Southbound

This photograph shows the A3 at Robin Hood Way, Kingston Vale, taken from a footbridge over the road, looking south-west out of London. It has two particular reasons for remaining in my memory.

The first dates back to the 1980’s when I lived in Wembley. I was in my twenties, unattached, and if not a workaholic, at least very strongly tethered to my work at what was then the MRC Clinical Research Centre at Northwick Park Hospital. A major release for me, however, was the opportunity to leave London and spend the weekend with my sister and her family in Bognor Regis. On a Friday evening, or more often a Saturday morning, I would start up my old and none too reliable Peugeot 104, and negotiate the London traffic, making the eventual escape on the A3.

Why I remember this particularly unremarkable stretch of suburban road is not clear. I think the romance of the name, Robin Hood Way, is what made it stick in my mind originally. At some point shortly after this, I would leave the frantic dual carriageway and drive due south through the Mole Valley in Surrey. If you look this up on Google Maps, you see it billed as ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’, and they are not kidding.

If I can be said to have grown up at all, I grew up in West Fife, which was industrially scarred from coal mining. Surrey, Sussex, and the South Downs were free of the wrecked pit buildings and slag-heaps, and this was something of an eye-opener to me. The Mole Valley was, and I think for the most part still is, leafy and sheltered, with sleepy, half-hidden villages, expansive village greens, the occasional cricket pitch, centuries-old pubs and so on.

I would admire the landscape and the charm of the little villages as I drove through, but I only actually stopped there once, I think at a village called Ockley, but I may be mistaken. It was around noon on a Saturday, and I called in at an ancient brick public house. Across the road was a green meadow of several acres, with a wooded hill on its far side, a sight of stunning beauty on this bright April day. The pub itself had few buildings adjacent to it, but there was a very old red-brick wall running alongside the road. It put me in mind of the land enclosures of the Tudor times.

Inside, the place was comfortable, terracotta-floored, and posh. There is no other way of describing it. The few other customers were elderly couples or old chaps alone and poring over the Daily Telegraph. There was an efficient pair of young people behind the bar, where I bought a half pint and a sandwich, but the establishment was presided over by a large, middle-aged lady, with a manner which can only be described as patrician hauteur.

She was seated at the table next to me with a champagne bottle and fluted glass in front of her. Occasionally, the staff would solicit her instructions, or customers would exchange a few words with her, maintaining the deference of courtiers of Queen Elizabeth the first. After a few sentences on either side, the employee or punter would be imperiously dismissed. She clearly regarded these conversations as work. As I was leaving, she called to the barman, ‘James, open another bottle of champagne. I can see it’s going to be a hectic day.’

Quarter past twelve. Only just afternoon. Open another bottle of champagne. I suspect it was going to be a hectic day for James at any rate.

Back to Robin Hood Way, Kingston Vale. The other reason it sticks in my mind is that our older son Bill lived in a house there in his second and third years at Kingston University. The photograph was taken on the occasion of my driving him and his luggage down to move in there there for the start of his second year.

A year before this, our delivery of Bill for his first year at Kingston had been rather a melancholy experience. There was dreadful congestion on the roads, and it took a couple of hours to travel the last five miles. He was staying in a rather soulless hall of residence on the edge of the campus and he didn’t know a soul. We felt quite tearful leaving him. It was a contrast to when I went off to university in 1974 (only twenty miles from the family home), when several of my school pals were going to the same institution. And a contrast from our first farewell to Bill’s younger brother Tom, who we dropped off at a flat in Bradford which he shared with four other really nice kids.

Anyway, Bill moved into this shared house on Robin Hood Way for his second and third year, and I think he was happier there. When he first moved in, we were asked to bring a set of Allen Keys, as we had to assemble his bed. The house was a modern suburban building which had been massively expanded into its back garden, so as to maximise the rental income as a student farm.

You always feel sad saying goodbye to your kids, but it was easier in Robin Hood Way, where Bill had good friends.

Looking at the photograph again, you think, why would anyone find this place interesting in the least? But we all have our memories, and our personal histories, and they can relate to the most unlikely places. I lived in some strange places as a student, and I have some amusement in remembering a rather squalid flat in Tollcross, Edinburgh.

But I went to university on a grant, with no question of tuition fees or loans. What will it be like for the generation which follows Bill and Tom? Where will they stay, and what sort of debts with they incur? Heaven knows.