Car boot sales and walks weren’t the only things I did on Sundays while growing up. It was often a day for outings to interesting places, and I have fond memories of places I used to go with my parents. In some cases, I went back with my own kids years later, and these places have special memories attached to them. I’m going to look at a few of them now, and reflect upon good times spent in them.
As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, my parents were often short of money, and so activities with me had to be kept cheap. Luckily for me, many of London’s museums and galleries were free when I was little. Some of them ended up charging quite steep admission fees during the dark days of Thatcher, but thankfully they ended up being free again after Labour won the 1997 election.
Back in the days when you could still drive into and park in central London without a second mortgage, my dad used to take me to the Science Museum quite often. Occasionally we’d get the tube, though, and I always preferred that. I liked the long foot tunnel from South Kensington station to the museum.
I remember the entrance to the museum opened out onto some stationary steam engines, which occasionally would be operated using compressed air. As a little kid, these machines seemed absolutely vast, and they were an awe-inspiring sight. Just behind them was a railway gallery, and when I was a kid you could see the prototype Deltic locomotive there, along with a 1920s Underground carriage. Both of these have found alternative homes now, but many interesting railway artefacts can still be found there.
The best thing about the Science Museum, though, was always that it was interactive long before this became a trendy thing. It was always full of buttons you could push that would light stuff up, or make it move. I remember little models of factories that would spring to life, and street scenes and the interiors of buildings that would illuminate, showing the development of electric lighting.
A particular memory of the Science Museum is a school trip in my final year of primary school. We went for a specific reason related to a project that I’ve long since forgotten, but we had time to look around the rest of the place, including the children’s galleries, and I can remember that clearly. It’s all closely linked with this song, which I’m sure I was humming to myself as I walked around. It’s long been a favourite.
I visited again with my kids on multiple occasions in the early 2000s, and last year I went again, absolutely loving the stuff in glass cabinets, years worth of everyday appliances, tech and consumer products. It’s awesome in there!
Thames Ditton Miniature Railway
Nestled in a patch of ground hemmed in by railway lines is the HQ of the Malden and District Society of Model Engineers, and their extensive miniature railways. They had a large ground-level seven-and-a-quarter inch line with an impressive array of both diesel and steam locos, and an elevated figure-of-eight circuit operating on two smaller gauges. Between Easter and the autumn, the club held public open days on Sundays. A cheap day ticket was available, allowing unlimited trips around both lines.
What a thrill it was! The main circuit had a tunnel, full semaphore signalling controlled by proper signal boxes with full size levers, an attractive station where frequent trains hoovered up the crowds, and an engine shed and turntable where you could admire the engines up-close. The trains weren’t particularly fast, but being so small, it felt like they were. The whole place was run by avuncular old men who were absolutely full of enthusiasm for the railway, and locos they mostly built themselves (usually taking years to complete). The scale of the operation was really impressive.
This video shows it off very nicely.
I didn’t discover this place until I was about eleven, and it had a short life in my affections as it felt a little childish to be into it as I got older. I was, however, very glad of an excuse to take my own kids there when I had a chance, and I discovered the place had lost none of its charm and appeal! Some of the same avuncular old men were still driving the trains.
Originally known as the Amberley Chalk Pits Museum, this is located in…an old chalk pit! It contains a range of open-air exhibits illustrating industrial and craft history. There’s workshops where people make things, an old bus garage with working vintage buses to take you around the site, an industrial narrow gauge railway (steam in action on summer Sundays), a huge collection of vintage radios and TVs, a telephone exchange and a museum dedicated to electricity and its uses. It’s all in a glorious outdoor setting with nature trails.
It was actually used as a location in the 1985 James Bond film “A View To A Kill”, the narrow gauge railway featuring in the scene where Grace Jones takes the bomb out of the tunnel after Christopher Walken tries to flood Silicon Valley! To this day, there’s a bunch of wagons on site with “Zorin Industries” logos on them.
When I was a kid, the site had a glorious little cafe with oodles of retro charm, although this has been replaced by a considerably more utilitarian modern building. It’s otherwise just about as fascinating and inviting as it was when I was little, and my kids loved it too.
So there you are – a little rundown of Sunday trips I remember fondly. Hope you enjoyed it.