If music be the food of love play on.

If music be the food of love play on.

The great Bard William Shakespeare got it absolutely right. Music has to be the food of love served with a seasoning of Beethoven, a garnish of Mozart and rhapsody of Chopin. Music provides us with the first soundtrack of our lives, it lives on in our soul like the sweetest melody and the tune we simply can't get out of our head no matter how hard we tried.

For a number of years Manor House, along with most of our now household London Tube railway stations, has been the venue for one of the most stirring classical music. Now quite how this came into being has never really been clarified. There is something culturally gratifying about those wonderful classical composers caressing our ears with some of the most familiar overtures  and concertos.

But as if by magic Manor House now quite clearly resembles a rather more muted version of the Last Night at the Proms. True there are none of the rousing Union Jacks or that deeply patriotic singing that has so characterised Royal Albert Hall extravaganzas throughout the ages. But if you'd like a revealing glimpse into the world of the London Tube railway station you could do worse than spend a couple of minutes absorbing Strauss waltzes, Mozart in his pomp, the mellifluous strains of Debussy or  Elgar's epic Pomp and Circumstance, a truly amazing piece of classical music that stretches the whole of the classical music emotional spectrum.

So whose idea was it to lift the profile of the good old fashioned London tube station? Years and years ago, it has to be said, it was a bit on the dull side. In fact some of us were just grateful to get to our destination without any major incident. But then those avid train enthusiasts would probably shoot me down in flames so in defence of those with trains in their blood I do offer the most sincere of apologies.

Still when classical music suddenly made its debut on the London Tube system it felt as if your mind had been taken by complete surprise. When that grey train rumbled out of the tunnel and on to some expectant platform most of us simply cherished its arrival. It was London at her most grand and imperious, an engineering marvel that made you feel proud of your capital city.

But then something strange and unexpected happened. Somebody came up with the inspired idea to liven up the old Underground train experience. For years the only antidote to complete boredom on the platform was a Nestle chocolate bar from that great old machine on the wall. Ah, now this was  nostalgia in a Dairy Milk chocolate wrapper. This was my childhood and maybe yours as well and how disappointed we were when Bourneville chocolate had been almost dreadfully overlooked.

Anyway now we can listen to music on the Underground. We can hum and chant along melodiously to some of the finest of all classical music. We find ourselves almost privately conducting the piece with our imaginary baton. We pretend that we're fully acquainted with every chorus, stanza and verse. We try to believe that our imagination has been completely transported to some sumptuous 18th century ballroom or posh Victorian saloon where the rich danced endlessly until deep into the night.

And then we remember that we're still at Manor House Tube station and patiently waiting for the train that never seemed to arrive. We check our watches, walk up and down the platform staring at our I-Pads and then resigning to ourselves to the fact that we may never get into work at all. But then we remember that minutes earlier our ears had been subjected to some of the most calming music we'd ever heard. We then relax, take stock of where we are and just soak up the sonatas.

Now there are some of us who would have preferred Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd or in complete contrast Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind and Fire or Sir Elton John to brighten up our early mornings. The truth is though that our musical tastes are completely ours and very subjective. Heavy metal rock practitioners such as Iron Maiden or the Clash would never have had the same kind of appeal or resonance to those who like their early mornings to be soothing and soft.

The inescapable fact is that classical music is here to stay on at Tube stations across a vast majority of  stations. I pass through Manor House station every day and was once again startled by the sheer triumphant majesty of the music. It does seem totally unreal and incongruous to hear classical music at a railway station but who thought we'd ever communicate with each other with a miniature, pocket sized phone with more Apps than you could ever imagine. It hardly seems possible now but admittedly, we perhaps take it for granted.

Then you stand still for a moment, look around at the newsagents inside the station and then the timeless grandeur of those escalators that seem to have been there since the age of steam. Suddenly I was stopped in my tracks. I must have heard a whole series of some of the greatest symphonies that have ever been written.

It is easy to criticise the London Tube network when things go haywire. But when Beethoven bombards your senses with a resounding sense of melodrama and pathos you begin to believe that the marriage of classical music and trains could be a harmonious one. There are times when the match doesn't seem to be the right one. Then again how better to be woken up in the morning when your football team has been thumped emphatically the previous night. Let music be the food of love. I think our greatest playwright would have loved Manor House Tube station. Anybody for a Strauss waltz? Just the thing for a Monday morning.