Nowadays we mostly read on our phones or tablets, and it’s easy to forget the pleasurable visceral experience that you feel upon reading a printed book.

London’s Underground: The Story of the Tube by Oliver Green

This large format book certainly doesn’t disappoint, written in collaboration with London Transport, giving the publishers access to the transport authority’s vast photo library to reproduce dozens of historic photographs and retro posters showing the development of the London Underground. Award-winning photographer Benjamin Graham gives this book its magnificent pictures of the modern Underground.

As a research fellow at the London Transport Museum, Oliver Green demonstrates his detailed knowledge of the subject. Unlike many academics, he can engagingly write about tunnel engineering, graphic design, station architecture and rolling stock design in an accessible style which moves you effortlessly through the history of the Underground.

This excellently designed book makes use of the Johnson typeface (the corporate style of the Underground). For the folios and the break-outs, an adaption of Beck’s coloured map lines is a clever device.

Frank Pick, who did more to unify the Underground to the transport system we’ve inherited today described the Tube as “the framework of the town”, this book brilliantly describes this framework.

Featured image: A 1992 stock London Underground train calls at the Central Line platforms of Oxford Circus tube station by J Cornelius under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

There are dozens of books devoted to London’s history, I should know I’ve dozens of them. But I doubt you’ll find a better-designed one, for if it was larger it could be described as a coffee table art book. Each entry is precisely the right length to create a harmonious balance with the headings and illustrations. For example and probably unnoticed by many readers, Jack and Katharine’s biographies occupy exactly the same number of lines. For this graphic design geek, it was perfect symmetry for me.

The square format fits perfectly with Jack’s bite-sized descriptions detailing discoveries he’s found in the capital. Many of the entries are illustrated with delightful watercolours by Katherine Fraser, each positioned perfectly within the text.

As a Licenced London cabbie much was known to me, but that didn’t temper the enjoyment of reading, the entries proving Jack’s superior knowledge as he’s found some, for me, previously unknown gems. Who knew 10 Downing Street had yellow bricks? The building was thought to be black, but London’s pollution had discoloured the bricks. When cleaned in the 1950s it was thought not to look prime-ministerial enough so was painted black. Or that Cavendish Square also has an empty plinth once occupied by Prince William, Duke of Cumberland’s statue, it was taken down after the public discovered he had mercilessly crushed the Highlanders. In 2012 the Duke’s effigy was reproduced in soap and allowed over time to dissolve.

At the end of each section is a short walk taking in much of the features described, the size of the book allows the map and itinerary to be photocopied to fit onto an A4 sheet to put in your pocket, rather than carrying the book around London.

As you would expect all entries have been indexed, but curiously an additional list of postcodes with their locations within the book is also included.

If you wish to own just one reference about London, you could do no better than purchasing this sumptuously produced book.

London: A Guide for Curious Wanderers by Jack Cheshire, with illustrations by Katherine Fraser

*Bimble (intransitive verb): Originating in the 1980s; to amble at a leisurely pace, to walk with no particular haste. Frequently associated with military slang, ‘bimble’ has become a part of the informal English language. It conjures up the notion of a relaxing stroll to fetch the Sunday papers, a ‘turn around the grounds’, or a pleasant summer stroll..

This is not a sponsored post. The publication reviewed has been kindly donated by the author or publisher. CabbieBlog has not received payment for writing this review and opinions are solely his own. All links here conform with guidelines set out in Write a Post.

This is our second visit to John Metcalf’s London A to Z, these snippets show just how much London has changed since the last Coronation.

Under AIRPORTS Northolt is given first for European and internal services, with a telephone number of Ruislip 3355 and Heathrow barely mentioned to say that London Airport as it was then known (tel: HOU 7711) was for all other destinations. London’s other aerodromes (as they were then called) Blackbushe, Bivingdon, Croydon, Gatwick and Lympne. Should you wish to take your car to the Continent Silver City Airways Ltd will fly you and your car there, give them a ring on PAd 7040 for details.

Advice for BOWLER HATS was that ‘the possession of the correct type of bowler, hairy, not too large and curly-brimmed is an essential to the young man about town as a pair of trousers’.

VOILETS were still being sold by flower girls in Piccadilly Circus to the cry: “Lovely Sweet Violets”.

Visit HAMPTON COURT PALACE by Green Line bus, or Tube and trolleybus. Admission is Monday to Friday 1/-, Saturday 6d. Sundays and Bank Holidays are free.

Perhaps the most surprising is the description of POLICEMEN. Long the target for flattering remarks by visiting film stars has earned the right to be called ‘wonderful’ by a deliberateness of gait, a slow helpfulness of manner and a near-divine sense of dignity. Impossible to shock or ruffle, you’ll find them, even in the most unlikely circumstances, your friends.

Adorned throughout with Edward Bawden’s beautiful and distinctive illustrations, John Metcalf’s charmingly idiosyncratic pocket guide brings to life with a dry humour the London and Londoners of the day, and available on Amazon.

Anticipating a substantial increase of tourists to London for the late Queen’s Coronation, former Spitfire ace and respected literary critic, John Metcalf, wrote a witty London guide. On this 70th anniversary, I bought a copy of this pocket-sized paperback, then priced at a reasonable 2/6d.

The book is a barometer of how much has changed in London during these seven decades. In the coming weeks, CabbieBlog will feature some of the best excerpts and starting with cabs.

TAXIS. London’s taxicabs range from rickety old puffing-billies which seem (and their drivers) to be of pre-World War I vintage, to purring smoothies smelling of leather and metal polish. Cheapest ride (the first mile for 1/3d) has gone up a bit since the pre-war 6d for the first mile; but still remains good value.

A recent innovation is the fleet of a hundred or more Radio Taxis…You telephone TER 8800, give your name and address, and they will ring you back, if you ask them, when your driver reports that he is nearing your door.

London has certainly changed these last 70 years. More of these nostalgic snippets to come from the recently republished paperback.

Adorned throughout with Edward Bawden’s beautiful and distinctive illustrations, John Metcalf’s charmingly idiosyncratic pocket guide brings to life with a dry humour the London and Londoners of the day, and available on Amazon.