I live in the sky. From here, I have an almost panoramic view of the multi-coloured, maggoting mortals below. I am not part of that world any more.
The night below twinkles whites, reds, oranges and greens. Occasionally there’s a flashing blue, presumably accompanied by a screaming siren. The Crystal Palace transmitter blinks to my right, the London Eye’s lights ahead slow to static. Ribbons of car lights stream through the veins of Battersea and beyond.
It doesn’t seem like eighty years since I played in these streets. Eleven of us lived in a three-bedroomed terraced house with no bathroom or inside toilet and in the winter icicles stranded along the inside of the sash windows.
Nowadays, I’ve double glazing. It silences the world outside, hushing Battersea’s voices to deafness. The sounds of my youth disappeared with the fogs long ago - tugboat horns on the river, steam engines shunting at Clapham Junction and, sometimes, the humming of a factory all the way from Southfields. Factory smells assaulted your nostrils - Garton’s Glucose, Booth’s Gin or Young’s Brewery - depending on the time of day and which way the wind blew. These senses are numbed now.
The terraced slums into which I was born were weeded out soon after a V2 bomb evicted our little community in 1943. Most of my family moved out to Wellingborough, lured by the promise of indoor ‘amenities’. I went to the other end of Battersea to live with my old nan. Here, the 15-acre brick dead elephant called Battersea Power Station bombarded her clean washing with daily smuts. Gawd, how she would Lord-Mayor about that! Ernie the newspaperman walked the streets over there; broadcasting the six o’clock news with cries of, “Paper! Star! News and Standard!”
From here I can just make out the junction of Cedars Road and Lavender Hill, where my beloved Irene worked at Hemming’s Bakery. She was killed by the number 34 tram that overshot the corner and ploughed into it. The trams have gone now. I hear they have ‘bendy’ buses now. I haven’t seen any from where I sit, on the 22nd floor.
After Irene, I began to notice things changing. The old Batterseaites were mostly gone and increasingly replaced by immigrants, yuppies, then gangs. I once had dozens of friends and relatives around here. But the tar-covered wood roads I played on have a new skin now. These people are strangers.
The power station’s death rattle sounded in the 1970s and lies silent,a derelict shell, whilst new buildings rise around it like tombstones.
I once felt the heartbeat of Battersea under my worn soles. I was part of its blood. These days, the only heartbeat I feel is my own. I don’t walk around nowadays.
No, I am not part of this world any more.
The night below twinkles whites, reds, oranges and greens. Occasionally there’s a flashing blue, presumably accompanied by a screaming siren. The Crystal Palace transmitter blinks to my right, the London Eye’s lights ahead slow to static. Ribbons of car lights stream through the veins of Battersea and beyond.
It doesn’t seem like eighty years since I played in these streets. Eleven of us lived in a three-bedroomed terraced house with no bathroom or inside toilet and in the winter icicles stranded along the inside of the sash windows.
Nowadays, I’ve double glazing. It silences the world outside, hushing Battersea’s voices to deafness. The sounds of my youth disappeared with the fogs long ago - tugboat horns on the river, steam engines shunting at Clapham Junction and, sometimes, the humming of a factory all the way from Southfields. Factory smells assaulted your nostrils - Garton’s Glucose, Booth’s Gin or Young’s Brewery - depending on the time of day and which way the wind blew. These senses are numbed now.
The terraced slums into which I was born were weeded out soon after a V2 bomb evicted our little community in 1943. Most of my family moved out to Wellingborough, lured by the promise of indoor ‘amenities’. I went to the other end of Battersea to live with my old nan. Here, the 15-acre brick dead elephant called Battersea Power Station bombarded her clean washing with daily smuts. Gawd, how she would Lord-Mayor about that! Ernie the newspaperman walked the streets over there; broadcasting the six o’clock news with cries of, “Paper! Star! News and Standard!”
From here I can just make out the junction of Cedars Road and Lavender Hill, where my beloved Irene worked at Hemming’s Bakery. She was killed by the number 34 tram that overshot the corner and ploughed into it. The trams have gone now. I hear they have ‘bendy’ buses now. I haven’t seen any from where I sit, on the 22nd floor.
After Irene, I began to notice things changing. The old Batterseaites were mostly gone and increasingly replaced by immigrants, yuppies, then gangs. I once had dozens of friends and relatives around here. But the tar-covered wood roads I played on have a new skin now. These people are strangers.
The power station’s death rattle sounded in the 1970s and lies silent,a derelict shell, whilst new buildings rise around it like tombstones.
I once felt the heartbeat of Battersea under my worn soles. I was part of its blood. These days, the only heartbeat I feel is my own. I don’t walk around nowadays.
No, I am not part of this world any more.
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