Post by mandgc on Oct 7, 2006 23:28:28 GMT
- or should it be "The Tube in Fiction" ?
Agatha Christie's book 'The Man in the Brown Suit", first published in 1924, has a rather interesting beginning. A passenger falls on the track at the
East end of the Westbound platform at HPC and appears to have been electrocuted. (The mystery continues on from there.)
The station at that time was served by lifts - the escalator connection was not opened until 1932 - and the reason for the narrator to be at that quiet end of the platform was explained as follows -
" - - I entered Hyde Park Corner Tube Station and took a ticket to Gloucester Road. Once on the platform I walked to the extreme end of it. My inquiring mind wished to satisfy itself as to whether there really were points and an opening between the two tunnels just beyond the station in the direction of Down Street. I was foolishly pleased to find that I was right."
I became aware of this story while browsing through a 'Coffee Table' book on Agatha Christie's stories and which showed , on the dust jacket of the first hardback issue, a rather nice picture showing the tunnel portal and a group of people gathered over a body at the end of the platform.( The reviewer described this picture as a "rather feeble pictorial representation".
Intrestingly a 'Pan' paperback of 1953 includes a Hyde Park Corner
ticket in a montage on the cover.
Agatha Christie's book 'The Man in the Brown Suit", first published in 1924, has a rather interesting beginning. A passenger falls on the track at the
East end of the Westbound platform at HPC and appears to have been electrocuted. (The mystery continues on from there.)
The station at that time was served by lifts - the escalator connection was not opened until 1932 - and the reason for the narrator to be at that quiet end of the platform was explained as follows -
" - - I entered Hyde Park Corner Tube Station and took a ticket to Gloucester Road. Once on the platform I walked to the extreme end of it. My inquiring mind wished to satisfy itself as to whether there really were points and an opening between the two tunnels just beyond the station in the direction of Down Street. I was foolishly pleased to find that I was right."
I became aware of this story while browsing through a 'Coffee Table' book on Agatha Christie's stories and which showed , on the dust jacket of the first hardback issue, a rather nice picture showing the tunnel portal and a group of people gathered over a body at the end of the platform.( The reviewer described this picture as a "rather feeble pictorial representation".
Intrestingly a 'Pan' paperback of 1953 includes a Hyde Park Corner
ticket in a montage on the cover.
