Flow, Flow, Quick Quick, Flow

Yes, I remember Harold Wood - the name; because one morning of chill the inter city train drew up there unwontedly. It was early April.
No steam hissed (because it was an electric train). I don't remember if anyone cleared his throat, but certainly no one left and no one came, because the doors to the train remained locked. Nor was the platform bare. Hundreds of commuters stood there looking in at us, as we looked out at them. And beyond them what I saw was Harold Wood - only the name.
I did not see, either, willows, haycocks or anything else bucolic because we were in suburbia and any such items would undoubtedly have been annihilated by weedkillers, or collected up in refuse carts. If a blackbird sang, I did not hear it. The double glazed windows of the train saw to that. But what I did hear was the trill of mobile phones. They do not replace birdsong, but they make more and more varied noises as they compete for the attention of their masters (or slaves?) in a crowded train.

The peaceful scene described by Edward Thomas in his original Adlestrop just gives a hint of what was to come several decades later. Because now I dive from rural pleasures to city frenzy. And one thing I have noticed is how the pace of life changes as you near the metropolis.
On London days we set off through deserted roads (with audible blackbirds specially laid on). It is Norfolk, and the county does not have an inch of motorway to its name, but the B1111 serves its purpose. I can cover the 5 miles to the station in six minutes, even dodging six men standing at their shovels in an attempt at road works, and without attracting the attention of the Norfolk Constabulary. There we board something resembling a bus, but it is on rails. The railway is called the Bittern Line (though I would not recognise a bittern even if I was bitten by it). From North Walsham there are several bus stops: Worstead (of weaving fame), Wroxham (home of the Broads) and Salhouse (no news about this place). Twenty minutes later, and dead on time we are delivered to Norwich station.
There, waiting for us, is the London train, doors open, buffet car already selling drinks (plenty of strong coffee on hand to wrench us into alertness).
With a slight jolt (transferring only a small amount of coffee from cup to lap) the train sets off on time for London. Enthusiastically we speed down into Suffolk, the countryside rushing past us, the miles devoured.
It is usually in Essex or Hertfordshire that the pace of life changes. The speeding express slows to a dawdle and then it stops altogether with a screech of brakes. If we are lucky we look at meadowsweet and haycocks dry and even high cloudlets in the sky. But as often as not our view is of the back gardens of a suburban sprawl - or Harold Wood.
These hold-ups, punctuated by reassuring noises from the guard about frozen points, failed signals and drooping overhead power lines, often last half an hour or more.
When the train does reach its London terminus we all frenetically spill out, desperate not to make our lateness any later. In our rush down the platform we form ourselves into a funnel, and soon we are stationary. Our human river starts to flow only by degrees, slowly meandering towards the estuary of the main concourse, forming human ox bow lakes and deltas which empty into the vast sea of London streets.
Some us do not make it to the sea, but pour down the drains of London's Underground. Struggling with the inconvenient ticket machines, designed I suspect by somebody who had never travelled on the tube. At any one time some are out of order, most require exact money only, and the few that are working and give change have attracted their own streams of customers - all scratching their heads as they try to figure out how to work them.
We burst through the dam formed by the ticket barriers and surge down the escalators.
We reach the platform to be told that due to an earlier "incident" all trains are running late. This strikes me as odd. Where do these trains go? Are there deep subterranean sidings where the trains lurk, sneaking out in the dead of night when there are no passengers to see them?
After a lengthy pause a train bulging with passengers crawls in. By emulating a sardine we find a place by the door which forces us into the shape of an angelpoise lamp.
We are further slowed by changing trains. It would be so much more helpful if the trains could be colour coded to tie in with the map. We could then expect to see yellow Circle Line trains, blue for Piccadilly and inevitably black for the Northern Line.
The journey over, we erupt onto the surface like water from artesian wells, five miles from the source and more than half an hour later.
Taxi is no faster, with long motionless moments with only the meter's relentless increase to remind us that we are travelling.
But don't be deceived by this apparent slowness. We reach the office and WHOOSH! With batteries charged by leisurely journeys, the office spends the whole day looking like the opening shots of LA Law. We are in the solicitor factory. Clients surge in at one end and bob out later chock-full of law. My bicycling partner, having ridden to work pedals through his day in top gear, while the one with the motor cycle takes it more sedately, but he is, after all, the senior partner.
Then at the end of it all the tide changes, and we flow back to our slow train, which gradually gets faster as we escape from the clutch of London.
Journeys end and the swift drive home, but who are these? The workmen standing at their shovels have not moved since yesterday. Well perhaps the pace of life in London is faster, so long as you don't travel there, or leave.
Yes.... I have forgotten Harold Wood.
Flow, Flow, Quick Quick, Flow
Yes, I remember Harold Wood - the name; because one morning of chill the inter city train drew up there unwontedly. It was early April.
No steam hissed (because it was an electric train). I don't remember if anyone cleared his throat, but certainly no one left and no one came, because the doors to the train remained locked. Nor was the platform bare. Hundreds of commuters stood there looking in at us, as we looked out at them. And beyond them what I saw was Harold Wood - only the name.
I did not see, either, willows, haycocks or anything else bucolic because we were in suburbia and any such items would undoubtedly have been annihilated by weedkillers, or collected up in refuse carts. If a blackbird sang, I did not hear it. The double glazed windows of the train saw to that. But what I did hear was the trill of mobile phones. They do not replace birdsong, but they make more and more varied noises as they compete for the attention of their masters (or slaves?) in a crowded train.

The peaceful scene described by Edward Thomas in his original Adlestrop just gives a hint of what was to come several decades later. Because now I dive from rural pleasures to city frenzy. And one thing I have noticed is how the pace of life changes as you near the metropolis.
On London days we set off through deserted roads (with audible blackbirds specially laid on). It is Norfolk, and the county does not have an inch of motorway to its name, but the B1111 serves its purpose. I can cover the 5 miles to the station in six minutes, even dodging six men standing at their shovels in an attempt at road works, and without attracting the attention of the Norfolk Constabulary. There we board something resembling a bus, but it is on rails. The railway is called the Bittern Line (though I would not recognise a bittern even if I was bitten by it). From North Walsham there are several bus stops: Worstead (of weaving fame), Wroxham (home of the Broads) and Salhouse (no news about this place). Twenty minutes later, and dead on time we are delivered to Norwich station.
There, waiting for us, is the London train, doors open, buffet car already selling drinks (plenty of strong coffee on hand to wrench us into alertness).
With a slight jolt (transferring only a small amount of coffee from cup to lap) the train sets off on time for London. Enthusiastically we speed down into Suffolk, the countryside rushing past us, the miles devoured.
It is usually in Essex or Hertfordshire that the pace of life changes. The speeding express slows to a dawdle and then it stops altogether with a screech of brakes. If we are lucky we look at meadowsweet and haycocks dry and even high cloudlets in the sky. But as often as not our view is of the back gardens of a suburban sprawl - or Harold Wood.
These hold-ups, punctuated by reassuring noises from the guard about frozen points, failed signals and drooping overhead power lines, often last half an hour or more.
When the train does reach its London terminus we all frenetically spill out, desperate not to make our lateness any later. In our rush down the platform we form ourselves into a funnel, and soon we are stationary. Our human river starts to flow only by degrees, slowly meandering towards the estuary of the main concourse, forming human ox bow lakes and deltas which empty into the vast sea of London streets.
Some us do not make it to the sea, but pour down the drains of London's Underground. Struggling with the inconvenient ticket machines, designed I suspect by somebody who had never travelled on the tube. At any one time some are out of order, most require exact money only, and the few that are working and give change have attracted their own streams of customers - all scratching their heads as they try to figure out how to work them.
We burst through the dam formed by the ticket barriers and surge down the escalators.
We reach the platform to be told that due to an earlier "incident" all trains are running late. This strikes me as odd. Where do these trains go? Are there deep subterranean sidings where the trains lurk, sneaking out in the dead of night when there are no passengers to see them?
After a lengthy pause a train bulging with passengers crawls in. By emulating a sardine we find a place by the door which forces us into the shape of an angelpoise lamp.
We are further slowed by changing trains. It would be so much more helpful if the trains could be colour coded to tie in with the map. We could then expect to see yellow Circle Line trains, blue for Piccadilly and inevitably black for the Northern Line.
The journey over, we erupt onto the surface like water from artesian wells, five miles from the source and more than half an hour later.
Taxi is no faster, with long motionless moments with only the meter's relentless increase to remind us that we are travelling.
But don't be deceived by this apparent slowness. We reach the office and WHOOSH! With batteries charged by leisurely journeys, the office spends the whole day looking like the opening shots of LA Law. We are in the solicitor factory. Clients surge in at one end and bob out later chock-full of law. My bicycling partner, having ridden to work pedals through his day in top gear, while the one with the motor cycle takes it more sedately, but he is, after all, the senior partner.
Then at the end of it all the tide changes, and we flow back to our slow train, which gradually gets faster as we escape from the clutch of London.
Journeys end and the swift drive home, but who are these? The workmen standing at their shovels have not moved since yesterday. Well perhaps the pace of life in London is faster, so long as you don't travel there, or leave.
Yes.... I have forgotten Harold Wood.

This article first appeared in Solicitors Journal May 1998