Moving to Croydon…
The Ikea Towers, viewed from Wandle Park
‘A change is as good as a rest’ was one of my dad’s
favourite sayings. He forget to mention however, that there is sometimes a big
difference between the two experiences. A rest suggests a period of recovery
from the stresses and strains of modern everyday life. A change, on the other
hand, can involve a different way of approaching life, and might include
challenges and actions that are both demanding and stressful. Yet some of these
challenges can also be enervating, fun and exciting, providing the opportunity
to look at and experience the world with a fresh pair of eyes. Our move from a
3 bedroom quiet semi in a sleepy part of a dormitory town outside London to a
flat on a main road, in a part of south
London, that has some justifications for claiming itself to be a city within a
city, is certainly proving itself to be quite a change.
It is interesting to consider the associations that are
contained within the two different addresses. Our old address of 10 Hanbury
Path, Sheerwater, Woking, Surrey , GU21 5RB sounds to me quite middle class, a secluded
hideaway in leafy, suburban Surrey . Our new
address though gives little away. I now reside at 200C St James Road , Croydon. I live in a flat
in a place, that is a part of London
but in some sense (at least via its address) seems a bit unwilling to commit to
it. It has become apparent to me, having lived here for a mere 3 days, that the
people of Croydon can have very different senses of identity. The friendly
young lad at the Co-op supermarket, where I purchased the items for my first
Croydon breakfast, was insistent that Croydon was really a part of Surrey,
though he did admit that many other Croydon residents would consider it a part
of London , as
indeed it officially is. Yet perusing a more than a week’s old local newspaper,
that they were still selling at the supermarket, I read of how some of
Croydon’s ambitious movers and shakers were keen to get Croydon recognized as a
city. I must confess that the idea of cities within cities was a novel one to
me, and yet London
has now become so fast, that perhaps such an idea is not as ridiculous as it
first sounds.
Yet names can sometimes mislead. My old address was in what
the current Woking Council wished (for its own ulterior purposes) to describe
as a ‘very deprived’ part of the borough. Yet you should not always fully
believe what a Council tells you. When it was first built in the early 1950s,
the Sheerwater Housing Estate was considered a fine example of what a modern
housing estate should be. The houses had decent sized rooms and gardens, and
many of the pine trees, planted in the 19th century to help drain
the land, still stood as guardians to a
development, where people took a certain pride in the appearance of their
properties. Although in the intervening 60 odd years, the estate has
experienced some of the negative changes that seem to go hand in hand with the
modern world, many of its current residents are still decent, hard-working
people, striving like most of us to improve their lives. Many were therefore
shocked and dismayed when the Council, using the excuse that it was such ‘a
deprived area’, joined forces with a developer to come up with a proposal that
involved knocking down many of the houses on the estate and building all over
the recreation ground. Although not directly affected by the proposal, (my wife
and I’s house not being within the dreaded red zone), the sheer injustice of a
proposal that intended destroying perfectly good homes, in order to provide the
developer with a profit and assist the Council to fulfil its housing
obligations spurred me into playing a small role in the opposition to such a
greedy, ill thought out proposal. The only good thing that can be said about
the whole episode, which is still being debated, is that the community of
Sheerwater has come together in almost wholesale opposition to the current
proposal, and that it has shown itself to be a place, which still takes pride
in itself and which deserves far more respect and appreciation than the Council
and Developer have so far given it.
Strangely enough, having lived in Sheerwater, Woking for more than 21 years, it has been the prospect
of facing much of its demolition, that has made me feel much more attached to
the place. I remember an elderly lady, named Sue, who’s allotment I had done a
bit of work on, standing up at a public meeting and explaining to both
Councillors and Developers that she was quite happy in her small house and
garden and had no desire to be transferred into a 4th floor flat
with some communal garden. Being able to potter in her own garden and chat over
the fence to the neighbours was one of life’s little pleasures, that neither
Council nor Developer could fully seem to appreciate. I remember also the two
leaders of the Sheerwater Homes Alliance, Ian and Sue, who have recently spent
all their spare time publicizing what was really going on, organizing meetings
and fighting not just to save their own homes but those of many others, and
who, one feels would make far better Councillors than the ones currently in
post.
As a lover of nature though, I can’t help but raise a wry
smile when I think of the many tree blessed estate of Sheerwater, and compare
it to the busy main road, on which I now reside. I seem to have moved from a
place, struggling valiantly to keep the developer and bulldozers at bay to one
that is clearly a continuous building site. Numerous cranes rear their stately
metal heads over the surrounding buildings, and before one tower block has been
completed, another is half constructed and yet another is about to be begun. I
am relieved however that the funds have finally been found to finish the large
tower block, situated about half a mile from where I live on St James Road . When we first began
visiting Croydon about 3 years ago, it was a half-built monstrosity, seemingly
abandoned to remain a hideous eyesore, a veritable stain, like the fairly
recent riots, on Croydon’s declining reputation. Now that it is finally
finished, its coloured glass seems to convey a certain brash confidence, yet
already it risks being overshadowed by its taller, more colourful twin brother,
which is being built nearby.
The Unfinished Brother
The view from our front room though is far more prosaic.
From our large sash window, I can see a Newsagents, some kind of delivery company,
a doctor’s surgery, a motorbike shop, a small general store, which is also an
off license, and a chemists. There are two stories of flats above the shops, so
that I could conceivably wave to a number of my neighbours across the road. On
our busy street, there is a more or less constant flow of vehicles and a
continuous trickle of pedestrians. Such a view encourages a degree of
voyeurism, and my wife and I have become avid people watchers, watching and
even recognizing after less than a week some of the people that wait around the
bus stop. This is located in front of the motorbikes, being displayed for sale,
as if to encourage the bus passengers to indulge in a more exciting , glamorous
form of transport.
One of the ways we assess these strangers is by how likely
they are to visit our imaginary Tea Rooms. How temped do we think they’d be by
the prospect of recuperating for a while from the stresses and strains of
modern life, by a visit to a cosy quiet sanctuary, where the most difficult
decision would be whether to have a cake or scone with their tea? Perhaps it is
a sign of our business naivety but we have reached the conclusion that more
than 50% of our pedestrianised passers by would be tempted by the comfort and
refuge of our wonderful Tea Rooms. It’s just a shame that we’ll probably never
have the opportunity to test out such a conclusion.
Bus stop and motorbikes
It is now 5 days since I arrived to live in Croydon, and I
have explored a reasonable amount of the central area on foot, discovered the
whereabouts of East and West Croydon stations,
found the fruit and veg market on Surrey
Street and a good, helpful chemists in Addiscombe.
I have revelled in the variety of buildings and people that I’ve come across,
and been pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of most of the people I’ve
met. As I sit in a civilized café near
the Job Centre, where I perhaps rashly told a nice lady, that I was going to
set up my own business, rather than claim Jobseekers Allowance, I again have
time to sit and watch the passers by. Their backdrop is a grey fence, on top of
which is advertised a new housing development, named Ruskin Square, a
development that is clearly still in its infancy, as I can see no sign of
buildings above the fence. Croydon seems to be a growing and dynamic place and
I only hope that I can find my niche within it. I have given up my job as a
self-employed gardener, and come to Croydon in search of fame and fortune. Such
rash and reckless behaviour may merely be the sign of a mid-life crisis, but I
can only hope that my discovery of Croydon will coincide with a discovery of
something worthwhile within myself.
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