Remembering Mike Horne

On 26 March 2020, the railway industry lost Mike “M A C” Horne, who passed away suddenly from a heart attack.

Mike’s knowledge of the history and operation of the railways (London’s in particular) was almost unmatched. There are few British railway journalists, researchers, writers or enthusiasts who have not, at some point, found themselves grateful for his work. That work included not just books and papers, but his blog and website. Nor was his knowledge limited to the environs of the permanent way. A genuine polymath, his expertise extended to the worlds of English parishes and their development from Saxon, Norman and Mediaeval manors, policing and police badges and, of course, the history of London’s pubs.

Indeed many of us, and those readers who have been to our meetups over the years, will also have been lucky enough to meet him in person in the latter. As anyone who spent such time in his company will have discovered, the only things that eclipsed Mike’s knowledge were his character and his generosity. Mike was a firm believer in the principle that knowledge – particularly railway knowledge – existed to be shared. Not just for its own sake, or so we remembered where we came from, but also to build a better transport future by avoiding the mistakes of the past.

For this reason (and more), the railway community has not just lost one of its wisest minds, but one of its best, and nicest people too.

When we heard about Mike’s sudden passing here at LR Towers, it made us realise that we all had fond stories and memories from our times in his company. What surprised us (although it should never have done so) was just how many stories those we found ourselves discussing the news with had about Mike too.

We had originally planned to run a thorough obituary of Mike here. One that documented his time both working in the industry and as one of the true guardians of its knowledge thoroughly and precisely – that is, in a manner of which he would hopefully have approved.

Two things, however, stayed our hands. The first was, quite simply, a reluctance – or perhaps more precisely a lack of desire – to accept just yet that we have lost him. In the words of William Shakespeare:

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and I must pause until it returns to me.

Julius Caesar, Act 3 Scene 2

The second was similarly emotional, but far happier. This was the sheer number of memories of Mike that landed our collective inboxes as the news spread through the railway world.

And so it is some of those stories that we have decided to share with you instead. Some names you may recognise, some you may not. One thing, however, we all share – memories of Mike. Should you have your own of the man or his work, then do please feel free to share them with us, and the world, too. He was a remarkable man and we will miss him dearly.

The LR Team.

Doug Rose

I first met Mike in early 1981 and it didn’t take long for me to get roped in to one of his projects, along with a few others, and all of whom have become life-long friends.

A year before we met I had published the first edition of my The London Underground: A Diagrammatic History and an early recollection was Mike questioning why I had chosen to use ‘first day of no service’ for closure dates. This was the ‘learned wisdom’ of the time, and I had simply followed what other far better authors than me had done. Who was I to question this?

My answer was not satisfactory to Mike and I then got a (sort of) friendly lecture about the many failings of this principle. I had to concede and had little to counter his arguments. I won’t go into the ins and outs of the many causes of line and station closures here, but changing to ‘last day trains called’ was not going to be as easy as subtracting one day. (There is a fuller exposition, mostly written by Mike, on all subsequent editions.)

Mike had persuaded me that, if I was going  to produce a second edition, I should change the principle. I did, but it would have been impossible without Mike’s help and comprehensive subject knowledge. So great was the change that I felt the need to publish a small format book, available to buyers of the second edition, who wanted to know which one of the several variety of date change applied to each one reverted. To be honest, so great has Mike’s contribution to my publication been, that I doubt I would have seen any of them through without his extensive input.

In early 1982 I was introduced by Mike and a few others, to a project they had been working on for a few years – this was an attempt to record coloured tile patterns at over ninety platforms, from the original Yerkes tubes of 1906/7 – some two million individual tiles had been used. Whilst I cannot claim the project took over my life for 26 years, it came perilously close on occasions and resulted in my book Tiles of the Unexpected: Underground. This is another publication that would never have been completed, and with so much relevant information that brought supporting context and related factual accuracy, without Mike. More than once I asked ‘how on earth do you know that?’.

Mike is well known for his punctilious research in the pursuit of accuracy; it does not need reinforcement from me. What many students of public transport (mainly of London) might not know though is the much wider range of Mike’s interests. This gave him the very unusual ability to make sense of things not apparent from an isolated viewpoint of a one-subject historian.

Working for the Metropolitan Police in its forensic laboratory after leaving school, this was a natural career move as he had a scientific mind that frequently amused his close circle of friends. One example was him explaining to us how he built his own equipment from components so he could work out what the various electronic pulses through the track were doing to enable Victoria Line trains to work automatically from a remote control room. With an adapted tape recorder, headphones and a sensor on the carriage floor, he recorded the pulses late on many evenings. At home he converted these to an audible frequency range to analyse them. The line had just opened and Mike was still at school!

Around the same time he collected hundreds of the new Automatic Fare Collection used tickets, picked up from the floor. He sprinkled iron filings on the numerous variants of ticket types and then spent a long time decoding them. He then wiped the codes and re-encoded them with a modified soldering iron. After much experimentation and with completely inappropriate printing on the front he tried using them. They worked, until one day none of them did. Why? Further extensive experimentation revealed that LT changed the area of code referring to the issue date every two months. That was no obstacle and, with newly encoded dates, the tickets started working again.

I recall asking when he had first taken an interest in science, and this coming from me as a complete ignoramus thinking it could all only be smoke and mirrors. He then told me that he used to go to Tottenham Court Road to buy electronic components and attempted to convert his wardrobe into a Tardis. This is quite a natural thing to think when you are nine years old, but not to actually buy stuff to see if one could make it work. When telling this story and with an air of disappointment, he said he only got as far as making a light come on when he opened the door. Oh how we serious historians wish he had succeeded; there is so much I would like to go back in time to find out what actually happened.

Another of his scientific interests was in telephony. He accumulated a seriously extensive collection of domestic telephones, being interested in how they worked; paradoxically he hated talking on them. I remember many years ago visiting his house and asking what on earth the box of equipment on the floor was. He had built an electronic circuit to see if he could power his home telephones from the mains. This begged the question: why? At the time, a domestic line could make up to six handsets ring simultaneously – Mike had about forty from memory. This still begged the question: why do you want more than six to ring at once? I should have anticipated his answer, which was along the lines of: I just want to see if it can be done.

The equipment he had built sensed an incoming call and separated the ring and speech circuits. He had made this work and told me it was deafening with so many phones going at once – almost like a fire alarm. Thankfully for the rest of us, Mike was not super-human and had not fathomed a way to stop the phones ringing when the call was answered. He had to unplug his box of tricks from the mains.

Quite unrelated to any transport or scientific activities, Mike was a keen historian of almost all matters London – and this formed a significant link with my own. Mike and a few others used to meet most Friday evenings and have conversations that were probably not being acted out on many parallel universes. About four years ago he got me intrigued by a research survey he had been working on for a few by then. His website was gradually being added to with a photographic and textually explanatory index of Civil Parish boundary markers. He was also very interested in local and national government organization and administration and was fearful of these rapidly disappearing historic monuments to history.

The quest was to record all that could be found to survive. I wanted to join in with this but had no subject knowledge. Believe me, it is no simple task to even know where many defunct boundaries were, find out how many and where they had moved, find out how many had survived in a different guise (some more than once), let alone track down where the markers might be. They take so many different forms too.

Mike was of the opinion that only about five percent had survived, some dating from Roman times. Mike did by far the largest share of the foot trudging and almost all the research as we attempted to establish, and then walk every boundary in London. Even deciding where London was was no straightforward matter. He also gave many existing borough councils a hard time, with some success, in getting as many markers protected as possible. We didn’t finish this project but got to the point where it become clear that any further efforts would bring almost no further success. A small pocket of (now) Bexley remains unsurveyed, and a larger proportion of Bromley. Bearing in mind that many possible survivors will be on private land, his assessment was that we had probably found 95 per cent of what still existed that we could get to. We found a few that were on no historic Ordnance Survey maps incidentally.

I am rambling on but, again with no subject knowledge on my behalf, must note his (again) significant interest in police insignia and general organization of our forces past and present. His father, who survives him, was a senior member of the Palestine Police and also wrote its official history. Mike was a Freeman of the City of London too.

On a happier note, I don’t want these few recollections of a long friendship with Mike to make him sound like a humourless boffin – he was far from that with a keen sense of irony, and was always prepared for most eventualities (except his final one sadly).

Many years ago a group of us was in a restaurant in Victoria. Having finished our meals we each had tea or coffee. A while later Mike beckoned a waitress and asked for another cup of tea. She disappeared for an interesting length of time and returned with an expression somewhere between embarrassed and sheepish: ‘I am sorry sir we have run out of tea’. Implacably, Mike asked ‘are you OK for hot water?. With a puzzled look she replied ‘yes’. He then reached into his briefcase on the floor, opened it and took a tea bag out and said ‘will the help?’

I will miss him enormously.

Jonathan Roberts

Personally I went with Mike on many days’ long book, map and report expeditions across England, particularly to Shropshire and Yorkshire and sometimes elsewhere, in the two and a half decades until 2006. We were both active in the London Passenger Transport Research Group (LPTRG) up to 1985. We even went to Islay and bought casks of whisky!

His father was a Met police officer – latterly I think at Hendon as an instructor. He had been a colonial policeman in Palestine during the turbulent immediate post-war period. His parents also lived in Hendon at the time, not far from the North Circular Road/Hendon Way junction. In those days you could cross the circular on foot at the traffic lights, on the way to/from Brent Northern Line station, not like what the area is now. So that would have been Mike’s normal journey to school, changing at Charing Cross, though one suspects numerous peregrinations on the way back, to start to explore the Underground.

There was a naughty late 1960s/early 70s story about R stock trains having occasional failures in the late afternoon heading away from the City, which I am probably not allowed to recount in detail.

Mike then started work at the Met Police (now Home Office) Lab, but then became a station foreman (as a direct recruit) on the Underground – the shift work money was much better than being a Lab technician, and it also ensured Mike was now working within his beloved Underground. Mike was a London Underground Railway Society (LURS) member but not terribly enthused by an over-trusting belief in the ‘official line’, and he always thought there was more to be researched and then published – hence LPTRG in the mid 70s, and latterly Metadyne and publications based on his own copious researches.

He then became a station foreman at Watford Met. Michael Fish, the General Manager, was very observant and sometimes stopped at Watford Met on his way to or from the Baker Street offices, more often in the evening, to talk to Mike about his views or observations on a variety of current operational issues. Mike of course knew his stuff and was able to guide Fishy to some source of information or to suggest some definite improvement… I’m sure that it was he who suggested to our Mike that there was a fast-track route to Area Manager-ship, and guided him on how to go about it.

[Note from Doug Rose: Yes it was. He told Mike there were vacancies on the Area Manager training course and he should apply. Mike replied that there was no point as Area Manager was too many grades above Station Foreman and he would not be accepted. Michael Fish told him to apply – it would be OK. Conclusions may be drawn from this]

His skills were then taken on board by the Corporate changes arising post- Kings Cross fire (when I and other LPTRG colleagues had written a report in 1984/85 about the genuine risk of a major fire arising on the Tube, which had been stimulated by a fire at Oxford Circus in 1984. This got national notice in November 1987) Denis Tunnicliffe had become London Underground (LU) Managing Director after Tony Ridley, and appointed an international consultancy team (where people like Dennis Ciborowski of Chicago come to mind) to assist in understanding and interpreting what would make a real difference in transforming the Underground post-fire. They in turn called in talented and knowledgeable people like Mike. The outputs were major and still have an effect today. So Mike lives on…

He then was subsumed within the new London Underground Development Directorate (DD) under David Bailey. Mike was involved in organisational transformation and also allied with new commercial processes such as tendering and other commercial deals with outside parties. Mike was in charge of letting Commercial Advertising, what to do with the closed Aldwych branch, and Epping-Ongar (a bid from ex-Ford’s managers was one project he reviewed), etc etc.

The DD evening canteen was often the Old Star at the junction of Broadway and Petty France, close to the DD offices which were variously in 55 Broadway, and in 50 Broadway (the latter suitably being former MI6 offices and so the right pedigree for intriguing work!)

At no time was Mike deterred from his passion in historical research and accurate record keeping and indeed large scale record trawling. An inveterate of the National Archives, London Metropolitan Archives etc. He had always wanted to emulate Charles E. Lee (CEL) as being the very best railway historian of his generation. CEL was meticulous, precise and never knowing misusing any fact or context – while bringing to bear an insight into the real reasons and organisational factors behind peculiar and everyday events on the railways.

There is no doubt that Mike succeeded in being the Charles E. Lee of our generation about the Underground. His latest published two-volume books on the District Line are a masterpiece – and an insight into what we have lost by Mike’s untimely death. How many more researches and books were in him? – unquestionably many!

Sir Peter Hendy

He was a great, thoughtful, honest, intelligent man in a world where there are sadly not as many of those as there should be.

Tim Goodwin

I was reminded of another of Mike’s interests that he shared with many of us. Pubs. Once while we were off with “The Londoner” on a pub tour of the Blackfriars area, he told about his time at the City of London School, and more than I could absorb about the history of the area.  

In fact, regardless of the pub, in whatever part of London, Mike’s knowledge of the pub and area history nearly matched his rail expertise. I did suggest when The Londoner retired, that Mike consider taking on the role as he could be entertaining as well as informative. He gave me that trademark, impish smile he had that could deliver any number of messages. Including, “Not going to happen!”.

Pedantic of Purley

I met Mike on four occasions. He was always fascinating to talk to, generally entertaining and full of knowledge. His books always seemed to be completely factually accurate – quite a feat. His research was meticulous and aided by his extensive personal collection of historical data. He was not only knowledgeable on railways – especially the Underground – but also various diverse subjects such as the history of parish churches and of the Metropolitan police force.

Professionally he was a manager on the Underground. On the subject of the Victoria line, and various other items, he was always helpful when one emailed him with queries. He was also extremely supportive of what London Reconnections was doing in reporting what is actually happening with transport in London as opposed to reporting on the TfL or other official approved line.

His death was unexpected as he seemed to be in great health, in good spirits and full of humour. He was due to give a talk on the District line in April before it was cancelled due to coronavirus so certainly did not regard himself as fully retired.

John Liffen

My first encounter with Mike Horne was in print. To be more specific, it was a copy of the London Underground Railway Society’s Underground News, issue no. 166 of October 1975. I wasn’t a member of LURS and the copy was passed to me by a friend, the late Richard Graham. He was giving a talk to the society in December 1975 and thought I might be interested in knowing the details contained in the list of forthcoming events. On an inside page was a lengthy editorial plea for more contributions to LURS’ Underground News (UN). One section in particular made a strong impression on me:


‘Believe nothing that you hear (or read) and only half of what you see’ is an expression eminently suitable to be borne in mind by a recorder of facts. It is completely impractical, of course, but the spirit of the thing is worth noting. Check everything yourself, as far as you can; don’t rely on other people’s efforts. Their notoriety for pitfalls is only exceeded by their neat avoidance of difficult historical problems. In any case (though this may be a grossly unfair generalization), a work’s accuracy seems to be inversely proportional to its published circulation.

LURS Underground News, Issue 166, 1975


When I read this, I thought to myself, I want to meet the person who wrote it. As it happened, I didn’t have to wait long. I began to attend LURS meetings and was introduced to a wider circle of friends, one of whom turned out to be M A C Horne, the editor and author of the item which I’d found so striking.

Mike’s heartfelt plea in UN, an astonishingly mature observation for a 22-year-old, was, I discovered, the philosophy which underpinned his life, coupled with an ability for sustained hard work. I was soon seeing him frequently as part of the large group which met socially in pubs after the meetings. I was also invited to join some of them, Mike included, on long weekends away and other trips exploring the countryside, pubs and bookshops.

Around 1978 I became a subscriber to a periodical called London Passenger Transport (LPT) which combined lengthy and authoritative articles with a distinctive and fresh editorial style. It was two years before a chance conversation with another friend led to an invitation to join the Research Group which published LPT. Only then did I discover that Mike was a leading force in this group.

Over the next few years an alliance gradually turned into a friendship which I count among the most important facets of my life.

The research collaborations begun with LPT continued afterwards as Mike began to write books over his own name. An informal support team emerged whose varied skills provided historical input, read and commented on draft texts, contributed graphic layouts or, in many instances, designed and typeset the whole thing. It was of course a two-way process and Mike was always generous of his time in helping others with their own research and writing.

Alongside this the social side of our group continued, largely in pubs or over dinner somewhere, constantly discussing matters of the moment, what we were researching or writing, or anything else that took our interest – there were so many of these. In all our conversations Mike proved to be a mine of knowledge and (what was more infuriating) usually (but not always!) absolutely right. If you wanted to disagree with Mike’s view, you could, but you needed to be very sure of your ground. If you turned out to be right, though, Mike was gracious in accepting the viewpoint.

It is difficult to believe that Mike is no longer there to give or receive advice, be a friend in time of need, or buy the next round. We’ll miss him.

John Bull

I can vividly remember the first time I met Mike. It was at the original LR Meetup pub in Southwark. I’d sat down next to him and he introduced himself as simply ‘Mike’ and we got chatting (and drinking!) from there. After a winding conversation that seemed to cover a whole range of interesting, and very nerdy, bits of obscure transport history he admitted he had to catch a train and had to leave early.

It was only after I mentioned the conversation to Pedantic, later that evening, that he clued me in to who I’d been talking to. To discover I’d been chatting happily with someone whose books and research I adored, without even knowing, was a bit of a shock! I think I’d even quoted something from one of his own books at him. I remember at the next meetup I had a friendly go at him for it. He just grinned.

Another great memory is an entirely random encounter in central London. I’d been on an electronics haul in Tottenham Court Road (which you could still just about do then!) and popped into a nearby pub for a quick lunchtime pint. There was Mike! It was then – or rather over the sudden and unexpected minor pub crawl we then indulged in – that I discovered we shared an obsession with the history of London’s pubs too. I particularly remember him being very annoyed with me when he discovered I’d been a regular drinker at the Princess Louise in Holborn before it’s full sympathetic restoration after the smoking ban came in.

“Why didn’t you take photos?!” He demanded. I pointed out that the pub looked pretty run down and rubbish back then, not least because the smoke came down to barely six feet off the ground on the average Friday night. Why would I lug a camera down to photograph that?

“It should be obvious!” He replied. “That’s the history that needs to be remembered but people always overlook!”

I’ll miss Mike enormously. He was always at the end of an email. A safety net to accuracy that I hadn’t realised I relied on quite so much until his gently admonishing, but more often encouraging, messages disappeared.

Leon Daniels

Mike owned (or part owned) a London black taxi, which was often his personal transport.

He recounted many stories where he was approached by members of the public thinking it was plying for hire. Mike’s characteristic manner of dealing with others’ comments precisely and literally made many such episodes great stories. As when an exasperated potential customer, after a long debate, said:

“Look are you or are you not going to take me to Stockwell?”

Mike simply replied “No”. None of the questioning from the potential customer had got anywhere near whether this was a real taxi…..

Also to add our many trips to Shropshire in the back of Adrian Nicholes’ Series 1 Land Rover (OAE11) with others.

The Land Rover became famous in many ways. Firstly the local police stopped being worried when they heard of people (us) investigating the Emergency Control Train at Craven Arms, the old traffic signs and road material site, and indeed the yard in Wenlock Edge where we discovered what is now my Dartford-Tunnel Cycle Bus.

“The London boys” were known to be well behaved and non-threatening, although the time we got stuck in the snow on the Long Mynd and had to walk off it in increasing darkness we nearly needed more than Police assistance!

Mike was famously frustrated with the behaviours of clubs and societies and finally it was the internet that gave him the medium where his researches could be floated. Moreover it allowed him to devote his time to the research itself and not to the machinations of committees and conflicting priorities.

Lastly to amplify the Charles E Lee comment – one of his earlier Underground line short histories contained a dedication along the lines “To Charles E Lee, a friend I wish I had known better’. Mike aspired to be the modern day Lee (although without the winged collar) and I would venture that he had achieved that already in his lifetime.

NGH

I remember the last thing he said to me in November about LR:

“Write some more bloody articles, there are a serious common sense and knowledge gaps in transport, government and elsewhere that will continue to grow and you are the one of the few providers able to fill that gap, there is a big danger of losing momentum that will never return.”

He was right, of course. As always.

Chris Jackson

I got to know Mike through the Railway Study Association, which was a great place for meeting senior BR and LT execs when I was just a cub reporter! (Also rising young turks like Mark Hopwood, but that’s an aside).

He was always a great one for the probing questions to speakers, homing in on practical or technical limitations to the ‘grand vision’. I remember in particular his scepticism over SSL/4LM and the headway constraints imposed by the time needed to switch the turnouts at Baker Street junction!

Our best wishes to Mike’s loved ones at this sad time. We do hope you will share some of your own memories of him, and his work, in the comments.

16 comments

  1. Here is a recent picture of Mike Horne in railway surroundings:-

    Mike and friends

    Mike and friends at St Pancras International on 28th August 2019, seeing off Luke Ripley for the Railway Study Forum study visit to Australia, starting his journey via Eurostar to Brussels, then train to Moscow and the Far East.

  2. Those of us who were members of the former Railway Study Association are indebted to Mike for his seven of the nine chapters in “A Century of Change – Britain’s Railways and the Railway Study Association, 1909-2009, and a view forward” published a decade ago to mark the RSA’s centenary. Jonathan Roberts, who has supplied the photo of Mike at St. Pancras International, wrote the penultimate chapter ‘The Railway 100 Years On’, viewable here: https://www.jrc.org.uk/britains-railways-next-100-years.html
    Taken from us way before time, Mike.

  3. For a good study of Mike Horne’s recent writings
    Start here – the “Metadyne” web-site, which he ran.
    Lots of good & useful information still there at the moment.

  4. That must be the only time Mike wasn’t wearing a tie; I thought he always wore one. The assembled memories are exactly what I would have expected of Mike from the fifteen years I knew him; I can hear him saying some of those things now, together with “someone should really be recording all of this”.

    I have one abiding memory of Mike which seems to have been missed by the other observers; whenever we sat down in a pub (which we did a few times per year, not as often as either of us would have liked), he would reach into his briefcase, and pull out two beer mats, the demise of the beer mat being one other thing he had a particular bugbear about. I suppose I will have to carry around my own supply of beer mats now.

  5. When Mike joined us an Area Manager on the Northern & Victoria lines, the contrast with the tranquil life of a Station Foreman at Watford could not have been greater. However it soon became apparent that his time there had been well spent in detailed observation of human behaviour – both staff and passenger. He had the useful attribute of always thinking before he spoke, and he was the master of the enigmatic reply.

    These qualities stood him in good stead when, in the post-Kings Cross Tunnicliffe revolution, he was given a big leg up into a senior position (Business Manager Northern (North-West)) to implement a long-overdue new mangement culture. That he was then seconded to the team to develop the Company Plan to continue the new era was entirely appropriate. After that – occasional emails and phone calls apart – our ways parted, but I always thought it a waste that he moved into a somewhat obscure part of the Development Directorate rather than return to the operating side where much still needed to be done.

    Without question his demise is premature. He surely had many years of erudition, wit and wisdom ahead of him.

  6. Mike’s legacy turns up in a very unlikely place indeed: The Internet. Not here, and not on Metadyne but the actual fabric of the Internet. One of Mike’s last jobs at London Underground was doing deals with telcos for their cables to travel either trackside along London Underground or in a number of cases in the old tramway ducts. The contracts were done from the mid 1980s onwards and were long-lived – some still exist.

    I inherited these contracts when I ran the Commercial Telecoms group at TfL for a couple of years and it was clear that Mike had managed to successfully the internal complexities of LRT (not easy) to deliver something which not only generated much-needed income but served London.

  7. Mike Horne was a man who was not only totally dedicated to the highest standards of transport research but also a man who was very generous with his time. I would email him with what might seem a fairly simple question and an answer would come back with no aspect of that question or any possible supplementary questions overlooked. He not only contributed immeasurably to transport history through his own books, he also selflessly gave assistance to many other authors in checking of drafts. The front room of his home in Harrow looked rather like a library, as befitted his truly scholarly character, and I count myself as one of many who were extremely lucky to have known him. We have lost a very fine man indeed.

  8. It’s a truism to say that Mike’s passing is a terrible loss, but I will nevertheless. He left us far too early.

    Back in the 1960s, London Transport exhibited posters on the Underground about ‘The Odd’ covering London curiosities, such as the two sewer gas destructor lamps then extant in Carting Lane and Dansey Place. I loved The Odd and I think Mike did as well. Our last discussion was about an incident in about 1890 when a District Railway loco failed at New Cross with a burst boiler tube and the LBSCR very kindly lent a Terrier Tank loco to take the District Railway train all the way back to Earls Court. Probably the only time a Terrier Tank travelled so far west on the Underground.

    He and I also shared a deep interest in telephones, culminating in his vast article on the telephone networks of LT and its predecessors.

    It is vital that Mike’s Metadyne website be safeguarded by some organisation. I also hope that his books and paperwork are not scattered haphazardly to the four winds. The Telecommunications Trust (registered charity), of which I am a trustee, would offer a safe home for the railway telephone directories and similar paperwork that he showed me. Some people might think these trivial but not us!

  9. So sorry to here of Mike’s death, I feared that this was the case after he hadn’t responded to a couple of boundary queries and photos that I had sent Him, he was always so quick in responding. My contact with him was only ever electronic, but his knowledge, patience and enthusiasm for boundary markers always came through – always helpful to someone that he had never met and happy to correct, if he had got things wrong (he rarely did though). I was looking forward to a chat with him about the Lee/Mottingham boundary which I am currently writing a blog post on as part of a series on the Lee Parish boundary. I will give him a mention in the finished posts, they wouldn’t have happened without him.

  10. The night that I met Mike Horne set the scene for our friendship. What started as an introductory chat over a glass of wine, ended in a police raid. “Much mischief to be had.”

    It was all Bruce Parker’s fault. I worked as a contract PA to him at ABB and he suggested that I meet two friendly colleagues of his, because he thought we would all get along. It was the mid 90’s, one Friday night, in the Exchange Wine Bar, just around the corner from Scotland Yard. Bruce ordered a bottle of red wine and in short order Jonathan Roberts (Westminster Communications) and Mike Horne (LUL) arrived. My life path changed.

    Within weeks JR became my landlord, introduced me to caving and the Cave Diving Group. A whole new facet of diving opened up to me.

    Mike had a positive effect in other ways. He taught me to how enjoy and appreciate red wine. I used to think it tasted of musty book dust. He also unofficially mentored me, pushed me to succeed in a friendly manner, and gave me moral support when my confidence had taken a battering, or I had doubts. He was a genuine friend, who helped me at a bleak time.

    That Friday night the four of us drank wine and I listed to the three ‘good chaps’ swap long stories about short trains. Over the years I got to learn all sorts of random facts about trains and transport. That metal train wheels could become flat and the phenomena of three buses arriving at once occurred because of scheduling. (And the story of the bus survey that lead to this).

    I enjoyed the mischief tales of the research done for Doug Rose’s wonderous book. How Mike would borrow keys and the group would arrive at the witching hour at one of the London tube stations. Once down on the platform the group would seek out walls of tiles hidden in cupboards or behind partitions. The tiles would then be carefully washed down to reveal their original colours, before the station tile pattern was faithfully recorded onto graph paper.

    As the first evening progressed I learned that Mike was the Commercial Opportunities Manager for LUL. As a creative thinker I was fascinated by his job. His remit was to create income for the underground from anything that was not a ticket sale. His remit covered the bread and butter income from the usual 48 sheet cross tracks, the tube car and escalator panels, through to sleeves on the rotating ticket spokes and later the paddles on the ticket gates. And then there was the proper exciting stuff – the painted trains, ice cream sampling, and hiring out closed stations. It was obvious to all that he relished his work, and did all he could to facilitate these commercial opportunities in a safe manner.

    On that first evening Mike mentioned he could only stay for a glass or two because he had to get to Aldwych Tube Station. I knew this was a closed station so asked him why? He said he had hired it out to a bunch of students for a party and he needed to check what was happening. JR, Mike and I grabbed a cab to Aldwych. Whilst JR stayed topside, Mike gave me a private tour of the station.

    As we walked down onto the platform, he stooped to pick up something that looked like a bullet. It transpired it was. The security services had used the station a couple of days before, to train for a hostage crisis. We walked onto the other platform and there was the evidence. A damaged tube train complete with smashed glass.

    What would you do with this station Roz? “Turn it into the De Beers diamond dining experience Mike” I replied. “Because of the size of this station it lends itself to limited, exclusive dining in a diamond mine.” He laughed and wondered out aloud how we could talk to De Beers about it.

    Returning topside we found the Police had just arrived to check out the party. Mike confirmed that yes the party was authorised, he was a (fairly) senior manager in LUL, and all was in order. The Police left happy and we retreated to the ticket office to re-join JR and find a brew.

    Inevitably, even though I didn’t work in the train industry, I got absorbed into the ‘good chaps club’. A nucleus of us spent many happy summer evenings stood outside the Dark Star drinking beer. I would listen and enjoy Mike’s quick wit and the intelligent train and transport chatter, sometimes playing noughts and crosses on the pavement with Alan Tunnicliffe. (Denis’ son was a teacher hence he tended to carry a piece of chalk in his pocket. He too sadly departed before his time).

    When Mike left LUL he asked this “disruptive influence” to go office hunting for him. I do like looking at property and after researching leases and inspecting a shortlist of suspects I showed him an office in Farringdon. He took it.

    I learned all sorts of oddities from Mike. I remember being frankly astonished when he produced an LUL timetable from his briefcase and said he needed to check when his train was due. This may sound obvious to you, but it simply hadn’t occurred to me, because you stand on the platform, wait may be up to five minutes and a tube arrives. Thinking about it in retrospect, of course there has to be a timetable.

    As others have stated he had a love of telephones. I once mentioned how much I adored the iconic Trim phone and he said he would sort one out for me. He was a passionate collector of the ordinary. When I learned he was collecting plastic cards, I would religiously save all my plastic credit, debit and bank cards, and pass them onto him for his collection. As I write this I have an envelope in my desk drawer with his name on it, containing yet more cards.

    Mike delighted in the daft. He had fun buying the title ‘Lord of Leire’. (Think mad king with three daughters for the pronunciation). The village of Leire is in south Leicestershire, not far from the national diving centre, Stoney Cove. I pass the road sign to get to the Cove to dive and it always makes me smile.

    I had best get on now. I need to go and “hoover the cat.”

  11. The Friends of the LT Museum journal/magazine has an obit. – & a note to the effect that “Metadyne” will be looked after & maintained, which is a great relief.

  12. The July issue of the quarterly magazine “lLondon Railway Record” has a 2-page obituary for Mike H.

  13. I was saddened to hear of the untimely death of Mike Horne. I worked in Mike’s Commercial Development team in my formative years at London Underground in the late 1990s. Having moved from railway operations to lead the successful outsourcing of London Transport’s advertising business, he turned his hand to growing non-fares revenue across an eclectic mix of activities. These ranged from car parks to vending machines, and filming on disused stations to the sale of Underground memorabilia. Mike was also Chair of Epping-Ongar Railway Ltd at the time of the line’s sale.

    Mike had a remarkable ability to spot potential and develop people through setting challenges and encouraging them to think about things in a different way. He enjoyed challenging the status quo and at times had a slightly rebellious streak, epitomised by his oft-repeated catchphrase, “There’s more mischief to be done.” Mike enjoyed playing political structures, both internally in London Transport and, when the opportunity presented, in the wider political establishment. His ability to do this was undoubtedly helped by his enjoyment of the finer things in life, and one of many things I learned from him was how much business is done in the pub!

    Mike was very knowledgeable about a wide range of subjects and always had fascinating stories to tell. His research and writing interests extended not only to London Underground, but also to areas as diverse as the police, telephony and medieval history – the latter leading him to acquire the title of Lord of the Manor of Leer. Besides being a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport and for many years an influential member of the Railway Study Association, he was also a Fellow of both the Royal Geographical Society and Royal Society of Arts.

    Mike left London Underground following a reorganisation in 1999 and established the Fifth Dimension Associates consultancy, but we remained friends. He attended my wedding in 2006 and we continued to meet socially from time to time. Mike’s contribution should not be underestimated, and I hope that his extensive personal library and research collection will not be lost.

    Simon Williams

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