Maybe it’s because I’m not a Londoner…

Issue 9 of Smoke – a London Peculiar is out now, if you can find it. A fascinating mix of whimsy, romanticism and psychogeography, there’s little out there like it. It almost makes me want to wend away a quiet afternoon on the P5 bus between the Elephant and Castle and Nine Elms.
Well, almost.
Meanwhile, the Tapestry Gallery on Frith Street has been showing an exhibition by the photographer Katherine Green showing the independent shops and the people that run them in Wood St, Walthamstow (pics here). This was one of my old stomping grounds when I was a kid, and my nan still uses these shops on an almost daily basis. I never used to like going in them with her, though. They were all a bit creepy.
I was chatting with my dad and uncle over Christmas about the changing face of the Stow, my birthplace and home on and off until we finally moved out to Reading 2 and a bit years ago. Uncle Michael lives in Australia now, and hasn’t seen Walthamstow since he was last over three years ago. My dad has always hated it, and is vocal in why he feels that way. I bite my tongue while they grumble about immigrants, and muse on my own feelings about the place.
It’s always been an area where different cultures gather, and the High Street, London’s longest, is home to just about every kind of ethnic supermarket and stall. In summer it’s like the souk in Marakesh. In winter, the street scenes from Blade Runner. I loved it, and it’s a part of me, but it’s becoming more down-at-heel and battered with every passing year. The downmarket charm it used to have now seem squalid. The money that was always promised for regeneration doesn’t seem to have appeared. The cleared ground for the new library and arcade is still just that. The grade II listed cinema is boarded up and un-used, although there are campaigns to get it reinstated as a movie house. People are moving into the area due to the ease with which you can get into the centre of London, but for the most part they are gathering in the small wedge of land north and east of the High St that ever-inventive estate agents are calling Walthamstow Village. The divide between the top and bottom end of the High Street gets wider, and the all the promises that were made to the people that live there recede into memory, unfulfilled. Meanwhile, I moved to Berkshire with TLC, trading a two-bed terrace with a postage stamp backyard for our big house and massive garden. I thought leaving Walthamstow would tear me up inside. Instead, I barely think about the place anymore. It pops up on the news sometimes, usually in association with something bad.
When we drove away from our Walthamstow house for the last time, I switched on the radio. REM were playing Leaving New York. They were at the chorus. Michael Stipe was singing “Leaving is easier than being left behind.”
At that moment, I knew we’d made the right decision.