Secrets of the London Underground

Is anyone else watching this series? If so, what do you think?

As someone who has lived all his life in the North, I have to say that I have absolutely no interest in London, indeed the last time I went, or to be precise, passed through, was on my way from Leeds to Brighton in the late ‘80’s, yet I find this series of programmes quite fascinating although somewhat light on detail. But I suppose there has to be some restrictions on what can be shown in a 45 minute long programme. (One hour including adverts.) In particular the thought of all those trains hurtling along in tunnels many metres deep is, really, well outside of my comprehension.

I have seen Tim Dunn, one of the two presenters, before on another railway programme, and found that the background music, or what passes for music, was obtrusively loud such that at times Dunn was almost drowned out by it. I’m pleased to say that the current series, of which there are two, are much better. As far as Dunn is concerned, I find him a bit too exitable – he could take lessons from Rob Bell who presents programmes such as these much better.

Siddy Holloway, the other presenter, I find somewhat girlish with “wows” & “just look at these” cluttering up her speech. Otherwise, quite good.

Cheers.

Peter G. Shaw

Hi Peter G. Shaw, I have watched a few of those programmes and they have been quite informative, but yes the presenters do seem to be excitable and Rob Bell is much better, I used to go to London quite a lot back in the 70's mostly to buy gear for my mobile Disco back then but I did like looking around some of the well known places. My grandmother on my father's side was born in Marylebone but was married in my father's and my home town in Norfolk, but I did go to Marylebone during my family tree research, To look at the area where she was born although the area has been rebuilt which was the first housing reform that Octavia Hill achieved, my great grandfather being a baker work just around the corner on the corner of Marylebone High Street and Moxon Street as it is now called, I also looked at the area where the church was that my great grand parents were married and although the streets were still there, most of the buildings have been replaced. I always like using the Underground and way back in the late 60's saw a model of it as it was then, in the Science Museum, but the first time I went to London and used the Underground was when I was fourteen when on holiday with my younger brother with one of our uncle and aunt and family and our aunt took us on a day trip to London Heathrow Airport. The construction of the Underground I think is pretty amazing considering when it was first started and they didn't have the boring machines they have today. Although I do like to go to London (occasionally now) I certainly wouldn't what to live or work there, but two of my nieces do and they love it.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 25/07/2022 23:21:09

Hi Peter G. Shaw, the photo below may or may not interest you, the the blue plaque on the wall in Grotto Passage, is roughly opposite where Old Paradise Place used to be where my grandmother was born, there are blocks of flats / apartments now where the street and houses were.

Octavia Hill came from Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 26/07/2022 00:16:44

Apparently, the earliest underground railways used a cut & cover method to get underground. And they used to follow the streets - I suppose less hassle than going underneath buidlings. So they weren't that deep.

Initially they were steam powered with all the effects that produced. The episode I watched yesterday, was partially about the first electric train - apparently it wasn't powerful enough for the bends and slopes it encountered. They did show the interior of the electric locomotive, and by today's standards it was positively lethal with unguarded control equipment.

Nick,

My mother was, I think, a true cockney being born within earshot of Bow Bells. Her father was a Leeds lad and how he got to London we shall never know, but he did along with his legal wife with whom he had a son. As he was a pen-pusher employee with the LMS, and this was around the time of WWI, I do wonder if that had something to do with it. He left his legal wife, I understand she refused a divorce, and took up with a 25 year old spinster whose family had ended up in the Workhouse, eventually moving back to Yorkshire with partner & daughter. They never did get married which made my mother illegitimate, something she, as we now realise, understandably hid for the whole of her life.

I have some memories of being taken to Dagenham in July 1948 when we stayed with my mother's aunt & family. Her son, my mother's cousin, was a fireman on the railway and he took me to see his engine and to give me a short footplate ride. I also remember being taken to see an old woman in the basement of a building. I've no idea who she was, and I'll never now know, but on reflection, I doubt very much that it was my grandfather's legal wife, which leads me to suspect it might have been my mother's grandmother and therefore my great grandmother.

It's funny that you mention buying mobile disco equipment in the '70's. The only time I have ever voluntarily been to London was to Tottenham Court Rd in probably 1972. That was to visit Heathkit who had a shop there along with Henry's Radio, Lasky's and one or two others (G.W. Smith?). We parked our car at Winbledon and took the tube, along with our 6 month old Golden Retriever who had never been on a bus, let alone a growling tube train, |and believe me, when a 80lb Golden Retriever digs his feet in, he takes some shifting. Mind you, after the 5th tube ride of the day, after he had realised it wasn't going to eat him, he trotted on and off as if he'd being doing it all his life.

Peter G. Shaw

Edited By Peter G. Shaw on 26/07/2022 11:04:28

Watched quite a few of the series, but they all started to get a bit samey. One disused tunnel looks pretty much like any other, and how Tim could salivate over station signs is beyond me.

When I was on conscription in the 50s, we always found that, if in London and you got lost, you could always find your way about underground.

Being used to the excellent, easy-to-follow London Underground maps (based on electrical circuit diagrams, I understand), it came as a nasty shock the first time I had to use the Paris Metro

Rob

I was born in London and lived there until nearly the end of my school years at the end of 1950s.

Not managed to see much of this series but gained some info about my favourite way of getting about in those days, funny how things can just get taken for granted if part of every day life.

The trains were very noisy and made strange clunking and banging noises speeding up or slowing down.

The underground got us to wonderful places like the the science museum where handles could be turned or buttons pressed to make mechanisms work it also took us to hospitals (not so good).

You could look at maps on the train ceiling and follow progress to  know exactly when your step off point was due some of the maps even showed exotic sounding place names (Theydon Bois etc)!

Later in teen years it took me to many shops in places like Tottenham C’t Road to get odd surplus stuff for follow my hobbies.

And into Soho where lots of  “models” lived upstairs and had signs at the door then strange people stood in dimly lit doorways inviting you into clubs. Happy days!

Edited By V8Eng on 26/07/2022 12:06:09

Edited By V8Eng on 26/07/2022 12:06:50

My wife and I absolutely love this series. I have lived a lot of my life near London, and a day out in the city would involve the surface train to Marylebone, then the underground system to go to the museums, or wherever. As a young child, I was traumatised for a brief while when I got stuck in the ticket gates that used to have those curved gates that shot out from either side, and I got speared by them once. Hated those ! When I started work, I often used the London Underground.

The two presenters are perfect, and they complement each other really well. I love their enthusiasm - which I still have - about design and engineering. They are not as po-faced as other presenters, but have the right mix of inner child and seriousness. They are excited but never shallow. One minute they are wide eyed with wonder as a train goes past them in a tunnel !, the next they are discussing uniforms for a diverse work-force, including Rastafarian and Sikh style uniform hats.

The programme's editing and construction is also very good, I think. Too many programmes jump backwards and forwards to try to keep the interest of people with short attention spans, but Secrets of the Underground keeps it plain and straightforward - quite old school, and very good for that reason.

The sign thing is, I think, an appreciation of the graphic artwork used on the London Underground, which I love too, and the instantly recognisable themes.

The programmes are some of the gems on television today.

I find the programme watchable. As always it's generally unsatisfying when techies watch telly made for the general public, because we want detail. Most viewers by far want a high-level overview, and find the sort of information that interests me off-the-scale boring.

Complaining about informative TV is confessing to be a nerd, the sort of bloke people avoid in pubs. Never ask an enthusiastic expert about the history of lamps on the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway!

But I can't believe ordinary folk enjoy the exaggerated mannerisms and gurning of so many TV presenters. As a genuine eccentric Sir Patrick Moore just about got way with it, but he set a dangerous precedent. Personality Cults are always bad!

Repair Shop has improved considerably. Used to drive me up the wall by constantly skipping over important details and wallowing in emotion. Later episodes show more technique and I've picked up some useful tricks.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 26/07/2022 12:08:05

I really enjoy the series, which I watch with my wife, and agree with John Doe 2 about the presenters. Yes, they are a bit over the top, but I feel it's because they love their subject, not because they are being presenterish. In particular, I enjoy Siddy's deep knowledge of the subject, which sends a message that it's OK for a young, attractive woman to be enthusiastic about engineering things.

The only time I have fallen out with the programme was when an expert from the London Transport Museum stated that passengers changed from electric-hauled to steam-hauled trains (and vice versa) at Rickmansworth on the Metropolitan line. Nonsense! The passengers stayed put and the locomotives were changed. I was at school at 'Ricky' in the early sixties and caught the train every day, and there was always either an electric loco or a steam loco at Ricky station, waiting to be coupled to the next train. Schoolboy heaven!

I saw the introduction of the new 'silver' trains and the gradual disappearance of the old brown slam-door trains. It was an interesting time.

George

If you are interested in the London Underground Rly. and associated bits and bobs, then may I recommend an extensive series of videos on YouTube made by a chap named Jago Hazzard. They are for people who want real information and are ( in my view ) not gimmicky.

Hi Peter G. Shaw, it was unfair the shame put on illegitimate children as it's hardly their fault, my mother's eldest sibling was just three days away from being illegitimate, otherwise he may have had to live in shame, these days nobody seems to be bothered about it, but I can remember when it was still frowned upon. My late elder brother and myself got the speaker units and the record player decks for the Disco from G. W. Smiths in Tottenham Court Road and roughly on the opposite side of the road from them was a small shop named Z & I Aero Services Ltd. whom I bought all the valves from for the amp that I built to drive the speakers. I can't remember Henry's Radio being in Tottenham Court Road though, but they had about four shops in Edgeware Road and got to them on the Bakerloo line getting off at Edgeware Road Underground station and having a short walk towards Maida Vale Road, the other direction would take you to Marble Arch. One of the shops sold electronic components which was the one I used.

I don't know if you have seen Baker Street & Waterloo Railway (Wickipedia) quite interesting reading.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 26/07/2022 19:50:30

I enjoy this series, not too many techy howlers. I spent 3 years in London as a youth and you wouldn't get me back for a gold clock. When I was in London you didn't need a ticket to board the underground, and if you got off at a station with a lift rather than escalators you could run up the stairs and avoid paying. The lift man collected the tickets. Not that I'd do that now of course. On the rare occasions I've been back since I found the passageways in the deep tube stations reminded me of walking down a sewer.

Tim Hammond, I am also a subscriber to the Jago Hazzard channel and look forward to his new releases. A very knowledgeable and interesting railway history 'nerd' but one with a sense of humour who doesn't cause me to loose the will to live whilst watching, as a few others on YouTube tend to do.

Gentlemen,

I also like the series and enjoy the presenters, I lived with my parents in the Suburbs, Selhurst, until I was thirteen when we moved to the sticks, Bury St Edmunds, because of Dads work. Most of my family lived in or around London so the Underground was the way to get around, my Grandfather had his own taxi in London and he lived in Thornton Heath and he took his then young grandson to the Science Museum, apparently he struggled to get me inside the building and then struggled even more to get me out at the end of the day, all those knobs and switches as said kept me busy. My mum said that from eight years old I was allowed to catch the train from Selhurst station into the city on the Green coloured Southern railway and the Underground then spend the day in and out of the museums and other sights.

When my daughter was old enough my Brother and I took my Daughter and his Son up to London to annually visit the Museums and Hamley's during Xmas, my Grandson will also make the journey with my daughter and I when he is old enough.

In my later working life until I retired I regularly took the train into London from Sandy and then the Underground to where ever I was working that day, mostly in Universities and Research Facilities.

The one thing I really enjoyed as a small boy was riding the Escalators particularly the deep ones, you could spend the whole day on the underground and not be bored, even the artwork today is worth a look.

Martin P

Hi Martin, the Escalators were quite awesome when I first went on the Underground with my aunt and brother and the first one we went on was at King's Cross as that is where the coach that took us to London stopped and I think at that time that was the deepest one according to my aunt, but it was all a new experience for my brother and I.

Regards Nick.

If we are reliving childhood experiences of the London Underground perhaps I could be allowed to reminisce a little myself. I was first taken to London by my late mother at about the age of eight, we travelled down (or up?) to the Big City via Peterborough on the East Lincolnshire line which was still then ten years away from the Beeching Axe. The train was hauled by a Britannia loco (Hereward the Wake?) and I was told by mother to thank the driver for getting us to King's Cross safely. Things like that really did happen in those far off days! I can't recall which delight we visited first but we seemed to cram in a great deal in one day using the Underground, nor can I recall which lines we may have used but I do clearly remember the polished wooden escalators with their big brass up-lighters and the big globes of the filament lamps in square glass shades above the platforms which gave the stations a greenish hue. The train when it rattled in would have been of the red 1938 stock, I think, still with a guard at the rear.

The Science Museum was a particular delight, almost as silent as a library if I recall correctly, and not at all like the 'all-inclusive' playground it has become these days with hoards of unruly school-children running around and catering to the lowest common denominator. The Tube took us to Trafalgar Square where a photograph was taken by one of those touting photographers that used to exist in those days and the photo I still have of mother and myself feeding the pigeons. On to the river and cruise under Tower Bridge, past the stink of Billingsgate, which reminded me of our home town on a hot day and a walk down Whitehall where we caught a glimpse of the then prime minister Harold Macmillan before returning by Tube to King's Cross to take the evening train home.

Happy days, I did take my step-grandson down there in the 1990's and tried to reproduce for him all the fascination and excitement I had experienced as a child but I must admit I couldn't quite manage it. The whole ambience, atmosphere and technology of life has changed too much and you can't just turn the clock back, I think he enjoyed it in any event but I am just so pleased my dear late mother made it happen for me.

Edited By Chris Crew on 27/07/2022 09:15:30

I've enjoyed the one or two episodes that I found by accident, and was impressed by Siddy's knowledge and enthusiasm. I remember when Mornington Crescent was a station, did they ever include it in a program?

According to my mother, she heard the sound of Bow Bells ringing when I was born. That was at St Barts hospital before the war - and would make me a true cockney.

Hi Nick,

I quite agree about the shame visited upon the children of unmarried mothers, but it happened, and there's nothing we can do about other than laugh at it and shake our heads in disbelief. The real irony of my mother's state was that when she herself came to want to get married, her man, my father, was deemed not good enough for my grandparents daughter: he was a lorry driver who left school aged 13/14 whilst she had attended possibly a grammar school and matriculated (the forerunner of GSCE's). This, of course, was from a couple who themselves were unmarried and he was, let's face it, an adulterer. This resulted in all sorts of goings on, including the conception of yours truly, threats to send her away to have the child and give it up for adoption, she was 22 by the way. Ultimately, my father put his foot down and said either marry me, or I'll never speak to you again. They stayed together for over 50 years, had three other children, so who was right and who was wrong?

Ok, I admit it, it appears that Henry's Radio might have been on Edgware Rd. My excuse is that it was 50 years ago!

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw