smallhobbit (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smallhobbit) wrote2013-09-22 06:24 pm
smallhobbit) wrote2013-09-22 06:24 pm
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Thirty Days Meme: Day 29 - London
I was born in London; my birth certificate states my place of birth as being the City of Westminster. I was born in Charing Cross Hospital, before it moved to Fulham. The hospital is famous in Sherlock Holmes terms both as being the hospital that Dr Mortimer, of Hound of the Baskervilles fame, had worked at and as the hospital Holmes was taken to after he was attacked in The Illustrious Client.
My maternal grandfather was a Cockney, born within the sound of the Bow bells, but you would never have known it from his accent, for he was a respectable headmaster. At the time of my birth my parents lived in a flat in Soho; at one point my grandfather, on his way to their flat to meet the plumber, my mother being at work, was accosted by one of the 'ladies' from the area. He was quite affronted. My mother used to wheel me in my pram around the area, where the nice ladies would make admiring noises. I however ignored them, preferring to smile instead at the American GIs who helped my mother get the pram onto the pavement.
A year later we moved to north London, to a flat with a garden and then a further six years along, we moved to Basingstoke when my father's company moved out there, as what was known as London overspill.
I returned to London after university, living first in a basement flat on Walpole Street, which runs off the Kings Road and then once we were married on a flat on the fifth floor of a house in Cheyne Place, with views of the Thames. It was a great time for getting to plays, concerts and such like, but like many people we had to make the decision as to whether to move to the outskirts and spend hours travelling each day or move outside London altogether and we moved out.
I have a love/hate relationship with the city now. I enjoy the concerts, plays and museums, walking along the Embankment in the evening. At times I envy those who live there and have the facilities easily available. I don't like the crowds and the tourists, and I hate arriving at Paddington Station, descending to the tube station and having to battle my way through the hordes in the concourse. Would I want to live there? No, not any more.
My maternal grandfather was a Cockney, born within the sound of the Bow bells, but you would never have known it from his accent, for he was a respectable headmaster. At the time of my birth my parents lived in a flat in Soho; at one point my grandfather, on his way to their flat to meet the plumber, my mother being at work, was accosted by one of the 'ladies' from the area. He was quite affronted. My mother used to wheel me in my pram around the area, where the nice ladies would make admiring noises. I however ignored them, preferring to smile instead at the American GIs who helped my mother get the pram onto the pavement.
A year later we moved to north London, to a flat with a garden and then a further six years along, we moved to Basingstoke when my father's company moved out there, as what was known as London overspill.
I returned to London after university, living first in a basement flat on Walpole Street, which runs off the Kings Road and then once we were married on a flat on the fifth floor of a house in Cheyne Place, with views of the Thames. It was a great time for getting to plays, concerts and such like, but like many people we had to make the decision as to whether to move to the outskirts and spend hours travelling each day or move outside London altogether and we moved out.
I have a love/hate relationship with the city now. I enjoy the concerts, plays and museums, walking along the Embankment in the evening. At times I envy those who live there and have the facilities easily available. I don't like the crowds and the tourists, and I hate arriving at Paddington Station, descending to the tube station and having to battle my way through the hordes in the concourse. Would I want to live there? No, not any more.