Farewell to the Tower.

The photo above was taken by one of my confidential informants - it shows the final stages of demolition of the main tower building on the old Bexley College campus in Tower Road. The building has been one of the landmarks of the Erith skyline for many years. It was also used on several occasions as a setting for E4's sci fi show "Misfits" which featured a group of teenage young offenders with super powers. On one occasion filming on the roof of the tower had to be halted when the Police turned up - a neighbour had reported suspicious activity on the top of the tower, and dialled 999. The producers of "Misfits" had neglected to inform either the authorities, or local residents that they would be filming at the location! The photo below was taken by the same person a while later - as you can see the tower has now all but gone. The brutalist architecture of the tower may have led some to term it an eyesore, but countless students passed through it - myself included. I spent many hours in the building in 1996 / 1997 as I studied for my RAE examinations, enabling me to become a licensed Radio Amateur. I have fond memories of the place.

The anticipated crackdown on criminal gang activity in Thamesmead seems to have begun in earnest; now that a new dedicated ten officer Police unit has been established in the town. The News Shopper have reported that the Police have made twenty four gang related arrests, with individuals being charged with drug and weapon possession, animal cruelty and immigration offences. Gang members were also charged with  growing cannabis, as well as possession of cocaine, cannabis and methamphetamine. It would seem that the demand by Thamesmead residents for concrete action against the crooks that have been blighting their lives has begun to be answered, and not a minute too soon.

I was surprised that web search giant Google have just opened their very first bricks and mortar shop in London. It is quite discreetly located inside the Curry’s PC World in Tottenham Court Road, as a “shop within a shop”. Google admit that the store is a bit of a gamble, but they realise that many customers want to try out Google devices such as the Chromebook or a Nexus mobile phone. The aim is not high-pressure salesmanship but a fun, relaxing environment where there is no guilt in popping in just to mess around on the phones and the tablets. (Just like an Apple Store.) The shop will also be a place where Google device users can seek expert advice, even attend classes. (Again, just like an Apple Store). I hope to visit the place soon and do a comparison with the Apple Store in Regent Street. It will be instructive to see the two tech rivals and their wildly different approaches to the online world. A bit of high street rivalry would be good for consumers. More on this subject in the future.

The problems resulting from the massive rebuilding and refurbishment programme currently being undertaken at London Bridge station have got so bad that they have now made the national news. It would appear that insufficient planning for eventualities such as signalling failure or loss of power had been made. Basically there is no “slack” in the current temporary passenger arrangements. This means that as soon as anything goes wrong, passengers suffer and the kind of massively overcrowded station concourse with travellers having to climb over the ticket barriers is the result. Rail Minister Claire Perry has now waded into the situation; she has demanded that Network Rail (who are responsible for the project management and engineering of the London Bridge works) introduce new measures to improve the rush-hour situation. These include more rapid-response engineering teams, a central control point for all London stations like that which was used during the 2012 Olympics, more highly visible customer service staff, and having some trains stop at fewer outlying stations to help with punctuality. Last week the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union said station staff had been threatened, had hot coffee thrown over them and been spat at by passengers caught up in delays and overcrowding – something I find completely indefensible and abhorrent. I would not want to be working in such conditions; however frustrating it is as a commuter (and I confess that I am indeed one) there can be no justification for such behaviour. On top of all this, the weekend closures of the Cannon Street via Greenwich and Dartford line at weekends due to the ongoing construction works at Abbey Wood and Plumstead for the Crossrail terminal, along with shorter than promised trains are causing all sorts of grief for commuters. Southeastern have managed to annoy a great many people by publishing a “traffic light” comparison, showing travellers how likely (or not) they are to be getting a seat when they travel during rush hour. According to a report in the News Shopper, Southeastern Managing Director David Statham said "We want to give passengers an easy way to see how busy different services are at their station. Those able to catch an earlier or later train can now see which is likely to have more space." Quite. I get the feeling that Mr. Statham does not quite grasp the nature of the average commuter. We don't do it because we want to, we do it as we have no other choice. The times we travel are dictated by the hours of business our employers set; personally I am quite fortunate in that I can work quite flexibly – I don't have to go into the office every single day, and can easily work from my very comfortable and convenient office at home. I am in the minority though, most travellers have no choice in the matter, and have to commute at the same time each day.  The obvious fix for the problem is to increase the length of each train – many on the comparison chart above are only eight carriages, when ten would be preferable; as previously mentioned, it is not possible to run twelve carriage trains on the line due to the restrictions at Woolwich Dockyard station – which has a tunnel at each end of the platform, limiting train length to ten rather than the potential twelve carriages that the extended platforms at other stations would support. I understand that apart from a lack of rolling stock to make all trains ten carriages long, there are concerns about the amount of extra traction current the additional carriages would consume. As with any consideration, Southeastern are primarily concerned with the bottom line on the spreadsheet.

Bexley is Bonkers author Malcolm Knight wrote at length about the road and pavement works that took place in Bexleyheath a couple of years ago. He predicted that much would need to have significant repairs within a relatively short period. He was spot on the money. Last Monday work began in Arnsberg Way to replace the road surface, which had started to disintegrate, despite only being laid in 2013. I understand that Bexley Council are trying to get a refund from the contractors who undertook the work. Much dissatisfaction has been voiced over the whole concept of “shared space” which was rolled out in Bexleyheath, and has been insidiously rolled out in other Bexley towns since. The “shared space” concept is that the delineation between areas used by pedestrians, and areas used by vehicles is deliberately kept unclear; the thinking is that as neither party can tell where one finishes and the other begins, both vehicles and pedestrians will act more carefully, thus avoiding accidents. The brutal reality is however entirely different. The number of reported collisions and other accidents has increased since the changes were introduced, and many local residents are disgusted with the lack of clarity as to who goes where.

Last week I was walking along Picardy Road in Upper Belvedere, as I passed the Conservative Club, an unusual car came along the road. For a few seconds I was unable to identify it. It was similar to the Jaguar XF model, but sleeker and a little lower. What immediately struck me was that it was completely silent as it moved. I then realised that it was a Tesla S – Type; a true electric luxury sports saloon. Tesla cars are pretty scarce, and doubly so in the UK. The American made vehicles are not cheap – the Tesla S has a base cost of nearly £70,000, and most buyers opt for the range – topping P85D model, which with optional extras comes to the thick end of £95,000. I have to admit that the Tesla S is a very good looking vehicle, and looks better in the flesh than it does on paper or screen. Tesla claim an endurance in excess of three hundred miles for the top of the range P85D model, but rumours abound that the company are about to release a software update for the power management computer of the car to make this claim closer to reality. I understand that some owners have been stranded after the power reserve meter on the dashboard indicated plenty of spare battery charge, but the car ran out of juice. The update is meant to resolve this important flaw, and reassure owners who get “range anxiety”. The Tesla S is the first really serious purely electric powered vehicle – I don’t consider the G-Whiz to be anything other than an electric golf cart with pretentions – you certainly could not take one on a motorway, whereas a Tesla S is at home in exactly the same places as a conventionally powered vehicle. At present the Tesla is pretty much a niche car – a combination of the price and powertrain dictate that. A lot of Tesla owners have the vehicle as their third or fourth car, alongside a high end Mercedes, Bentley and Ferrari. The Tesla enables them to be able to claim “green” credentials, whilst still running a stable of gas guzzlers. The problem as previously mentioned with any purely electric vehicle is range and endurance. The claimed three hundred mile range of the P85D model (which has the largest battery capacity of any Tesla S model in the range) is – even when the software fix installed, something that only a drive with the lightest of throttle use with no passengers and the windows and air conditioning off could even approach. The Lithium Ion battery technology that the Tesla uses has a finite capacity. At present no battery technology gives even close to the energy density of a petrol or diesel powered engine. On top of this, whereas at a petrol station you can refuel a conventional vehicle in a couple of minutes, a battery powered car will take many hours to recharge, effectively making it useless in the meantime. There is no real way around this using current technology. The only options are instead to use hybrid technology, where the batteries are supplemented by a smaller conventional engine, usually fitted with a turbocharger to increase efficiency. Another approach would be to use a hydrogen fuel cell – powered drivetrain, as is currently employed in some commercial vehicles; currently there are no commercially available fuel – cell powered cars; again there is a problem with low fuel density and also the storage and transportation of liquid hydrogen (rocket fuel to you and me). I feel that only a really game – changing emergent technology has a chance to really change the way electric vehicles are both used and perceived. The problem with any battery powered vehicle is that it is not truly green – the electricity stored in the batteries is often generated by burning fossil fuels – all you are doing is moving the source of the pollution further up the chain. If LENR technology (see the previous update for details) comes good, this may be an ideal source of truly clean, green electricity with none of the risks of stored liquid hydrogen, or the range limiting use of batteries. Time will tell. There are other, rather less savoury alternative fuels available – mainly in this case for public service vehicles. Bio methane combustion technology is one of these technical solutions. This uses methane generated from organic waste to power the vehicle. This has led a bus that is currently on test in the West Country in and around Bristol to be termed the “Poo Bus”. It takes excrement from 32,000 households in the area and converts it into methane to power the vehicle. Once again, the trouble is energy density; petrol and diesel have been used as the primary fuel source for automobiles for over a hundred years for a very good reason – both fuels are densely packed with energy so that a given volume of fuel will give a predictable amount of motive energy. Most other fuels don’t have this level of energy density – especially so of bio methane. The company running the experimental bus do have a sense of humour though – the “poo bus” is running on route number 2. You could not make it up.

We have another new African church in Erith – the Household of Faith Ministry, City of Truth church which you can see details of above. Personally I would have thought that the market would now be completely saturated, bearing in mind that we already have  the Gateway Chapel on Kennet Road, next to the Thames Road Industrial Estate, the Mountain of Fire and Miracle Ministry in the Manford Industrial Estate off Manor Road, The Redeemed Christian Church of God, which occupies the “Praise Ministry” at 33, Bexley Road - the former tyre warehouse behind the kebab shop and close to the hideous fish roundabout. They tend to have very noisy services, and have been in trouble with the council over exceeding their permitted car parking quota. The Celestial Church of Christ shares the same building, though I am unsure of the precise mechanics of their co-operative arrangement, but it seems to work for them anyway. There is also a church apparently using one of the industrial units located just off Birch Walk, though details of it remain hazy – and their web domain seems to have a lapsed registration, so they may well have moved on. Nevertheless it would seem that Erith is extremely well provided for if you wish to visit an African church. I just wonder how they compete for parishioners? Do people visit more than one, or is there a degree of “brand loyalty”? I know if I walk around Erith on a Sunday morning you can hear the singing and drumming from the Redeemed Christian Church of God – they seem a very cheerful and enthusiastic lot. I have been told in the past by a close friend who knows about such things that in general, the more flowery and impressive sounding wording an African church has in its’ title, the smaller and less impressive it turns out to be in reality. Nevertheless, they all seem to fulfil a local need, and it definitely comes under my personal libertarian philosophy of “if it works for you”.

Mobile phone maker Blackberry are becoming less and less relevant with business as well as casual users. The days of the firm being able to tout their “end to end secure” Email infrastructure as a unique selling point are now just a distant memory. What Blackberry pioneered in their proprietary hardware back in the day is now done in software on all the major smartphone platforms. Blackberry are now looking for new niche markets to exploit – they are realistic enough to understand that they are no longer in a position to go head to head with the likes of Apple and Samsung. Their latest foray is into the tablet marketplace – somewhere they famously (and very publicly) exited a couple of years ago, when they abruptly discontinued it. Early reviews were mixed, saying that although the hardware was good, several features were missing. Shipments totalled approximately 500,000 units during the first quarter of sales and 200,000 in the following quarter. Many of the 700,000 units shipped to retailers allegedly remained on the shelves for months, prompting BlackBerry to introduce dramatic price reductions in November 2011 to increase sales. Sales rebounded following the price cuts, with BlackBerry shipping approximately 2.5 million BlackBerry PlayBooks by June 1, 2013. Now Blackberry are back in the marketplace with a tablet that is primarily aimed at government and businesses, rather than private individuals. The new tablet is actually a re – badged Samsung Galaxy S10 that has additional cryptographic features. Samsung’s Knox secure boot technology ensures that the OS on the tablet has not been tampered with, while IBM’s contribution to the security chain is to “wrap” certain apps in an additional layer of code that intercepts and encrypts key data flows using the Secusmart hardware. All this means that the tablet meets with the security standards mandated by the U.S Government – possibly a big customer for the Canadian company. Each tablet will retail at $2,300 – though I would estimate that government or corporate bulk orders would get s substantial discount. Whether this approach will be enough to enable Blackberry to survive, I personally doubt. The company has been struggling for the last couple of years, and I would not be surprised that in 2015 Blackberry goes the same way as Nokia, who were once the dominant force in mobile phone technology, but now no longer exist.

The mystery of the halt in construction works to the new affordable rented flats being built in James Watt Way has been solved by some detective work by Erith Councillor Abena Oppong Asare. She has found out that the contractor being used to build the flats has got into financial difficulty, and the developer is currently looking for a new form of builders to complete the outstanding work. The good news is that this will only be a temporary delay to the construction of the much needed flats for affordable rent. Hopefully I will be able to report a re-start in the work very soon. 

I mentioned in the last update that I had recently paid a visit to one of the UK’s top advertising agencies – Grey London in Hatton Garden. The agency handle accounts from pretty much every high street brand, and are seen as one of the prime “go to” creative companies in the business. One advert that they are particularly famous for is the Vinny Jones mobster character doing CPR (Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation) to the Bee Gees “Staying Alive” which the agency created for the British Heart Foundation a couple of years ago - you can see the advert below.  The very successful advertising campaign led to forty six lives being saved by people who carried out the lifesaving procedure on people who had collapsed. Now local MP Teresa Pearce is campaigning for CPR to be taught in schools. This, in conjunction with the provision of defibrillators in public places (they are already installed on larger railway stations) should hopefully cut the number of deaths due to heart attacks in the UK. Personally I was surprised that CPR is not currently taught in schools. I can recall lessons in basic first aid when I was at school, and I was surprised to learn that this is not something that all schools have on their curriculum. Teresa Pearce MP took part in a debate with the Department of Education in Westminster Hall; she said in the debate: “There is currently no mandatory requirement of teaching about CPR—first aid—or public access defibrillators in the national curriculum in England. That is denying generations of young people the opportunity to develop life-saving skills that would benefit everyone. Many people say that even if it was for a loved one, they would be reluctant to get involved because they would not know what to do. Teaching people CPR and defibrillator awareness in secondary schools would alleviate that fear. Young people would leave school with knowledge that could save a friend, a loved one or a stranger. I urge the Minister to take on board all the comments that have been made today and to take affirmative action to ensure that CPR and defibrillator awareness are a mandatory part of the national curriculum for the benefit of us all.”

Another local MP has been given a new responsibility; MP for Bexleyheath and Crayford, David Evennett has been promoted to the Privy Council. This is apparently a highly prestigious position usually given to senior politicians. The Privy Council give advice to the Queen on matters of state. Somehow I guess that the Queen is more likely to be the one giving advice to her councillors, given her years of diplomatic experience. The Sovereign may appoint anyone to become a Privy Counsellor, but in practice appointments are made only on the advice of the Government, and generally consist only of senior members of parliament, the church and judiciary. There is no limit to the numbers sworn in as members. As of January 2012 there were about six hundred members. However, the members have no right to attend all meetings of the Privy Council, and only some are summoned to each meeting (in practice at the Prime Minister's discretion). David Evennett is not a senior MP, but he has been around for a while, and has the additional role of Parliamentary Private Secretary to Nicola Morgan, the Secretary of State for Education. All in all he’s done well; Evennett has not got caught with his fingers in the till, or bed hopping, so I guess that the Privy Council appointment is a reward for good behaviour. It certainly gives him more clout in his role as a local MP, which can only be a good thing for his constituents. What do you think? Leave a comment below, or Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com

The end video this week is charming - an excerpt from a new episode of The Clangers. As a small child I used to absolutely love The Clangers. I was quite concerned when I heard that the BBC were making a new series of the classic show for small (and not so small) children, and was worried that they would "modernise" it and make it with sterile CGI. I should not have worried - the programme is still made with real models and stop - motion animation. Michael Palin narrates, and it is an utter joy to watch. This clip shows the Clanger family preparing to watch a solar eclipse. At least they can see what is going on, unlike the real thing that happened on Friday morning - the skies around Erith were so cloudy and overcast that almost no indication that an eclipse was taking place was evident - I noticed a few cars switching on their headlights for a few minutes, but that was about that. 

The Royal Alfred.

It is nice to be able to report some positive and encouraging news about Erith for once. As I have written in the past, I am opposed to companies and property developers selling off profitable, viable community pubs to be converted into housing, and I still strongly of this view. What I am not against is developers buying up "no hope" pubs that are laying semi derelict and converting them into new housing. I have found out in the last few days that the former Royal Alfred pub, which has stood empty and apparently unloved in Manor Road, since it closed its' doors back in 2008 is shortly about to get a much needed makeover and major refurbishment. The downstairs bar area will be converted into a class A1 shop, the the upper floors will be converted into accommodation in the form of five one bedroomed apartments and two double bedroomed apartments. As you can see both above and below, the transformation of the pub from what it is now, to what the architect intends is pretty dramatic and impressive. The building has been boarded up and unused since it closed, and I reckon with some large injection of money and construction skill, it could be turned into a landmark building for the East side of Erith. Click on the photo above, or the two drawings below for a larger version. 

Normally the Maggot Sandwich gets written over the course of the preceding week; little bits get done in my lunch break at work, or in the evenings when I am at home. Back when I started the blog in 2006, I used to sit down on a Sunday afternoon and write the whole thing in one sitting. In those days it was much shorter and far less elaborate. This week I am almost back to the old method of compiling the update, as Christmas week has been very busy, and I have struggled very hard to find the time to sit down and bash out some prose. My apologies if as a result this weeks' update is not up to the normal standard; it has been a bit of a "rush job".

I had a conversation on Friday afternoon with one of the assistant managers in Morrison's in Erith; I was very surprised to discover that their most popular food item sold in the period between Christmas and the New Year is sliced bread and bread rolls. It was explained to me that many people have leftover turkey, beef and gammon from their Christmas meal, and rather than eat anything very elaborate, they buy bread in order to turn the leftovers into sandwiches. I suppose that it makes sense, though it had never occurred to me before. I do know that the bakery in Northumberland Heath has been working overtime - it bakes bread under contract for a number of retailers, including Marks and Spencer, so maybe the Christmas / New Year sandwich tradition is something common to the wider country, and not just the local area.

I am trying to discover more about a very colourful and larger than life character who lived in Erith during Victorian times; his name was Robert Austen, but he was more popularly known as "Robert the Devil" - he was an exhibitionist and showman, and I understand he had a strong man act that sometimes toured around North Kent and beyond. He had a couple of party tricks. He often drank in the pubs on Erith river front, and was notorious for betting other drinkers a pint of ale if he could swim across the River Thames from Erith to Coldharbour Point in Havering, Essex and back - which he invariably did. As I have previously written, the currents and undertow in and around Anchor Bay make this one of the most lethal stretches of the Thames for swimmers, and why most people who enter the river end up getting fished out by the Police or RNLI as corpses. It would appear that Robert Austen was a very strong and confident swimmer who could repeatedly challenge this. On top of swimming the river, Austen would permit a man to break a granite kerbstone over his chest with a sledge hammer - for the price of a gallon of beer! More information if you have it please. 

Following my open question last week as to when the photograph of the trolley bus was taken outside of the Wheatley Hotel, on what is now the site of the hideous fish sculpture, I have had the following message from Richard Spink, who has strong memories of the 698 trolley bus service:- "The 698 trolley bus was withdrawn in 1959. It used to run from Woolwich along Plumstead High Street and down to Abbey Wood Village then on to Erith, North Heath and Bexleyheath. I remember catching it from the bus stop at the bottom of Wickham Lane when my parents were visiting Mum's Sister in Gravesend. We would get the train from Abbey Wood. I seem to remember it only going as far as Abbey Wood where it would turn round and come back to Woolwich again. Perhaps by then, the route to Bexleyheath had already been closed. The route was eventually replaced by the 229 bus service. We also had the 696 trolley bus which ran from Woolwich all the way to Dartford and was supposed to be the longest in the country. This was replaced by the No.96 bus. I believe your picture must date from the later half of the 1950's going by the clothes worn by the people at the crossing. Also, the tram lines have been removed which must have happened after the war. The ones in Woolwich Market Square were still there in the 1980's along with the original cobbled road surface. Shame it never had a preservation order. While looking for information on this, I came across this website. Looking at the pictures on the corner of Wickham Lane really brought back some memories as I lived in Wickham Lane as a child and remember the shops in the background of the pictures. I remember the trolley bus as well. The Off Licence on the corner of Camrose Street was where I used to go and try and buy bottles of cider aged about 16 and try and convince the shopkeeper I was older. The trouble was that he had known me from a small child (my Dad used to take me in there when he was buying his cigarettes) and knew exactly how old I was." Thanks Richard - I am sure many readers will find your recollections fascinating. Local historic transport links continue below.

Local resident Dana Whiffen wrote the following piece on the restoration of a number of classic GS buses from the early 1950's, which is being carried out at the Brooklands Motor Museum; the buses have a local link which will be come clear shortly. "In 1952 London Transport ordered 84 of these wonderful 26 seater single decker buses (see the photo above - click for a larger view) from GUY to be run on London Transport Country routes. The distinctive front with the 'Indian Head' motor buses started coming into service in October 1953 with the rest of the order being completed by January the following year. Remarkably today there are a total 30 of these buses preserved although only 12 of these are actually on the road, with three of these standing together at Brooklands for this anniversary celebration in October 2013. This bus ran in various rural counties around London including Kent where they ran on routes from Northfleet Garage between 1954-1969 covering routes towards Gravesend and Dartford, from 1953-1966 from Dunton Green Garage covering routes for Orpington, Westerham and Sevenoaks, from Swanley Garage between 1955-1959 covering Farningham, from Chelsham Garage between 1953-1962 covering routes for Edenbridge, Oxted and Tatsfield. The link to Erith was that GS50 was based at AbbeyWood Bus Garage  for severeral years after being removed from normal service in the late sixties; this bus was often seen around the area taking drivers to skid training at the Chiswick driver education centre, often picking up staff from Bexleyheath, Sidcup and Plumstead garages".

The weather over the last couple of weeks has been notoriously atrocious. Much has already been written about the subject, and I don't want to repeat what has already been said. One thing that it has highlighted is something I have mentioned in the past, but I feel that needs to be restated. People who put their feet on the seats on public transport is something that winds me up no end; not only is it antisocial, but it is extremely unhygienic. Even if the culprit has not directly stood in a dog turd, the harmful bacteria from excrement is washed all over every pavement when it rains and everybody gets fecal bacteria on their footwear, whether they know it or not. It is only after a period of bright sunshine that the Ultra Violet light from the sun kills the micro organisms, but for much of the time in winter the footpaths and streets of Britain are literally awash with harmful bacteria, mainly from dog droppings. When someone puts their feet onto a bus or train seat, they transfer some of this bacteria onto the fabric of the seat, where it can live quite happily for several days. In that time, multiple bottoms will have sat on the invisible bacteria colony, transferring some of them for another ride on an unwitting hosts' clothes. The person has only to touch the invisibly infected area to pass harmful bugs onto their hands, and from there, virtually anywhere. This is one of the main reasons that when you visit a hospital or nursing care home, you are strongly encouraged to use antibacterial hand gel, which is normally supplied in a dispenser by the entrance. A good wash with soap and hot water will do pretty much the same, if like me you are sensitive to the gel. I have been told by a couple of medical professionals that about a third of infections blamed on MRSA in hospitals and nursing homes are actually caused by canine fecal bacteria transferred from visitors' clothing. Think on this next time you see someone putting their feet on a seat. 

South Eastern Trains have run a shambolic service over the holiday period; some of it was their fault, some not. The terrible high winds and deluge of rain has certainly not helped matters. On Friday, a normal working day for many people, South Eastern initially said that no trains would be running until around midday. As lunchtime approached, this was changed to state that it would be unlikely that trains would be running at all, due to "Major disruption". The problems would appear to be directly related to the way that the Dartford to London Bridge, Cannon Street and Charing Cross via Greenwich railway line was originally created; for much of its' length it runs through a series of cuttings of varying depths. These cuttings are lined by trees and bushes, which just out of the steep earthen banks. As soon as any great storm happens, mud gets washed from the banks, weakening the tree and bush roots' hold in the ground. Combining this with the accompanying extremely high wind speeds, and the railway tracks get blocked by fallen trees and uprooted bushes. I know that there have been some half - hearted attempts to permanently remove the foliage alongside the track in the past, but this has not really worked. The trouble is that South Eastern Trains blame Railtrack, who run and operate the infrastructure. Nobody wants to take responsibility for anything - they just point fingers at each other. This is one instance when an overall umbrella organisation that would be responsible for the railway from end to end would be preferable. It's not going to happen, as there are too many vested interests - and too many fingers in the pie. The commuter comes very much at the bottom of the list of priorities - as in South East London / North Kent there is no alternative to using the train to get into London on a daily basis.  Commuters cannot "vote with their feet" as is the case in some other parts of the country - and the railway companies know it. 

I came across the advert above in an old map of Erith that I have had for absolutely ages. It was old when I was given it. Hedley Mitchell was the largest and by far the most important shop in the old Victorian Erith town centre. It was the towns' department store, and as large and grand as Hides in Bexleyheath. Many older local residents recall Hedley Mitchell with great affection. The store had a very high reputation for formal service. It was the first building to be demolished when work began to create the new (and subsequently much hated) brutalist concrete shopping centre in 1966. In fact the first act of demolition was carried out by the then Deputy Mayor, Councillor Mrs M Barron, ceremoniously smashed the window of Hedley Mitchell's store to mark the commencement of the demolition of Erith Town Centre to make way for redevelopment. As a consequence, all the existing Victorian buildings were lost. With hindsight, this was a terrible mistake - the existing town centre should have been sympathetically restored. I gather that this was considered, but would have cost too much money; instead they built a relatively cheap but undeniably ugly replacement out of bare concrete. I don't know anyone who had a good word to say about it. Consequently a lot of businesses upped sticks and moved to Bexleyheath or Northumberland Heath, and it is only now, nearly fifty years later that much of the social and economic damage is being put right. The current Erith Riverside Shopping Centre is actually a very clever redesign of the much hated sixties structure, rather than a ground up new build, but it has been done with taste and sensitivity - something entirely missing in the original, which was a smelly and soulless concrete monstrosity, detested by all.

I feel that 2014 will see the end of BlackBerry; the phone handset maker has lost its' way and is now haemorrhaging cash in an unprecedented way. This week the company announced losses that in practical terms amount to $4.4 billion. There is no way that they can keep this up for very long. The basic problem is that RIM (Research In Motion) - the old name for BlackBerry came up with a very clever idea for a very secure, encrypted smart phone infrastructure, which was ideal for business. This was all well and good a few years ago, but the company has sat on its' laurels, and not really gone anywhere since. Nowadays modern smart phones are powerful enough to do in software what that BlackBerry does in dedicated hardware, and the whole BlackBerry advantage has now gone. They have nowhere technologically left to go, and have not brought in any innovation. They will either go under, or be bought out by a competitor.

2014 will mark the sad 100th anniversary if the start of the First World War. Erith had a major contribution to this pointless and wasteful conflict; much of the ammunition and small arms used by the allies were manufactured in Erith and Crayford at the factories of Vickers. It is unfortunate to say that the area profited greatly from the Great War; it is debated that the relatively short lived tram system would have shut down earlier, had it not been for the influx of trade due to the large number of workers using it to travel to and from the arms factories. This week, English Heritage announced that they had finally identified a German WW1 era submarine that has been laid up on the Kentish coast for almost a century. Marine archaeologists have conducted research into the wreck of the submarine, which is located on a small creek off the River Medway - a place called Humble Bee Creek, near to the Isle of Grain. It is visible at low tide, and it is possible to visit, though one would need to use caution, as well as a good pair of wellies! The boat (only submarines are referred to as boats, all other navy vessels are ships) was originally called UB-122, and was commanded by Oberleutnant zue see Alexander Magnus, and was formally surrendered at the end of WW1, where it was towed by the Royal Navy to Halling in Kent, where the submarines' diesel engines were removed and installed in a local cement works. The rest of the vessel was then towed further downriver, towards a yard where it was to be further broken up. During the towing process, the lines connecting the submarine to the tug parted, and the submarine went adrift, eventually coming to rest at the aforementioned Humble Bee Creek, where it remains to this day. The submarine was one of the most advanced of its' day - a type UBIII coastal patrol vessel which was launched in February 1918 from a shipyard in Bremen. It carried a crew of 34 sailors and a total of ten torpedoes, and had a cruising range of just under nine thousand miles. Nowadays it is just a rusting skeleton, but part of the regions' maritime heritage.

The ending video this week is something special; it is a web only mini episode of "Sherlock". It is a prequel to the start of series three, which begins on New Year's Day. It shows what Sherlock was up to in the two years between him faking his death and then re - appearing in London. When you watch it, please don't let the fact that Germany does not use the jury system for deciding court cases put you off - as the foreman says, the case was held under exceptional circumstances. It provides a fascinating preview for the new series, which promises to have huge viewing figures. See what you think below, and feel free to leave a comment, or Email me directly to hugh.neal@gmail.com.