Beery litter louts

Before leaving London, Moni and I went for a long walk from the posh Cleveland Park area where I lived as a teenager to Hanwell where I spent my childhood. Drabness and decay; once proud Victorian and Edwardian buildings spoilt with back-lit plastic, garish paint and a here-to-day, gone-tomorrow approach to commerce quite absent from the solidity of yore.

In a word, West Ealing to me symbolises Britain's decline. Yes, you can escape - the affluent migrant-free villages the lie beyond the cities' economic catchment areas. Or emigrate. Faces on West Ealing Broadway are either coloured or Polish, or belong to the handful of indigenous Brits that didn't have the gumption to move out over the past half-century.

Yet what of the houses, of the generic terraced Victorian two-up two-downs that were once home to the traditional British working classes? Who can afford the £250,000 - £300,000 for a small, draughty, 130 year-old house in a grotty neighbourhood between the council flats and the railway line? Certainly not someone on a £13,000 service sector salary. Typically, it will be immigrant entrepreneurs and buy-to-let owners.

The well-known retail chains and posh department stores have closed down or moved on from the high street to the shopping centres like the one at Ealing Broadway a mile to the east, the shops in West Ealing cater to immigrants. As I mentioned last month, West Ealing is becoming visibly Polish.
Below: Please put your litter in a bin. The empty Polish beer container phenomenon was blogged last month by Toyah.


Left: Outside the Infants' building of my old school, Oaklands Road Primary.
The children's vegetable garden, in which I once grew salad cress, and an empty Tyskie bottle. O tempora! O mores!
Below: Graffiti on Jacob's Ladder footbridge over the railway line, West Ealing. At least there are no foul oaths directed at Legia's management or owners or at KSP Polonia supporters.


Right: even posh Cleveland Park is not immune to signs of encroaching Polishness.
Growing up around here in the 1970s, I can say that there have always been a great many Polish families living around here, but Poles' presence has never been as physically visible in West Ealing as it is today. Different generation, different upbringing.