A Trip to London (From Croydon Guardian)

A Trip to London

11:47am Wednesday 17th October 2007

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Starts with a very crowded early Sunday morning bus ride to Hounslow.
Travel in company rather different from when I was young and not so young.
Alight at Hounslow Bus Garage. Bus boarding used to be on the roadside, then changed to off-road boarding when the bus garage was demolished.
Notices say boarding is going back on-road. An office block to be built on the site? Round and round we go and end up back where we started.
Board the Underground at Hounslow East’s new glossy/glassy and no doubt very expensive new station.
I used to sell evening newspapers here at what is now probably an illegally young age. The cry was then “News, Star and Standard”. Now it would just be “Standard”, if any newspaper seller would be allowed to make a street cry these days.
Unless you must use a lift the same experience as 60 odd years ago, you march up and down stairs to and from the platforms and still have limited shelter from the weather. The posters used to ask “Is your journey really necessary?” Now I think “Was all the expenditure really necessary?”
A crowded train to South Kensington. My favourite London Station ever since my mother, shortly after the end of World War II, took us to see the sights of London that the war had stopped us seeing before then.
To the South Kensington Museums the best day out in London then and now.
London Fashion Week visitors provide a fashion side-show whilst we wait to be admitted.
Grandsons insist on starting at The Natural History Museum, yet again.
The animated dinosaur of course. Wonder where the dinosaur that was losing the fight has gone? Was the sight of two animals fighting targeted by the politically correct? Then hither and thither and at last the Blue Whale model. Still as impressive as when I first saw it as a young boy. Still a children’s favourite. Dinosaur again, then our picnic lunch in the splendid, really fit for purpose, school party basement dining area.
Disappointment at the Geographical Museum, what was. No volcano display today.
Science Museum, my favourite, gets a miss. Grandad outvoted.
Hyde Park, chance on the HRH Princess Diana Fountain. Thought it was near the Round Pond. It’s near the Serpentine Swimming Lido. Young kids having a great time paddling. Lucky the weather is fine as there seems to be few if any seats. Wonder if the water is treated appropriately for a paddling pool considering who and what is going in. Do not think current usage is what the design selection committee had in mind.
Expect the Princess would very much approve the children annexing the fountain from the adults. Perhaps they should modify the design to have a children’ paddling pool in the centre of the fountain, or nearby, and let the children have a proper paddle.
Take a turn around the fountain ring, outside and then inside.
Surprised to find it still lacks complete tarmac or paved paths to follow. It is not something you can really appreciate without making a circuit.
Chat to the gentleman trying to keep the site litter free,(we are a mucky lot, even the charity runners scattering their free drink bottles round and about). He tells me that the stonework is now less slippery than it was originally. Just as well considering the unsupervised antics of some of the youngsters. Direct some American visitors towards Kensington Palace with the help of their map. How come we always pick on a stranger to an area when we have to ask the way? Once upon a time you could "ask a policeman", nowadays you could not find one.
Head for the Albert Memorial. When last seen it was undergoing restoration but seem to recall you could get up close. Now it looks ‘all bright and beautiful’ but you could not get near it for the heavyweight fencing. Do hope they open it up sometimes so the details can be seen.
Past the Albert Hall. A close up view of the Imperial College Old Fire Engine, out for the day. Through various twists and turns and back to South Kensington Station through the old sub-way (Not a coffee shop this time).
And so for home.