The Groundwater Diaries

by Tim Bradford

  The area is marked on John Rocque’s 1741 map. Then again, I reckon Rocque chickened out of going to Hackney so he probably didn’t show his face in Loughborough Junction either. Not that it was called Loughborough Junction then. Nor was it especially dodgy. On Rocque’s map it’s marked as part of the Effra Farm Estate. So he might have got savaged by a chicken.

  I notice for the first time the crazy graffiti above the majestic, but closed down, Brady’s (formerly the historic Railway Hotel) on Atlantic Road. And the incredible housing estate at the start of Coldharbour Lane with huge slabs of massive concrete, tiny windows and mad walkways. It’s Buck Rogers meets Richard Rogers. It’s got to be a listed building. God knows what it’s like to live there but it looks great. Unlike Buck Rogers. Now what was his sidekick called? Not the little robot that went ‘beelee beelee beelee’. Wilma Deering. She was nice. It was a 1980s spandex thing.

  A bit further up there’s a rather special patch of grass with a hedge around it, full of empty oil cans and Special Brew tins. A hidden alchemical drinking experiment is being conducted there and I try not to interfere. A middle-aged guy in a lumberjack shirt stands guard, staring.

  Me: (jaunty) Hi. How’s it going?

  Lumberjack man: (staring straight ahead) ………

  Me: (stupid grin) I don’t suppose you know anything about an…underground river?

  Lumberjack man: (eyes turn to look at me then turn back) What?

  Me: (ready to run) An underground river?

  Lumberjack man: (shakes head, frowns) ……

  Me: (quiet voice) No problem. Cheers (walks away quickly)

  At the Phoenix Café I meet Doug, who is going to take me around the historic streets of Brixton. First we try to find the Effra exhibition, but it’s closed, so we visit the nearby Effra Hall, which was once a grand mansion with huge grounds but now hidden away amongst other buildings, is falling apart. Doug then points to the headquarters of some secret sect he’s recently joined called the Brixton Society. It’s the Masons, isn’t it, Doug? No no, they do history walks and really good stuff like that. He then takes me up towards Tulse Hill, past Rush Common, ‘Bits of green…once a huge common…big villas…babbling brooks…lovely.’ and tries to find Walter Raleigh’s house, the fabulous palace that Elizabeth I visited. Some say it’s a load of bollocks, but there is a Raleigh House – a residential block of flats in a Tudorbethan style. With a swimming pool. I wonder if the story of Raleigh putting his cloak down so the Queen could walk over a puddle might be a reference to the Effra – maybe he bridged it for her. In fact, this event allegedly took place at the site of the Brixton Academy (coincidentally, the last gig I saw there was Beck – an obvious river reference). Then we cross the road, past some grotty second-hand shops and up to the windmill, a miraculous survivor of old Brixton, with a kids’ nursery and a few shacks next to it. Then we head back into central Brixton. When the first immigrants from Jamaica were welcomed here in the fifties, the area was a scruffy district of grand Victorian villas that had been split up into rented bedsits, rooming houses and dingy B&Bs. Now it’s dead funky and particularly good for sixties suits, cheapo chickens, fresh fish and getting your mobile phone nicked. We catch up with the Effra route again, over Coldharbour Lane and under the railway, along the stalls of Popes Road then back to Brixton Road. The Effra would have flowed parallel and just to the east.

  Doug: (pointing) Look at those old houses.

  Me: Uh-huh?

  Doug: See how they’re at an angle to the road?

  Me: Uhmmm.

  Doug: That’s because they were built on the banks of the Effra, which wound its way along here, rather than in a straight line.

  We go past a big Bar Lorca which apparently was an ancient coaching inn called the Coach and Horses. These people have no shame. They’d turn the Tower of London into Bar Lorca if they had the chance.

  One morning I was forlornly looking on the net for some sign of the Hardcore London Feminist River Walkers. I’d typed in ‘lost rivers of London’ and come up with an electronic band called Coil who, in their Untitled III album, had a track called ‘Lost Rivers of London’. A couple of days and about £12 later, the album arrived in the post. I excitedly put it on. Deep growly synths and a high harpsichord synth doing a horror-film-style two-note arpeggio (can it be an arpeggio?), then a bloke comes in going ‘ahhhh ahhh ahhhh’ with lots of reverb as if in an old farmhouse downstairs toilet with tiles on the floor. Then he starts reciting poetry. Guitar with echo and flange comes in. Then another synth starts up dee der der dee just two notes. A wind sound (you can do it quite easily on a Korg MS10 and a few patch leads), the sort of thing we used to do when we were seventeen.

  ‘I have sat there and watched the winter days end their short-spelled lives,’ says Mr Coil. It’s fantastically damp, depressing and dreadful.

  Then another ‘Ahhhh aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh ahh ahhh ahhhhhhh ahha ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh’.

  Then poetry again. ‘sluggishly drowsy so it seems…Colourless, factless, blurred. The soil dark lifeless elms. Rotting.’

  Deep synth growwwl growwwwl guitar cranked up plays it through twice and I start to feel a black dog coming on, so go and make a cup of coffee and stick on King of Snake by Underworld. Ahhhhhh. Fun and laughter. Sexy rhythms. Dancing. Is that what happens to people who spend too long messing in their minds with the Lost Rivers of London? I wonder what Nicholas Barton would make of it all. Ahhhhhhhhhh. Wind. Shooooowwww eeeeeeeeooooooo. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. ahhhhhhhhh. ahhh ahh ahhhh ahhhhhhh ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (fade out with reverb).

  I decide to phone him and ask. I’ve had his number for ages but been too chicken to call. The phone rings for a while. I feel a bit like the class snitch. Sir, Sir, little Tommy Coil has gone and done an ambient jazz album, Sir, and he’s written a track about you.

  Barton: Is this true, Coil?

  Coil: (wind sound) shooowwwwweeeeeoooooooooo

  Barton: Right, detention for you

  Coil: Ahh ahhh ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

  Barton: Write out a thousand times, ‘I will not take the piss out of the Lost Rivers of London.’

  Fifteen rings. I put the phone down.

  New River: slow harpsichord four-note arpeggio. A radio is being tuned in. Didgeridoo sounds.

  Hackney Brook: xylophone plonkings. Massed choir sings, ‘You’re shit and you know you are’, on a continuous tape loop.

  Dagenham Brook: Danish punk thrash. My mate Stevey P. sings the words from the Environmental Agency flood warning leaflet.

  Fleet: maudlin squeezebox as Dr-Johnson-style vocal does voiceover.

  Moselle: Ray Davies of the Kinks does a special acoustic ballad about growing up in Muswell Hill.

  Walbrook: brass band reworking of ‘Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner’ at half speed.

  Tyburn: olde English folk song style with Morris dancers’ bells in the background.

  Westbourne: three-chord guitar thrash by a punk ‘supergroup’, lasting for about a minute. The only lyrics are ‘Westbourne Westboooourrrrrne’.

  Counter’s Creek: church organ playing deathly waltz. Maudlin choir intones names of people who are buried in Kensal Green cemetery.

  Stamford Brook: Japanese pop-thrash Elvis impersonators do version of ‘God Save the Queen’.

  The Brent: massed close harmony female choirs.

  Beverley Brook: cut-ups of John Major’s voice over East Sheen hip-hop massive thing beat.

  Wandle: small fish attached to primitive synthesizer to create Throbbing-Gristle-style white noise.

  Falcon Brook: eighties AOR power ballad about house prices.

  Neckinger and Mill streams: drunk monks chanting.

  The Peck: Chas ’n’ Dave do a medley using William Blake poems as lyrics.

  The Black Ditch: some of Reggie Kray’s poetry set to the tune of Spandau Ballet’s ‘Gold’.

  The Ravensbourne: old-fashioned sea shanty about Francis Drake.

  The Ching: easte
rn gong music. Bamboo percussion. Bloke from Sainsbury’s Customer Services Department reads from his diary.

  As we come up Brixton Road, still complaining about ruined pubs and crap planning and unearthed rivers, Doug’s mobile rings. It’s Sarah telling us to get to a TV because a plane has just gone into one of the World Trade Center towers. Dazed, we walk up Brixton Hill trying to unscramble our brains, but it’s too late – they’re being rewired. Rushing into the nearest pub – the Hanover Arms – we watch as the towers collapse. Then everything slows down. Doug goes home. I walk the last bit of the Effra route, past the Oval cricket ground, under which the Effra flows, and which lies in an area of marshland deemed permanently unsuitable for building. A school. A pub (the Beehive), another pub (Durham Arms). Down Vauxhall Grove past a closed-up Elephant and Castle pub and under the subway (I don’t remember because my mind went numb, but I just talked robotically into the Dictaphone). I get to Vauxhall Bridge and look down at the Effra tunnel, where a trickle of slimy water spills out onto the little beach and down into the Thames. And I stare hard because, in a previous existence, this would have been a good moment, but now seems unbearably trivial, and I think to myself, ‘What does it all fucking mean?’

  25: Black Sewer, Crimson Cloud, Silver Fountain

  Letting go of rivers

  Dream: I’m in a subterranean post-apocalyptic world, with lots of tunnels and corridors leading to ancient train systems. I wander through a labyrinth of tunnels. Hundreds of signs point to various stations and places, but they are all pointing in the wrong direction, and thousands of people are shoving and milling about.

  I’m in Star Nergiz café on Blackstock Road looking out onto the old junction where the New River used to be carried on stilts over the Hackney Brook. It’s my favourite part of Highbury Vale: I like to sit near the window and watch the world go by. I’m eating a bacon sandwich. The pretty Turkish waitress comes over and stares at my manuscript.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m going through these papers making notes.’

  ‘Is it a book?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you write it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What sort of stuff do you write?’

  ‘I’m a sort of travel writer.’

  Sharp intake of breath – she goes over to the counter and gabbles to someone in the kitchen, then comes back.

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘It’s a description of the routes of underground rivers in London.’

  ‘Hmm. Is that interesting?’

  (In John Majorish voice) ‘Oh yes, it’s VERY interesting.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound interesting to me.’ (She’s cross). ‘Why are you writing about London? It’s all ugly buildings and noise. There are so many beautiful places. If I was a travel writer I’d go somewhere nice.’

  I smile. So does she and runs off to the kitchen. Five minutes later she’s back, fiddling with the ketchup holders. She replaces the brown sauce.

  ‘Would you like another coffee?’

  ‘Ah, go on then.’

  She brings the coffee and mucks about with the ketchup bottle again.

  ‘Are you a famous writer?’

  ‘Ha ha, no.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘You won’t have heard of me.’

  ‘What’s your name then?’

  ‘Tim.’

  ‘Tim what?’

  ‘Tim Bradford.’

  ‘Naa. Never heard of you.’

  She rushes back to the kitchen.

  Just like last autumn, the rains have started to come again. Up at Finsbury Park the drains are backing up and there’s a river running down Stroud Green Road, along Seven Sisters and down Blackstock Road. Old rivulets that weren’t on anybody’s map have come alive. Nowadays, they are only seen when torrential rain causes flooding, but they are there just the same, forming a large part of the Victorian sewer system that still serves London. Streams with no name, so I didn’t bother about them. I’ll call this one Hallal Brook. If the weather carries on like this for the next few years the old Victorian drainage system won’t be able to take it.

  I’ve decided to put something back into society by becoming a car mover. I go jogging round the neighbourhood and push cars that have broken down out of harm’s way. So far I’ve done three. It feels good. I just hope my back can take it.

  Some good news. My sister-in-law has been asked to join a pub ska band in Derby. Course, she’s gone and nicked my old trombone. Slide’s knackered, love, I said to her, but she wouldn’t listen. To help her out I worked on a ska arrangement of the Panorama theme tune for about five minutes in the pub, but she wasn’t interested. Then it occurred to me that we could finally end all wars if only all national anthems were played in a ska style.

  In Victoria Park I meet a vibrant man in his late eighties who says he fought the fascists in the pre-war East End using jujitsu. He says he slashed the face of William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw). Later he helped the Labour Party get elected in Hackney for the first time.

  ‘When I was a little boy I planted a cherry tree and now look – it’s huge.’

  Back in our own park Cathleen and I plant a plum stone and check it every day for signs of growth.

  I wonder what I’ve learned, if anything, over the last few months. That one can travel and have adventures in London. Except that I don’t really have adventures, as such. If you hung out with me the nearest you’d get to an actual adventure would be if I meant to spend all day in a library but got drunk instead.

  My so-called history technique consists of piling on lots of stuff – anecdotes, song lyrics, illustrations, dreams, shopping lists, diaries, snatches of dialogue from the kids’ TV shows my daughter watches, things people have told me at parties, bus tickets, a bit of fact copied from a library book and mixing it all together into a big pot of simmering wordsludge, then hoping that the reader digests it all, sleeps on it for a bit then wakes up one day (possibly several years later, by which time I am sleeping rough under Waterloo Bridge), slaps their forehead and says, ‘That’s it!’

  Finally, at the end of the summer, someone from Thames Water got in touch to say I could go down into the Fleet. ‘But I don’t know it there’s a gang available…and I don’t control the gangs.’

  Control the gangs? Was this like LA? At last I was getting somewhere. There were gangs of river enthusiasts like me working for Thames Water and possibly living down in the sewers.

  Whatever, we were to meet at New Bridge Street at 12.30 p.m. a couple of days later. I turned up and had to get changed into white plastic overalls, wader boots that came up above my thighs with thick weighted soles, red rubber gloves and a hard hat. A white one. Then I put on a safety harness in case I needed to be winched away from a raging torrent or testicle-eating killer rat. I got the bloke who was helping me – a chirpy bloke called Brian – to take a photo of me in the hard hat. Something to show the grandchildren. (‘Ah yes, we had man’s jobs in those days, like.’)

  Then I went down a manhole. Never done it before. No secret to it. You just go down a ladder. One rung at a time, nice and slow. It was pitch black down there. Then a light appeared at the end of a tunnel. It was on someone’s head, a big sweating person with specs like the guy out of Seinfeld. He led me to another manhole and we climbed even lower. A long ladder, this one. Down into a huge cavern where I could just about make out a couple of other figures in the darkness. Thames Water people. Then I was introduced to Rob, the gang leader.

  And there in the dark it was, the silver glint of the Fleet. Like some caged animal. Could it smell my fear? We waded through shallow water at first, then into a big river down the tunnel in about two feet of water. It was humid, echoing, sticky, with a terrific rumble overhead. The District Line was directly above us. Then there was a swoosh of water and everyone stopped dead.

  ‘What was that?’ Rob said, more to himself than me.

  What do you mean what was that your the
expert you should know what it is and really relaxed down here showing me around I can leave now if you want. I took a deep breath. ‘It sounds like water.’ I said.

  ‘Ah, it’s just a boat. If it was a flood you’d just hear a rush of wind.’

  ‘And then get out in a calm and orderly fashion?’

  ‘Ha ha, no. You’d have to leg it. In seconds.’

  I lift up one of my weighted boots and gave out a little silent whimper. But it did feel exhilarating, the thought of being down there under the city. At the end of the tunnel was a big iron door.

  ‘What’s on the other side of that, then?’ I squeaked.

  ‘That’s the river.’

  Fuck.

  ‘As you can see, the river’s a couple of feet higher than the water level in here…So if it came through we’d be finished.’

  Later, the speccy bloke told me about the possibility of explosions. Then it was back to the crunch and splosh of weighted boots as we walked along. Rob told me to follow his line. He worked one foot at a time; right foot, then dragged his left after it. It was hard work. I didn’t have a light so had to follow the light from their heads. Sometimes they turned to me and it shone blindingly in my face. I saw flashes of rusting Victorian iron work, an old sluice gate, big cogs.