Sunday, December 09, 2007

To Wallington...

... with Mother, to a concert organised by the Beddington, Carshalton, and Wallington Musical Society. It was a happy evening - beautiful music, and it was in the Mallinson Room at Wallington Library, where, long years ago, I wrote my first job applications for local newspapers, after looking up the relevant addresses in Willings Press Directory. Later, as a Borough Councillor, I sat on the Committee looking after, among other things, all the local libraries, and later still wrote some books on local history (Croydon Airport) which are still on sale there - we passed a nice display of them as we arrived.

It was a coincidence that brought us to the concert - Jamie's brother D. and his wife J. were both playing in it, as part of a Quartet, and contacted us, knowing this was my home patch.
When people write about the place where they grew up, the nostalgia can be mawkish. I don't think that can work with suburbia...but I realised, sitting in the Library, how the London suburbs that I knew, and the culture of which shaped me, had a "feel" and a flavour that is slipping away...clubs and committees, things now grandly called "the voluntary sector", groups and societies run with enthusiasm, for the sheer joy of things - can these survive the crush of consumerism and political correctness and inertia and health-and-safety rules and all that? The High Streets treets of the suburbs now ring more often with drunken shrieks and scuffling fights than with the chatter of people hurrying out of meetings and concerts...

Anyway, we had a happy time, met old friends, enjoyed the wonderful music, and came back to Mother's for late snacks and cheerful talk...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

In the past were the suburbs as cosy, safe and wholesome as you suggest? They had a high divorce rate, houses were frequently burgled, mediocrity abounded. From the moment they were built it was predicted that they would become, as they have, the slums of the future. Many of the residents were the victims of shark-like speculative developers who sold houses that would eventually fall down and enslaved their owners in debt for years to come. Occupied by wage-slaves, they are places to escape from, not to emulate. Their mentality is summed up in the Daily Mail. Their residents' future lies in the cemetery. In time this will become a wilderness. Apart from the ponds, Carshalton is a dump and Merton and New Malden a wasteland.

Anonymous said...

Where does "anonymous" suggest people live?
It doesn't matter where you reside the divorce rate, theft, mediocrity are all a result of more complicated issues.
I agree that we have all been hearded in some way like sheep through masive media/fast food instant gratification etc, but isn't that where God enters in. We as a people need to re-program ourselves and find our joy once again in our creator. Everyones BODY will eventually go to the cemetary, but what about our souls?

Mary-

Anonymous said...

Warm Cozy homes in which you were raised. Family time together around the table each day. Working together. Jobs,school.church.activities,meals shared with relatives. Traditions followed. Safe place refuge from the world out there. Feeling loved and excepted by family. Your home. We all had one. Some were ideal others not so much, but home just the same-suburbs my home. Familar-memories. Folks who cared about me and knew my parents-neighbors.

Anonymous said...

What hilarious comments, all anonymous! Does this mean that the commentators are ashamed to admit that they live in the suburbs?