As a young man, H.G. Wells had spent an unhappy time living with an aunt in Horsell which was then close to Woking and is now part of the overall sprawl.
So, when he wrote his great science fiction novel, The
War of the Worlds, he had the Martians land on Horsell common, in sight of
where Wells had once lived.
This enabled him to have that area of Woking become
the first to fall victim to the terrifying invaders weaponry.
In the novel the hero of the tale, having witnessed
the first meteor fall to earth, was pursued by the merciless tripods from the
common and along Maybury hill.
Were the invaders to land today they would have to
negotiate a huge six-way roundabout, dissect a one-way system, a no left turn,
a no right turn, two traffic light junctions, three pelican crossings and two
quite appallingly designed mini roundabouts.
I think faced with the product of 21st century traffic
management and in particular Woking Borough Councils ill-judged town planning,
that the Martians would have given up and returned home long before they were
exposed to the pathogenic bacteria that eventually saw them off.
