It should’ve been simple.
Getting the tube from Victoria to Hyde Park Corner, that is. Should only have taken fifteen minutes. Victoria line to Green Park, quick wander through the tunnels to the Piccadilly line platforms, then the next stop. Piece of cake, I’d be there before the first support band even hit the stage at the festival in Hyde Park itself. I’d done the journey before several times, to gigs and client visits in the area, so it was familiar to me. Coming from work I’ll probably look out of place in the crowd wearing a shirt, tie and trousers, but still. I nabbed a seat at Green Park, quite happy as the next train indicated after mine was a good five minutes away, and with my headphones on and my nose stuck in my book – too lazy to get my glasses out of my bag, my nose was almost pressed against the fold – I could shut out the outside world.
Well, saying that, I didn’t completely shut it out. I was vaguely aware of what was going on – the general movement of the train let me know roughly where I was on the network, as my personal distractions shut out the announcements and scrolling updates above the opposite window. A minute or two after leaving the train slowed down and stopped. Still reading I stepped off the train onto the platform and made my way over to the opposite wall. I was vaguely aware of the train doors swishing closed and the train moving off, but I was too engrossed and wanted to finish my chapter. That’s the trouble with reading thrillers, you don’t want them to end! Reluctantly I folded over the corner of the page to mark my spot, took off my headphones and began to look for the exit.
It was at this point that I realised I might’ve made a mistake. That, or Hyde Park Corner had gone down in the world since I was last here a month back. I looked around me frantically, wondering why the cream and red tiled walls were covered in dust. The overhead strip lights, normally so bright, were gone – in their place half a dozen low wattage bare bulbs hummed quietly to themselves, barely casting a glow. I was alone on the platform, or so it appeared, just me and my book for company. Where the heck was I?
My footsteps were muffled as I walked along the platform, cushioned by layers of dust. I could hear a faint clack-clack-clack in the distance, the further I moved down the platform. Underneath the first bulb I could vaguely make out metre high lettering on the walls – rubbing my hand over the dust turned it black almost immediately but revealed the letters DOWN STREET. Down Street. Of course.
As a child my grandfather used to tell me to watch the walls carefully between selected stops on the tube. Not only was it a great way of stopping a hyperactive kid running up and down the carriage screaming, hollering and annoying strangers, he’d be quick to point out odd gaps between stations where disused, abandoned or never built stations were to be. He’d tell me the history of them – how some had been used as air-raid shelters during the war, others used for film sets in later years. We’d make a Sunday afternoon habit out of watching films featuring the London Underground and identifying stations or spotting inaccuracies – he held a grudge against Gwyneth Paltrow for years over Sliding Doors, despite me explaining that it wasn’t her fault she manages to use inter-dimensional portals as part of her journey – and if his heart hadn’t given out two years ago, the episode of Sherlock probably would’ve done it in for him. I remember him telling me about this station during the irascible Creep, the plot wending towards a predictable conclusion in the background while he explained how the Ministry of Defence requisitioned the station for war-time use. While the film hadn’t seemed that scary on a sunny Sunday afternoon, being trapped alone in the dimly lit, dank tunnels was not the time to bring it back to mind.
Priorities, though. After all, when would I get the chance to be back here? I positioned myself against the tiled wall, transferring what was left of the dust to my shirt. I tilted my phone towards me, angled it as best I could, and promptly blinded myself when the flash went off. The picture, while hardly flattering, would make an interesting conversation piece to a few people aware of the station. I tried to upload it to various social networks, at which point I quickly realised my folly – mobile phone reception was non-existent down here. Great. That might make getting out slightly trickier. I’d been here for five minutes and had pretty much exhausted all possibilities for fun. I stood pondering this when the track started to hum. Yes! The train following mine was approaching. I made my way to the end of the platform, confident that the driver would see me and let me in when he stopped for whatever reason the Piccadilly line trains had been stopping here today.
Except he didn’t stop. Didn’t even notice me. Granted, I was in a bit of a state, my once white shirt now a grim shade of grey due to the dust. My face was probably the same, my hands definitely were. Better get myself cleaned up if I have a hope in hell of getting noticed and getting out of here. I’d heard a dripping sound coming from one of the passageways off the platform when I went to take my self-portrait, so I figured using that to wipe myself off was probably better than being stuck down here until god knows when. As I walked away from the platforms towards what would’ve been the way out to street level, the whooshing sounds of the trains grew quieter. The clacking sound I’d heard earlier was interspersed with a faint ding. Probably something railway related echoing through the tunnels. I cleaned up my face and hands as best I could in water – fresh, clean water with no impurities whatsoever, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise because I don’t want to think of any other options of what it could be – and positioned myself back on the Westbound platform, hoping I’d get back on the train to get to this festival. Remembering an old John Betjeman tale my grandfather once read me I pulled a copy of the Metro newspaper out of my bag to have something white to wave to attract the attention of the driver.
Well, it worked. Kinda. He noticed me, for sure, but I couldn’t imagine he was expecting to see someone on the platform of a long disused station. Poor chap looked like he’d seen a ghost! There I was, waving this paper about like a mad thing, eyes wide peering at him. The train zoomed on through towards Hyde Park Corner with the driver reaching for his radio. Great. Hopefully he’d be notifying the British Transport Police, and they’d come get me. I’d gladly pay the fine for trespassing if it meant I could get out, the trains didn’t seem to be stopping here. No other way out. Except…hadn’t I seen this station before? From above? Didn’t Granddad take me to see a tube station that had been turned into a newsagents when Nan and my brother went to look at Buckingham Palace? Think, James, think! Out of habit I tried to load up Google Maps on my phone before realising the futility of it. I knelt down and sketched out a quick map in the dust of the local area, it must’ve been this one! With new found vigour I leapt up, dusting myself off and heading back into the station itself.
I passed my source of please-god-let-this-be-clean-water, and followed the passageway round to the left. I could barely hear the trains passing now, but the lighting was getting brighter, at least. I passed some incredibly well preserved wartime posters, imploring me to Dig For Victory and that Careless Talk Costs Lives. I headed towards the lift shaft, knowing that there would be a staircase nearby, passing an open door to an empty room on my left. Past the lift to the spiral staircase. I hated those staircases with a passion, normally, but today I was grateful. I bounded up the stairs, taking two steps at a time, round and round, up and up, getting further and further away from the bottom, round and up and round and up and round and up and how long was this bloody staircase?! The one at Covent Garden was about 200 steps and I swear that took me less time. I felt like I’d been going for fifteen minutes! I stopped, sitting on the stairs, gasping for a drink. At this point I would’ve sold my mother for a bottle of diet Pepsi, and I wouldn’t even use that stuff to clean my bathroom sink with. Looking down, the well-lit corridors below were just a dim hazeI looked up, trying to work out how much further I had to go, but the staircase just disappeared into inky blackness. Sigh. Well, I would not getting out of here by sitting on this blasted staircase. Standing up, I trudged up the stairs, slower than before – not that it stopped me smacking my head on a wooden trapdoor with such a force that had there been any light, I’m sure I would’ve seen cartoon birdies flapping around my head.
On the bright side I’d run out of stairs and discovered the passage to the newsagents. On the other, there could’ve been less painful ways to do it. Once again I cursed a lack of a flashlight app on the Nexus phones, and then had an idea. Was I close enough to the surface to get a mobile reception? No. The sodding newsagents had a closed Wifi connection as well. Luckily I had a nice handy trapdoor to take my anger out on, banging on it and hollering until I was hoarse, hoping, praying for someone to hear me. No such luck. Cradling my tender hand I sat on the staircase, mulling over my options. Couldn’t exit at street level, not without a way to break through this trap door. No way of flagging down a train. Could I walk to Hyde Park Corner? There must have been enough clearance in the tunnels, surely? If not I was sure there was maintenance alcoves to duck into, I’d have plenty of warning of a train approaching. The damn things were loud enough. At this point I wasn’t bothered about the festival, I just wanted to go home and shower. I checked my phone. Had it really only been 30 minutes since I got off the tube? That couldn’t be right, surely? Shining my screen onto my watch confirmed that yes, I’d only been stuck here for half an hour. I guess the mind plays tricks on you when you’re trapped in a disused Underground station, cut off almost from the outside world. Wearily I traipsed downstairs again. The journey down seemed a heck of a lot shorter than the one going up. Maybe I wasn’t as fit as I thought.
At least going back along here I could take pictures of those war posters. Something cool to put on Facebook, at least. What the hell was up with that racket, though? The clacking had become a cacophony, drowning out all noise. I walked towards the posters, passing a room full of typists in 1940s garb on my right. Thankfully the light along the corridor was good enough not to need the flash on my phone. I lined it up, head pounding, the noise driving me mad, and took the picture. I swear it was quieter in here on the way up. I was going to have to tell the typists to keep it down.
I walked back to the room and stuck my head round the door. Four rows of desks, each with three typists in, were facing back at me. They didn’t seem to have noticed me. Disappointingly, none of them looked like Natalie Dormer’s character from Captain America. I coughed to get their attention.
“Yes, young man?” came a shrill voice from next to me. I suddenly didn’t need to use the loo any more. A matronly woman stood next to her desk at the front of the room, glowering at me with her arms folded.
“Um, would you mind asking your colleagues to type quieter, please? I’ve got a splitting headache, and it’s really not helping.”
“Type quietly? How dare you! Don’t you know there’s a war on, sonny? Leave your telegrams and get out, I won’t have anything distracting my girls.”
War? Telegrams? Eh? I looked further into the room. No sign of modern technology anywhere. Metal typewriters that look like they weigh a ton. Not even a biro to write with. This…was not right. Unfortunately my hesitation had drawn closer attention to me.
“Well? Your telegrams, where are they?”
“Um, I left my bag on the platform. I’ll just nip down and get it. I’ll be back in a jiffy, or my name’s not Gary Sparrow!”
Yeah, this was too weird for me. I needed to make my escape. I backed out of the room slowly, then turned and sprinted down the corridor to the platforms. The passage grew darker as the lighting got more modern and more sparsely placed. As I turned onto the platform I ran smack into a policeman in hi-vis gear. The irony was not lost on me as I bounced off him and landed on my arse with a groan.
“Aha!” he said, “we’d had word of a trespasser down ‘ere! Looking for new places to tag, are you?”
This disappointed me a little, as I’d been raised that all policemen begin conversations with “’ello ‘ello ‘ello, what’s going on here then?”.
“No, officer, I just got off at the wrong stop! I’ll take whatever punishment I’ve earned, I won’t argue anything, but there’s something up there that’s bloody weird!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever! C’mon, let’s get you back to the surface!”
“Look, I’m not resisting arrest. You can cuff me if you feel you have to. But I NEED to show you this room” I implored.
Something in my voice must’ve convinced him, as he relented and asked me to show the way, warning me that if I tried to run off, harsher punishments would follow. I led him up the dimly lit corridors, past the peeling posters, to the closed door. We stood in front of it and with a theatrical flourish, I opened it…to show an empty room. No sign of life at all. My new found saviour wasn’t impressed.
“You wanted to show me a cupboard?”
“I’m sorry officer. I’ve had a doozy of a day, believe me. Lead the way out of here, take me to the nearest police station, I’ll plead guilty to trespassing and what not. I’ve got a horrible headache, I just want to see daylight again.”
Luckily the courts looked favourably on my transgressions, when I got evidence from Transport for London (via a friend on the inside) that my tube had made an unscheduled stop at the station. What prompted it to stop there, I don’t know. They’ve no idea why the driver opened the doors, either. My headache faded and no permanent damage was caused by the blow to my head. The thing is, when it gets quiet at night, I keep hearing typewriters.
