These were days of uncertainty and peril, of noble deeds and great sacrifice. An exciting time to be young and adventurous . . . but a dangerous time to fall in love.
London's Waterloo Station is Britain's biggest and busiest railway terminal and, at over 170 years old, has a rich and fascinating history to discover. This book takes an in-depth look at the terminal's past, covering all decades from the 1840s to the present day. With more than 160 archive and contemporary photographs, it includes: Waterloo's precursor, Nine Elms The expansion and chaos that occurred in the late nineteenth century How Waterloo fared during the two World Wars and The Necropolis Railway which, for almost ninety years, conveyed coffins to Brookwood Cemetery. The curious satellite station, Waterloo East, is covered along with the Waterloo and City line link to the capital's financial heart. There is the story behind London's first Eurostar terminal and the station's impact on popular culture, including literature, film, television, art and music. Finally, there is a revealing insight into what lies beneath the station, in the vast, cavernous area that the public never get to see.
"This is an urban history of London during the pivotal years of the 1960s and 1970s, when the metropolis was transformed from an industrial city that the Victorians might have recognised to an embryonic modern 'world city.' Previous work on London in these years has tended to focus upon the 1960s -in particular the 'Swinging London' phenomenon. Mary Quant, Carnaby Street and the King's Road, Chelsea, all appear in these pages, but it is argued that the 'swinging moment' of the mid-sixties was a passing symptom of a much broader transformation from an industrial to a service-based city, and it is that transformation which this book examines. London is too complex and diverse a city to be comprehended in a simple linear narrative; this book adopts instead an innovative approach to urban history, by which London life and London's transformation are examined through a number of case studies looking at specific themes and areas of the city. Consumerism and the 'experience economy', home ownership and gentrification, deindustrialisation and deprivation, racial tension and unemployment, the attrition of public services and the steady loss of confidence in public agencies - national and local - emerge as overarching themes from the individual case studies in this book. Their combined effect, it is argued, was to prepare the ground for the Britain that Margaret Thatcher is usually held to have created after 1979 - without Thatcher herself having anything to do it"--
Written by the author of Important Artifacts and Personal Property, this book creates an authorly and artistic response to travel, work and being a passenger. It is part of a series of twelve books tied to the twelve lines of the London Underground, as Tfl celebrates 150 years of the Tube with Penguin.
The definitive history of Britain's busiest rail terminal, written by a long term commuter to the station and bulging with illustrations. Waterloo Station has a massive 91 million passenger movement every year. It has more platforms and a greater square footage of floor space than any other station in Britain and is second in terms of train movements. This book looks behind the scenes at the hidden warren of rooms and tunnels never seen by passengers.