Leaving

There has been talk elsewhere and in other places of leaving London. We are no strangers to the theme in the Hambrough household and some of our friends have already made what seems like an irrevocable journey out of the city. London is a place to be young in: to share a flat or a house, to be entertained and to meet other people doing the same thing. It's no place to be old (or even of house-buying age), it's no place to be poor and, in some places, some feel that it's no place to be white. Parts of the city have been colonised by foreigners and they and their British-born children now outnumber the indigenous population. The London Boroughs of Brent and Newham have already have mostly non-white British residents. Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Ealing and Harrow are not far behind. And, while there is endless talk in the papers and on the telly about how house prices are driving people out, about the work/life (im)balance, about the crime, the pollution, the coarsification of life, the British (!) and the weather there is no mention of this reason. It's an unmentionable reason. But, with the doors closed, and with no strangers within earshot people will admit to me that one of the reasons they want to leave is to live amongst people like themselves: who share their background, their culture and their aspirations. They will admit that they do not want the stress of the multi-cultural experience, that, far from us all living together as one happy family, we are living together as forced co-habitees with insuperable differences that are only exacerbated by increased immigration. So, just as the ancient British abandoned their lands or were forced from their land by the Anglo-Saxons in the Dark Ages so the modern descendants of the Anglo-Saxons (with some Celt, some Huguenot French and some Viking) are abandoning the old places and setting off for new homes where they feel more at home.