A Short Journey Downriver by Mark Sadler
Twice a day, when the tide is high, the Thames floods the broad, low-ceilinged underground channel from which the Granville emerges. During the autumn and winter, as the temperature drops, these back surges create localised fogs that linger along Upper and Lower Thames Street. The river that London buried alive rises like a ghost through the porous layers of paving to reassert its claim upon its former overground course. [read more…]
by Matt Haynes
Hedonism, of course, was the name of the game, and pretty much anything went. One night, Boy George nearly brought Duran Duran’s career to a premature end when, clutching a garish mojito, he hurtled down the slope using Simon le Bon as a toboggan; luckily for the course of popular music, the chubby Brummie took it in his pantalooned stride. [read more…]
Remembering Sea Alley by Mark Sadler
I grew up in a dockers’ terrace on Sea Alley, in East London. Our house was one from the end of the row, near to where the street split into three tributaries, like an old piece of frayed rope. A stone staircase ran along the front of the houses. When the water was at its highest point, it would come up over the third step, leaving the fourth step clear for you to walk on. [read more…]
by Henry Wilson
We set out after lunch, hurrying along the quiet dusty back streets of West Hampstead to the Overground station on West End Lane, just in time to squeeze onto a Stratford train. Body heat radiates through summer dresses, T-shirts, skirts and shorts in the sun-drenched carriage. A sense of expectancy and excitement rises out of the chatter and laughter; a hundred disparate journeys blend into one. [read more…]
by Alexandra Lister
… through plumes
of cigarette smoke, the boy with the
anchor tattoo got drunk for the first time
and we looked up to see the early swallows come
in over London like tiny bombers…
[read more…]