A Strange Sandwich and Spilt Tea on Route 53

 

(Impressions 1)

A number 53 climbs towards The Star, Plumstead Common Road, Boxing Day 2024

 

Dips and dells mystify the middle vale of the greens between Blendon Terrace’s two ends. Through the trees southward, along Plumstead Common Road, buses appear to dip like boats in a calm swell – at the red sight of which there is always a temptation to run . . . not wanting your correctly numbered vessel to descend into Woolwich without you.

Leaving Woolwich in December sun, 30th 2024

Alone, I would have no tension, but my daughter always wants the front seat on the top deck. Such a position she believes is hers by right, and it fills her with scorn if someone has had the temerity to steal her place and then sit unriveted on the view outside. “They’re not even looking! They are STUCK on their phone!!” Content with a side window (even if stranded in the aisle), I enjoy the ever-changing and unfamiliar views of buildings and people. Meanwhile, she gets out her own phone in disgust . . .

 

Abandoned pub, Wellington Street, Woolwich, 30th Dec 2024. The Star closed in November 2006. Just across the A205 South Circular Road is the Lee Rigby Memorial[ii] Tree

 

As the 53 climbs past the barracks towards Charlton Park, as so often in winter, the light fitfully gives the impression that it is much earlier in the day. The Springfield Grove tower blocks enjoy the sort of position which would have been praised last century for being bracing. Air, light, ozone and freedom must strike them from every point of the compass – or so euphoria exaggerates in my mind. Unfortunately, my camera was unable to reproduce the dazzling silver-city sections of architectural panorama down by the widening Thames in the northern distance – which rotate through the gaps between windows and winter trees:

Springfield Grove, Charlton (Docklands views invisible), Dec 30th 2024

 

Docklands and the Blackwall Tunnel approach from Charlton Road, Dec 30th 2024

Although I did not miss Vanbrugh Park, Blackheath, New Cross nor Bricklayers Arms, for much of this time a leaking tea flask and coleslaw tub prevented snap-shottery. There was nowhere I could put anything down. Following some novel cheese and cabbage sandwiches my daughter had thoughtfully made for us (having mistaken the cabbage in her brother’s fridge for a Romaine lettuce), we were arriving in Elephant & Castle – or so the signs said.

Unrecognisable Elephant & Castle, 30th Dec 2024

 

Apart from the Tube station[iii], which opened in 1890, I barely recognised an area I knew well in the mid-1980s – frequently staying at an old school friend’s squat. Sadly, William Radcliffe disappeared in 1986. If you are out there somewhere Bill, it’d be good to let me know.

            As far as he’d ever been able to discover, Shipley had disappeared sometime in late           1986.  The year after, travelling to Elephant & Castle, Volcano revisited the  zone of London County Council tenements – forbidding citadels ringed with burnt-out cars – where in a high living room he’d often passed the night. Unable to adjust to the lights and traffic noise which never ceased, interspersed with alarms, sirens and ground  level singing and shouting, he never got much sleep. Here – where after dark it was the hobby of local kids to drop lighted matches into the fuel tanks of cars and retire . . .he’d searched for Shipley, talking to acquaintances and those he could find who’d shared the squat. He’d also written to relatives. But of Shipley himself, he’d never found a trace.[iv]


Elephant & Castle, 40 years on, Dec 30th 2024. Only the island of the station is recognisable.

 

            He looked again at the postmark: London S.E.1 8.15PM 24 JNE 1985. This letter had          taken nearly twenty years to arrive. Quite short, it was written from Shipley’s     penultimate squat in one of those ubiquitous five storey blocks. Despite occasional       leaking roofs – which led to the highest floors being unofficially abandoned to squatters   – this enduring housing had been solidly built, much of it having survived the bombing of the Second World War. ‘Bluebottle House’ stood fortified and embattled within a dark brick-red triangle whose points, within the Borough of Southwark, lay at the  Elephant, Borough and more distantly, Bricklayers Arms.

                        From Bluebottle House, across the years and from that summer’s hot and traffic-blurred streets to a rural silence, came this long-lost message:[v] 

 

 “This bus terminates here . . .” Lower Marsh, Westminster Bridge Rd, 30th Dec 2024

Arriving at Lower Marsh, all the passengers alighted, leaving us to be the last to descend the stairs. It seemed vague as a terminus – and in fact, rid of all passengers, the bus carried on afterwards, under the railway girders visible in the picture above – presumably for servicing in readiness for other journeys? Costing only £1.75, the trip had taken about an hour and twenty minutes.

Embankment, 30th Jan 2024

 

We continued on foot, eventually over Westminster Bridge. Having watched as part of a Christmas Film Festival, the 1971 film Melody[vi], the night before[vii], I was tempted to sidetrack into Lambeth and Kennington in search of fading locations, but my daughter’s experience of London is limited and she wanted to see Big Ben, Westminster and Trafalgar Square: “Who was Nelson? Did he kill Napoleon Blown-apart?” I thought she was joking about old Boney’s surname, but that was down to her genuine mishearing.

From Hungerford Bridge, 30th Dec 2024

Merry-go-round, Jubilee Gardens, Dec 30th 2024

 

For some reason the Whitehall and Trafalgar pavements were packed with tourists, so we were fortunate to abruptly get a small table in Waterstones café with an atmospheric view of the Christmas lights in Trafalgar Square. Surprisingly, the coffee was no more expensive than some of the posher joints in Morecambe.

 Memories of the 1970s . . .  Dec 30th, 2024

Under Waterloo Station, 30th Dec, 2024

 

Searching Waterloo for a starting point for bus 53, proved futile. Taking the back route of Mepham Street, on Waterloo Road we passed under the surreal sign depicting Napolean Blownapart’s actual opponent. Such a guise must surely have restricted the Duke of Wellington’s vulnerability:

Sign for The Wellington, 30th Dec 2024

 

A hoped-for alternative bus from almost outside the pub, soon returned us to the route of the 53 at Elephant & Castle. Unfortunately, we had to do without the front seats for most of the return journey and my daughter expended a lot of energy trying to hex the changing procession of passengers who deprived her of her “natural born rights”!

The Wellington on Waterloo Road from Mepham Street, Christmas 2024 

Bus 53 integrates with Woolwich[viii], 30th Dec 2024

The Ship, Plumstead Common, Dec 30th 2024

 A number 53 traverses Plumstead Common, Boxing Day 2024

 Plumstead Common, hooded visitor, 30th Dec 2024

Frying tonight: chips again, 30th Dec, 2024

Heavitree Road Christmas Tree, 30th Dec 2024

 

 

 

© Lawrence Freiesleben,

Heysham, January 2025

[email protected]

 

NOTES    All notes accessed between 17th-23rd January 2025

[i]  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Buses_route_53

 

[ii] www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29742370

 

[iii] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_%26_Castle_tube_station

 

[iv] From Chapter 4 of Maze End (2013): Letters from an Old River

 

[v]  From Chapter 4 of Maze End (2013): Letters from an Old River

 

[vi] imdb.com/title/tt0067418/?ref_=nm_flmg_job_1_cdt_t_51

 

[vii] See the closing paragraphs of my Isle of Portland digression internationaltimes.it/the-isle-of-portland-digression/ for more on Melody/S.W.A.L.K.

 

[viii] Email to my sister: It is great discovering the photos now [ January 20th ] since other than deleting obvious accidental shots checked only on the tiny camera screen, I’ve not had a chance to look at most of them and some, where view and reflection combine, are a real gift. I was aware of trying to get the “lens” (presumably even the cheapest cameras have them?!) in the right place to have both worlds blurring, but you never know for sure what you’ll get and the camera for example often “sees” certain streetlights as much more powerful than others – which your eyes must be averaging out to a degree?

 

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