Secrets Of The London Underground | Q & A with Tim Dunn and Siddy Halloway

What is different about this show?

Siddy: The Tube is an iconic subject of course, but I think what’s really different in this series is that we are going to places that nobody has ever gone to before. There are loads of documentaries about the Underground system, and how it’s evolved but nobody has taken anyone to some of the places that we’re going to on this series.

Tim: It’s the “Secret” aspect of the show. People may have seen archive footage and photographs of the Tube, but Siddy, literally has the keys to these places and can show us down this tunnel and this hidden place. But it isn’t a programme just for Tube geeks and people who love London. I’ve been on the Hidden London tours but to actually go beyond that and look around and to go inside the Acton Depot – I mean, how many people get a chance to look inside the drawers of the poster store at the depot?

How did the show come about?

Siddy: Back in 2019 I had an email asking if I could take a lovely gentleman called Tim Dunn to one of our stations called Down Street, and I said “of course!”

Tim: That was for the show, The Architecture The Railways Built Series one.

Siddy: It was the first episode!

Tim: It was my first day! You were my first ever interviewee!

Siddy: And now you can’t get rid of me!

Tim: Some of the feedback we got from The Architecture The Railways Built is that people love seeing the hidden places that they wouldn’t normally get access to. And that’s why I love presenting this show because generally it’s places that are new to me, I’m with passionate experts who know what they’re talking about and I think that resonates with people, and if you take care with things, and take experts like Siddy with you, then it’s really good telly!

How do you know so much about the Underground?

Siddy: Well, it’s my job (as Engagement Manager at The London Transport Museum) so I have to! But also, it becomes a passion especially when you use it every day, and you start learning the stories that make up the Underground, how it was built up, how it’s changed, how it’s evolved, how it influences everyday lives it really becomes a fascinating subject because people often think of it as just the trains or just the engineering side or that it’s always delayed or that its really hot on the Central Line, the day to day stuff, but sometimes what people don’t realise is that they’re travelling through spaces that have been open for 120, 130 years and influenced millions of peoples lives. So once you connect it to the people of London you get really excited about the subject. Once I started diving into that part, I couldn’t stop. And here we are today!

Tim: But how did you LEARN so much stuff and so quickly? I know you work for the London Transport Museum and are a tour guide for Hidden London, you’re essentially a historian for London Underground, but how do you assimilate all of that stuff?

Siddy: By a lot of reading! There have been so many amazing books written about the subject, and once you’ve read one you want to read the next one and the next one and the next one. When we started the Hidden London programme we had to do all the research and we were very clear from the start that we wanted to do largely primary research which meant we were going to archives, seeing things for ourselves and piecing the stories together like that. We really wanted to make sure weren’t just going down the road of urban myths because there are loads of them, particularly concerning the Underground, and we really wanted to set the record straight on these things.

How many disused stations are there on the London Underground?

Siddy: Most central London Underground stations and some in outer London has some disused space. So it really depends on whether you mean a whole station, such as Aldwych, or part of a station, such as Holborn for example. But then there’s York Road, North End, but is North End a station? It never opened as a station! So it depends on how you qualify it. And it’s anyone’s game really to say how many of them there are, but if you go by that metric of disused use space – then there are hundreds! I mean, there are only 272 stations on the network so, “hundreds” is a little bit difficult…

Tim: But you then start thinking about things like the Brill Tramway, which was once part of the Underground system effectively, and you’ve got all the stations like Wendover and Aylesbury that were part of the old Metropolitan line and then of course they once ran District Line services to Windsor

Siddy: Yeah, and Southend on Sea!

Tim: So are they Underground stations or not? Kind of they were…

Siddy: It’s a very difficult question, but the metric we try to follow is generally Central London, although we sometimes branch out for places like Ongar or Brill, those sorts of places, and generally they have to have a significant amount of disused space – a corridor, a lift shaft or a whole platform often, I think that would constitute to me a “disused” station, but other people would disagree.

Tim: She’s the expert!

What’s your favourite underground station?

Siddy: I have a few! But I think everyone has an affinity to stations they use regularly, or live close to or something like that, but there is one with significant importance to me, called Holloway Road.

Tim: Oh how convenient!

Siddy: Because it influenced my name! Siddy HOLLOWAY! And it’s a lovely Leslie Green station that’s beautifully preserved so I love that.

Tim: So how did Holloway Road influence your name?

Siddy: I went to drama school in the early noughties and when I was graduating I needed to find a last name that people could pronounce because people found my Icelandic one a bit difficult and I struggled a lot and then one day I was passing by Holloway Road and I thought, “Holloway” that has a nice ring to it, many years before I started working in transport!

Tim: And now you’re making a television programme about the secrets of the London Underground.

Siddy: It’s all just meant to be! What’s your favourite one?

Tim: I’m going to say Baker Street is my favourite because its part of the original Underground system and the Metropolitan Railway. It’s got that wonderful, restored sort of barrel roof over it and also it’s got some layers of history to it. It’s got various different lines going through it, it’s got the terminus upstairs, it’s got the old headquarters above it as well. It used to have coal trains coming in for the block of flats above and rubbish trains going out and it’s got steam train marks on the ceiling, it’s just a lovely, fascinating station.

Siddy: Yeah, it is. Very good answer. I like it!

Why should I care about the London Underground if I’m not from, or have never been to London?

Siddy: Good question! Well, it’s fascinating. I mean, we use public transport in most big cities all around the world and this was the world’s first. It’s the system that had to make all of the mistakes that every other system could then recognise and rectify. It’s where everything had to evolve organically, where it was just made and let’s see what happens and I think because of that, it’s iconic. Everyone knows the roundel, everyone knows the Underground and I think because it’s the oldest and it’s got lots of deep tunnels and platforms, I think there is a sort of mystique about it and I think people are curious about what is in those hundred-year-old-plus tunnels that we don’t know about, is there anything still there left behind?

Tim: I’m a bit biased! I’ve lived in London for years, I’m a historian, I’ve spent my whole life talking about this stuff and the buildings around it. It’s your job too of course, working at the London Transport Museum and it’s your passion. But this programme isn’t just about the trains and the Underground. Sure, that’s there, but actually what you’ll find is that this programme is about us as people and design and how technology develops, and yeah, we go and look at some tube carriages and we talk about why things look like they do and we talk about the Second World War for example and the way that affected people and how people used the system to escape the horrors for above. So it’s a wonderful story that uses the Tube as it’s backdrop that just shows some really interesting stuff from social history.

Siddy: We go even as far back as the origins of the London Underground, we go as far back as the Victorian times, but really the story of the Underground is the story of progress. This progress has now been reached in all corners of the world, but it started with a few privately owned companies in London trying to improve living conditions for Victorian Londoners.

Has the London Underground changed as much as the rest of London over the years?

Siddy: Yes, I would say so. Particularly certain lines. City and South London railway, opened in 1890, that’s on the Bank Branch of the Northern Line. It doesn’t look at al like it did, so it’s really changed a lot, but what’s beautiful about it is that even if stuff has been modernised, you can still catch glimpses of the past here and there. That’s what makes it so special.

Tim: I agree. And the Tube has enabled London to grow. Without it we wouldn’t have a city like we do now. And so it’s had to change. We’ve seen different phases of development and it’s constantly changing. But as you said, the best bits of the past are still retained. TfL, I think, looks after the very best bits, along with the museum, really looks after this stuff. We’re lucky I think, in London and this country, to still have them.

Tell us one secret each about the London Underground

Tim: OK, this is one that isn’t in the series. At Bank station, joining up the Waterloo and City and the Northern Line in a tunnel, they’ve left in there the remains of a Greathead shield, which was the big piece of tunnelling equipment that protected people as they tunnelled away back in the era. And if you look closely, it’s painted red, but next to it is this little brass plaque that says this was installed in whatever year it was as a celebration of Mr Greathead, and actually, almost directly upstairs there’s a statue of him. And people don’t know that there’s both his work down there and his statue up there.

Siddy: Also, right next to that is a disused station called King William Street. This was the first terminus and the first disused London Underground station, and it’s currently being used to upgrade Bank station. Bank has the highest number of exits for any Underground station in the world and it also doesn’t have any street-level entrances or exits which a big problem for it and that’s what they’re doing now along with simplifying it.

Tim: Oh, I didn’t know that!