This Other London

by John Rogers

  The lights of Harrow twinkle across the valley – the only higher peak in the area, with Uxendon Hill standing at 288 feet, marginally higher than Horsenden Hill.

  We sit on the bench, now in the pitch black, admiring the pumpkin glimmer of the curved lines of street lights. ‘It’s a roaring beauty, Middlesex,’ Nick declares. I concede that I finally see why he has dedicated himself to venerating his home county. It’s a region of bounteous wonder largely overlooked by the rest of London, written off as humdrum suburbia.

  The first time I met Nick we bonded over our shared love of The Fringe of London by Gordon S. Maxwell, published in 1925. Maxwell is the patron saint of the urban rambler, codifying the art and the practice. There is a chapter in the book about Wembley Park written in the year of the Empire Exhibition that ran from 1924 to 1925 and drew twenty-seven million visitors. It gave us the old Wembley Stadium, not the new luminous spaceship below, suggesting perhaps we were right to choose Uxendon Hill as the spot to be saved by aliens from the apocalypse.

  The trig point on Uxendon Hill, with the moon above

  Maxwell came to the park to explore the old Wembley before it was swept away by development. Like us he arrived at this spot at dusk: ‘The lights of the great City of Empire shone brightly beneath me,’ he wrote. We stay taking in the tranquillity of the high ground that had also been deserted when Maxwell was here eighty-seven years before. After a while the cold starts to seep in through my hands and face so we make our way down the hill, sloshing through mud to the Christmas-lit houses in the streets below where we find possibly the greatest legacy of the Empire Exhibition – a curry house. Working our way through plates of rogan josh, aloo paneer and chicken jalfrezi we recount the highlights of the day not knowing when we’ll walk together again. It’ll be soon, I think – I just need to return east to survey the wreckage of the latest grand jamboree over in the Lea Valley.

  It had been some time since I’d done a decent walk on home turf. I’d been so intent on pushing out beyond my usual boundaries that the July morning six months ago when I walked out to Beckton was the last time I’d seriously covered familiar ground. It felt like I’d spent months away – my mind occupying the new lands and obscure postcodes I was exploring. There had been the odd stroll across Wanstead Flats but nowhere near as frequently as usual.

  This is a natural dynamic that comes with the urge to break out for new horizons. In my twenties I went from someone who had never been on a plane to a person who’d seen more of Asia than Europe, then more of Italy than England. After reaching the north-west passage with Nick on Uxendon Hill, the outer limit of this series of journeys so far, it was time to start closer to home. Like a backpacker fresh back from Bondi I was ready to take a look at my local territory with new eyes.

  ***

  A tramp over Leyton Marshes had been on my list since the summer. It’s a great expanse of wilderness beside the once mighty River Lea that you don’t expect to see so close to inner London and it’s a glimpse of the 6th-century ‘Tun by the Lea’ of the Anglo-Saxon settlement. I had instantly fallen in love with it upon first sight of the horses grazing tethered beneath the great electricity pylons that straddle the Lea Valley, the long, swaying marsh grasses and vast skies.

  When I first moved to the area I’d seen an ad in the local paper for a ‘Beating of the Bounds’ – I figured it would be a good way to orient myself after the move across from the Angel. Despite the persistent rain throughout the day around twenty hardy souls turned out to be led around the ancient Lammas Lands by a local vicar and Katy Andrews of the curiously named New Lammas Lands Defence Committee.

  As we waved willow wands and symbolically honoured the parish boundary markers, the history of the Lammas tradition was shouted out whilst we jovially traipsed over a patch of land I had previously never known existed. I’d missed the first ritual act of bouncing a child’s head on a boundary marker by dangling them upside down because I’d got lost on the pitch and putt, and then fell head first into a bank of stinging nettles when attempting to jump across a ditch.

  The idea of Lammas Lands is based on the Celtic system of cattle grazing. Parishioners had common rights to graze cattle on these fields from Lammas Day on 1 August till the old Lady Day on 6 April. People stopped grazing cattle here some time ago, after the railways carved up the area and there were the first encroachments by land-hungry speculators. In 1905 a determined group of local people got together and fought for the Lammas Lands to be ‘devoted to the purpose of an open space in perpetuity.’

  The right to free access to the land was still in place in 2006 but, with the 2012 Olympics on their way, the London Development Agency had their acquisitive eyes on all the spare land around the designated Olympic site. They’d decided that a chunk of the Lammas Lands would be a good place to relocate allotments from Manor Gardens in Hackney.

  There had been a real mood of protest and defiance that day on the Beating of the Bounds, however twee we must have looked with our ribbons fluttering in the wind. All along the way there were reminders that our common-land rights were under greater threat than ever. And people had vowed to defend the ancient rights of free access to the land for the people of Leyton.

  Over the ensuing years there has been a steady stream of calls to action, some initially successful but ultimately futile in the face of the Imperial-scale power of the Olympic Delivery Agency. First, Manor Gardens lost their fight to remain in Hackney and were relocated behind a metal fence at one end of the Marshes on top of a site where the rubble from bombed-out houses in the Blitz had been buried. There was every chance hard-working gardeners would be pulling up shrapnel and roof tiles with their potatoes. Then, in the final months before the Games, a chunk of Leyton Marshes was annexed to build a practice court for the American basketball team. The Vikings had tried to take this land with long-ships, silly helmets and battleaxes, when in fact all it took was a large bouncy ball and some hoops on poles.

  I received the first positive news regarding the marshes for some time in an email from Katy Andrews. A group of Hackney tree musketeers was organizing a wassailing of the community orchards just over the river in Clapton. I had no idea what a wassailing was but it sounded vaguely pagan and would reconnect me with the area through a ritual that would probably involve some form of embarrassment again. I’d be more careful of jumping over ditches this time. It was taking place on Twelfth Night as dictated by tradition, a perfect time to embark on my first significant walk of 2013. I could see what had become of Marsh Lane Fields and Leyton Marshes before joining the wassail to head further along the Lea Valley.

  Another beloved local feature had also been placed under threat by the Olympics – Leyton Orient Football Club. With either West Ham or Tottenham lined up to move into the Olympic Stadium just an over-hit pass away, the Orient had legitimate fears for their survival once a Premier League club moved into the area. I’d never been to watch the Os despite the fact that their Brisbane Road ground was just a short walk from my front door. Before I ventured back across the marshes on the Sunday I needed to check in with my local professional football club for the first time, to tie the ancient traditions together.

  Attending your first football match has in some ways replaced the Beating of the Bounds as the means of learning your local boundaries. It’s a rite of passage in which the young, predominantly but not exclusively boys, are introduced to a sense of tribalism and clan loyalty. I remember the FA Cup clash between Wycombe Wanderers and Bournemouth more vividly than my first kiss, even though that happened significantly later. Travelling by bus with my dad, Uncle Stan and my older cousins Robbie and Dave. The crush as the crowds funnelled into the turnstiles. The sound of the 2,000 people crammed into the wooden stands of Loakes Park. The smell of the wintergreen on the players’ legs as they came out of the tunnel. The tea so strong it could support a spoon standing upright. And the fish and chips back in town after the match.

  My elder son had a half-introduction into this at W
est Ham’s Upton Park. But it came via a friend who had use of a corporate box for the day, so Ollie consequently spent three-quarters of the match watching CBBC on a TV inside whilst being waited on hand and foot. After the match I insisted we walked home in the rain across Wanstead Flats in order to get his feet back on the ground.

  Patrick Brill, otherwise known as Bob and Roberta Smith, or simply Bob to me, lives two streets away and had mentioned he wanted to take his son to a match so I pinged him an invite. He didn’t hesitate to accept. Bob’s first and last match had been Reading vs Millwall in 1984. This would be his son’s first match as it would for my younger boy, Joseph. It was a big responsibility – there’d be no going back for them after this – Leyton Orient vs Crewe Alexandra would be forever carved into the narrative of their lives. There was every possibility that after this intense exposure to the Brisbane Road faithful all three could end up supporting the Os FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. How many other Saturday afternoons out carry such profound implications? They could find themselves in 30 years time yelling vile curses at TV screens as their team inevitably let them down, AGAIN. How many half-time burgers and stewed teas will they consume from here on in because of this day? Parties, weddings, even births will be carefully cross-referenced against fixture lists in order to avoid a clash. This was heavy – but the boys seemed ready for it. But the question remained, was I?

  It’s a freezing-cold January Saturday with snow forecast to coincide with the three o’clock kick off. The boys and Bob are wrapped up in coats, scarves and double socks. On Leyton High Road the Royal Café is packed with Orient fans loading up with huge fry-ups. There’s a tabletop sale in the Trinity Methodist Hall where you can buy enormous pairs of off-white second-hand bloomers. It’s interesting to see how the much-vaunted makeover of the High Road stops abruptly on the corner of St Mary’s Road.

  Almost overnight in the summer run-up to the Olympics the strip of chipped-plastic shop fronts had been transformed into an ersatz Notting Hill urban village of cheerily painted boutiques and delicatessens. On closer inspection the fried chicken and phone-card shops were still there beneath the stripy awnings. Suddenly the Guardian captioned photos of the High Road with the phrase ‘continental café culture’. The Royal Café never made it into the Sunday supplement features as far as I know.

  We reel around the fountain in Coronation Gardens to the streets of terraced houses that hug one side of the ground. Smart apartment blocks have been built into the backs of the stands – luxury flats with season tickets compulsory. This dual use of the ground was part of boxing promoter Barry Hearn’s strategy to save the club from the financial mire that it found itself in during the mid-1990s when the chairman famously offered to sell the club for a fiver. A compelling observational documentary was made following the club through the trauma of the relegation season from the old Division Two under the management of the heroic John Sitton, spitting eloquence and threats of violence at his ailing team as they sloped out of the division. During one half-time rant Sitton uttered the sentence that would be his lasting legacy. He offered to fight two of the players at the same time and told them to ‘bring your fucking dinner, ’cos by the time I’ve finished with you you’ll fucking need it’.

  There’s none of that kind of language in the Family Stand, with a sign warning that ‘foul and abusive language will not be tolerated.’ Consequently I warn Oliver and Joseph to be on their best behaviour. They’d watched a double bill of South Park the night before and had been recounting it word for word to Fergal and Bob on the way down.

  Leyton Orient Football Club

  The gold pom-poms of the cheerleaders rustle in the freezing wind as Leyton’s reserve keeper is caught in the sprinklers and the two teams are politely applauded on to the pitch. The players applaud the crowd back. It all seems so well mannered.

  ‘Who’s going to win, Dad?’ Joe asks.

  ‘Well, Crewe are known for playing good football but Orient are at home, so that’s an advantage.’

  ‘What did he say?’ asks Ollie.

  ‘Crewe are going to win,’ Joe brutally summarizes.

  Orient start with a series of hopeful long balls, tactics straight from their days playing on Hackney Marshes as Clapton Orient. But soon both teams settle into a fluid passing style and the sounds of negated celebrations of near misses, elongated ‘Ooooooooooooooos’ and shouts of ‘Stay strong, Orient’ bellow out around us. This is the atmosphere I’d promised Bob and the boys, who are rapt in the action.

  The half-time whistle sounds and despite this being his first ever match Joe doesn’t miss a beat. He’s down the steps to the kiosk for footie nosh – one of life’s great luxuries. He’d sat there patiently for forty-five minutes enjoying the football but also waiting till he can fill up at the snack bar. He and Ollie are more excited about what to eat and drink than they were when Orient midfielder Lee Cook rifled the Os into a short-lived 1–0 lead in the twenty-sixth minute. Ollie gets a hotdog the length of his arm and Joe goes for a jumbo sausage roll. This is on top of the bag of Maltesers they munched through during the first half and the promise of post-match pub grub at the Heathcote Arms.

  The second half tos and fros, the floodlights come on and the pocket of supporters who have travelled down from Crewe are in fine voice isolated in a corner of the east stand. Bob cracks out a Thermos of hot chocolate and a hip flask of brandy. Despite a late Orient rally the game ends in a draw. Joe suggests they should do ‘Ching-Chang-Walla’ in the centre circle to decide the winner (this is what kids now call Rock, Paper, Scissors). The boys are impressed with the spectacle, both Ollie and Joe already asking about the next match. I take the opportunity of their high spirits to see if I can finally corral them into coming on a walk with me.

  ‘You must be joking,’ says Ollie. ‘Not on one of your walks.’

  ‘Come on, let’s get to the Heathcote,’ says Joe, who is already giving me his order for a BBQ chicken baguette. The rite of passage seems to have been successful.

  Next morning, with the boys ensconced in the warm playing Lego Star Wars on the Xbox, I head out alone for the rendezvous with the wassailers at Millfields in Clapton. I stop at Dennis’s Corner Shop to pick up ceremonial offerings of Bahlsen biscuits and a can of Strongbow cider to toast the trees with. There are stacks of Sunday papers and a Turkish soap opera on the TV above the door. Dennis is always ready with a half-moon smile and a hearty ‘Hello, brother, how are you?’ Even though he appears to work ungodly hours his cheer never diminishes. He gives the biscuits and cider a mildly quizzical look but doesn’t enquire further, in the spirit of the non-judgemental confidence a person shares with their local shopkeeper.

  Dennis’s shop sits at the bottom of a steep gully carved out by the now submerged Philly Brook that can still be heard gurgling beneath the street irons along its course. Until the late 19th century it would have been a picturesque stream winding down from Epping Forest through the fields past the few large houses that made up the area. Once the fields gave way to the rows of houses that still stand, the passive watercourse became a menace that frequently flooded. W. G. Hammock, writing in 1878, melodra-matically described the area as the ‘doomed valley’. Even when this gentle brook was buried in a concrete pipe its waters still burst into cellars and backyards as a reminder of its presence. Whenever work was done on the waterways that run through the Olympic Park in preparation for the Games, computer models were generated to predict the risk of the Philly Brook flooding once again. Even the world’s greatest spectacle had to acknowledge this tiny stream flowing beneath the streets of Leytonstone.

  Few people know the stream is here apart from those in the houses where it still occasionally breaks through into their basements. The only reminder is the name of a street that takes its name – Fillebrook Road – and even that was nearly erased when the M11 link road was gouged across the face and soul of Leytonstone. This hugely contested scheme prompted one of the most prolonged and creative urban insurrections in European
history. The Siege of Claremont Road lasted from February 1993 till the last residents were brutally dragged from the roofs of their homes in December 1994. Those who took refuge in the network of tree houses and rope walks that threaded across the street had the boughs of the trees cut from beneath them with chainsaws by imported private security operatives guarded by a force of around five hundred police.

  Over pints of IPA in the Heathcote, life-long Leytonstonian and film-maker Ian Bourn recounted his memories of the pre-link road Leytonstone.

  When Ian moved into Claremont Road in the mid-1980s, Leytonstone had the largest population of artists in the UK. The houses along the proposed route of the road had been bought up by the Department of Transport in the 1950s then gradually been blighted. An artists’ housing association let them out at minimal rents and a flourishing scene blossomed. Ian talked of how the Northcote Arms became an ‘unofficial art school’. Its alumni include Turner Prize nominees, professors of fine art, grandees of the art world. During the Whitechapel Open crowds of people flocked east to the open studios held in the houses condemned to make way for the road.

  Ian and fellow filmmaker John Smith (now Professor) made numerous films shot around the area that were broadcast on the new Channel 4 and shown in the great London cultural institutions. The houses themselves became artworks. Ian formed Housewatch with a group of artist neighbours in Claremont Road. When they performed their Cinematic Architecture for the Pedestrian, an hour-long film performance that transformed the façade of Ian’s house into a series of vignettes projected into the windows, it was reviewed in The Times and featured on Newsnight and ITN. Forget about Hoxton, Shoreditch, Mayfair and the Serpentine – for a period of time Leytonstone was the centre of the art world in London; it was London’s Left Bank.