The Capital Ring:Parts V & VI:Streatham to Richmond (Range Life).

"Over the turnstile turn out in the traffic, there's ways of living. It's the way I'm living. Right or wrong, It's all that I can do" - Range Life, Pavement.

I may tire of finding Pavement song titles to head up these Capital Ring blogs but it seems unlikely I'll tire of writing them and, even more so, walking the Capital Ring itself. Yesterday's stroll from Streatham to Richmond via Wimbledon Park and many other beautiful, wild, and awe-inspiring green spaces was a tonic as these walks so often are. But, being the first walk we've convened for since the covid crisis turned the world upside down or at least wobbled an already upside down world on its axis, it was, of course, more emotional than ever.

It'd been a long time and the fact that it's likely to be one of the most verdant and naturally spectacular stretches on the whole seventy-five mile trek just added to the gaiety of the occasion. Even if both my feet, and my chafed undercarriage, were telling me otherwise at the end of play.

When we broke off in Streatham over four months back and I took an Uber back to Honor Oak Park the UK coronavirus death toll was 21. Writing this, it now stands at 45,318 (globally an astounding 602,757) and it's beyond any doubt whatsoever that the UK, not despite but directly because of Boris Johnson and his cabinet of arse-lickers, expertise deniers, incompetent buffoons, and bullies, has had one of the worst results in the world (very likely THE worst result in the world) despite having the twin advantages of being an island and having several weeks warning. A warning Johnson refused to take seriously, preferring instead to bang lecterns while blustering on about the blunt tool he used to manoeuvre himself into Number Ten - Brexit. Which, soon enough, will inflict even further damage on an already divided and reeling nation.

The fortnight before the walk saw conversations with my co-conspirators in the Capital Ring project about the safety measures and the protocol we'd employ on this walk. Government messaging is intentionally creatively ambiguous so it's been left to people to police themselves, often aggressively on social media, with predictably divisive results. I've seen people accused of "cowering" if they're still isolating and I've seen people castigated for drinking a pint in an empty beer garden. Masks have gone from face coverings to prevent spread of the disease to fashion accessories to, depressingly, articles of faith that have been juiced by each side in the endless culture war.

Going into lockdown people were being kind, trying to help each other. Coming out less so. If we have to go into it again, which Johnson claims won't happen but he's full of shit so who knows, I predict people will be much much less happy and much much less compliant in doing so. We need to make sure we come out slowly and as well as we can. As such we felt a walk round commons and parks and masked travel would be fine and that we'd review the pub and curry situation when it came up. The deal was if there was one single member of our group, and everyone's in a slightly different place - even within our small group, we'd swap going in a pub for having drinks in the park and we'd swap going in a restaurant for a bag of chips on a bench or something. As one of the less cautious people I was happy to let the more reticent walkers take the lead on this.

So it came to pass that yesterday morning at about 9pm I was sat, at first the only passenger - three joined later and only one broke the law by not wearing a mask - apparently better than most journeys, on the P13 bus trying to read The Guardian through glasses steamed up by an 80p mask I bought in a local corner shp. A very minor inconvenience and absolutely not an infringement of my civil liberties.

It was still nice to take it off when I arrived in Streatham, ridiculously, an hour early! I had a look around Streatham Common, watching kids play football and cricket, and, soon enough, both Shep and then Pam arrived.

 

Unsure what the situation would be regarding greasy spoons, I'd found out that the rather lovely Rookery Cafe on Streatham Common was operating a click and collect service so me and Shep had a basic cheese toastie, I added chips, and Pam went all fancy with her la-di-da sourdough with broccoli and gruyere. All that staying home baking banana bread during lockdown has gone to her head and given her hi-falutin' ideas.

It was tasty and the weather was nice enough that eating it outside was a pleasure rather than a chore. It was quick too and soon we were off passing back over Streatham Common, under the railway line, past the pleasingly named Eucalyptus Mews, and, once Shep had picked a coffee up at a very continental looking Portuguese joint, we were soon on Conyers Road and our trusty tome, author - Colin Saunders, was pointing out the first new sights of the day.

Despite looking more like a Moorish temple the building with the copper green cupolas above is in fact the Thames Water Pumping Station built in 1888 for the Southwark & Vauxhall Waterworks Company (the Victorians liked to dress anything to do with toilet business up all fancy). It's an impressive sight. Better hidden from views, further along the street, was a stained glass window in an ordinary residential house depicting a woman watching a departing sailing ship.

We passed the Streatham Methodist Church (1900) and soon emptied out on to Tooting Bec Common, leaving the borough of Lambeth for the borough of Wandsworth (in all we would pass through five boroughs on this walk). I've visited Tooting Bec lido, on the common, many times (though, obviously, not this year) and it's the very last word in Art Deco fading glamour. All peeling paint rendered in primary colours. At 100 yards long, 33 yards wide, it's Europe's longest lido and when I was much fitter I'd enjoy putting a few lengths in there before soaking up some rays on the concrete that surrounds it.

Maybe next year? We crossed Tooting Bec Common, Tooting has two commons - the other being Tooting Graveney, and I read that the word Bec originates from the granting of the parish to the abbey of St Mary de Bec in Normandy in the 12th century. Later on much of the surrounding area was owned by the Duke of Bedford and, still, many roads and pubs take the Bedford name.

Including one in Balham, which we soon reached. Hitting Balham High Road, where my friends Tony and Alex lived before decamping to rural Berkshire and starting a family, we were faced with more Art Deco splendour in the form of the rather lovely Du Cane Court (former home to comedian Tommy Trinder and now home, according to Wikipedia, to another comedian - Arthur Smith). Du Cane Court looks like it should be facing out to the sea in Bexhill or St Leonards and I'd love to have a look around inside the building one day. Maybe need to keep 'em peeled for future Open House events.

Soon enough our walk to us to Wandsworth Common and in front of us we could see The Hope pub. The terrace was large and hardly any of the tables were occupied but when we got closer we saw they all had RESERVED signs on them and if our names weren't down, we weren't coming in.

Undefeated we took some beers from a nearby off-license, Shep (surprisingly and uncharacteristically opting for a can of Carlsberg) and sat by a pink ice cream van soaking up the by then rather warm sun. Soon Clare (a Capital Ring debutante - but hopefully not her final walk with us) and Kathy joined us. Clare had an ale, as Pam was doing, and Kathy an ice cream. I'd not seen Shep or Kathy for at least four months and I was beginning to venture further away from home than I had done in that entire time too.

Wandsworth Common was a place I'd only crossed the edge of in the past and I'd dismissed it as a somewhat prosaic piece of open grass but it's surprisingly lovely. A couple of tree lined lakes mark one edge of the park and there's a pretty covered walkway which we passed under before opening up into some well used playing fields. All the others availed themselves off the toilets before we headed on towards HMP Prison Wandsworth, a sight I'd included in my Werewolves of London LBF musical walk back in September 2018.

Away from the musical history of the jail, the former Surrey House of Correction (built in 1851) has also been the former home of Oscar Wilde (a street nearby testifies to his time there), and Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs (before his 1965 escape). Derek Bentley, made famous in the 1991 film Let Him Have It with Paul Reynolds and Christopher Eccleston) was hanged in Wandsworth in 1953. Wrongfully convicted of the murder of a policeman, Bentley's conviction was finally overturned in 1998. Possibly inspired by that film and definitely way too late to be any use to Bentley himself.

We passed a lovely road of Arts and Crafts style houses and the Beatrix Potter Primary School and began a long, and hot, stretch along the perimeter of Wandsworth Cemetery. About three and half decades ago Shep, myself, and our friend Bugsy recorded some songs in and around the cemetery (which we mistakenly thought was called Earlsfield Cemetery for the nearby station). They mostly consisted of us making guitar noises and scraping rusty mudguards against railings but it seemed fun at the time. Juvenilia in excelsis.

We passed a couple of tempting looking pubs, not stopping in them almost caused Clare palpitations, crossed the Wandle (site of both a previous and a future walk), entered the borough of Merton, and had a quick look at the white tiled Wimbledon mosque, built in 1977.

Then we missed a pub by walking down a side road. Aware there would not be many more drink stations en route, and despite being less than halfway in, we turned back to The Woodman. The garden was full but the pub was pretty empty and after a half-hearted debate in which nobody wanted to call the shots we found ourselves sat in a quiet corner of the pub far from anyone else supping a pint which soon became two and chatting about rhubarb among other things.

For some it was their first pub visit since March so it was an emotional, and highly enjoyable, pit stop. Despite it being a two pinter (for most of us) it was not, however, a long one and soon we were back on our feet and heading into the rather lovely, and perhaps unsurprisingly very tennis heavy, Wimbledon Park.

Wimbledon Park is one of London's oldest recreational spaces and was formed towards the end of the 16th century from part of Wimbledon Common. In the mid-18th century Capability Brown redesigned the park and created the impressive lake that takes up nearly half of its area. The lake was full of coots, swans, Egyptian geese (voted the bird of 2020), and moorhens. A playful pup joined them swimming in the water and as the sun reflected off the surface all felt right with the world.

We considered the phrase "walk your rubbish home" (why not take? are they trying to make it sound like some kind of dance?) and headed across the park and past the golf course which once made up part of the park but not the All England tennis club which also was. With the championship cancelled this year for the first time since 1945, Novak Djokovic and Simona Halep remain the defending champions.

A short climb, and none too steep according to our resident northerners, took us to Putney Heath. A completely new experience for me and an enjoyable one too. Broad avenues cut through the woods, dappled sunlight shone through, and soon we reached a windmill.

Pam's photos (for which, as ever, I thank her) caught it much better than mine. She'd been keeping her camera in her bag earlier as we'd been in her own manor and the sights were too familiar to be worth recording, apparently!

Our book informed us that this windmill, built in 1817, was the only remaining example of a hollow post mill. The main body of the mill, with all its machinery, originally turned on a central post through which a hole was bored for drive shaft taking power to the machinery. It was replaced, in 1893, by an iron bearing.

An anecdote for the windmill purists I fear. Hopefully more interestingly, Putney Heath, and Wimbledon Common which abuts it, form one of the largest public open spaces in all of London and it certainly felt like it as we passed the clubhouse of the London Scottish Golf Club and down to Queen's Mere where, according to Elizabeth Beresford, the Wombles would chill out after a hard day's litter collection.

Alas, no Wombles for us but plenty of swans. Queen's Mere is formed from the damming of the nearby Beverley Brook which we should have followed on towards Richmond Park but took a brief wrong turn. Correcting ourselves we passed across a playing field, still very hot and starting to get thirsty, and over that Beverley Brook before, very briefly, entering the borough of Kingston and then, quite excitingly, entering into Richmond Park. A beast of a park and a park full of beasts.

Richmond Park is the largest urban park in the whole of Europe and, often, it feels it. Sometimes you can see tower blocks on the horizon and, when the path rises, the skyline of London at some distance but in other parts of the park you could be mistaken for thinking you were in the New Forest or something. It's trees and greenery as far as the eye can see. With the occasional deer poking their head out. An estimated 650, both fallow and red, call the park home.

Richmond Park was first used by England's hunting mad royalty and then, in 1637, Charles I enclosed the area for sole use of the royals. This act of animal cruelty and vain regal selfishness had the almost certainly unintended effect of ensuring a large, and beautiful, part of London - and one that would be a prime piece of real estate, would remain mostly unspoiled.

Charles I is very much the accidental hero of the Richmond Park story and I almost felt sorry for him getting his head chopped off. We passed Spankers Hill Wood and cut between the magnificent Pen Ponds (also formed by the damming of the Beverley Brook). Folks sat on the side, one even paddled in the water, and with the sun now low in the sky the whole view, even with Pam hobbling bravely on a bad foot and me struggling with my chafing, was very heaven.

 

We climbed gently to even greater vantage points and, with a fingerpost, seemingly, missing and our thirst now dictating our steps, we missed a brief little loop around Petersham Park, Sidmouth Wood, and Pembroke Lodge Gardens where I would, surely, have regaled my by now distracted friends with stories about Bertrand Russell (who grew up there) and the Countess of Pembroke who moved into the home of the park's former mole catcher!

From King Henry's Mound we'd have been able to see as far as the dome of St Paul's Cathedral and on to Surrey and Berkshire. The mound is named for Henry VIII as he is believed to have stood atop it looking for a flare from the Tower of London that would have confirmed the execution of Anne Boleyn that would have freed him to marry Lady Jane Seymour. How romantic.

Instead, we left the park and headed to the Roebuck pub where, their second mention in this blog, Tony and Alex had their wedding reception in 1999. There was a queue outside the pub to buy take away drinks and Pam and Kathy headed home but me, Shep, and Clare took the plunge and soon found ourselves, cold plastic pint pots in hand, looking out to the undulating Arcadian idyll of the Thames as it stretches down to Twickenham and Teddington. The site of a former TADS walk and a sight always worth seeing. Surely one of London's finest.

While lining up for our drinks at The Roebuck, Clare had booked a table for three at the Tangawizi Indian restaurant across the Thames in what's classed as East Twickenham but seems to be Richmond really. We'd been warned that the light above the table wasn't working and we'd have a candle instead but, of course, that was hardly our main concern.

With Covid on the mind we knew we had to be careful but Tangawizi (Swahili for ginger) seemed to have everything in hand. Hand sanitiser, waiters in visors, and reasonably well (though perhaps not ideally so) spaced out tables. It was the first time I'd crossed the Thames in four months and it was the first time I'd been in an Indian restaurant in that time too and I'd have to say the latter was probably the bigger deal. We had three Cobras each (I know) and I took a dal makhani and a paratha before we told rude jokes just like in the old days. The before times.

It was good to be back and it felt (though who can be certain?) safe to be back. Shep headed off and Clare and I walked to Richmond station together. Masked up, she hopped off the train at Putney and I continued on to Waterloo. At one point a very drunk man, mask in hand but not on face, got on the train and coughed and sneezed all over the carriage. He wasn't on long but just enough to scare the shit out of people. He's probably lucky he didn't get a punch in the face.

At Waterloo I jumped on a 63 bus, just me and the driver all journey, and just after midnight I was back home. I'd set a new 2020 walking record of 37,470 steps but, more than that, it was good to be doing this kind of thing again. These walks bring me so much joy, provide so many great memories, and, booze and curry aside, keep me reasonably fit as well. I'd missed them, and the friends I do them with, sorely.

We don't know how many we'll be able to do before a second lockdown takes place or even if a second lockdown will take place but, for now, it just felt good, and safe or at least safe enough, to be back out there. The next two legs take us from Richmond to Osterley Lock and on to Greenford. We're not sure when that will be but having got this walk under our belt we'll have a better feel for how things play out in this tiresomely titled new normal (it doesn't feel that different to the old normal in most places - either that or we're getting used to quicker than we realise) and soon I'll look into recommencing the TADS and LbF walks too. But as soon as I'll open them up again when I feel it's right and safe to do so, I will close them down again if the alternative proves to be the case.

I hope it's the former. Thanks to Shep, Pam, Clare, and Kathy for joining me on a walk that would have been memorable just for happening at all but ended up being memorable because it was beautiful, interesting, and a lot of fun.