The London 1960 Cube

 

A London you can hold in your hands

 Seeing The Cube, it is instantly recognisable for what it is - a map of the London Underground. Looking at it, you soon see it is like no other map. It offers no explanations. There is no legend. You, the viewer, are left to interpret what is what; to provide your own explanations.

When I was designing The Cube, my first act was to create a grid of equal sized squares. It could not be of a square or a rectangular design, so I needed to find another design solution, which I did by chance and, given what The Cube is, I consider the solution reasonable.

It is my design and I have stamped my ownership on it in various ways, all visible, some more than others.

That I think linear when it comes to maps is understandable many ways:

It was the first map I ever saw, probably as a baby going into Wembley Central or Alperton stations. They were large. Outside the stations, in the ticket halls, on the platforms, in the trains (not the L.M.S. electric trains* running to Euston or, occasionally, Broad Street, which ran on the same rails and shared the same platforms as Bakerloo line tube trains between Watford Junction and Queens Park for most of my childhood). 

I saw the station names on London Transport roundels and pointed. My mother, when I saw her, took me on days out. Seeing her was always associated with treats. She would point with me and say ‘Alperton’, ‘Park Royal’, ‘North Ealing’, ‘Ealing Common’, ‘Acton Town’ and so we would go on, every station. No wonder my mother spent a lifetime telling me and anyone who would listen that I could read an Underground map before I started school aged five in 1949. I could read London Transport bus maps too. The London Underground was part of my education.

The Underground map also shaped how I saw London and, by and large, it made sense. I associated some stations with names and special places. I still do.

I could go on, but I’m pretty sure what I say about myself is also true for many others as well. The Underground Map is not just a collection of coloured lines and names. It is our lives. 

The original Underground map by Harry Beck is a work of art; an icon. Never bettered. 

Contemporary London railway maps are, sadly, overcrowded with lines and too much small print, making much of the information unreadable as far as many of those looking at the map are concerned, albeit understandable, the map has become as confusing as a maze.

What I hope I give you with The Cube is a London you can hold in your hands. It will get better I promise, but at 78 I cannot afford to wait until I have perfected my creation, so when you hold The Cube think of it like the world it tries to encapsulate - less than perfect, striving to be better.

Robert Howard. Cube map designer.

NOTE. * The pedantic reader may want to say the L.M.S. Railway was nationalised in 1948, which is true, but the old brown L.M.S. electric trains with sliding doors, which rarely stayed closed, continued to run in their old livery into the 1950s, when they were withdrawn. Anyway, during my younger years, the old names of railway lines and companies persisted. It was a long time before ‘British Railways/B.R.’ replaced the old company names in common parlance.

My 1960 London Cube

 It's been eight months since my last post, but Wembley has never been far from my thoughts. Creating linear maps and designing bus boxes have been among my activities for the last five/six years. Back in 2017, I designed  my first cube map box, showing Nottingham City Centre. It was a first, no one had ever tried to design such a box before to the best of my knowledge. Certainly not in Nottingham. Here is a picture of that box, in front of which stand two sides of a Beeston cube map box I made a month ago with the intention of marking 'open gardens' – a weekend fundraising event in the town. In the event the cube idea stayed just that but, by chance and not design I discovered how to make a cube map of Beeston:

From this, I realised how I could finally create a cube map of Nottingham city centre and a London Cube based on the Underground. It is the latter which has had my attention for the last ten days, of which the picture below shows the latest version. I am working on the final changes right now, then the next step is to publicise it and offer it for sale. Susan, my wife, designed the logo. If you look closely, you see that it includes the year 1960 in the logo. This will change with different versions of The London Cube, for that is what it is — a first. Some friends from my Wembley teenage years will be mailed gift copies at the end of next week.

I want to find space somewhere on The Cube for the tag line 'See the world a little differently with the help of The London Cube'.

When 1960 began I was still fifteen and, for four months, I had been working in South Kensington as a trainee animal technician, at the Chester Beatty Research Institute, attached to the Royal Brompton Free Hospital. It was my first job.

I travelled to and from work on the Piccadilly Line, every other weekend as well, plus public holidays and Christmas. It was that kind of job and I enjoyed it. That would change, as I'm sure I have written somewhere else in this blog. Within a few weeks of the new year beginning my nanna would be dead, just 68. She died of a brain hemorrhage, in her bed, as I was eating my breakfast. My grandfather, who I always called 'Pop', put his head around the kitchen door and said 'She's gone. Phone Dr. Sheldon and ask him to come'. In the April I, with a few others, left the Wembley South Young Liberals to join the newly formed Wembley South Young Socialists. Perry Boatfield was one of those who left with me and it was Clive Kent, who lived in Sudbury, who recruited us. I have seen both in the last few weeks.

I got my first girlfriend in the new year, a girl my own age, much wiser than me, who worked in Alperton with a girl I knew from my years at Alperton Secondary Modern School. I have put her name on The Cube instead of Watford Junction because she lived in Watford. We lasted six months, during which time a lot happened, but I was too slow. That was the truth of the matter. She was the first female to say ‘Relax’ to me. Others would follow. In fact, every woman I have known since has said it to me.

Back in 1960 I used the Underground more than I did buses, which I must preferred. Working in South Kensington, I soon found myself with a network of friends who lived all over London. I travelled by bus when I could, especially my beloved 662 trolleybus. By 1960 its days were numbered and one of the reasons I have never like Routemaster buses is because they were going to replace my 662, but then it was still two years away and I was one of the mad few who thought this act of madness by London Transport could be reversed. It wasn't of course. Local railways lines were suffering the same fate. The car was king! All these things occupied my mind in 1960, but I did have a routine. Barham Park Library, then the new library on Ealing Road. Never the same. A lot happened of which I have no reollection. Just Pop, me and lodgers after Nanna had gone. We did the cooking and shopping between us. I still do, 62 years later. I even do some washing. Perhaps I did then but I cannot remember. The London 1960 Cube I have made and personalised with my own history has prompted a flood of memories long buried. I will use this blog to share those stories.

Well, teatime calls. I have made  calzone/brioche buns, two filled with spinach and feta cheese, so time to stop.

I hope to post details of how you can buy a copy The London 1960 Cube at the end of the month. It will come flat, pre-glued, ready to fold into a cube. That simple.