After an excellent journey to the capital, an unexpectedly treat of a day on Monday visiting the town where my first purchased home is located, seeing Shutter Island at Kingston and La Boheme at Wimbledon, taking the tram for almost length of its track, a family meal and lots of chat, deciding what to do with my third full day and something which would add to the experience posed a problem. My pre journey intention had been to visit the new Renaissance exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum and /or the Henry Moore retrospective at the Tate but if the weather as good then I fancied a trip to Richmond, taking the bus from Kingston, and passing Ham and Petersham, alighting at the Thames riverside and going on to the Green, one of the most picturesque in all the British Islands, lunching, having a walk around, taking a river bus trip, assuming their continuing operation, perhaps then continuing on the sixty five to Ealing where I had worked between 1967 and 1970, not that I remembered the number of the bus when considering the options.
All this seemed unlikely when I opened the curtains of the room Croydon and looked towards the Nestle building and the main road passed the Fairfield Halls, towards the Local authority buildings where I had worked for the Finance department in late 950’s and noticed the grey skies which looked full of rain. I decided that I would nevertheless take the bus to Kingston and if weather had not improved take the train from there to Waterloo.
I arrived at the bus stop in good time and was able to take a raised seat midway in the bus, able to pay greater attention to the other passengers and the places passed, remembering previous associations. A retired couple behind me provided a running commentary and at the Fairfield Halls reminisced at a past era. Passing between Beddington and Park and Wallington Green and I remembered the where a Liberal parliamentary Candidate lived whose children attended the same school and church and where we had gone Carol singing one Christmas as teenagers. In those days he lost his deposit gaining only a few votes whereas today the Sutton Council has a Liberal Democrat majority and a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament. After Carshalton pond we passed the former music store, now selling clocks where another former pupil lived above with his family.
At the station stop in Kingston I alighted in front of a Wetherspoons pub offering their three sausages and chips with beans for £3.99. This was irresistible. This is a giant of a Wetherspoons with two large seating areas and a horde of young staff who appeared to be enjoying their working day. The meal came surprisingly quickly given the number of people in the pub restaurant and someone came to check that I was satisfied with the food soon after it had been delivered. It was noon and I realised that Prime Minister’s Question Time was showing with sub titles. I was too lazy to move. However on going to the gents before making my way, I noticed that the House remained full and Chancellor of the Exchequer William Darling was on his feet. It was budget day.
After making myself comfortable I found a table close to a screen and watched the rest of his speech. In total he said nothing other than remind of the Government‘s performance and previously stated policies and decisions to do nothing to lessen the impact of the recession, to protect jobs as much a possible and to stimulate the economy in the best possible of ways. He explained the plans to reduce the national deficit with the forecast reduced by some 11 billions from 178 to 167 because improvements in employment, reductions in benefit payments and other measures. The only new announcement was to double the price of a property to a quarter of a million before stamp duty has to be paid and this will be offset by charging an additional 5% on properties worth more than £1 million. The speech will have placed the Conservatives in a difficult situation because their only accurate from of criticism would be to criticise the failure to cut public expenditure and not raising more taxes, both of which would have been electorally disastrous alienating the centre and their own core supporters. They therefore concentrated on criticising the government leadership and its personalities
I then went in search of the bus station and the bus to Richmond having remembered, so I thought, the way through the town centre having passed the bus station earlier. I was wrong and soon found myself close to the Kingston College and a one way system back into the centre of town where in a side street were not one but two 65 buses to Richmond and Ealing parked on their turnaround and with a small queue of people waiting at the bus stop for the first of these buses to recommence their journey. This had been a great stroke of luck because the bus then filled with standing room only accommodation at the next two stops through the town centre
After leaving the town centre where the traffic is always heavy because of the Thames and the one bridge crossing we moved quickly into the pleasant suburbs and then to a stretch of still magical England with the green at Ham surrounded by fine houses and cottages. Ham is across the way from Teddington Lock at the end of the long Teddington High Street which I had walked its length on the Monday.
It is possible to walk the whole stretch of the river thanes on this side of the River to Ham, Petersham and Richmond, whereas mention on the other side private housing and private roads restrict and discourage entry to the river bank. There is a pond to one side of the Common and a short walk on the other side of the road and one is in the vast acres of Richmond Park. Unless one is a good walker then a car is required for Richmond Park where there is an excellent refreshment facility at its centre in the former home of the first Earl Russell, Pembroke Lodge where I took my birth and care mothers and aunt to tea during their last years together having parked at the Richmond Green beforehand. I had also attended a Home Office Children’ s department arranged course at Strawberry Hill on the other side of the Park over three and half square miles and three times the size of New York’s Central Park. The Royal ballet school is within the park as is the Metropolitan police command centre for all the Royal parks.
A little further along this pleasant road of twists and turns is Petersham with its meadow land under Richmond Hill from which here are impressive view across this part of the Thames valley. There is a gatehouse road into the Park. The bus then continue on a road with the river to one side and the lower slopes of Richmond Hill on the other and this where I alighted rather than continue to the town centre. The sun was shining again and it was pleasantly warm. I unbuttoned my coat. I debated continue down a path to the river bank but thought I would do this later and enquire if there was a river bus back to Kingston. I have with the past five years taken the river boat from Hampton Court to Richmond. I was once interviewed for a senior post with the London Borough of Richmond but political background was not suited. I also recalled making a special journey to the Curzon Cinema and Water Lane to see a film about the Spanish Civil War.
Instead of going down to the river I walked up a steep bank into the Richmond Hill road of art galleries, antique shops and restaurants before retracing steps down to one of the two Odeon Cinema across from the Richmond Bridge which goes to Twickenham and Teddington. Someone has written that in 200 years the only things that have changed is the emergence of the International Rugby Union stadium at Twickenham and the constant flying of planes landing or taking off at Heathrow, although there was not much evidence of this on the day. I needed another visit to the loo and headed for John Lewis and had great difficulty in locating the toilets which are unmarked in the far corner of the second floor, obviously aimed at preventing steady stream of visitors like me. I was able to assist two middle aged women who were on a similar search.
Comfortable once more it was time to make for the wonderful Richmond Green and I thought I would look out the mansion which I had noted for sale in Saville’s. Later on line I learned that the asking price is £6.5 million for this four story property with its own pleasant gardens but overlooking the Green and with very spacious drawing rooms, many bedrooms rooms, and a guest flat or one for staff as garden flat, similar in fact to the situation at my former home in Teddington, There is a double garage and off street parking for five vehicles including access to Old Palace Yard. Located within walking of the Riverside and Parkland it is a dream location in a small town full of antique and art shops and good food restaurants. Oh to win the European Lottery for a win of £20million would be needed to look after the extended family, to purchase and adapted property for my project and arrange and endowment to secure its future from the tax man. I entered the Green by the famous Cricketers Pub and it is on this Green that the first Cricket match between Middlesex and Surrey was played in 1730 although here is reference to cricket being played here in 1666. Croydon also played Chertsey in 1736 thus combining links however loose ones which have drawn me to the town. Most of the benches around the Green were occupied but saw one on the far side and making my way I then stopped having noticed a lot of people outside the Richmond Theatre which is one side of an extension to the Green. Wednesday, Matinee time and it was 2.15.
Then the Gods looked down on me, beaming. There was a performance of the Willie Russell masterpiece Blood Brothers, undertaking its 25th anniversary tour. I could have a seat in the second row at the. I was able to sit with vacant seats on either side and a clear view between the pair of seats in front. I was in wonderland. The rest of the large theatre was full. I has a double chocolate ice cream at the Interval.
The Richmond Theatre on Little Green was built in 1899 and is the outstanding example of a Frank Matchem Theatre with a tradition interior of stalls, dress and upper circle full of gilt and plush red fabric. The Theatre has been used many film and TV productions such as Evita, Neverland and Jonathan Creek and remains capable of productions prior to the West end as well as professional Touring companies. It echoes back to the great era of the musical hall and pantomime
Blood Brothers is one of the longest running West end production in musical history with a tragic moving story, great music and a clever concept imaginatively presented. It features a Catholic Merseyside woman with five children whose husband runs off with a younger Marilyn Munroe lookalike, leaving her to fend on the dole, ordering more goods than she can ever afford from the catalogues. She gets a job cleaning for a middle class housewife with no children and finding herself having twins reluctantly agrees to give one of the two to the childless employer. The woman cannot cope with the situation and having agreed that the mother would be able to see her other so grow up through he continuing work, she persuades her husband to agree to their moving away after the two boys become close friend and make themselves into blood brothers.
When the mother and her six children are rehoused to a new estate on the outskirts of Liverpool they two boys, now young men encounter and re-establish their friendship together with a young girl who adores the working class half who is unable to express his affection while the middle class lad also adores the girl but recognises the prior claim of the other as well as the girl’s preference. When the middle class lad goes away to university, the couple are required to get wed and no sooner does the lad settle down living with their mother he is made redundant and then persuaded to participate in an armed robbery by his elder brother. in which someone is shot and the younger man is sent to prison for seven years, destroyed emotionally by the experience he returns to his family dependent on pills. In desperation his wife turns to his still unknown to them twin brother, now a councillor, for help to get a job and their own council home. The working class lad misinterprets the relationships and enter the Council premises with a gun. He is warmed by an armed police response team.
As a prologue we witness this last scene in which the brothers have been killed and we are told it was part of a curse a warning that should the two ever find out their relationship they would die. In order to prevent the middle class son killing the other, their mother reveals the truth and one shoots the other, with the police shooting the remaining twin.
The musical play demonstrates the strength of my dictum that what we do and say remains with us throughout our lives and with those involved. The main message of the play is one of class and when the two lads get into trouble with the police, one is given a final warning and other advice to keep away from the working class district. There are six principles in the cast. The Mother - Mrs Johnston and her twin son Mickey, Mrs Lyon and the other twin son Edward, the girl Linda and the narrator/chorus /conscience/prophet. Among those who have features as Mrs Johnston are Stephanie Lawrence, Clodagh Rogers, Kiki Dee and four of the Nolan Sisters, with Spice girl Mel among the latest. Russell Crow appeared as Mickey in the Australian production. Petula Clark made her Broadway debut in the work with the Cassidy brothers playing the twins. There has been a Japanese production and boot leg productions in many languages as well as official tours around the world.
Adults play the children and then the adolescents with considerable insight and naturalness and it is this aspect which has made the musical an essential introduction to the theatre for many young people, often brought to schools by the groups of actors. On Wednesday there was a party of fifth or sixth formers who enjoyed the show immensely , some moved to tears at the end. especially the girls who reacted to the jokes and aside about adolescent sexual and emotional fumblings of the boys. Despite knowing from the outset what the end will be there was still a strong emotional outburst from the audience followed by prolonged applause and a standing ovation, something which the show has experienced over the past 25 years everywhere everytime.
I made my way, joyously, back by bus to Kingston, then by train to Wimbledon and Tram to Croydon getting in after seven. I made by way from the Theatre and to where I thought there might be a bus stop in the one way system discovering a mini bus station down a side street and where a 65 bus arrived within seconds.
There was just time for the lady waiting on the seat next tome to hand me a tract from the Bible. She must have been clairvoyant for I was having a brief erotic memory Over forty years ago I was without my car and I had taken the 65 at Ealing to Kingston and then got a bus to my home in Teddington. This was in the late 1960‘s when girls were wearing the shortest of skirts for the first time. Unable to get a seat I had to go upstairs and look up had been startled by the rear of an attractive girl who had turned round and look back at me smiling. She went further inside the bus and I took a seat at the front for the different form of view.
I then made a mess of using the Oyster card for the first time. Again I arrived at Kingston station to find a train being announced so I rushed hoping that I had correct used the Oyster Card to gain entry, but I think I had the card in the holder the wrong way round. At Wimbledon I went straight to the Platform for the tram but the card did not register and I was told to seek help. Being rush hour the attendant was very busy but he eventually helped taking the correct amount from the card for the journey from Kingston. However I was not sure the card registered for tram trip. I thought the card had an initial deposit of £3 showing plus the £5, When I checked the following day there was only £1.10 in credit so a great mystery. However it had been another great day.
All this seemed unlikely when I opened the curtains of the room Croydon and looked towards the Nestle building and the main road passed the Fairfield Halls, towards the Local authority buildings where I had worked for the Finance department in late 950’s and noticed the grey skies which looked full of rain. I decided that I would nevertheless take the bus to Kingston and if weather had not improved take the train from there to Waterloo.
I arrived at the bus stop in good time and was able to take a raised seat midway in the bus, able to pay greater attention to the other passengers and the places passed, remembering previous associations. A retired couple behind me provided a running commentary and at the Fairfield Halls reminisced at a past era. Passing between Beddington and Park and Wallington Green and I remembered the where a Liberal parliamentary Candidate lived whose children attended the same school and church and where we had gone Carol singing one Christmas as teenagers. In those days he lost his deposit gaining only a few votes whereas today the Sutton Council has a Liberal Democrat majority and a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament. After Carshalton pond we passed the former music store, now selling clocks where another former pupil lived above with his family.
At the station stop in Kingston I alighted in front of a Wetherspoons pub offering their three sausages and chips with beans for £3.99. This was irresistible. This is a giant of a Wetherspoons with two large seating areas and a horde of young staff who appeared to be enjoying their working day. The meal came surprisingly quickly given the number of people in the pub restaurant and someone came to check that I was satisfied with the food soon after it had been delivered. It was noon and I realised that Prime Minister’s Question Time was showing with sub titles. I was too lazy to move. However on going to the gents before making my way, I noticed that the House remained full and Chancellor of the Exchequer William Darling was on his feet. It was budget day.
After making myself comfortable I found a table close to a screen and watched the rest of his speech. In total he said nothing other than remind of the Government‘s performance and previously stated policies and decisions to do nothing to lessen the impact of the recession, to protect jobs as much a possible and to stimulate the economy in the best possible of ways. He explained the plans to reduce the national deficit with the forecast reduced by some 11 billions from 178 to 167 because improvements in employment, reductions in benefit payments and other measures. The only new announcement was to double the price of a property to a quarter of a million before stamp duty has to be paid and this will be offset by charging an additional 5% on properties worth more than £1 million. The speech will have placed the Conservatives in a difficult situation because their only accurate from of criticism would be to criticise the failure to cut public expenditure and not raising more taxes, both of which would have been electorally disastrous alienating the centre and their own core supporters. They therefore concentrated on criticising the government leadership and its personalities
I then went in search of the bus station and the bus to Richmond having remembered, so I thought, the way through the town centre having passed the bus station earlier. I was wrong and soon found myself close to the Kingston College and a one way system back into the centre of town where in a side street were not one but two 65 buses to Richmond and Ealing parked on their turnaround and with a small queue of people waiting at the bus stop for the first of these buses to recommence their journey. This had been a great stroke of luck because the bus then filled with standing room only accommodation at the next two stops through the town centre
After leaving the town centre where the traffic is always heavy because of the Thames and the one bridge crossing we moved quickly into the pleasant suburbs and then to a stretch of still magical England with the green at Ham surrounded by fine houses and cottages. Ham is across the way from Teddington Lock at the end of the long Teddington High Street which I had walked its length on the Monday.
It is possible to walk the whole stretch of the river thanes on this side of the River to Ham, Petersham and Richmond, whereas mention on the other side private housing and private roads restrict and discourage entry to the river bank. There is a pond to one side of the Common and a short walk on the other side of the road and one is in the vast acres of Richmond Park. Unless one is a good walker then a car is required for Richmond Park where there is an excellent refreshment facility at its centre in the former home of the first Earl Russell, Pembroke Lodge where I took my birth and care mothers and aunt to tea during their last years together having parked at the Richmond Green beforehand. I had also attended a Home Office Children’ s department arranged course at Strawberry Hill on the other side of the Park over three and half square miles and three times the size of New York’s Central Park. The Royal ballet school is within the park as is the Metropolitan police command centre for all the Royal parks.
A little further along this pleasant road of twists and turns is Petersham with its meadow land under Richmond Hill from which here are impressive view across this part of the Thames valley. There is a gatehouse road into the Park. The bus then continue on a road with the river to one side and the lower slopes of Richmond Hill on the other and this where I alighted rather than continue to the town centre. The sun was shining again and it was pleasantly warm. I unbuttoned my coat. I debated continue down a path to the river bank but thought I would do this later and enquire if there was a river bus back to Kingston. I have with the past five years taken the river boat from Hampton Court to Richmond. I was once interviewed for a senior post with the London Borough of Richmond but political background was not suited. I also recalled making a special journey to the Curzon Cinema and Water Lane to see a film about the Spanish Civil War.
Instead of going down to the river I walked up a steep bank into the Richmond Hill road of art galleries, antique shops and restaurants before retracing steps down to one of the two Odeon Cinema across from the Richmond Bridge which goes to Twickenham and Teddington. Someone has written that in 200 years the only things that have changed is the emergence of the International Rugby Union stadium at Twickenham and the constant flying of planes landing or taking off at Heathrow, although there was not much evidence of this on the day. I needed another visit to the loo and headed for John Lewis and had great difficulty in locating the toilets which are unmarked in the far corner of the second floor, obviously aimed at preventing steady stream of visitors like me. I was able to assist two middle aged women who were on a similar search.
Comfortable once more it was time to make for the wonderful Richmond Green and I thought I would look out the mansion which I had noted for sale in Saville’s. Later on line I learned that the asking price is £6.5 million for this four story property with its own pleasant gardens but overlooking the Green and with very spacious drawing rooms, many bedrooms rooms, and a guest flat or one for staff as garden flat, similar in fact to the situation at my former home in Teddington, There is a double garage and off street parking for five vehicles including access to Old Palace Yard. Located within walking of the Riverside and Parkland it is a dream location in a small town full of antique and art shops and good food restaurants. Oh to win the European Lottery for a win of £20million would be needed to look after the extended family, to purchase and adapted property for my project and arrange and endowment to secure its future from the tax man. I entered the Green by the famous Cricketers Pub and it is on this Green that the first Cricket match between Middlesex and Surrey was played in 1730 although here is reference to cricket being played here in 1666. Croydon also played Chertsey in 1736 thus combining links however loose ones which have drawn me to the town. Most of the benches around the Green were occupied but saw one on the far side and making my way I then stopped having noticed a lot of people outside the Richmond Theatre which is one side of an extension to the Green. Wednesday, Matinee time and it was 2.15.
Then the Gods looked down on me, beaming. There was a performance of the Willie Russell masterpiece Blood Brothers, undertaking its 25th anniversary tour. I could have a seat in the second row at the. I was able to sit with vacant seats on either side and a clear view between the pair of seats in front. I was in wonderland. The rest of the large theatre was full. I has a double chocolate ice cream at the Interval.
The Richmond Theatre on Little Green was built in 1899 and is the outstanding example of a Frank Matchem Theatre with a tradition interior of stalls, dress and upper circle full of gilt and plush red fabric. The Theatre has been used many film and TV productions such as Evita, Neverland and Jonathan Creek and remains capable of productions prior to the West end as well as professional Touring companies. It echoes back to the great era of the musical hall and pantomime
Blood Brothers is one of the longest running West end production in musical history with a tragic moving story, great music and a clever concept imaginatively presented. It features a Catholic Merseyside woman with five children whose husband runs off with a younger Marilyn Munroe lookalike, leaving her to fend on the dole, ordering more goods than she can ever afford from the catalogues. She gets a job cleaning for a middle class housewife with no children and finding herself having twins reluctantly agrees to give one of the two to the childless employer. The woman cannot cope with the situation and having agreed that the mother would be able to see her other so grow up through he continuing work, she persuades her husband to agree to their moving away after the two boys become close friend and make themselves into blood brothers.
When the mother and her six children are rehoused to a new estate on the outskirts of Liverpool they two boys, now young men encounter and re-establish their friendship together with a young girl who adores the working class half who is unable to express his affection while the middle class lad also adores the girl but recognises the prior claim of the other as well as the girl’s preference. When the middle class lad goes away to university, the couple are required to get wed and no sooner does the lad settle down living with their mother he is made redundant and then persuaded to participate in an armed robbery by his elder brother. in which someone is shot and the younger man is sent to prison for seven years, destroyed emotionally by the experience he returns to his family dependent on pills. In desperation his wife turns to his still unknown to them twin brother, now a councillor, for help to get a job and their own council home. The working class lad misinterprets the relationships and enter the Council premises with a gun. He is warmed by an armed police response team.
As a prologue we witness this last scene in which the brothers have been killed and we are told it was part of a curse a warning that should the two ever find out their relationship they would die. In order to prevent the middle class son killing the other, their mother reveals the truth and one shoots the other, with the police shooting the remaining twin.
The musical play demonstrates the strength of my dictum that what we do and say remains with us throughout our lives and with those involved. The main message of the play is one of class and when the two lads get into trouble with the police, one is given a final warning and other advice to keep away from the working class district. There are six principles in the cast. The Mother - Mrs Johnston and her twin son Mickey, Mrs Lyon and the other twin son Edward, the girl Linda and the narrator/chorus /conscience/prophet. Among those who have features as Mrs Johnston are Stephanie Lawrence, Clodagh Rogers, Kiki Dee and four of the Nolan Sisters, with Spice girl Mel among the latest. Russell Crow appeared as Mickey in the Australian production. Petula Clark made her Broadway debut in the work with the Cassidy brothers playing the twins. There has been a Japanese production and boot leg productions in many languages as well as official tours around the world.
Adults play the children and then the adolescents with considerable insight and naturalness and it is this aspect which has made the musical an essential introduction to the theatre for many young people, often brought to schools by the groups of actors. On Wednesday there was a party of fifth or sixth formers who enjoyed the show immensely , some moved to tears at the end. especially the girls who reacted to the jokes and aside about adolescent sexual and emotional fumblings of the boys. Despite knowing from the outset what the end will be there was still a strong emotional outburst from the audience followed by prolonged applause and a standing ovation, something which the show has experienced over the past 25 years everywhere everytime.
I made my way, joyously, back by bus to Kingston, then by train to Wimbledon and Tram to Croydon getting in after seven. I made by way from the Theatre and to where I thought there might be a bus stop in the one way system discovering a mini bus station down a side street and where a 65 bus arrived within seconds.
There was just time for the lady waiting on the seat next tome to hand me a tract from the Bible. She must have been clairvoyant for I was having a brief erotic memory Over forty years ago I was without my car and I had taken the 65 at Ealing to Kingston and then got a bus to my home in Teddington. This was in the late 1960‘s when girls were wearing the shortest of skirts for the first time. Unable to get a seat I had to go upstairs and look up had been startled by the rear of an attractive girl who had turned round and look back at me smiling. She went further inside the bus and I took a seat at the front for the different form of view.
I then made a mess of using the Oyster card for the first time. Again I arrived at Kingston station to find a train being announced so I rushed hoping that I had correct used the Oyster Card to gain entry, but I think I had the card in the holder the wrong way round. At Wimbledon I went straight to the Platform for the tram but the card did not register and I was told to seek help. Being rush hour the attendant was very busy but he eventually helped taking the correct amount from the card for the journey from Kingston. However I was not sure the card registered for tram trip. I thought the card had an initial deposit of £3 showing plus the £5, When I checked the following day there was only £1.10 in credit so a great mystery. However it had been another great day.
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