December 21, 1990: Tower Bridge to Putney
Gavan at Tower Bridge
On Friday, December 21, 1990, I returned to the London Thames. A short day’s walk, nine miles, was needed to fill in the gap between Tower Bridge, which I had reached with Gavan in September, and Putney, where our walk had started in 1988.
Gavan was in town for a few days during his Christmas holiday and this gloomy grey weekday was the first day of my own. We agreed to meet at the Tower Bridge tube stop at 10:00. The walk was unusual in a number of ways. I had no pack, no liquid, no food – a most unique set of circumstances for a day’s walk. And, on this shortest day of the year, I was undertaking a walk later in the year than ever before.
There was a bit of mist about as Gavan and I walked back to Tower Bridge. He had just completed a run in “Yeoman Of The Guard” and it was ironic that we were walking beneath the battlements that had been reproduced as part of his set. The day before I had received a long tape from Gavan and I put my walkman on as we reached the south bank so as to be able to comment in detail on some of the matters he had brought up. At the beginning he had placed three songs by They Might Be Giants, including one that carried the message, “I’m dead and I never did anything I wanted, or else I’m alive and I can’t think of anything to do.” A cheerier rendition of “Istanbul” carried me across a garden and up to Tooley Street, our first diversion from the riverside.
We returned to the water’s edge to pass in front of the Galleria at Hay’s Wharf. I found it a bit disconcerting to find this bit of Southern California mall wedged behind London Bridge Station. Workmen were setting up speakers for some sort of presentation in front of a Tinguely-like ship sculpture called The Navigators. I told Gavan that my days in the sheet shop made me wonder if any of the shops in this nearly empty mall could entice enough walk-by trade to make them viable. We then continued our psychological discussion, Gavan having spent fifteen minutes on his tape trying to prove that my interest in Freud was the result of my delight in seeing how easily I could fit into Siggie’s anal category.
We climbed some steps alongside a huge glass building and reached London Bridge itself. We had to turn left here and find a step of steps opposite the railway viaduct. At the bottom of these we followed a narrow street under the bridge approach, steam issuing from a crevice in the tarmac, and continued westward around Southwark Cathedral, the starting place for Chaucer’s pilgrims. Little alleys brought us back to a miniature Cutty Sark, the Kathleen & May. Then we passed the remains of Winchester Palace, an empty rose window topping a crumbling wall, and approached the Clink Museum. I quipped that such an establishment must have something to do with the history of jails but when we arrived at its door I remembered that this was an ancient jail (and site of the local brothel).
After Southwark Bridge we reached Bankside. Once we had to squeeze between the trucks of workmen who were digging the foundations of a new Globe Theatre – in 2012 a former student, Michael Benz, took the role of Hamlet here. There was a wonderful crest still attached to the brickwork of a bridge that once carried a railway over to Blackfriars. Crossing Blackfriars Bridge itself was not easy. We had to use a little island in the middle of the traffic flow to scramble over to some steps in front of a pub. These could be used to descend to the riverside, where we were soon walking past familiar sights associated with the South Bank cultural scene. We disdained the National Theatre as a refreshment site but the search for a suitable pub now began in earnest.
When we reached Westminster Bridge we headed inland, traveling under the same traffic circle I used to dodge on the way to see my accountant at Ernst & Whinney. There were quite a few pubs and we went into one, favored by porters from St. Thomas’ hospital, for some Fosters.
We returned to the river and continued upstream, with the Houses of Parliament across the way. We were again diverted briefly as we approached Vauxhall Bridge but here we crossed to the north bank for the next few miles. We wandered about amid yuppie townhouses for a while, then had to leave the river in favor of busy Grosvenor Road. In the Pimlico Gardens we passed the statue of Britain’s first railway casualty, William Huskisson; insult had been added to injury for the effigy of the poor man was meant to stand in the mist wearing only a toga. We spotted a familiar pub, the Six Crowns and Three Bells, or Eight Heads and Three Crowns, or something like that. It was across the busy embankment roadway and we had to wait for a break in the traffic to dash across.
The menu seemed a bit pricey, so we continued west. The next pub was no better but I remembered a somewhat downmarket establishment on Old Church Street, Tiddy Doll’s or something like that. We passed the statue of Thomas More and looked over at the former home of my Nomad co-editor, Don Factor, on Petyt Place – the chief reason why I had some familiarity with this part of Chelsea. My pub had changed hands since my last visit, but by this time, 1:30, we were willing to pay gentrified prices (I bought Gavan’s salad as a Christmas present); I ordered a steak sandwich. Our barman was an American; he had observed Gavan’s RSDI sweatshirt and this lead to a long conversation on American colleges; he had gone to Ann Arbor. It took a while for our food to arrive but it was quite good. We were squeezed into a corner at the end of a table crammed with young urban professionals. We each had a pint of lager, some of which I got rid of before we left. Gavan usually forgets this precaution and we can spend the next half hour searching for a place where he can pee.
Both of us were complaining about hot spots on our feet as we left. Gavan had some sore toes and I had forgotten to tape before putting on my boots and I could a feel a nice blister coming up at the back of my right heel. It was also drizzling a bit harder now. I put on my rain cape. It flapped about in the breeze and it was easy to see that it annoyed Gavan to have to walk with a green hunchback.
When we reached the Battersea Bridge we crossed the Thames again, and resumed our march on the south bank. This was interrupted by the wall of the Rank Hovis building. For most of the rest of our walk we lost sight of the river and our surroundings were often quite squalid. For that matter I was not all that pleased with Chelsea Harbor, across the river; in particular I felt the pagoda-like central tower seemed quite out of place. Gavan, however, defended it, perhaps in retaliation for my defense of a new whimsical apartment tower near our starting point. We did a circuit of St Mary’s, Battersea, and while I waited at the head of Vicarage Walk, Gavan dashed into a nearby pub for a pee.
We had to march along the pavements of York Road for some distance, eventually reaching the huge roundabout at the southern end of Wandsworth Bridge. It was strange to walk under this roadway, having driven around it so many times in the car. We exited onto Marl Road, amid piles of sodden trash, and passed in front of a bus garage. Some poor soul asked us for directions as we tramped westward on The Causeway. Gavan was discussing Robert Coles, and was surprised to hear that I had met this Harvard don many years ago in East Lansing.
At times it appeared that we would run out of trackway amid the building site wastes but we crossed an oily arm of the River Wandle and soon found ourselves passing the lace curtains of car-choked Frogmore Street. At a main road we passed beneath a railway arch and slipped into the quiet of Wandsworth Park. A tired Gavan wanted to sit down but I encouraged him to continue, since the end was not far away. We had been discussing his desire to see me return to California, not so bad a dream on such a winter’s day, and I had been telling him that the best way to accomplish this desire would be for him to go into business and then hire me as a senior consultant.
A woman in a bubbled battery powered wheelchair was holding the leash on a trotting dog as we took our last look at the river and returned to Putney Bridge Road. As we neared the High Street the pavements became clogged with Christmas shoppers. I decided not to head for the nearest tube stop across the bridge, visible on our right, but to head south and reach the British Rail station. It was already getting dark as we bought tickets for Waterloo from a machine at 3:45. We had really good luck; a train was just coming in as we descended the staircase.
I took off my rain cape, which had been used only for some additional warmth these last few miles, and lowered myself into a seat. Gavan, who was growing gloomy at the prospect of departing soon for a week in Ireland, complained that, at 18, he felt old. I told him he could expect no sympathy from me. We both dozed a bit.
At Waterloo, which also seemed to be a construction site, we bought tube tickets and, after a farewell hug, went our separate ways on the underground. I got home at 4:30 and immediately took out the suspicious dog – walking a few more blocks before being able to take the boot off the blister at last. Mrs. Meehan called to find out where her son was.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need:
To continue from Putney you need: