My Home Town

...the first 5 years of my life.

Lost, no sense of direction?

No, it's just that I live in one of the outer London boroughs where you don't actually feel that you can call ALL of Europe's biggest city 'home', neither do I think of myself as a 'Londoner' in a "Cor blimey guv, yer a real gennelman an' no mistake" kind of way, yet my borough bears the name of 'Hounslow', which is somewhere ELSE that I don't actually ...
...runway ever gets built in my lifetime, I'm off!

It's easy to forget with the M4 and A4 running through the borough like the aorta and vena cava of west London, that Hounslow also has a history as a stage-coach stop.

The old London-Bath main road runs right through the High Street, still called Bath Road at the western end, and in former times would have been a first overnight stage coaching stop on the route west from ... more

Could I suggest that if anyone else is tempted to add to this category, they put the name of their home town first in the title. This will make it easy to search for.

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Despite being the instigator of this category, I hadn't at that point thought about where I live as 'my home town' despite having lived in the area for all but the first 5 years of my life.

Lost, no sense of direction?

No, it's just that I live in one of the outer London boroughs where you don't actually feel that you can call ALL of Europe's biggest city 'home', neither do I think of myself as a 'Londoner' in a "Cor blimey guv, yer a real gennelman an' no mistake" kind of way, yet my borough bears the name of 'Hounslow', which is somewhere ELSE that I don't actually live either, although it's only about two miles from my house.

The London Borough of Hounslow, to give the area its full name was formed in around 1967 as a result of the dissolution of the old County Of Middlesex, and the combining of the two erstwhile Middlesex boroughs of 'Heston & Isleworth' and 'Brentford & Chiswick', which in itself caused a deal of friction. To this day, just try telling someone who lives in 'posh' Chiswick 'Oh, that's in Hounslow isn't it?' and see how far you get with that as a chat-up line.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Yes, I'd like to move……..the borough, I mean.

Situated as it is, in a western slice of the circular 'pie' that is the GLC area, it not only has Europe's busiest airport on its doorstep, but some of Europe's busiest road traffic, not surprisingly taking people and freight to and from the airport! It therefore follows that it's not the quietest place in the world, with aircraft landings commencing at around 4.30 a.m. (so much for the BAA's definition of night flying restrictions).

However, if you're silly enough to buy a house under either of the two main flight-paths, then you ask for everything you get. Away from these two noise footprints, it's like any other outer urban borough, and at least you know that, this close to the runways, you won't have stray aircraft flying over you! If that third runway ever gets built in my lifetime, I'm off!

It's easy to forget with the M4 and A4 running through the borough like the aorta and vena cava of west London, that Hounslow also has a history as a stage-coach stop.

The old London-Bath main road runs right through the High Street, still called Bath Road at the western end, and in former times would have been a first overnight stage coaching stop on the route west from London, at least in winter.

To proceed any further in the dark would have meant crossing the formidable Hounslow Heath (of which some still remains) in the dark, at the mercy of the likes of ne'er-do-wells like Dick Turpin. Incidentally, Heathrow originally was a 'row' of cottages on the 'heath' - strange times we live in, eh? In summer, you could have made it to the somewhat more picturesque village of Colnbrook (now just the other side of the airport), which to this day has three or four identifiable coaching inns, two of which are still pubs.

HOUNSLOW AS A BEAUTY SPOT

An unlikely title I know, but there really is a lot to admire within the borough, even if that doesn't include Hounslow's own town centre, being the usual partially-pedestrianised suburban concrete mess with a so-so sized version of all national shops ('TKDebmarxxs', 'ArgaldiTMobile etc!) and very little else that's unique.

For one thing, we're not exactly short of parks.

Osterley Park, former London seat of The Earl of Jersey, is now an NT property, and has to be just about the closest to central London that you'll see cattle grazing. This is a delightful area of landscaped garden and lakes combined with more agricultural land*, marred only by its proximity to the M4, which emits a background drone, almost 24/7. Having lived here 52 years, I don't notice it now! The house and gardens were the scene for the 60's movie The Grass Is Greener where they represented the 'country pile' of Cary Grant, I seem to recall.

*This is also the closest a combine-harvester gets to working near London, I'll wager.

The wheat fields that form the western side of the park were once known as 'Elizabeth's Granary' as they supplied Good Queen Bess' official bakers. The estate my 1935 house is built on backs onto these fields, and the neighbouring more modern housing project is actually called Wheatlands, although the connection is no doubt lost on many of the home-owners there.

Whilst still on the subject of country piles, Syon Park, also in LB of Hounslow is the London seat of The Duke of Northumberland. This is also an ornamental park, but you have to pay to go in. Free access is limited to the Garden Centre where you are free to part with your money in oh so many other ways. Here again, look out for the highland cattle grazing without batting an eyelid as a Seven-Forty-Seven does a 'flaps-down, throttles up' 3000 feet directly above his horns. Syon Park has a prime example of the boroughs 'other beauty' spot, i.e the north bank of the Thames, as it flows past Old Deer Park and Kew Gardens on the Richmond bank.

Old Isleworth, an area heavily remodelled by the Luftwaffe in the Second World War (it actually had some sea-going docks worth bombing), is a lovely spot. The famous London Apprentice pub lies here with its terrace overlooking the nature conservation area of Isleworth Ait (or Eyot - that's what islets get called around her). The local All Saints church, ironically badly burned by teenage arsonists during WW2, had been rebuilt in a 'kind' of marriage between old and new, but for one, I'm not sure it works. Anyway, out back, there's a 'plague pit' - cheery thought that.

Strand-On-The-Green is the village bit of 'posher end' Chiswick. This pretty waterfront row of eclectic cottages and modern mews houses is interspersed with pubs all charging 'waterside prices'! It also faces the Public Records Office at Kew on the 'Surrey bank'. The Beatles got thrown out of The City Barge here during one of their films - Help! I think it might have been. The river all through, or rather past, LB of Hounslow is tidal, and I've spent many happy hours watching 'hoorays' launching their honking great cruisers down the Old Isleworth slipway, only to find that the jolly old Shogun is trapped by the tide on the way back up and needs a tow truck - oh the ignominy! Yet more evidence that Ken is right.

Nearer central London, you have the neo-Palladian style of Chiswick House with lake and grounds and nearby 'Hogarth's House' - I wonder what Hogarth would have made of Terminal One on a holiday Saturday!

Of course, for me, my own favourite beauty spot in the borough is the Fuller, Smith & Turner brewery - hic. Not Full o' S**t & Turnips as my Aussie friend will insist on calling them.

HOUNSLOW AS A MOVIE VENUE

Yet another unlikely title, you'd think, but Hounslow has featured, if only as an anonymous suburban location in many movies and TV sitcoms. The 60-70's TV series, Beggar My Neighbour (Reg Varney, Peter Jones, Pat Coombs, June Whitfield) was filmed in my mum's road, Oaklands Avenue in Osterley, which is also where gritty actor Bernard Lee, ('M' in many James Bond films, and grandfather to Jonny Lee Miller of 'Plunkett and Macleane' fame) actually lived for many years.

My only claim to vicarious fame these days is that I recently attended LB Hounslow Adult-Ed Italian classes along with Sandra Dickinson, Trillion in "Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy".

A lot of the outdoor locations spring from the fact that during the heyday of sitcoms and even masterpieces like Monthy Python, the BBC ran its outside recordings section from nearby Ealing Studios, so, if the street lamps are two-tone brown it's Ealing, if they're pale blue, it's Hounslow - easy when you know how.

More specifically, many outside shots in 'Bend It Like Beckham' were shot here deliberately, including the frontage to Hounslow Central underground station and many shots including the A4 and in particular the road signs pointing to my house, which is how I recognised them!

Even more recently, many of the street scenes in 'Finding Neverland', the J. M. Barrie story starring Johnny Depp were filmed in The Butts, Brentford - a Georgian area that wishes it was in Richmond - Anna Ford lives in The Butts. All the theatre shots were taken at nearby Richmond Theatre on The Green - see guys, I knew that Victorian makeover would come in handy sooner or later.

PLACES OF INTEREST

There really is a weird mix of museum-like attractions in the area. One is the Kew Steam Museum, actually in Brentford by dint of the fact that it's north of the river. This is an old Thames Water steam-powered pumping station with just about the largest 'Cornish Beam Engines' I've ever seen. It's like a cathedral to engineering where followers of the true power, including the late Fred Dibnah come to worship. Quite apart from the fixed pumping engines, it has many other steam exhibits including ships engines, a French-built front-line field railway from the First World War and is also home to open days for seemingly anyone with an antique steam locomotive or traction engine. You can't miss it; it's the one with the magnificent brick tower (housing the stand-pipe that created the local water pressure) just before Kew Bridge.

The Musical Instrument Museum - this place is fascinating and has been expanded from a 'piano museum' to include all kinds of instruments. When I went there last, they actually demonstrated a pianola roll that had been punched by Rachmaninov himself (or was it Liberace?). It was an eerie sight to see the keys moving in exactly the way that the player had pressed them all those years before - was this the original 'digital recording'? This place has newly re-opened in dedicated premises having previously been housed in an old church and is now almost next to the Kew Steam exhibit..

I'll include Acton Works as a local place of interest even if it is some hundreds of yards inside Ealing. This Underground depot has been turned into the 'storage wing' of the London Transport Museum, Covent Garden. Here they keep exhibits that aren't restored yet, or are too big to put into the main museum. For example, they have a 'heritage' immaculately restored 1938 4-car tube train which still goes out on high days and holidays to satisfy the needs of enthusiasts' specials and the like. Unless they're having an open day, with trade stands and rides for the kids, don't expect much help with identifying what's there - it's not all labelled, although 'a bus', 'another bus' etc. isn't that difficult, is it?

Other attractions within even a cycle ride, but not technically in my 'home town' would include Kew Gardens, just over the river from Brentford, Richmond Park, not far beyond Kew, once you've summoned the courage to travel 'sarf of der river' (obviously, London cabbies should only attempt this whilst off-duty). We're not that far from Wembley and the Twickenham ('Haitch-Kew' to you lovers of men that play with odd shaped balls) either, but I'll cover getting around later.

Oh yes, and that place called London, more specifically, Hyde Park Corner, is only 9 miles from Hounslow itself.

MY OWN COUNTRY PILE

I actually live in what used to be a village called Heston - this lies north of Hounslow town centre on the link road to Southall, home to London's largest Asian community. It therefore follows that there's no local shortage of good Indian restaurants, innit?!

Heston still has a Village Hall, quite an old pub, unfortunately 'done up' to look even older with 'someone else's beams' inside, a triangle with a war memorial and a Saxon church, famous for its lych gate out front.

This entire microcosm has been declared a conservation area, which is fine, and I even have to apply to prune my magnolia, but sporadic in its enforcement since my neighbour seems to have gotten away with building an entire bungalow in his back garden without so much as a rapped knuckle, let alone being forced to gain retrospective planning permission.

Heston isn't famous now, except perhaps as the last M4 services before London, and the location for that trial motorway bus lane, but before the Second World War, during the 'Munich Crisis', it was the location for an airport - the one where that nice Mr Chamberlain stood on the steps of a plane, with a piece of paper saying that WW2 was cancelled.

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin was born here, and the last British serviceman to be flogged to death is buried here.

Quite close to Heston, lies the erstwhile village of Cranford (not the Mrs Gaskell one, that was Knutford), where you will find the Church Of St Dunstan in a corner of the capacious Cranford Park right next to the M4. Nothing remarkable about that you might think, but if I said to you "A pint? Have you gone ravin' mad? Why, that's very nearly an armful!" you might realise that this is the burial spot of comedic genius, Tony Hancock.

I really must go over there some day myself!

GETTING AROUND

Like a lot of outer London locations, public transport access to central London is excellent if crowded during the rush hour. The Piccadilly Line serves three Hounslow stations, Osterley and Boston Manor before leaving the borough, then briefly flirting with Chiswick (outside rush hours only) before deserting us for Ealing and Hammersmith permanently.

Also, the main line in the form of South West Trains covers Hounslow, Isleworth, Syon Lane, Brentford, Kew Bridge and Chiswick. This is a more pleasant way to travel, particularly in summer, although the Hounslow line into Waterloo normally runs every 15 minutes, stopping at all stations, unlike neighbouring Richmond, which enjoys frequent and limited-stop trains.

Travelling north-south in these outer reaches is something else though, and mainly the domain of bus travel, which can swing from a breeze-through to horrendously 'I'll get out and walk, it's faster'. However, an all-London bus pass is only £3.50 for the whole day, which is not bad if you've GOT all day to get there!

Cycling needs some forethought and/or courage, especially with roads like the A4 around. Admittedly, this has had a cycle track since the late 1940's, but it's so over used now as a repository for bus stops, illegally parked cars, as a bin bag store on 'dustbin day' and by pedestrians with their backs to you that riding down the edge of this 6-lane carriageway seems safer. In other places things are not quite so bad, with marked out cycle lanes. However, why is it that these always 'dry up' just where you need them most, i.e. where the road gets narrower? Hounslow is not unique here, and the borough for whom I work as a cycling instructor, Richmond has not too much to be proud of either, except by accident of birth, i.e. all the safe riding locations afforded by river banks and Royal Parks.

EATING OUT, GOING OUT

Ah yes, my favourite subject. I don't limit myself to the immediate borough here, as I tend to travel around outside the rush hour, so anywhere within say 8 miles is fair game. In that circle, we've Indian (obviously), Chinese, Thai, Greek, Moroccan, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Lebanese, and any number of bistro-like eateries serving generally Mediterranean dishes. Ironically, I'd be hard put to it to name a 'British' gaff, except perhaps for those with the poncy menus in French for things that are quite mundane. I'm just waiting for the 'Purée de Petits Pois avec Tripes Aux Échalottes'.

"Right then, who wanted t'tripe 'n' onions wi' mushy peas?"

The best part is, with all this competition, they mostly have to be good or go under.

As I've mentioned before, Richmond Theatre is close by, and frequently puts on shows and plays prior to their West End debut. Likewise, there's The Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith and whilst we're there, The 'Labatt's Apollo', a famous rock venue, although, ah kin remember it when it were just t'bloody 'Ammersmith Odeon wi't'front row costin' 1 'n' 9.

SUMMING UP

For somewhere I couldn't identify as home at the beginning, I've surprised myself - perhaps I'll give it another ten years to see if it grows on me! That should tie in with the missus retiring.

It might be a bit worn round the edges, litter-strewn (so is Amsterdam so I feel a bit better about that now) and overly busy, but I can't imagine burying myself in the heart of the country, although next to Tony Hancock would be nice!

This is my hometown, what's yours?

FOOTNOTE

Apparently Hounslow was mentioned in that great Wikipedia of 1086, The Domesday Book.

Scholars seem divided on whether 'Hounslaw' or 'Houndeslagh' or however else you want to try spelling it means 'an area of good hunting grounds', viz The Heath, or 'The mound of Hundi', an Anglo-Saxon pagan. If there ever was anything remotely like a hill in the area, it ain't here now, that's for sure. 

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