- Food, glorious food
- GLIAS rail tour
- Kingsway telephone exchange
- Death at Broadcasting House
- St Pancras Lock Cottage
- Another early gas works
- Charles Tyson Yerkes — founder of the Underground
- Richmond Ice Rink
- News from Crossness
- Camden Roundhouse
- Letters to the editor
- 161news.pdf - part 1
- 161news.pdf - part 2
A number of slightly less than serious items in recent newsletters have had an effect and several GLIAS members have risen to the bait with excellent notes on Saxby's, pork pies, Zebo (GLIAS Newsletter August 1995), etc. It might be thought that items in this newsletter would all be about industrial archaeology but it seems some of our members read this publication while feeling hungry and things to eat come to mind. The lecture on ice cream by R Weir scheduled for 9 November should attract a huge audience. (Zebo, I gather, is not edible).
Now things sold in bakers' shops vary surprisingly as one moves about the country. In London a cheesecake is often covered with white strips of coconut and one can also get something quite different, creamy and containing mostly cheese, in more continental establishments.
In the East Midlands the cheesecake is utterly different again from both the varieties sold under that name here. American-style Alabama Raisin Pie is surprisingly reminiscent of the Leicestershire cheesecakes served at the Tea Pot Cafe, Great Glen, in the 1950s. In the town of Leicester itself similar cakes can still be bought from branches of Greasley the bakers. (The Tea Pot Café was a notable landmark on the main A6 road between Kibworth and Oadby. A large teapot sign hung outside).
Thinking the above was a brief resumé of the cheesecake a recent encounter at Lawrence's café, St Giles Street, Northampton with a 'Towcester cheesecake' proves the fallacy of this assumption. Compared with the Leicestershire variety Towcester cheesecakes are considerably deeper and they are oval in shape. Bob Carr
On Friday 20 October 1995 14 GLIAS members took part in a journey by train around Greater London starting from Waterloo. Leaving Clapham Junction station on foot by the north exit the party looked at an interesting public house with arms of Irish signposts displayed in the windows before boarding the diesel train to Willesden Junction.
Many felt that this next part of the journey was the most interesting. We crossed the river by the venerable Battersea railway bridge of the 1860s, had good views of Chelsea Dock and Lots Road power station (GLIAS Newsletter December 1983), ran past West Brompton, Earl's Court, Olympia and White City with views of Trellick Tower and passed over the Eurostar depôt at North Pole Junction.
From Willesden the route was via the North London Line to Gospel Oak and then on to Barking and Upminster. After refreshment at the Windy Miller tearoom in Station Road we took the branch line train via Emerson Part to Romford where we had a very good but somewhat hurried tour of the town before returning direct to Liverpool Street.
The former LMS and LNER stations at Romford are connected by a 'boarded crossing' and on this pedestrian route there is a Westwood Baillie bridge and the broken remains of a cast-iron lamppost. The latter was fractured completely across about four feet from the ground and is a good illustration of the difficulty foundries had in casting hollow columns with walls having an equal thickness all round. In this example the core used in the casting was not concentric at the time the metal was poured and there is a marked variation in the thickness of the iron around the top of what is left.
Little now remains on the site of Romford Brewery (GLIAS Newsletter June 1990). There are still some of the older buildings on the south side of High Street around the bridge over the River Rom but apart from the mid 1950s buildings with dramatic ferro-concrete shell roofs to the south west of the site, now used for road transport operations, almost everything has been cleared.
Also noted in Romford was the star on a c1930s cinema building in South Street just north of the railway station which marks the site of the Star Inn, the starting point for Romford's brewing industry (GLIAS Newsletter August 1989). A number of notable historic buildings survive in the town which surprisingly still has a little of the character of a market town. In the Market Place some granite setts survive and, of course, the Golden Lion Inn is noteworthy. Bob Carr
Stretching all the way from Chancery Lane to Holborn Circus, a distance of a quarter mile, is one of the better known official secrets, the Kingsway telephone exchange. Constructed as a government bunker, in the belief that it could survive a nuclear attack, it was made obsolete by the development of the hydrogen bomb, and handed over to the GPO for a hardened telephone exchange. It was built in the by then traditional design of paralleling an existing tube line (the Central) with a larger but deeper tunnel, though the complex was added to access and service shafts, and a large complex of four very large diameter (25') apparatus tunnels underneath Furnival Street and the Patent Office Library. Very little telephone equipment remains save for some distributor frames in one of the side corridors. By contrast, much of the equipment relating to the underground environment, and to survival, is still in place. Four Ruston and Hornsby marine diesels, used to drive 245kW generators by the Lancashire dynamo and crypto company, two Westinghouse dust precipitators (one in use at the time of our visit), a Paxman diesel used to drive alternator and generators for the back-up battery pack appear to be still operational.
One of the treasures is the restaurant. The designers partially sought to counter the cave-like feeling of the 16'6" tunnel. Mirrors lined one wall surmounted by a superimposed wavy frieze, doubled the width of the tunnel. Suspended ceilings hid the characteristic shape, and into one wall landscape views of an idyllic England peeped out from mock, but entirely fifties, windows.
We were continually surprised to find how much it felt like being in a large submarine. A ground based submarine to survive a nuclear attack from the Russian vessel now at the Thames Barrier? How far away and long ago the Cold War seems.
British Telecom is looking for possible purchasers of the tunnel. Perhaps it ought to become part of Crossrail. Charles Norrie
(Film made 1934 by Phoenix Films based on a book by Val Gielgud, then Head of Drama at the BBC, who also played the part of the producer.)
If you went on the BH visit, this whodunnit tells you exactly how early BBC drama programmes were made technically. A small part actor is engaged to play the murder victim in a live programme on the National Service. His acted death scream is in fact his own death, and the denoument revolves in part over a technical failure in the control room. The control room (essentially a mixer desk) allows the producer to cue, control and relay the output as required. Three separate studios are used. It is a system that must have required nerves of steel.
Naturally, GLIAS will not reveal the murderer even at this late date, but the death is recorded on the Blattnerphone, whose unedited output was used to provide a copy for re-broadcast on the Empire Service. He dies accidentally, electrocuted by the transmitter feed while trying to escape. The inside shots of BH must be unique and reveal what must have been one of the wonders of the modernist world.
'Its principal merit is the inside picture of the BBC which should interest everyone, especially those who try to account for the programmes' said the Daily Express reviewer gloomily. Charles Norrie
In March 1995, some members of the GLIAS Recording Group visited the lock-keeper's cottage at St. Pancras Locks on the Regent's Canal in Camden. (TQ 2993 8356). This was formerly a back-pumping station. Black-and-white photographs were taken by Chris Grabham, measured plans and cross-sections have been made by Malcolm Tucker, and the history of the back-pumping of water for the locks on the Regent's Canal has been recorded by Tim Smith from the canal company's minutes. The following account summarises our findings on this particular site.
The Regent's Canal was always short of water, and back-pumping stations were installed at each lock beginning in 1865. The engines and boilers were wearing out by the 1890s, when a series of particularly dry summers necessitated the hiring of portable pumps. The pumping system was then reconstructed with new pumping stations between 1897 and 1900, in accordance with the recommendations of the consulting engineer, Sir John Wolfe Barry.
The St. Pancras pumping station was built in 1897-8, with a steam engine and boiler supplied by Tangye Bros. of Birmingham and re-using an existing centrifugal pump.
From the details of materials and fittings at the site, it is evident that this pumping station was converted and enlarged into a lock cottage in the 1930s. This was after the amalgamation in 1929 of the Regent's Canal and Grand Junction canal companies permitted a more flexible use of available water without pumping. The previous lock cottage and the 1860s pumping station had been on the opposite side of the canal.
The building is constructed on the downhill edge of the lock embankment and it has an irregular plan composed of three intersecting rectangles. The two principal roofs have shallow lanterns along the ridge for ventilation and they are clad with slates and close boarding upon steel trusses and trussed purlins. The walls, of yellow stock bricks, are industrially styled on the two sides that face the canal, with recessed panels and blue-brick weatherings, while some original windows have cast-iron frames beneath segmental- arched hood moulds.
The former pumping station at Kentish Town Locks is similar in style, although of a different plan form and more extensively altered.
We presume that the major part of the building (10.3 by 3.9 metres internally) under the main roof lantern, was the boiler room. There is an annexe at a lower level at the south-east corner, (2.6 metres by 2.7 metres internally) below which the centrifugal pump was probably housed in a pit, now totally concealed by a later concrete floor. The engine may have been within the boiler room. At the lock tail, a photograph of 1969 shows an embayment in the side of the canal, crossed by a foot-bridge and corresponding to the pump intake. This has since been walled off.
The paving of the lock side shows signs of a concrete-roofed culvert running out of the building at the upper level. This was perhaps rebuilt as a bye-wash but it is now disused. Other evidence of mechanical arrangements has been obscured by the 1930s alterations and finishes. An undercroft at the rear was found to be part of a 1930s extension, for which it makes up the level difference between the lock side and the natural ground. A vertical slot 420mm wide in the base of the earlier rear wall has not been explained.
In the conversion to a cottage, one corner was partly demolished to make room for the flat-roofed rearward extension. A new over-site concrete screed, a suspended ground floor of timber, stud partitions nogged with blockwork and a plaster ceiling were installed. The living room was given a new fireplace and chimney, with a nice oak chimney piece, a dresser, and fitted cupboards, while a small kitchen, a small bathroom, an office (?) and two bedrooms completed the accommodation. The cottage has been empty for some years, but it is a listed building, and the neighbouring St. Pancras Cruising Club now hopes to take it over as an extension of its facilities. Malcolm Tucker
Very many speculative gas-making ventures started in the 1820s. Probably some of these will never be unravelled. The rest can be divided into those we know what they were, but not where they were, and sites for which we know we have no information.
On the 1827 Ordnance Survey, the Phoenix Gas Works' is marked, just off the Blackfriars Road. It is a long narrow site, crammed full with twelve gas holders. The site seems to be that of Friars School in Pocock Street, SE1. Phoenix Gas Company's records show that the site, described as Wellington Street, was used as a holder station, closed down in the 1870s. Parliamentary Sources show that in 1823 it belonged to the Phoenix's predecessor, the South London Gas Company. It has proved very difficult to find out anything more.
Minutes for the South London Gas Company exist, but the Greater London Record Office will not allow them to be looked at, because of their condition. They begin in 1823, by which time South London had been working for several years from their works at Bankside. Was the Wellington Street site their second works? or the first works of the Phoenix Company? or entirely different? There are indications that South London were negotiating with a Kennington and Camberwell Gas Company - both a bit too far away to have had a works in the Blackfriars Road. Who were they?
Trying to find out has proved an exercise in frustration. I started with the ratebooks - lists of who owned what - for 1820, administered by the local parish.Pocock (ex-Wellington) Street has changed its name several times since then and was, confusingly, on a parish boundary.
It took a lot of searching to find it, listed first in 1818 as 'Gas Light and Coke Works' - no help at all. Were there any deeds for the property which might help to tell me who had been the first owner? The site is now a school, so there should be something in the public records. Staff at Greater London Record Office discovered that a parcel of deeds had been passed by the London Residuary Body to the London Borough of Southwark, but I have been unable to find out who has them now. I have been unwilling to approach Friars School directly, not wanting to raise alarm about possible ground pollution (but perhaps they know all about it!) The list of deeds GLRO gave me showed that in 1818 the site had been leased - but who from? Do the original ground landlords still have records? Bridge House Estates and the Society of Friends owned adjoining sites - but not the site itself. So despite a lot of help from archivists, I know no more than when I started. I only have one small theory about the origins of the Wellington Street site. In the British Library is a piece of paper, an advertisement about 'Mr. Barlow's proposals for establishing...a company to light the County of Surrey from the end of Blackfriars Bridge to the Obelisk, Borough.' Mr Barlow I have written about before, in respect of the Poplar Company - he was a speculative builder of gasworks in the 1820s. Wellington Street would be a good site for a works to light Blackfriars and the Borough. If Barlow built the works, perhaps he then leased it to South London. For lack of other evidence I would like to suggest that he did. Mary Mills
Charles Tyson Yerkes — founder of the Underground
London's underground railway system was decisively modernised by the activities of one man - Charles Tyson Yerkes, a smart financier from Chicago, USA. His presence in the London transport scene from 1900-1905, in association with the banking house of Speyer, was a catalyst for a series of transactions which provided an effective foundation for the Underground Group of companies. This predominantly American financed group soon dominated a very active and complex phase of tube railway promotion.
Underground Railways in London
Underground railways cost a great deal of money to build and to operate. So they are only found in major cities where the street traffic congestion is heavy enough to make them worthwhile. The London underground railway idea arose after a Parliamentary Select Committee of 1855 proposed it as a solution to street congestion, by horse drawn vehicles. The Press then forecast 'horse manure 10' thick by 1955, on London streets'. The Parliamentary solution was to link all the main line railway stations by a circular underground railway. The original idea was for goods traffic, but the original underground carried passengers from the start. The very first underground line, from Paddington to Farringdon, opened in 1863. The system that has developed from this start is now one of the largest and finest in the world.
Types of Underground Railway
There are two kinds of underground railway, the subsurface lines and the tubes. London's first underground railways were steam hauled, laid just beneath the streets. The surface of the street was taken up and a trench dug large enough to take a double track and lined with bricks. Then after arches or girder supports had been put in at the top, the roadway was rebuilt over the trench.
The cuttings were left open in places to give some ventilation. This method called 'cut and cover' was used for London's Metropolitan, District and Circle lines. These lines are known as shallow underground railways. This system had several disadvantages, not the least was the disruption of the area; this was combined with slum clearance, to offset the disruption. No more cut and cover construction of new lines took place after 1902.
A cheaper and better method of tunnelling for London had been developed because London sits on a great bed of clay, several hundred feet thick in parts. Three great engineers, Marc Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Peter Barlow and James Henry Greathead each played a part in developing a workable means of making deep tunnels without causing any disturbance to the surface. This is called tube construction because the tunnels are circular in form and lined with rings made up to cast iron or concrete segments. The modern 'Drum Digger' can now make 450' per week.
How the London System Grew
The Metropolitan Railway opened in 1863, between Paddington Station and Faringdon Street in the City. This line was gradually extended at either end during the 19th century until the present 'Circle' line was formed. Other lines were built by the Metropolitan Railway, the Metropolitan and District Railway, the East London Railway, and the Whitechapel and Bow Railway. Tunnels were constructed at Kings Cross, St Pancras and Holborn (Snow Hill) to connect the Circle with main line railways, and with a junction at Paddington, these enabled Kensington and New Cross main line trains to work on and off the Circle. Via these connecting tunnels and junctions, the Circle provided a useful link between different parts of London. All these lines used steam locomotives.
By 1880, traction by electric locomotives was possible. The first tube railway to be satisfactorily worked by electric traction was the City & South London Railway, from King William Street to Stockwell, which crossed under the River Thames in a tunnel which took the form of a metal tube. This was opened in 1890 by the Prince of Wales.
Pioneer Electric Lines
The City and South London used little electric locomotives made by Mather and Platt. The weight of the locos was 11.35 tons. They hauled three cars, the whole train carrying 100 passengers. Only narrow slits of windows were originally fitted to the cars, the logic being 'That's all the passenger would need in a tunnel'.
1898 - The Waterloo and City opened, backed by the London and South Western Railway. This was the first to have motors in the car, instead of separate electric locomotives.
1900 - The Central London opened in June, using heavy electric locomotives, initially, changed to motorcars, because of vibration.
1900 - Great Northern and City, unusual because it was built with full size tunnels to take trains from the main line at Finsbury Park. The plan fell through leaving it an isolated line running shuttle service trains between Moorgate and Finsbury Park.
The Traction King
When Yerkes appeared on the London scene, during the late 1890s, three electric tubes had been abandoned by their builders due to bankruptcy during their construction. The Central Line had international backing from the start and, apart from teething troubles, it was an instant success. It used a flat fare of 2d. end to end, over its 6.5 miles and was soon named 'The Tuppeny Tube'. The publicity boomed!
The combination of Yerkes' business acumen and Robert William Perks's (ex solicitor to the Metropolitan Railway) legal and parliamentary know-how proved successful. This combination of deft financier, well versed in the inner workings of American rapid transit and the lawyer MP, who had a profound knowledge of London and its main personalities and also knew his way around parliamentary committees was a very powerful one.
Having been introduced by Perks, Yerkes and financiers, whom he interested in his schemes, within less than three years raised the capital and secured further parliamentary permission not only to electrify the District and Circle lines (power was to be supplied from a power station at Lotts Road) but to reactivate the abandoned Tubes.
The tubes reactivated were the Hampstead and Euston, the Baker Street and Waterloo (nicknamed by the Press as the Bakerloo) and the Piccadilly and Brompton. These lines were completed by 1904. Lotts Road was completed in 1907. Yerkes also was active in forming the Underground group Companies, bringing the separate companies under one organisation, the UERL (Underground Electric Railways Limited). This group of companies formed the basis of London Transport in 1933.
By Mr. V.A.E.Fountain
There are now proposals to build a new ice rink at Richmond over the multi-storey car park at Richmond Station (GLIAS Newsletter April 1995).
Also included in the scheme would be ten-pin bowling and the ice could be covered for tennis, music and dancing. Work could start in one to two years' time, and the rink could open at the end of the century.
The cost, in the region of £5m, would be met by a developer. However, there are now alternative ice-skating facilities to the west of London, notably at Guildford, and £5m would only provide for a modest scheme in Richmond. Bob Carr
For those of you who do not see a copy of 'The Crossness Engines Record' here is an update on what is happening at the northern extremity of the Erith marshes.
The most recent acquisitions have been a Merryweather steam fire pump from Stone House Hospital and a pair of Shone ejector sewage pumps from the Serpentine Lido in Hyde Park. While the Merryweather fire pump is not strictly concerned with sewage pumping and disposal, when it is restored it will make a very good exhibit in what is fast becoming a 'live' steam room. The Shone ejector is not one of the most impressive sewage pumping systems in appearance, they are however an integral part of sewage pumping history. The recovery and removal of both pieces was not without event.
The painting of the C.I. screens and top panels of the 'Octagon' continues and for those who have seen it recently, it will come as no surprise that many of our visitors wonder at the riot of colour. The replacement of the 'foliage and fruit' to the capitals of the columns of the 'Octagon' is under way now that a suitable means of fixing has been found.
The 'mining' team continue to remove the sand and fly-ash from around the pumps and have now started burrowing beneath the 'outboard' pump-plunger, and within the pump barrel. I am sure this dedicated team wish they could extract the material with the same ease that was used to deposit it but apart from the sheer physical effort, safety measures decree just how fast one can work.
Restoration continues in the fitting shop and the team there have produced a fine degree of finish on the 'bright-work' of 'Prince Consort'. Items are brought to a bright shine, coated with 'Rustillo' and either placed in store until required or re-instated on the engine. Work on the restoration and replacement of the hand-barring engine is well advanced and should be complete by the time you read this. Establishing the museum continues and at present is almost the work of one man who scours the country searching out toilet-pans, cisterns, chamber-pots, soap and toilet-roll holders, etc. He and the librarian seek any information on house plumbing and sanitation (if anyone has an unwanted book or sanitary equipment they care to donate, please contact me), and by next 'Open Day' it is hoped that the start of an exhibition of sanitation will be mounted.
When weather conditions permit, work continues on the gardens and paths to the south of the boilerhouse. On Tuesday 14 November a tree was planted in memory of Bob Guntrip, a worker who had served many years at the pumping station. Two of his sisters were in attendance at the tree-planting ceremony.
This is just a brief outline of some of the work that continues at Crossness Engines. To find out more, why not come and visit us, or join the Crossness Engines Trust and receive a regular copy of the 'Record'. 'Tosher'
Crossness Engines Trust. Website: www.crossness.org.uk
A full page in the Guardian newspaper's Arts section on 12 December 1995 was devoted to the Camden Roundhouse and traced the various attempts to put the building to some appropriate use which will comply with its Grade II Listed status — all attempts so far having either failed to get off the ground or else petered out after a few years.
The paper stated that in November 1995, the British Architectural Library Trust had exchanged contracts for the purchase of the building and has applied to the National Lottery Fund to use the building as an architectural library. Let's hope that this proposal has more success than its predecessors! Don Clow
Editor's note: Sadly the information is correct. The Post Office will revert to BR rail transport from next October and Willesden will be the centre for all letters entering London. It is estimated that it would cost £19 million to extend Mail Rail the three and a half miles from Paddington to Willesden and so it is to be closed. This first automatic underground railway in the world was built and opened in 1927 because surface traffic travelled at only eight miles per hour. (Nothing has changed.) The estimated number of vans required to replace Mail Rail is 300 each working 15 hours a day. Mr John Gummer is the Minister for London, should you wish to write to him.
Further to the letter from Paul Phillips (GLIAS Newsletter October 1995)
it is now over a year since the closure of Aldwych tube station and London Underground Limited have still to find a practical and remunerative use for this site. I cannot help thinking that an exciting opportunity has been presented by this situation for the creation of a museum dedicated to the history and operation of the London Underground. Using the station building, platforms and tunnels in this way would provide London with something unique; a heritage centre exclusively concerned with the display and interpretation of Underground railway exhibits in one place and under one roof. It would also make the most of a historic but redundant site in a prime tourist area close to the existing London Transport Covent Garden Museum (which would itself benefit from the extra space made available by the transfer of its Underground exhibits to Aldwych). As added attractions, there could be a vintage bus service linking the two sites or even restoration of the tube service from Holborn using historic stock to bring visitors directly into the Museum. There are many other interesting and creative possibilities, all of which could be incorporated whilst retaining the character, atmosphere and original features of the station.
If any of your readers feel as strongly as I do that this could be a really innovative and worthwhile project with much potential, could I please urge them to write in support of these proposals to Peter Ford, Chairman of London Underground Limited, at 55 Broadway, London SW1H OBD; and to Sam Mullins, Director of the London Transport Museum, 39 Wellington Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7BB.
In the event that LUL feel unable to consider or proceed with such a scheme, then it is proposed to implement a serious feasibility study into the possibility of acquiring the Aldwych site and setting up the museum with the help of both private and public funding.
I would be very pleased to hear from anyone who would like to support or be involved with this campaign.
Letters please to Nick Gilman, 4 St John's Close, Mill Lane, South Chailey, Lewes, East Sussex. BN8 4AX. Tel: 01273 400872.
Re. Newsletter 160, page 8. W F R Stanley.
I was very interested to read Bob Carr's notes on W F R Stanley and his Stanley Halls. My mind went back to 1941, when I joined the RAF. I joined in July 1941 and after six weeks recruit training ('square bashing') at Yarmouth I was posted to London to start my 17-week ab initio course as a trainee radio/wireless mechanic at Battersea Polytechnic. (The apparent tautology of my trade was for security -'wireless' meant wireless telegraphy, and telephony, whereas 'radio' was a cover for the newly introduced radar.)
Initially we were billeted in a block of 1930s luxury flats called St Regis in Cork Street, just behind Regent Street. What had been the hall porter's office was now occupied by SPS (Service Police), the cocktail bar with Anna Zinkeisen murals was the NAAFI canteen and the large restaurant was the cookhouse. The flats were one or two-bedroomed with living room and bathroom. I think we had two double bunks in a bedroom and four in a lounge.
In the morning after breakfast we boarded a camouflaged motor coach and were driven at high speed to Battersea Park for half an hour's PT (physical training) before marching to the Polytechnic for our course. This luxury lasted for about six weeks and then we were billeted near the Polytechnic. I was billeted with Miss Lamb at 123 West Side, Clapham Common, and slept in a four poster bed. Our cookhouse was now Stanley's Masonic Dining Rooms, Lavender Hill, SW11 which was on the corner of a side road near to the top of the hill on the right. I passed along Lavender Hill last year in a bus but could not see any trace of the building. I imagine this could have been one of W F R Stanley's buildings. Looking at a modern map I think the side road was Altenburg Gardens, but cannot be sure.
After breakfast we marched to Battersea Polytechnic, probably along Dorothy Road, certainly along Eversleigh Road to a long ramp leading to a bridge over the West London Extension line to Longhedge Junction, down the ramp on the other side, under all the tracks from Victoria and Waterloo to Clapham Junction and along the bomb-damaged wasteland called Culver Road to Battersea Park Road and so to the Polytechnic.
Of course it was dark when we came back at the end of the day and the good folk ot Battersea would see a swinging shaded white hurricane lamp moving along the road followed by the sound of 50 marching feet surmounted by ribald songs and a swinging shaded red hurricane lamp bringing up the rear.
Re: Newsletter 160, page 5, 'Zebo'.
The letter by 'Tosher' on 'Zebo' brought back memories of my grandmother's kitchen in the 1920s. It was exactly as described in the letter. A few years ago our 'Ideal' boiler developed a leak and we had to buy a new solid fuel stove, an Aga SF12 with a shiny black top which was fitted to the existing chimney. It took a long time to track down some 'Zebo' although the search in all the London markets made for interesting days out. Finally we found a tube in an Indian hardware shop in Wealdstone. It was just as I remembered it in a bright yellow carton with the words 'Zebo black grate polish' in a red ellipse from which emerge black rays in all directions. It is distributed by Reckitt Household Products of Hull but is manufactured in France. It is still by appointment to Queen Elizabeth II but no longer 6d. - it cost £2.82 for a 75 ml tube.
I have been a member of GLIAS since 1987 and I would like to thank you and your predecessors for all your interesting newsletters and walks over the years. After my wife died I found the walks very helpful in passing the long days, especially the Brentford ones. J P Summers