Mayday

Ten days ago I was summoned to the Croydon University Hospital for a test of something or other, the Mayday Hospital as was, taking a bit of load off St..Helier. A hospital situated between West Croydon railway station and the Thornton Heath Pond where there were a couple of public houses which I used to use in my student days. No idea if they are still there, and I failed to check them out on this occasion.

But I had thought to visit the Anglo-Catholic, gothic revival church of St. Michael's, more or less next to West Croydon railway station, an impressive place which I had come across, years ago now, in the margins of a visit to one of the Home Office tower blocks in the vicinity. No idea if they are still there either.

The church was still there, now surrounded by redevelopment, but it was very firmly locked up. I walked right around the perimeter and only managed to get into the car park because someone had forgotten to lock it - from where I did penetrate to a sort of cloister, but no further.- and I almost got locked in by a lady arriving to use the car park.

I suppose they had the excuse that this was not the sort of area where you can leave churches open to all comers. A pity though, as I do remember the interior as being very impressive. Perhaps last visited in 2007, as noticed at reference 2, complete with possible confusions between Catholic and Anglo-Catholic and between St, Michael and St. George. Both these last were involved with dragons.

After which I headed off up the London Road, being passed from time to time by the very No.109 bus which carried me into town for lectures and so forth when I was not cycling - a fair way to do both ways.

Which turned out to be a very diverse area, with lots of shops, mainly grocery shops, from various parts of the globe. Lots of variety of banana and plantains. Lots of Halal butchers, so maybe there was goat to be had, either for goat stew, white goat curry (as in the West Indies) or red goat curry (as in northern India and Pakistan)? Quite a lot of fish shops, which I did not inspect closely, but which I suspected of being mainly into frozen fish. 

[Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour Prime Minister, laid the foundation stone in 1926]

Much more lively and diverse than Mill Road in Cambridge, which has gone very much downhill in that department. Instead, there are lots of cafés catering to all the university types who have colonised much of what used to be Romsey Town for the workers; gentrification, Cambridge style. Complete with an elaborate and once thriving Labour Club. There is, however, a handsome new mosque, with both being noticed at reference 3.

Back on London Road, an interesting mixture of old and new buildings. Including, when I got to Mayday Road, a long-established branch of the Coughlans Bakery who opened up a branch, a few years ago now, at Horton Retail, just up the road from us. Was this the founding establishment? I don't use our branch much, partly because it is not very convenient, partly because I have not been impressed by the appearance of their bread. Cakes, some technicolour, and sandwiches are, I think, more their thing, at least there. They also operate a van, servicing the industrial estates.

A sign here said straight up the main road for the main entrance to the hospital, but this turned out to be the wrong entrance for me, as I was directed back down Mayday Road to the purple zone, to one of the oldest buildings on the site. I was told it started out as an eye hospital, or perhaps the eye department.

The machine I was visiting. A sort of shower cubicle with an extension for the knees cut into the bottom, visible behind the gray hose in the snap above. Bit of a bodge really. Made in England I was told, which I thought a little unusual for a chunk of hospital machinery, a lot of which seems to come from a long way away.

Google Images, however, seems to think it comes from the Belgium company at references 5 and 6. Who certainly appear to sport the right logo.

The antique staircase all present and complete, including the antique radiator below. A handsome bit of ironwork.

The antique door. There are traces of what looks like words on the red panel above the door, but, under zoom, they do not look very English to me. Maybe the building has had various uses over the years. I don't think the right hand gate is hanging off its hinges; that is just the result of the fish-eye lens in my telephone.

Out to investigate the shops a bit more carefully and, hopefully to get something a bit different to eat.

A large Turkish emporium could do me some Greek figs and some fine Turkish delight - at least I was told it was after the event. They also had many varieties of dates, but not the brick dates I am presently in the market for, Western Commodities and Grape Tree having failed me.

I looked in at various butchery counters, coming across some diced mutton but nothing labelled or looking like goat. I suppose I should have asked. Generally, I thought the standard of presentation poor, certainly when compared with the better class of English butcher.

Water melons back in season, but I was not going to carry one home from Croydon, not without my wheels, which I had left behind.

To eat, I ended up in a small place offering excellent, freshly cooked bread, not oily in the way of that offered by Cappadocia in Epsom (also very good, in a different way), along with salad, various kinds of meat and various kinds of goo from plastic bottles.

I weakened and took pink goo on my lamb, which seemed to be the form, but another time I would not. Notwithstanding, it all went down pretty well, quite a lot of it in the form of hot meat sandwiches, a dish I am rather fond of. Which meant another of their excellent breads, it turning up in less than five minutes. Cooked in a special contraption, about the size and shape of one of those upright, floor living, spin driers of old.

I failed to work out that the yellow sauce was actually dahl, despite taking some of it as a garnish. Top left in the first snap.

All very reasonably priced, and I would do a better job on the order if I ever get back there.

And so to the station and back home. For a quick visit to Ben the Butcher on which I shall be reporting in due course.

PS: at various places along the way, there were some of those long ramps up to platform level that I remember from Norbury Station. Why did Southern favour ramps while Southwestern favoured steps? Was it all to do with the price of land at the time? The density of ladies with perambulators?

References

Reference 1: https://www.stmichaelscroydon.com/.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2007/06/talking-trains.html.

Reference 3: https://cambridgecentralmosque.org/.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/a-stroll-in-cambridge.html.

Reference 5: https://mgcdiagnostics.com/.

Reference 6: https://mgcdiagnostics.com/images/uploads/documents/Medisoft_Brochure_EN_-_Corporate_03-21_LD.pdf.