Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning/ Close by the window young Eileen is spinning/- popular 19th C Irish song, after which the disused pub, above, was named.
It would be going too far to suggest that the recent stabbing of two police officers in Ealing, at or near the bus stop where I catch the E2, is a nasty illustration of the decline of what was once known as the Queen of Boroughs.
Violence lurks everywhere. Drugs, unhinged minds and pure evil all play their parts. Ealing is no worse in that respect, and much safer, than many other areas of London and elsewhere.
But I was struck by the location of the attack, which apparently happened when a man wanted for recall to prison was challenged over a unpaid bus fare. It was near the start of a stretch of the Uxbridge Road, running from Ealing Broadway to Hanwell, which is said to be a source of deep concern to the local council.
So far, things are a little better along the more or less parallel Northfields Avenue. But there too is plenty of evidence of a district becoming less appealing, more downcast. Apologies for the play on words above, but the closure of the Spinning Wheel, the song on which I drew for headline, seems to typify the decay.
I have spent excellent evenings in that pub, sipping Guinness and listening to decent pub rock. The notices on the window reveal it is about to be turned by Sainsbury's into yet another mini-supermarket, about the last thing anyone needs.
My informant on Ealing's woes was a reasonably senior official next to whom I found myself sitting at a social function.
The length of the Uxbridge Road she had in mind is rundown in many places. Two cinemas have gone and the road looks distinctly tatty.
Takeaway and fast food places, betting shops and internet cafes have replaced traditional shops that have given up the ghost. It is hard to feel optimistic about those struggling to survive. How can any business keep head above water when casual trade is discouraged by a combination of desultory parking provision and ferocious wardens? And the wardens are likely to be instructed to become more ferocious still as spending cuts bite.
It does not trouble me in the slightest that English is just one of many languages now heard on these streets and in the shops. London's greatness, for me, has a lot to do with its cosmopolitan nature. Welcoming diversity in one of its boroughs, however, is not the same as feeling happy that it looks increasingly Third World,
As I noted a few weeks, a walk through the Ealing centre now takes you past the disused post office (now confined to a corner of W H Smith, as if an emergency arrangement after a bombing but seeming more and more permanent) and pound stores where there used to be proper shops. "The answer to that is that it would be even worse if the premises were just empty and boarded up," my official said.
I fear this is what we can all expect to represent high street Britain in a time of austerity. Certainly, I have no easy answers and nor, clearly, does the council or the Government.
But it leaves me longing for the time between now and a return to France to pass all the more quickly.
Recent Comments