Small Purple Balloon

Feb 062014

St Paul’s Cathedral gleams, Southwark Bridge looms, and a middle-aged man – grey suit, substantial build – unsteadily dribbles a small purple balloon with silver ribbons down the empty, moonlit, riverside walkway.

Looking back through the clouds…

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...]

Community Manifesto

by Mike Loveday
We watch the three of them stand inside the train sobbing. They stand inside the first carriage, facing the closed door at the back of the driver’s cabin. They stand and sob constantly, even when the train eases into each station. They cry to the limits of their lungs because they want everyone on the Chiltern Line to hear, everyone across London, through the countryside, on the roads, in the towns and in the villages. [read more...]

Swaps

by Chris Long
All the same, I remember them – and everyone else who lived in a council block – putting notices in the local paper looking for swaps. That is, asking someone with a house and a garden if they would swap. Even at the time, the idea seemed a bit far-fetched: of course someone with a house and a garden would consider moving to the fifteenth floor of a block of flats where, when the wind blew hard, the water swayed in the toilet bowl. [read more...]