All Aboard!

During the Easter Holidays we went up to London to visit the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. We had visited before but only for a cuppa and a mooch around the gift shop. We had always intended to spend more time there and this time there was the added incentive of visiting the exhibition on Suburbia, which I had been meaning to visit for a long time.



I must say that I am not into cars and transport in general.



I grew up on the outskirts of London in a suburb and getting a bus or tube into and around London was something I took very much for granted.



I didn't even notice the art deco tube stations that I travelled to and from each time. This trip to the museum awoke so many memories for me...



Seeing the old tubes and sitting in the old compartments (not as old as this one)



reminded me of trips to London with my parents to see the lights at Christmas time at Regent Street, to visits to the theatre and to Hamleys to choose a doll or toy on a special occasion.



The greens and reds of the upholstery and the wooden trims serve as many a backdrop to my memories...



When I was older, I had a Saturday job in town. The tube journeys seemed to last forever, taking up a sizeable chunk of my weekend. By the time I went back into town on a Saturday night I would have already done four trains journeys back and forth... (but it was worth it as I clutched my earnings and headed off for some fun).



After leaving University I worked and lived in London and the daily rush hour did little to improve my view of public transport. Nowadays, living down on the coast and away from the rush of the city, I love travelling by train. I savour them, even tube journeys, as they are now not the norm for me.



Walking round the exhibition I fell in love, as I knew I would, with all the beautiful posters designed during the Underground's heyday. With the advent of the Metropolitan line London as we now know it started to form. It sprawled out from the centre following the lines of the tube... Suburbs were formed, people were encouraged to come into the city centre for work, for leisure, entertainment and shopping.



The power of advertising was taken seriously, artists were employed to design posters and leaflets and people were encouraged to hop on a train and explore...



It all looks so inviting doesn't it...











Days out in the Spring



Shopping Trips







Trips to London Parks

A world away from the hurly burly that we now associate with the big city.



By the buses I stopped and stared, I remember travelling on buses like the one in the middle. The bus conductor and his ticket machine handing out rolls of purple printed tickets that would smudge in your hand. I always held on to mine tight as I sat next to my mother going up and down Oxford Street, always worrying that an Inspector would get on and i would have dropped my ticket...



A few months ago whilst reading an old copy of The Provincial Lady in War Time, I found a bus ticket tucked between its pages. A child's ticket from during the war, was it used as a bookmark? Had the mother put it there for safe keeping? I hope the child hadn't sat there worrying that her ticket had been lost...



We spent the rest of our day at the National Portrait Gallery, vintage prom dress shopping and ending our day by letting Little Sister choose one thing she wanted to do before going home. She chose to visit a shop in Oxford Street and as we sat on the bus heading for our destination I looked at her face and recognised that expression...