I would say I have more experience and knowledge of England and it's culture than some north Americans.
My dad was born in London, all of my mother's family come from England, and I've watched more episodes of Are You being Served? and Jeeves and Wooster than your average country vicar.
However: none of my previous field research into the goodness of Marks and Spencer's prepared foods and the delights of Rybena and dry sherry has prepared me for the sheer assault on the senses that is: life in Debden.
It's a yob night-mare. It's a tiny, ugly, battered concrete high-street, which someone optimistically (presumably while drunk) named the Broadway. A testament to all that is wrong with post-war building, it contains shops so depressed and shabby that you get the feeling the owners would be all too grateful if you shoplifted them into an early retirement. When I moved in, my aunt from Chislehurst said that it was like a time capsule to the high-streets of remembered from her youth in the sixties and seventies. There are two betting shops, three hair-dressers and (here's the kicker) two discount carpet shops. Now I know we all love a good piece of discount carpet, but come on. Two shops?? Are you seriously asking me to believe that the crushing demand for cheap rugs has swollen to the point that one such establishment can no longer keep up?
Then there's the population of Debden: old people and youwf. The eldery are lovely - my only issue with them is that they are always in front of me at Sainsbury's, buying twenty packets of cream crackers, rooting around for the correct change, and having prolonged discussions about the council's decision to relocate the bus stop twenty yards down the road.
The youwf (i.e. local pronounciation of "youth") are all ten to twelve years old, wear baggy track pants, hang around the local gas station (or 'garage'), bum smokes and beer off of anyone they can, litter, spit, shriek, rev the engines of their cars, beat each other up, shoplift, and generally get underfoot when you're fighting your way towards a pint of milk at ten o'clock at night.
And the frustrating thing is that Debden actually has the potential to be a charming little village. It is surrounded by some of the greenest, loveliest, most breathtaking countryside you could hope for. The local Epping Forest is renown as a place of calm and beauty and tranquility (as well as being a convinient place to dispose of corpses, but never mind.) When the sun comes out, there's not a more picturesque place to behold. Too bad you have to squint past the clouds of underage smoke and people fighting over the latest carpet sale to see it.
My dad was born in London, all of my mother's family come from England, and I've watched more episodes of Are You being Served? and Jeeves and Wooster than your average country vicar.
However: none of my previous field research into the goodness of Marks and Spencer's prepared foods and the delights of Rybena and dry sherry has prepared me for the sheer assault on the senses that is: life in Debden.
It's a yob night-mare. It's a tiny, ugly, battered concrete high-street, which someone optimistically (presumably while drunk) named the Broadway. A testament to all that is wrong with post-war building, it contains shops so depressed and shabby that you get the feeling the owners would be all too grateful if you shoplifted them into an early retirement. When I moved in, my aunt from Chislehurst said that it was like a time capsule to the high-streets of remembered from her youth in the sixties and seventies. There are two betting shops, three hair-dressers and (here's the kicker) two discount carpet shops. Now I know we all love a good piece of discount carpet, but come on. Two shops?? Are you seriously asking me to believe that the crushing demand for cheap rugs has swollen to the point that one such establishment can no longer keep up?
Then there's the population of Debden: old people and youwf. The eldery are lovely - my only issue with them is that they are always in front of me at Sainsbury's, buying twenty packets of cream crackers, rooting around for the correct change, and having prolonged discussions about the council's decision to relocate the bus stop twenty yards down the road.
The youwf (i.e. local pronounciation of "youth") are all ten to twelve years old, wear baggy track pants, hang around the local gas station (or 'garage'), bum smokes and beer off of anyone they can, litter, spit, shriek, rev the engines of their cars, beat each other up, shoplift, and generally get underfoot when you're fighting your way towards a pint of milk at ten o'clock at night.
And the frustrating thing is that Debden actually has the potential to be a charming little village. It is surrounded by some of the greenest, loveliest, most breathtaking countryside you could hope for. The local Epping Forest is renown as a place of calm and beauty and tranquility (as well as being a convinient place to dispose of corpses, but never mind.) When the sun comes out, there's not a more picturesque place to behold. Too bad you have to squint past the clouds of underage smoke and people fighting over the latest carpet sale to see it.
3 comments:
Chin up, me lovey, chin up. I feel your pain, having spent some time in an English town dominated by elderlies and juvenile delinquents. Just close your eyes and think of the Marmite and Ribena so readily available and calling out your name....
Break a leg for Carleton Hobbs! Merde!
Stop being a communist and write a new post Babagenouche!
I think you're calling my kettle black, you Lex-pot....when was the last time YOU blogged?
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