I Commute By Tube

For the past three weeks, my eldest son has been travelling to his work experience placement in Spitalfields from Stockwell and I started him off on this adventure by travelling with him for the first couple of days.

I'd forgotten what a full-on sensory experience travelling on the London underground at 8am is, something I did every day as a schoolgirl.  Back then, my life began when I came across TS Eliot's The Wasteland.  I met a poet (whatever you think of him otherwise) who understood the reality of my daily encounters with the hordes in this unreal city,  Until then, I'd felt very much alone with my discomfort.

On these journeys, what I've found most noticeable is not the famous lack of conversation and eye contact (this I remembered), not even the proximity, in the morning or early evening crush, of alien armpits and buttocks, nor the noise of the trains and escalators, but my re-connection with the fug of bodily and metallic heat.

Each change from the Northern to Central lines at Bank has felt like a premature menopausal episode:  I've endured whorls of heavy warmth, the descent of particles of dirt into every pore, red-faced sweat and the overwhelming desire to return to base for another shower.

The London underground is an amazing feat of public transport, and after twenty or more years in Shropshire, I always enjoy looking around at the diversity of people who use it.  Coming back on the Northern line this afternoon, after treating my son to lunch, a group of eight or so children were in the same carriage, swinging from the bars, dancing to their own music in the aisles, unconcerned about the usual rules of subdued dress code, absolutely no talking or smiling, about the looks of disdain from other passengers.  I thought them wonderful to be so free, so far underground, and I told them so.

I'm glad the tube is no longer part of my daily commute.  There's a madness about it - the multiple streams of people, the ubiquity these days of tiny headphones, and the peculiar need for tall people to bend slightly to fit the shape of the train if they're wedged in too close to the doors.

I Return to Highbury

I am an Arsenal supporter for a reason - I grew up in Highbury, North London, and, although I only went to one Arsenal game during my childhood, the red and white striped scarves my granny knitted for me and my three brothers helped me to tie up my identity.

Now, whenever I stay in London, I stay in Brixton which is at the other end of the light blue Victoria line from Highbury.  When I arrive at Euston from Shropshire, I have to turn south deliberately, though I'm always tugged north.

Yesterday, on a whim, I decided to go north. Once I'd given in to it, my body remembered the journey, remembered the length of time it takes to travel from King's Cross to Highbury and Islington, the longest tunnel on the underground.  I remembered to turn right on the platform as I got off the tube, to bear right on the stairs, then left at the top before reaching the escalator.

There've been some changes in the ticket hall: there are automatic barriers activated by the touch of Oyster cards, the additional platforms for the new overground lines, the new way out.  But the ticket offices are exactly where they were when my mother used to buy my season ticket for my journey to school.

It's twenty-five years, nearly, since I've seen my mother.  It's thirty-five since the last time I came past the ticket collector to find her waiting, just inside the entrance, within earshot of the cries of the seller of the Socialist Worker.

It didn't happen often, but I loved being met by her, then walking up through Highbury Fields, chatting about my day as we passed the Georgian terraces, the pool where Vera taught me to swim, the grass where I found out I was good at hitting a rounders ball, the tennis courts where we pretended to play at Wimbledon, the netball courts where I spent hours practising my shots.

Before I was old enough to travel on my own, I used to walk the same route with her back from the library, from the swings. from visits to parishioners.  At one point, where two parallel paths are divided by black iron railings, I'd habitually go to the left, my mother to the right.  Yesterday, I noticed that the gap created by a missing railing, through which I used to wriggle eagerly to get back to her, is still there.