The Antonine Itineraries

One day I'm going to write a long post about the pros and cons of setting yourself up as a publisher and being a modestly successful writer who has to have a 'proper' job to survive.

But, for now, briefly, what I wanted to say was that if any (larger) publisher out there is interested in bringing out the third revised edition of Subterranean City then please get in touch or leave a comment.

Last year I tried two mainstream publishers - one commissioning editor was very keen until the bean counters got involved and that was that. The whole process of dealing with just two publishers served to remind me of the benefits of being one's own publisher - it does save a massive amount of waiting around, frustration and disappointment. It's not something I intend to do for months at a time this year, so if anyone is interested they can contact me. I've already been engaged on the updating and revision process since Christmas.

I'm perfectly prepared to publish it through Accumulator Press, but it has to be said that the distribution and publicity (the biggest problems for a small press) available to a large established publisher would hugely benefit sales of a book of this type - as it did in the past, when it was selling thousands of copies each year. The subject is still of great interest and since Subterranean City was first published a small industry of books on underground London has flourished.

The rights to all my early books have reverted to me, so I am free to do what I like with them - I've already published a new edition of Decadent London for example (about which I may soon have some exciting - for me - news). I would also like, when funds allow, to publish the work of other non-fiction writers.

I shall update on any developments ...

As I ponder over whether to publish a third edition of Subterranean City myself or with a major publisher (having this week spent hours searching out all my royalty statements - I'd forgotten how impressive the sales figures of the first two editions had been - at the time I thought those figures were normal, as it was my first book, I've since learnt differently) underground subjects again come to the fore.

A recent addition to the Collection has been 'Shelter Scene' by Edward Ardizzone, a 1941 lithograph published by the National Gallery, printed at the Baynard Press and commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Information.

It depicts the interior of the Commercial Road Goods Depot in Whitechapel commandeered as an air raid shelter during the Blitz. It was known as 'Tilbury' which has understandably caused confusion with a number of commentators assuming it was  situated in Tilbury docks some miles further down river. I recently emailed the Tate to correct that error in their caption for Henry Moore's A Tilbury Shelter Scene 1941 - they didn't respond, of course, and the error remains - see here.

There is an excellent, highly detailed history of the building by Tim Smith for the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society here.

The hydraulic power station that supplied the warehouse still exists as a private building in Hooper Street. See here and here.

The best and most evocative description of life in Tilbury is from the Mass Observation archives see here - written up by one of the co-founders Tom Harrisson and published as Living Through the Blitz (Penguin, 1976, 1990). A Mass Observer's description from 14 September 1940:

First impression was of a dim cavernous immensity. The roof is made of metal girders, held up by rows of arches, old and solid ...giving a somewhat church-like atmosphere. The hall is oblong in shape, and covers many acres ... so huge and dim, the end seems out of sight ... Between the lines of archways are wooden platforms, raised about four feet from the ground and stretching the whole length of the shelter. Between them are wide gangways, paved with brick and earth trodden so hard that one might imagine it was stone. Round three sides of the interior runs a narrow railway track, in almost total darkness, for here there are no lights, and here the earthen floor is dark and rough. The entrance to this vast, dim, cathedral-like structure is narrow and insignificant - just a break in the street wall that could easily be missed by the passer-by. But once through this gap, one finds oneself in a large stone courtyard, sloping way in two directions down into the earth ... There are only two small doors into the shelter, one of which can be locked on occasion, the other manned by police ...

By 7.30pm every bit of floor-space is taken up ... Deckchairs, blankets, stools, seats, pillows ... people lying everywhere, on the railway track, among the margarine crates, everywhere. The floor was awash with urine ... only two lavatories for 5000 women, none for men ... overcome by the smell. People are sleeping on piles of rubbish ... the passages loaded with filth. Lights dim or non-existent ... they sit, in darkness, head of one against the feet of the next ... there is no room to move and hardly any to stretch. Some horses were still stabled there, and their mess mingles with that of the humans ...

Ardizzone's shelterers are not so jam-packed and are stoically going about their business getting ready for the night, filth and squalor is not obviously in evidence.

Gradually links were forged amongst the shelterers, marshals were elected, some basic rules for order and hygiene established and cleaning teams set to work.

There were some lighter moments recorded by MO: 'A girl played an accordion, while men danced burlesque dances round her ... a young coster was playing the accordion. He played well - with fire. A coster girl, about 20, sang a gypsy melody in a clear, high, plaintive voice ... Another archway was playing 'Knees up Mother Brown'.

Tilbury was demolished in 1975 and part of the site was redeveloped as an operations centre for National Westminster Bank.

There is an article about Tilbury in London's Industrial Archaeology vol.2 1980.

See also here

The painting illustrated above is The Foothills, Tilbury Bombed Second Time by Rose L. Henriques (watercolour on paper, c1941) For more on the artist see here.

This week the number of pageviews for this blog passed the 200,000 mark.

As a footnote to the earlier posts about British Museum station I finally got round to watching an episode of the 1969 television series Department S which can be found online ( a boxset is also available). I may well have seen it on first broadcast as I do remember watching and enjoying this series in the dim and distant past. This episode is entitled Last Train to Redbridge and should be included in the filmography associated with 'ghost' underground stations.

The last tube train of the title arrives at Redbridge station on the central line (although Redbridge is not a terminus) with all the occupants of one carriage dead, apparently gassed. Cue the summoning of Department S who specialise in solving such mysterious cases. To cut a long story short, we are eventually told  that a criminal gang, led by a ruthless businessman, have intercepted the hotline between London and Washington and are hoping to eavesdrop on information about the fluctuating price of gold in order to make a killing.

The only killing that does take place (in a cough and you'll miss it explanation) is when one of the gang gets cold feet and runs out of their hideaway - that happens to be a disused tube station - and jumps on a train stopped at a signal. However he's pursued by another gang member handily equipped with a canister of deadly nerve gas (manufactured by the businessman's company - some Skripal topicality here). To stop the villain blabbing the whole carriage is poisoned and the perpetrator escapes dressed as a guard.

An amusing site with reviews of each episode - complete with captures of the ubiquitous 'Department S corridor' can be found here.

At one point Jason King - by far the most memorable member of Department S, who was subsequently of course to get his own series that made Peter Wyngarde world famous (perhaps notorious) -  is imprisoned in the station and is later subjected to the same nerve gas that renders him temporarily amnesiac and befuddled, a good performance here.

Later, when he's recovered his senses he tries to recall where he was held - there was the sound of trains, 1930s posters on the wall (a nice touch that), tunnels, and the realisation dawns:

JK: An underground railway station.

Stewart Sullivan: Old, disused. That would tie in with the murders. Are there any stations like that?

JK: Let's see. On the Central London [sic] Line two: British Museum, which was closed when they opened Holborn and when they opened St Paul's they closed ... Post Office.

In actual fact Post Office was just renamed St Paul's in 1937 (the same year as the Central London became the Central line), although it had an interesting history during the Second World War, when its disused lift shafts housed control rooms for the electricity grid for London and the South East. See here. Also in WW2, the then-unfinished tunnels on the extension to Redbridge were utilised as an underground factory making aircraft parts. See here.

The disused station scenes are clearly filmed in a real place and it would have to be Aldwych, used for the vast majority of film and television underground locations.  A comprehensive site for London underground station locations is here. At long last I should be visiting this 'ghost' station on one of the London Transport Museum's tours later this month.

I think that the talk I gave at Treadwells Bookshop on Thursday went very well and as usual I met some interesting people afterwards. I signed a few books, some had even brought in copies of the first edition of Netherwood for signing. I'd like to thank everyone who came along and especially Christina and her staff at Treadwells who have been the best bookshop outlet for Netherwood.

One young man told me about a writer I have to confess I'd never heard of before called Stephen Volk. He recently wrote a book called Netherwood which features as part of a trilogy of novels about famous men and the locations they are often associated with: so we have Peter Cushing at Whitstable and Alfred Hitchcock at Leytonstone (with Aleister Crowley and Dennis Wheatley at Hastings - although I should point out that these two never met at Netherwood in 'real life').

I'll try to get hold of this book The Dark Masters Trilogy see here.

Also various interviews with the author online. In this one there are a couple of details mentioned that  make me think that the author may have read my Netherwood although he doesn't mention it by name.

Certainly the dramatic and fictional possibilities of Crowley's last three years at Netherwood are still ripe for mining - I have met a couple of lovely chaps who wrote a play about it, although I'm not sure if it's ever been staged and it crops up in A Chemical Wedding (by Julian Doyle & Bruce Dickinson, have to be honest I thought this book  wasn't very good; I haven't seen the film with Simon Callow as AC) and Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Century. I'm sure there must be many others. Obviously, the novel of that name by Jane Sanderson has nothing whatever to do with the Hastings guesthouse.

One point I made in the talk was about the huge amount of misinformation on Crowley (and indeed Netherwood, often referred to as a 'cheap' 'shabby' or 'seedy' boarding house in numerous books, articles and online sources). As just one example see the first post here correcting numerous mistakes to be found in a biography of Led Zeppelin (which also includes a very favourable reference to my book in the 11th citation - thank you to the poster).

Further talks in 2019:

Thursday 31 January Folklore of Underground London Kensington Central Library 18:30-19:30 FREE  BOOK HERE

Thursday 21 February Subterranean City: Beneath the Streets of London 18;30-19:30 FREE
BOOK HERE

Tuesday 9 April Underground Folklore of England Kensington Central Library 18:30-19:30 FREE BOOK HERE

In July I shall probably be talking at Westminster Reference Library about Decadent London and the 1890s. TBC

As usual my books will be on sale at all these talks at discounted prices.

I wanted to take a rest from talks for the remainder of the year, as I'm trying to get some writing done and thinking about republishing one or two of my earlier books in revised and updated editions next year, plus, perhaps, work by other authors (non-fiction naturally).

However, the requests for talks keep coming in, so I've arranged a few for the first part of 2019.

On Thursday 31 January there will be a FREE talk starting at 6.30pm about the Folklore of Underground London at Kensington Central Library. Booking through Eventbrite. See here.

Also at Kensington Central Library Subterranean City: Beneath the Streets of London on Thursday 21 February at 6.30pm. FREE booking through Eventbrite. See here.

Tuesday 9 April a talk on Folklore of Underground England at Kensington Central Library starting at 6.30pm. FREE booking through Eventbrite. See here.

As usual, copies of many of my books will be for sale at these events at reduced prices. I've acquired some of the last copies of Subterranean City, which I'll be selling at these talks until they run out.

I shall be giving a talk about Netherwood: Last Resort of Aleister Crowley at Treadwells bookshop on 24 January. Details here. Treadwells have sold a large number of copies of the book and have done sterling work in promoting it.

I'm aware that I haven't been posting very much recently. I've been kept busy trying to be a publisher having to sell books rather than write them. However, I offer here a much-expanded version of part of the talk I gave at the recent Haunted City conference on one of London's stranger pieces of ghost lore.


The numerous abandoned and disused stations on the London underground network are often known as 'ghost stations' and it is hardly surprising to learn that some of the them are claimed to be haunted, as is also the case with many of the stations still functioning. Perhaps the most well-known of the latter is Covent Garden (on the Piccadilly line), where a number of witnesses have testified to seeing, in various parts of he station, the ghost of the popular actor William Terriss, murdered by a jealous fellow thespian at the stage door of the nearby Adelphi Theatre. The last recorded sighting appears to have been in 1972.

One of the most famous 'ghost stations' was named British Museum, with an entrance building at No.133 High Holborn. It opened on 30 July 1900 on the Central London Railway (today's Central line). In 1907 a new station opened nearby, at the junction of High Holborn and Kingsway, on the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway (today's Piccadilly line) called Holborn. As the two stations were so closely situated it was proposed to tunnel a subway between them to facilitate an easy underground interchange, but this was rejected, leaving passengers to walk a couple of hundred yards through the busy streets to change lines. Finally, in 1930 work began on enlarging Holborn to create a combined Central and Piccadilly line station, which opened on 25 September 1933.

Now deemed superfluous, British Musem station closed the same day. The platforms were later dismantled, and the station was abandoned, until finding use as one of the many tube air-raid shelters during the Second World War. By 1989, the street-level former entrance building had been replaced with a post-modern block and the lit and staircase shaft filled with concrete; the only access to the station is now along the tube tunnels. See here.

Of what interest is this to folklorists? Before closure in 1933 there were said to be reports that the station was haunted - these reports have persisted - internet sites claim that it is still haunted - but by what?

According to an article from The Daily Mail online from Halloween 2015: 'Legend has it that the disused station is haunted by the ghost of Amun-ra, an Ancient Egyptian God, dressed in traditional Egyptian loincloth and headdress - and a couple of years after the station's closure, two women vanished from nearby Holborn station, with witnesses claiming they heard ghostly moaning around the time of their disappearance.'

When attempting to unravel this mystery it becomes clear very quickly that the 'haunting' rumour attached to the abandoned station has become inextricably entangled with the more widely disseminated story of the so-called 'Unlucky Mummy' in the collections of the British Museum.

In 1889, Ms Warwick Hunt, on behalf of her brother Arthur F Wheeler, gave the museum a mummy- board, a wooden cover placed over the mummified body, carved and painted to represent the deceased as if they were still alive. Classified as exhibit No.22542 it was believed to date from the 21st dynasty (c.950) and was probably from Thebes. The female depicted on the mummy-board was identified, by Keeper of the Egyptian Rooms Ernest Wallis Budge, as priestess of the cult of Amen-Ra or Amun-Ra, a patron deity of Thebes, fused with the sun god Ra; with Osiris, he is the most widely recorded of the Egyptian gods.

In addition to the standard catalogue information about it on the museum's website, the entry for exhibit 22542 also includes the following:

This object perhaps best known for the strange folkloric history attached to it ... has acquired the popular nickname of the 'Unlucky Mummy', with a reputation for bringing misfortune. None of these stories has any basis in fact, but from time to time the strength of the rumours has led to a flood of enquiries.

The mummy-board is said to have been bought by one of four young English travellers in Egypt during the 1860s or 1870s. Two died or were seriously injured in shooting incidents, and the other two died in poverty within a short time. The mummy-board was passed to the sister of one of the travellers, but as soon as it had entered her house the occupants suffered a series of misfortunes. The celebrated clairvoyant Madame Helena Blavatsky is alleged to have detected an evil influence, ultimately traced to the mummy-board. She urged the owner to dispose of it and in consequence it was presented to the British Museum. The most remarkable story is that the mummy-board was on board the SS Titanic on its maiden voyage in 1912, and that its presence caused the ship to collide with an iceberg and sink!'

The Titanic-related element of the story derives from the fact that the campaigning investigative journalist W T Stead was onboard and did not survive the disaster: he had earlier written about the 'Unlucky Mummy' and often mentioned it at dinner engagements. This loose connection somehow led to the belief that the mummy-board itself was being carried on the fateful vessel - the British Museum, in a bid to rid itself of the curse, had decided to sell it to a museum or wealthy collector in the USA. In fact the exhibit only left the museum for the first time to be shown abroad in 1990, and can still be seen in London.

Roger Luckhurst's scholarly investigation The Mummy's Curse: the True History of a Dark Fantasy reveals that the British Museum's 'Unlucky Mummy', which caused death and misfortune to those who came into contact with it, predated the much-publicised curse of King Tutankhamun, said to have been unleashed on the opening of the chamber by Howard Carter in 1922 (although no curse was found inscribed in the tomb). The tales attached to the 'Unlucky Mummy' were first publicised in the summer of 1904 via an article in the Daily Express by a rising young reporter Bertrand Fletcher Robinson - the fact that he died of enteric fever three years later at the age of 37 was said to be attributable to the malign influence of exhibit 22542. Luckhurst offers a detailed history of the mummy's alleged owners and the wide variety of personal disasters that befell them, as well as demonstrating the way in which the tale subsequently grew in the telling and retelling. Books on London ghosts always include a few pages on this chilling story.

Event after the mummy-board entered the collections of the British Museum, tragedy was said to have followed in its wake and the 'curse' also seems to have applied to anyone who photographed or sketched the object. A photographer contracted from the firm of Mansell to photograph the mummy-board met with misfortune that same day. According to Peter Underwood in Haunted London: 'Upon the way home in the train he injured by some unaccountable accident his thumb, and hurt it so badly that he was unable to use the right hand for a long time. When he reached home he found that one of his children had fallen through a glass frame and was suffering from severe shock.' It was claimed (and later refuted by the Museum authorities) that employees who moved or handled the object suffered accidents or died unexpectedly.

Part 2 to follow shortly.

The new edition of Netherwood is being sold at silly prices on Amazon and elsewhere.

It is still available for £30 (plus p&p) at the Accumulator Press 'shop' on The Big Cartel here and for varying prices at the usual bookshops listed in previous posts. At the upcoming talks this month and next you can buy it from me for even less.

Thursday 28 June Whistler Chelsea's Greatest Artist here

Saturday 30 June The Haunted City: Modern Monsters and Urban Myths here

Thursday 12 July Whistler in Chelsea: A Guided Walk here

Thursday 24 July Decadent London here

JUST ADDED: Subterranean City: beneath the streets of London Friday 7 September details to follow.

In preparation for the Conway Hall talk I've been searching through some old newspapers online and coincidentally found a review of The Magic of Aleister Crowley by John Symonds from The Guardian of 13 April 1958, written by the renowned poet Stevie Smith.

She finds the book 'comical', but also notes 'how wretched [Crowley's magick] really is and with what horrid echoes from past centuries it dins on the mind.' 'To the author Crowley was an eccentric old gentleman, more comical than horrible, shrewd enough off the record, and well worth visiting, and cosseting ... In his retreat in Hastings, in the boarding-house called Netherwood, Crowley was a great attraction. His eyes stared, his ears stood out, he took drugs, swigged black market brandy and was long and spectral - in fact just what one wants in an English seaside boarding-house.'

More talks and events coming up.

A talk on the life and art of J A M Whistler at Putney Library Thursday 24 May 7pm. Details here.

A walk based on William Burroughs sojourn in London in the late 1960s, early 1970s will take place on Saturday 26 May from Westminster Reference Library 3-5pm. I will be joined on this guided walk around Burroughsian haunts in Soho and St James's by Dr William Redwood and samizdat printer and publisher Jim Pennington who met Burroughs during this period - see this interesting piece about him here. This event is organised by Salon for the City and tickets must be booked and paid for online in advance. See more details and for booking tickets here.

It will coincide with an exhibition at Westminster Reference Library featuring parts of the archive of London countercultural legend Barry Miles. See here and here. There will be a live interview with Miles at the library on Wednesday 30 May again organised by Salon for the City. Details here.

An article in The Quietus here.

A talk on the life and art of J A M Whistler at Kensington Central Library Thursday 28 June 6.30pm. See here.

Whistler in Chelsea walk from Chelsea Library Thursday 12 July.  Details here.

Decadent London talk at Kensington Central Library Tuesday 24 July 6.30pm. Details to follow.

Talk at an urban folklore conference in central London in late June. Details to follow.

'Tunnels Under Holborn' talk at Holborn Library Local Studies Centre Thursday 11 October 7.15pm. Details to follow.

Gary Lachman's talk on Aleister Crowley at Kensington Library last month can be seen here.

Just to confirm talks this spring (hopefully, it will be warmer by then):

Thursday March 15 6.30pm Kensington Central Library FREE

Aleister Crowley: Life & Legacy     I shall be joined this evening by Gary Lachman.

Bookings here.

Thursday April 5 7.30pm Burgh House, Hampstead for Camden Local History Society (non-members £1 at door)

Tunnels Under Holborn

Bookings here.

Thursday April 12 6.30pm Kensington Central Library FREE

Subterranean City - Underground London in Fact and Folklore

Bookings here.

As usual, at all talks a selection of my books will be for sale at reduced prices. Always signed on request.

It looks as if I shall be quite busy with talks and walks this year. Some are still being finalised, but so far we have:

     Thursday 15 February talk The Underground Folklore of England    Kensington Central Library Lecture Theatre starts 6.30pm

See here for booking.  Only about 20 FREE tickets left from 200. This subject is always popular.


     Thursday 15 March talk Aleister Crowley: Life and Legacy    Kensington Central Library Lecture Theatre starts 6.30pm.  Gary Lachman will also be talking at this event.

See here for booking.  This FREE event is also doing well, about half the places have been booked.

   
Thursday 5 April talk Tunnels Under Holborn    Camden Local History Society Burgh House, Hampstead starts 7.30pm.  See here for booking.  Non-members pay £1 entry.


Also in April there will probably be one of my general Subterranean City talks about underground London. To be confirmed.

Late May a walk with Bill Redwood and others about William Burroughs to coincide with an exhibition about him in central London. To be confirmed

June a walk about Whistler in Chelsea visiting some of his haunts and locations. To be confirmed.

There will probably be more later in the year.

I shall have copies of my books for sale at all events, usually with considerable discounts. Obviously there are more available at the talks as it's uncomfortable carrying large numbers of hardback books around on a walk.

Last Sunday I had the (expensive) opportunity to visit parts of Euston underground station not open to the public, including the deep level interchange ticket office between the C&SLR and the CCE&HR and tunnels closed to the public since the early 1960s.  For the history of these tunnels see here.  Apart from the abandoned lift shaft and atmospheric dark tunnels the collage effect of the historic film posters still visible on the tunnel walls was an artistic experience in itself.  Some photos I took.

My most popular post has been The Mystery of Subterranean Selfridges wherein I excavate the widespread rumour that there exists beneath the famous Selfridges department store on Oxford Street a row of well-preserved Victorian shops complete with cobbled street.  The conclusion I have drawn, is that it is an ingenious and charming piece of modern folklore in the form of a prank perpetrated by the late Sex Pistols manager, performer and clothes designer Malcolm McLaren through the medium of his Channel 4 film The Ghosts of Oxford Street see here.  The post and its various addenda can be found here.

I hadn't realised that McLaren's interest in Oxford Street went as far back as 1970 when he chose to make a film about the tawdry commercial thoroughfare as an art project at Goldsmith's College, when he was known as Malcolm Edwards; it was known as the Oxford Street film.

According to Jon Savage's definitive 1991 Sex Pistols history (see also Music For Pleasure post below for The Damned) England's Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock: 'Due to lack of money and lack of conceptual focus, Oxford Street drifted along for eighteen months before being left unfinished....when it came to shooting, Malcolm involved a variety of his friends at various points, Jamie Reid was used as cameraman and Helen [Mininberg] as assistant director.  They worked around Oxford Street: the shot list includes many shop facades and exteriors, as well as close-ups of advertisements and human gestures of frustration and incorporate hostility.  They were hampered by the fact that hardly any of the stores would allow them access: only Selfridges let them in.' (p.40)  The project was hugely influenced by McLaren's interest in the ideas of the Situationist International (too much to go into here, see England's Dreaming and Greil Marcus Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century (1989).

Reading King Mob Echo: From Gordon Riots to Situationists and Sex Pistols by Tom Vague (2000) on Saturday reminded me of a notorious incident at Christmas 1968 at Selfridges when a member of British Situationist offshoot King Mob dressed as Father Christmas and accompanied by fellow Mob members walked into the store and started taking toys off the shelves and giving them to grateful children.  'Not long afterwards,' Richard Neville wrote in Playpower (1970), 'shoppers were treated to the spectacle of police confiscating toys from small children and arresting Santa Claus.'  A flyer saying IT WAS MEANT TO BE GREAT BUT IT'S HORRIBLE was also handed out (see pic above).

In England's Dreaming McLaren claimed to be part of this protest: 'We were all handing out the toys and the kids were running off.  The store detectives and the police started to pounce:  I ran off into the lift.  There's just me and this old lady: the doors start to open and I can just see all these police.  I grab the old lady really tight and walk through like I'm helping her.  As soon as I got out of the store, I belted out of there.' (p.34)  But, he later admitted:'That was organised by Christopher Gray and the Wise twins were involved as well.  I never actually went to it but I heard of it.In those days nobody would tell you how things were going to work.  There was all this rumour and hype.  So, no I was never involved as such.' (King Mob Echo p.47)

More on King Mob here.

Nevertheless McLaren definitely had previous as far as Selfridges was concerned.

To quote again from England's Dreaming (p.36):  'The libertarian currents of the late 1960s shaped the lives of many of those that they touched: for Malcolm McLaren and his associates, like Fred Vermorel and Jamie Reid life would never be the same.  In those currents they could swim, and select a language for their multiple angers, resentments and ideals.  It was largely through the SI's (Situationist International) influence that they developed a taste for a new media practice - manifestos, broadsheets, montages, pranks, disinformation - which would give form to their gut feeling that things could be moved, if not irreversibly changed.'

Incidentally, Guy Debord's Situationists were also interested in the Limehouse area of East London and held a meeting there.  Limehouse was of course the haunt of Sax Rohmer's fiendish Fu Manchu and a piece on this cultural crossover appears in the book I edited with Phil Baker:  Lord of Strange Deaths.   See also here and here.

I've been watching a large number of Hammer and other classic British (and a few American) horror films recently, most of them online.  I may write more about these in a later post.  I was astonished by how many films are now freely available online (whatever the legal situation of them being there), many in very good quality versions - others are of a quality or in a format that is unwatchable and detrimental to the film.

Another film that I finally got to see was Bulldog Jack, previously hard to track down.   You can watch it here. As with the other film that I had written about in one of my books, without being able to actually see it at the time, The Ghosts of Oxford Street  (see earlier post) - what I had read about it and used for my research was not strictly accurate; it's always a problem having to rely on other people's accounts and reviews.

Bulldog Jack is a moderately entertaining adventure with Jack Hulbert, standing in for an injured Drummond (the James Bond of his period), attempting to thwart a gang of counterfeiters holed up in a disused underground station called Bloomsbury.  The impressive cast also features Fay Wray (of King Kong fame) as the damsel in distress and Ralph Richardson (looking like Henry Spencer of Eraserhead, with a moustache) as the criminal mastermind.  It's better than I was expecting and the final scene aboard a runaway tube train (probably not the first of its kind, certainly emulated many times since - one thinks of Speed for example) is pretty exciting.

The abandoned tube station, while obviously a set, is realistic and atmospheric and there is the inevitable walk along a tube tunnel to reach it, avoiding trains on the way.  One detail that I had repeated in Subterranean City and elsewhere, taken from books on abandoned stations, was that there was a secret entrance to the station in an opening mummy case in the British Museum, enabling the criminal gang to gain access to the treasures and replace some valuable jewels with copies.  Having seen the film it is clear that it is not a mummy at all, but the stone sarcophagus of a monarch, probably Elizabeth I, the lid of which rises up vertically on jacks.  Hulbert manages to get into the passage by jamming it with a conveniently placed  block of stone.

Horror films with memorable tube settings are: Creep, Death Line, American Werewolf in London and of course my all-time favourite Quatermass and the Pit.  Honourable mentions for conspiracy thriller Hidden City for its imaginative underground locations and the Dr Who story Web of Fear.

I finally got to visit the Clapham South Deep-Level Air-Raid Shelter last Thursday as part of London Transport Museum's Hidden London.  Some photos by me above.  For more information see my Subterranean City or here.  It was very well organised - quite a lot of walking is involved as it's vast.

Both upcoming talks organised by the London Fortean Society are attracting a lot of interest.  I've already been approached for a magazine interview and by a Radio 4 producer for a possible radio programme based on subterranean themes.  Once more the details are here for the talk next Wednesday at Conway Hall (sold out, but I shall be doing basically the same talk for the April event) and here for the more ambitious event on Saturday 9th April (200 booked already) with Scott Wood, Gary Lachman and myself talking on the mysteries of the underground.

Attendees will have the opportunity to buy a signed and stamped copy of Secret Tunnels of England: Folklore and Fact at a special cheap rate (at least 50% off cover price).  As it keeps going out of stock on Amazon, it's probably easier (and cheaper) to get it directly from me.  It's a limited edition of 400, half of which have already sold.

There were some particularly impressive April Fools this year, my two favourites being this and this.  In both cases I really wished that they were true - I didn't make my way to Charing Cross.  I hope the invitation to Malmesbury wasn't another April Fool.

Andy Sharp, English Heretic, who shares many of my interests and contributed to the Netherwood book, is interviewed at The Quietus.   Anti-Heroes was one of their albums of 2013 - check it out.

During Soho investigations for next month's Burroughs walk I was shocked to discover that the green plaque formerly on the front of 59 Old Compton Street marking the birthplace of British rock'n'roll - the 2i's coffee bar - is no longer there.  I was present on 18th September 2006 when the plaque was unveiled - all sorts of early rock royalty was there - various Shadows and Skifflers.  I met Big Jim Sullivan and chatted with Cliff Richard, who, whatever you may think of him, was a gentleman throughout the event, signing stuff thrust at him by fans outside and unfailingly unruffled.  He graciously accepted a copy of my coffee house book - I wonder if he still has it?  The wine bar that was there at the time has gone, to be replaced by The House of Ho, a fashionable eaterie.  I do hope the removal is temporary.  [By mid-April the plaque had returned].  If not, it may be time for a petition.  Walker's Court, home of sex shops and the Raymond Revue Bar, just around the corner from Burroughs' 'portal doorway' in Peter Street, Soho (now site of a hideous replacement) has been given the green light by Westminster City Council for redevelopment - another local landmark erased (popular for band publicity shots - Felt spring to mind).

Another London coffee house related item.

Coming up:

Warpaint at Brighton Dome.

William Burroughs Walk (see previous post)

Yet another Underground London talk this time at the new Artizan Street Library in the City of London.

I'm not sure what's happening with the Sax Rohmer/Fu Manchu book now that the centenary has passed - it will be out sometime in the next few months I imagine.  It's out of my hands I'm afraid.  All future projects will appear under my own Accumulator imprint.  One of the contributors to the Fu Manchu book, Alan Moore, has an interesting (last?) interview here.  I can certainly sympathize with his reluctance to do public appearances in the future.

An interesting idea to open up the Mail Rail tunnels beneath Mount Pleasant as an extension for the British Postal Museum and Archive.   Also known as the Post Office Railway it was in operation from 3rd December 1927 to 31st May 2003.  See my book Subterranean City and here.

Brompton Road, one of the so-called London Underground 'ghost stations' is up for sale, a bargain at £20 million.  More details here and here.