Sunday 27 September 2009: Never Never Land

In my scrapbook at home have an article published in about 2002 in the London Evening Standard. Written for locals it was about Croydon. It suggested that for maybe tourists high of the ‘Never Never Land’ of central London and all of its delight should – if they wanted to visit the real England – go to Croydon, as it was the nearest place to London where the real England appeared. Central London was somehow unrepresentative of the country as a whole. I thought then, as I do now, that this entire view was true.

It had been so, so very good to see everyone (except the prostitute) from Croydon two nights previous, and likewise to see my London friends in the eaterie on Saturday. I felt passionate about them. However, Croydon as a physical place I had little feeling for. Today was for Indigo. She can’t remember Never Never Land, the place of her birth. Today we went there.

She asked to go to the only things she knew of, the London Eye, and Big Ben. We got there by taxi using the best driver I’d been with in years. He drove London, and drive it well: Sharp, quick witted, fast, yet safe. Indigo was pumped and really enjoyed the London Eye. I was quite emotional, for the first time in the UK. I’d have done anything to be own a place in central London and live there the rest of my life, and Pat bought into the idea. Always did. And within seconds of being outside the taxi I felt the pulse, the rush, the colour, and the energy of central London. The theatres, the art house cinema, the A list exhibitions that London and maybe only four other cities in the world gets. And I longed again for this, thought about my quiet, working class suburb on the outskirts of Melbourne and my long commute, the price we had paid. And it was at this point I evoked in my mind that article in the Evening Standard. Buying in central London was just out of reach in even 1996 – the bottom of the property market before the longest economic boom in modern history – I’d only just started a graduate job. Adeline had family help in buying a 1 bed apartment in Marylebone, surfed the property market and now had a mortgage free three bed detached house in Streatham at the age of 35. Buying in central London went farther and farther out of reach as the boom went on. Central London was a Never Never Land then, and remained ever increasingly through our decision to leave, and was equally so now. In the 2-3 years leading up to our migration we tried hard to find a formula that worked for us in England, but never quite could. Never Never Land is nothing like the real England that the newspaper article evoked. Nor is it anything like the towns in the shires that we could have bought a place in for a mortgage at 5 times my salary, for a 10 minute commute to a station for a one hour train ride to work. My brain says we did the right thing, but standing on the banks of the Thames my heart still yearned.





We got a boat cruise down the Thames to Tower Bridge and back before walking past Big Ben, Westminster Cathedral, Household Cavalry, Trafalgar Square thence to Buckingham Palace. Indigo began to take interest in the statues we saw. So I told her about Winston Churchill and the times in which he lived, and how people feel about him. Then I told her about Oliver Cromwell, the killing of Charles I, and how on the restoration of the monarchy twenty years later the new king Charles II ensured Cromwell’s head was removed from his body and stuck on a spike. I forgotten how there was a statue of Abraham Lincoln across from the Houses of Parliament, so we talked about slavery and the American Civil War. And then I had to talk about Horatio Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar. There was near circularity about that as to explain it I had to mention the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and Napoleon. More talk of wars and blood.

Got the tube from Green Park to South Kensington where we ate at Paul’s. Met Ann, and the Chans and went in the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaur section, and later on the mammals. Very good.

More tube and train. Hell, Victoria Station is so busy. Travel in London is so...well, if not difficult, then intense. There are simply so many people. Now to Streatham Common, letting the girls play. Tamara and Indigo really got on. Tamara looks like Adeline. It struck me yet again what a superb family the Chans were. We not met them since we left – before they were wed and before kids. There they were a great family unit, settled in a nice mortgage free house in London, with safe jobs and a great attitude. Ben is very mentally active and creates a really stimulating environment around Adeline and the kids from which they will most surely benefit. Adeline, so maternal now, was superb.