You can't go home again
I'm off to London for a holiday tomorrow so there won't be any posts for a week or more. I haven't been home in two years so I'm excited to be going (not least because I get show my little girl the city her Daddy grew up in) but that's mixed with the sad feeling I always get when I go back that it's changed too much for me to really feel at home there anymore.
The other day I was talking with another London-born friend of mine who lives in New York and we both agreed we couldn't live there now as the place we knew just doesn't exist, not just because the clubs, pubs and cafes we knew are gone but now there's a level of in-your-face vulgarity, rudeness and 24/7 consumerism I really didn't think the English were capable of. Which is fair enough, London is a vibrant, modern city and is supposed to move forward, there are more great restaurants, more shops, more choice in all sorts of things (if you have the money) but I'd gladly lose a little of that in exchange for fewer surly teens jabbering loudly and moronically into their cellphones on the bus, fewer nasty drunks in the West End on a Saturday night, and fewer chain coffee shops (aren't we supposed to drink tea?) Yes, I've turned into my Dad, he was born there too but left when he retired, couldn't stand the traffic and the people anymore.
But it's still the place I grew up in and lived for 30 years, my family are there along with a million great memories, they can't take that away from me. No matter what I'll always think this song is true.
Download: London's Brilliant - Wendy James (mp3)
Buy: "Now Ain't The Time For Your Tears" (album)
12 Comments:
oh it's always been full of horriblness and you know it - surly teens have always been surly teens and saturdays have always been given to the mob and as many pubs clubs and cafes have surfaced as have been lost. a year away and i miss it all - i'm back next month for the rest of my days and i can't think of anywhere i'd rather be.
have a smashing time
x
I think the West End is a lot worse than it used to be for beligerent, vomiting drunks - women too, these days.
We knew how to drink in my day. Harumph.
Well, it's not a patch on 30, but I did live for almost eleven years in London. During that time I actually found it DID get meaner, faster, and more frustrating. Added to a mix of dreadful commuting, cramped housing, and ever-increasing office time it was enough to make us decamp to Vancouver. Ahh, bliss...
But I do miss Berwick Street. And Skoob Books. And the V&A. And the Dirty Water Club. And proper beer. And builder's tea. And proper pints in proper pubs. And Neal's Yard Dairy. And the Kew Garden's Palm House. And Clapham Junction trainspotters. And Routemaster buses...
Sigh. Enjoy your visit.
Have a good holiday, Lee, and think of the rest of us expats who can't go back this year. See you soon.
Enjoy your visit Lee
But remember we don't use cellphones - it's mobiles - you've been away too long.
(But it is loud & moronic)
T
When the's 'ardly no day
Nor 'ardly no night
There's things 'alf in shadow
And 'alf way in light
On the rooftops of London
Ooh, what a sight.
Chim chim eree, old mates!
DickVanDyke
Ah if only it was London. Welcome back to England.
Sorry its come to this.
There are still lovely corners that escape the crashing horror of the West End, and I'm afraid that your old stamping ground fell to the rampant gentrifiers, which is a shame. I liked the old Fulham.
I'm still proud to call myself a Londoner though. I love where I live. I love taking the bus up west to potter around the pretty shops. I especially love the fact that my daughter is growing up and playing and learning with children from different cultures in a city that can show her the world. You know you're alive in London.
... but I'd gladly lose a little of that in exchange for fewer surly teens jabbering loudly and moronically into their cellphones on the bus, fewer nasty drunks in the West End on a Saturday night, and fewer chain coffee shops ...
don't you get this everywhere?
You can't go back, as I discovered when I went back to Leeds after 12 years in Sydney. What I thought was homesickness was nostalgia because home just wasn't there any more...
You can go back, but you can never go home, it's true.
I was born & schooled in London, lived and worked there for 43 years therefore I am a Londoner, you can take the boy/girl out of London, but you can never take London out of the boy/girl.
2 years after I left for the West Coast of the USA, to get married, my Mother sold the family home of 46 years that I knew and loved.
That was shock enough, but when I returned to visit 2 years later, I counted 18 distinct changes from Heathrow to the new house.
That was 6 years ago, so what can it be like now?
When I went to Primary School, (not First School or Elementary School), there was a 2 foot high wall surrounding it, we stepped over it.
When I went to take some photos to show my teenage step-daughter here, I found a 12 foot high wire fence topped with razor wire, security lights and cameras, the front gate was locked, although school was in session.
I took a few photos from a public park and from the pavement, and a police car approached, sirens blazing, I made a hasty retreat using the back alleyways that I had become familiar with as a young child.
A great sadness overcame me as to where the London of my youth had gone.
I then went to my middle school, and there were builders working on scaffolding. I could only take photos from the other side of the street because of the narrow road, and before I got back to my car, the builders were interrogating me as to what I was up to! They only let me go when I confirmed the name of the headmaster back in 1972!
The on to my High School, took some innocent photos from across the street, then police cars again! Back Alleyways again, I left, saddened greatly.
I had no such problems taking photos of the Hospital I was born in, nor my college...
anyhoo, point is, the place I grew up in is gone. :-(
Best Regards
Leon
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