london – Page 2 – Anne-Marie Ormsby

There’s this idea that people should know the very moment when they fall in love, that for some reason there would be a moment, ‘stars would explode in the sky’ as Nick Cave put it. But they don’t, there is no epic firework display, the earth continues to turn and nobody else on earth knows it has happened. That’s why you forget the precise moment.

I don’t recall the moment I knew I was in love with London; I think it had built slowly over the years. But I feel it more clearly now, every morning when my bus turns out onto London bridge and suddenly the sides fall away, I am over the river and I can see the city laid out before me, Tower Bridge to my right, St Pauls to my left, and everything in-between and I catch a breath, my heart swells and I feel it. Love.

I grew up out on the coast in south east Essex, an idyllic childhood of parks and playgrounds and trips to the beach after school. I used to walk home from school sometimes along the seafront, even in winter just to feel the biting air and feel alive again after a day of dusty brained learning and stuffy classrooms. I knew I was lucky to grow up there, 45 minutes train ride from London and blessed with fresh air and man-made beaches.

When I was younger, my parents used to take me to London once a year during the October half term holidays. It was so busy and lively and the shops sold things I didn’t see back home, bookshops there were palaces of literature laid out on several floors where I would lose whole afternoons in the poetry section.

I always longed to visit Whitechapel due to my interest in creepy tales of Jack the Ripper but it remained a mysterious tube station that we never got off at. As far as I was concerned it was all still dark alleys and Victorian street urchins up there. As an older teenager I visited Camden with friends and felt at home in all the alternative shops and market stalls, although always slightly nervous of the enormity of it, days out would end with a tired scuttle back to Fenchurch Street and what felt like the longest train journey ever.

In my 20’s I visited a few more times, going to gigs mainly, staying over in hotels occasionally, but I still felt so removed from it all, like it was all behind glass and I was just there as visitor in a giant museum.

When I was 29 I went to Brick Lane for the first time and I loved it, shortly after some of my friends moved to Whitechapel so I started going up more regularly, finally getting off the tube at that mysterious station. The first time I went up on my own felt weird, I was going to places I had never been before and instead of that feeling of distance, I was starting to feel at home.

The day after my 30^th birthday I went on a date with the man I eventually married. We met up at Fenchurch Street and spent the whole day walking around, along the Southbank and back into the city where we wandered down alleyways and found hidden churches, gargoyles and streets empty of life. He showed me a part of London I had never seen before. The City of London is a different place on a Sunday compared to the weekdays when people pour in and out of the skyscrapers and fill in all the gaps between the buildings. At the weekend all that remains is quiet corners, old buildings and new building living side by side quite peacefully, endless amounts of closed branches of Starbucks and Eat that have no purpose without the city workers that fill them during the week days.

I think maybe I fell in love twice that day. With the man I had just met and with the city I had just been shown.

I left my life by the coast and got a job in North London, soon after I moved to South London. I had never lived anywhere other than where I grew up but it felt right, like it was time for me to move on.

I have lived in London for 4 years now, and I never ever get tired of it; my journey to work takes me from the foot of the Shard, past Southwark Cathedral, past Monument, up Bishopsgate, past the Gherkin and the Heron, through Shoreditch and to Hackney. Every morning I look out from the bus as though it’s all still new to me, it’s all still so beautiful to me.

At weekends we take long walks, to Brick Lane and Spitalfields, along the Southbank to Westminster or over to the back streets of Covent Garden and Soho. The difference for me now is that I don’t feel distant anymore, that I belong and I am part of it. Even though my awe still allows that feeling of visiting a giant museum, I feel now that instead of being behind glass I can touch the exhibits and even wander around back rooms not open to the public.

I take photographs incessantly like a day-tripper, I go to an endless supply of art and photography exhibitions, I wander back streets looking for street art and I say a prayer every time I have to brave Oxford Street. I know I won’t live here forever, for one reason or another I will end up by the coast again one day, so while I am here and its all on my doorstep I want to see as much as I can.

This summer in London has been wonderful, the energy and excitement around the Olympics was inspiring; for all our pre-Olympic moaning about stupid mascots, transport and other problems we all got swept away by the ridiculously happy vibe that was created once we started winning gold medals. The transport system ran fine, people talked to each other, we hugged ugly Wenlock and Mandeville statues around town.

London fell in love with itself.

I have so much to say about London, but the rest can wait.

(All Photo’s Copyright of the author)

It has been a weird experience living in London during the riots. Whilst the scenes form Tottenham were shocking they felt somewhat remote for anyone outside that area. The day after I was barely aware of it but horrified to find out that it had all kicked off over a shooting.

It all became very real on the Monday when I was at home on a days holiday and found I was watching the street where I work awash with riot police and gangs of angry missile throwing youths. As in any time of disaster, my eyes were then glued to the TV. So glued in fact that I couldn’t see the fire billowing out on my own high street. The anger was spreading like a virus from a disaster movie.

I’ve lived in Peckham for 3 years now, and despite popular opinion, it’s not a massively dangerous place to live. You become desensitised to gang violence living in London, and 6 months ago when a kid got stabbed down the road from me it was awful, but somehow not a shock.

On the 8^th of August I watched live coverage of a road that is 3 minutes from my house being charged by riot police, kids smashing up shops and stealing clothes. They even robbed a pound shop. I had friends updating me from Clapham saying the shop they lived above was being smashed up, while I watched the action on the TV. I saw the whole thing as it was being reported and even though by the time I went to bed at 1.30am, I was numb, I still had this feeling of unreality. Like it was all a movie and that at end the troops would sweep in and clear away the troublemakers. Roll credits.

The next day when I went to work and my high street was smashed up and burnt out it was all real.

What had happened? What had gone on in the collective consciousness for those three nights of London riot ? It was like a disease had spread somehow, zombies roaming streets where cars and bin were ablaze and frightened residents ran away with packed bags, as though the virus might get them too. These hooded zombie monsters were roaming in packs, tearing through windows and pulling out the guts of shops, sloping off with trainers and mobile phones, breaking up anything they couldn’t carry.

But those zombies are the youth of London. The Kaiser Chief’s predicted a riot. And they were right. The signs were there all along, we just didn’t believe it could happen here. On a daily basis in London, thuggish teenagers cause trouble. It’s not an unusual sight to see a smashed shop front in Peckham or Hackney; it’s just the sign of a lively weekend. This is why most shops on Rye Lane have metal shutters, prevention is better than a cure.

But it is the cure that eludes us. The kids are not all right, the kids are angry, the kids feel let down. What happened? What did the adults do to create these monsters? Or what was it that they didn’t do? The rioters were not only teenagers, I did see adult men and women looting too, but were they just joining in with what the youth had started? Taking advantage of the fact that the doors to Debenhams had been left open? There is something wrong when grown women are casually trying on sneakers and then just walking out with them. There is a culture of ‘Take Take’ out there, take from the government, take whatever benefits you can get, take whatever you can from a smashed up shop. Everybody else is doing it why shouldn’t I?

The riots were supposed to have started over the police shooting of one man. But three nights later, teenagers were telling reporters they were rioting because of their taxes. It was not political, it meant nothing. The kids were bored and saw an opportunity to have some fun. Adults were out stealing designer clothes.

If the adults say it’s ok, then what chance do the children have?

I had to come home from work early on Tuesday because Hackney was evacuating and boarding up its remaining windows. It was all across London, police standing guard, shop owners boarding up and getting home before the zombies woke up again, and there was a real sense of fear in the air, like you needed to get home before dark or the vampires would be out. I won’t lie, I was afraid. All I could think about was that I needed to get on a bus and get out of Hackney before anything happened. I was haunted by scenes from the news the night before, thugs forcing people to strip so they could steal their clothes, beaten youths being robbed by passers-by, commuter packed buses being stormed and set alight by angry mobs.

But instead of violence there were brooms. In the most amazing show of community spirit, people were leaving their homes to meet in groups just so they could tidy up what the yobs had broken. 9th of August was about London reclaiming itself, an army of ordinary people armed with brooms and bin bags working together to clear away the burnt out bins and smashed glass. I felt a huge swell of pride for the people of London. Out of the ashes of three nights of chaos, the other face of London rose up and brandished cups of tea and cleaning equipment. That’s why London rocks.

Because even though there is the side of London that does not care, that wants to burn it all down, there is a also the side of London that wants to fix it all, make it clean and make it safe. The very British need to Keep Calm and Carry on, or as some Facebooker’s decided to do with their Tuesday night; Keep Calm and Drink Tea. London has been destroyed so many many times, by mistake, on purpose, by fire, by bombs and by riots. But London has always stood up and dusted itself off afterwards. London has many scars from the riots, many buildings will have to be torn down, shop fronts will have to be replaced, people who were on buses when they were torched will have nightmares and shop owners who were attacked will live in fear for some time.

But this is London and it has recovered from much worse. I have every faith in its ability to carry on just as it has done before. But what do we do to cure the disease that is sweeping through the boroughs? How do we cure the youth of their malaise?

Or is it too late?

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