One positive of this hobby ("hobby") is you never know what you're going to get. On arrival, a station can seem like any other. Long platforms, a bridge, wires whistling overhead. In the West Midlands, the street furniture painted in a corporate orange. Then you wander outside and you find a kangaroo on the ticket office.
I was in Canley, on the outskirts of Coventry, and the kangaroo commemorated one of its most famous sons. Sir Henry Parkes was born in poverty in Canley and, after struggling to make a living in the UK, emigrated to the colony of Australia in the early 19th century. He developed an interest in politics and then, further to that, Australian self-determination. He was named the "Father of Federation", a strong advocate for Australia's colonies joining up to form their own nation. Sadly he died in 1896, never seeing it bear fruit, but when the country did become a self-governing federation in 1901 he was lauded.
The kangaroo is a nice way of commemorating a man who, let's be honest, got the hell out of Canley and never came back. It also replaced a statue that was outside a local primary school named after Sir Henry, and which was smashed to pieces by vandals in the 90s; a slightly less respectful tribute.
Beyond the station car park there was a long stretch of factory. Half of it was a pile of rubble and the rest was closed and awaiting demolition. Canley originally sprang up as a neighbourhood for workers at the Standard Triumph car factory, over the railway line; other industries followed to take advantage of its trained workforce. In the 1970s, though, the car manufacturers (by then part of British Leyland) closed forever, and the rest of the industry has been trickling away ever since.
I walked down to a dual carriageway, where a formerly brownfield site was being turned into a block of flats. Most of the Triumph site was converted to retail and low-level factory units and warehouses, though the Standard Triumph Social Club still remains, and there's a logo of the cars on the corner of the road as a memorial. I descended into a dark underpass, glad of the shielding from the unusually hot May sun, and re-emerged in Canley proper.
Coventry planned Canley as a new forward thinking estate for its residents. They'd have good, clean, insulated homes, at reasonable rents, close to their employer and with shops and schools to support them. Work began in the 1930s, and it was the prewar streets I was walking along now. There was a good sized recreation ground, some newer infill, and then a row of shops that hinted to a different story to this area.
Normally, this row on a pre-war housing estate would be pretty standard. A local shop. A hairdresser. One or two takeaways. Maybe a tanning salon. The centrepiece of this row was the Wonton Joe Supermarket, which sounds like something your dad called the local immigrant-run shop when he got told he couldn't use ethnic slurs any more. It's not what you'd normally expect to see, but the reason for it is tucked away to the south. In the 1960s, the University of Warwick (not Coventry, a fact that apparently riles the city to this day) was founded on a campus not far away.
This means that what was built as a place for families has quietly started to become infiltrated with students. Selling council houses off didn't help, as they became private lets, and then they could be filled with half a dozen teenagers with low standards. Canley's become something it shouldn't have been, a dormitory.
Whether the VLC ever makes it out here is another matter. Obviously, the construction times have slipped, and the funding has shifted, and then the proposed routes covering the whole of the city have shifted to "maybe the airport?" and "probably the university?" and not to where people live. It reminds me of Merseytram, that massive scheme to give Liverpool three tram lines which was hamstrung by the city's insistence they build it through residential areas without access to transport and ending up in Kirkby town centre rather than a nice sexy airport line for the tourists. The people who actually need good transport aren't necessarily the ones who are going to get it.
At Mitchell Avenue I crossed a social and architectural dividing line. Only half the estate was finished when the Second World War hit, so construction was naturally suspended. Afterwards, there was a need for new buildings, fast. Instead of brick, the homes on this side of the estate were BISF houses: a steel framed structure developed by the British Iron and Steel Federation. They could be put up quickly, like a prefab, but much more permanent.
It was a similar story here, with white being the standard hue, though some people who'd bought their houses had veered into a cream. There were long stretches of grass everywhere, the front gardens spilling into their neighbour, and wide verges. Mature trees shaded me as I walked. It was all so civilised.
Appearances can be deceptive, however. As I reached a small chippy, a teenage boy ran out to a car parked in the layby and he took a folded note from the driver. "How sweet," I thought. "He's getting the lunch order for his mum." It was only when he dashed down the alley to the side of the chip shop, into the estate, while the car took off, that I realised: "Oh. I think that was a drug deal."
I'm afraid I'm a bit naive around drugs. The thing is, I really like booze. Booze makes me happy and amused and gives me all the highs I need. Plus, and this is a very important factor, if I want some alcohol I can wander down any High Street and find some. I don't have to loiter on a street corner or chat to a pimply youth or buy something that could be baking powder in a plastic bag. If this makes me a boring old fart with no sense of adventure, so be it. I will be happily getting toasted over here with a nice pint of lager while you're caning it on amphetamines and we can both have a nice night out.
The point is, I don't spend much time in the company of people doing dodgy deals, and it was a bit of a shock for me. I walked along the pavement for a while with a sort of stunned mindset. I'm not anti-drugs - do what you want to do to have a good time - but it was a bit surprising to see it in the middle of a weekday afternoon.
The path beneath my feet was scrawled with chalk instructions: a hopscotch game, then circles with "jump here!" and "hop here!". It was all sweetly naive, the kind of innocent play that I thought children today didn't do because they were all shooting each other on their X-Boxes. At the end it asked How much fun was that? and then a scale of 1 to 10. That's a truly 21st century child, not letting you get away with anything without rating it afterwards. I didn't partake, incidentally, because nobody needs to see that much blubber bouncing.
Some of the residents had set up seats on the front lawns and were chatting and drinking tea. I was envious of their drinks. It really was extremely hot, and I was very exposed on the road. I'd timed it badly, walking at the point where the day was at its hottest. The houses became small industrial units again, a road called Falkland Close hinting at their date of construction, and a faded sign on a lamppost promised me hot food from the "Toastbusters".
Tile Hill originally came with a level crossing, but that slowed down the trains en route, so a few years ago it was replaced with a bridge. That seemed to open up the whole area for new development and now there were houses and flats in what had once been countryside. I walked down the side road to the station, a convoluted route under the bridge, dog-legging past the car park and back on myself to reach the building.
I'd just missed a train so I settled down and ate my lunch in the cool shaded waiting area. It was a decent enough station, a proper commuter spot, though slightly ruined by the extensive ramps to give access to the footbridge. You saved a few quid on lifts, well done; it looks horrible though.
One innovation I'd never seen before was sign language on the next train indicator. I'd seen those video screens at the larger stations, where a filmed person gave the next platform info, but this was a small computer graphic.
Her movements were a little jerky, and her look was slightly off, meaning she resembled a Sim. I was waiting for her to shake her arms above her head in frustration then mime hunger. (I may have been a little cruel to my Sims).
With suburbia behind me, it was time to venture into the countryside. At least I wouldn't see anyone buying coke out there. Hopefully.
