Today (3/9) I reach the grand young age of 39. No really, I know a lot of people pretend to be 39 for years because it sounds a lot better than 40, but I really am 39. That's still thirty-something, and that'll do me for another year. To celebrate, if that's the right word, I'm going to indulge myself by looking back over my last 39 years. I've come up with a list of 39 tube stations that have been important in my life - the 39 stops. No, really, it is very self-indulgent - you'll probably want to come back tomorrow when I've got over it all. Time-travelcards at the ready, my life's journey starts at station number three.
• Bond Street (age -100): My great-great-grandfather was a tailor living in central London. Home was in South Molton Street, just round the corner from what is now Bond Street tube station. It's a bit posher down there these days.
• Kilburn (age -60): My great-grandparents later moved out north-westward, into suburbia. My great-grandfather is buried in the local cemetery, not that I've ever managed to locate him.
• Watford High Street (age 0): Me, I was born a stone's throw from this station, early in the morning on my mother's 30th birthday. Sorry Mum. Alas, Watford's premier maternity hospital is now lost beneath the town's ring road.
• Croxley (age 0 onwards): And this so-called-village was my childhood home. Not a bad place to grow up, not bad at all. And how thoughtful of the tube to have arrived at the bottom of the road 40 years earlier.
• Putney Bridge (age 3½): By this age I knew the tube better than my Mum, so one day I took her to a wedding in Putney by the river. Precocious child, but apparently I made a lovely page boy.
• Finchley Road (age 5): Travelling up into town on the Metropolitan line, this was always where the proper Underground started...
• Baker Street (age 5): ... and here's where we changed trains to visit the centre of the big city. Or we went to the Planetarium nextdoor to see something even bigger.
• Arsenal (age 6): 8th May 1971 was FA Cup Final day, and before the match kicked off I chose to support Arsenal while my little brother picked Liverpool. Arsenal won the Double, I've supported them ever since, and my brother is still misguided.
• Marble Arch (age 6): Later that same year I took a trip with the family up to London to watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks in the biggest cinema I'd ever seen - the Odeon Marble Arch. Angela Lansbury was old even then.
• Ravenscourt Park (age 8): Our next-door neighbour was a graphic designer. Out in my back garden one sunny afternoon I watched him accurately hand-painting giant lettering on a big blue sign ready to be erected outside the park gates. Funny the things that make an impact on you when you're young.
• Wimbledon (age 9): I had all the Wombles albums, you know. And pin-ups of Wellington and Madame Cholet on the back of my bedroom door. And some very long-serving pillowcases, which I think I still have somewhere.
• South Kensington (age 10): When you grow up near London, it seems that every other school trip is to one of those wonder-ful big museums. It was usually the Natural History Museum in my case. Oh look, it's the big dinosaur, again.
• Heathrow (age 11): I missed my last week at primary school to go on my first big overseas holiday. We flew across the Atlantic to Toronto to stay with one of my Mum's old schoolfriends. Niagara, magic.
• Watford (age 11) When I went to big school, it was located right beside Watford tube station. Which was useful, because absolutely nothing else in Watford is located anywhere near it.
• Grange Hill (age 12): Apparently they didn't name the TVseries after the tube station, but I've been watching every year since the show started. Series 27 episode 19 tonight - my video is set.
• Ongar (age 14): Me and a bunch of schoolfriends tried visiting as many tube stations as possible in one day. You can get away with doing almost anything for charity. We didn't manage the lot, not by a long chalk, but we managed this distant outpost.
• Oxford Circus (age 16): My very first summer job was located down a dodgy sidestreet in Soho opposite a seedy cinema. The job involved checking film invoices - no, really, it was very respectable, honest.
• Rickmansworth (age 17): Apologies to the residents of this fine town because it's here that I learnt to drive. I think most of the street furniture is still standing. Passed my test the day after my birthday too, except it was my 18th not my 17th.
• Harlesden (age 18): My first proper summer job was three months spent in a printing factory in NW10, eating my packed lunch daily beside the rusty canal. They even let me drive the fork lift truck, very very badly.
• Covent Garden (age 18): There used to be a newsagent just across from the road from this station. One day I managed to psyche myself up enough to go in and buy, erm, something important. The shop now sells watches.
• Embankment (age 21): Somewhere I still have a photo of my university mates and me larking about on the platform here on a rare day out in London. Wonder what they're all doing now.
• Tottenham Court Road (age 21): After university I tried, unsuccessfully, to get a job in advertising. Everyone gave me an interview, but nobody gave me a job. Probably just as well, long term, although it didn't feel so great back then.
• Kings Cross (age 21): And then, because it seemed like a good idea at the time, I spent a year in Hull. Returning home by train, Kings Cross was always a very welcome sight.
• Paddington (age 22): My first proper job was in nightmarishly expensive Windsor. If I ever fancied a night out I had to be back at Paddington before the last connecting train left at 11pm. Didn't get out much...
• Shadwell (age 22): ...but I did come up to town for a ride on the brand new Docklands Light Railway. Typically, for those early days, my train broke down before it reached the end of the line. Little did I realise I'd eventually end up living round here.
• St Pancras (age 26): Next job - Bedford. And what a magnificent station to have as your London terminus.
• Old Street (age 29): If I ever came down from Bedford for a night out, you'd probably have found me round here, well before Hoxton became even vaguely trendy.
• Kensington Olympia (age 32): Who'd have thought that a trip to Olympia would change my life? I normally went to one particular annual exhibition there on a Saturday, but one year I was allowed to go on Friday instead. And that's how I managed to meet my ex for the first time on the Saturday, somewhere completely different.
• West Ham (age 33): My ex owned a flat right beside this station. We only visited it the once, but it nearly put me off the area for life. I now live less than a mile away.
• Liverpool Street (age 34): It was at this point that my ex became an ex, and I moved to Suffolk. Liverpool Street was my gateway back to civilisation. Not regularly enough though.
• Temple (age 34): I saw in the Millennium standing on the Embankment amongst a crowd of champagne-soaked revellers, very close to this particular station. It rained.
• Bow Road (age 36): At last, after years of never quite living in the capital, I moved to London. Like a moth to a flame? No, like a salmon coming home.
• Green Park (age 36): My new London job was based in Mayfair, and still is. Trust me, it's so much better than overlooking a furniture warehouse in Ipswich.
• Plaistow (age 36): Conveniently I managed to find myself a best mate who lived just a couple of stations up the District line. Alas, he now lives rather closer to a station on the San Francisco subway instead. No longer walking distance anyway.
• Leicester Square (age 37): Isn't it great having Soho on your doorstep? Remind me to make the most of it more often.
• Swish Cottage (age 37): That would be David's blog masquerading as a tube station, that would. Insiprational. And now sadly abandoned.
• Chancery Lane (age 37): I rode the Central Line through this station just 15 minutes before the big train crash there last year. Thank you God, that was close enough, don't try anything like that again.
• Ealing Broadway (age 39): Ealing Broadway is halfway from my house to Slough. I hope I don't end up visiting the place on a daily basis in the near future - decision expected very soon. Actually God, there was just one more favour you could do for me...
• Bond Street (age 39): ... I'd rather carry on just down the road from where my great-great-grandfather used to work. Fingers crossed.
The 39 stops (with apologies to John Buchan)
