Farewell To The Smoke

I moved to South London 20 years ago and I've kind of been "from" there ever since. I make the distinction about which side of the Thames I landed on because it's important. It was made abundantly clear to me that I had made a choice and formed an allegiance from the off. I didn't know anything about North London when I made the 30 mile move to West Norwood. I knew plenty about the South as I'd spent half my spare time there as a kid at my aunt's. But North London was alien to me. The lad whose family I lived with told me that North London was full of nasal whining "fishwives" barking orders at their mewling hordes of rickets afflicted kids from the doorsteps of Chalk Farm.

I never gave much thought to South London's allure. I moved there to find work, meet girls that I hadn’t gone to school with and to stop getting into scraps with the blokes I had gone to school with. I wasn’t bothered about street crime in London after dealing with some of the Neanderthals who had been unleashed into the world from my school the previous summer. In London, it seemed people only wanted to cave your head in for money, and when you dressed like I did in those days, you weren’t about to get mugged.

At first I commuted to Liverpool Street for work and buffeted up against City types. Some may argue that these people are the real Londoners as they feed the financial engine. In my experience they’re boorish Essex twats. The people I identified as Londoners were my mates in the South, and because of this I developed a strong attachment to the area that I never had for my hometown. I remember reading one of those Rough Guide tourist books about London that described the south of the river as being a hidden but more authentic working class London that people rarely see. The twat from Stereo MCs eulogised South London as having a physical bass in the fabric of the streets (or something). But the truth was – and a trip on the new London Eye will demonstrate all too painfully – there’s pretty much fuck all below the river.

North London has a lot more “stuff” there, but essentially, I’ve learnt, it’s essentially the same city, with some different migration patterns, some surreal alterations in architecture and infrastructure and a lot of people who think they’re better than everyone else. South London is still a hidden city. And one the great things about it is its invisibility. London, like many big cities, has a large percentage of achingly hip arseholes that move there to be cool. Thankfully, anywhere that doesn’t have a Tube station doesn’t exist to these “Londoners”. They’re the ones who swarm about to “happenings” and “events” and are involved in “scenes”. They're parasites and they have nothing to do with the city that I lived in

My city has been populated by a vast and bewildering array of madmen, eejits, geniuses, cunts and top people. Many of them left, some got beaten by the place, and some remain. During my time I’ve drank its shit beer, danced in its fountains, slept in its cells, taken its powders and pills, wondered into its elicit basements, stroked my chin in its galleries... I’ve lived alongside Streatham trash and been appalled by Shooters Hill scum. I’ve blagged and scraped my way around the place, until I finally settled in my favourite part of the city: Crystal Palace. A little non-place really that once had a giant greenhouse. A triangular roundabout with the spirit of a village. Essentially a bus terminal with a park. It’s a beautiful place, honestly, and for so long no one seemed to realise. I’ll miss it. But it’s changing. The rents keep rising and the children’s strollers look more and more like dune buggies since it appeared on the Tube map (as an “Overground” station). It's beginning to feel a lot like everywhere else.

When I first started working in Palace in 1993 there were three huge Irish pubs that were the centre of the community. Slowly the theme pubs and eateries wiped them all out except one. The last proper pub in Palace was run “The Mayor”. An old Irish lad who wore a Christian cross next to a star of David in order to hedge his bets in the afterlife. He was a real publican, a real character, and the last link to what the place used to be. I had some great chats with him at lock-ins over the years. He sadly passed away a few years back leaving the pub to deteriorate into the sort of hovel you wipe your feet on the way out. And to me, the Palace I knew kind of faded away too.

So I’m off in the New Year. I’ll still be working up here for the time being, but that will have to change. The very worst thing about London is trying to move across the face of it with all the other poor damned souls who endure its commutes. Then it will be over. I’ll come back – to visit football, and music and friends, but I won’t move back. I’d hate to be old in this city.

I think back to when I first came here and who I was. My granddad wrote me a letter asking me to take care of myself in the big city. I never gave it much thought at the time. The kid I lived with took the piss out of it, and I think I threw it away. Looking back, for better or for worse I think I did everything he advised against and sometimes I think I’m lucky I got out of it as intact as I did.