Chasing pigs on the wing

26 July 2015

We left the Physic garden and made for the Thames. The rain had stopped but the sky still looked threatening as we stood on the riverbank. At that point there was quite a temptation to find the nearest tube station and get back to Waterloo as quickly as possible. Another four miles or so didn’t seem all that tempting but there were still a couple of items on the agenda.

We stood for a moment on Chelsea embankment looking across the dirty brown river at Battersea Park and the iconic chimneys of Battersea Power Station in the distance, surrounded by a host of cranes. Behind us the beautifully detailed facade of Swan House made me smile. Swans always seem to sneak their way into my walks and this time they adorned the doors of this lovely building, built for solicitor and art collector Wickham Flower and his artist wife Elizabeth by architect Richard Norman Shaw in 1876.

We turned towards Albert Bridge admiring the ornate wrought iron lamp posts topped with glass globes. At first it was hard to reconcile the pastel coloured bridge with my memories of it, just after midnight on Moonwalk number two. Then it shone like a beacon, a twinkling, shimmering fairy tale of lights reflected in the river. In daylight it was just as beautiful, perhaps the loveliest bridge on the Thames and CJ and I smiled as we walked towards it, thinking of our own Albert.

The cable stayed toll bridge was built in 1873 by Rowland Mason Ordish but proved to be structurally unsound. Commercially too, it was a failure and the tolls were lifted within six years, althought the toll booths remain to this day, the only surviving examples in London. Ten years on and Sir Joseph Bazalgette made modifications to strengthen it, adding elements of a suspension bridge. Later still, in 1973, the Greater London Council added two concrete piers making this a strange hybrid of a bridge.

For all the strengthening and modifications the bridge still vibrates when large numbers of people cross. Londoners have nicknamed it The Trembling Lady and there are signs at the entrance warning troops to break step. On Moonwalk night, when ten thousand women crossed, we were warned as we approached but I don’t remember it shaking at all, just the wonderful lights. Those lights and the unusual colours were added in 1992 to make it easier for ships to see in bad weather and at night. It is the most striking of landmarks, day or night.

Leaving the bridge behind we strolled through Battersea Park. Across the river, we could see The Shard, its jagged top lost in the low grey cloud. There are many interesting things to see in the park and maybe one day I will come back and explore but we had one reason for our visit, the Peace Pagoda. The beautiful stupa was built in 1985 by monks, nuns and followers of the Nipponzan Myōhōji Buddhist order. They began building stupas in 1947 in Europe, Asia and the United States as the spiritual focus to unify their movement.

As it slowly emerged through the trees its beauty was breathtaking. The simplicity of the stone building, the steps leading upwards and the dark wood of the double tiered roof comtrasted with the ornate gilded bronze sculptures of each of its four sides. We climbed the steps and slowly made out way round looking at each of the Buddhas in turn. It seemed like a marvellous place to sit and meditate but we had places to go so, reluctantly, we left it behind.

At the bottom of the steps we came upon a strange and rather beautiful park bench. There was nothing remarkable about the wooden seat or red painted wrought ironwork but the whole thing was festooned with gently decaying flowers, like an offering. It had a curious surreal beauty that emphasised the feeling of peace hanging about the place.

A little further on the trees were filled with crows, silently looking out over the river at Chelsea Bridge. They reminded me of a Tibetan Buddhist story. When the first Dalai Lama was born robbers attacked his home and, with no time to save their baby, his parents fled. Returning the next day, sure their precious child would be dead, they found a pair of crows caring for the baby and their house untouched. The protector of the Dharma, is represented by a crow. perhaps these were protecting the stupa?

Our final objective was just behind the trees but, from the maps, it wasn’t quite clear how, or even if, we would be able to get to it. It was, of course, the 1930’s built, Battersea Power Station. To some, it might be considered odd to want to visit a decommissioned power station but it is almost a national institution, being the largest brick built building in Europe. It has featured in numerous films including Alfred Hitchcock’s 1936 film Sabotage, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life and the 2007 Batman movie.

After we left the park we managed to get a little lost, coming up against several dead ends. Of course I should have known the way as it was both start and finish for Moonwalk 2013 but it was night time then and there were marshals guiding us, not to mention big yellow signs and ten thousand women in pink bras to follow. Things had changed considerably in two years, luxury flats seemed to have sprung up for a start. Even when we  had untangled ourselves from the maze of streets and dead ends and made it to Nine Elms Lane there was a high fence between us and a view of the power station.

There have been countless schemes to make use of the wonderful old building over the years and ownership has passed from one large company to another. Numerous events and exhibitions have been held there, including the 2013 Moonwalk. Now the building is in a terrible state of decay, the latest plans include luxury housing on the site. The four iconic chimneys are to be demolished and rebuit, which seems to be in progress, as it was one chimney short. Walking along the high fence, unable to get a decent view or photograph CJ began to get disheartened. There were Perspex viewing holes but the rain made them useless.  Then we came to some gates with small gaps where the locks were. With great difficulty we could take photographs.

There were cranes, big green barriers and scaffolding, but we had a clear view of  the outside, if not the lavish Art Deco interior. Below the missing chimney the building was hidden behind some kind of tarpaulin and there were diggers, skips and piles of earth. It was a far cry from the building I remembered, the beacon I’d walked toward for those last few miles as the sun came up in 2013, or the Pink Floyd album cover that first gave it worldwide recognition.

In early December 1976, when Pink Floyd held the photo shoot for their Animals album, they tethered a nine metre long, pink inflatable pig called Algie to one of the Southern chimneys. Algie broke free from his moorings and drifted into the Heathrow flight path, causing quite a shock for approaching pilots. Police helicopters were called out and tracked the pig until it landed in Kent. A legend was born and the image of the escaping pig became iconic in its own right, even being used in the 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony in London.

On we walked, with mixed feelings, we’d seen it but it felt like a snatched half viewing, better than nothing but not what we’d hoped. Then we came to a gap, a kind of tunnel through the fence. A sign said Visitor Entrance and our hearts lifted. The further we walked though, the more obvious it became that, visitor entrance or not, the place was closed. It was also deserted so we kept on walking thinking we might sneak a better look than we’d had. Soon we came to a large black portcabin, probably something to do with the building site.

Passing the windows we could see men inside in high vis jackets. Obviously we were trespassing. Our walking became sneaking. We got right to the end of the alleway where there were black turnstiles and the best view yet of the poor, battered power station. Knowing time was limited as the workmen had almost certainly seen us, I began snapping pictures as fast as I could. CJ was a little slower, taking time to line up a good shot.

“You can’t take pictures,” a loud shout came from behind us.
We turned to see an angry looking workman bearing down upon us but still some distance away. Trying to buy CJ some time for his shot, I pulled a puzzled face and gestured as if I couldn’t quite make out or understand what he was saying. He came closer, “no photos allowed!” I kept frowning and gesticulating, considered breaking into French and pretending I was foreign. “Are you deaf, I said no photos,” he yelled, by this time almost within touching distance. I slipped my phone into my pocket and behind me CJ did the same. We walked past the still shouting man with photos safe in our phones.

We giggled as we strolled along the river towards Vauxhall Bridge, feeling  we’d won a small victory against senseless beaurocracy. Looking back we could see the power station nestled on the bank between tall, half finished buildings. Maybe one day all this work will be finished and we will be able to go inside and see it properly. There were people walking on the mud of the Thames below us and we wondered how they’d got down there. The drop behind the river wall was steep.

Passing under the red and ochre painted steel and granite of Vauxhall Bridge, we stuck to the river path.  We passed the huge stone and green glass MI5 building. “For a secret service building its a little on the prominent side,” I remarked. There was a strange stone gazebo like structure but we paid it little attention because we suddenly saw how the people were getting down onto the riverbank. There was a slipway. Later I found out this was built between 1866 and 1869 by Sir Joseph Bazalgette to protect Lambeth from floods. Briefly we considered walking down to the Thames shore, people have found ancient coins down there apparently, but time and mud stopped us.

“You have to have a licence to dig anyway Mum,” CJ said and we left our dreams of buried treasure behind along with views of Battersea. Ahead was Tower Bridge, Parliament and the London Eye.
“On Moonwalk night I walked the opposite way along here,” I told CJ. “The sun was just coming up and Big Ben was lit by a golden light. Then I saw the power station and I knew I was almost at the end. It was the best feeling in the world, but I swear someone kept moving that blasted power station when I blinked because it seemed to be getting further away not nearer.”

We passed a colourful boat, floating restaurant Tamesis, and then came to a tunnel I remembered.
“The twenty five mile marker was on the other side of this tunnel,” I said, half to myself, “but I swear it’s more than one point two miles from here to Battersea. It felt like at least five.”
The rain may have stopped somewhere around Battersea but the remnants were there. The tunnel was flooded and we had to walk, crablike, on the thin rim of dry land beside the left hand wall. The ceiling lights shimmered on the water we disturbed with our feet.

The mobile coffee bar was still there, just as I remembered it. Back in the Moonwalk dawn Commando had called to say he was on his way but, if I didn’t slow down I’d get to the finish before he did. When I saw the coffee bar it felt like a dream. My feet ached, my knee hurt, I’d have given everything I had for a coffee and there it was, as if by magic. I ordered and began to fish my emergency money out of my bum bag when a man said he’d pay because I’d been walking all night for such a good cause. As we walked I told CJ all this.
“Then I sat on the grass above that wall just there to drink it and, as my bum hit the grass, I realised it was soaking wet. I didn’t have the energy to move and I could feel the water soaking through my clothes. I must have looked like I’d wet myself. Good job I had a silly net skirt over my walking leggings.”
CJ rolled his eyes. Obviously I’m an embarassment of a mother.

We we were on the final leg now, with more than fourteen miles behind us as we came to Westminster Bridge. As the London Eye, towered above us the rain started again. In no time at all we were outside Waterloo Station.

It had been an interesting, if wet, day. We sank into our train seats gratefully. When I told CJ how far we’d waked he seemed surprised. The miles pass easier when you’re having fun, even if it is raining. The first sun we saw all day was from the train window.