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Full Transcript:

Simon: Welcome to this episode of DNCO 20/20, where we look back at 20 projects over 20 years — how we made them, and the impact they had on us as a studio and the world around us. I’m Simon Yewdall, and today I’m talking to Sumaiyah Moolla, customer experience lead at TfL, who oversaw the naming of the London Overground. Welcome, Sumaiyah — thank you for being here, it’s really lovely to see you. Taking us back to the very beginning, what was the impossible task? What were we trying to achieve?

Sumaiyah: We had a rail network that had been built up over time since 2007 — six routes, all amalgamated into one network, all represented in one colour on maps: orange, the very famous, recognisable orange, and all called ‘Overground’. So if you’re looking at a tube map, all of the tube lines have different colours and names, but the Overground was all orange, just like a big mess of spaghetti on the map. 

Simon: Deeply confusing.

Sumaiyah: Yes, hard to navigate around, hard to see where the interchanges are, hard to understand when there’s disruption, which bit is disrupted.

Simon: This brief came in at a particular moment: we were going to name and colour the six lines as separate entities so that they could be much more useful to customers. But then the question is, what do we call them? What kind of name? What does a good name look like?

Sumaiyah: We had an overarching brief that came directly from the Mayor of London, wanting to represent London’s communities and diverse history and stories in the naming of the London Overground lines. That was our framework. But also, as you say, we were trying to do something really practical, which is to differentiate the six routes so that they’re much more usable and user-friendly for customers.

Simon: I immediately loved the brief. I guess the question is: why was it important to represent these different histories? It feels like a really obvious question to me, but why did this brief come at this particular moment, and why is it important?

Sumaiyah: This is about representation in the public realm. If you think about what’s normally out in the public realm — statues, train stations, building names, street names — it’s all established narratives: stories that most people know, that are in textbooks, that you can go and read about, normally representing white British history.

London is one of the most diverse cities in the world, and we’re really proud of that — proud of the makeup of our 9-10 million people. It felt really fitting, in a city as diverse as London, that if you’re going to change the face of the public realm and have names on a railway system that could be there for 50 to 100 years, to do something that reflects London now. I’m not saying that established narratives and past history — British history — aren’t important; of course they are. This felt like a really great opportunity to uncover some hidden histories and lesser-known stories. And the fact that the mayor was driving and advocating for that was a real impetus for us.

Simon: I’ve got a funny question, because I have a particular feeling about meeting you guys for the first time, and I wondered whether you had a first impression of DNCO way back when.

Sumaiyah: I remember coming to your studio, your previous place, and just thinking, I am not cool enough to be here. It was a really cool space. You stood in front of a very large screen, taking us through some of the work DNCO had done, and I was like, well, this is really cool, because you guys have worked internationally as well. But there was one project in particular that started to bring to life what it is that you do, because I’d never really thought about placemaking as a thing. You talked about a project in Birmingham — the regeneration of an area called Digbeth. I’m from Birmingham, and having seen the evolution of Digbeth before and after, you don’t really think about how that happened, but clearly it didn’t just happen organically. That really cemented in my mind what it is that you do: that kind of community engagement and community input, changing the face of a place for the better, and how that can be packaged up.

Simon: It makes complete sense — that’s really cool to hear. I was really intimidated by you. 

Sumaiyah: Me? No surely not.

Simon: I didn’t get any sense at all that you were impressed; I felt like I was working really hard.

Sumaiyah: It’s just my face.

Simon: No — it was just one of those things where I was a bit like, I don’t know if I’ve done a good job at representing us at all, and it was such a crazy brief. It was a bit like, gosh, how are we going to do this? Do you remember feeling confident that we were the right people for the job? Or did you think anyone was the right people for the job? What was your first take on the brief, I guess?

Sumaiyah: We had no experience of doing this before. It was a very unique project — there was no precedent in TfL, no one I could go and speak to and say, “you’ve done this, tell me how you did it.” So we were in the same place that you were, which is really why we needed expertise and help. I think you said at one point that this is about the whole of London, because the Overground spans the whole of London. It’s not like we could just point you to a certain geographic area and say, go and do some research there — it was the whole thing. And we had the dual objectives as well.

Fundamentally, what we were trying to do was make wayfinding and navigation easier for customers: we wanted people to be able to understand the Overground network and get around easily, and when something goes wrong, they know which part is disrupted and can reroute easily. But there was also a second objective, equally important, equally weighted: the mayor’s ambition to give these lines an identity and a personality, and reflect the diversity of London and Londoners and all the communities that we have. Holding those two things in the same brief was pretty tricky, and I remember discussing that with you — how do we navigate these things so that they both come together and make sense?

Simon: We had this crazy challenge about how we were going to engage the whole of London — how we were going to do this piece of research and surface these stories — I’ve got it in front of me, because there was so much that we did, I have to reflect on what we did — we rode the lines for 13 days, we spoke to over 150 people. I’d love to know what you thought about us talking to your customers. We did loads of expert interviews — talking to historians, academics, everything from the history of the lines and how they were made, to the history of London language. We did TfL surveys — sending a survey to, gosh, how many thousands of employees at TfL?

Sumaiyah: About 27,000.

Simon: We did stakeholder interviews and workshops, talking to some of the staff who run the lines and their feelings on the lines in particular. We did four big creative workshops with over 60 people — talking to the queer community, the queer experience, a decolonising group, young people, and also underrepresented stories. Those people were poets, lyricists, playwrights, people who love language. And we also did days and days of desk research, going to some crazy parts of the internet and archives to uncover some strange stories. Two questions: did you have a favourite bit of the research that you think was really valuable? And what did you think about us talking to your customers and writing the lines?

Sumaiyah: I really liked the idea of the workshops, bringing together people who have a love for language — anything to do with that kind of creativity around language, I thought it was super fun. We needed that, because when you’re coming up with words, the way they sound and resonate with people is really important. I thought there were some really interesting, funny people in those workshops, and they came with really good insights.

Simon: They really did, they came prepared. I think that was one of my positive reflections: we gave people homework, and they came back with, “I’ve got some stories to tell you.” It was just amazing, because it was like, just tell me everything you want me to know — what are these stories that people aren’t thinking about and need to know about Londoners? And we got some crazy ones. It was brilliant, so good. And us riding the lines?

Sumaiyah: I’d be interested to know what the reaction was from customers when you stopped them for a chat. Were people just like, “No, I’ve got a train to catch”? Or were they really wanting to talk?

Simon: There were some people, but actually a lot of people feel really passionately about TfL — they feel really passionately about our public transport, it’s really a point of pride. One thing I loved was just how much people were up for it. They maybe weren’t totally sure why we were naming the lines, and we had to have a bit of a chat around why it was practically important. But then, once we got them engaged in the conversation of what the names should feel like, what they should be like, they were so up for interesting names, because they were like, London is interesting, we are interesting, we’re incredibly diverse, there’s so much going on, so much to celebrate that isn’t celebrated in public infrastructure, and being able to tell you guys that people were really up for brave names was really, really exciting.

Sumaiyah: We did a really useful exercise beforehand, which was to go and ask customers what they referred to the Overground as. That really blew some of the internal expectations out of the water, because customers told us they didn’t really call it anything. Internally, within the rail industry, in terms of operations, we’d assigned operational, colloquial names to the routes — kind of historic, based on what they’d always been called. We thought customers were using those names, but they really weren’t. Once we’d disproved that theory, there was a bit of a blank slate, and I was really glad of that, because what I was hoping for out of this whole project was that the engagement programme and the research and the findings would tell us things that we don’t know.

Simon: I remember coming with my own subjectivity, because I lived on the old East London line, and thinking, “can I rename it? People already call it the East London line”. But it was so confusing, because it had grown since it started as the East London line — it went all the way to Clapham, and Clapham isn’t in East London. So that felt like a responsibility, to try and get that right as well. We needed to come up with names that were going to be good enough to blow some of the old names out of the water. But, like you say, it was interesting how many customers had no idea.

Simon: When did you think, this is going to be okay? I think we all started with quite a strong sense of duty and responsibility to get it right, and also quite an overwhelming brief — trying to consult London, trying to get it right, and trying to get rid of some of the noise from all the detractors: is it going to be brave enough? Is it going to be too brave? Is it going to be too woke? But did you have a moment when you thought, this is going to be okay, we can see that we’re going to get to something interesting?

Sumaiyah: I was trying to think back to when you did the first presentation — I don’t think it was the first one, but there was definitely one where we were in our offices, with a curated small group of senior people. You did the presentation, which had stories, not name options — it was more about the process, the methodology, the stories that were surfacing.

You’d finish your presentation, and there was this moment where no one said anything. Then the room erupted a little bit with really positive feedback, and at that point I thought, okay, this is going to be okay — because that group was kind of a test internally of how this would land. I think you’d dazed people a little bit, because when we do a lot of research at TfL, the findings are usually based on statistics — people liked this, didn’t like that, or they have complaints about this and that. So to see a debrief that was rooted in narrative and storytelling was really refreshing, and really interesting. At that point, I think we all took a deep breath.

There was also another presentation you did, and I remember someone at the end of it putting their hand up and saying, this is the best piece of research I’ve ever seen in my time at TfL. I was like “Yes!”

Simon: God, I really remember that pause — you’ve just completely taken me back. That pause, I was like, how was that? Was that okay? And then I remember someone being really moved, because I think the thing with the stories, when you start gathering them from across London, is that you can so quickly connect with your personal experience. There are definitely some of the stories that really resonate with me personally, and I think everyone was experiencing that separately during that presentation. You’re like, wow — if we have the chance to honour some of these experiences, that will be really, really special. I could see it almost beginning to hit people.

Sumaiyah: I think that’s the thing, it takes time to reflect. When you think about what we were trying to do — on one hand, it was really practical, a solid, accepted, known wayfinding convention to differentiate lines in a network. The whole of the London Underground is based on that convention, and it works. But on the other hand, what we were going to do was going to leave an imprint on the public realm for a very long time, we hope. And I think when you did that identity presentation and started telling some of those stories, that’s what starts to hit home for people, especially if you’re not rooted in the project. You did that presentation many times, to different audiences, and you could see that when people heard it for the first time, they were moved — the enormity of it started to hit people.

Simon: To finally see some parts of core history recognised in London, on that scale, felt — well, I felt a huge responsibility to my community, but also immense pride that we could make it happen. It still really gets me today. And I wonder whether you had a similar feeling or experience about when it hit home for you, what was happening?

Sumaiyah: I use the Windrush line — that’s become part of my vocabulary. We launched over a week, so we had to stagger implementation across different channels, because it was such a huge project. In that week, I remember going home from the office, walking down the tube station and down the stairs, and right in front of you, where you can’t miss it, is the electronic rainbow board that tells you the status — if anything’s delayed. And there, for the first time, because we’d just gone live with that particular project that day, I saw “Mildmay line - severe delays”. I just stopped, and I think someone bumped into me and I said “oh, sorry.” But I had this moment where I was like, “it works... it works!” Now, I don’t want my line to be severely disrupted, that was bad, but I was like, this makes so much sense, it’s so much easier for people. That really hit me. Then being on the Windrush line and hearing “this is a Windrush line train to…” by that time I’d been so ingrained, living and breathing Overground and these names, it was really nice to just have that moment as a customer myself.

Simon: Do you have a favourite line name?

Sumaiyah: I’ll tell you the one that grew on me: Lioness. First of all, I wasn’t sure about that, “Lioness,” it’s going to sound really muffled over a station announcement system. And I was also like, is this a bit zeitgeisty? But actually it turned out to be a good shout, because the Lionesses are winning twice as many competitions for probably half the pay — that’s the cross women have to bear. But it was the storytelling around that particular name that got me, I think. Because the more I dug into that story, the more I could find elements to relate to — I was like, okay, this feels inspirational, it feels like it could speak to different communities, different generations. That’s where the story really helped me, and I thought, this is literally what we’re trying to do: get people engaged with the stories, and understand that it’s not just that we named a train route — it’s that there are parts of this story for everyone to celebrate, and still parts that are lessons to be learned. It’s not a perfect story with the Lionesses, is it? There’s still a lot of debate and discussion to be had about women’s rights, equal pay, equity, investment in sport, investment in young girls.

Simon: It’s funny, because I think that many of the lines have that story and that lesson, actually. I’ve had a lot of conversations with my friends about the Windrush line, for example, and the Suffragette line — suffragettes were a pretty disruptive political force, and they were using tactics that today other organisations are using, which are not always enjoyed by the government, for example. And the Windrush line marks an important migrant experience, but also marks how migrants have not always been well treated in this country, and how that’s an ongoing situation. So it’s interesting, because I think sometimes some of the criticisms of the lines are also, hopefully, reminders of ways to go. Do you have any reflections on that?

Sumaiyah: I live in South London, the Windrush line is particularly relevant to the community I live in. I hope that where the line names generate debate and conversation, people are discussing the bits to be celebrated, but also the parts that really need attention. Part of the hope is that we’re not trying to whitewash anything with these names. I think the stories we’ve told, hopefully, bring to life all of the great positives, but also the ongoing challenges. It’s important to acknowledge and reflect that, because that’s what makes London.

Simon: That reminds me actually of a big revelation in our workshops — I have to admit I hadn’t thought about it until it really came up — that talking to people from these communities who were essentially sharing their stories, they were very quick, and rightly so, to point out: yes, we’re sharing these stories, but these are our stories, these are the stories of people from our communities, and yes, you can have them, but we also need to be there as part of launching them. I wonder whether you had the same revelation — and maybe it’s worth talking about what TfL did with that information?

Sumaiyah: There was a line in your presentation that we really liked: “The Overground is where real London lives.” It’s not the shiny, expensive bit in Zone 1 — it’s where people live, where communities are, where life is happening, with all of its joys and challenges. In involving people in telling stories, we were really conscious about that, but obviously there has to be some way to make it happen that’s sustainable. So we went to certain organisations, like the Windrush Foundation, to help us tell that story at launch. We did some in-depth podcasts, talking to representatives of communities and figures who could speak to that experience — there are some really great in-depth stories on the Mind the Gap podcast — little plug there — through social media, through blogs, through walking tours, through community workshops. We really did try to get the people who own those stories involved in telling those stories.

Simon: One reflection I've had is that in a lot of our meetings, they were filled with a lot of people.

Sumaiyah: Yes.

Simon: And with those meetings, it can be really hard to steer the ship and make sure that we're staying on course. You're incredibly good at doing that. I do remember moments where you just really brought us back to what the purpose was. Do you remember that? Do you have any reflections of that?

Sumaiyah: As the person who is sort of trying to keep the whole project going on time, on budget — because there were a lot of things going on outside of line naming as well. I think it was just a case of making sure we got what we needed out of every meeting or session because like you said, there were a lot of people involved, a lot of things going on. When a project like this starts to gain traction internally in an organisation, and people realise that it's really exciting, then everyone wants to hear about it and everyone wants some input.

Whereas we had a job to do, we also were trying to keep a lid on things because we wanted it to be like a really exciting announcement. Cutting through some of the noise was really important and part of my role. Seeing the bigger picture, but then zoning in on the thing that needed to be done, the task at hand, and hopefully that helped to keep things moving in a positive way to get to the kind of what we needed to do that particular meeting or that particular week.

Simon: Yes, it's funny though, when things are going well and things are interesting, more, more voices, more opinions, how you keep a lid on that. Do you have any advice to people on how you manage to control and keep people focused? I'm thinking about developing naming criteria as an example.

Sumaiyah: It's really important to have that. I think having clear objectives and clear principles is really, really crucial when you're further down the line and you start to socialise the project, the names, the findings and the research, people go off on tangents and they get excited and everyone's got an opinion and inputs. So having those criteria there that we all bought into and agreed was really useful for bringing those conversations back or for holding people off as well. So “thanks for your input, however we have to remember that this is what we're doing and this is why we're doing it”. That helped with a lot of the stakeholder engagement that we were doing.

Simon: There are some people who say the names are really woke, and there are some people who say that they don’t go far enough. What do you say to both of those groups?

Sumaiyah: You can’t please all of the people all of the time, and that’s okay. We’re talking about a live operational environment — when you run a railway, there’s a lot going on. Not least that you’re moving millions of people every day. You’ve got trains, maintenance, signals, assets, all of it. It’s really crucial that those names made sense to customers in a live operational environment.

But also, we had that dual objective. We were trying to celebrate stories and celebrate London and Londoners. You have to be pragmatic in situations like this, and there’s always going to be trade-offs. But I think we got to a really good place. These are stories that people can see themselves reflected in, that people can learn from. I think we came to a really good place with the final six names that we’ve got.

Simon: I asked some colleagues if they had any questions for you, and this is Brenda’s question: were there any names that ended up on the cutting-room floor that you personally really wished were in the final mix?

Sumaiyah: The one I really liked was Keskidee. As a word, that’s a really beautiful-sounding word to my ear, and the story’s really interesting as well. I was really rooting for that one.

Simon: So, a bit of a reminder — Keskidee was a cultural centre created by the Black community in north London, and there are some incredible stories about it. It definitely had Bob Marley there, I think Naomi Campbell, a very young Naomi Campbell, was even part of it — and it’s named after, a Ghanaian bird. I agree, I loved the sound of it, I loved the story of it. Maybe that’s one to save.

Simon: When you talked about Lioness, it reminded me of a bit of an Easter egg in that line — a personal Simon take, not verified by TfL. But one story I really loved was about Jayaben Desai, and her standing up — this is all part of the Grunwick dispute — standing up to the big bosses about the rights of South Asian workers in particular, and that connection also to the miners’ strikes at the time, and how important that was for race relations. She has this speech about how there are two types of people in this world: there are monkeys who’ll dance to your tune, and there are lions — “I, sir, am a lion who’ll bite your head off” — really standing up, this impassioned speech. And that’s the same line — this is at Willesden Junction. So with the Lioness line, I kind of secretly think about Jayaben being part of it. She’s one of the secret lionesses of that line.

Sumaiyah: That story spoke to me as well, because if I remember correctly, she was Gujarati, and I’m ethnically Gujarati. So I was rooting for that one as well.

Simon: We have to say, there was a big moment where we had a lot of names that celebrated people, and I think there was a hope in me that maybe we could get that through. I think the power of recognising people like Jayaben Desai or Althea McNish as well — a really pioneering textile designer — would have been an amazing complement to some of the royal names that we have on the lines. But maybe you can talk about why we didn’t go with names?

Sumaiyah: I think it was felt, as we went through the process, that with any individual the due diligence is harder to do, and the future-proofing is harder as well, because today’s hero could become tomorrow’s villain. We thought it was better to steer away from individuals. But we got some really powerful stories and associations — there could be an individual within a story, but within that story, there was a name option that could have been on the long list.

Simon: Completely, and it was interesting, because there was also that reflection, that maybe one person’s experience is more difficult to relate to than a group, or a place, or a movement. “Movements and moments” I think that was our phrase, wasn’t it? I do agree with that. I think people are drawn to personal stories, so that makes complete sense. But by the same token, you might like that person, you might not like that person, and it makes it a bit more divisive — which isn’t helpful when you’re trying to name public infrastructure.

Sumaiyah: I think part of what we were trying to do with the names and the stories was to have that intersectionality, so that everyone could find different elements of those stories that they could relate to.

Simon: That’s so true. And that became such a mark of success, because Mildmay, for example, is really important to the LGBTQ+ community, but it’s also really important to the Black community as well, and to NHS workers, of course. It was about trying to find those stories that do more than one thing. That felt really important, and it also felt so London, to not just speak to one community, but talk to how these places and moments have affected so many different people.

Sumaiyah: In London, more than in lots of other cities, no one’s ever really just from London, no one’s just, “I’m a Londoner.” Londoners are made up of different dimensions, and you can be lots of things in one and still call yourself a Londoner.

Simon: I’d love to know what the impact’s been. Has it been a positive one? What are your reflections, I know you’ve done some research — how has it gone down?

Sumaiyah: We knew we were going to get debate — like I said, you can’t please all of the people all of the time, and that’s okay. We were prepared for that, we were up for that. And we knew that with the final six names, some of those names have very challenging elements to their stories. That’s okay — that’s part of the brief, that’s part of the narrative. But I was pleased with the reaction. I think it caught fire, and people were talking about it — the good, the not-so-good. We had a lot of questions, and that’s all okay. Nothing died.

Now, over a year on, we’ve done a bit of research to see how the names have landed, and overall it’s really positive. People are familiar with the six names, or at least the name of the London Overground line that they use the most — which I guess is the point, because then you’re able to tell if your line is disrupted easily. The names are starting to embed, and the stories have helped with that a lot. There are always going to be opportunities to embed the stories more, and we can do that as we go forward — certain anniversaries, or other opportunities to wrap things up. For example, for LGBTQ+ History Month, the Mildmay connection — internally, we did a bit on that with colleagues. It takes time, a big change like this can take time to bed in, and you don’t realise the benefits until a little way down the line. But even a year on, it seems like we’re getting there. It’s been largely positive.

Simon: What would you tell people who are about to release a name and they’re worried? Because I think sometimes we can get so worried that we go with something that isn’t that unusual or interesting, because we’re worried about the public reaction. This was definitely a brave move by TfL.

Sumaiyah: Being brave is important. You have to challenge your own established thinking, then convince other people that this is the way to go — you have to connect with your audience. There’s a lot to do in being brave, but if you bring people along on that journey with you, it’s smoother. With this project, for example, the engagement, that whole package of engagement that you did — it was all evidence-based. How we got to the final six names came out of that engagement process, so we had this really robust evidence base that we used, and that helped us fend off any kind of challenges we got about the end result — whether it was too brave or not brave enough. We could take that back to what we were trying to achieve, but also how we went about doing it.

Simon: Twenty years into the future, how do you think the names will age?

Sumaiyah: I didn’t realise, until quite far into this project, the potential impact of what we were doing — leaving an imprint on the public realm, on a transport network, that hopefully those names will still be there when all of us have popped our clogs. That’s pretty cool to think about. At some point, for some people, these will just become wallpaper — they’ll become like all the things you don’t question, like the Jubilee line: where did that come from? Or Bakerloo: where did that come from? It’ll just become a word. But I hope there will still be people discovering these stories in 20 years’ time, that they’ll be on the Windrush line and thinking, why is this train line named after this community, this part of history, this story — what’s behind this? I really hope we get new people coming into London — because London has an influx all the time, people coming into London, discovering these names and stories and learning more about the makeup of this city.

Simon: Hindsight is 20/20 — looking back, what’s your one piece of advice for anyone naming an insanely huge piece of public infrastructure?

Sumaiyah: Take your blinkers off, acknowledge what you don’t know, and be curious to find out more.

Simon: Let go of your preconceptions around what the name might be?

Sumaiyah: This is an opportunity to learn something and do something differently, so lean into that. Something like the railways comes with so much heritage, so much history, so embedded in the building of this country, but also quite a lot of the rest of the world — it can be hard to put all that to the side. But being curious and inquisitive was, I think, the thing that really made this project. And I think that’s potentially what we could see in you, even at the first meeting — that DNCO came across to me as a curious organisation, and that was really key for me, that you were going to help us open our minds. 

There were so many people who worked on this, and it was a huge team effort — a real collaboration. That’s also something we’re really proud of at TfL, because the people and the passion that mobilised on this project was the only way it happened.

Simon: Honestly, that was a complete joy as well. It’s really difficult to coordinate so many different people, but it felt like so many different parts of the organisation and the GLA coming together, and I think it was because people understood the importance of it, and the potential of it. People really were willing to coalesce, to push through, and to be brave. That was a real honour. I think you think you were a nightmare — compared to how it could have been, with so many different stakeholders, it was really, really good — and that was totally about the coordination, but also, because of the subject matter of the project.

Sumaiyah: And you’d work with us again? 

Simon: I hope so. 

Sumaiyah: Yay — so we haven’t completely sent you running for the hills.

Simon: Not yet, not yet. 

Sumaiyah: There’s time!

Simon: Thank you very much Sumaiyah, it’s been lovely talking to you.

Sumaiyah: Thanks for having me — it’s been really interesting.

Simon: It’s a pleasure, and it’s lovely to see you. 

Sumaiyah: And here’s to the next 20 years.

Simon: The next twenty years!

Sumaiyah: Being brave is important. You have to challenge your own established thinking, then convince other people that this is the way to go — you have to connect with your audience. There’s a lot to do in being brave, but if you bring people along on that journey with you, it’s smoother. With this project, for example, the engagement, that whole package of engagement that you did — it was all evidence-based. How we got to the final six names came out of that engagement process, so we had this really robust evidence base that we used, and that helped us fend off any kind of challenges we got about the end result — whether it was too brave or not brave enough. We could take that back to what we were trying to achieve, but also how we went about doing it.

Simon: Twenty years into the future, how do you think the names will age?

Sumaiyah: I didn’t realise, until quite far into this project, the potential impact of what we were doing — leaving an imprint on the public realm, on a transport network, that hopefully those names will still be there when all of us have popped our clogs. That’s pretty cool to think about. At some point, for some people, these will just become wallpaper — they’ll become like all the things you don’t question, like the Jubilee line: where did that come from? Or Bakerloo: where did that come from? It’ll just become a word. But I hope there will still be people discovering these stories in 20 years’ time, that they’ll be on the Windrush line and thinking, why is this train line named after this community, this part of history, this story — what’s behind this? I really hope we get new people coming into London — because London has an influx all the time, people coming into London, discovering these names and stories and learning more about the makeup of this city.

Simon: Hindsight is 20/20 — looking back, what’s your one piece of advice for anyone naming an insanely huge piece of public infrastructure?

Sumaiyah: Take your blinkers off, acknowledge what you don’t know, and be curious to find out more.

Simon: Let go of your preconceptions around what the name might be?

Sumaiyah: This is an opportunity to learn something and do something differently, so lean into that. Something like the railways comes with so much heritage, so much history, so embedded in the building of this country, but also quite a lot of the rest of the world — it can be hard to put all that to the side. But being curious and inquisitive was, I think, the thing that really made this project. And I think that’s potentially what we could see in you, even at the first meeting — that DNCO came across to me as a curious organisation, and that was really key for me, that you were going to help us open our minds. 

There were so many people who worked on this, and it was a huge team effort — a real collaboration. That’s also something we’re really proud of at TfL, because the people and the passion that mobilised on this project was the only way it happened.

Simon: Honestly, that was a complete joy as well. It’s really difficult to coordinate so many different people, but it felt like so many different parts of the organisation and the GLA coming together, and I think it was because people understood the importance of it, and the potential of it. People really were willing to coalesce, to push through, and to be brave. That was a real honour. I think you think you were a nightmare — compared to how it could have been, with so many different stakeholders, it was really, really good — and that was totally about the coordination, but also, because of the subject matter of the project.

Sumaiyah: And you’d work with us again? 

Simon: I hope so. 

Sumaiyah: Yay — so we haven’t completely sent you running for the hills.

Simon: Not yet, not yet. 

Sumaiyah: There’s time!

Simon: Thank you very much Sumaiyah, it’s been lovely talking to you.

Sumaiyah: Thanks for having me — it’s been really interesting.

Simon: It’s a pleasure, and it’s lovely to see you. 

Sumaiyah: And here’s to the next 20 years.

Simon: The next twenty years!