Notting Hill v Hillingdon

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Economic factors aside – would you rather live here where the houses are tall, old and grand?

Or here, where they’re not?

Here, where the houses are flamboyantly self-expressed?

Or here where they’re not?

How about a sheet of colourful metal under the Westway?

Or would you like to live where there are hundreds of deserted alleys in between gardens and parks
that are perfect for blissful cycling?

Would you prefer living somewhere where graffiti artists leave their mark and are not considered ‘hooligans’?

Or perhaps these sensible shoes rock your boat in the only shoe shop on the high street?

A drink in St. George’s Pub? (When I first moved here the outside was festooned in Union Jacks. For international visitors, our national flag and the St. Georges flag have been co-opted by Birtish fascists, the British National Party.)

Local demographic No 1. Would you fit in here?

Local demographic 2. Or here?

I think you can work out which photos are of Notting Hill, W11, and which are in the London Borough of Hillingdon.

I lived in Notting Hill for six years until 2003 and was spoilt rotten. I lived just behind Portobello Road and within a four minute walk from my flat there were countless great eateries and take-aways (vegetarian*, Italian, Thai, Malaysian,  Falafel, Sausage & Mash, Coffee Republic, Starbucks, Cafe Nero, Japanese, deli, continental, wine bars) as well as a Spanish supermarket, bank, Tescos, Body Shop, various other cafes, restaurants and coffee shops, stationers, wholefood shop, funky card shop, Woolies, amazing silver jewelers, weekly farmers market and the Portobello Rd Market on a Saturday selling anything and everything.

7 minutes away there was a great Holmes Place gym, a medical centre, and numerous bus stops heading all over London. Westbourne Grove tube was 5 minutes away, Ladbroke Grove tube a bit further, Notting Hill tube was about 15 minutes walk away and Bayswater and Queensway were about a 25 minute walk away. Queensway was Arab territory with lots of great Middle-Eastern restaurants. Westbourne Park wasn’t quite as chi chi as it is now although it was getting there. Hyde Park was my local park and I spent many an afternoon walking around one of the ponds as a break from writing. Whiteleys shopping centure had/has a walk-in reflexology centre Reflexions, which was bliss. Regents Canal was about a 10 minute walk away and Holland Park was about a 45 minute walk away.

15 minutes walk from my place was the Cobden Club where a friend wrangled free membership for me. I was at another writer’s book launch there when I met my editor of the past 9 years, Simon Prosser at Hamish Hamilton/Penguin. Indeed, W11 was the place to meet people who worked successfully in the arts. Every other person seemed to be in the media, culture etc. Yes, there were the ra-ra-gushy-posh-media babe-types, who were a pain in the arse when they talked loudly into their mobile phones, but they were in the minority.

I eventually made friends with people who lived locally, fellow writers, artists and literature bods. We’d meet for coffee occasionally and over the years we became great friends. Still are.

All my friends knew that it was useless trying to get me to actually leave W11 to socialise with them. ‘Come over!’ I’d tell them and they often did and we’d find a suitable restaurant or bar. Was there any place better to hang out in London between 1996-2003? Not for me.

Living in W11 was a dream come true. I remember walking down Portobello Road when I was 18 and buying a baggy pair of dungarees full of holes that I would cover in colourful patches.  I thought I’d landed in Heaven. I came from dull old suburbia (Woolwich, see previous post), and I’d never been anywhere like this. Portobello Rd was so bohemian in those days. Actually, the bottom end of the road still is bohemian. I was there the other day and it’s not changed. Like Brixton, the gentrification of the this end of Portobello has plateau-ed out. It still looks deliciously seedy. The top end, of course, is where the rich bankers live. There is a demarcation line.

But in the dip where I lived, council housing still rubs shoulder with private ownership and it makes for an amazing mix. Mrs King (always to be called thus), who lived above me, had lived in her flat for some 50 yrs before she passed away. The flats next door were home to youths who seemed to have the police on speed dial. Yet I remember going to get my early morning coffee one day and Charles Spencer, brother of Princess Diana, was walking past my flat carrying some boxes. He had an office nearby. Robbie Williams, Geri Halliwell, Gillian Anderson, Uma Thurman would wander about – and no one batted an eyelid.

At first I thought most of the women in W11 looked like models (especially at my gym!) but over time I didn’t notice it. But sometimes friends of mine did, and felt diminished by the lissom display on beauty. Now when I return I do notice that W11 is where the beautiful people live.

I am most comfortable in places where there is a racial mix and a liberal, artistic, bohemian attitude. Live and let live. You wanna dress in women’s clothes, William? Fine. You wanna have a blazing lover’s tiff in the middle of the street? Fine. When I first moved to Notting Hill I remember seeing this tall, old, black man wearing a poncho and rancher’s hat and carrying a life-sized crucifix over his shoulder. He’d wander the streets all day and no one gave a damn.

Brixton has this quality too – where I lived before I moved to Notting Hill. You’d never see that here. summed up W11. You could be anything you wanted. The energy reminded me of parts of Manhattan. People doing their thing, going for it and often getting it. Indeed, my two boyfriends during this period were New Yorkers and I used to flit between cities.

It was a creatively fertile period too. I wrote ‘The Emperor’s Babe’ there and at one point I was going on international writer’s tours about 8 times a year. Heathrow was close by. Of course it was. W11 was perfect for everything.

Then my flat was broken into twice and I had to leave. The wotless son of my landlady decided he wanted to live there. Don’t ask. A long story. It’s complicated. I moved to NW6 where I lived for three years.

Now I now live in the London Borough of Hillingdon. I live here because my husband needs to be in this locale for work.  For most of my adult life I lived in zones 2 or 3 and now I live in zone 5. Friends joke that they have to hitch a lift with a tractor when they leave the tube station. It’s true that you can see cows from the tube. Actually, as I’ve said millions of times before, IT’S ONLY 30 MINUTES FROM OXFORD CIRCUS!!!! But there is a psychological barrier – from others and myself. I am often asked if I ever come into London. What?! I live in London! It’s just outer London. And I travel into the centre of it most days. Then I think back to the days when I considered Shepherds Bush the back of beyond. White City? Forget it!

My new area has NONE of W11’s wonderful attributes or facilities, although it has grown on me. On the downside it’s very conservative, dull as dishwater, and people of colour are few and far between. There is a small Asian population but very few Afro-Caribbeans. When I leave the tube after 10 pm I am often one of only a handful of people. The carriage slowly empties out after White City. I have always been used to packed trains until the last train of the night. I’ve lived in place where people are out soaking up London’s bars and cultural activities until late. Not there though. The people who stay on look different to those who leave at or before White City too. I sometimes sit on the train and try and guess where people are going to get off the train. I am often right. London is still a city of villages and the people in the villages of Notting Hill and Holland Park look quite different to those in my area.

People are also very conformist here and the elderly seem to dress up to go to Waitrose. You have to be smart to shop in Waitrose, you know. It’s a social occasion.

Young families and retired folk predominate here, and I see very few people who look anything other than Daily Mail, Daily Express or Sun readers. (How can I tell? Oh but I can!) In fact, if I don’t get to my local newsagents quickly enough, I can’t even buy the Independent or Guardian because they don’t get many copies in. No demand, see.

There is not single building here older than 1930. And no high buildings at all. It’s one of those new housing districts that sprung up all over outer London in the 1930s. London’s outlying countryside became new towns. I have never been into a local pub. Are you kidding? There are lots of tanning salons. And the only coffee shop worth going to is a Costa Coffee on the high street which is about a 15 minute cycle ride away and full of, well, ladies who read the Daily Mail. I have never seen anyone read The Guardian or Independent in there.

On the plus side people are genuinely friendly, the air quality is so much better, there IS lots of sky, it’s incredibly quiet and within ten minutes cycling and even less time driving you’re in the countryside.  I can also cycle on the pavements here because they’re often  a/ wide and b/ no one is walking on them, like, ever. There are lots of parks too, that no one ever uses. I think it’s for two reasons. One is cultural – this is not the kind of place where yummy mummies take their kids to the park every day, like in, say, Queen’s Park near where I lived in Kilburn. And two, there aren’t many flats here. People live in houses and have gardens.

I work well in my current home. There are NO DISTRACTIONS. After a day at my desk I trot down to Sainsburys to get some air. I once asked an Asian cashier why this Sainsburies didn’t sell plantain. She replied that customers thought they were rotten bananas and complained. What can I say? The great British public deprived of this gorgeous, sweet and succulent vegetable/fruit because it looks rotten. Or at the end of the day my husband and I trot off to the local park and play on the swings and roundabout. It’s always empty. There are 4 parks within a mile radius of where I live. All empty. As are the nature reserves and countryside – empty.

I loved being a Notting Hillybilly. I fitted in there, with the relaxed, bohemian lifesytle and my part of Notting Hill was very alternative. I don’t like places where people are small minded and conformist. Think inside the box, live inside the box.

But I would miss the quiet here, the cleaner air, the empty streets and numerous parks, the countryside within spitting distance, the lack of police sirens and the genuine friendliness of the people.

So where would you prefer to live? And what are your experiences of living in London? Or visiting London?

My next post on PLACE soon come!

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