Walter Briscoe wrote:

Blackfriars is the station closest to my old school (City of London) and
if
it had been closed when I went there I would have been almost permanently
late in the mornings and in the afternoons the combined effect of getting
to
the nearest station (Temple?) and the mainline timetable would have almost
doubled my journey home. Nice!

The Journey Planner shows City of London [Boys] School is a 5 minute walk
from Blankfriars and 7 from Mansion House but 15 from Temple.
I fancy that the service withdrawal will not be an acceptable excuse.
I take it you dropped geography, early in your school career.

I only did it for half a year at CLS (and there's no need to add "[Boys]" to
the title, regardless of the existance of CLSG - it was always "CLS") but
most of the geography I remember from school was physical geography, geology
and human geography rather than distance and location.

And most people tend not to think in terms of doubling back when journey
planning, so someone coming from Victoria or Embankment would instinctively
look to Temple. In any case half the eight minute advantage is swallowed up
by the Temple to Mansion House journey time and my recollection is that
Temple less congested.

The afternoon problem would have been more substantial because of the way
the South West Trains timetable operated - most of the doubled journey would
come from having to wait ages at Waterloo for an all stoppng service if I'd
missed the semi-fast. Morningwise my main source of delays was actually
Connex (or whatever it was called then) trains delaying SWT ones who in turn
missed their Raynes Park clearing, but Blackfriars was close enough to
absorb this without me being late.