Preston Road – derrickjknight

Criminals Beware

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED

Jackie drove me to New Milton this morning for me to catch the train to Waterloo so I could lunch with Norman. It had been the intention that she would drive me home at the end of the day, but that is not how it worked out. Normally I telephone her when I know an arrival time. I do this on my mobile phone. But I left it in the car.

From Waterloo I took the underground via Finchley Road to Preston Road station and walked through the John Billam Sports Ground to Norman’s home in Woodcock Hill, Kenton.

The litter bin outside Preston Road clearly doubles as an ash tray for those people desperate for a cigarette as they leave the underground where smoking is prohibited.

On the thoroughfare itself a happy child enjoyed her new scooter,

while a large vehicle struggled to negotiate the corner beside All Seasons fruit and vegetable store without squashing the produce.

On the other side of Preston Road, I turned down Preston Waye (sic) which has clearly seen better days. Rubbish bags surrounding the trunk of an ornamental tree

wrapped by a sign warning criminals off rather detract from its autumn garb. The website of Smartwater, the company responsible for the glaring sleeve, claims: ‘We are an international crime fighting and crime prevention company with an established track record for detecting and deterring criminal activity. We have created a wide range of crime reduction programmes utilising our cutting-edge and proprietary traceable liquid products which have been highly successful in reducing crimes, such as burglary, robbery and asset theft. We work extensively with Law Enforcement, both at a local level and internationally, to implement our crime deterrence strategies.’

The drinks can seen on the wall beyond the tree is one of many stretched along the alley.

Like many similar areas, the number of front gardens abandoned to several motor cars, and the rows of refuse bins, suggest multiple occupancy.

A garden where roses still bloomed there was interestingly furnished;

at the bottom of the road were well tended shrubbery and trees,

to the right of which a path leads to the John Billam Sports Ground. Perhaps one of the visiting magpies had investigated the contents of a bag of litter on the football pitch.

A gentleman, like me, no longer able to play the game, made his way along the footpath and sat on the bench he was aiming for.

Beyond the flame red trees, two huge industrial ride-on mowers swung onto the grass. One of their bags blew off and nestled around a bollard.

Further on towards Woodcock Hill, cigarette packets

and fast food packaging mingled with fallen autumn leaves.

Norman and I lunched on pork pie, beef, and ham salad followed by chocolate eclairs. This had been produced by Jackie and toted by me. Our friend provided an excellent Waitrose beaujolais. Before I left, I phoned Jackie to say that I would be unable to call again without my mobile, and would therefore take a cab home from New Milton.

So far, so good. The train from Waterloo was subject to a certain amount of delay because of “trespassers on the line at Totton”. This meant we had to leave our train at Brockenhurst unless we wanted to go non-stop to Bournemouth. There was a stopping train waiting for us, but that was held back to give another precedence.

Once at New Milton, the cab was quickly available.

P.S. More useful information on Smartwater is contained in Osyth’s comment below.

The Lady In The Van

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE. REPEAT IF REQUIRED.

Today, Jackie drove me to and from New Milton for me to travel to London for lunch with Norman. There was not one available seat on the train until I had a stroke of luck. In search of any possibility I walked through to the third packed carriage of the five that comprised this morning’s transport vehicle. Other hopeful travellers walked towards, and past, me in their own fruitless hunt. Suddenly a young man rose to his feet and retrieved a violin case from the luggage rack. He didn’t sit down again. In response to my enquiry he replied that he was leaving the train at the next stop. As I relaxed into position I reflected that, had he been my maternal grandfather, he would probably have uttered the rhetorical question: “would you be in my grave as quick?”.

Five more carriages were added at Southampton Central where we learned the reason for the crush. It was, of course, Wimbledon week. This also necessitated an additional stop for the tennis.

From Waterloo, I travelled by Jubilee and Metropolitan underground lines to Preston Road, and walked down that street to

The Preston, where Norman was waiting, and we each enjoyed the same acceptable lunch of gammon steaks followed by Eton messes. We shared an excellent bottle of Fico Grande Sangiovese, followed by lukewarm double espresso coffees. The one and a half staff on the bar did their pleasant very best.

On my outward journey I finished reading Alan Bennett’s ‘Keeping on Keeping on’.

This massive tome written in Bennett’s idiosyncratic style includes diaries from 2005 to 2015; short essays and newspaper articles; two playlets; and his experience of filming The Lady in the Van.

The diaries are fascinating for the author’s take on years still in my own memory. Of the plays I preferred ‘Denmark Hill’ ‘a darkly comic radio play set in suburban South London’ which has particular appeal for one who grew up in Wimbledon.

This is Wikipedia’s opening section on The Lady in the Van:

‘The Lady in the Van is a 2015 British^[2] comedy-drama film directed by Nicholas Hytner, written by Alan Bennett, and starring Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings. It tells the true story of Mary Shepherd, an elderly woman who lived in a dilapidated van on Bennett’s driveway in London for 15 years.^[5] Smith previously portrayed Shepherd twice: in the original 1999 theatrical production, which earned her a Best Actress nomination at the 2000 Olivier Awards^[6] and in the 2009 BBC Radio 4 adaptation.^[7]

Hytner directed the original stage production at the Queen’s Theatre in London, while Bennett adapted the screenplay from his 1999 West End play of the same name, which was nominated at the 2000 Olivier Awards for Play of the Year. The film was shown in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival^[8] and received largely positive reviews from critics.’

Having seen and enjoyed this delightful film I was pleased to find the book closing with Bennett’s filming diary of the production.

The successful and versatile artist David Gentleman was a neighbour of Bennett’s when the author lived in Camden Town’s Gloucester Terrace. He has produced some charming vignettes for this section of the book.

My reading on the return journey was Spirit of Love by Ramanlal Morarjee. I am enjoying this novel and will comment further when I have finished it.

The First Gothic Novel

Jackie, as usual, drove me to and from New Milton for my trip to London to visit Norman for lunch, and Carol afterwards. I took my usual routes from Waterloo to their respective homes.
A woman also being delivered to the home station this morning, left her driver with a farewell that had me chuckling. ‘What?’ she asked, addressing him through the still open passenger window……… Then ‘sod off’, followed by a cheery ‘see you later’. I hadn’t caught what had provoked the imprecation.
A short while later she and I had a good laugh about it on the crowded platform.
It was a gloomy day in London, which is probably why I focussed on some of the more seamy aspects of the capital’s suburbs. Littered around a bench in the recreation ground at the far end of Preston Waye (sic) were beer cans, fag ends, and other debris from a party, the attenders of which had eschewed the bin provided. The bicycle rack across the street from Preston Road tube station had not saved one owner from losing his wheels, and judging by the rusting condition of what was left of his transport he had decided to leave it where it was. Alongside this a pair of soiled underpants or panties lay on the floor of a telephone box. I didn’t investigate them closely enough to determine the gender of their erstwhile wearer.
Signal failures between Eastleigh and Basingstoke extended my outward journey by forty minutes and caused chaos at the end of the day when two train-loads left the terminus on one service, resulting in large numbers of passengers standing or sitting on the floors of the aisles. Squeezing past the standers and stepping over prone people on the way to the loo was rather embarrassing, especially as it was impossible not to touch them, and absolutely necessary to be careful where you did.
Horace Walpole’s ‘The Castle of Otranto’ dubbed by Andrew Graham-Dixon and others the first Gothic novel is a short book. I read it on the train. Published in the 1760s, the first edition rapidly sold out and has been in print ever since.
Harking back to the Middle Ages, as Gothic does, the book had all the necessary ingredients for evoking a romantic image of that period. There is a feudal tyrant, knights on a mission, damsels in distress, forbidding weather conditions, and a gloomy castle complete with dungeons, empty corridors, and a hidden passageway. The well-constructed plot, in five chapters, follows the form of Greek Tragedy, and the author borrows from Shakespeare devices such as his clown characters.
Walpole’s story was perfectly timed to engage the enthusiasm of his times for such tales, and spawned many others, such as Matthew Lewis’s ‘The Monk’, with which I continued whiling away my extended train journey.
My Folio Society edition of ‘The Castle of Otranto’ is illustrated by Charles Keeping, one of my all-time favourites. He has a distinctive style and remains faithful to the text, nicely capturing the required mood. Here we have Isabella, a young woman fleeing the tyrant Manfred. A gleam of light in the gloomy castle depths renders her visible and displays the frightening path with rippling pools she has to tread.

Housing Exchange

Norman has moved house. From Waterloo, my journey to visit him has changed. Jackie, as always, first drove me to Southampton Parkway. I then took the Jubilee Line to Finchley Road, and the Metropolitan Line to Preston Road.

On leaving the underground station it was immediately apparent that this area, between Wembley and Harrow on the Hill, was, with its wide, well kept roads, and 1930s style buildings, a very different part of Greater London than Neasden.

Young families from different ethnic groupings wandered comfortably about their business in the spring sunshine. One toddler sat at table; another, with reins attached, tottered towards one more on a trike.
Hairdressers, opticians, estate agents, eating places, and coffee houses such as Costa, shared the high street with a large Co-op and a betting shop.
A well-used designated bicycle park on the pavement opposite the station was considered safe enough for one cyclist to have left his helmet slung over his bike.
WordPress efficiently weed out a large quantity of spam from comments on this blog. Much of it purports to come from Michael Kors Handbags. I was therefore intrigued to see an optician’s window sporting his specs.
My friend met me at Preston Road where, because his new cooker has not yet been fitted we dined at The Preston, a friendly and pleasant Ember Inns pub, whose mixed grill rivals that of The Plough Inn at Tiptoe. The plum, apple, and blackberry crumble with custard was pretty good too, as was the bottle of minimally marked-up rioja we shared. The double espressos were perfect.
Whilst we were eating a call came from our solicitors to say that contracts on our house purchase have at last been exchanged. Readers will know that we have been on tenterhooks for the last eight days during which I haven’t bored you with blow by blow accounts. You may remember that we had originally agreed a completion date of our seller’s choosing and were told last week that had to be changed to the end of the month. Because we had acted upon that date I objected. We have had to accept that the original day has not been restored. But at least the deal is done.
After our meal Norman led me to his new light, airy, and comfortable home. After continuing our conversation for a while, I returned to my current abode the same way I had come.