The Groundwater Diaries

by Tim Bradford

  A postman is jumping over fences to save time. Posties have changed. Now they’re all skinheads in surf shorts. Even dogs are scared of them. In the Penny Black pub in Farringdon I once saw a postie set fire to an ash tray then start shouting ‘Har haaarrrrrr!’ Maybe it’s all part of the rebranding as Consignia. The letters might not arrive on time but those lads are hard as nails. And they know where everyone lives.

  The gardens are looking more and more overgrown. A faded Homer Simpson comedy ‘D’oh!’ towel hangs in an upstairs window. Car after car streams past in a never-ending flow. I stand there and wonder how to view London as a whole. The only place you can do it is at the Thames in the centre of town. Most of the time, you can’t get your head around London. Try too hard and you’ll burn out your brain cells, which probably feels like heading a fifties leather laced-up football that’s been left out in the rain.

  Towards Hendon I turn down a footpath into Clitterhouse Recreation Ground, home of Hendon Football Club. Although, Clitterhouse sounds like an eighteenth-century bordello, I believe it must be connected in some way to the 1938 film The Amazing Dr Clitterhouse, starring Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart. I can smell the pungent fragrance of softly flowing shit. The river must be nearby. And there it is. Stagnant at first, with brick sides, then slow moving and overgrown.

  The park is like a snippet of bright open moorland. A whitish butterfly flits near my head. I find some treasure, a slightly burnt offering – some pieces of paper with scrawled writing. Is it a secret parchment of the Feminist Rivers, maybe The Essence of Rivers by Andrea Dworkin? No, it’s a child’s history essay. A turquoise rope hangs over the river from a nearby branch and in the water underneath it is a motor scooter and two shopping trolleys, with another rusted moped further up. Then a bit of a car. Like me, these unconnected, unwanted transportation items seem somehow drawn to the flow of water. Two teenagers sit up on a bench at the edge of the park, no shirts, white baseball caps.

  I must have a go on the rope. I do a concealed run and leap onto it, then sort of dangle, arms and shoulders hurting because I haven’t done this for years, then swing back and try again. I do a proper run and throw myself out towards the rope. I still don’t make the other side. My legs are pumping furiously like a cartoon character running in mid-air. It’s a lot harder on the arms and shoulders than I remember. I’m twenty-six years out of practise. Someone has spray-painted on the opposite bank ‘This Swing belongs to J King’. Jon King of the Gang of Four? Or Billie-Jean King?

  One of the kids sees me and turns to his mate. They both stare. I stagger past, shorts flapping, holding my shoulder and trying to look dignified. It could be dislocated.

  There’s graffiti in red and white everywhere – on the fence and all over the path. Three shopping trolleys lie in a row, half submerged. Maybe the Hardcore London Feminist River Walkers did it, blocking up the river with objects that supposedly represent femininity in the capitalist world – shopping, domesticity – trolleys are feminine objects, spaces in which things are put. Or it could just have been twattish pissed-up blokes. What else? A kid’s bike. A flat football. Empty Coke bottles. Fag packets. Cans. Smelly. The river bends then goes around the back of the houses through a pipe and disappears.

  I’m at the North Circular, where the traffic flows like a huge river and is just as difficult to cross. On the other side of the road are the enormous shells of sixties buildings, like schoolrooms but much bigger, with blue panels, lots of glass and a chessboard effect at one end. It could be something in a war zone. Everything is boarded up at ground level and covered in graffiti. Once these were new and beautiful modernist constructions, and now they’re rotting away. I try to picture the day they were opened. A few cars would be pootling along the North Circular, everything would be slightly shiny. People would be smiling. God, sometimes the sixties seem further away than the nineteenth century.

  There doesn’t seem to be anywhere to cross the road. An old faded sixties sign points pedestrians to a crossing area, but there is no longer a way across. Maybe it’s from a time before the North Circular was built, when this was just a medieval sandy track. Two hundred yards away I can see a footbridge to the left. But busy watching the sea of traffic, I bang my shin on some jutting concrete – blood trickles down my leg. Across the bridge I pass a big and completely empty car park, with weeds growing though it. To the left is a very sad-looking funfair with merry-go-round and bouncy castle. There’s a solitary shopping trolley, which means that the river can’t be far away. Blue and yellow pennants4 flap in the light breeze along the path, leading me onwards. And there, with the Brent flowing in front like a moat, is the Temple of the Goddess.

  The Brent Cross Shopping Centre was built in 1980. Inside it sounds as if we are underwater, with a constant hum or murmur of women’s voices and the shrieks of kids. There are all the usual big shops – clothes, electrical goods, music, Marks and Sparks, computers, a food hall at the top. People are pushing kids around in little yellow trolleys shaped like cars, with a steering wheel so the child can pretend it’s tearing around London on the North Circular, swearing just like Mummy and Daddy.

  Bright, advertising voice: This summer will see a wealth of new and exciting retail changes at the centre. We are pleased to welcome Benetton, who have recently opened their new store in the West Mall (opposite Suits You), and look forward to the arrival of River Island and an H&M ladieswear, who will be opening shortly on the lower ground floor. Another new store to the centre is the Gadgetshop, who will be opening their doors later on this month. For those of you Next-lovers you’ll be pleased to hear that they are soon to move to a bigger store which will be located on two floors. The new store should open its doors during September. In addition to the exciting retail changes at Brent Cross, we are also pleased to welcome Costa Coffee and BB’s Muffins to the wide range of restaurants and coffee bars at the centre. So if you’re in urgent need of retail therapy (laughs falsely) or just fancy a coffee and a chat – Brent Cross has it all.

  That was a quote, by the way.

  Imbolc Feast: On the eve of Imbolc a family or community feast should be held. When all is prepared and the table is set the persons who were involved in the making of the Brídeog should go outside and retrieve her. The doll should be placed on the outside of the building next to the open door. The men should get on their knees before the doll (the traditional gesture of respect for the Brídeog) and shout into the house, ‘Go on your knees, open your eyes, and admit Brigit!’ The celebrants inside should answer, ‘Welcome! Welcome! Welcome to the holy woman!’ The Brídeog should then be carried into the house and leaned against a leg of the feasting table. Begin the feast with a prayer of thanks.

  I sit and watch the people go by. It feels like an undersea world of women. Happy, confident, heavily made-up women of all ages, shapes and sizes (including the largest concentration of leopardskin print leggings in Northern Europe) walk purposefully around, some pulling along tired-eyed men, but most on their own or in pairs. I guess it’s women who hold capitalism together, keep economies ticking over with their ‘If somebody’s gone to the trouble of making a new thing I should go to the trouble of buying it’ kind of attitude. If it was up to blokes, stuck in their sheds with their hobbies and saying things like ‘Why do we need that, darling?’ the wheels would soon come off the free market juggernaut.

  I decide to count the first hundred passers-by. It’s four women to every bloke – the same as Nottingham, Muswell Hill or the Ritzy Bar Niteclub in Soho (sorry, members only). The blokes here all look a bit knackered and furtive. As if they don’t really belong. Then, looking at a plan of the centre, I notice it bears a striking similarity to the female symbol of a circle with a cross.

  I try the lunch of kings. Burger King. It seems strangely, exotically male in the context of the Brent Cross Shopping Centre. When it’s my turn to order I hesitate and someone jumps in front of me. Normally I’d turn round and tell them to sling it but I’m strangely nervous.
I don’t know what to do. What is all this stuff? I finally order a double cheeseburger. ‘Is that a meal?’ asks the girl in the orange uniform. ‘How do you mean? What else is it going to be?’

  ‘Well, in a meal you get a drink and fries as well.’

  ‘No, just a burger.’

  ‘So just a sandwich. The meal is better value’.

  ‘No thanks.’ I can see everyone in the restaurant pointing at me and silently laughing. ‘He didn’t order chi-ips. He didn’t order chi-ips!!’ The girl rolls her eyes and takes the order. She then moves my tray to the side so the next customer can get in. Phew. Done it.

  I sit at a little dark grey table at a little red plastic seat and inspect my burger. It’s tiny. I’d always imagined cheeseburgers to be huge. I bite into it and it’s got a thin metallic taste. In fact, most of the taste comes from the pickle. The meat is grey and looks like churned-up windpipe. I suddenly imagine myself sucking on the entrails of rotting farmyard animals. A burger is the crappy bits of cows (or bulls, whatever) put into a special black-hole machine that makes it incredibly dense then spews it out in a burger shape. How to save the planet? Ban meat eating, cars, cigarettes and guns, all fine American products. Can’t be doing with saving the planet. When it’s completely fucked we’ll bugger off to space stations with regulated atmospheres.

  On the floor is a little free Burger King toy that some kid has discarded. Next door in the toy shop I marvel at how far apart Action Man and Barbie have come. When I was a kid their physiques were comparable. Neither had any nuts, Barbie had little tits and AM had a crew cut. He was the universal fighter who knows no fear, you needn’t worry ’cos Action Man is here. Now AM is a steroid muscleball who probably assassinates anti-globalism protestors and Barbie has the equivalent of 44GG breasts. She is all-powerful. Is she the river goddess? I walk around for a while trying to find the Hardcore London Feminist River Walkers. There is a group of young girls hanging out in Benetton. I try to observe them without coming across as an obvious stalker. In Marks and Spencer a couple of well-built women are buying bras. Is that Germaine Greer? And Naomi Wolff buying knickers! OK, maybe not.

  But the atmosphere is catching. I buy some underwear in Marks and Spencer, then wander around in a daze until I find Godiva’s chocolate shop, where I stare at the soft mounds of milk and sugar confectionary. I buy a small box for my wife, then the pretty Frenchwoman behind the counter asks if there’s anything else. And I never buy chocolate for myself. I might eat it if someone leaves it lying around but it’s not really my thing. However, I find myself pointing at the largest, whitest, creamiest-looking lump of chocogoo in the shop and grunt shyly, ‘That one. Please.’ Just one. She wraps it up lovingly in a little bag and I walk out of the Brent Cross Shopping Centre, slowly unwrapping it. As I pass the crowds I start to nibble. It tastes like it comes from a country dairy where the cows are raised on magic sugar grass. Past a sad playground, up over a concrete barrier then through a path on a little island of gorse and over another footbridge, and I’m still breaking off tiny shards of chocolate and cocoa mulch.

  As I swallow the last bits I look around and see that I’m trapped, surrounded by cars. Where do pedestrians go? The infernal combustion engine still lords it over us. All of this was open fields not that long ago. I’m not saying it would have been better, in many ways it might have been worse, boring land, possibly hard to farm. At least now you can drive round and round this big roundabout – Staples Corner (the Staples Bedding factory used to be nearby) – going yaaaaay while listening to crap CDs or Talk Radio, with the air conditioning on. Now that’s what I call progress.

  I forgot the river. But now I can see it again. Then it goes underneath the road near a sign for M1 and the North. There’s a little triangle of countryside with three trees and a bit of sloping bank: goddess pubic hair. There are roads on three sides and a big fuckoff road going through the middle on stilts. That’s a neat scale model of what England will be like in fifty years time.

  Another sign says ‘No Pedestrians no stopping’. That’s a shame. I was thinking of walking up the M1 to see my mum. There are garages underneath the railway arches. Cars, bits of engine, tyres, a clutch place. Two hours ago I was in the Hampstead countryside. Now I’m in the centre of the urban dream. I seem to have sped forward in time. Concrete and cars, noise, fumes, and hardly any of that horrible nature stuff. I feel disorientated, so try to concentrate on where I should be going. I head towards a North Circular Wembley sign, up a footbridge onto a web of smaller footbridges, a footbridge spaghetti junction. An Indian woman in a sari leans against the side of one of the footbridges and stares out as if sightseeing.

  On the other side of Staples Corner the North Circular still has a bit of that sixties optimism about it, with little businesses and light industrial units at the side of the road. The traffic is speeding up now. I feel kind of light headed. Then – as if by magic! – there’s a little path off to the right and I’m in parkland. Very quickly the sound of traffic recedes as I walk along a track towards the Brent, or Welsh Harp, reservoir. Wooded slopes, a spire in the distance, butterflies in wild grasses, the sound of insects. And Wembley Stadium a few miles away, the twin towers gleaming white in the sun. Fields and traffic, good and evil, light and dark, beauty and the beast (although Beast was beautiful inside and Beauty only fell in love with him to help her father out financially). The Welsh Harp reservoir nearby is named after the Welsh Harp pub which I think got knocked down when the M1 was built. There’s a derelict building up to the left, completely covered in graffiti – in front, there’s a pile of ashes where someone has recently had a fire.

  Bríde’s Bed: As the evening of the Imbolc feast winds down the women of the household or grove should gather up the last of the straw and fashion an oblong basket in the shape of a cradle called ‘leaba Bríde’ (LAWA BREEJ) or ‘the bed of the Bride’. Place the bed near the hearth if you have one. Then place the Brídeog into the bed and place a small straight wand of birch with the bark peeled in the bed beside the figure. This wand is called ‘slalag Bride’ (SLAH-TAHG BREEJ) or ‘the little wand of the Bride’. If you have burned a fire during the evening the ashes of the fire should be scraped smooth. In the morning check the ashes for Brigit’s wand or better yet, her footprint to prove that she had visited during the night. If no marks are found, burn some incense in the hearth or near the spot where the bed was placed, as an offering.

  I come out on Neasden Lane, with the river valley down to the right. There are iron gates next to the river and an old path, but it looks like they’ve been locked for decades. Instead, I cross over the river and go through a little park into a sixties low-rise estate. There’s lots of building work and crowds of workmen in white hats drilling, digging, grit flying around in the air. My river route is completely cut off by the railway. I’m due for a massive detour now.

  As I climb a slight incline, following a curvaceous woman in leopardskin leggings, water spurts out as if from a spring and trickles down the hill. A little fat black kid with a basketball says ‘Hey nice legs!’ Thanks, I say. ‘Er, I meant nice shoes,’ he says, pointing at my black Nikes. ‘Er, OK, thanks anyway.’ He follows me for a while, getting an eyeful of my trainers. Asda is across the road, and I go in for camera film and come out with a Winnie the Pooh video and a free dinosaur backpack for my daughter.

  I’ve had enough of this and decide to get the tube. I’ll walk to Wembley5 Park and it’s only one stop to Stonebridge Park, from where I can continue the walk. It’s cheating, but who cares? I go past a working pub at last – the Torch – built for the 1948 Olympics. On the wall is an ad for Spearmint Rhino gentleman’s club, ‘the hottest table dancers in town’.

  Fucking railways, roads, golf courses, building sites, cars and supermarkets. Parts of London are just completely unconnected thanks to our pea-brained way of building. All those railways cutting communities in half. The Victorians didn’t think they’d be shunting their working population into ghettos: why should
they?

  Gravelly voiceover: What reason would a yokel from Neasden have to visit Wembley where it is all yokels, except for to steal the pig of another yokel? I am doing society a favour by building these railways. Yokels, your pigs are safe.

  ‘Report on the Railway-Caused Inaccessibility to the Local Yokel Populations of Neasden and Wembley’, Isambard Kingdom Brunel

  Although to the Victorians the covering up of the rivers was a sign of progress (as well as a repression of female sexuality, naturally), a badge of their modernity and ability to tame nature, now I think our idea of ‘progress’ has shifted. It certainly doesn’t just mean using the latest technology to achieve a short-term solution, but changing our thinking. So maybe we’ll free the rivers some time soon. The Victorians thought in narrow channels and I’d like to believe that these days we are more open minded. But so much of our morality and manners come from them that sometimes you wonder whether we’ll ever gain a wider perspective. Or at least stop taking organized sport so seriously.

  On the tube I realize that to get to Stonebridge Park I should’ve got on at Wembley Central – about a mile away – not Wembley Park. This train is a fast one to Baker Street via Finchley Road. (Non-London readers look away now … ) Gahhhhh. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. Fuck the railways, fuck the Victorians. I look around and a woman is chuckling away at me cursing out loud to myself.