tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post3384508016575402027..comments2023-10-24T11:11:49.568+01:00Comments on There Are Places I Remember: Songs About Places: Love and Death In MetrolandGeoffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10966328708258079467noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-45834351474251827432013-01-25T20:16:54.783+00:002013-01-25T20:16:54.783+00:00The poem actually reads "Gaily into Ruislip G...The poem actually reads "Gaily into Ruislip Gardens......"<br />not Daily!P Chashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11833366174840362253noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-25659648307104308672012-04-15T14:21:28.631+01:002012-04-15T14:21:28.631+01:00That is a fascinating recollection of Croxley Gree...That is a fascinating recollection of Croxley Green..<br />Re the reference above to the kiosks advertising Better Burgers as you go down Wembley Way, until a few years ago one of these was run by the late Carlo Little, asked to be the first Rolling Stone drummer.Geoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10966328708258079467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-42402341443004785482012-04-14T21:42:54.349+01:002012-04-14T21:42:54.349+01:00In an attempt to fill in the four-or-so hour gaps ...In an attempt to fill in the four-or-so hour gaps that seem to proliferate my life at the moment, I’ve taken to hopping on tube lines and heading as far west as they’ll take me. My afternoons are being increasingly spent in such exotic places as West Ruislip, Ruislip Gardens, Chesham, Rickmansworth, Wembley, Harrow, and Ruislip Manor.<br /><br />I like this strange expanse of the Greater London map that lies between the spokes of Watford and Uxbridge. <br /><br />At present, the area’s best-known feature is surely Wembley Stadium. Leaving Wembley Park station, one is presented with a view that looks over towards the stadium – which, in my opinion, is a bit of a failure – but also towards the horizon behind it. It seems perilously close. The grey sky above seems a dome, drooping to meet the faux-utilitarian arch of The Home of Football.<br /><br />Climb down the steps to Wembley Way, and walk past the empty kiosks, with their promises of a “A Better Sausage” or “A Better Burger”. The immediate surroundings of the stadium are as you would expect, and probably impossible to judge architecturally when only you yourself (along with a few other silent matchstickmen) inhabit them. The view, again, is singularly threatening: a foreshortened view towards London, the BT Tower, Shard, and Canary Wharf tiltshifted into toytownism. Wembley is grey, intimidating, and unforgettable.<br /><br />Other parts of Metro-land are more welcoming. Greenford, beyond Wembley’s southward horizon, has green brownfields, and its own branchline, one of the last of its kind in Greater London. Chesham, beyond the M25 and the bounds of London itself, is utterly unremarkable: a redbrick-pavemented town centre, with obligatory M&Co, is pleasantly framed by hills– snow-covered on my visit.<br /><br />Chesham, however, is rather too Country Life for my tastes. As a northerner, I believe if you’re going to do countryside, do it properly: a judgement that obviously rules out the vast majority of the South. Moreover, it wears its place within Bucks far too prissily on its sleeve. What is wonderful about true Metro-land – the parts within London – is its placelessness.<br /><br />I have no sympathy with groups like the Association of British Counties – a pressure group seeking to restore the UK’s pre-1975 county borders – not least because they fail to recognise the banal nature of all county affiliation. For every Yorkshire loyalist in places like Saddleworth and Barnoldswick, I have found there are two who embrace their new county with myopic assurance: county loyalty is always peversely stronger along counties’ borders than in their supposed heartlands. This is surely the most stupid kind of regional belonging.<br /><br />The suburban inhabitants of Metro-land– those whom I have had the pleasure to have known – have virtually no such identity. Do they feel like they live in London? “Not really. I’ve got a couple of mates at UCL, so I go over and see them occasionally.” How freeing it must be to have no socially acceptable answer to the awful question: “Where do you come from?”<br /><br />I catch the train back into Paddington: the city reappears much too quickly. Metro-land: the ur-suburb, the home of the quietly dispossessed.Jamesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-35151859842490902622012-04-14T21:40:12.888+01:002012-04-14T21:40:12.888+01:00Geoff, it's really interesting, that moment yo...Geoff, it's really interesting, that moment you write about when white working-class skinheads championed Jamaican ska; a fascinating reminder about there not being an automatic link between skinhead culture and right wing politics.Kitnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-35176865101544180032012-04-14T21:38:23.059+01:002012-04-14T21:38:23.059+01:00Here's Love on the Northern Line by the band N...Here's Love on the Northern Line by the band Northern Line that Geoff wrote about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2an6PJOsDQ<br /><br />What a terrible song!:)Garricknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-44208573011897974942012-04-14T21:36:55.911+01:002012-04-14T21:36:55.911+01:00And here's his comments about it
"Onward...And here's his comments about it<br /><br />"Onward, onwards, north of the border, down Hertfordshire way.<br />The Croxley Green Revels - a tradition that stretches back to 1952.<br />For pageantry is deep in all our hearts<br />and this, for many a girl, is her greatest day"<br />John Betjeman at Croxley Green ("Metro-land", BBC, 1973)DGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-27718493325165105832012-04-14T21:33:06.307+01:002012-04-14T21:33:06.307+01:00[ctd because of word limit]
One Saturday every su...[ctd because of word limit]<br /><br />One Saturday every summer, as in a thousand other villages across the country, the good people of Croxley Green came together in a festive celebration of community. Some decorated the backs of lorries with crepe paper and sat on the back dressed as cannibals, or hula dancers (or something else typically English) while others twirled batons and paraded along behind. The rest of us would watch and cheer as the procession passed by our doorsteps, before following the final float up to the mile-long village green where the main events of the day would unfold. At two o'clock precisely the mellifluous tones of an unseen Master of Ceremonies would echo around the central roped-off arena, announcing the almost thrilling programme for the afternoon. Maypole dancing, school recorder groups, maybe even a troupe of well-trained canines - all were highlights of an afternoon at the Croxley Revels in the 1970s, and probably still are today.<br /><br />Betjeman's documentary concentrates on the climactic moment of the day's proceedings - the crowning of the Queen of the Revels. She and her entourage process into the arena dressed in their glossy ceremonial robes, which look suspiciously as though they've been sewn together from a set of frilly curtains. These costumes were recycled every year, the scariest being the floppy black felt hat and bright blue cloak worn by the unfortunate page boy. He looks on, inwardly mortified, as Queen Jenny addresses her loyal subjects by smirking through a speech of perfect scripted blandness.<br /><br />I'm just pleased that Betjeman filmed Metro-land in 1972, back when I was an anonymous seven year-old obscured somewhere in the crowd. Had he visited a few years later he might have caught me taking a slightly more prominent role. I was never in the running for page boy, thankfully, but in 1976 I was press-ganged into taking part in the maypole dancing with several of my well-scrubbed classmates. We practised for weeks until we could skip and weave like professionals, then unleashed our honed artistic talents in front of an appreciative audience of parents and grandmothers. Thankfully no cine film or photographs of that performance remains.<br /><br />And yet, watching Metro-land all these years later, it strikes me now that Sir John Betjeman never once appears anywhere in the two minutes of footage of my village Revels. He provides a voiceover, no more, and a BBC camera crew probably shot the rest. The Poet Laureate never stood on the corner of Malvern Way watching the bagpipers pass by, nor graced our village green with his cheery presence. He picked out Croxley merely to shine a spotlight on the fake heritage of Metro-land, gently mocking our pseudo-historical pageant played out in former fields with no tradition of their own. The bastard. But I'll let him off, just this once.DGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-77088770158455293502012-04-14T21:32:43.945+01:002012-04-14T21:32:43.945+01:00I love the John Betjeman documentary, Metro-land, ...I love the John Betjeman documentary, Metro-land, it is a television classic, lovingly reflecting the quirkier side of everyday Englishness. Sir John explored the extraordinary architecture to be found in London's commuter belt and met the ordinary people who lived therein. From mock-Tudor semis to the Harrow Women's Institute, his lilting prose exalted the eccentric and the commonplace.<br /><br />There was much to see. Middle England had reinvented itself, and Betjeman was on hand to celebrate the end result.<br /><br />Best of all, Sir John came to my village, Croxley Green, on the day of our annual village fete. He stood on a street corner close to my house to watch the carnival floats pass by. He watched my six foot something music teacher waiting proudly on the village green with the school orchestra stacked up behind. And he smiled benignly as the Queen of the Revels tried hard not to burst in fits of giggles during her coronation ceremony. I was only seven years old at the time and I don't appear on screen, but I was there, somewhere in the background, buying ice lollies and trying to win bottles of Cresta in the tombola. In his documentary Sir John lovingly chronicled my world, my childhood and my semi-detached roots.<br /><br />You can imagine my surprise on watching Metro-land for the very first time to see my own insignificant commuter backwater celebrated on screen. Here were roads I walked down and events I attended and even people I knew, immortalised on film, watched by millions. But surely there was nothing in Croxley Green worthy of Betjeman's scrutiny? This was just another dormitory suburb on the Metropolitan railway], overshadowed by neighbouring Watford and Rickmansworth. Why would anybody find my life interesting?<br /><br />If I'd been making a documentary about Croxley Green I might have visited the big house on New Road where Madame Tussaud sculpted her waxworks, and in whose former studio I attended nursery school. Or I might have headed down to the canalside where the John Dickinson paper mill manufactured world-famous Croxley Script watermarked notepape. Maybe even gone to the converted farm at the top of my road where barking Barbara Woodhouse trained dogs her way. But no, Sir John selected instead the village's annual carnival - the Croxley Green Revels - and delighted in its muted self-importance.....DGnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-51714291788061690502012-04-14T21:19:52.371+01:002012-04-14T21:19:52.371+01:00Thanks for the great photos, Gemma-very evocative....Thanks for the great photos, Gemma-very evocative.<br />Thanks for all the links -thats a great quote from Music Ho!<br />I never thought of the Avengers set in Metroland -but I can see how it fits.Geoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10966328708258079467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-55105080679412800492012-04-14T20:55:48.302+01:002012-04-14T20:55:48.302+01:00Here's Robyn Hitchcock’s 52 Stations that Geo...Here's Robyn Hitchcock’s 52 Stations that Geoff mentioned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjiWjzlAwPsNoelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-582193441290709632012-04-14T20:52:23.612+01:002012-04-14T20:52:23.612+01:00Lady Metroland then reappears in Evelyn Waugh'...Lady Metroland then reappears in Evelyn Waugh's book "Vile Bodies" as well!Daniellenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-59589832283086573422012-04-14T20:52:02.885+01:002012-04-14T20:52:02.885+01:00Don't forget before the poem George R. Sims du...Don't forget before the poem George R. Sims during WW1:<br /><br />"I know a land where the wild flowers grow,<br />Near, near at hand if by train you go,<br />Metroland, Metroland".Sidneynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-69881057264325111172012-04-14T20:51:30.927+01:002012-04-14T20:51:30.927+01:00Geoff, you're totally right that there are few...Geoff, you're totally right that there are fewer songs about the Metropolitan Line than some other tube lines. For example, for the Circle Line, there is Day By Day, by Generation X: "Stranded in the jungle. Locked inside a tube. Hate your next door neighbour. He's got more than you. Going round and round. Day by day. On the Circle Line ..." The use of the Circle Line as a metaphor for the treadmill, going nowhere, no tomorrow.....Trishnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-20668979196119768032012-04-14T20:44:52.942+01:002012-04-14T20:44:52.942+01:00I attended one of The London Transport Museum'...I attended one of The London Transport Museum's Heritage days last September - where they run the original trains from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. This one was the Metropolitan line. Those days are well worth a visit, such a wonderful way to spend a day out, and a great way to get up close to some marvellous machinery... also, one can wear a hat and gloves in stylish surroundings! Here are some snaps of us on the day, dressed in 1940s clothes of course!<br /><br />http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-VfbmnZcoHs4/Tm3imC-6yaI/AAAAAAAAAyI/4ye4YBzvE5c/s1600/Chris+and+Gem+stood+out.JPG<br /><br />http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--DWtARCYHCk/Tm3h0QI3GUI/AAAAAAAAAx8/7KHhhYVDxGg/s1600/Chris+sat+1.JPG<br /><br />http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ryHzGUkWH80/Tm3iIChFJiI/AAAAAAAAAyA/hKFiysbR6o8/s1600/gem+gloves.JPGGemmanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-43067140911438982192012-04-14T20:41:07.529+01:002012-04-14T20:41:07.529+01:00I've just moved away from Ruislip - a station ...I've just moved away from Ruislip - a station so unchanged it is used for filming to this day.<br /><br />The Metropolitan line is one of my favourite tube lines- from virtual countryside 10 min walk from Eastcote or Ruislip stations to the very centre of London in under half an hour! Wow! That's super now... in the 20s-30s it must have been a revelation.Perditanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-64423988879488633912012-04-14T20:38:14.489+01:002012-04-14T20:38:14.489+01:00It's fascinating that Metro Land actually has ...It's fascinating that Metro Land actually has no defined boundaries. I guess strictly it can be traced along the route of the original Metropolitan railway. But others seem to think it is a larger triangular shape from Baker Street station through the North West of London, and up to the counties of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. And actually the annually produced guide to this invented region, Metro-land, defined it as “a country with elastic borders that each visitor can draw for himself” - so it's not really supposed to even be a defined space, even in the fantasy!M.J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07615974799201593427noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-45483240662930576262012-04-14T20:36:14.219+01:002012-04-14T20:36:14.219+01:00Great column! You might like my project Modernism ...Great column! You might like my project Modernism in Metroland, http://www.modernism-in-metroland.co.uk/index.html, which tries to document and celebrate the Modernist and Art Deco buildings of the Metro-Land area and era. I first started this project after moving to South Harrow a few years ago. It began with me photographing some of the interesting local buildings, and grew as I found out more about both Modernist architecture and the concept of Metro-Land.Joshnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-578771807426087642012-04-14T20:32:57.955+01:002012-04-14T20:32:57.955+01:00I think Chalfont St Giles counts:) In this review ...I think Chalfont St Giles counts:) In this review of the reissued 1924 book put out about Metroland - http://www.southbankpublishing.com/9781904915003/reviews3.php - the reviewer notes: "The 1924 booklet touches on many of Metroland's historic links. Fleeing the Great Plague, John Milton took a cottage at Chalfont St Giles, where he completed Paradise Regained. When an American proposed to dismantle the cottage and ship it across the Atlantic, there was rebellion and it was saved for Metroland and the nation."Maggiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07138573821875872323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-71287189544355643092012-04-14T20:28:32.512+01:002012-04-14T20:28:32.512+01:00Constant Lambert in his Music Ho! A study of music...Constant Lambert in his Music Ho! A study of music in decline, from 1934, has a great but cynical description of Metroland - he describes "the hideous faux bonhomie of the hiker, noisily wading his way through the petrol pumps of Metroland, singing obsolete sea chanties with the aid of the Week-End Book, imbibing chemically flavoured synthetic beer under the impression that he is tossing off a tankard of 'jolly good ale and old' ... and astonishing the local garage proprietor by slapping him on the back and offering him a pint of 'four 'alf'".Simonenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-78484532954214355332012-04-14T20:25:15.433+01:002012-04-14T20:25:15.433+01:00There is also Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, wit...There is also Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, with a character called Lady Metroland. Her husband, Viscount Metroland, takes his ‘funny name’ (as Paul Pennyfeather sees it) from a fantasy fiefdom of the London Metropolitan Railway.....Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15992349400128489370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-1980872747889041052012-04-14T20:24:35.971+01:002012-04-14T20:24:35.971+01:00I read that the term Metro-land was invented in 19...I read that the term Metro-land was invented in 1915 by the Metropolitan Railway's in-house copywriter James Garland, who according to legend was ill with influenza and sprang out of bed when he thought of the term! This is according to Alan Jackson’s book London’s Metropolitan Railway (1986).Robertanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-12911869077094357382012-04-14T20:20:50.514+01:002012-04-14T20:20:50.514+01:00Don't forget the classic documentary by Betjem...Don't forget the classic documentary by Betjeman, from 1973 called Metro-land, where he does a kind of guided tour of the Metropolitan Line from Baker Street to Verney Junction in Buckinghamshire, talking about the architecture of the suburbs and villages.... It's actually on Youtube in full: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhIZlJgFgWk. He's pretty nostalgic about the 1920s and 1930s, as predicted by Geoff!Mickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04129475788686123015noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-66320207248880499422012-04-14T20:16:51.872+01:002012-04-14T20:16:51.872+01:00I didn't realize Metroland real - mainly becau...I didn't realize Metroland real - mainly because I saw the Christian Bale movie called Metroland (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119665/), the tagline / advertising slogan for which was "Metroland is not a location - it is a state of mind"!Nickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12345880035877836117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-24361795755094631502012-04-14T20:10:47.395+01:002012-04-14T20:10:47.395+01:00Geoff, you've probably read it, but the Julian...Geoff, you've probably read it, but the Julian Barnes novel Metroland is very good - Christopher Lloyd travels on the Metropolitan line to and from London, and during a French lesson at one point he declares: "J’habite Metroland" ["I live in Metroland"], because it "sounds better than Eastwick, stranger than Middlesex".Sam Ohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08523013822784596338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3774690407548657707.post-34615379896068165052012-04-14T19:56:45.980+01:002012-04-14T19:56:45.980+01:00Geoff did you ever see the TV show The Avengers fr...Geoff did you ever see the TV show The Avengers from the 1960s? Metro-land was where it was set - complete with a railway station and quiet suburbia (where behind the facade, dark things were happening!).Marianahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17961737021859664227noreply@blogger.com