MY FIRST EXPERIENCE of travel underground was on what is
now the Northern Line. At that tender age, a line which could boast stations with names such as Burnt Oak, Angel and Nightingale Lane was invested with great romance; and perhaps I may be forgiven some ruminatory nostalgia over the poster exhibition, to mark the line's jubilee, in Charing Cross underground station. But the jubilee brochure Fifty Years of the Hampstead Tube does not answer some questions. I remem- ber feeling strongly about why, for example, was Nightingale Lane Station renamed—adopting, I think, Clapham North, or some such'dreary des- ignation? Why was the 'ghost station' between Hampstead and Golders Green, which had already been given the name of Bull and Bush, never opened to the public? Why was the station at Charing Cross renamed Strand; and the station not at Charing Cross, but on the river, called Charing Cross, thereby confusing many thou- sands of travellers, who have made (and still make) London Transport's ears burn with their murrains, as they climb the weary slope up to the station? And why was Warren Street Station not designed to link up with Euston Square Station, to save passengers coming up to the sur- face, crossing Tottenham Court Road, and de- scending again if they want to change to the Circle line?
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