When I visited Golders Green in November 2019, I forgot to go to the men’s toilet. Ah, I think I’d better explain. Golders Green is an area in London. I went there, for the first time in years, in order to buy shoes because there were two shops there which sold the ones I wanted. (Not something flashy like red patent leather or blue suede, just something with a very wide fitting.)

As a frequenter of Golders Green in years gone by I sometimes had occasion to use the Gents in the station. My friends and I, with the silliness of youth, always used to chortle at a sign there that read:

“Gentlemen, please adjust your dress before leaving”

So, I’d meant to visit the gents when I found myself there in November, in order to take a photo. (Come to think of it, maybe it’s just as well I forgot: “Good afternoon, Officer…”).

I quite like that sign though, not just for what it says, but what it implies:

• The first thing that strikes one is how polite it is, with its use of “Gentlemen” and “please”. What a difference from another sign (see below), which simply barks: “Keep away!”. A penfriend of mine from New York came over once, and she couldn’t get over how polite our signs were. For example, “Please keep off the grass”, as opposed to “Keep off”. I’m not so sure our signs bother much with courtesy any more, perhaps because we’re all in too much of a hurry to read it all. So another implication is…

• Was the sign erected in a more leisurely, or at least less frenetic, age? I have conflicting views about this. On the one hand I remember my aunt in America telling me that the reason I never got to finish my enquiry of strangers on the street — “Excuse me, sorry to trouble you, but could you tell me…” — was that nobody had the time to listen to all that. She said, just say the main thing. So I said to the next passer-by “Bathroom?”, to which he replied “Over there” with a wave of his index finger. On the other hand, though, I recall reading Dorothy Parker commenting on the fact that everyone is in such a hurry these days — “these days” being soon after the First World War. Perhaps every age seems hurried to the people who live in it.

• Was it a common occurrence that men left the toilets not quite properly dressed? I mean, surely we men don’t need reminding. Or were the people in charge of the station just, er, covering themselves?

It’s really interesting looking at signs, because they either tell you so much, or you can use them to light a fire under your imagination. I used to love reading Paul Jennings’ articles. He had a column in The Observer called Oddly Enough, and in some of them he would describe a name he saw on a sign, or on the side of a lorry, and launch into a flight of fancy about it.

In one, for example, he sees a sign reading “Everlasting Lamps”, and writes a whole article about elves or similar creatures working underground creating these lamps that never go out. Something like that anyway. It made me laugh because all he had to do was look up the company in the phone directory and ask them what they did!

Signs tell a historical story too, of course. Place names, pub names, and advertisements on the side of buildings, such as the one in the photo above.

Signs also make for interesting reading in terms of language use. For example, in the film Paddington, Paddington takes literally the sign reading “Dogs must be carried on the escalator”. One of my favourites is “Non-residents will be clamped” — sounds painful. Another is: “Don’t run down the stairs use the handrail” — tricky!

Here are some signs. Make of them what you will.