The magic of King’s Cross
Twice this Christmas, we passed through King’s Cross station. To my mind it has lost some of its charm since it was redesigned. The dendritic vaulted canopy is splendid, but there was something wonderful about the old station that I still enjoy in the old undisturbed parts of the platforms. There is something magical about plain architecture. E.M. Forster wrote in Howards End,
To Margaret — I hope that it will not set the reader against her — the station of King’s Cross had always suggested infinity. Its very situation — withdrawn a little behind the facile splendours of St Pancras — implied a comment on the materialism of life. Those great arches, colourless, indifferent, shouldering between them an unlovely clock, were fit portals for some eternal adventure, whose issue might be prosperous, but would certainly not be expressed in the ordinary language of prosperity.
This is surely why it is so captivating that the Hogwarts Express departs from King’s Cross. None of the other terminus stations in London is fit portal for some eternal adventure. St. Pancras’ neo-gothic is too much of this world; Waterloo is an ugly memorial; Victoria is a monstrosity; Paddington has plenty of charm, but it is the charm of the here and now, of taxi cabs and London rain; Marylebone is too quaint; Euston is a miserable dump, no hint of its former glory, and though the old great hall would have been a very fine setting for magical adventures, it was rather too period.

The most influential book of our times?
Both times we passed through King’s Cross, we stopped at Platform 9¾. Of course, it is in the wrong place. Rowling once said she had confused the platforms with Euston, although it wouldn’t work there either.1 None of this matters—it’s a fantasy novel! But it is especially odd to see the platform in a place that, were it to lead through to the other side, would come out on platform eight, and nowhere near platform nine or ten.
We stopped not for my interest, but for the children, who have started reading the novels. We did not join the line to stand in front of the trolley and have a picture taken. We watched from the side for a few minutes. And I saw what I always see. Everyone in the queue was a grown-up, or at least an older teenager. There were no children queueing up to wear the Hogwarts scarf and pretend to run at the wall.
The children were all standing to one side, watching. I saw several other families doing what we were doing. The assistant told me it was always like this. 85% of the people who queue for platform 9¾ are grown-ups.
If you are ever in King’s Cross on September 1st, you will see large crowds of people dressed in Harry Potter costumes. Not just Harry and Hermione, but Dobby and Dumbledore and everyone else. They fill the place. The Hogwarts Express is announced at 11am. It even has its own departure screen. Cheers go up. You can hardly move for the crowd. And once again, the majority of them are adults, unaccompanied by children. There are children there, but it is by no means a children’s event.
Harry Potter is perhaps the most influential book of our times. It is as popular as The Hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, A Tale of Two Cities, And Then There Were None, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe…
The question is — why?
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