A Love Letter to South London- Where I'll Never Live Again
When the things you love most deeply leave you with the most hurt too …
“South London hits different. If you stick to the better-known areas of Hackney in the East or Finsbury Park in the North, or if you didn’t while away your university years cocooned in its distinctive atmosphere, then you won’t get it. Its streets are wider, its green spaces on the tops of hills or tucked away in suburban pockets have the same breath-taking views of Parliament Hill or Hampstead Heath. Those views and its pubs are hidden gems, adored by those who have been lucky enough to stumble across them, safe from the masses dwelling North of the Thames. Everywhere you look there is community: new, old, side by side, mixed altogether, proud and authentic.
It is rougher around the edges than North London and less obviously cool than East London. It’s art schools, yummy mummies, it was once the home of many an anarchist squat. The people of South London are quietly smug, for they have discovered what others have missed, and they keep their secret close to their chests.
I spent my most formative years in Brockley, walking to university lectures through the tree lined, Victorian villa filled streets, which would slowly morph into the rough and tumble, bustling, gritty, urban hub of New Cross. I know this place like I know nowhere else in London. I know the shortcuts, the scenic routes, I know which roads connect and they’re littered with memories: my student halls, the Wetherspoons where we would spend what little money but heaps of free time we had. I kissed the odd boy on its corners and walked, arms linked, with friends back and forth along its roads. SE4 was my home, it was my London, I had no need for anywhere else.
“Many might find this kind of romantic attachment to a place ludicrous; it’s just bricks and mortar, concrete and traffic lights after all. But my relationship with south London will forever be incontrovertibly intertwined with my loss. ”
To this day my memories of this time and place are steeped in a hazy glow, and a sadness that is borne only out of grief. It is the kind of nostalgic mist that falls over summer memories long since passed, formed of long light evenings on Telegraph Hill, someone’s boom box inevitably playing in the background, tinnies everywhere, my mind recognising this as a memory being formed, trying to grab on to the detail for my future self.
I loved a man who lived in Brockley. Who I met in a park on one of those warm, never ending summer evenings. It was a complicated type of love, unhealthy, full of pain, sadness and mistakes, but at its core was a deep care for one another. By the end this care was all that was left, everything else had washed away, and my care had turned to serious concern for him. One day, a day I was worried would come but that he assured me wouldn’t, that man died, by his own hand, and I lost him, along with the place I had called home for so long.
I ran straight into the arms of a new, fresh love, which took me away from the deep earth-shattering loss I felt.
These days, I live North of the river and to the East, where I never really imagined I would find myself. I am happy, content, and rarely do I allow myself to wallow or reminisce too deeply. I have been back only once or twice, briefly, and my memories of those happy years leading up to my departure are still there, but now they are layered, like image on top of image with the pain of what came after.
Many might find this kind of romantic attachment to a place ludicrous; it’s just bricks and mortar, concrete and traffic lights after all. But my relationship with south London will forever be incontrovertibly intertwined with my loss. My grief and pain. There is a part of me that longs for that time, for him to be alive, for the me that felt no pain or grief, not really, the me that didn’t know what was to come, or what real agony was, the me that thought nothing would move me from my adopted homeland. Really, the loss I feel for him, is also the loss I feel of the home and roots I cherished, is also the loss I feel of my own innocence, and of who I was and used to be. They are one and the same.
One day I’ll return, I’ll make new memories with the man I love today. The wonderful man who took me in with all of my tears and frustration and unanswered questions and who loved me just the same. I will fill my old haunts with laughter and love, the same places that hold memories which now hurt my heart, but which I never want to forget or let go of. For now, though, I’ll pop back from time to time, tentatively stepping back in time with a view to moving forward, but I’ll keep my distance, and think of you South London, in quiet moments, with love, nostalgia and hope.”
-
Thank you so much to the brilliant Eleanor for contributing to this incredibly raw and vulnerable piece- we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! You can find her on Instagram at @eleanorgracetoms.