Too Late

London has many leftovers from World War II and only this year more than one unexploded bombs have been discovered in the course of building work.  

London is also full of mysteries and many books have been written about them.  These include tunnels nobody has ever used, an underground station that was built but never opened, a railway station only for funeral trains and so on.

Here's a picture of Putney Bridge Station.  Unremarkable one may think, as a southbound train heads off across the Thames.

But wait a minute.

Isn't that a bunker to defend the station?

This seems doomed to remain a permanent mystery.  A cursory glance at a London map will confirm that if the storm-troopers of the Third Reich had reached Putney Bridge there was not a lot of London left to defend (and certainly the District line might as well have been written off).

We live in a culture that has many defences like this.  We jealously protect little children having surrendered any serious attempt to similarly defend teenagers who are left to go in whatever direction things take them.  We protect those teenagers from the worst abuses only to leave them from the age of 18 to live life with every vice and no guidance at all.  We provide universal healthcare to bring us safely to old age whereupon we become unwanted, unloved and very expendable.

Most of all, we have human rights but no idea why it matters that we are human.

All in all, it is not only Putney Bridge Station that has inexplicably strong defences in the wrong place.