The worst part of London

Quite an interesting conversation heard on a train I was travelling on, while on the way to Birmingham, last Friday:

American Woman (W): I live in the worst part of London.
English passenger (EP) Where's that?
W: Dagenham
EP: I don't know where that is.
W: Its a long way out. East on the District Line. Really dull, very flat, full of people who aren't that bright.
EP: Sounds awful.
W: It is. When I came here for my job I was shown pictures of Knightsbridge and Kensington. My friend lives in South Kensington. I was so jealous. Dagenham's y'know, desperate. The last resort.

Being an inverted snob, and a resident of that fine town now for ten years, I had to pipe up:


ME: Oh Dagenham. Nice place. Cheap. On the tube. Great neighbours, hardly any crime where we live. What's not to like. Oh, by the way, I've lived there for ten years.

Completely embarrassed silence.

To be fair, at least the passenger actually lived here. I do get enourmously brassed off with people who have never been to places like Bognor (where my family live) and Dagenham without having been there, and feel the need to make some sneery and usually inaccurate remark. If you've never been to a place, using an area's reputation alone as a means to sneer at the place is just snobbery for the sake of snobbery.

I would say BRITISH snobbery; however, the particular passenger, as I say, was American.

But, at least, with people like that sneering at the perceived "failed" areas like ours: the joke towns, the chav estates and the perceived urban shit-holes, at least they don't entertain us with their presence

I grew up in Hayes (a joke town, at least if you're from Uxbridge or Ealing), lived in Deptford, Bognor (which used to dubbed "clown town"), Hackney (known, when I moved there in 1993 as the "dustbin of London" - but not now kiddies: a expensive dustbin indeed) and Dagenham, all places I've liked for various reasons.

So what's the deal, snobs.


I am currently reading: Estates, by Lynsey Hanley. This book is a compelling blend of psychogeography-meets-sociology. Am agreeing with much of it.