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I have found myself fantasising about a deeply unnecessary journey – a visit to every single underground stop. I have 85 to go ...
A month ago, I was worried about the places in this big wide world I might now never get to see, even if Covid-19 doesn’t take me. Then the focus narrowed to all the places, lovely and unlovely, in this country I might not visit. And now, logically enough in this great narrowing of all our worlds, my concerns are closer to home.
I have lived in London, on and off, since coming to college in October 1987. My first visit was around a decade before that, with my mum and dad, when I was about 10. Only two things stick in my mind from that day. One was the awesomely terrible old taxi rank below Euston station. I had rarely seen a black cab before, let alone hundreds in one place spewing out stuff that, even then, I suspected couldn’t be good for you. The other memories I have are of the tube: the distant rumble, rumbling louder and louder, and the gentle breeze slowly stiffening into a wind as this strange-looking train exploded out of the tunnel. It was the Piccadilly line. I know this, because I remember vividly that the train was bound for somewhere called Cockfosters. Four decades on, it pains me that I have yet to get to Cockfosters. Continue reading...