The Joy of Six 1196

"Animal factories are amongst the worst atrocities ever perpetrated by humanity. Animal factories are inherently cruel and create massive suffering for billions of animals, destroy the environment and even undermine our health." Jane Goodall and Koen Margodt make the case for adopting a plant-based diet.

Iain Sharpe (Mr Dorothy Thornhill) reflects on how elected politicians can hold experts to account in the light of the Post Office Horizon scandal: "Among the reasons for my dear wife's longevity as Elected Mayor of Watford was a willingness to keep asking questions until she got an answer she understood and a sixth sense for when someone's story wasn't stacking up, the latter skill perhaps deriving from her previous career as a schoolteacher." 

"Giving control to Network Rail would lead to the railway being run to suit its needs, rather than those of the passengers. Trying to get Network Rail to change its spots is unrealistic. The railways must be run in a customer-focused way, and that must be at the heart of any structure the Labour Party devises." Christian Wolmar gives his ideas about how a Labour government should reform the railways.

Oliver Wainwright celebrates the survival of the brutalist Park Hill estate in Sheffield: "The current state of the place – still completely derelict at one end, spruced up at the other – reads as a surreal diagram of how attitudes to postwar architecture have shifted over the years, and how an estate can be scrubbed up for sale in different ways".

Kyle Chaka explains why every coffee shop looks the same - it's the tyranny of the algorithm.

"In 1968 Schulz noticed the Civil Rights movement, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and read a letter from Los Angeles schoolteacher Harriet Glickman. She had a question for Schulz: would he include a black child in the Peanuts gang?" Flashbak explains how Charlie Brown acquired a black friend.

Lib Dems can knock holes in the Tories' Blue Wall

One of this blog's established roles is engendering irrational optimism in its Liberal Democrat readers.

So I was naturally drawn to a piece of research by Luke Jeffrey that suggests some Conservative seats in the South of England may be vulnerable to the Lib Dems.

Jeffrey looks at this month's local election results in 82 Tory seats across Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Surrey, West Sussex, East Sussex, Kent, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

He finds that the Lib Dems outpolled the Tories in seven of them: Winchester, Eastleigh, Eastbourne, Chippenham, Cheltenham, Watford, and South Cambridgeshire.

Across these 82 seats, the Lib Dems obtained 24.1 per cent of the vote, up 4.2 per cent on the 2019 general election.

There are, of course, lots of caveats to be entered, and Jeffrey enters all of them, but we must take our hope where we can get it.

The idea of a Blue Wall that may crumble will appeal to the media and a Lib Dem victory in Chesham and Amersham will give that idea more credibility.

And that will gives the Tory government a headache as it is faced with defending its gains in the Red Wall while keeping its traditional voters in the Blue Wall happy.

Particularly as there is nothing in Boris Johnson's journalistic or political career to suggest that be believes in levelling up anything.

Berkhamsted to Guildford by narrow boat in 1965

Another video from the heroic age of canal cruising.

This one starts in Berkhamsted but soon moves on to scenes that are familiar from my childhood.

So at 1:43 you will see the swing bridge at Winkwell, which was the goal of many family walks when we lived in Warners End.

Then at 3:18 it's on to Boxmoor and the Fishery Inn, where the shop sold ice cream and fishing nets. With some friends, I had a den somewhere behind the pub, but when I went back years later I found it had been lost to the expansion of its car park.

And at 3:48 I think we see Foster's Saw Mill, which later burnt down and became the site of our house in Boxmoor

After that we travel south through Watford to the Thames at Brentford. You will see that the canalside industry, which made use of the waterway for transport, was in the process of dying out, though I do remember working boats coming through Boxmoor.

Then we travel upstream on the Thames through Richmond and Kingston, before joining the River Wey to reach Guildford.

Sally Symington to fight South West Herts for the Lib Dems

South West Hertfordshire Liberal Democrats have chosen Sally Symington as their candidate at the next general election.

As she told Hemel Today:

"The Liberal Democrats control the three local councils of Three Rivers, Watford and now St Albans. The Liberal Democrats hold 60 per cent of all council seats within the constituency."

Sally, who is a member of Dacorum Borough Council, stood in Hemel Hempstead constituency at the 2017 election. She was later on the shortlist for Cheltenham, a Lib Dem seat until 2010.

'Symington' is a name with resonanace here in Market Harborough, but I don't know if she is a scion of the soup and corsetry dynasty.

Three websites and a book to accompany Talking Pictures TV

By now you will have discovered Talking Pictures TV, the Freeview channel devoted to old (mainly British) films and television.

But to get the most from it there are three websites and a book you need.

The first website, inevitably, is IMDB. With its help you can spot young actors in their earliest roles and occasionally old actors making a final appearance.

The second website is Reelstreets which posts then and now photographs of the locations of British films.

If you have a difficult location question then you need BritMovie.co.uk, On the boards there are people who, particularly for London locations, can look at a still, get a hunch for the area it was shot and find the answer on Google Streetview in a remarkably short time.

And the book? It can only be Horton's Guide to Britain's Railways in Feature Films.

Talking Pictures TV is showing Night of the Demon again this evening, which features climactic scenes on a railway line.

Horton tells you all you need know:

These scenes were filmed on the Watford-St Albans Abbey branch, particularly around Brickett Wood station, although it is believed that Watford Junction station was also used. The giveaway is when Dana Andrews races into the station to catch the Southampton train (!) and there is a timetable behind giving details of stopping trains to St Albans,

It's the book no film fan can afford to be without.

Steve Benbow and Tommy Eytle

My programme for Cinderella, the 1966 Christmas Panto at the Palace Theatre, Watford, had advertisements too.

Shortly after it arrived I tweeted this one with the words "#Watford nightlife 1966 style".

That turned out to be rather Emily Thornberry tweet, because Steve Benbow (1931-2006) and Tommy Eytle (1926-2007) were both considerable figures.

Benbow's Guardian obituary said he was:

an inspiration to younger players. Davy Graham, whose guitar style affected those of Eric Clapton and Paul Simon, credits him as a primary influence: Benbow introduced him to Moroccan music he had heard while in the forces. Graham told the Guardian last year: "What he taught me was that you should never get stuck in one mode or style."

Eytle's Guardian obituary records that he:

played various society venues such as Esmeralda's Barn, a haunt of the Knightsbridge smart set, eventually taken over by the Krays. His irrepressible act was caught on film in two sequences from The Tommy Steele Story (1957) - with double bassist Chris O'Brien in a Caribbean setting, then fronting his own band on the London stage.

He late turned to acting and was best known for playing Jules Tavernier in EastEnders.

His older brother, Ernest Eytle, was the first West Indian summariser to broadcast on their tests in England for the BBC. They were both friends of Ken 'Snakehips' Johnson.

Three encounters with Glyn Worsnip

Finding a book or piece of ephemera you wanted used to take hard work and lots of luck. Now you just go to eBay.

Sure enough, when I got it into my head to get a copy of the programme for the first pantomime I was taken to – Cinderella at the Watford Palace – it took seconds to find a copy for sale online.

It arrived today, so I can tell you that my first trip to the theatre took place between Boxing Day 1966 and 21 January 1967, so I would have been six years old.

Cinderella, it turns out, was directed by Giles Havergal, who later became famous as director of the Glasgow Citizens Theatre.

The star was David Kernan as Buttons, who had already appeared in Zulu and on television in That Was the Week That Was. He was later to become even more famous in Ned Sherrin’s Side by Side by Sondheim.

I can remember his last scene, singing a song called “I’m Going Away” because his friend Cinderella was marrying Prince Charming. How we loved him!

The Brokers’ Men turn out to have been pretty remarkable too. There was Peter Cleall, soon to be Eric Duffy in the television sit come Please Sir!, and William Simons. He was a child star through the 1950s and is now best known as Alf Ventriss in Heartbeat.

I can even remember one of their jokes more than half a century on:

There were three budgies in a cage. One on the top perch, one on the middle perch and one on the bottom perch. Which budgie owned the cage. 

I don’t know that. Which budgie owned the cage? 

The one on the bottom perch, because the other two were on higher perches.

I must see if I can get it into Lord Bonkers one day.

There is another name on the programme that was once famous. As I remember from the days before I threw my first copy of this programme away (I must have been going through a phase). One of the Ugly Sisters was played by Glyn Worsnip.

In the 1970s, Esther Rantzen’s That’s Life, an odd but successful combination of consumer journalism and light entertainment, was one of the BBC’s most popular programmes. We all moan about Rantzen now, but I remember rather enjoying That's Life at the time and it sometimes featured a topical song from Jake Thackray or Victoria Wood.

Glyn Wornsip was one of two young men in good suits (Kieran Prendiville was the other) who presented the show alongside her.

Move on to the summer of 1978 when I was about to go to university. My mother and I won BBC East’s quiz Joint Account, a show that is so obscure it is not on the BBC Genome site.

In the part of Market Harborough where I lived in those days, and where my mother still lives, you see, people receive East Anglian television and not Midlands.

We did a sort of audition at the BBC in Northampton and then won a heat and the final at the BBC studios in Norwich. It was a general knowledge quiz and I did a specialist round on cricket.

And the quizmaster? Glyn Worsnip.

Move on another six years to my first Liberal Party Assembly, Bournemouth 1984, and Worsnip was there as part of the BBC team.

I said hello and mentioned that I had met him when filming Joint Account in Norwich, but he did not seem keen to be reminded of his days scrabbling around doing minor TV quiz shows now he was a serious political reporter. It’s known in the literature as David Dimbleby Syndrome.

There is a sad postscript to these reminiscences. As Worsnip's Independent obituary (which finds room to mention Joint Account) recorded:

In 1986, he began to show symptoms of the brain disease cerebellar ataxia. His speech became slurred and walking difficult. He was working for BBC radio, presenting the news review Stop Press, Pick of the Week and schools programmes, as well as becoming host of a new series, The Press Gang. His behaviour led people to think he was drunk and, shortly before Christmas 1987, he was sacked from Stop Press after listeners' complaints. 

When cerebellar ataxia was diagnosed, Worsnip was encouraged by his colleagues to "come out'' and the result was A Lone Voice, broadcast on Radio 4 in March 1988. The response from listeners was overwhelming. "I heard from old school, college and university chums I had not seen in 30 years," Worsnip wrote in his autobiography, Up the Down Escalator (1990). "I heard from a mass of disabled people, offering solidarity.'' 

But there was no cure. In his one of his last programmes, for Horizon, he reported on illnesses such as his affecting the brain.

I heard that 1988 broadcast and it was immensely moving. Glyn Worsnip died in 1996.

Six of the Best 756

"If the Conservatives care about the future of their party they would do well to ignore the squeals coming from the swivel eyed ideologues and listen to the warning Lord Heseltine is trying to give his colleagues." George Turner believes Brexit may yet destroy the Conservative Party.

Phil Wainewright says the Remain campaign in the referendum let Britain down by its complacency.

Will plans to divert Metropolitan Line trains into Watford Junction hit the buffers? And if they do will it be Boris Johnson's fault? A fascinating post from London Reconnections.

Passing football began in working-class Lancashire according to Conor Pope.

John Fleming argues that the BBC drama Eric, Ernie and Me rewrote history by pretending the BBC made Morecambe and Wise famous and writing-out their giant success on ITV before they joined the BBC.

As an archaeologist well used to looking at bones, Francis Pryor was interested to handle his own hip joint,

Park Street: The least used station in Hertfordshire

Another in this series of videos from Londonist.

If nothing else, it gives readers a break from the Oswestry to Welshpool line.

The Croxley Green branch today

Last month I publish a video of Watford West in its final days.

This one from Londonist shows that station and the whole branch as they are today, awaiting revival as part of the Metropolitan line.

Watford West station in 1990

Watford West stood on the branch from Watford Junction to Croxley Green. It closed along with the rest of the line in 1996.

This video shows it one evening in 1990 when it was already semi-derelict. For some photographs of it in happier days see the pages for Watford West on Disused Stations.

The line through Watford West is due to reopen as part of the Croxley Rail Link. The station itself will not be revived, as one will be built nearby to serve the local hospital and Vicarage Road stadium.

In 2012 I visited Watford Metropolitan which will also close under these plans.

A strong, practical, passionate woman for Watford

A superior campaign film for the Liberal Democrat candidate for Watford, Dorothy Thornhill. This seat represents one of the party's best hopes for a gain at the the general election.

Note that there is only one kitchen in view throughout.

FA Cup semi-final 1970: Chelsea 5 Watford 1

With Chelsea playing Spurs in an FA Cup semi final tomorrow, here is a reminder of how they won at the same stage in 1970.

And I was there. The game was played on the neutral ground of White Hart Lane.

It's a bit tough on Watford that there goal is not here - it equalised Chelsea's first goal, if I remember correctly.

Note how poor the pitch was, though the one at Wembley for the final was even worse.

I was there too, but didn't go to the replay at Old Trafford. There Chelsea finally overcame Leeds United.

If your team wins the cup when you are 10, life is bound to be a bit of an anticlimax after that.

The Moon Under Water: Watford Central Station?

This is The Moon Under Water on Watford High Street. It is named after George Orwell's vision of the perfect pub, which he revealed in an Evening Standard column in 1946. Somehow I do not think he was envisaging the rise of J.D. Wetherspoon.

But there is a legend about The Moon Under Water: it is that it was intended to be the Metropolitan Railway's Watford terminus. The Wikipedia entry on Watford Met, for instance, says:

The original Watford Central station building was in Watford High Street, opposite the junction with Clarendon Road, and has known many guises. In the 1950s this was the Grange Furniture Store and the original Underground station canopy was still in evidence

and cites Charles Klapper's London's Lost Railways in support of this story.

But is it true? I'm not sure I quite believe the idea of the Metropolitan Railway building a station first and worrying about how it could get a railway to it later.

An article published in the Watford Observer in 2005 gives a more credible version of the history of The Moon Under Water.

First it describes the coming of the Metropolitan to Watford - the line opened in 1925:

The Metropolitan applied together with its GCR partner for powers to build a branch to Watford. Despite determined LNWR opposition, the route was authorised but it was fatally flawed from the outset. 

Watford Council had recently bought part of the Cassiobury Estate and objected to the proposed railway through the town park and recreation gardens. 

The price for their support of the Metropolitan's Bill was the removal of the last essential service of two-thirds of a mile of railway into the centre of Watford High Street.

But that was not the end of things:

An opportunity arose in 1927 for another route to extend the line into the centre of Watford. 

Through a third party, the Metropolitan was able to purchase an existing building at 44 Watford High Street together with two-and-a-half acres of backlands. 

The possibility of a single track extension in tunnel either from the existing station or following a diversionary route around the station was explored. 

Costs were extremely high and no Parliamentary powers were sought. The building was eventually leased out and was disposed of by London Transport in 1936.

So The Moon Under Water might have been the sight of Watford Central station, but it sounds from this as thought the Metropolitan never did any building on this site, merely leasing an existing building.

Unless, of course, you know different.

Looking for St Albans Abbey

Not the Abbey - you can't miss that - but St Albans Abbey railway station.

The branch from Watford Junction does not reach St Albans City, the station used by trains to St Pancras, but has its own little terminus on the edge of the city. St Albans Abbey station was not that well signposted when I looked for it on Saturday, but I liked this little clue I came across on the edge of the Abbey grounds.

And when I found it I was impressed that the line to Watford was electrified and had modern trains of a sensible length operating on it.

One thing that could be improved is the ticketing arrangements. There is nowhere to buy a ticket at St Albans Abbey station and they are not sold on the train, so you have to queue to pay at the excess fares window at Watford Junction.


This line is now looked after by a community rail partnership and there are plans to convert the line to light rail operation to allow a more regular and frequent service.

A search on the web reveals that the city used to have a third station, St Albans London Road, on a line to Hatfield that also used to reach St Albans Abbey.

Watford Metropolitan Station

Looking like a larger version of the other early 20th century house in Cassiobury Park Avenue, this is Watford Station.

One of the more distant outposts of the London Underground, it was opened in 1925. The Metropolitan Railway, who built this branch from Moor Park, envisaged extending the line further to Watford town centre (more of that in a later post), but that never happened. Though if you look back at the station building from beyond the ticket barriers you can see that it was built so there was room for the lines to continue underneath it.

Now Watford Station is threatened with closure because another way of extending the branch has been found. Under the Croxley Rail Link project a new viaduct will be built to link the Metropolitan to the old British Rail branch from Watford Junction to Croxley Green.

This will enable Underground trains to call at Watford High Street station in the town centre and then reach the West Coast Mainline at Watford Junction.

Charming as the current Metropolitan Station is, that will provide a far better service for most passengers. Certainly, part of its charm when I visited it this afternoon (and took a trip to Moor Park and back) was how quiet it was.

The current estimate is that Metropolitan trains will reach Watford Junction in January 2016 and that Watford Metropolitan Station will close at that date.

A local Liberal Democrat councillor, reports the Watford Observer, is campaigning to have it kept open as the terminus for a service to and from another Metropolitan outpost, Amersham. There must be scope for such a service - indeed it is hard to see why it is not being run already - but unless there would be problems with capacity at Watford Junction, it looks as though that service would be more use if ran from there too.