Hidden London - Fleet Street Station Tour Review

One of the great joys of living in London is its history, and I am particularly interested in the history of its most idiosyncratic transport system - the tube. It is a chaotic mishmash of railways built by competing enterprises that should by rights be a sprawling mess. However through the perseverence and inspired design of many people over many years, it was gradually tamed into the now-familiar network, with its roundel emblem recognised around the world. There is, in my opinion, no greater subway system. Feel free to shout about the New York City Subway, but running all night doesn't make up for the poor frequency of trains and the persistent smell of piss. At the top of its game, the Victoria Line is almost unfeasibly rapid, with the next train often arriving while you're still leaving the platform from the previous one.

The London Underground has been around for 162 years, so it's fair to say that it has a lot of history. The most interesting parts of that history for me are those of its closed stations. Some of these are quite famous, such as Aldwych, the little spur from the Piccadilly Line at Holborn. The London Transport Museum does tours of some of these, under the banner Hidden London. These are all excellent, and I've been on most of them. They aren't always tours of disused stations. Some are of disused areas of currently operating stations. These are sometimes more exciting, as a door in a familiar and well-travelled corridor is opened into a place you never knew was there.

Fleet Street Station is a bit of both. Originally opened in 1873, it is something of an anomaly, being a small branch from the District Line, going to Mansion House. There are a couple of spurious tales regarding its construction. The first, and most widely known canard, is that poor supervision of the District Line led to an argument over its plans. The construction crew split into rival factions, with one tunnelling to Mansion House from Blackfriars, and the other from Fleet Street. A cursory glance at a map of the line exposes this as nonsense. Construction was clearly from Mansion House as the line was already there. The Fleet Street branch was added afterwards, as is clear from its opening two years after the main line extension.

The other story is that newspaper magnate Sir Arthur Upton-Park wanted a station near his offices and had paid the Metropolitan District Railway Company handsomely for one to be built. There is no paperwork to back this up, but I suppose it could have been handled privately.

The more likely explanation is that, like Aldwych, the company had ambitions to further extend the line that never came to fruition.

The station didn't last as long as Aldwych, closing in 1955 following a disastrous timetabling change. As part of a strike settlement that year, the last train from Fleet Street was brought forwards to before last orders at the surrounding pubs, leaving the station with no commuters.

That the station still exists is thanks to the creation of the Thameslink network. Fleet Street tube station had a connection to Holborn Viaduct, and when that was replaced by City Thameslink Station, it was used for access and storage of construction materials.

The Hidden London tour of Fleet Street started with us gathering outside City Thameslink Station. After a bag and ID check (we were entering security-sensitive infrastructure) we were lead like eager kids on a school trip through the station and to a door that on any other day you might imagine led to a cupboard. Beyond it was a narrow passage, crowded with pipes and densely-slung cables. We were advised to mind our heads, which made a nice change from minding the gap. The gap could mind itself for a while.

At the end of this corridor was a large circular chamber, receding into the darkness above us. This had been a lift shaft when the station was still operating. After it had closed, the lifts were removed and eventually used on the Victoria Line, although nobody is certain which station they were installed in.

The place had the feeling of an abandoned civilisation. I took many atmospheric photographs, documenting something long since gone. After a while I became aware that most of the group had followed the other tour guides to the next location. Only one guide remained, patiently waiting for me to finish. They were obliged to do this, as they can't have anyone wandering off on their own. Aside from security considerations, parts of the station could be unsafe. I apologised and dutifully followed them out of the room and down some stairs. When the guide reached the bottom of the stairs they were met by a colleague, and while they conferred I noticed a narrow opening leading off the stairs. I peered in, curious as to where it led.

As I poked my head through, I could hear a strange squeaking, rattling sound. I glanced down at the tour guides. They were ensconced in their own business. Knowing that it was a bad idea but doing it anyway, I stepped through the narrow gap. That this was a very stupid thing to do was very much on my mind when I immediately tripped over something unseen and went sprawling into the filthy darkness.

I picked myself up. Fortunately, the only part of me that was bruised was my ego. Thinking that I should slip back onto the staircase before anyone noticed I was gone, I turned around to face more darkness. There was no hint of the gap I'd passed through. I felt around the wall for it, but found nothing.

"Hello!" I called, and cringed as I heard the panic rising in my voice. "I'm very sorry, but I appear to be lost!"

My words reverberated in the hidden shape of the room, but that was the only reply. I listened keenly, but all I could hear was the same rattling, squeaking noise. I called out again. Where was that opening and why couldn't I find it?

All I could hear was the rattling sound. With no other plan at the ready, I began shuffling in its direction. I couldn't see anything at first, with each step being a small leap into the unknown. I didn't know exactly how, but something about the acoustics of the place suggested I was not about to plunge off a precipice. Eventually the rattling resolved into a more defined clanking, and the squeaking became almost a babble. As worrying as this was, I could also make out some light ahead. Which was encouraging.

I walked towards it and was suddenly blinded by a bright light shining in my eyes.

"Who's that?" a voice called. "You from the office?" He sounded remarkably like Blakey from the ancient TV comedy series On the Buses.

"No," I replied, shielding my eyes with one arm. "I'm lost. Would you mind not shining that torch in my eyes?"

"Oh, right," he replied. "Sorry. Don't get many visitors." He switched the torch off.

I explained that I had become separated from my Hidden London tour, and asked for directions back to the station proper.

"Hidden London?" he replied incredulously. "How do you hide London? It's bleedin' massive."

My sight began to return after being dazzled by his torch beam, and I could make out his silhouette against a doorway. The clanking, rattling and squeaking was coming from behind him.

"What's that noise?" I asked.

"That's the generator," he said as though I was asking an obvious question. A small, dark shape shot past his feet and into the shadows. It was followed by a second, then a third.

"Bugger," he said. "Not again."

He disappeared back through the doorway. With nowhere else to go, I followed him. As I approached the threshold another small dark shape flitted past my shoes. From that distance it was obviously a mouse. There was nothing especially unusual about that. London, and the tube in particular, is infested with mice. What was unusual however, was what I witnessed upon stepping through the doorway.

Beyond was a huge room, like a warehouse but instead of shelves it had row upon row of cages. This was where the noise was coming from. Inside each cage were wheels, and inside each wheel was a mouse, furiously running and turning it. Each wheel fed into a complex system of shafts and cogs, all contributing to the cacophony that filled the vast chamber.

Next to one of the cages was the man who sounded like Blakey from On the Buses, and now I could see him more clearly, he also looked strikingly like him.

He glanced at me warily over his shoulder. "Little buggers chew their way through the bars. God knows how. It must take them generations of gnawing."

"What is this place?" I asked.

"You're really not from the office, are you?" He peered at me, clearly forming some sort of judgement. "If I tell you, you promise not to tell another soul, right?"

I agreed, being fairly certain that whatever the explanation, nobody would believe me.

"Just a minute." He finished his business with the cage and strode to an electrical panel on the wall. He threw a large switch and the full extent of the room was revealed. It was more enormous than I'd imagined, the rows of cages stretching towards an unseeable vanishing point.

"This," he announced grandly, "is the Mega Mouse Matrix."

I was speechless. Now I could see the full scale of the room, the sound of mice running in their wheels and turning cogs in the grand machine was deafening. It was all I could think about.

Blakey, being perhaps used to this reaction, elaborated. "Mega Mouse, meaning a million mice. Of course, the actual number of mice isn't exactly a million, but it's of that order."

I boggled. "But why? What's it for?"

He looked at me as though I were stupid. "It's a generator. It powers the tube."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "What, all of it?"

"Yes, all of it. How did you think it’s powered?" He laughed. "It's not like you can just plug it into a three-pin socket!"

"All of it?" I repeated. I was having trouble taking it in. "Even the District Line?"

"Especially the District Line. That was one of the first all-mouse powered lines in the network," he said proudly.

I realised my mouth was hanging open. "That's amazing," I said, unsure what else I could say. "Do they often escape?" I heard myself ask.

"Every so often. They always seem to go in groups. Funny that. They can't really be organised, can they?" He fussed with his moustache nervously.

"No, that's ridiculous." No more ridiculous than his Mega Mouse Matrix, I thought. "They're just mice."

As though on cue, another mouse went whizzing past us. Blakey lunged at it but it was far too fast for human reflexes. It occurred to me that making them run in wheels all day was probably making them even faster. I decided to keep the observation to myself.

"Help me out here," he said, moving into the doorway and spreading himself like a goalkeeper.

I adopted a similar stance next to him. I felt foolish, but I still didn't know the way out.

"Here they come!"

To my astonishment a dozen or so mice dashed towards us, their tiny black eyes catching pinpricks of light.

"When they get close enough, stamp on the buggers." He lifted up one foot and sure enough brought it down hard. The mice easily swerved to avoid it.

I recoiled from him in horror. "What they hell are you doing?" I demanded.

"Teaching them a lesson," he replied, and stamped again. I turned away from him, not wanting to know whether his attempts were yielding disgusting results. "They have to learn they're better off in their cages," he said, punctuating his words with another vicious stomp.

"This is insane!" I cried. As I searched the room for another exit, I noticed more and more mice pouring across the floor towards the doorway and the murderous Blakey. "Just tell me how to get the hell out of here, please!"

The floor was by then covered with a grey-brown carpet of mice that flowed like a river towards Blakey. I leapt out of its path and made my way along the wall, away from their focus. I could not look back there. I could still hear his feet stamping, but the sound was being lost under a rising tide of squeaking and scrabbling.

Ahead of me I saw an exit sign, its bulb long since dead and thick with dust. My thumping heart rose above the stamping of Blakey's feet, which were disappearing under the towering wave of mice behind me as I raced towards the exit. When I got there I risked a look back. In the doorway I could see only a writhing shape ahead of a million mice. The cages were all empty. The revolution was underway and I wanted no part of it. To my relief the exit was unlocked and led into a tunnel that rose upwards, and from there I took whichever turning took me further away from whatever the hell I had just witnessed.

Finally, I realised I was inside City Thameslink Station. It was peculiarly gloomy, and it took me a short while to realise why.

A member of the station staff approached me, indicating the station's gate line. "Sorry!" she said breezily. "We're closed."

I looked at the gates. Usually green for open or red for closed, they were all nothing for don't know. They were however open.

"Power failure," she said. "Thought we had a backup somewhere, but I guess someone's having a bad day." She shrugged.

I thanked her and made my way outside.

Overall verdict: 1,000,000 mice out of 10.

Who Wants to Join a Writing Group

Writing, for me, is a solitary affair. I like it that way. I like that all the decisions are mine, and until I actually show it to anyone, the entire process is mine. There have, however, been times when I've wondered whether it would speed things up a bit to get some early and earnest feedback from relative strangers. Then I remember the time I actually did so and breathe a sigh of relief. I do not need to go through that again. I can make my mistakes away from the judgement of others. This is the story of the time I joined a writing group. 

This was ten years or so ago. At this point I was going through a fairly productive period of writing short stories. I'd get back from work and hammer out a thousand words or so, then the next evening review what I'd written and hammer out another thousand. Three thousand seemed to be the magic number for me. Anything less was a tough exercise in terseness. Anything more and I could feel the plot getting away from me. I submitted some of them to various publications accepting submissions with some success, but choosing the right places to submit to became increasingly difficult. At the time I'd been using meetup.com to find like-minded people for my other hobbies, and so I thought, why not join a writers group? 

There are many reasons why not, chief amongst them being that the idea of reading my writing aloud in front of people feels like an anxiety dream. But then my rational side told me that this is a fear I should overcome. I should feel confident about reading my words. Didn't I want other people to hear them? 

Not wanting to overthink matters, I found a group meeting upstairs in a pub in Hackney and put it in my calendar. I thought nothing more of it until a week later, when I found myself upstairs in said pub, wondering what on earth I'd been thinking. 

The pub itself was nice enough and typical for the area. High ceilings, wooden floors, and consequent hubbub that can be challenging for ageing ears. Upstairs was thankfully quieter. The general idea was that everyone wrote whatever they wanted, whether it was something they were already working on or something just for the night, then they would read some of it to the group. I chose to write some more of a short story I was already working on, which was about an electric pig moving to London. It was very much in the mould of write what you know. 

I realised I had made a massive mistake about halfway through one of the other writer's reading of their stuff. The first reading had been a little confusing, with the writer not so much introducing their protagonist as assuming everyone already knew who they were. The second reader did the same, and their story was also apparently about a doctor. For the duration of this story I wondered whether I'd bumbled my way into some sort of medical practitioners' confessional group, but shortly afterwards the truth was plain. I had accidentally joined a Doctor Who fanfiction writers' group. 

You may be wondering exactly what is wrong with this. The answer is nothing. It just wasn't what I had in mind when I had joined. Embarrassed by the mistake, and by how long it had taken me to realise it, I didn't feel I could just make my apologies and leave. So while I waited my turn, I frantically rewrote my story in my head. As far as editing techniques go, I found it far too stressful to recommend. 

Time ran out, and I cautiously announced I would be reading from my work-in-progress, Doctor Who and the Electric Pig. This was met with some wry smiles, but my audience's faces soon turned sour as it became obvious that I was making it up as I went along. 

A million years later, I realised I had run out of words, and the group was looking at me with a strange sort of kind curiosity. 

"And that," I said, "is all I have so far." 

One of the group, a tall man wearing an ill-judged fedora, cleared his throat. He had read a story I had initially thought was an allegory for the state of the NHS, but as it turned out, someone or something really was flinging patients out of hospital windows. "I'm a little lost," he asked, "what did the Doctor have to do with your story? Had he made the electric pig, like K9?" 

I didn't see what mountains had to do with it, but I nodded anyway. 

"You do realise," he continued gently, "that this is a Doctor Who fan fiction writing club?" 

There wasn't much point in continuing the pretence. "I do now. But I don't recall the advert saying so." 

"It's clearly called the Rassilon Writer's Society," said a squat man wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt indignantly. 

"I told you that would be misleading," said the tall man. 

"It wasn't my fault!" the squat man objected. He pointed at a woman who had her arms folded and was scowling at him. "It was her idea." 

"Bollocks mate," the woman said, and laughed. She pointed at another of the group, the arms of her huge baggy purple jumper hanging like a bird's wings. "It was her idea." She was pointing to an older woman who was nervously sitting on her own hands. 

"You see?" the squat man asked his tall friend. "I told you this would happen if we let in people from the Blake's 7 group!" 

I mumbled something about needing the loo and sped off down the stairs, buoyed by the squabbling behind me. As I left the building, with the pub door swinging forcefully shut, I breathed in the fresh night air and considered that there were worse things than solitary hobbies.