Summers in the East End
Memories of London from 2007 and 2009.
A young woman on the sidewalk collecting wild berries that grew next to the travellers’ compound.
A young Polish man with construction site scars on his hands and arms.
A man in his thirties riding with exertion his bike over the bridge that crosses the A12 from Hackney Wick to Victoria Park, sunburns down his calves.
Victoria Park in late afternoons, filled with shirtless men kicking a ball, women lying on the grass, couples too close together in the shade.
An open balcony door, wind stirring the leaves but not cooling anything.
I walked London’s East End streets almost every day during the summer of 2007. It was a ten-minute walk from my tower block to Mile End tube station. To distract myself each morning, and each evening when I returned from work, I chose different routes through the neighbourhood.
I often walked past a school for girls. Built in the Victorian era, the school must have once been a cherished institution for the families that lived in the terraced houses around it. Maybe it still was. It took in girls from various backgrounds, mostly 1st generation immigrants, with some from the older local families.
They arrived in small groups in the mornings, or sometimes by themselves. I once saw one of them smoking outside the gates, her last fag before the bell rang.
A gay couple wondering about their future.
An instrumental playlist on Spotify called Music for Typewriters.
Shirtless men jogging up and down Regent's Canal.
A solitary ham and salad sandwich at London Fields.
One day, I fell into step behind a tiny girl with black lustrous hair tied into a ponytail. She wore a neat blue uniform, with a skirt that reached below her knees. She walked silently and purposefully. I wasn’t thinking of her until I realised she was choosing the streets that led to the school. We walked underneath trees shimmering with morning breeze, warm sunshine touching everything. She turned left onto the school’s street. I also turned left but she was no longer there, vanished like a ghost.
By the time I returned from work, the girls’ school was locked up and silent. It stayed that way for the rest of the summer.
In the following weeks I’d sometimes catch builders kicking a ball in its courtyard or doing maintenance work.
A writer sat on a bench in Victoria Park, writing in his journal.
A line up gathered by the window of an ice cream van.
Seagulls crying like dogs, circling picnic tables.
Office workers doing a collection round so that someone can pop outside to buy ice creams for the team.
School children gathered under the shades of great oaks, their packed lunches opened on their laps.
Back then, while you stood pressed against someone in a crowded tube train during the morning rush hour, you’d notice seated people avoiding eye contact with pregnant woman near you. These commuters were well dressed and seemed to be on their way to comfy offices and happy bonuses. They glanced up at the bumps and then returned to their newspaper/paperback/iPods. When a woman finally offered a seat (and it was always, invariably, a woman) the pregnant woman would sit down with an audible thank you and a muttered curse under her breath for everyone else.
University students taking a break from their studies to sunbathe or read paperback novels.
Builders sweating in the heat as they passed along large slabs of wood.
The homeless squatting in the shades down Camden High Street, half-heartedly begging for money.
Hasidic girls opening a canal’s flood gates for a narrowboat to go through, under the command of a stern but attentive young instructor.
A flotilla of children inside colourful canoes clogging Regent’s Canal further up, splashing each other with paddles.
My work commute changed in 2009 when I got a job with an arts organisation based in Hackney. I began to use the canal’s towpath during the week. I once saw a large carp and wondered if the canals would one day be as clean as primordial rivers and London's Eastend residents would finally enjoy them like open-ended lidos. The swans and coots didn’t seem to mind the floating plastic bags.
One morning, a girl tangled her cloth bag with her bike's front wheel, spun in the air and landed at my feet, ensnared by the bike's spokes. I helped her up and asked if she was OK, then tried to make a joke that at least she hadn't fallen into the canal.
‘That would have been terrible,’ she said.
She was deeply embarrassed and cycled away all hunched up, as if she wished she could disappear.
Up ahead, I came across a note tied to the canal's railings:
To the girl who crashed into me yesterday (01/07/09), I never got a chance to get your number. Drop me an e-mail. [e-mail address]
Victoria Park lay beyond the canal’s railings, its grass dry and brittle from a long summer with little rain.
A giant sunflower drooping down, a bee crawling on its black eye.
A grey heron flying a foot above the water.
A crow calling out to all and sundry from the top of an apartment building.
A red-nosed and dazed drunk, sitting on a Victoria Park bench, eyeing everyone suspiciously.
A beautiful guy looking at you twice.
Lovely piece. I'm a country boy and just can't stand city living. I lived in Oxford for a few years and would never go back. Now I'm in a suburb in Portsmouth that thankfully has lots of green and I'm much happier for it.
As an aside; since moving to the UK my barometer for heat has been when the skinny blokes start taking their shirts off. :p