In the Paws of the Fat Controller

The news this week that electrification of the Midland main line between St Pancras and the East Midlands is to be “paused” - because of planning and budgeting cock-ups blamed on Network Rail - is disappointing, since travel times on this line have long been unimpressive compared with most of the other main lines radiating out of London. The East Midlands deserves better.

In the late 1960s, when I first started using this route regularly, typical journey times between the capital and Nottingham were around 1 hour 50 minutes, and a regular highlight of evening northbound journeys was the sight of former deputy leader of the Labour Party, George Brown, who was the MP for Belper, propping up the bar, or attempting to, on the way back to his constituency. Today’s journeys are less fun, almost half a century on, with travel times down only slightly, to around 1 hour 40 minutes, or even 1 hour 35 on a good train (and a good day). Electrification seems hardly worthwhile if it is only going to shave another 10 minutes off the total journey time, and “Nottingham in Ninety” could easily be achieved today, with a little effort, especially if the faster trains missed out stops at Market Harborough and East Midlands Parkway.

Yes, “East Midlands Park”, as the electron-sparing dot matrix display in train carriages puts it, or as BBC News described it this week - “a station built in the wrong place”. Well, it wouldn’t be if a regular, dedicated shuttle bus service ran from there to East Midlands Airport and if, rather than London trains wasting time routinely calling there, frequent local services from Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and Sheffield did so, many of the airport’s customers originating from within this catchment area. Someone needs to decide whether it’s supposed to be a park and ride station for London traffic, or a link to the airport. It can be both, but if it includes the latter function, then well-meant suggestions for extended tram routes, including one to the proposed ludicrous HS2 “hub” at Toton, are unnecessary. All the station has ever needed was a little joined-up thinking in the form of a couple of buses with adequate luggage space. EMP to EMA in 10 minutes. Free to anyone with a valid rail ticket. Sorted.

So, yes, the “pause” is bad news, as is anything that frustrates the reduction of time spent in the company of East Midlands Trains, with its shrill, unwelcoming, tediously detailed announcements about the penalties to be incurred should one be travelling with an inappropriate ticket or pass (something which the excellent Victoria Coren-Mitchell complained about in an article many years ago – the inflexible attitude has changed little since), the bizarre electronic beeps that disturb one’s snooze or one’s thoughts when travelling on Meridian trains (with their badly-designed view-blocking window “pillars”), the practice of trains that are being “terminated” at Nottingham doing so as far away as possible from the passenger exits, and the way in which passengers are prevented for ages from boarding at Nottingham or St Pancras, even though their train has already been “platformed” for some time, and is sitting there evidently ready for business. The Midland line isn’t, when all said and done, in comparison to frequencies on other routes, busy. Nor can it appear passenger-friendly. I dread to think what travellers from overseas make of it - especially if they have just arrived at St Pancras by Eurostar and are used to the professionalism of most European rail companies. The expression “a bit of a come-down” doesn’t really do justice to the concept.

Such a visitor to Britain may, one imagines, sometimes (but these days not often) possess a less than fluent knowledge of the English language, and be innocent of the minutiae of ticketing rules and regulations, while being confidently familiar with an alphabet which, with a few minor variations, underpins all western European languages. On board their train, this confidence may soon be shattered, for as they journey north through the green and pleasant English shires they are more than likely to be hectored repeatedly that “owing to a short platform at Market Harborough, passengers in coaches X, Y, M and D are requested to move forward to coaches A, E, N and Z in order to alight from coach S for Stupid, sorry, that should be walk backwards to coach B for Barmy, as coaches Q, H and R for Ridiculous will not be platformed at Market Harborough owing to Market Harborough having a short platform at Market Harborough. This service is now arriving into Market Harborough. The next station stop will be Leicester”.

“Pliz, what is Makket Arbo?”

 
Thus it is disappointing that the minimising of one’s exposure to this kind of experience is to be delayed. One hopes, probably in vain, that the funds can be re-allocated to something useful, like lengthening the platforms at Market Harborough and Beeston. Best of all, this belated “discovery” of inadequate finances might encourage the scrapping of the whole misguided delusion known as HS2. However, while awaiting such a happy outcome, breathing should not be paused.

Not West Bridgford No. 11

In my “Not West Bridgford” blogs numbers 1 and 8 reference was made to the Tudor Cinema, which used to stand at the southern end of Central Avenue. An unexpected visit earlier this week to West Kirby, on the Wirral, gave me an opportunity to view its own former Tudor Cinema – the direct successor to its namesake in West Bridgford - in that delightful seaside town. This is how it looks now:

Designed by Alfred Thraves, also responsible for the Tudor in West Bridgford, it was opened in 1933, seated an audience of 1100, and closed its doors in 1965, before becoming a bingo hall, shops and now premises for Dr. Barnardo’s. It is closely similar in design to its predecessor, especially the large central A-shaped gable. Facing Riversdale Road, which leads down to the seafront, the view of the old cinema from this road I found weirdly reminiscent of how the Tudor in West Bridgford used to appear as seen from the ends of adjacent roads – Davies, Priory, Albert – as shown below. 

 
Old photographs show that the West Kirby cinema also had a sign, presumably in red neon, saying “Tudor”, as did the one in West Bridgford. Uncanny.

Not West Bridgford No. 10

Thoroughfares with shops on only one side, and open space on the other, have a peculiar attractiveness, and this is one of the less obvious reasons why seaside promenades and esplanades can be so psychologically satisfying. The sea view, obviously, is the principal reason. Inland, uplifting examples are harder to find – Princes Street in Edinburgh is perhaps the outstanding example in these islands, along with some roads adjacent to major London parks –for example, Piccadilly, partly bordered on its south side by Green Park. Elsewhere, instances are few, although spa towns like Harrogate and Cheltenham hint at this phenomenon, as do places with commons or village greens. Few major European or North American centres offer this feature, though several Australian cities do, most notably Adelaide.

Central Avenue, traditionally the major shopping centre for West Bridgford is, as was noted in an earlier blog entry, building-free for half of its eastern side, where Bridgford Park extends right up to its pavements, in the form of the croquet lawn, so called. In consequence, the arrangement is unusual and pleasing in appearance, and the Avenue is now at the heart of a significant café and alfresco dining zone, increasingly popular of a weekend evening with those tired of the youthful excesses routinely encountered in central Nottingham.

The accompanying photograph has a suggestion of the west side of the Avenue, viewed obliquely from across the croquet lawn. Except that it’s nothing of the sort, it’s Not West Bridgford at all, it’s Not Central Avenue, but Lord Street, that wonderful long one-sided street of upscale shops and eating places in the seaside town of Southport, which used to be in Lancashire, but is now within metropolitan Merseyside. Central Avenue, now with upmarket eateries like the Côte Brasserie and Carluccio’s, is increasingly somewhere that Lord Street could try to emulate, rather than the reverse. But both, in their partial openness, uplift the mood, and are simply enjoyable places to be.

Not West Bridgford No. 9

Hardly surprisingly, not only are minor stylistic and atmospheric similarities detectable between West Bridgford and other suburban areas throughout the UK, and indeed across the world, but they are very evident in other parts of Nottingham. Several districts of the city, including Beeston, Wollaton, Sherwood and Arnold,  include specimens of domestic vernacular design, shopping parades, street furniture, and subjectively perceived atmosphere, which are strongly reminiscent of West Bridgford. Most of the west side of Nottingham is not at all like this, however, being composed mainly of interwar council estates which sprawl from Bilborough to Strelley, Aspley, Bells Lane and Broxtowe and have very different, and strong, design characteristics of their own.

So what is surprising is that, in the middle of this sprawl is a curious enclave of detached housing centred on Aspley Park Drive, a short distance from one of the main distributor roads, Aspley Lane. Long ago, a schoolfriend of mine lived in Aspley Park Drive, and I remember nothing of his house except that it was large, detached, well appointed, and that his maternal grandmother, who lived with the family and liked to smoke in bed, had set fire to her  bedroom  Little damage was done except to an already frosty relationship between the grandmother and my friend’s dad.

 
Be that as it may, the photograph shows an easterly view down Aspley Park Drive, which to my mind shows a strong resemblance to the upper reaches of Musters Road, that immensely long and dead straight thoroughfare which bisects West Bridgford from top to bottom, from the Trent Bridge cricket ground to the hint of countryside at Boundary Road. So, it’s “not Musters Road” – with its schools, medical practices, and retirement homes - but Aspley Park Drive.