I don’t know if you’ve seen the montage of shock and awe reactions to the word “London” on Coronation Street doing the rounds? It features a whole host of Corrie favourites over the ages, changing their haircuts and fashion but never their violent reactions to the mere mention of the L word. London? How dare you flee to London! Anger, disgust, primal hatred or pure confusion pour out towards this far-away land.
Well, if you haven’t seen it, seek it out immediately because it’s brilliant. And accurate.
Accurate because much was the reaction when I left my hometown of Oldham and headed to that dreadful L place. “Where will you get yer ’aircut?” was my Mancunian born-and-bred Gran Beattie’s primary concern. Gran Beattie had only been to London once, in the Fifties, and warned me “the pavements are very ’ard down there, very ’ard!”
My friend Jenny was concerned about the lack of proper chippies and warned me, “They don’t ’av owt wet on their tea, y’know.” Anti-southern friends called Londoners the unmentionable and warned me: “It is full of wankers.”
The North hasn’t traditionally held London in the same dreamlike state I always have. London always got me going. I remember lying to kids in the playground at primary school, saying: “Oh yeh, I’m defo going to big school in London.” I don’t know why I was drawn to it. But I was. Like a big lying moth to a flame.
Hard pavement fear aside, I was all set at 21, armed with nothing more than painfully skinny women’s jeans from Primark, a leather pencil-thin tie, disgusting Converses and a dream.
The Langan’s incident
Now I’d only actually been to London three times before confidently deciding to flee the North in dramatic Corrie style.
Once, when on a day trip at primary school age, I saw a carrot carved into a goldfish and brought it back home to Oldham like a pet — low in movement but high in beta-carotene. My friends and I were convinced people in London carved all their vegetables into wildlife before consumption.
Once again aged 13 with my dad at a Man United away game where he took me to “a proper restaurant, all the stars go, Michael Caine … everyone”. Not massively well versed in the work of Michael Caine at 13, I nevertheless had a nice time and was allowed to drink red wine at the iconic Langan’s just off Piccadilly and then throw it up all over the less iconic Holiday Inn just off Euston Road.
We mooched around the streets day and night, “best city in the world this one”, my dad would say, deeply dedicated to Manchester but suitably stirred by the lights of London. We wandered through Piccadilly and weaved through Soho, working out the ebb and flow of this city on speed. Once through Soho I was allowed to peek into my beloved Radio 1 office windows and my dream was realised right here in the city I now call home.
My dream felt possible in these streets. Plus I quite liked the idea of going to Langan’s nightly for dinner. Have never been since. But I did do the radio bit.
Endless mooching
The third trip came when I was maybe 19. I was equipped with a much-needed student credit card and blew the entire amount on a weekend trip to the capital to celebrate the birthday of a girl I’d met once at an afters. Seemed like a legit reason to get myself into debt.
This time I sunk my teeth into London like never before. I rode the Tube like a ride, I went to a thing called a lido (which I thought was the name of a pub), lolled around on Hampstead Heath and experimented with some decadent firsts: hummus and fried halloumi from a neighbourhood Cypriot restaurant.
Her party was filled with a whole host of nutters, jazz musicians, DJs, comedians, legendary members of Blur, various Libertines and a pre-beehive Amy Winehouse. I remember someone pickled after a day on the rosé saying to me: “In London your friends become your family.” I remember thinking, “What a stupid London thing to say, bet they bloody don’t.”
A year later when I was offered the chance to hand out flyers on Old Street, how could I resist? It made perfect economic sense to leave my northern life behind, my degree, avoid any sort of stable employment and move to city I’d thrown up in more times than I’d visited. My parents were rightly less than thrilled. I didn’t know much but I knew it was right. I knew I wanted to be here.
Looking back it was quite ballsy. I knew no one here. I would earn about half of what it would cost to live here and once my lucrative flyering career was over I was on the dole on Camden Road, eating Freddos for lunch and avoiding calls to come back home to Oldham. “What are you even doing down there?” they’d ask. Well, a lot of walking.
It was a pre-Uber time and I had minus money so I walked. I walked and walked and walked. Sometimes looking for jobs, sometimes to meet people for pints but always on foot. Prior to this one-man expedition to nowhere, me and the city were already tied up in a romance, but these walks confirmed it as true love.
Like the teenage walks with my dad, I’d weave through the city, this time alone, learning the streets and shortcuts, studying the sway of the Londoners, getting lost in a mooch through the world’s greatest city.
At dinner recently I was asked what I would do, if money were no object, for my last day on Earth. I scanned the world in my brain, imagining myself on a great trek of Antarctica or maybe on horseback pounding the sodden grasslands of Outer Mongolia. I haven’t seen the Pyramids, I’m sure they’re great and all, but honestly it seems a bit of a faff if you’re going to be dead by dusk.
Instead I would be here, mooching in my now hometown of London. Weaving through Piccadilly, up through Soho, maybe visiting that chippy that I found that does do gravy, meeting those friends that did become family, and pounding those pavements that, contrary to Gran Beattie’s belief, were never that hard on me at all.
