Mike Laycock and family met up with some heroes on a visit to London.

Ooh aah! There he stood in front of me and my son Matthew, both lifelong Manchester United fans. That unmistakable haughty pose, collar turned up and back as straight as a rod. It was Eric the King. Or at least a cracking likeness of the former Man United star. And behind us stood Del Boy, one of the greatest-ever sitcom characters, the wheeler-dealing wideboy from Peckham. But not doing much ducking and diving on this occasion - and looking a little peaky. A bit waxy really.

For this was not the celebrity party to end all parties but Madame Tussauds, which I was visiting with my family during a hectic visit by GNER's superfast train service to London last weekend.

An astonishing 500 million people have visited the world-famous waxworks since it was founded in the early 19th century. And still the people come to admire the wonderful skills of the Tussauds sculptors, despite the long queues to get inside.

Each figure costs around £30,000 and takes about six months to create. As we wandered round, we agreed that some likenesses were quite uncanny. It really could have been Olympic champion Linford Christie there in his running outfit, film star Gerard Depardieu sitting with his glass of French wine and Naomi Campbell looking simply stunning.

But we also enjoyed criticising others - such as Tony Blair, Princess Diana and Marilyn Monroe - where we felt the sculptor hadn't fully captured the individual's features.

My son enjoyed a visit to the grisly Chamber of Horrors in the basement - a gallery of rogues from Dr Crippen to Guy Fawkes, many of them meeting most unpleasant ends - before we suddenly entered what was, for us, the highlight of the trip - The Spirit of London.

This was a Jorvik-style time-travel ride through 400 years of London's history from Elizabethan times to the present day, travelling in replica black taxi cabs. Animatronic figures moved and spoke as we passed through the sights, sounds and smells of the capital's colourful past.

We were less enthusiastic about the Planetarium next door, where we felt the show on the huge round screen above our heads - effectively the inside of a dome - was a little too technical in its astronomical explanations for the children.

Our visit to London was capped with a trip to the Tower of London.

This great royal fortress - actually comprising 24 towers - is a massive tourist attraction, and a good proportion of the millions who visit each year seemed to be there on the day of my visit.

It became unpleasantly crowded at times. But it was still a magnificent treasure house of British history, which, over 900 years, has served as a royal palace, a royal mint, an arsenal and a prison - with the inmates ranging from Henry VIII's second wife Anne Boleyn to Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess in 1941.

But its most famous role is as a jewel house, with the Crown Jewels held at the Tower since the 14th century. We queued for 20 minutes to get in but agreed afterwards it had been worth the wait to see the sparkling, spectacular and priceless stones, which include the largest cut diamond in the world - the First Star of Africa.

Fact file

Madame Tussauds; Marylebone Road, London.

Open 10am-5.30pm weekdays, 9.30am-5.30pm weekends. Tickets: £10.50 adults, £7 for children.

Tel: 0207 935 6861.

Tower of London,

adjacent to Tower Bridge.

Admission: Adults: £11, OAPs £8.30, Children: £7.30. Open: 9am-5pm (Sundays 10am-5pm).

Tel: 0207 709 0765.

For information on GNER's regular trains to London, call 0845 748 4950...