Cityread Blog

How Hard Is It To Keep Track? Aoife Mannix on reading on the tube
July 27, 2012

Now that the Olympics are finally upon us, has anyone else found suddenly hearing Boris’s voice over the tannoy system a little startling?  In his book Londoners, Craig Taylor has an interview with Emma Clarke, the voice of the London underground system.  She reveals that she struggled to find the right tone for that most famous of London warnings ‘Mind The Gap’.  ‘I felt I didn’t want it to sound too scary, didn’t want people to think I was some sort of awful dominatrix wearing thigh-high PVC boots.’

This makes me smile and remember the time I overheard a small boy on the Bakerloo line ask ‘Daddy, what is in the gap?’  His father paused for a moment before replying ‘You really don’t want to know.’  I instantly started to make a list in my mind – a couple of Japanese tourists, an RAF fighter pilot, three homeless dogs on string, a monster that lives on Metro newspapers… The tube does offer plenty of time for flights of fancy.

It’s also a great opportunity for reading.  If you manage to get a seat that is. It’s more of a challenge if you’re trying to turn the pages whilst wedged between business suits and bags of shopping.  There is an art to reading on the tube.  I believe it mainly involves teaching yourself to look up at the station signs every couple of minutes to find out where you are without losing the world of the book. For instance recently reading Sebastian Barry’s A Long Long Way, I was able to stay in a trench in the First World War while keeping note of Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Covent Garden.  That is until one of the characters got shot and tears streaming down my face, I nearly missed my stop.  I managed to just about hold on to the flapping pages as I threw myself across the gap to avoid being late.  A little bit embarrassing yet at the same time a huge compliment to this wonderful book.

What have you read lately that’s been so gripping it’s sent you hurtling through the tube doors at the last possible moment?  Or indeed absorbed you so entirely you ended up in Theydon Bois when you only wanted to go to Stratford?  In case you didn’t know, Theydon Bois is the second last stop on the central line.  It’s also the favourite station name of Emma Clarke, the voice of the underground.  Though she explains ‘I have a fondness for all the names, I really do.  I suppose I especially like ‘Piccadilly Circus.’  I like the rhythm of it.’

Sebastian Barry’s title comes from the Irish song ‘It’s A Long Long Way to Tipperary’ which contains the line ‘Goodbye Piccadilly!   Farewell Leicester Square!’  I used to sing this song as a child growing up in Dublin long before I had any idea these were places that actually existed in London.  It’s hard now to imagine that what has become so familiar was once unknown.  These days a huge number of the tube stop names conjure up whole worlds that have their own distinct tone and style.  If you were to write a book named after a tube stop, what would you call it?

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A Week in December
By Sebastian Faulks

London, the week before Christmas 2007. Over seven wintry days, we follow the lives of seven characters across the city, from a hedge fund manager to a Tube train driver. Above the complex patterns of modern urban life, the writing on the wall appears in letters ten feet high, but the characters refuse to see it . As the gripping climax looms, they are forced, one by one, to awake from their blinkered present to confront the true nature of the world they inhabit.

About Aoife Mannix
Aoife Mannix was born in Sweden of Irish parents. She grew up in Dublin, Ottawa and New York before moving to London. Her first novel Heritage of Secrets was published in 2008. She is the author of four collections of poetry; The Trick of Foreign Words (2002), The Elephant in the Corner (2005), Growing Up An Alien (2007) and Turn The Clocks Upside Down (2008). She regularly features on BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live. She has been writer in residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Poetry School, Spread the Word, All Change and Apples & Snakes. She has performed throughout the UK including at Latitude, the Big Chill, and Ledbury Poetry Festival. She has toured internationally with the British Council to China, Latvia, Nigeria, Turkey, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Norway and Austria. To find out more, please visit her website www.aoifemannix.com

About Sarah Parker
Dr Sarah Parker is an early career academic specialising in nineteenth and twentieth century literature. She is running this year’s Cityread Online Book Group.


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