Not motoring
That wonderful Wheel
Gavin Stamp
There is much to be said for the round trip: going on a journey and coming back to the starting point. But I am thinking not of metropolitan railways like the Circle Line or the Cathcart Loop here in Glasgow, let alone a jaunt around the M25, but of the London Eye on the banks of the Thames. Now I know we all love the Big Wheel because we all hate the Dome: it cost not a penny of public money, has nothing to do with any government and is fun, apart from the fact that it is a beautiful and elegant structure. But that is not the only thing in its favour. When it was first proposed I wrote elsewhere that, unlike the pestilential Dome, a big wheel overshadowing both County Hall and Parliament would be a perfect millennium symbol of modern Britain, something that enables us to go round and round in circles, giggling all the while, while real power passes elsewhere. I am going on about the Wheel now for two reasons. The first is because I have been on it, and it is terrific. Wonderful views, looking into the courts of County Hall, over the vast Waterloo train shed, and enjoying distant, unexpected prospects of Carlton House Terrace and Buckingham Palace, and the New Palace of Westminster looking more fantastic and lovable than ever. The device of having the streamlined glazed 'capsules' on the outside of the ring, kept level by gears rather than by gravity, means that the precarious sense of height at the summit is very exciting — frightening for some. It is interesting to experience that process — evident in taking off in aeroplanes — when there is a sudden, indefinable change in scale and perception when the earthbound scene changes from something real and immediate to looking like a model, far below, and the terrifying distance to the ground is forgotten. My only complaint with the Wheel is that it goes too fast: half-an-hour was not long enough and I wanted to go round again.
The second reason is that I have met the engineer who worked on the original con- cept with the architects, David Marks and Julia Bardfield, and she is a woman. Jane Wernick refined and developed the design until the project was first taken on by Mit- subishi — who brought in their own engi- neers and, stupidly, reduced the diameter to a mere 450 feet (so preventing it from being the biggest wheel in the world). Since then, of course, British Airways came to the rescue and actually got the thing up and, eventually, turning, but it does seem monstrous that Jane Wernick's name is not mentioned in the souvenir guide book. Slowly, belatedly, I begin to understand about glass ceilings and why women get angry.
I met Jane Wernick as I invited her up to Glasgow to give a guest lecture at the Mackintosh School of Architecture. I thought she would provide an ideal role model for our students as about half of them are female, but it seems that engi- neering is now the profession which needs reforming. If I remember it correctly, Jane announced that fewer than 1 per cent of chartered engineers are women. She told me how grim her student days were, find- ing she had absolutely nothing in common with boorish, culturally blinkered boys, and that she would never have gone on with the training if she had not already worked for Arups and so known that engineering making things — was what she really want- ed to do. She must have been good, of course — very, very good — to win through, and then work with architects like Richard Rogers and David Chipperfield as well as Zaha Hadid (let alone with Bard- field & Marks on the wonderful Wheel). But how many other girls are deterred? And is that not a great shame?
Why can't we have more female engi- neers? Admittedly, it is hard to imagine women in the pioneering days of the rail- ways, when men like Brunel and Stephen- son wore themselves out working day and night surveying the line and seem, in retro- spect, almost superhuman. Perhaps only men could have conceived of something so colossally arrogant and astonishing as the Forth Railway Bridge, but perhaps not. Besides, those days are long past, especially the days when railway structures were civilised by a sense of Roman grandeur, and the macho, gung-ho character of so much modern engineering surely needs feminising. Perhaps if women rather than men designed roads and motorways, for instance, the results might not be so brutal and insensitive, whether in urban or rural settings.
Come to think of it, why do we never see women engine-drivers? Tradition? The unions? Do no girls dream of driving trains? In the early days of steam, control- ling a locomotive needed physical strength as well as endurance in often very unpleas- ant, dirty conditions on the footplate. But times have changed, and as far as I am aware there is no real evidence that women's appreciation of speed and dis- tance is any different from men's. Women can fly, after all — and rather well. I was much struck the other day by the contrast between two obituaries of women, both of whom were 82, which occupied the whole page in the Daily Telegraph. One was devot- ed to the somewhat pointless life of Glur Dyson Taylor, a 'beauty' and wit who hung around with artists and literary types, occa- sionally marrying and divorcing them; the other was about Jacqueline Auriol, an amazing, frighteningly determined woman who, despite an accident that smashed up her face, persevered and went on to become a test pilot in France, flying super- sonic.
I understand that, notwithstanding all the jokes and prejudice, women's car insur- ance is cheaper than men's as they are sta- tistically less likely to have accidents, being more careful and less aggressive. Money speaks truth. And I cannot imagine a female engine-driver having her feet up on the controls and blithely driving through two signals set at amber. Which is to say, I feel much safer going round and round and up in the air in the Big Wheel than in a train operated by the company that now besmirches the once great name of Great Western Railway.
Following my article (5 February) com- plaining about Virgin Trains, Sir Richard Branson writes to me to give me his 'per- sonal assurance that the team at Virgin West Coast will turn it into the best net- work in Britain within thirty months'. I can only say that I look forward to that.
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