A visit to Tooting

I had occasion to visit Tooting a week or so ago, an opportunity to revisit old haunts.

Started off by going to London Bridge and pulling a Bullingdon there for a run down to Clapham Common. A cold day, with low flying sun, so it was just as well I had remembered to pack my sunglasses.

Arrived at the Common, where I knew there was a stand but had some trouble locating it. Luckily, there was a bench full of cheerful indigents who could point me in the right direction.

The Common does not seem to come with many benches, so I settled for a log on which to take my sardine sandwiches, it being one of those days when I resented paying pounds for a commercial snack that I did not particularly want or like. Lunch being accompanied by some hopeful crows and a squirrel. Hope which went unrequited.

A pizza joint in what appears to be a former public convenience - with a sense of humour. Not sure where the public is supposed to be convenienced now.

Down the hole to Clapham Common tube, to what must be one of the very few two-sided platforms on the network. Rather dangerous and I dare say they have more than their fair share of accidents. There were also escalators which I did not remember. Maybe replacements rather than entirely new? From where I associated to stories about the very long working hours that escalators have to put in and the importance of their not going wrong very often.

Self winding clock company still present at Tooting Broadway. Must do even better than the escalators. See references 3 and 4 for earlier thoughts about the matter.

Out at Tooting Broadway, to find a branch of the very same Kokora as we have in Epsom. On past the once famous Slag & Handbag, now rebadged and rather shabby looking. A very serious wet fish shop with large numbers of fish displayed on what seemed like a huge amount of chopped ice. Exotica further inside.

Maciek still up and running, although I thought the format had changed slightly. Something the rather surly counter-hand (female) denied. Kabanos did not look that great, so I took some darker sausage, maybe seven inches long and getting on for an inch in diameter. They turned out to be rather good, a sort of garlic sausage, higher grade. They also had what looked like a flat cake, about twelve by nine inches, maybe two inches thick. Apparently it was white bread, but I did not think to ask whether she sold it by the slice or whether one had to buy the whole thing, which would have been far too much, both in money and in bread.

Mixed Blessings still there. I did not used to care much for their bread, but they did sell ginger cakes, Bulla by name, of reference 1, which I rather liked. But there was something of a queue, so I passed.

Antelope still there, but shut this Friday lunchtime. A place where I have taken the odd fancy cigar out back. Rather a rough old place as I recall: not the 'Foresters Arms' they talk of at reference 2, rather Jack Beard's. A place with an interesting history, not least the birth of ladies' boxing.

The little wine bar near the top of Vant Road also still there, but renamed and shut. A place which had not been impressed by our making an exhibition of our knowledge of jazz.

But the Tooting Mitre, famous as a bus terminus, was both present and open, if renamed. Once home to famous pub quizzes, hosted by a semi-professional question master and well supported by young medicos and others from St. George's hospital up the road. Well supported enough that the questions were slightly tilted in a medical direction. Our team included one former footballer who could do sport, I think from West Ham in the days when footballers had E-types rather than Ferraris, and another chap with a fine memory for pop music from the recent past - so even without medicos we did not do too badly, scoring the occasional frozen turkey, or whatever.

I was looking for the place called Amen Corner, but found this corner instead. A monument to a well dug by some Tooting worthies for the greater good of the poor folk without access to clean water. But if I had pushed on a bit, I would have found it. As I did on the occasion noticed at reference 5.

Business done and strolling back towards Wetherpoon's, I was impressed by the message of a Bible basher about seeking refuge from sin. I felt that whoever wrote the script knew all about the temptations of the flesh and what one needed to do to escape their clutches - with my sticking to the old-fashioned view that temptations of the flesh are not always something to be applauded and indulged. While Catholics, with their confessions and Jesuits, have made a very serious study of the matter. Another baby not to be chucked away with the bathwater.

Stopped by at the famous Bingo hall, once a picture palace, now a listed building. A place we once visited in the course of a heritage weekend.

A place where I was free to wander about, despite explaining to the chap manning the front desk that I was not there to gamble. 

Front of house, where this snap was taken, was given over to slots. Not empty, but not exactly busy.

I decided that Wetherpoon's, despite my long association with the place, was too crowded and shabby, and settled for the quieter but more genteel Castle up the road. A place owned by those well-known scions of the far right, the Youngs. At least one person I know, a serious drinker, will not use the places on that account.

A bit of a business with a disabled person at the bus stop, in a wheelchair, with carer, who failed to get on before the bus pulled away. She was getting into a bit of a state. I thought the driver was being a bit off, but eventually I worked out that the problem was that the wheelchair space was shared with prams, which at this particular time were filling it all up. They were not going to give way and the driver probably knew from experience that it was not worth making a row with the mothers. It took BH to remind me later of the far away days when pushchairs were folded up and stuffed under the stairs, behind the conductor's station, and babies were sat on laps. Fat chance of that on this occasion. Maybe the carer should have thought about time of day and primary schools closing times. Or just called up a cab.

No Wellingtonia to be seen at Streatham Cemetary, presumably bought for what was then the borough at a time when there was still farmland in what is now Earlsfield. As one supposes was the case when the nearby Springfield Hospital was built.

Traffic all bunged up at Earlsfield, for no apparent reason. Took a Jameson regular at the Halfway House, declining something called Jameson Orange, apparently favoured by those who go in for cocktails. To my mind, always a sign of weakness when a seemingly well-established brand feels the need for this sort of thing.

Scored a two (at the aeroplane game) on arrival on the platform, then a few ones. Then there was a delay and I sat down to a rather narrow field of view which only yielded more ones. At which point it was announced that the southbound third rail, the one carrying the power, was out in the Earlsfield area. Down the stairs then up the stairs to catch a train to Clapham Junction - where I crossed from platform 9 to platform 10 just as an Epsom train was pulling in. So not as bad as I had feared.

Greeted by the police helicopter at Epsom but, for once, no taxis. And while I waited, I noticed that the various lights around Epsom Station are very poorly synchronised. They don't seem to have got the idea at all.

Home to read in the Metro about the selfish young man noticed at reference 6. And not to read the Star, picked up in the bingo hall. Complete garbage. Not even any entertaining pictures.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulla_cake.

Reference 2: https://pubheritage.camra.org.uk/pubs/2172.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/01/cheese.html.

Reference 4: http://psmv3.blogspot.com/2017/08/clock.html.

Reference 5: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2011/05/prayer-time.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/11/selfish.html.