station and down the steps, it coaxes and co-axes between straight platforms.

The tracks splay to the depot shed.

View from the bridge.

Left hand side down to Swyncombe Avenue

All that metal and power gave me an imagined sensation that the electromagnetic goings-on around the Piccadilly line had grabbed me and were pinging me slowly down the road in Supermarionation, like a character from Thunderbirds. So off I bounced towards the heart of Brentford to the south-east.

Looking down Boston Manor Road from the station.

The road is wider here than up towards Hanwell town centre. To the left it is bordered by a broad pavement and occasional tree, while on the right it comprises a cycle lane and sunken paved footpath, separated by a grassy central reservation with plane trees at regular intervals. There’s none of the dense, crowded jumble of shops and house types you find north of Boston Manor station, and the neat thirties houses seem bigger, their front gardens longer. As if the road down here were a kind of runway, girding its loins in anticipation of a take-off on the Great West Road towards Heathrow.

Indeed, the speed limit here is greater too, a good old-fashioned 30 mph, which adds to that sense of being propelled, even when on foot. I’m not sure, but the different speed limits could be a boundary thing between the boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow. It will only be a matter of time before it gets reduced to 20 mph, I’m sure.

313 mystery.

No sooner was I over the bridge opposite the tube station than I encountered what appeared to be a modest office building, now empty. It has a brief name: ‘313’. What sort of office was it with no signage? Multi-company? Secret? What old office party tales would the walls tell? The truth about the great Luncheon Vouchers scandal of 2002? It’s up for sale and you can find out more here.

Perhaps it will be knocked down and replaced by what the brochure describes as ‘micro apartments’, yet more residential building, only more compact. It seems unlikely, perched as it is between the road and the bridge.

Gates to the depot?

Behind the building is a metal gate and a barrier that I guess protect Northfields train depot. I took a photo and would have gone closer but for the sudden appearance of a hi-vis jacket chap.

I moved on. The long row of 1930s terraced houses on the left was occasionally punctuated by side alleys I didn’t dare slip down… too shy to find out whether they connect along the back.

The houses down this side of the road all look the same… but it does feel like being on a road to somewhere, not just in somewhere. For until you reach the mini roundabout at Swyncombe Avenue, there are no turnings off on the left, apart from the path to Blondin Park behind black iron gates, the left gatepost of which leans endearingly these days.

Blondin Park sign.

An information sign shows a map of the park and the Northfields depot track array (again), and the path takes you past allotments, a nature reserve and the park beyond, dominated by the long shed of Northfields depot, and extending all the way over to Northfields.

Cool banner.

The park hosts the Brentford Festival on the first Saturday each September. Unfortunately we’re always away at that time, though one year we did make it back in time to see a cool band, sup a welcome pint and soak up the last of the summer rain.

The left-hand side concludes with a short stretch of older terraced houses, perhaps Victorian, and the mini roundabout at the top of Swyncombe Avenue. It may only be mini but it’s always busy, for it’s a rat run to Northfields.

Right hand side down to Swyncombe Avenue

Back up at Boston Manor station I started down the road again, this time on the right hand side. I peered through the pale blue-grey fencing down at the criss-cross of tube tracks as they disappeared under the bridge in the direction of Northfields.

View from the other side of the bridge.

Bridge House and Bridge House South straddle Boston Gardens, the first of the side roads back up near the tube station. These three-storey art deco-ish blocks of flats are slightly chipped and frayed at the edges, though I’m told they are lovely inside. Large arched windows pour light into spacious stairwells.

Bridge House South.

If you nip down Boston Gardens a short distance, you get a side view of the station platforms.

View from the side.

Heading down from Boston Manor station I noticed that the houses on the right look the same as those on opposite side of the road, in terraces of six or so residences, complete with the occasional house whose turn it was to undergo treatment under scaffolding and plastic sheeting. The procession of terraced facades resumed, all the way down to the start of Boston Manor Park opposite Swyncombe Avenue.

Back alleys of Boston Gardens.

But these facades do hide a surprise of sorts. A series of untarmacked side alleys and short grassy passages lead to narrow back lanes behind back gardens, forming a kind of ladder of residences. A hidden garage land that smells of foxes. A tidy, private world of extensions, loft conversions, the odd shopping trolley lying on its side next to a short row of wheelie bins… but no litter, no broken glass. Just class.

Back alley with playing field beyond.

Boston Gardens’ back gardens overlook Boston Manor Playing Fields, maintained and operated by the London Playing Fields Association. It comprises a 22-acre sports field with a lot of pitches for cricket, football and rugby. There’s also a running track, a keeper’s house and mini grandstand. This is where pupils from Gunnersbury Catholic School down the road enjoy, or perhaps endure, their sport. Beyond, the Chiswick Flyover and the canal soar and flow respectively.

Back on the main road I loitered at the entrance to the jewel in the crown that is Boston Manor Park. On the day I did this part of the walk it started tipping down. I gazed at the grey rainswept lake and conjured in my mind that haunting scene in the 1960s film, The Innocents, where Miss Giddens sees the ghost of Miss Jessel. (Boston Manor Park and the newly reopened manor house will feature in a future walk/blog.)

Searching for a ghost in a long black dress.

I followed the long six-foot-plus high brick wall, all 300 yards of it, on down the road. Pretty soon I came upon a milestone set in the wall, though I was unable to read the inscription.

It’s no good. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.

The main entrance gate was politely imposing with its giant wrought iron gates. The wall on each side is much higher as it curves into the drive and the grey brickwork is replaced by clean red bricks interspersed with black ones to form a geometric pattern.

Boston Manor Park main gate with the lodge beyond.

Further down, was the second, lesser set of entrance gates, and another milestone set in the wall.

I wonder what it means?

Between the two sets of gates, Boston Manor House itself hid behind the high wall.

Peek-a-boo!

Meanwhile, the other side of Boston Manor Road was lined by a continuation of more Victorian-looking terraced housing. If you approach the bus stop for The Ride on the E8 or 195 bus, the automatic voice announces “The Ride” bus stop for you, in rich plummy tones, perhaps because it was once called Colonels Drive and is home to Gunnersbury Catholic School. Clitherow Road is a turning off The Ride, not to be confused with Clitherow Avenue not too far away up in Hanwell, both a nod I guess to the Clitherow family who owned the Boston Manor estate for 250 years until the 1920s. It’s also where we turn off on our way to Brentford home games, intoning “The Ride” as we do so.

From here to Manor Vale bus stop the residential facades opened out from terraced to a more semi-detached aspect.

The top of Manor Vale.

At the top of Manor Vale, I turned into a gentle dip of a side road and an intriguing step back in time. Mature trees and hedges of laurel, holly and privet preserve the privacy and dignity of these once swish three-storey art deco blocks. Now mild mannered tatty, untouched yet maintained, they were probably once home to the yuppies of 100 years ago. I wonder who lives there now.

The bottom of Manor Vale.

At this point I felt myself being drawn nearer to the Great West Road and the cars flying across the elevated section of motorway that bisects the University of West London skyscraper and the distinctive mirrored glass and steel of the GSK edifice. Like an Asian city skyline in miniature.

UWL tower and the flyover.

The flyover under construction.

But before that there were still many side road side shows to visit, that I’d been past on the bus, but never down. It gave a new perspective on the familiar.

Boston House.

Georgian buildings cluster here, hiding low car parks: Clitherow Court, Boston House and Prospect House. Some are flats, others are neat office conversions.

Prospect House.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the road, was a row of 60s/70s square houses; terraced boxes recessed into the long wall where it ends at the bottom section of Boston Manor Park. They were in varying degrees of repair but interestingly each one was different.

Box houses with GSK building behind.

As you drift under the flyover you can feel the pull of the new. The sea-green steel girders carrying the elevated section of the M4. The wedge of the Co-op shop next door to the UWL tower and The Mille office rental in the concrete tangle gloom. On the right is the tall glass and bright steel of the GSK building above the trees.

Boston Manor Road also continues on the other side of the Great West Road.

My passegiata complete, I turned around and squinted back up Boston Manor Road, thinking again of how it all looked 120 years ago. Indeed, aside from the manor house and its estate, from where I stood all the way up to the tube station was once a couple of farms, some fields and woods, and a muddy lane.

Houses started lining the Boston Road (as it was then called, and Boston Lane before that) from the mid-19th century after the arrival of the Great Western Railway. Trams rattled up and down the road. Another railway, the Midland District Railway followed the northern edge of the manor’s grounds and in 1880 Boston Road station was built, opening up the southern part of Hanwell to development. The station was renamed Boston Manor in 1911.

*With acknowledgements to Hanwell & Southall Through Time by Paul Howard Lang

If you’d like to find out more about Hanwell, local historian David Blackwell has a fascinating collection of books, maps and photos, old and new, of Hanwell and neighbouring areas. They are on display at Hanwell Library on the first Saturday of each month from 10am to 3pm. On the third Saturday of each month the display is more about Ealing in general.

My first London Marathon

Do you notice more runners on the nation’s streets from January to April? It’s likely they’re training for the London Marathon, which usually takes place towards the end of April. You are witnessing them meld into athletes, just as winter melts into spring. Most of them have got 16 weeks of this, with just a couple of days off a week. Here’s how it went for me…

THE STARTING LINE: Wow! A place in the 2006 London Marathon running for the NSPCC! A place at last, at the grand old age of 48! Elation soon dissolves into knee-wobbliness as I think of what lies ahead. In the next few months I learn that the training is a marathon in itself.

1: You don’t need any equipment to go running, just a good pair of trainers.

2: And some padded socks, blister plasters, support bandages, lycra shorts, over shorts, tracksuit bottoms, nipple plasters (hard to get off a hairy chest), breathable mesh tops, lightweight waterproof jackets, beanie hat, gloves, sports watch (with GPS and computer), sports drinks, sports snacks, glucose gels, jelly babies, heart-rate monitor, mobile phone holder, fancy water bottle, fancy strap thing to stop glasses falling off, iPod (best investment of the lot), radox, vaseline, deep freeze pain spray… Of course, I didn’t bother with a lot of this stuff.

3: Finding the right trainers is a big issue. At the specialist shop Run and Become in London’s Victoria you have to run down the street to test each pair you try on. Each time I do so I’m accosted by a guy selling magazines. “Big Issue, sir?” he says, smiling, as I jog by. While trying out the third pair I relent and buy a copy; it is a fundraising event after all.

4: My training plan is the beginners’ ‘just about gets you round’ schedule from my copy of Running Is Easy (no it jolly well isn’t). I realise I’m not even up to that, so I plan some pre-training training in the run-up to Christmas. My goal is simply to complete the course without stopping, without walking. I don’t have a specific time in mind but within five hours would be nice.

5: Pretty soon I realise that it’s not just about getting fit and building stamina; it’s about building mental strength, too. You end up talking about it quite a lot. The NSPCC is very supportive with emails and newsletters – they don’t want their jogging investments letting them down.

6: Sticking to the schedule isn’t easy and I expect/hope to come down with one of my usual heavy winter colds at any time. Sometimes I laugh when the schedule stipulates medium-pace, or fast. I’ve only got one speed mate, and it’s neither of those!

7: The organised training races are fun though: warm-up stretches at Eastbourne in a freezing gale; super-friendly Crumlin in Wales; the inspiring finish in a packed Madejski Stadium in Reading.

Halfway round the Reading Half

8: Sometimes it hurts: nipple rash, sore ankles, stiff joints and stomach cramp. The time I half-loped, half-skipped home like a child pretending to be a horse.

9: Laura (coach and sister) makes sure I do the training. Her 5.30am alarm text messages keep me on track.

10: As do the tracks on my iPod; I air-drum and sing as I run. Passers-by stare at the mock water station Laura sets up in the local park to get me used to drinking while running.

11: With two weeks to go it’s starting to come together: the training; the mental attitude; the sports massages; cross-training at the gym; soaking baths; resting; proper diet…

12: ‘Nothing tastes as good as slim feels’ I tell myself day after day over yet more porridge, bananas and pasta.

13: I collect my vest and number at ExCeL and start to think about the big day: how to avoid the need for loo stops; the mantras I’ll be repeating to myself, ‘strong, determined, focused’, that kind of thing. For once, there’ll be no iPod pumping punk classics to help me along, just the sound of the crowd.

14: I’ve pledged to raise at least £1,500 for the NSPCC and I meet the target with a welcome last minute flurry of sponsors at my JustGiving site. Fundraising is easier than I thought it would be. People are surprised into giving money to a lazy-arse like me .

15: The night before the race is all calm preparation: ironing my name on the shirt, packing, searching out safety pins for my race number, puzzling over the timing chip, good luck text messages from friends and relatives.

16: The big day arrives and what a day! We get up early to travel to Greenwich on packed trains, then crowds of us shuffle to the start. I do my warm ups while waiting in the queue for the toilets.

17: The start of the race is chaotic and crowded, the atmosphere friendly and expectant.

18: I really enjoy the first 18 miles: thousands of spectators smiling, waving and cheering as I settle into a good running rhythm. Some of them goading from pub doors, as they slurp mid-morning pints. Some of them offering handfuls of dolly mixtures and jelly babies; but I still never accept sweets from strangers…

19: In Wapping, the fun and excitement turn to pain in the rain. I see some friendly faces and give sister Laura a hug while running on the spot.

20: Somehow I keep going through the agony of the last few miles, urged on by cheering crowds. A well-dressed man, slightly the worse for wear, hurls abuse at us: “Bah! It’s jusht masses for the classes!” I think I know what he means.

21: The NSPCC said to raise your arms as you cross the line. I honestly thought I had. Elation and relief mix with pain and nausea. I feel great. I can hardly walk.

22: My time is 4 hours, 52 minutes and 41 seconds. No stopping, no walking.

23: I finish 24,212th out of 32,983.

24: I raise £1,746 for the NSPCC.

25: I’ve had not even a sniffle in four months of training in the cold and wet.

26: FINISHING LINE: Not one cold all winter. Something of an achievement, that.

So here’s to all you joggers, who go round and round and round.

The Kent Coast Cycling Lesson – post 3

By Tony Sears

Being about a marriage failing, and neither partner having the means to move out. One of us (me) hatched a plan to escape on weekends, taking an old bike by train to Kent. There I wobbled around the coast, making a series of discoveries, including how I was not entirely blameless in all this. The story is set in 1998–99, when mobile telephones and the internet were still new magic.

CHAPTER 1b

GRAVESEND TO ROCHESTER – SATURDAY 14 MARCH 1998

“I don’t know why, but I had to start it somewhere. So it started… there.” Pulp

A man with a job to do

I hauled the bike over a stile, mounted it awkwardly and followed the track winding through gorse bushes. The cycling here was easier, and I soon emerged at the end of Cliffe Creek, at the edge of a huge rubbish dump that looked decidedly less than tidal in origin. The next nine miles were laborious yet steady along the top of the high, grassy bank that extended north east and overlooked the estuary on the left and marshland on the right. It would always be that way round: the sea always on my left. The sea wall was even more substantial here, higher and wider, as if it were gearing up for when estuary would become full-on sea coast. On the landward side, it sloped down to a greensward, which sometimes made for better cycling, and then to a creek or large ditch running parallel.

Ahead stretched Cliffe Marshes: flat as Holland and interlaced with ditches and fleets, grazing sheep and hosts of birds. It was strange to think that as recently as the 13th century this was all sea. Peering over the wall on the bank top revealed a small pebble beach, and, across the estuary, the Tilbury refineries, Canvey Island and Southend beyond. The path continued for miles, punctuated by stiles in fences and ever more laborious liftings of the bike. Past Lower Hope Point, past the strange-looking arrangement of sixteen sheds above Cliffe Marshes, all along the shore to Egypt Bay. Here, the bank path was closed off, so I tut-tutted a detour around the back of the tidal marsh, along a narrow bank with long grass, overlooking birds and rabbits in the marshland below.

Sleeping with the ghosts of hulks

At Egypt Bay, I laid the bike down, took my rucksack off and lit a cigarette. Between drags I flicked through Bea Cowan’s Saxon Shore Way, to check that this was indeed where prison ships were moored during the Napoleonic Wars. I squinted across the grey water to where I imagined they would have been, then crushed the cigarette underfoot. The welcoming dry grass invited me to sit down and close my eyes to better conjure up old decaying hulks no longer fit for service; cribbed and barred, rotting to death and stuck fast forever to the mud of the estuary bed by ancient rusted chains manacled to great heavy anchors that made these once-proud craft prisoners too. I could hear the moaning of convicts and prisoners of war incarcerated between the low decks of the foetid hold. There was no headroom for the inmates, clamped in irons, who stooped or lay down on the bare floor in the dark, crowded low spaces. Thinking about it made me feel claustrophobic. I jumped to my feet and stretched my arms above my head, just to show that I could. Then I lay down again and drifted into a nightshifter’s loose doze.

These poor souls subsisted on brackish water and meagre stale or rotten food. The scuttling, scraping presence of rats made sleep difficult. Clothing turned to rank rags and the skin it tried to cover became flea-ridden, crawling with flies, and exposed to contagious diseases. There was no sanitation. The only escape from this nightmare existence was in death, and even then, whole days might pass before your corpse was removed and buried, a concern for those prisoners of a religious disposition. Between 1776 and 1795, 2,000 out of 6,000 inmates of the hulks died. James Hardy Vaux survived his sentence on board the aptly-named Retribution:

“There were confined in this floating dungeon nearly 600 men, most of them double ironed; and the reader may conceive the horrible effects arising from the continual rattling of chains, the filth and vermin naturally produced by such a crowd of miserable inhabitants, the oaths and execrations constantly heard amongst them. On arriving on board, we were all immediately stripped and washed in two large tubs of water, then, after putting on each a suit of coarse slop clothing, we were ironed and sent below; our own clothes being taken from us.”

Prison hulk Discovery at Deptford, 1829.

It fell to the authorities to make sure conditions were worse for prisoners than for the poorest of those on the outside. By all accounts they did a pretty good job of it.

This stretch of marsh is where Pip spent the first part of his life in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, and where Pip’s ill-tempered and much older sister, Mrs Gargery, raised him “by hand”, which is to say, by frequent clips round the earhole. His only refuge was in his friendship with the blacksmith, Joe, Mrs Gargery’s good-hearted husband.

In my mind’s eye I joined Pip and Joe in the heat of the forge, catching the last echoes of clanging, clinking and ringing of metal on metal down the years, accreting in the air all day long, every day except Sunday. Probably the only sound to break the quiet murmur of daily life in nearly every village in the country in the early to mid-19th century. Pip and I watched through hands splayed on our faces to protect against flying sparks as Joe performed the final act: using the long-tongs to plunge the red-hot metal into the quenching trough in a hissing mist of scalding steam. It was thirsty work and dangerous, too. It would perhaps have been even more dangerous had the blacksmith’s daily beer consumption matched that typically given to refresh and placate labourers on one large Dorset farm, according to GE Mingay in Rural Life in Victorian England:

“…the men were allowed a gallon a day: a quart for breakfast at ten o’clock, a pint at half past eleven for luncheon, a quart during dinner between one and two o’clock, a pint at four, with something to eat at five, and the rest when work was finished for the day.”

Harvest time must have been fun. By the time the wheat was half cut, most of the workers would have been likewise.

The harsh marsh

A hard life and a lonely one. The marshes at that time were isolated and the few roads poor. In bad weather many villages were cut off for days at a time, if not weeks. Few working people had a horse; walking was the only option. In 1892, Anderson Graham wrote of the farm labourer that “a ten-mile journey was an event that kept him in talk for a life-time. Even at this day I know rustics who live within that distance of the sea and yet have never beheld it.”

Pip’s reflection in Great Expectations on what drew Joe and Mrs Gargery together is that: “She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand.” In my dream, I couldn’t help picturing dissolving bands of early morning ground haze about Mrs Gargery, forming a wispy, silken robe that over the years gradually stiffened into an impenetrable blank pea-souper of a grey cotton smock. Then, this estuary day shrank to cold dark night, damp moonlight-touched swirls of mist shrouding dim landmarks as, in my dream, I had become a child of the mist. I passed gibbet, beacon tower and battery mound. The ring of a sheep’s bell, muffled by drifting fog across the death-cold marsh flats and through the old churchyard where the presences of family faded with each passing year. Then the sudden appearance of the escaped convict:

“A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.”

I awoke with a head full of aching wool and slowly got to my feet. There was no one about, though it must have been one o’clock by now, I’d seen hardly anyone since the promenade at Gravesend – just a couple walking a dog, and a few anglers.

Around West Point the path became stony, so I walked the bike for fear of getting a puncture. Maybe I would need a sturdier machine. After St Mary’s Marshes, the bank narrowed and became lower and lower until only the path itself was left to meander at the level of the marsh, right on the shore. What a lovely smell of salty coast air. What a shame about all the rubbish lying around: torn plastic bags flapping in occasional gusts, pinned to the ground by broken glass and soiled cloth, car batteries and gutted old fridges leaking poison into the ground. Fast moving consumer goods now slow, corroding, spent. I wondered how the fridges got here; too heavy to carry far and no road nearby.

As I trod a little further on, my nostrils were overwhelmed by a pungency of herb, a wonderful concentrated smell, like coriander, released by my crushing footfall on clumps of Sea Arrowgrass. You can eat the leaves but do avoid the greener parts, which store hydrocyanic acid that’s not awfully good for you, because it’s essentially cyanide. Danger lurks in all beauty.

From holding hands to ball and chain

A young couple approached slowly on the path ahead. Smiling and laughing shyly, side-to-side as well as side-by-side. Near each other, yet not actually touching or holding hands, as though it were only their first or second date. As they drew near, I looked down to avoid making eye contact, though I did hope they’d start holding hands soon, and always affectionately. In Great Expectations Pip longed to hold hands with Estella, but I’m not sure a polite handshake counts. I recalled the happy hand-holding with my own “Estella” at the time we threw caution to the wind, or perhaps just ushered it to a light breeze, and set up home together far too soon. As Dickens put it in The Cricket On The Hearth, “We forge the chains we wear in life.” Once the young couple passed behind me, I looked up and over at the further grey distance: a line of electricity pylons and what looked like a great grey power station.

I continued pushing the bike along the stone and seaweed beach, concentrating on the low buildings of Allhallows-on-Sea up ahead. This definitely felt like seaside coast rather than an estuary-edge muddy mess. But there was hardly a breath of breeze, so it was a sea with a surface still as glass, the shifting greys all darker than the pale grey of the sky above it, and the greys all complementing the green of the marsh.

It was a shame the tide was in. During the Battle of Britain, a Messerschmitt shot down a Spitfire over the River Medway. The pilot bailed out and was rescued, and the plane crashed onto the tidal mudflats just here. I guess it was too much to hope it would be visible today, but just the knowledge that it was there made my spine shiver at the knife edge thrill and fear of warfare.

Never in the field…

The Supermarine Spitfire remains a symbol of the backs-to-the-wall defiance of those who took part in the Battle of Britain in 1940. After being taken to see the film Battle of Britain aged 11, I was so fired up that I asked Santa, who had only recently morphed into my father, for Airfix model kits of both the Spitfire and its arch-enemy the Messerschmitt ME109E so I could play out for myself the Spitfire’s superior speed and manoeuvrability. I remember like yesterday painting its underside duck egg blue and being impatient for the paint to dry so I could apply the decals and other finishing touches, before mounting it on a transparent plastic plinth. The Spitfire’s advantages also had a downside; if you tried to turn too suddenly you risked losing consciousness. As Keith Ogilvie, Battle of Britain Pilot with 609 Squadron, said: ‘Two hours a day in these thunder buggies and you are poohed right out.’

As I looked out to where I thought the plane had crashed, my imagination played out my own version of what might have happened.

Bernie knew his plane had been hit when he heard a loud clattering behind him and the fuselage jolted. He had no inkling of where his attacker was and there was no time to think; no time for anything. He just had to get out. With one hand he pulled the joystick to lift the plane’s nose into a shallower dive, while with the other scrabbled at the cockpit cover as he felt himself start to succumb to the increasingly strong smell of smoke and burning through his mask. He was now a mass of fear and claustrophobia and screamed ‘Oh God! Oh God!’ over and over. At last the cover budged but the relief sublimed instantly into the deadweight vertigo of recent nightmares as the flapping cover was wrenched away by the screeching wind and he hauled himself over the edge of the cockpit and rolled out, into the void. He counted to three: ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ then pulled the parachute cord, losing control of his bladder as the parachute opened and swung him upwards and back, his stomach churning.

As the wind blew him sideways and around, he felt more than heard the explosion of the crash as the heat blast lifted him up again. He became engulfed by the large plume of smoke rising at an angle from where what remained of the plane was sinking into the mud by the shore. As the air cleared he noticed several children, just dots on the ground, running towards the crash site, followed by a few larger dots. One of the children stopped, seemingly pointing up at him. He looked down at the sea far below between his legs, then to the side and realised he was being blown gradually, gratifyingly inland. Sheep scattered in an arc as the lumpy marsh rushed up and hit him before he could get his feet and knees ready. He lay still for a full minute, his mind blown by the shock and relief. He tried to stand up but his ankle raced with pain and wouldn’t let him, so he sat back down and started to gather up his parachute as best he could. It was still a bright early morning, and it couldn’t have been more than an hour since the start of this, only his third sortie, yet he’d already lost a plane, buggered his ankle, and blown his chances of seeing the lovely Mary at church parade today. But he did thank God he was alive.

Supermarine Spitfire without streamlined transparent plastic plinth.

To be continued

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A Hanwell walk 6 – down Boston Road to the tube station

William picked up his bundle of tools and left the new manor house at Sudhale. He trudged eastward along the Oxford Road, barely noticing the woods and common on either side, for his back ached terribly after a hard day’s wood carving. Approaching Hanewelle, he splashed through the shallow river, wishing the lord of the manor would repair the collapsed bridge. Then up the lonely hill to the corner of the path to Brentford. On this corner stood a huddle of small cottages. Some called this corner Tickill, William called it home…

Stand by the clock tower and reflect that this part of Hanwell was called Tickill on a map of 1680. Tickill Clock Tower. Has a certain ring to it. This is one of the busiest spots in Hanwell – the junction where Boston Road meets the Uxbridge Road. These days, shops and cafés are packed together here in busy density.

Boston Road is a one-way street. On the left-hand side, looking south, all is a hot spot of bustle and confusion. Until recently, in the now closed Fade To Black corner café, locals chatted and cappuccino steamed under the mini minaret. If you turned the corner too fast on leaving you risked colliding into the kid riding a bright red pedal car outside the Expresso kebab shop, for want of anywhere else to play. Or being jostled by those struggling to catch an E8 or 195 at Jessamine Road bus stop.

Fade to Black has re-opened, as Momentum. So you can get your fix of top-notch coffee once again, while perhaps catching up with the movement hoping to transform Labour…

Exploring the little yard just after the bus stop takes seconds – a cosy motor repair shop. Next up, Jessamine Road is dead-ended by the high brick wall of Lidl – its aspect less cosy. Maunder Road is a narrow meander; it looks dead-end, but isn’t.

Things are busy on the right-hand side, too, but the vibe is a bit calmer, the pavement wider. Mleczko on the corner and its endearing sign (Have you ever visit butchers downstairs?) used to be a branch of J Sainsbury 100 years ago. Big Bites is back. Hanwell Kebabs is still the best!

On this first stretch of the walk, these shops and businesses, and the flats above them, are a mix of mid-20th century and Victorian/Edwardian terraced buildings. They are now punctuated by the latest wave of new buildings, inspired by Crossrail, which will enable travel to and directly through London.

The vibe isn’t always calmer on this side though, you sometimes find an individual looking anxiously up at the flats above the parade of shops – sometimes shouting. First thing you learn is that you always gotta wait. There are some interesting little side-streets to slip down when the waiting’s over; the nearest being Wilmot Place. The disused phone box opposite is alos popular in this regard.

A good mix of the usual suspects can be found on this part of Boston Road: kebab shops and cafés, newsagents, hairdressers, dry cleaners, a florist and solicitors. But there are some eclectic and unusual premises, too: security and electronics businesses, a posh flooring shop and the Olive Orchard Boutique. Another shop has closed down since I last walked by a few days ago. All signage has been removed and already I can’t remember what kind of shop it used to be.

Next up, Seasons Close is gated housing, the entrance flanked by the Golden Chip fish and chip shop on one side and the Little Wonder bakery on the other. Both are run by the same family and both are marvellous. Good quality and friendly staff.

Londis near the bottom of this stretch used to be Costcutter. What it was before that, I don’t know, but the brand was originally known as London & District Stores. Lovely name. Ghost signs on the wall, above the buddeleia next to the wonderful Provender Mews, offer fading reminders of how things used to be, and how they change over time.

Next door is an arch leading to a lovely mews – Queen’s Terrace Cottages. Further down we have George Bone Tattoos, accountants, solicitors, the Dodo micropub, and a café-cum-florists called W7 Emporium.

Cottages opposite Provender Mews, with Hanwell Square in the background

Hanwell Square is a massive new residential development on the site of the old Wickes. The building looks like it’s nearly finished and residents will soon be moving in. High-earning young professionals will spend their golden handshakes on rooftop sundowners while enjoying the bullet point benefits of state-of-the-art apartments, shops and cafés, landscaped courtyard, charming locals and prime access to Crossrail/Heathrow/M4. They probably won’t worry about possible new-build scope creep tactics… This might be the third main wave of building expansion over the centuries, but this time it’s on land previously built on.

Perhaps the new residents will try out the two old-boy pubs nearby on the fork of Boston Road and Lower Boston Road: the Prince of Wales (which used to be the Pig) and the Village Inn (which used to be the Royal Victoria). They won’t know about the wonderful Horseshoe Café that used to be next door, now a crammed in new build/conversion. Maybe they’ll hang out at Ben Scooters, everyone else seems to.

Ben Scooters. Usually busier than the adjacent pubs

They will likely enjoy the Hanwell Hootie, which takes place every year in pubs and other venues all over Hanwell, and especially here on Boston and Lower Boston Roads.

A map of 1786 shows Boston Road as a lane to Brentford with very few buildings (Park Farm perhaps, which was occupied as early as the 13th century). By 1816, there were a few cottages at the junction with Lower Boston Road, and by now all remaining land to the north of Park Farm had been enclosed.

The catalyst for the first main wave of building expansion in Hanwell was the development of rail travel, when the Great Western Railway opened in 1838, crossing the Brent valley on Wharncliffe Viaduct. In the 1870s and 1880s, large-scale building began and by 1894 the area between the railway and Studley Grange Road was dense housing and not a lot else.

This area is known (especially by estate agents) as Olde Hanwell and also extends up the Lower Boston Road and down to the Fox, where the River Brent meets the Grand Union Canal. The whole length of Boston Road, by now two-way, is generally flat, though most of the side streets on the right slope gently down to the canal.

On Boston Road itself, Nissan Westway is making way for yet more third-wave residential new builds – the young lad in me used to like seeing the big car transporters. Next on the left is the ambulance station; handy for Ealing Hospital. After that an Access self storage place. For some reason I really like these, even though the hedge in front of this one reeks heavily of fox.

Can you see Osterley Park from here? I can’t

Meanwhile, on the right-hand side as you continue south, you pass the tops of Rosebank Road, Osterley Park View Road (which has a view, but not of Osterley Park as far as I can tell) and Studley Grange Road. Late 19th century terraced houses, I’d say. These side roads are narrow, or maybe the cars these days are wide – in places they nudge up onto the pavement. Until about 20 years ago this area was dotted with small factories. A map of 1865, 27 years after the railway arrived, shows Boston Road built-up as far down as here, with gravel pits and Park Farm further down. By 1920, there were allotments in between the gravel pits.

Back on the other side of the road, Tools4Trade used to be the Red Lion pub, and a tricky little mini roundabout by the junction of Cambridge Road, leads to the Royal Mail Sorting Office and one of Hanwell’s dismantled but still operational LTNs.

Then the shop on the corner that still (I think) occasionally distributes groceries to those who can’t afford regular shops, and used to be an antiques shop called Studio something. A few doors down, Iverson’s Tyres/MOTs is now Halfords.

At this point, moving south away from Hanwell Broadway, the architecture of the houses changes from Victorian/Edwardian to a more modern style. For in the 1930s, the second main wave of building expansion started with Humes Avenue and continued all the way down the Boston Road. Indeed, most of the south of Hanwell was covered with streets and houses by 1932. Humes Avenue is home to the wonderful Humes Avenue Garage that does a great job and doesn’t rip you off. The area bounded by Studley Grange Road, Boston Road and Townholm Crescent was once gravel pits, all the way down to the canal. Indeed, Humes Avenue is named after Thomas Hume, physician to the Duke of Wellington during the Napoleonic Wars. He later lived nearby and built a wharf to load gravel onto barges bound for London.

At the top of Humes Avenue is South Hanwell Baptist Church and the wooden scout hut of a church hall adjacent. Then a tile shop with a tatty flat atop – the shop was once a petrol station. Behind these is an estate of flats – Lambourne Close.

We pass the top of the delightful Trumpers Way. Not always easy as we dodge the frequent sudden appearance of Getir scooters trying to get-there. As we hope to as well in a future post. Well worth exploring.

Then Boston Hotel used to include an Indian restaurant that’s now Kone Japanese restaurant. We’ve been in once and have also ordered a good few takeaways – highly recommended. A few more shops, a multi-cuisine takeaway and a couple of hairdressers. Opposite, across the zebra crossing you have a shop, another hairdressers and a petrol station that’s handy for the late-for-workers and the live fast/die young brigade, who find it impossible to observe the 20mph speed limit. I guess we all do at times.

More thirties semis on the right, including Townholm Crescent which, like Humes Avenue have the solid look of old council houses and are set on wider roads than Olde Hanwell. Just don’t let anyone hear you call it Molde Hanwell.

Halfway houses, their denizens and a paint shop haunt the left before the turning into Oaklands Road. In 1886, the remains of sixth century Saxon warriors were found on the site of what is now Oaklands Primary School. After the turning is Hanwell House, a residential care home next to the Cumberland Road bus stop.

In the 19th century a glacial erratic, or Sarsen stone, was found in the area of what is now Townholm Crescent, in a place where you wouldn’t normally expect to find a large flat boulder about five feet long. It was deposited at the end of the last Ice Age as the ice melted and retreated. There it stayed until house-building started on Townholm Crescent, when it was moved by builders. It now resides just by the main gates of Elthorne Park.

To think that 12,000 years ago this area was all covered by a thick sheet of ice. In more modern times it was all heathland, then farmland. Until a couple of hundred years ago, Boston Road was a lonely lane connecting Brentford to Hanwell. There were very few buildings of any sort.

Elthorne Park was opened in 1910. It has a bandstand, joggers and dog walkers, and people who do Tai Chi in the early morning. The Hanwell Carnival float parade ends here, and the many participants and onlookers wander among the stalls and rides, no doubt waiting to see which pooch would steal the dog show. And talking of winners, the school next door was attended by Lioness Chloe Kelly.

According to Eric Leach, the first known evidence of human occupation in Hanwell is Paleaolithic flints discovered in gravel pits opposite Elthorne Avenue in 1910. This means the first Hanwellites settled here any time between about 500,000 years ago and about 11,000 years ago.

Nearby, St Thomas church hall sometimes shows films. The front porch sags in the middle. Or maybe it’s meant to look like that. The church next door is imposing, but I can never decide if it’s handsome, too. It does have a flagpole, and a flag of St George (usually).

The house on the corner must be proud of its collection of street furniture

At this point on the walk south, the almost-semis start getting larger, and more spaced out on both sides of the now-tree-lined road. Few of them have front lawns, most are paved.

The Royal Harvester. No silver service, but it’s OK you know

Otherwise, there’s not much to distract, on a stretch that always goes on further than you expect it to. Until you get to the Royal, that is. The Royal Harvester is one of our locals and used to be called the Royal Hotel.

The Royal Hotel. I’d guess in the mid-1930s?

Back in the day, it had a restaurant offering silver service. Nowadays, it’s Harvester Fayre, including a cheeky little mac’n’cheese.

The old off licence behind the Royal is now a plant and flower shop.

Opposite is the grassy southern entrance to Elthorne Park leading to the top of the wooded lane that goes down to the canal.

Back on the left, we have the Royal pub garden (squint and pretend you’re on your holidays).

Then, some 60s/70s maisonettes…

and last but not least, a shopping parade of miscellany a bit further down, including the lovely Nepal, Sainsbury’s, a café-cum-post office, a coffee shop, takeaways and the inevitable hairdressers. Somewhere near here, as if anticipating the tube station, the road name changes from Boston Road to Boston Manor Road. I don’t know exactly where, nor why.

Across the road, you have a car repair station that has an art deco feel to it. A little further down, opposite the tube station, there’s a small office block. 1970s I’d guess. It’s called Boundary House and is home to a branch of Airivo serviced offices – your space your way.

Bet there’s a great view of the railway tracks from the top

And if you peep round the back, you get a wonderful view of the back end of Northfields Underground Depot with its massed ranks of trains parallel to the Piccadilly Line. From the top of the office block you could imagine a sort of steel bouquet: the train tracks behind the fence as flower stalks and the row of train fronts as red-bottomed flower heads.

Boston Manor station is a portal to escape – the Piccadilly line runs south west from central London down to Heathrow. It was first opened in 1883 as Boston Road station.

Boston Road station

The current station building opened in 1934, coinciding with the second wave of building expansion. It was designed by Charles Holden, and is more eye-catching than most of the work he did for London Transport. You may know the pub by Collier’s Wood tube station that’s named after him.

The station front semi-circular concession still features the Cup of Joe Coffee Shop signage, but the shop itself is long closed. A forlorn hand-written note in the window says ‘face masks for sale inside’.

I’d read about the Hanwell Gospel Oak that was supposed to be near here, and a couple of years ago spent a lockdown exercise hour in search of it. It’s just as well social distancing prevented me asking anyone for directions. It turns out said oak lay beside the road just to the north of where the tube station is now until around 1928. Instead, we now have what I call the nettle pit, a gap down the side of the tube station, also just to the north. For most of the year, it’s full of what must be very tall nettles. Perhaps in years gone by the local magistrate might have punished minor transgressions by ordering the miscreant to be ‘Cast into the Nettle Pit!’

So the walk packs more in than you might have thought, for such a short stretch of average suburban London street. All compressed in time when you consider millions of years ago when it was molten rock, then sea, swamp and glacier, and more recently woodland, heath and river. And now it’s on its way to becoming beige, a clean brushed-brick Crossrail new-build beige.

You might be interested in these other blog posts about Hanwell…

Walk out to winter (on parallel paths)

Hanwell during lockdown

LTN boxes and bollards

Introduction of LTNs during lockdown

Hanwell Square! Oh yeah!

The new development

From heaven’s gate to prison gate

A walk down High Lane, Hanwell

Hanwell’s rubbish

Litter and fly-tipping

Hanwell Hootie – what a beauty!

The local music festival

Brunel in Hanwell – Wharncliffe Viaduct

A special place

A Hanwell walk – 1

From Hanwell Broadway to West Ealing

A Hanwell walk – 2

More of a West Ealing walk, really

Map traps and Mountweazels

Trap streets, phantom settlements and fictitious book entries

Rainy childhood afternoons found me gazing at Ordnance Survey maps, giddily tracing paths across pale brown contour lines that were dramatically close-bunched for hills and gorges, or meandering far apart in wide, gentle valleys.

Nowadays I join fellow cartophiles online, where I recently went down a rabbit hole only to discover that some roads and places on maps aren’t real, but fictitious, inserted deliberately. I was stopped in my tracks. Then my still childlike imagination swung into action. If it’s on a map, it must be real. So where are these places? Who lives there? Are they portals to parallel universes? Perhaps, for I’ve since discovered several stories featuring trap streets or phantom settlements.

In the Doctor Who episode ‘Face the Raven’, alien refugees hide in a London alley invisible to passers-by. Anyone noticing it on a map would assume it’s a trap street. The Doctor saves the refugees by searching for trap streets on a street map.

Truth is, map publishers include fictitious streets to discourage and prove copyright infringement. In 2005, the Geographers’ A-Z Map Company claimed there are “about 100” trap streets in the London A-Z Street atlas.

One phantom settlement even became real. Agloe was a fictional trap hamlet marked at a road junction on a map of New York State. In the 1950s, a shop was built there, named Agloe General Store because ‘Agloe’ is the word the builders saw marked on the map.

Copyright infringement prosecutions rarely succeed. Even if a map is eligible for copyright, courts usually decide that fictitious entries aren’t. Prosecutions are more successful when the map maker changes the depiction of an existing street instead. In 2001, the Automobile Association settled out of court for £20 million after copying Ordnance Survey maps. No fictitious entries were involved, the Ordnance Survey protected its copyright by using specific style features such as varying road widths.

Not using trap streets on maps also avoids the risk of interfering with road users’ navigation and sending them down non-existent roads and perhaps even into other dimensions.

Fictitious entries also occur in reference books, which often contain fake entries either as humorous hoaxes or to deter plagiarism. Again, legal action rarely succeeds. The Trivia Encyclopedia deliberately included false information about TV detective Columbo and then unsuccessfully sued Trivial Pursuit, who had copied it.

Fake entries in books are often called ‘mountweazels’ after Lillian Virginia Mountweazel, herself a fake entry in the 1975 edition of the New Columbia Encyclopedia. The entry stated that she was born in 1942, photographed unusual subjects such as New York City buses, Paris cemeteries and rural American mailboxes, and died aged 31 in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine. She even has a Facebook page.

Probably the most well-known fake entries in serious reference works are:

Zzxjoanw: a Maori drum.Rumbled because Maori does not use J, X or Z.
Jungftak: a Persian bird – the male has just one wing, on the right, and the female one on the left. Too far-fetched, even for me.
Esquivalience: wilful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities. Certain politicians spring to mind – I’ll be keeping an eye out for this one.

This article was originally posted in 2021 in the blog section of the website run by my colleagues at Accuracy Matters: Accuracy Matters | Home

The Kent Coast Cycling Lesson – post 2

By Tony Sears

Being about a marriage failing, and neither partner having the means to move out. One of us (me) hatched a plan to escape on weekends, taking an old bike by train to Kent. There I made my way along the margins where sea meets shore, discovering all sorts of things, including how I was not entirely blameless in all this. The story is set in 1998–99, when mobile telephones and the internet were still new magic.

CHAPTER 1a

GRAVESEND TO ROCHESTER – SATURDAY 14 MARCH 1998

“I don’t know why, but I had to start it somewhere. So it started… there.” Pulp

Nine months after That’s It We’re Finished, tunes started returning to my head. A fragment of Pulp had just popped into it as I clumsily hauled my bike off the train. “I don’t know why, but I had to start it somewhere. So it started… there.” “There” being Gravesend railway station, which looked neat but damp at 9.15am on this grey Sunday morning. The bottom of the soggy cloud didn’t seem all that far above my head and was a lowering weight unhappy enough to want to hang around all day.

I declared this pedal-powered circumnavigation of Britain open, by taking a photo of the Victorian station front. Then I wheeled the bike down to the waterfront to find the start of the Saxon Shore Way, which I planned to follow whenever I couldn’t get closer to the sea. For the Way follows the ancient coastline as it was in Roman times, not as it is now. It was opened in 1980, so the Way itself isn’t that ancient, then. As I neared the promenade the sight of the estuary water gave me that first-glimpse-of-the-sea thrill I used to get as a kid, even if today’s drab scene was no deep blue summer holiday sea of childhood memory. Small boats moved gently rose and fell by the piers and jetties to which they were moored, cargo ships were making their way west upstream towards London, and sea birds circled overhead. Through the mist, Tilbury power station haunted the opposite shore.

Leaning self and bike against the promenade wall, I rummaged in my rucksack for the Ordnance Survey map: OS Landranger 178 – Thames Estuary (Rochester & Southend-on-Sea). As I unfolded it slowly yet eagerly, as if in slow motion, I found myself declaring this map open too, in a mutter I hoped no passer-by noticed.

Beginnings and endings

Being unsure where the Thames stops being a river and starts being the sea, it hadn’t been easy to decide where to begin the rides. I plumped for Gravesend because I found it an odd, ironic name for a starting point. It connotes a feeling of flat finality, of gothic endings in Victorian churchyards, yet there were many beginnings associated with this place: Cabot, Frobisher and Drake each once set sail from here.

Historical records suggest several origins of the name Gravesend from which to take our pick. Surely they can’t all be true? Graaf-ham (home of the lord of the manor’s reeve) and Grafs-ham (the place at the end of the grove). Then there’s Gerevesend(from the Saxon for the end of the authority) and‘s-Gravenzande (from the Dutch for a sandy area belonging to the count). In the Domesday Book of 1086, it was down as Gravesham and had been bestowed upon Odo, Earl of Kent, Bishop of Bayeux and half-brother of William the Conqueror in 1067. Odo ruled only nominally, for the people of Kent had fiercely resisted the Norman Conquest, earning themselves the epithet of Invicta, and were granted the status of a semi-autonomous county palantine. A century later, orthographic licence had tweaked the name of the settlement to Gravesende and in a court record of 1422 it had been transmuted to Graveshend, the place where the graves ended after the Black Death. Oh, do please make your minds up.

In later times, the naming of places was a headache for surveyors creating the first Ordnance Survey maps, when even locals couldn’t agree on what a place was called, never mind how it was spelt. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to believe.

Before embarking on this journey I knew little about the life of Charles Dickens, so I had no idea that he and his bride Catherine Hogarth spent their honeymoon here in Gravesend in 1836. Their bumpy ride of a marriage started in a white weather-boarded house called Craddock’s Cottage, where Dickens wrote his first novel Pickwick Papers. They say that nothing inspires quite like love, and when without a care Catherine let her hat drop to the floor that first evening, she may have had no inkling she would inspire her new husband to father ten children and write the fifteen novels it would take to feed and clothe them. In the process, Dickens invented a total of 13,000 characters, 318 of whom were orphans. All this to ensure his own children didn’t end up likewise. Nor perhaps did Catherine anticipate the unhappiness the master storyteller would bring to her own tale.

A man of many parts

On top of all that, our energetic hero also edited various magazines, wrote and produced endless plays, and went on many lucrative reading tours, at home and abroad. These tours usually involved a few hours’ performance in the evening followed by a lavish meal. On one tour of the United States Dickens was unable to do justice to such hospitality because he suffered from gum disease and neither of his two sets of dentures were functioning correctly. Long-distance travel was slow and uncomfortable in the age of the stagecoach and Dickens’ life was made much easier with the arrival of rail travel. That is, until one tragic day in June 1865 when a train he was travelling in derailed at Staplehurst, killing ten passengers and injuring many more. He never fully regained his health.

Just down the road from Craddock’s Cottage is The Old Forge at Chalk, the inspiration for the forge in Great Expectations. This is where Dickens had blacksmith Joe Gargery spend long days at it hammer and tongs, red-hot iron on anvil. The last blacksmith at the Old Forge retired in 1953 and the building is now listed. Picture its once soot-encrusted internal walls now stripped-to-brick, brushed and nicely matt-sealed; an estate agent’s dream.

Gravesend has witnessed endings, too. Pocahontas ended up in a grave here in 1617, after a short and tragic life. She was a Native American captured by the English in 1613, and repeatedly raped before being encouraged to convert to Christianity. While in captivity she met John Rolfe, a tobacco planter who desperately wanted to know her tribe’s secret process for curing tobacco. So he married Pocahontas, or Rebecca as she had by then been renamed, conveniently became one of the family and was let in on the precious knowledge. In 1616, they sailed to England where she was presented as a “civilised savage”, to dispel rumours about wild murderous Native Americans. The following year, the couple set out to return to America, but only got as far as Gravesend before Pocahontas fell ill, was taken ashore and died. Some say she was poisoned.

She wasn’t even yet twenty-one. Her story earned her a statue in the graveyard of St George’s church and her name adorning one of the local ferry boats.

This town…

Despite the unpromising name, Gravesend was a more attractive place than I’d expected. The town centre had a haggard run-down look about it that was interesting, almost ghostly. Nearly all the shops in the cobbled street leading down to the promenade were closed at this early hour, but many looked closed for good.

In contrast, I felt open for business, full of a curiosity and anticipation that cut through my tiredness. I was looking forward to doing something, rather than spending another weekend trying to avoid my ex-spouse-in-waiting for a whole two days in a small flat. Well, I say ex-spouse-in-waiting, for when does a partner stop being a partner when you split up? What are we called before final divorce, when we become fully ex? Is there a word for the transitional phase, like the estuary between the river and the sea? Perhaps “soon-to-be-ex-spouse” would be better than “ex-spouse-in-waiting”. Yes, “soon” sounds better than “waiting”.

A little knowledge being an underrated thing, I’d visited the local library at home before embarking on this voyage of discovery. There were few relevant books that weren’t already out on loan, though. I did find one book called The Sea on our Left, about a couple who walked around the coast of Britain and nearly split up in the process. I was about to do it the other way around, having split up beforehand, and on two wheels rather than two legs. I’d also heard about the World Wide Web, but the library didn’t have any computers yet and I certainly didn’t own one. The only person I knew with access to the marvellous new world of the internet was the studio manager at Saatchi’s, but she worked on the day shift and her computer was out of bounds to us night workers.

I put the map away in the front pocket of my anorak, where it would be easier to get at, and looked out over the water, picturing how Gravesend might have looked in its heyday, when hundreds of trading ships made their way under sail, up and down the Thames estuary, chaotic silver highway and major artery of empire. As a child I was fascinated by tales of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars and read all of CS Forrester’s Horatio Hornblower adventure books, usually by bunkbed torchlight, imagining I was on board a frigate, unable to sleep for the massive sway of heavy seas and the swish of wave tops sliced by vicious gusts of wind, waiting for the next watch when I and my fictional heroes would continue to battle on against all the odds, to victory.

Ghosts of industry

Continuing onwards and eastwards along the promenade and through the streets by the Custom House, I passed behind disused old warehouses and wharves, the cranes that must once have loomed over them long gone. I felt the aura of their dilapidation, the crumbling, dirty old buildings with their black walls and forlorn atmosphere of history forgotten. The air of neglect and foreboding drew me in under a sombre sky rubbed with dirt and full of rain.

Gravesend is the home of the Port of London Authority and has been the river’s guardhouse and gateway since the 14th century when Searchers and then Tide Waiters were appointed to stop and search all vessels and impose duties on their cargoes. Their captains also had to swear on the Plague Bible that there was no illness onboard. By the 17th century there was so much shipping and so many Tide Waiters, that they resorted to using Gravesend’s inns as offices, which makes you wonder how much ‘leakage’ there was of the duties levied. This problem was solved by the construction of the old Custom House in 1782, replaced by the current one in 1815.

The river that wanted to be a sea was pale, as if the remaining tinges of silver and green had been washed out by the tide. Looking up, the sky was now a light grey above a dark base of heavy pewter clouds, layer upon layer, undefined and out-of-focus. Peeping at it hurt my eyes.

A different kind of cycle lane

The cycling became difficult on the grassy-banked sea wall that, according to the map, extended for the next fourteen miles along the top of Kent, and I hoped it wasn’t going to be like this all the way. For the most part, the ground was bumpy, muddy and stony. For the rest, it was clover-thick springy grass, no easier to cycle on. In spite of this, I was enjoying it all much more than cycling in London; it was as if I were meant to be here. Before me were the broad vistas of the estuary and the marsh, and not too much wind – the peace and quiet of the high and wide outdoors. The only sounds were of sea birds crying, marsh birds twittering and the reverberating bass throb of massive cargo ships making their way upriver.

At Higham Saltings, the marshland spread on both sides of the king-of-the-castle raised bank, and the salty sea-and-marsh tang was more perceptible on the breeze. It’s because a salting (apart from being a lovely word) is an area of coastal marsh covered by seawater at high tide. The cycle of flooding and evaporation with the flow and ebb of the tides causes the air to be permanently super-salty. I stopped, closed my eyes and gulped it all in, to make sure I really was here and not still suffocating in London. It was wonderful to breathe properly after so many months gasping in despair and frustration. It began to drizzle; I opened my eyes and looked over towards Cliffe Fort and the massive Coryton oil refinery beyond, with its brooding presence and burning flares.

Unimaginably vast amounts of puff and sweat must have gone into building, maintaining and strengthening the sea wall over the centuries, not to mention the huge task of banking-in the unending mudflats and saltings, then cutting drainage ditches between them so that over time they were no longer covered by the sea at high tide. To think that the North Kent Marshes once extended all the way from Dartford in the west to Whitstable in the east. Mile after mile of shoreline, shifting, amorphous, not defined by cliff or even beach, but as hard to grasp as the mists that rolled and swirled on the marsh at night. The sense of vastness added to the glorious feeling from cycling and walking in this place; I could feel the cobwebs starting to shake and fall from my tired mind, to be replaced by birdsong and occasional ships’ hooters.

Rust never sleeping

Reaching Higham Creek, I followed a gravel-and-stone path north past Cliffe Fort, denoted on the OS map in expectation-raising gothic script, but in reality a squat, square overgrown disappointment. Behind it was abandoned machinery for a long-disused gravel works. Fascinated by this arrangement frozen in time, I stopped and leaned the bike against an abandoned conveyor belt that rose up at an angle to the point at which it presumably once fed a hopper long since gone. I studied the world of rust on the old metal: dried-blood-red and black speckles among saffron flakes and pale verdigris lichen spots. Beyond, the rocks at the high-tide mark were strewn with all kinds of debris, presumably washed up from the estuary. I wandered around older debris too, including the spiky weathered shell of a large old wooden boat. The Hans Egede was a three-masted ship built in 1922 in Denmark. For many years, she was a coal and grain hulk in the Medway estuary. At the end of her working life she was beached here on the estuary margins where she remains sticking out of the ancient slime like a partially disinterred skeleton, all ribs and rotting superstructure.

*The wreck of the* Hans Egede by the sea wall path near Higham Creek.

There was a charm to the odd almost-beauty of the natural scenery, roughened by remnants of old industry and pock-marked by random small piles of rubbish, obscure faded offerings at some imagined path-side shrine.

Brentford FC in the Premier League 2021/22– episode 11

May – It’s the final countdown!

Manchester United 3 Brentford 0 Monday 2 May

A measure of the power of the United brand is that the club isn’t mentioned by name on the tickets, nor on the programme cover. And of course, a visit to Old Trafford, like Anfield, was what we dreamt of on that glorious day at Wembley last year.

We made a May Bank Holiday weekend of it, staying in Salford, which has a much different feel to it than the City Centre where we stayed for the City game earlier in the season. We posed for pictures outside the Salford Lads Club, which is actually on Coronation Street. Surreal.

Old Trafford didn’t disappoint. It’s a lovely ground. There was a lot going on and a lot more Mancunian accents than we’d expected. Darkness fell as the 8pm kick-off approached and some United fans protested in the drizzle against the Glazer owners; a lot of green and yellow scarves. Inside, green and yellow flares and a mass walkout of fans planned for the second half.

73,482 spectators witnessed interim manager Ralf Rangnick’s last home game. Can’t have been easy for him. It was also Juan Mata’s last home game. Jesse Lingard didn’t even feature. All a bit subdued.

The programme was one of those big square ones, fact packed with lots of photos. It had a pretty good junior section, including a pull-out Legends of the North poster that some of us junior 60-year-olds folded into over-sized paper aeroplanes. Made a change from red and white balloons…

Cristiano Ronaldo was yet again the figure everyone loves to hate. Why does such a good player have to keep falling over whenever anyone gets within 10 feet of him? One missed free kick prompted a ‘You’re just a shit Sammy Saunders…’ which led to a medley of the old songs.

I could swear those goal posts are leaning backwards

United beat us 3–1 in the reverse fixture in January, but given our improvement since Eriksen joined, and United’s inconsistency, we were hopeful of a draw. Though Brentford tried hard we were outclassed. And we gave the ball away an awful lot. United’s first goal came after nine minutes, a class volley by Fernandes. To our delight, Ronaldo had a goal disallowed by VAR, though he did score a penalty on 61 minutes after going down following a Rico challenge. Hmmm. Ten minutes later Varane nailed it with a deflected shot.

We hardly noticed the protest walkout on 73 minutes. It just looked like the usual fair weathers leaving early to get to the car park. ‘That’s just embarrassing!’ we sang.

The final whistle went. We applauded Thomas and the boys, then filed out of the Theatre of Dreams, hopefully not for the last time. Meanwhile, the United fans seemed less than exuberant, even after this good performance.

Back to the hotel for some good old fashioned northern consolation. Meanwhile, the TV in the bar was showing an MUTV Ronaldo hagiography.

Brentford 3 Southampton 0 Saturday 7 May

Ralph Hasenhüttl’s Southampton have slipped up a few times since they thumped us 4–1 on that dark evening in January. By contrast, we’re a slicker, more confident outfit these days. The atmosphere in the Community Stadium was buzzing with expectation. As three o’clock approached we thought we could win this one.

We remember the passion of Southampton fans so maybe it was they who threw red flares/smoke bombs onto the pitch. Maybe it was us. I can’t remember now and I don’t mind them so much anyway. I even like the smell though I guess breathing smoke bomb isn’t good for you.

Why does the portal always make me chortle?

Southampton had more of the possession but we were really good. We were always in control and we made it count. Pontus and Wissa each scored within two minutes early in the first half and Ayer sealed it 10 minutes from time. Their star player Ward-Prowse didn’t get much of a look-in, and it was nice to see our own double-barrelled rising star, B-team youngster Nathan Young-Coombes, make his first team debut near the end.

Christian Eriksen – a player with ‘flare’

The chat around us was all Christian Eriksen – will he stay or will he go at the end of the season?

We had to scarper on the final whistle to get a train, so we missed the customary lap of appreciation. Though we certainly had appreciated Brentford’s magnificent performance. We are staying up!

Everton 2 Brentford 3 Sunday 15 May

So, ferry cross the Mersey. Bigger than I remember it…

We decided to make a weekend of it and got the train from Euston to Liverpool the day before the game. Hundreds of Liverpool fans were arriving for the FA Cup Final at Wembley against Chelsea, while we were on our way up to watch Liverpool’s local rivals. On the journey we both voted for Bryan Mbeumo as our Brentford player of the season. Who got your vote?

We checked in and walked up the old dock road through the waterfront hinterland. Dilapidation and renovation side by side. The scenery chimed with the state of Frank ‘the Magic Lamp’ Lampard’s Everton FC. They are in trouble. Either they, Leeds or Burnley will be going down with Norwich and Watford. And of course we beat them at home last November, though they did whop us in the Cup.

We had a pint outside the Bramley Moore pub while Liverpool were winning the FA Cup on the telly inside. Then we noticed we were right by the site of Everton’s proposed new stadium. Looks like a nice spot. But apparently, building it will mean the massive old dockyard/waterfront area loses its UNESCO World Heritage Site status.

Because of other fixture pile-ups and the requirements of TV companies, kick-off was moved to 4.30pm. Which meant that some fans couldn’t go. Consequently we were all credited with the cost of a future match. Which was nice.

A strong and determined Dixie Dean – one of the better footballing statues

Goodison Park is a lovely old ground, set back in time. None of that card-only payment nonsense for programmes here. We reckon it should be a UNESCO World Heritage Site in its own right. We were there early enough to see the Everton fans welcome their manager and players’ team coach. A right-old melée of fans young and old, milling around, willing their team to win. Singing their hearts out and waving blue smoke bombs around.

Everton reckon weeing on the portal brings good luck. We might need to try this next season…

Inside the ground, the atmosphere was big and lively, with plenty of old fashioned football songs. All that was missing was flat caps and football rattles. The players came out to a blasting of the old Z-Cars theme. Iconic time travel. It certainly felt like there were more than 38,819 people in there.

They had netting to protect them from Bees fans…

It’s also a curiosity of a ground. A giant net curtain separated us from the home fans to our left. And away players/coaching stuff have a different exit in the corner near the away fans, on the opposite side of the pitch to the dugout and home tunnel. I’m told this arrangement predates the pandemic. Not a bad thing, I suppose, as we got to see our heroes close up.

…it wasn’t enough to stop Bees players swarming.

It was an exciting game. Everton went ahead on 10 minutes. Shortly after, Pontus pulled an Everton player’s shirt in the penalty area but got away with it. Straight after, Branthwaite brought down Toney at the other end of the pitch and was sent off. Controversial decisions, but we weren’t complaining!

Brentford equalised on 37 minutes through an own goal but Everton went ahead again with a penalty bang on half time. We buried our heads in the programme for 15 minutes to try and put it out of mind. The programme is OK. A good section on Brentford but a bit stingy on the junior front.

More smoke bombs à go-go, as Everton smelt victory. But there was a double detonation of Brentford delight when Wissa and Henry scored on 62 and 64 minutes to put us 3–2 up. Unbelievable! Then to cap it all Rondon was sent off on 84 minutes for a reckless challenge on Rico. Rondon had only been on the pitch for four minutes, and it put Everton down to nine men.

We were in fine voice throughout but were still drowned out, such was the passion of Everton’s fans, at least for today. I’m told they’ve been a bit subdued most of the season. We played well, too.

Around the 80 minute mark, police filed into the ground to line the bottom of the stands. I started humming a reprise of the old Z-Cars theme.

In the aftermath of the game, results elsewhere mean Everton are likely to stay up despite losing. There were also reports that fireworks had been set off outside the Brentford players’ hotel at 3.40am the night before the game. But it didn’t stop us doing the double over them. Yes, Brentford –another double.

It was sad to hear that relatives of two Brentford players were subjected to racist abuse in the ground. I hope they caught those responsible.

Brentford 1 Leeds United 2 Sunday 22 May

All today’s games, the final ones of the season, kicked off at 4pm, with the Champions spot to be decided as well as the remaining relegation place. For Brentford, it’s a welcome spotlight of a different kind.

The photo doesn’t quite capture the lilac-ness of the Leeds away kit

Leeds are in trouble. For a while it seemed either they, Everton or Burnley would be going down with Norwich and Watford. But after Thursday night’s Great Everton Escape, it will be Burnley (at home to Newcastle) or Leeds (away to us) who join the already doomed. Leeds’ dreadful goal difference means they are in the greater peril. So, could Jesse Marsch, their new manager, inspire the team to one final effort? He was previously assistant to Man U interim Ralf Rangnick at RB Leipzig, so he should know a thing or two…

We’ve bought match day programmes for every single away game this season, and not one for a home game (we gave up on them years ago). So we treated ourselves to one for this, the last home game of the season. Mildly surprised to see it cost £4; i.e. 50p more than at other clubs. It’s pretty good though, with an interesting interview with Pontus, and a fascinating/funny top 10 events of the season by Nick Bruzon.

What I hadn’t realised, before reading this final one, was that the cover of every programme this season was illustrated by Dave Flanagan. A fellow fan had shown me his superb Eagle v Bees illustration for the Palace cover, but I didn’t know he was doing them all. You can check them out on Twitter: @daveflanagan

They can’t make out how to describe that kit. Lilac? Lavender? Shrinking violet?

Leeds started well. They obviously meant business. They thought they’d scored on 19 minutes, but VAR said no. In the second half it all went wrong for Brentford. Leeds scored a penalty on 56’. Thomas Frank then made a series of three substitutions. Then Ayer went off injured so we had to soldier on with 10 men. Sergi Canos scored a lovely goal on 78’ but got booked for taking his shirt off. Why do they do that? Two minutes later he got booked for a foul and was sent off. FFS! Leeds got their winner in stoppage time. Ironic that Brentford ended up down to nine men, just as Everton were when we played them last week. And it was disappointing to lose our last game of the season.

News reached the Leeds fans and then the players that Burnley had lost. Leeds had won. Leeds were staying up. The Leeds celebrations started with the manager, coaches and subs racing over to the away fans corner. It went on for a good while, slightly raining on our own parade, but fair play to them. One of their players even crawled from one penalty area to the other on his knees. As you do…

Eventually, the Brentford end of season celebrations started. Peter Gilham got the ball rolling by pointing out (more than once) that at no point in the season were Brentford in the bottom three (the inference being that Leeds had been). Then Christian Norgaard emerged from the tunnel carrying his small child. He had been voted player of the season but hadn’t played today through injury. An amusing moment when he was caught saying ‘Fuck’ when he thought his microphone wasn’t working. But Thomas Frank made it alright, when he started his mini-speech with “This place is fucking rock and roll!” At this point the players and staff and their families came out for the lap of appreciation.

Signing-off

In the past, in the Championship and before that in Leagues 1 & 2, we have always gone to as many home games as possible but selective about which away games we attend. This season we attempted to go to every single game, home and away, and very nearly succeeded. You have to take your hat off to those fans who do succeed, and who do so season in season out. They are a breed apart.

Obviously, in all leagues, not just the Premier League, there are some teams that are better than others. But attending so many games one after the other reinforces that awareness of fine margins, close calls, lucky escapes and wrong decisions all totting up. A differentiator.

It’s hard to believe this special season has ended. And with Brentford finishing in 13th pace to boot.

Bees are staying up! I said Bees are staying up!

The Kent Coast Cycling Lesson – post 1

By Tony Sears

PROLOGUE

‘That’s it, we’re finished. I’ve had enough. This time we’re really finished.’

There, I’d said it. Solid dread softened into a wobble-legged vertigo as I jumped out of my imaginary aeroplane. So many times had I visualised this moment, anger and frustration adding in layers as I built the courage to face the onslaught that would ensue. Or Sophie might just laugh it off. She might not believe I really was bailing out; I could hardly believe it myself. I’d often thought I wouldn’t make it back down to earth in one piece.

But there was no outburst, nor the knowing smile at heard-it-all-before empty threats. Sophie stood up and shot me a cold look. She turned to the bay window and gazed down at the roundabout below, all the while clenching then unclenching her fists. The silence was intensified by the buzz and bustle of the traffic outside. ‘Fine by me. Absolutely fine.’ She walked out of the room.

Sophie was much calmer than I’d expected; much calmer than she usually was when we split up. This time, though, it felt different: hard, real, beyond. The initial exhilaration and fear subsided as my mental parachute opened and I looked down between my legs at the floor far below. I was swaying now, and my head was empty.

———————————————————-

Bad news travelled fast, but not far. It reached a few friends and the friendlier fringes of family, all of whom probably thought it was just another tiff. Our hopes of a quick separation – sell the flat, split the money, shake hands and move on – fizzled out as our lives faltered into uneasy trickles, on hold and in hock until we could find a buyer. Conversations spiralled into slanging matches we didn’t want and couldn’t stop. Somewhere along the line all the tunes that lived in my head disappeared, replaced by a reverberating That’s it, we’re finished.

Why were we splitting up? I no longer remembered. Living together had become so difficult I could no longer see or think clearly. I only know there was no love or respect left to tear us apart. They say the only thing in a marriage that can’t be remedied is contempt.

Neither of us could afford to move out, so we each endured a two-year non-separated separation, living separate lives in separate rooms in a flat no one wanted to buy.

If I finished the proofreading night shift before Sophie left for the day, I’d sit in a café where I practised the noble art of making a mug of tea last a long time. Sometimes I’d stay on at the ad agency, slowly turning the pages of the reference books we used for checking spellings and place names; piles of dictionaries, atlases and encyclopaedias. There was even a Reader’s Digest World Atlas with its green fabric cover, the same edition as the one I got on my eleventh birthday, now hopelessly out of date. I breathed its musty pages and toured the world, then started on Collins’ UK Road Atlas, the grey patches of conurbations and the white spaces in between, wishing I were there, not here.

Weekends are meant to be the best time

The weekends were the worst. I soon realised I couldn’t mope around town all day just killing time. I tried to think of better ways to get to Monday. I thought of the atlases in the studio at work, the maps depicting the sharp delineation between cliff and surf, blurred estuaries and tidal mudflats. Gradually, I formed the idea of a temporary escape of sorts by travelling the coast of Britain. Then I’d at least get my weekends back, and that would be a start.

My getaway vehicle turned out to be right under my nose. Sophie had acquired a spare bike from somewhere – and had left it in the hallway at the foot of the stairs to our flat. She didn’t actually say I could use it, but I’d ridden it to the shops a couple of times and nothing had been said.

The idea of enclosing horrible things by cycling around them appealed. Maybe I was going loopy; working nights can mess-up your mind – you become a sleepless, sleepwalking, zombie.

As a lifelong lover of longitude and latitude, place names and symbols, I’d always enjoyed going on imaginary expeditions by map, using the thin pale brown contour lines that were sometimes angrily, dramatically close-bunched to depict steep hills, or meandered far apart in laid back, wide shallow valleys. Along shorelines, canals and paths populated by an assortment of locks, churches and public houses. Like many cartophiles, I would sometimes get all giddy looking down on a map from above, as though I were in a hot air balloon, able to see for miles and miles around.

So it was a simple step from made-up journeys to contemplating an actual one. I started by copying maps from the atlases at work. I told myself that one day, this journey would be real, not just traced with a pencil, and that each turn of the pedal would mark a step towards being free.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single… list

I made a list of what to take with me. It was a short one. A bike spanner and a rudimentary puncture kit, though I wasn’t sure how to use either. Clearly, I’d never been much good at repairing anything. I would need a notebook and pen, too. And a camera. I couldn’t afford a proper one, so I opted for the disposable kind. Most important of all, an Ordnance Survey map, the king of maps, where art and science converge and entwine. The world reduced, contained and plain to see, at one inch to a mile. They are so clearly set out, with their beautiful clean colours.

Finally, just writing “bike” on the list seemed to bring my adventure so much closer to being a reality.

The bike was an odd thing. It had a black frame and drop handlebars like a racing bike, but was encumbered by long old-fashioned mudguards and a rack at the rear. I borrowed a bicycle manual from the public library to learn how to remove the offending accessories. The book recommended a series of essential maintenance checks – I didn’t bother with any of them – though I did take the bold step of painting the frame red. Proper bicycle upkeep all looked too complicated and, besides, I imagined I was only going to be pootling along paths and promenades, not taking part in the Tour de France or sliding down steep muddy slopes, mountain bike style.

Low expectations

Just as the planning was as much therapy as good sense, I decided a few practice rides wouldn’t go amiss. Two or three evenings a week I’d take the bike on the train to London, then at the end of my shift, would cycle the fifteen-odd miles home. It was difficult at first, not because I wasn’t all that fit, but because most cycle lanes in those days were formed by applying a dangerously thick line of yellow paint alongside broken glass and pothole strewn gutters. Cycling was not as popular then as it is now. I was also a bit self-conscious. I had visions of locals at the coast throwing chips at the idiot on the bike, a continual squabble of seagulls mobbing my progress.

I decided each stage of the coastal ride would begin with a train journey to my planned starting point early on the Saturday or Sunday morning. Then I’d get another train back from my finishing point at the end of the day. The next stage would start where the previous one finished. The first ride was due for the end of March, but that all suddenly changed as I was leaving for work one Friday evening.

Sophie cut straight to the chase: ‘You’ll need to get some money out for me next time you go to the bank.’

‘Oh. Why’s that?’

‘I’m not working at that crappy restaurant anymore.’

‘Blimey. Did they pay you for last night’s shift?’

‘No, I walked out half-way through. And I’m not going back. Apparently, I was rude to some customers. Morons!’

By now I knew better than to ask whether the morons were the customers or the management. I wasn’t surprised Sophie had quit; she fell out with everyone sooner or later and only a chef can win an argument with a restaurant owner. Getting the money would be tricky but I’d manage it. The bad news was that Sophie would most likely be at home all weekend, every weekend, until she found a new job.

There was only one thing for it. My maiden voyage would have to be brought forward. Determination not to be at home outweighed any nervousness about getting started. It would happen tomorrow.

Brentford FC in the Premier League 2021/22 – episode 10

April… and a spring in the step

Chelsea 1 Brentford 4 Saturday 2 April

This morning we got an email from Brentford warning against homophobic chanting and quite right too. Though it’s a long time since I’ve heard anyone sing ‘Chelsea Rent Boys’ and never at all in my time watching Brentford. Selective deafness maybe.

Yesterday we heard the news that Vitaly ‘He comes from Germany and now he is a Bee’ Janelt has signed a new contract with Brentford until 2026. Hope it’s not an April Fool wind-up. Last month Chelsea’s assets were frozen so they weren’t allowed to sell tickets, because owner Roman Abramovich is a Russian oligarch with connections to Putin. Luckily the ban has been lifted so here we are, on a tube train bound for West Kensington.

We walked to ground in the sunshine. Had lunch on the way in a familiar café. Reached the ground with 30 minutes to spare before the 3pm kick-off. We’d heard that Chelsea fans would be staging a protest against the possible future owners of the club. Don’t know if it actually happened.

No programme sellers were visible at the away fans entrance to Stamford Bridge. They must’ve been somewhere behind the masses of security personnel. Literally hundreds, dressed all in black with deep orange hi-vis. We were funnelled through the ranks of them like we were being swallowed up.

A crowd of 39,061 awaited the Two-Thomas-Tussle between managers Tuchel and Frank. Both of them good value in interviews. The stadium is impressive and the away section is very good. One of the best. We were high up in the corner of the all-blue-painted steelwork. A good view from spacious seats with standing rails behind.

‘Where were you when you were shit?’ the Brentford enquired of their West London near-neighbours. Well I was there a few times in the 80s, with my Chelsea fan uncle. When they certainly were shit – getting thrashed at home to Rotherham, narrowly escaping relegation to the old third division. The chant has a point. These fans are a different kettle of fish. Some say the old school fans got priced out, which is ironic, given that they used to wave wads of cash at northern away fans, Loadsamoney style. Maybe there’s a bit of what goes round comes around.

In the away end the mood was bright. Balloons – red, white and yellow – were launched regularly. Not to everyone’s taste and a fair few got popped. Meanwhile, down on the pitch, Brentford were playing well. Easily the equal of Chelsea and 0–0 at half time.

At one point it was only 2–1 to Brentford

In the second half Chelsea made the mistake of scoring. Or to be more precise, of losing concentration after scoring. For Rudiger’s excellent goal at the far end of the pitch was followed minutes later by one at our end by Janelt. It was followed by another three: Eriksen, Janelt again and Wissa. Every single Brentford player was brilliant. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.

‘Fulham get battered, everywhere they go’ alternated with ‘Chelsea get sanctioned…’ and the occasional ‘Bus stop in Hounslow…’ My voice was hoarse for three days.

After the game we walked in the sunshine. It still hadn’t sunk in by the time we got to Hammersmith and stopped for a pint. Our tickets had SHED UPPER printed on them. So on the way we sang the Joe Dolce classic: It’s-a not so bad, it’s-a nice-a place, Ah SHED UPPER you face!

Ordered a programme online. Good to see Pat Nevin’s a contributor. Junior section a bit disappointing – not a lot to it really. Surely everyone would rather a spot the difference than a spot the ball?

Brentford 2 West Ham 0 Sunday 10 April

We had won the reverse fixture back in October. And as the 2pm kick-off approached we wondered whether we could do the double over the Hammers. Would be nice, especially since relegation cushion teams Everton and Leeds both won yesterday. Brings added piquancy to our game today as well as Burnley’s at Norwich.

Among the substitutes Said Benrahma is West Ham’s ex-Bee. Will David Moyes bring him on?

Kurt ‘Cat Kicker’ Zouma was booed and miaowed at every time he touched the ball. Whenever he went down he was treated to ‘That’s how your cat feels’ and ‘Put him down, put him down, put him down’. He was taken off after half an hour. Seemed to be carrying a hamstring injury?

West Ham had most of the possession in the first half but never seemed to threaten. Both sides playing a good passing game. Eriksen pulled the strings for us but the whole team played well. West Ham’s Declan Rice is a useful player.

After Bryan Mbeumo scored at the start of the second half, David Moyes did not look pleased – you could say he had a face like a cat’s arse. Ivan Toney headed-in on 64 minutes.

Seven minutes earlier Said Benrahma had come on to a standing ovation. ‘He wants to come home, he wants to come home. Said Benrahma, he wants to come home.’ But no matter how much he buzzed, prodded and dazzled, he couldn’t bring it home for West Ham, who before this game had hopes of the top four. A measure perhaps of how far Brentford have come.

We’ve just dealt the opposition a hammer blow

After the game we strolled up to South Ealing with friends, for a pint at the Rose & Crown. Where we celebrated Brentford’s first Premier League double in a spring sunshine beer garden.

Watford 1 Brentford 2 Saturday 16 April

We won the reverse fixture in December. Could the Bees do the double over the Hornets as we did to the Hammers last week?

In a perfect storm of London Underground disruptions and hordes heading to Wembley for the FA Cup semi-final, we decided to go by bus, leaving early to get through Wembley before too many Man City and (mostly) Liverpool fans had filled its sunny streets and pubs. We talked about the game, and about Burnley manager Sean Dyche’s sacking a couple of days ago.

We arrived in Watford ages before 3pm kick-off so had a walk around the town centre. Watford’s a nice place, though I hardly remembered it from my only previous visit, when Vicarage Road hosted an Elton John/Rod Stewart concert in 1974, and Rod was still with The Faces.

Andre Gray is the Hornets’ ex-Bee, currently out on loan to QPR. Before the game, the 16,861 gate saw the Watford mascot Harry the Hornet parade the outside of the pitch, except for the away fans section. I used to work with a previous Harry the Hornet, whose antics were often hilarious, especially the notorious Zaha dive. He hung up his costume in 2018. Watford also have a set-piece drummer who only drums when Watford get a free kick or corner. Didn’t hear too much from him in the first half.

The shadow is aligned with the portal and the players – surely a good sign

Norgaard scored for Brentford after just 15 minutes. Roy Hodgson, legend and Watford manager was not pleased. Even from where we were sat you could see the sleeves of his white shirt doing angry windmills on the touchline. Then Brentford sat back. A hint of complacency?

While Roy presumably waved his white shirted arms even more during half time, we perused the matchday programme. Square not A5. Had to bend it to fit in pocket. A great junior section as would befit the original family-friendly football club. A pull-out sheet with loads of quizzes, name checks and stat sheet on one side, and a poster of Ismaïla Sarr on the other.

Whatever Roy waved at half time, it certainly worked. Watford were much better in the second half. We were poor. We started to hear the set-piece drummer more and more. Watford got an equaliser, given after VAR overturned the ref’s offside decision. We got a late winner deep in time added on.

This photo lacks focus – as did Brentford at times

I and a few others around me actually felt sorry for Watford, who will probably go down now. I was impressed by the loyalty of their fans.

However, on MOTD highlights their goal did look offside. I can understand officials getting it wrong in the rush of play, but VAR? They took long enough…

Felt less sorry for Watford after that. Another Premier League double for the Bees!

Brentford 0 Tottenham Hotspur 0 Saturday 23 April

Unfortunately, we were in France for this one. What lightweights. But you can’t miss your life-long penfriend’s wedding when you’re one of the witnesses. We lent our season tickets to some friends who’d been unable to get any as members. They very kindly took a photo of the portal of potential victory.

We followed written commentary on the BBC website from a garden in Normandy. Some of the French followers of footie present hadn’t heard of Brentford, but they had heard of Christian Eriksen. We guessed it was gonna be an emotional occasion for him, and presumably, it was.

We watched the highlights on catch-up when we got back. And what highlights they were. Brentford had more chances than Spurs, Ivan Toney hitting the woodwork a couple of times. What you might call an entertaining 0–0 draw.

So proud and impressed with how we kept Spurs out and maybe even could have beaten them.

Next

The media is full of speculation that Christian Eriksen and Ivan Toney will each move to a ‘bigger club’ at the end of the season. I hope they both stay at Brentford, and I can think of several reasons why each would benefit by staying. But if one or both of them moves on, it’s not the end of the world. Eriksen has already helped us to stay up, when we might have struggled otherwise. And all of the players have improved under his influence. Brentford has always sold good players and then moved on and up.

A Hanwell walk 4 – heading east through West Ealing

Part 2 – West Ealing Broadway from Grosvenor Road to Dean Gardens

You’ll find no checkpoint at the border between Hanwell and West Ealing, where the Uxbridge Road meets Grosvenor Road. But you might find subtle indications that you have moved from one community to another. The street signs now say W13 instead of W7. The Uxbridge Road has left Hanwell Broadway far behind and now calls itself West Ealing Broadway (or the Broadway) for the next half a mile or so.

In some respects little changes; the same red buses pulse back and forth along this artery as on Hanwell Broadway, but the vibe is different. It’s busier here and feels more mainstream – the coffee shops and fast food joints in this section are more likely to be major branded chain outlets.

But West Ealing does have some hidden gems, like Cozy Unique Ride. I’ve no idea what it is, something to do with cars perhaps? I just like the name.

Almost next door is Grosvenor House, which has been a surgery for nearly 100 years. Wounded soldiers and civilians were treated here in both World Wars.

‘KwikFit on the corner when the lights are going down and I’ll be there, I promise I’ll be there… ’

Just before KwikFit on the corner is the Broadway Café. These premises were once home to the Pamela Howard Dancing School. Pamela Howard passed away in 2021 and the school has moved elsewhere. I don’t know if the two events are connected but I do know the school was highly thought of.

Over the road, there’s an art deco school uniform shop on the corner that used to be Arnolds Leisure, purveyors of sportswear, camping gear and the like.

Lounge 142/Diamond Hotel looks like it was once a fine big pub, and in fact it was. The Half-Way House (as you can see at the top of the building), formerly the Old Hat, was a London–Oxford mail coach stop until the arrival of the railways.

A little further along are a couple of pubs that changed names not so long ago. Hennessey’s became the Leather Saddle…

…and one of our favourites, Flynn’s, was once the Old Hat too, then the Walsingham Arms and is now the Old Hat again. Old names never die, they just move around a bit.

On the opposite side of the road, behind the shops, is St James’s Church, which has had an uncertain time in recent decades. Built in 1903, it faced demolition in the 1980s because of falling attendances and indeed was closed from 1984 to 1990.

It closed again in 2018 and nervously awaits its fate. We hope it will be left intact and perhaps used as a community centre.

Further along the Broadway, Chignell Terrace is a short side road I’ve always been curious to explore, as there always seems to be lots going on. People hanging out, chatting, cars coming and going. A stone carving high-up states that it’s on the site of Old Chignell House. I wonder what that ever was.

This stretch of the road has a feeling of impermanence. The pawnbrokers, and the pop-up and mayfly shops that sadly close not long after opening – hopes, dreams and expensive signs, dismantled so soon. You often forget what a shop was once its signage is removed, identity stripped.

The Butcher’s Club is a new shop selling Halal meat. It’ll be easy to remember for it has a neon sign inside saying ‘Pleased to meet you, meat to please you.’

On the opposite side of the road, behind the shops, among the new builds, is the new West London Islamic Centre on Singapore Road. It’s impressive, particularly the intricate patterning of the great window above the entrance.

An almost hidden Holiday Inn lurks (unless you happen to look up in the direction of the sky) on the corner of Melbourne Avenue by the flower stall and Greggs – this pedestrian-only zone seems to be a sort of focal point in West Ealing.

The nearby Sainsbury’s opposite the library has a frieze above the exit I hadn’t seen before the pandemic. I only noticed it while waiting for my partner in the days of solo-only shopping. It features some trees and kids, two of whom appear to be caught in a pigeon poo shower, due to the unfortunate positioning of two floodlight perches just above them.

Between Sainsbury’s trolley stand and the Broadway is a familiar sad back-street scene. Large bins on wheels are overfull with packaging from yesterday’s treats. Cardboard is strewn about by the wind, pigeons nodding and picking through it all. Beyond, discarded old shopping trolleys lie stranded and a couple of crouching street drinkers share a can and look on, seemingly also stranded. The dirt behind the shopfront daydream.

Yes, times change and I’ve only lived here 15 years, but I do miss Woolworths and its magnificent art deco façade, the old artists’ materials shop, even BHS. These ones stick in the memory.

There’s a lot of info about the history of West Ealing on www.westealingneighbours.org.uk a fascinating website with a website address that makes me want to say ‘stop stealing neighbours’.

Many of West Ealing’s new residential blocks aren’t popular with locals, and getting planning permission can be problematic. Developers are sometimes accused of storey creep, whereby they get planning permission for a certain number of storeys, then apply for permission to add further storeys once building work has started. But to be fair, many of the new residences are SO Resi shared ownership flats, perhaps for the young caught in the Crossrail property trap.

However, they do tower over the surrounding buildings on the Broadway. Big windows and small balconies loom uneasily over the streets down below, where those on hard times of one sort or another bustle outside half-way homes of hope, while all of us try to steer clear of sleep-walking jay walkers and sweet-talking street drinkers. A juxtaposition of professionals and precarity. There but for the grace of fortune…

On the Broadway you’ll also find a handy range of shops, Wilkos especially so. There’s a post office too, and a cheerful choice of cheapos, charities and more pawnbrokers. Yet back in the 1960s there were more shops of all sorts than now, a wider range, as was also the case in Hanwell.

On Saturdays, Leeland Road hosts a small but delightful Farmers Market in Leeland Road. At the bottom of the road is the Salvation Army Hall, a handsome red-brick affair with white stuccoed bits, built in 1909.

Back on the Broadway there’s a piece of graffiti high up that reads ‘ICKY IS AN ANOMALY’, followed by what looks like the Extinction Rebellion symbol. It’s been there a while and I’ve no idea what it means. I’m guessing it’s not a cryptic crossword clue.

On the left, on the site of what is now Iceland, was once another major coaching inn, the Green Man.

Once you’ve negotiated the piles of rubbish and bags of donations outside the charity shop, the walk up Green Man Passage to Waitrose is a pleasant one, with a variety of high back-garden fences on the right and the church and nursery on the left.

J. Sanders Depositary and Furniture Storage

Along the road from Waitrose a fascinating building dominates the corner of Drayton Green Road. Wilton House is a former warehouse built 120 years ago. Twenty years ago it was converted into residential apartments.

Up the road from here is the Drayton Green Hotel. Bizarrely, Ho Chi Minh worked in its kitchen in 1914. Exactly 100 years later, my wife and I got married there (but not in the kitchen).

A stroll back down Drayton Green Road takes you back to the Broadway by Dean Gardens. The bus stop says the Lido, which isn’t a swimming pool – though it was once a cinema, then a bingo hall, then a snooker hall and finally a cinema again. Now it’s offices and flats.

If you were to venture south, down Northfield Avenue, you’d pass by the wonderful Northfields Allotments, London’s oldest. It’s a visual treat from the upper deck of an E3 bus.

Northfields Allotments from the upper deck

East of Dean Gardens there are restaurants and pubs, a topic for another time maybe. Soon after, the Broadway becomes the Uxbridge Road again, flowing into Ealing Broadway and all points towards the towers of London.

If you’d like to find out more about Hanwell and West Ealing, local historian David Blackwell has a fascinating collection of books, maps and photos, old and new, of Hanwell and neighbouring areas. They are on display at Hanwell Library on the first Saturday of each month from 10am to 3pm.