The Underground - where long screaming worms eat people

Before returning home, Anne and I spent a few days in London and even though we hired a car we avoided driving around the city because of the traffic and crazy road rules.

It requires a steely nervous system to take on driving in inner London and, even though we used Google Maps, we were both glued to the road and checking and double checking the route and still made mistakes.

So, the less nerve wracking alternative is the Underground - or 'THE TUBE'.

The London underground was the world's first starting in 1863 between Paddington and Farrington.

Horrifyingly, it used gas lit wooden carriages hauled by smelly steam locomotives when it first operated. It was such a novelty that people delighted in travelling the short rail line even though it would have been claustrophobic, smelly and very dangerous.

The underground now has 11 lines that cover just over 400 km and stop at 270 stations. Anything up to 5 million passengers take the journey daily and at peak time there can be more than 543 trains in service with the fastest line running 40 trains an hour.

There is something really strange about the Underground.

It is said to be very haunted with some stations abandoned and a history of the Underground being used during World War Two as air raid shelters.

For me, as I dropped into the hole in the Earth and either took a million steps or the escalators over the few days we used it, I was in awe of it.

On the platforms the long worms would shudder past, first pushing a barrel of air like a swirling, deep, hot breath being blown onto the people waiting at each station before they made an appearance.

The rumbling noise they create as they race down the tracks can be slightly terrifying.

It sounds like a growling beast that you can hear coming from the deep darkness of the hole.

It can come from either end and it can also be head above your head. Sometimes I could imagine the beast tearing through the Earth like something from an alien movie and I half expected it to fall straight through on top of all of us.

When the huge worm finally appears it rushes past sometimes stopping - people spew out of it and others willingly enter.

The worm closes its openings shutting people inside its hungry belly and it swiftly barrels on in an endless continuum.

Every time I went down those stairs, I felt a little unsafe.

In past years fires had caused damage and taken lives, poison gas had been set off, people with guns had terrorised passengers.

Coming out of the Tube stations at our destinations felt like being able to breathe again and gave me a sense of relief.

The system is brilliant, but, you have to remember that there is a city of millions depending on it to get them from point A to point B and any breakdown or strike or public holiday can create a major inconvenience. London could not function without it.

Tourists can find it a nightmare to understand and we noted many people being terribly lost, as were we on several occasions.

Yet the fluidity of the city of London depends on THE TUBE.

Hundred of people are employed by the system, millions depend on it.

I am glad I only needed it for just a few days.