Go West: the aftermath • Draw a straight line on a map, walk along it and you'll sure to find several fascinating places along the way (in London at least). • Bow to Perivale is a bloody long way. Take a look on a tube map and you'll agree. • What looks like 12 miles on a map is definitely much more than 12 miles in real life, because I am not a crow and I cannot fly. • Each blogpost took at least 15-20 minutes to write using predictive text on my mobile keypad. Much fiddlier than using a computer keyboard, and much harder to edit too. But I was pleased how few grammatical and spelling errors I made. • My 10 hour walk could have been at least three hours shorter if I hadn't had to keep stopping to write emails (and another hour shorter if I hadn't stopped to take any photos). • My mobile phone batteries gave up after writing and sending ten emails, so it's just as well that I didn't walk any further. • Navigating though London by GPS isn't practical because the buildings block out the satellite signals. • An awful lot of London is covered by ordinary houses where ordinary people live. • My east to west walk really brought it home to me that East London is significantly less affluent than West London. • I've reformatted all of yesterday's posts and stuck them in chronological order (with links) here. Because I can. • Please take a look at a selection of the photographs I took along the route (or go back and read the posts you missed yesterday).
GO WEST: Today I've been walking due west from my house, blogging live en route via my mobile
Go West (10) : Hoover Building At last, after ten hours, twelve miles and 14623 pedometer steps, I've finally reached the first supermarket located due west of my house. It's a giant Tesco hyperstore and I'm currently sat on a bench in the car park resting my weary legs. Inside it looks like a very ordinary store but outside, along the Art Deco frontage beside the busy A40 it's a different matter. This used to be the Hoover Building, a stunning vacuum cleaner HQ built by Wallis Gilbert in the Moderne style in 1933. The facade is magnificent, white and imposing with tall thin pillars. Only the Tesco flags fluttering from the roof and a couple of signs on the front lawn betray the building's new function. I've wandered round with a small basket, stocking up on a few choice items that my local store no longer sells. And now, rather than hang around til nightfall to see the front of the building illuminated in light green, I'm heading home east via Perivale station. I think I deserve a rest, and some late lunch.
Go West (9) : Park Royal Trading Estate Londoners need to work somewhere, and they can't all work in shops and offices in the centre of town. That's one reason why the Park Royal Business Park exists, a vast swathe of warehouses and light industry where people can actually make things instead of just trying to sell them. McVities own probably the most famous factory, churning out millions of biscuits every day, while to the west stands Britain's only Guinness brewery, recently earmarked for closure later this year. There are hundreds of other businesses, including the small printing company where I worked during the summer after my A levels. They let me loose on the forklift truck, the mad fools, while the presses churned out cassette covers and ice cream tub labels. I remember sitting down by the canal to eat my lunch. It's clocking off time here now, so all the managers and workers are climbing into their Mercedes or Citroen Saxo Sports and heading home. Me, I have one last destination still to reach.
Go West (8) : Willesden Junction It's been a very long trek across inner suburbia to reach this remote rail hub surrounded on three sides by an expanse of tracks and overhead cables. I've felt inferior in St John's Wood, gawping at the expensive villas where every third house seems to have the workmen in. I've traipsed down broad avenues lined with council tower blocks. I've passed the top of the road where my great grandfather used to live, but his local shopping parade now sells Middle Eastern food and charity goods. I've ambled down quiet back roads where tiny children laugh their way home from school. And now I'm standing on this station forecourt surrounded by several blind commuters tapping white sticks - I think there's an RNIB office round the corner. It's strangely desolate, and one of the few times west London has felt as poor and underdeveloped as the east. Onward into the industrial heartland - quick, before my batteries give out...
Go West (7) : Abbey Road Yes, the legendary zebra crossing made famous by the Beatles on the front cover of their Abbey Road LP lies exactly due west from my house. The world famous black and white stripes cross the road beside a very ordinary road junction in the heart of posh St John's Wood. The neighbourhood drips wealth, and even the old ladies look semi-regal and sprightly (maybe it's the Botox). The Abbey Road Studios opened here in 1931, the opening ceremony performed by Sir Edward Elgar who went on to record much of his work for EMI in this converted house. But it's the Beatles for whom the studios will always be best known, and tourists and backpackers still make their pilgrimage here to stand in the middle of the road and recreate the album cover. In the 15 minutes I've been standing here one group of Americans have taken about forty photos, and another proud mum has camcordered her four girls striding across the crossing. I don't remember John, Paul, George and Ringo wearing pink croptops though.
Go West (6) : Regent's Park At last, out in the wide open space of Regent's Park, I can walk in a straight line. Having curled slowly round the back of Euston I can finally take a deep breath and inhale the smell of fresh-mown grass. The park's fairly quiet on a Monday, despite the weather, so there's just a few lucky souls (and their dogs) out for a leisurely afternoon stroll. The Telecom Tower stands guard to the south and the artificial hilltops of London Zoo to the north, while to east and west lie some of the most imposing mansions in the capital. A wrinkled old gentleman is sunbathing topless three benches to my left, while the tanned muscled gardener hoeing the flowerbed in front of me has half his white designer underwear on full display. A bit further down the path a big black crow is trying desperately to sip the dregs from a cheap discarded can of cider. The chaos of Kings Cross suddenly feels a very long way away. Wish you were here?
Go West (5) : King's Cross St Pancras My westbound walk has led me down the Pentonville Road and straight through the forecourt of King's Cross station. After 5 miles of relative calm now London is heaving with lunchtime activity. Suited travellers stand transfixed by the giant destination board, gobbling down a baguette before heading off north to Leeds or Edinburgh. There are suitcases everywhere and you can't walk far without having a Standard Lite thrust into your hand. Outside the regeneration of the area is in full swing, temporary walkways guiding bewildered passengers around the station. The clock tower at St Pancras stands proud above the melee in the crane-dominated sky. Workmen sit outside in helmets and luminous jackets, lounging in the sun before returning to work. An exhibition in the German Gymnasium beside the station shows (in models) how the area should end up but, judging by the enormous building site round the back, there's a heck of a lot to do before the first Eurostar glides in in 2007.
Go West (4) : Sadler's Wells Theatre After a long slog through the arse end of Hoxton (don't let anyone tell you it's all trendy) I've finally reached the golden streets of Islington. Walking up the City Road towards the Angel there were the first signs along my journey that not everyone in London lives in relative poverty. Upmarket fishmongers, well-kept terraced houses, designer shopping bags and that wholly middle class icon, a world-renowned theatre. The first Sadler's Wells opened here in 1683, but the shiny glass and brick structure in front of me is the 7th theatre to stand on the site, opened just nine years ago. I visited the 6th Sadler's Wells only once, as a child, to be spellbound by a D'Oyly Carte production of The Mikado. A couple of schoolfriends and I sat high in the upper circle watching the ornate Japanese maids' chorus below and struggling to follow the plot. The theatre's dark today, which is just as well because the police have just cordoned off the top of Roseberry Avenue with red tape.
Go West (3) : Columbia Road Flower Market I'm back exactly where I was yesterday, sat in the sunshine on a small bench in a tiny park off Columbia Road. But the street is very different this morning. The flower market has gone, the road is full of parked cars and the pavements are empty. All the twee boutiques and eateries and locked and barred, and the only hubbub comes from playtime at the neighbouring school. In the park the pigeons flap and coo, and a couple of girls wearing pink headscarves rock idly backwards and forwards on the red swings beside the climbing frame. Monday morning in the middle of the East End is like an eerie ghost town, inhabited by pensioners, mothers, students, tradesmen, skivers and the unemployed. They wander the streets, shopping bag or can of lager in hand, passing the day away until the rest of the world comes home from work. Right now, as the sun beats down over the tower blocks onto the drought-bleached grass, this quiet oasis is a world away from the busy Sunday morning rush hour.
Go West (2) : Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood After a long walk through the terraces of Bow (on dustbin day - not recommended) and the highrise estates of Globe Town (not recommended full stop) I've reached busy Bethnal Green. I'm sat outside the V&A's easternmost outpost, the redbrick Museum of Childhood. This three-gabled iron-framed building started off in South Kensington but was relocated here in the 1860s. It evolved first into a repository of childhood ephemera, and more recently into a politically correct hands-on experience for hyperactive 7 year-olds. They're just opening up at the moment, cleaning the front step as the first school party of the day arrives. Outside, along Cambridge Heath Road, modern mums push toddlers in market-bought baby buggies, and late commuters sleepwalk their way into work. I could stop and take a look inside but I really don't have the time (and anyway, I'm reliably informed that the lacklustre displays inside really aren't worth the effort).
Go West (1) Bow Church Today I've decided to walk due west from my house, reporting back regularly from along the route via my mobile phone. Because I can, OK? I've got maps and a GPS device to make sure I walk as precisely west as possible, though I suspect I'll have to take a few detours to stay on track. My westward route takes me through the heart of the East End, across the top of central London and out into the NW suburbs. I have an end point in mind at a famous Art Deco supermarket, but that's over 10 miles away so we'll see if I get that far. I've decided only to blog about places which are exactly due west of my house, which means (just) missing out on Hoxton Square, the British Library and the Hanger Lane Gyratory System. But there's plenty of other fascinating stuff en route, starting with the historic 14th century church bang outside my house. The Bow Bells are silent this morning as the rush hour traffic streams noisily past on either side. Time to send my first email, then head off west...
