Slow Travelling Man

Friday 24th October 2025 in the evening

Before I commence the entry about my London wander, I would just like to highlight to you the dangers of travelling back home from the smoke in the early evening whilst under the influence. Having purchased a ‘Off-peak return’ ticket from Tilehurst to London Paddington, it didn’t occur to me that I couldn’t board the train at 1812hrs on a Friday evening & had to wait until 1850hrs to enjoy the benefits of being a tight wad cheap rail travel. Doing what any civilised person would do in this situation, I found the nearest boozer & engaged in a few jars with the locals to while away the time. Deciding I couldn’t afford another pint at £7.35 each, I made my way back to Paddington concourse & finding a suitable train of the high-speed variety, perched myself with my headphone dubries on in the very front carriage. With the train proceeding to become full to the gunwhales, I sat back in my jolly comfortable seat knowing that my stop in Reading would be only 20 odd minutes away. Twasn’t long before long the train slid out of Paddington station into the damp, dark evening & I heard, over the top of Big Country by the band Big Country, the familiar automated voice indicating that the next stop was Bristol Parkway. Now, I must apologise whole heartedly to the surrounding passengers if they actually heard me mention the Northern Canadian province called OHPHUCKIT in quite a loud voice at this point. It was a natural reaction considering I was now destined to sit on a train bound for the West Country for a good hour plus before I could undertake a sharp U-turn at Bristol-in-the-rain, to enjoy a similar return trip back of slightly less duration. Oh, how the ticket lady laughed & laughed. Even my own mother enquired if I was going to be passing Andover at some point in the night… (BTW, if you head to t’Instagram you will find actual video footage as I sped past the end of my road bound for Brizzle).

And so many hours before…

Friday 24th October 2025 in the morning

With the sun shining & a sense that nothing could go wrong, I made my way into London for a wander. A place I’d heard of yonks ago was Kensal Green Cemetery which possessed, as I was led to believe, catacombs, those underground ossuaries of thousands of departed Londoners (yes, I had to look that one up as well), which I understood, was well worth a visit. So, boarding a rather spacious & hardly vandalised Hammersmith & City tube train at London Paddington, I shuffled westwards a few stops to Ladbroke Grove (the station), whereupon I wandered up Ladbroke Grove (the thoroughfare) with lots of posh looking townhouses lining the way. After a mile or so, I passed a less-posh Sainsburys & weird looking water-tower/war of the worlds structure thing. Pondering a swift meal-deal I decided better of it & kept going onwards & upwards until I reached the Grand Union Canal, or rather a bridge over it. I knew the cemetery wasn’t far now because I could actually see it from the canal bridge & before long I had honed in on a rather grand, limestone (I think) fluted, pillared archway (I do like a bit of fluting on my pillars) that indicated the way in. Once inside & much to my amazement, I soon discovered that the site was enormous & went on for miles. It seemed that every spare patch of turf had a gravestone or monument on it. And so I walked on & on in sombre silence, observing the names & dates of those over the years have departed this mortal coil. After a little while I ambled along a mausoleum-lined avenue with a seemingly derelict grand pillared (also fluted) building at the end. This was The Anglican Chapel, complete with colonnades, designed in the Greek revival manner by John Griffith FRIBA (1796-1888). I did not know this at the time so after doing some online research & failing miserably, I plodded back to the grand archway with lovely fluted pillars to seek further assistance from the General Cemetery Company, the bods who own & run the place. I must say the lady who dealt with my enquiries was most helpful & offered me the chance to purchase & actually own a small, but perfectly formed stapled guidebook for £6, or for a more modest £20 I could take with me a larger, more comprehensive, ring-bound booklet. Being the skin-flint that I am I choose the cheaper.

According to my newly acquired concise (stapled) guide costing £6, the graveyard is home to over 250,000 interments from all walks of life & includes: Charles Babbage mathematician, Baroness Byron (Lord Byron’s wife), playwright Harold Pinter, Sir William Siemens co-founder of Siemens, Anthony Trollope novelist, & Lady Wilde, mother of Oscar. Two other personal heroes of mine are the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), & John William Waterhouse, the Pre-Raphaelite inspired artist (1849-1917).

After a few hours of soul searching in the dead centre of London & finding out that the catacombs are only open on Sundays & with an organised guide, I decided to get back to the land of the living. Turning back towards Ladbroke Grove (the thoroughfare) I was momentarily distracted by a public house, or rather the Brutalist block of flats (the Trellick Tower designed by Erno Goldfinger) somewhat behind it, before I then realised I was standing in the middle of Portobello Road. Ooo, this rings a bell thought I & so I decided to have a mooch around. Before long I soon recalled what this road was famous for as set-up in the middle of the road was stall after stall of people selling all sorts of, well, er, tat (not sure if its tat or tatt, anyway never mind). This instantly reminded me of the Harry Enfield sketch where he is selling ‘crap’ at extortionate prices to gullible yups which brought a wry smile to my face, especially as I was weaving my way through swathes of 20 somethings. Eventually after miles of zigzagging & complete & utter tedium caused by looking at ‘crap’, I ended up at the end of Portobello Road & proceeded into that well-known tourist hot spot, Notting Hell, sorry, Notting Hill. This I knew instantly as as every business proudly displayed it on the front of their premises & on jute bags & cuddly toys & any other bit of merch you could possibly think of. Personally, I’m just biding my time waiting for Richard Curtis to write a film called ‘Tilehurst’ & then I’ll be quids-in selling all the Tilehurst branded tat I had made in China a few years back. Bizarrely, it was around here that Frank Skinner (a comedy person) bumped into me which brings the tally of famous people bumping into me to a grand total of 3 this year, the others being Wayne Barnes (a former rugby referee who bumped into me at Lords Cricket Ground) & Ewan McGregor (an actor & motorcycle enthusiast who bumped into me at the ticket gates at Tottenham Court Road Tube Station). I do love that bewildered look I get from famous people when they look at me & wonder where they’ve seen me before..