...the last time I went through Waterloo for this project it was in a rush and I was busy being fascinated with playing on the Waterloo & City Line.  It amuses me as it's a whole Underground line with just two stops on it; Waterloo to Bank, Bank to Waterloo, back and forth, back and forth...  

My last job before leaving London was as a Duty Manager at the IMAX Cinema at Waterloo.  Today I wanted to briefly savour the nostalgia of being in Waterloo itself again, so hoped off the Northern Line with the idea of  walking to 'work' through the tunnels to my old site.  Was slightly side-tracked on the way by the sight of the Eurostar platforms shut up and abandoned now that services run to St Pancras... I remember the Eurostar extension opening, and it only seems ten minutes ago, now it's been left to the pigeons.


Bye bye Waterloo Eurostar...



I love cinemas, and as far as groovy sites go, the IMAX is one fantastic place to run, even if it doesn't feel like a local cinema but an 'event destination'.  I miss it; I loved to watch people's faces as they first walked into the auditorium and saw just how big that screen was, and when 3D screenings were on, especially school shows, I'd stand at the back and watch as hundreds of people found they just couldn't resist reaching out and trying to touch the fish or snowflakes that seem to float just in front your face...

It's not in the nicest part of London though...

It was custom-built in the round, on springs to deal with the traffic vibrations, to house the biggest screen in Britain in 1999 and won awards for urban regeneration as it reclaimed land on what was once the infamous Cardboard City under the Bullring roundabout.   There might not be quite the number of homeless now as there were in the 90s, but there's still a resilient handful that have pitches in the tunnels connecting the South Bank to Waterloo Station; an image of poverty and failure that conflicts with the cultural centre/leisure destination that the South Bank wants to promote.  While the church opposite the IMAX ran a soup kitchen, in contrast there were regular police sweeps that just shifted people over the border with the next London borough to keep the place tidy for the rest of us.  Even stencilling the specially commissioned Sue Hubbard poem on the tunnels walls is not going to make the place look any less down-at-heel, but it has become one of my favourite pieces of public art.  I read it every day, and it remained fresh and meaningful.


However, cliched as it is for me to write of the juxtaposition of walking past those living on the streets as one heads to see Beauty & the Beast on a screen 20 metres high,  I loved going to work in a strange circular building plonked in the middle of a roundabout in grim, grey Waterloo.   Trying to get pictures of me with the IMAX behind me however leads to a run in with a Community Police Officer, who despite dozens of other people taking the usual tourist pictures of themselves gurning to the camera, and trainspotters pictures of the absence of the Eurostar, decides it's us who he's going to have a pop at. Why does it have to be me? I am not amused by hobby bobby bustling up to tell us nonsense, and I don't handle it well.  Thankfully B is the voice of reason and calms down my ravings of 'police state' and re-educates policeyman on the rules before I manage to get myself arrested.  And I still don't have the picture I want of my site behind me because the camera is playing up. 

However, once inside the IMAX just the familiar smell of popcorn in the morning gave me a little thrill and a stupid grin on my face.  The manager on duty was one of my old team mates, and as ever on a Saturday, he was dealing with the last minute fallout of staff not showing up...he turned a desperate eye on my sudden appearance in the building and said, 'you don't fancy working today do you?' ...so with very little need for prompting, I soon found myself shucking off my coat and hat and pitching in to tear tickets and give out the 3D glasses to customers slightly surprised to find one of the 'staff' in a rubber corset.  One chap turned to his companion and said triumphantly, 'see, I told you she works here' .  I stayed long enough to deal with the immediate crisis before having to dash to meet spangle_kitten in Camden, but it was tremendous fun to be back there, and of course I couldn't resist the chance of a blag to see Beowulf in 3D later on it the evening, even if J was mean  and didn't give me any freebies...

And you know what: I loved it...instantly I had the seating plan pop up in my mind's eye and the radio calls signs, for three minutes I was nearly 'Victor One' as J and I seated 500 people for Polar Express...

...it's very much later in the evening that we come back for the second time, coming in on the Jubilee Line instead.