The Chiswick flyover celebrates its 50th anniversary this month and I bet not many of you know that it was a certain Jayne Mansfield who declared one of the ugliest constructions in London, open on the 30th September 1959. The party, if that’s what it’s meant to be, will be held on the Chiswick roundabout at 12 noon on September 30.
Who dreams these things up? Who decided that the Chiswick flyover should be celebrated with a birthday party? And who will damage their reputation beyond salvation by actually attending? And I suppose they’ll close the roundabout, a major artery into London, for the day. It’s a farce.
O.K. – the flyover was the first major highway development in London after the end of the war and in the early days it probably helped motorists get through the Chiswick junction as they headed into London, but these days, not only does it look like a remnant of post-war, unimaginative construction but it causes huge transport problems when an accident happens. Traffic backs up onto the M4 and then motorists look for alternative routes clogging up all the minor roads, eventually causing chaos out to, and around, Heathrow airport.
If you’re wondering why I’m writing about a bit of road, it’s because when I moved with IBM from Glasgow down to London, my new office overlooked the flyover and for 18 years, I had the pleasure of crossing it every day on my way to work.
In the mornings you dreaded reaching the Chiswick flyover as that’s where the traffic, heading into London, came to a standstill. You then knew there would be a crawl for the last 7 miles or so into the centre of the city. That 7 miles would take around 1 hour, the same time it would have taken in the 19th century by horse-drawn coach, but I digress slightly.
On the way back home in the evenings however, you actually looked forward to getting to the flyover, as that was the start of the motorway proper and traffic zoomed off along the M4 as soon as they had crossed its highest point.
And so the Chiswick flyover was a daily source of both frustration and hope for me for many years. At one stage, quite a few years ago, they thought that they would have to pull it down as apparently the bolts holding it together had rusted, but whether that was a wicked rumour to cause us flyover veterans even more angst, I don’t know but it never happened.
And finally, a story related to the flyover.
On my very first day in my new IBM Chiswick office, my boss (a certain Mr Brian Lomas) grabbed me at lunchtime and said, ‘C’mon Tommy boy – we’re off down the pub for a pint’. We got into his car, left the IBM underground carpark and drove around the Chiswick roundabout (where the party will be held) and parked in a pub virtually underneath the flyover. Brian ordered his pint of bitter and I asked for a pint of lager. When Brian’s pint arrived, he downed it in one. Ignoring my look of astonishment (and admiration) he said, ‘C’mon Tommy boy, drink up. I only park the car here, I drink in the pub across the road’!
Finally, finally – I had trouble deciding whether to have a photo of the flyover or the nice lady who opened it. I settled on the latter but have included a URL for those of you nerdy enough to want more info on the Chiswick flyover.
http://www.iht.org/motorway/m4chisslou.htm
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