All On The Board: The Official Sunday Times Bestseller

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One reason they are so good at cheering up commuters, they reveal, is that they have sometimes needed cheering up themselves. Their sympathy for health problems such as tinnitus and colitis derives from personal experience. A BOOK TO BRIGHTEN YOUR DAY - A GIFT OF HOPE, COMFORT, POSITIVITY, OPENNESS AND LOVE FOR ANY OCCASION - INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES FROM THE TFL UNDERGOUND DUO After the night of the concert, they realised that they could lift commuters’ spirits with their poems. They began wheeling spare whiteboards into quiet tunnels to write. To maintain their anonymity they donned masks, long before those became mandatory on public transport because of Covid-19. Regardless of which stations you commute between, if you use the London Underground (or did in ‘old normal’ times), chances are you will have come across an information board brandishing a playful, punchy or poignant quote by the All On The Board duo. The pair of TfL employees have been penning poems and creative messages – covering topics from one-off music events to love and mental health – on information boards at Tube stations since 2017. All On The Board just show how much we need to feel connected... you often say exactly what we need to hear at exactly the right time. Always positive, always kind. You make me smile. Sometimes you've made me cry. Keep doing what you are doing . . . we are so very grateful for you.' - DAVINA MCCALL

Prior to the first public board, the pair were already writing poems and stories, and creating videos together, behind the scenes. ‘Helping customers navigate the station can be quite a robotic experience, but we’d interact with them, bring out puppets and put song titles in the directions,’ grins Chopra, who has been known to sing directions to the customers, while Redpath would rap the route to their desired platform. And to cultivate mystique, they adopted the noms de plume N1 and E1, a play on London’s system of postcodes and shorthand for “No one” and “Everyone”. Referring to the feted street artist, N1 explains that they “quite liked the idea of being like the Banksys of the Underground”. A book to brighten your day - a gift of hope, comfort, positivity, openness and love for any occasion - inspirational quotes from the TFL Underground duo. All on the Board is the pseudonym for two writing partners, Jeremy Chopra and Ian Redpath, who found huge success on social media when in 2017 they began sharing poetry and other “ditties” focusing on mental health and inspiring positivity and hope. These were written on the customer information boards on display in London tube stations, which gained them a huge number of followers and celebrity endorsements since. Shared by the likes of Michelle Obama, Katy Perry and the BBC, they are recognised as an institution in their own right, especially amongst Londoners.

Christmas Gifts

Shopping for board books can be fairly straightforward, but there are still realities you need to consider when you head to your favorite bookstore or start browsing online. Key features such as age appropriateness, board material, and even design are all going to be important. Most importantly, we can't emphasize enough how important it is to begin reading to your child from a young age. Along with fostering an early love of reading, children who are read to earlier in life also achieve language, emotional, and cognitive milestones faster than those who aren't. For this reason, we think board books should be fun for the grown-ups reading them too. Fast-forward 3 years, they've grown a community of 750,000+ online fans and have a plethora of celebrity supporters. Through their magical words, they've marked momentous occasions, celebrated countless artists, legends and heroes, raised awareness of mental health and hidden illnesses and sprinkled thousands of our daily journeys with positivity, humour and love. Younger babies tend to have pretty short attention spans when it comes to books, which is why baby books tend to be short. As they get older, their attention span will lengthen. Singing the words to the book, making your reading funny and animated, and cuddling with your baby while you read to them can help them stay interested. Some of these pandemic-themed offerings feature in their new book, rhyming “alive” with “survive” and “friends” with “ends”. But the best parts of the anthology involve the simplest British humour, which will raise a smile whether readers are hunkering down at home or negotiating a desolate commute. Take one poem called “The Beauty of Tea”:

Reading to your baby is a wonderful way to get cozy and bond. But it’s also a fantastic way to teach early literacy skills. Babies who are read to tend to develop strong reading and language skills down the road. Reading also teaches your baby important concepts like numbers and colors, and can help build their vocabulary. To me, the book is like a rainbow of words. We often point out that whenever there’s a storm there’s a rainbow at the end of it. We want the book to be the rainbow you know is coming at the end of the storm,’ says Chopra. ‘So it’s like a companion [that] makes you feel better when you need it,’ he adds.

Multibuys

The pair are already collaborating on future projects, including children’s stories and a sit-com, but for now, they’re thrilled to see their quotes neatly compiled and released in book form. With their beautiful, colourful collection of quotes, stories and drawings, you can add joy to your day wherever you are and however you're feeling.

Writing the All On The Board quotes has become a second full-time job for Redpath and Chopra, but they have no plans of stopping any time soon. ‘There’s so much that needs writing about in the world right now. There’s a lot of darkness and people need something to feel better about. The boards help provide that,’ says Redpath.Fast-forward 3 years, they've grown a community of 750,000+ online fans and have a plethora of celebrity supporters. Through their magical words, they've marked momentous occasions, celebrated countless artists, legends and heroes, raised awareness of mental health and hidden illnesses and sprinkled thousands of our daily journeys with positivity, humour and love. Their kind messages remind us all that we're in it together and now, with their beautiful, colourful collection of quotes, stories and drawings you can add joy to your day wherever you are and however you're feeling. Now, to coincide with the launch of their debut book All On The Board: Inspiring Quotes from the TFL Underground Duo– a curated edit of their whiteboard posts – the duo have come clean, revealing their identities as Ian Redpath and Jeremy Chopra. ‘We wanted the boards to speak for themselves instead of being about us,’ says Redpath, adding that demasking will hopefully allow them more creative freedom. You might think of reading as an activity reserved for older children, but babies as young as 4 months old enjoy being read to, and the earlier you start reading to your baby, the better. Younger babies prefer shorter books with bright colors; they enjoy books that rhyme and that repeat different words or phrases. Older babies like books that name all the different objects and people in their lives. Some older babies may even be able to enjoy books with storylines.

But All on the Board think their mission to boost morale is as important as ever. The duo have continued to put up poems throughout the year, writing sonnets to thank doctors, congratulate people celebrating lonely birthdays and reminisce about the forbidden joys of hugging. “Life is a journey,” one board reflects, “and at the moment/the train we are all on is in a tunnel,/But, one day we will see the light.” At a time when everyone is putting on masks, we’re taking ours off; it’s kind of symbolic,’ adds Chopra. ‘There’s going to be a lot of disappointment; we’ve told people we look like George Clooney,’ he laughs, alluding to the fact that in the beginning, the pair would wear celebrity masks when writing or wheeling out the boards. With their messages of positivity, inclusivity, remembrance and humour, the quotes have lifted spirits and raised smiles on the faces of those who have seen them – and, the duo hope, will reach a whole new audience now they’ve been collated into a book. Working with publishing house Yellow Kite, the pair whittled down their 2,000 quotes, grouping the best into 12 themes for the book, which include: 'raising awareness', 'love', 'mental health', 'London' and 'legends'.In November the pair finally discarded their masks (metaphorically, at least) and revealed their true identities when they published an anthology of their writing, also called “All on the Board”. N1 is a former train driver named Ian Redpath; E1 is his pal, Jeremy Chopra. The ‘All On The Board’ duo unmasked, Ian Redpath and Jeremy Chopra (Photo: Max Rose-Fyne)