First impressions of W12
Friday March 19, 2010
I always remember the estate agent who showed us round the stinking shell that was to become our Shepherds Bush home.
As we stared dismally at the stained cookers on every floor, the piles of broken banisters, the rope that kids had somehow assembled from the top to swing on, the rats' droppings, the 'garden' full of broken beds and springs, she said brightly: "This is a real bargain! Shepherds Bush is really up-and-coming!"
This was 35 years ago and for the first 30 of those we waited. And waited and waited. Far from up-and-coming, Shepherds Bush seemed more as if it was down-and-going.
We started to like it like this, too. It was rather like Bagpuss - scruffy and old and a bit smelly, but we, like Emily, loved him.
Then we started noticing the advantages. Other areas, like Brixton, and North Kensington, seemed to be constantly fomenting stews of race riots and anger and danger.
Shepherds Bush with its fantastically mixed population of West Indian, Irish, Polish, Cockney, Pakistani, Syrian - you name it - was one of the few London boroughs which, apart from the odd isolated incident, seemed cosy and happy.
Round here we started to feel like one of those lovely old United Nations Christmas cards, which always showed peoples of many nations holding hands and dancing round a big candle.
The great thing is that behind our backs, Shepherds Bush has not only up and come, but it still retains its old easy-going flavour.
Now we've got Westfield, which at the moment doesn't impinge too much on the local residents. We're getting a brand new hotel on the Green coming on the site of the Pavillion, which will overlook a tidied-up (but not too tidied-up we hope) Green.
We've seen off the dreadful threatened tram, which would have driven a corridor of misery through the very centre of the community, we have an amazing new train station from where we can get to Brighton in a single journey, and we're even sprouting gastropubs.
It all started with the Anglesea Arms, then there was the Adelaide, converted from a ghastly, brawling den of vomit.
But the jewel in the crown is the Princess Victoria - the gloriously reconstituted gin palace with scrumptious food. Suddenly, Shepherds Bush seems to have it all.
Virginia Ironside is chairwoman of RAPA (Residents Amenities Protection Association) and will be appearing in April in The Virginia Monologues, Why it's Great to be Sixty (Visit: www.virginiaironside.org - opens new window).
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham.
