During the war years of 1939-1945 the station was often known as "Ampersand railway station" - this was due to a typically bureaucratic application of emergency regulations. To hinder enemy troops in the event of an invasion it was ordered that all station names should be painted out on station name-boards, and this was interpreted at Bushey & Oxhey to mean the words 'Bushey' and 'Oxhey' but not the '&'. For the duration of the war, therefore, the station proudly bore the designation '&' - a tribute to official thinking everywhere!