A South London Year
A year ago, as the blossoms bloomed as bright and as bold and as brilliant as they do now, a journey was made through London. A van parked outside a block of ex-council flats in East London and was loaded with earthly possessions – a suitcase of clothes, boxes of books, bags of coathangers. Cacti and succulents were interspersed amongst it all, as an ever-growing Monstera supervised.
The van turned left, then right, then left as it went through the streets of Hoxton towards Bethnal Green. Down past the local school, the familiar park, the cobbled streets leading to the flower market. Down it went along Hackney Road, past the gift shops, the plant shops, the bike shops.
The sun beamed a bright and brilliant blue, sending warmth in through the front window of the van. The windows were open and arms rested on the rolled down tops, luxuriating in the newness of the season.
Across Whitechapel Road it went, weaving through the streets that were the first welcome to the city, filled with local supermarkets, mosques, and crumbling Art Deco blocks. Into Shadwell it went, further still through familiar streets, past the swimming pool, that scene of a hair wash when the boiler broke, before venturing further east.
Into the Rotherhithe Tunnel the van went. Down into the belly of the Thames, into that marvel of Victorian engineering and Edwardian construction. Down through that two lane burrow of car fumes and congestion. Down and along, further down, and further along, the journey continued.
Until suddenly there was room to breathe as the van drove upwards from the tunnel. The blue, blue sky meeting with the vibrant emerald grass of Southwark Park. ‘Welcome to your new home,’ the driver declared, as the van drove past pubs packed with people. The pints outside, the joy of spring, the luxurious warmth of sun on skin.
Finally, with a left, a right, a left, the van arrived and parked underneath a row of blossoms blooming, as bright and as bold and as brilliant as they bloom now.
A whole year has passed, a year of South London explorations. Of seeing the Shard shining daily from the front door. Of picnics in Greenwich Park as the final blossoms fell last May. Of summer parties and picnics in Dulwich. Of autumn walks through Peckham and Camberwell, winding through the backstreets lined with brick terraces and council blocks.
A whole year has passed, a year of South London meals and celebrations. Of friends visiting – for weeks and weekends, for balcony dinners, for picnics in parks. A year of midnight dancing in the kitchen, warm with whiskey. A year of house meals and considered attempts at seasonal cooking. A year of travelling and of returning to this oasis, the softening of home.
A whole year has passed, a year of South London living. The blossoms have returned – bursts of pink, white, and magenta throughout the city. Streets accustomed to winter – the grey and brown mix of brick and concrete – are almost unrecognisable as they become lined with trees, heavy with the abundance of the season. Georgian squares that were delights in the autumn are now glorious in the spring. From the kitchen, the sun glistens and ripples through walls of magenta as the sky glimmers with the evening drawl of light.
Over Easter, as the apple blossoms bloomed and caught the sun, Diana Evans’s Ordinary People was devoured. As the afternoon sun illuminated the daubs of pink in the centre of the white curve petals, the depictions of South London were read and re-read.
After a year of South London life, it was a refreshing delight to read of the area now well known, reflected back. There was a moment where a bus route was described – through Dulwich, crawling through Camberwell, up the Walworth Road, and across Waterloo to Charing Cross – in such detail that each twist and turn was felt. The familiarity of those streets, of that journey, was startling and comforting all at once. This South London life depicted with such evocative ease, so as to sit alongside the character on the bus and from that vantage point, glimpsing the leafy streets of East Dulwich, the exuberance of Elephant and Castle, the curve of St. Paul’s, as seen from the stretch of road passing from Denmark Hill to Camberwell Green.
The book traversed through the seasons, all the changes that can happen in a year. 'You must cross the river, to the other side of yourself', one character declared, and with this return of the blossoms, and with this turn of the sun, it is understood. The oasis of home amidst a city as busy as this arrived only with the crossing of the river to this South London life.
"There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."
- The Naked City, 1948