I am not, and never have been, somebody who deliberately stirs up tensions between north and south London.
I’m all for playful banter — if my middle name wasn’t already Robin there’s a good chance it would be Playful Banter — but I’ve seen too many nice people turn nasty when getting into arguments about which side of the river is best. Perhaps it’s because I’m not a native Londoner, and only ended up living north by chance, that this is not a visceral issue for me. ‘Chill guys, chill,’ I will soothe, intervening like some kind of pub-based Kofi Annan. ‘Both sides of the river are equally great.’
Then both arguing parties will turn on me. ‘How would you know,’ they’ll scowl. ‘You know nothing about south London.’ At this point, I get defensive: some of my best friends are from south London.
Um… I think Martin is from… Tooting? I’ve watched Crystal Palace twice. I find Only Fools and Horses relatively funny. And... well, that’s it. Truth is, I know next to nothing about south London. It’s shameful.
To rectify this I took my young daughter on a trip to the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill. It was excellent — some genuinely world class taxidermy on display — and I was so entranced that I even forgot to snigger at the museum’s name. Afterwards, I decided that we would walk back to the river. So, as my daughter fell asleep in her pram, I began the five mile hike towards the Shard, which looked as dinky and distant as I’d ever seen it.
It was like walking through a parallel world, with alien bus numbers — 363? 415? — and odd-coloured road name signs. I mean, who has turquoise road name signs? I’ll tell you who: people in Forest Hill, a place that really is sensationally hilly, although I suppose the clue’s in the name. Areas that had existed only as names gradually took on physical form. Camberwell Cemetery genuinely looked like my kind of place. Peckham Rye Park was, to my amazement, as stately and green as Harrogate.
Would I come back to soak up the ambient beauty of Old Kent Road? No. Am I glad that I’ve now been there and know what it actually is? Yes. The whole experience was, although quite tiring, strangely profound. All these places just the other side of a river. I wish I’d done it sooner.
