New Malden station

I have a meeting in London, tomorrow, first thing, so I travelled down, this afternoon. Normally I try to travel into Malden Manor or Worcester Park but there was a bit of a wait for those trains, so I jumped on one to New Malden instead, which is a bit further from my folks' house. 

However, in the 1970s, when we lived in New Malden, this was our nearest station and it was the one that my dad used to travel to and from Waterloo each working day. And sometimes, if there was someone looking after us, my mum would go and meet him off his train in the evenings.

One Friday afternoon in, I guess, late 1974, that meeting was a little more significant than usual. My dad's boss had asked him whether he wanted to go and work in Hong Kong for eighteen months. Now, you have to remember that whilst forty years ago Hong Kong was the same distance from England in miles - give or take a couple of yards - it was a lot further away psychologically; international calls were expensive and, frankly, crap, there was no email or Skype, and it even took a day to fly there (with three or four stop offs to refuel on the way).

My dad said to his boss that he'd have to chat to my mum about it and he told her when he got off the train, onto the platform in the photo. The story has it that my mum had said yes before they reached the stairs that lead down to the street. 

So, that's why this particular station has some personal significance for me, as we ended up living in Hong Kong for three and a half years. But I like all of these suburban stations around London and all of the lines themselves. I like the 'wildlife corridor' that they form, going from the countryside right into the heart of London. 

Once there were four platforms  at New Malden but platforms 2 and 3 have been out of service for as long as anyone I've spoken to can remember. You can see them to the left of the picture, that central island between the lines. Look how wonderfully overgrown they are, how the wildlife has quickly subsumed the manmade structure and incorporated it into the corridor. I find that immensely cheering for some reason.

(I wonder what those mounds of green are?)