Going Post Punk Postal! ✉️
A while ago I had booked a couple of days annual leave, I had nothing particularly planned, but I always feel it is a pretty healthy thing to do i.e. just get yourself away from the world of work for a short break. One of the things on our 'bucket list' of stuff to do in London has been The Postal Museum, we have both wanted to go there but other stuff just comes up and it had been put on the backburner for a few years, so this time we decided to go for it, we planned out a little route that would take us to the museum and onward to a couple of galleries and a couple of nice pubs along the way.
Soggy September 🌧
I seem to be following some sort of new tradition in that when I book time off the weather decides to turn, mind you towards September/October it can be quite changeable. It started off quite sunny when we left, but you could definitely feel the changing of the seasons beginning to happen, it was also quite fresh and the clouds were beginning to bubble up for rain.
We hit our destination at Farringdon Mount Pleasant before time and also just before it started raining. Back in the day I used to pass by Mount Pleasant when the tubes were screwed and I used to work in Kings Cross, I would often walk by it heading down to Farringdon station. Anyway, we hit the museum and were directed to our first 'port of call' which was the mail train ride. If you have kids and don't mind small places this is a must do for parents the place offers a lot of things even without the mail ride for young kids to keep them amused, and even if you don't like small spaces thing and get claustrophobic on the ride they have even got a whole video section in the museum where you can just watch the experience without having to actually do it.
Small Train Journeys & Big Kids
I have to say it was great fun, even as an adult, we were ushered to the small mail train which were originally designed just to transport mail across London (so the carriages are small) but the experience was worth the money. The journey goes below ground to a rail system which is a true marvel of engineering, realising that it took so much longer above ground with traffic and other hazards, it was so much quicker to network up across London to get mail delivered faster an un-impeded and back many years ago mail was the only way to correspond with people, no just jumping on WhatsApp to send a message. The guide and voice of one of the the people who worked as an engineer there in the 1980's were so good explaining the history. The mail car juddered to a halt, all lights went out and you could feel the experience of having to work down there in a power cut!
We hit the first station stop and the screen on the platform sprung into life displaying a video of the history of the mail train through time, it was truly fascinating and looked like such a busy and buzzy place to work, mail got delivered by the train and operatives would unload it at stations in record time (sometimes in under sixty seconds) before the next lot arrived, it looked like hard work but also an amazing sense of camaraderie involved in getting the job done.
We headed back to whence we came and wandered through the first part of the museum checking out some more history, having a go at the simulated signalling to direct the mail trains and also having a look at the previously used mail trains dating back over the years.
The second half of the visit was visiting the museum, looking back over the years as to how the mail service in the UK came into operation, having a look at some really old technology, having a go at a pneumatic delivery chute, post boxes, uniforms and also getting a go at creating your own stamp using your head as opposed to a King or Queen. As I said before brilliant fun if you have kids and a walk down memory lane in terms of looking back at the postal service over the years from when I remember as a kid as well as old telephones and uniforms. A fun day out for big kids as well as little kids!
Galleries, Pubs & Dodging Showers
We finished the tour of the museum and headed down towards an art galley which is located near Russell Square Station (the station itself is a beautiful old building), the Brunswick Art Gallery is only a 15 minute trip on foot from the Postal Museum (nicer when the weather is dry though!). It is a nice little gallery that displays some modern and pop art style stuff which you can buy (if you have lots of money!). We also passed by the beautiful Fitzroy Hotel near Russell Square and what a fabulous and huge old building it is, we must pop in sometime even just to grab a cocktail in style!
We moved on to a couple of nice little pubs, the first not far from Chancery Lane called the Enterprise which is a lovely old building and has a great add on restaurant offering some tasty looking Asian food. From there we headed to a pub called The Old Nick just behind where I used to work along Chancery Lane, again another lovely old building. Mrs Akin took her little pub book with her to add these two to the list of 'London's Lushest Boozers' (you never know, I might publish the list on this site!). We finally headed back home but this post (no pun!) made me think of a record label devised in Glasgow called Postcard Records (following that whole post theme).
Postcard Records
As mentioned above it was started in Scotland in 1980 by a guy called Alan Horne who quickly snapped up two young Scottish bands in Orange Juice and also Aztec Camera, the former being the first to release on the new label with the track 'Falling And Laughing'. By 1981 the label had sadly folded as the two bands had been signed by major labels.
The particular track I really remember by Orange Juice has to be their post punk classic called 'Rip It Up', it is a little piece of Scottish Tablet Cake all wrapped up in a jangly indie pop bubble and was released on the major Polydor Label, the track had a sound that seemed to be everywhere at the time. Their background says they kicked off in 1976 as a band called Nu-Sonics and hearing some of the lyrics in this song you can catch some early punk vibes with the little guitar solo (of one chord) and some of the words which seem to reference The Buzzcocks with their early indie released track 'Boredom', check it out at the link!
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Hope you enjoyed this 'post' and catch you again soon! 🤪
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Picture Thanks
𝓐 𝓚ⅰ𝓬𝒌 Ìռძⅰ𝓮 𝓝𝒖ꚍⱿ
Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash
Video Thanks