On Saturday Michelle and I went to visit the area of London in which I grew up. Although I have on previous occasions driven through the area, I have never stopped and walked around so the feeling was a little different this time around. Although the buildings are the same, the look and the feel of the place is quite different. First we went to the house in which I grew up. We lived in an apt in a very large Victorian house which has now been converted into condos.
Michelle took this photo of me outside the building and while the entrance looks the same, it has a new number. This is because a second entrance was created at the place where our bathroom used to be. Gone is the manhole cover on the first step where they used to tip the coal down into our coal storage, replaced by modern tiling. A tree has been planted outside the building. For all the upgrades one would assume they would have done, it seems the same old grotty sash cord windows are still in place despite being several feet wide and incredibly heavy. Michelle had read up on the history of the area and told me things that I had never known. The Crescent and the adjacent streets, also Crescents, were once race tracks!! From the house we walked the block to the Portobello Market. I showed Michelle the places where there had been "bomb sites" when I was a child, the store I went to when I was first allowed to go to the shops on my own, and the bus stop where my dad found £20 during the war (a very large amount at that time) , as well as my first school. We had a good laugh about some of the things. The Market itself is so-o-o different now. When we lived there it was a working class area where ordinary folks went to shop. Now it is a crazy tourist attraction. We didn't do the whole thing because it was just too crowded. The Marks and Spencer store has been replaced with a grocery store, the Woolworths is now a Pound Store and at least 50% of the stalls that once had fruit and veg are now selling hot food from every corner of the world. We quickly left the produce section and headed for the antiques portion which was another eye opener. Because we went to our old house first, we approached this area from the bottom of the hill whereas the tourists obviously got off the Underground in Notting Hill Gate and headed downhill.
Before too long we couldn't fight the flood of people coming towards us and had to abandon the middle of the road. I couldn't believe the swarm of people who filled the street and wasn't sure where they all thought they were going or what they were doing. They didn't seem to be too interested in the stalls filled with mountains of the old silverware that my generation have inherited or just accumulated. If my kids hadn't already told me, it was clear that the next generation isn't the least bit interested in this stuff. There were mountains of silver cruet sets, sugar and milk sets and one thing in particular which brought the reality home to me. One stall about 3 feet wide had a string across it on which was hanging nothing but silver sugar tongs. The same stall had Queen Victoria pennies and silver threepenny pieces by the bowlfull. Somebody tell Roger not to bother hoarding his lousy little cashe of these. They can't give the stuff away on the market.
Michelle took this photo of me outside the building and while the entrance looks the same, it has a new number. This is because a second entrance was created at the place where our bathroom used to be. Gone is the manhole cover on the first step where they used to tip the coal down into our coal storage, replaced by modern tiling. A tree has been planted outside the building. For all the upgrades one would assume they would have done, it seems the same old grotty sash cord windows are still in place despite being several feet wide and incredibly heavy. Michelle had read up on the history of the area and told me things that I had never known. The Crescent and the adjacent streets, also Crescents, were once race tracks!! From the house we walked the block to the Portobello Market. I showed Michelle the places where there had been "bomb sites" when I was a child, the store I went to when I was first allowed to go to the shops on my own, and the bus stop where my dad found £20 during the war (a very large amount at that time) , as well as my first school. We had a good laugh about some of the things. The Market itself is so-o-o different now. When we lived there it was a working class area where ordinary folks went to shop. Now it is a crazy tourist attraction. We didn't do the whole thing because it was just too crowded. The Marks and Spencer store has been replaced with a grocery store, the Woolworths is now a Pound Store and at least 50% of the stalls that once had fruit and veg are now selling hot food from every corner of the world. We quickly left the produce section and headed for the antiques portion which was another eye opener. Because we went to our old house first, we approached this area from the bottom of the hill whereas the tourists obviously got off the Underground in Notting Hill Gate and headed downhill.
Before too long we couldn't fight the flood of people coming towards us and had to abandon the middle of the road. I couldn't believe the swarm of people who filled the street and wasn't sure where they all thought they were going or what they were doing. They didn't seem to be too interested in the stalls filled with mountains of the old silverware that my generation have inherited or just accumulated. If my kids hadn't already told me, it was clear that the next generation isn't the least bit interested in this stuff. There were mountains of silver cruet sets, sugar and milk sets and one thing in particular which brought the reality home to me. One stall about 3 feet wide had a string across it on which was hanging nothing but silver sugar tongs. The same stall had Queen Victoria pennies and silver threepenny pieces by the bowlfull. Somebody tell Roger not to bother hoarding his lousy little cashe of these. They can't give the stuff away on the market.
Later on, having negotiated our way up the hill and eventually escaped the crowd we ended up in a telephone store where the young man confirmed to me that people come in asking where the "sites" of Notting Hill Gate are. I guess the movies in recent years have made people think there is something worth visiting here. I think the tourism marketing people can congratulate themselves.
From here we headed over to Kensington Gardens where I spent much of my childhood. The place most fondly remembered, a particular lawn where my mother used to meet her friends every weekend, is unrecogniseable. New trees have been planted and many of the old ones gone so that the entire look of the place has changed. Only the same paths remain and I could only point to certain places and tell Michelle what happened here, and there and on that corner! We walked through the entire park after visiting a relative at the north end and so stopping for a couple of hours over coffee and lemon cake. At 8 pm we finally stopped for a meal and made it home absolutely exhausted. We had walked a million miles on our first full day and laughed about the fact that neither of us had walked this much in the last year.
The Round Pond Kensington Gardens
(sorry, no time to edit it)
I have a picture taken with my Dad, in this exact spot, when I was 10 years old.
Since we are both still a bit jetlagged and fighting colds, we decided to have a day off today and concentrated on doing some shopping and preparing a bit of food for the evenings when we might get home too tired to cook. We have a full day planned for tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment