It echoes how I feel about London and why moving out (emigrating outside London) wasn’t as big a wrench as I thought it would be.
The city is full of ghosts for me. The spirits of dead and ex friends, dates I went on, relationships I was in, meals I ate, concerts I went to, exhibitions I saw, raves I sweated in and parties I went to, haunt every corner.
Some areas are totally unrecognisable. I don’t even know where Kensington Market was anymore.
Some areas are effectively pastiches of themselves - like Portabello or even, tragically, much of China Town.
Enough of the London I remember still exists to make trips there meaningful, but it is still an eerie feeling.
And of course in a city as huge, sprawling and diverse as London, there is always more to discover.
But my unbridled joy at the freedom I felt getting my first travel card at 11 is tempered by a sense of melancholy. Maybe this is just what getting old is like.
This was so moving, thank you. I was in Holborn today and felt a similar loss, it was lunches at Davey’s Wine Bar for us. (All of London littered with remembered meals, to misquote MacNeice.)
I loved this.
It echoes how I feel about London and why moving out (emigrating outside London) wasn’t as big a wrench as I thought it would be.
The city is full of ghosts for me. The spirits of dead and ex friends, dates I went on, relationships I was in, meals I ate, concerts I went to, exhibitions I saw, raves I sweated in and parties I went to, haunt every corner.
Some areas are totally unrecognisable. I don’t even know where Kensington Market was anymore.
Some areas are effectively pastiches of themselves - like Portabello or even, tragically, much of China Town.
Enough of the London I remember still exists to make trips there meaningful, but it is still an eerie feeling.
And of course in a city as huge, sprawling and diverse as London, there is always more to discover.
But my unbridled joy at the freedom I felt getting my first travel card at 11 is tempered by a sense of melancholy. Maybe this is just what getting old is like.
This was so moving, thank you. I was in Holborn today and felt a similar loss, it was lunches at Davey’s Wine Bar for us. (All of London littered with remembered meals, to misquote MacNeice.)