We all experience places differently. Part of that is the psychological baggage we bring with us, the memories of others dragged through the paths we take today. The emotional feeling of this street, or any street; of this roundabout, or any roundabout; of these shops, or any shops. The physical memory of a different world too, before the creep of progress and decay nags at the corners of the streetscape, or replaces it wholesale. It might start with new TV aerials or fences, door colours or windows, cars or paving, and it might end with that vacant lot finally being built on, or that school closing down, or that church turned to flats. The accumulated experience of place makes us suspicious of it, knowing it’s never safe as houses, because houses aren’t safe. We arrive at the same geographical point at different times in out lives, when our priorities are different. Once that electricity substation would have made a good den, a spaceship, a secret spy HQ. Then it’s in the way, unsightly, an unkempt mess. Or a source of anxiety, a reminder of the state of the world and the cost of living. It might remind us of someone we’ve not seen for years, or feel entirely alienating. It might feel like all of these things at once, the ghosts of each thought layered and flicked through like TV channels or a picture book.
We all experience places differently. My mum used a wheelchair, and they way I met the world was through clutching onto her armrest, one part of a family huddle, usually my dad pushing the chair, or the two of us left outside, unable to gain access to some shop or office. I grew up used to making way for other people, being hyper aware of how not to block a pavement or aisle, to anticipate the movement and flow of people around me to minimise friction, to prevent my mum feeling an obstacle, something to be tutted at and negotiated. I met the world with the aim of causing the least fuss, of being the most malleable form on the street. If her grey metal chair could not be nimble then I would try twice as hard, as if creating a smokescreen or shield for her, a forcefield that kept her protected in the flow of footsteps. I still observe these patterns today, on busy streets moving in and out of the flow, anticipating the movement of oncoming people and acutely aware of those I am with.
She hadn’t always used a wheelchair, and its use came on gradually in her thirties, so her experience of places changed utterly. When she’d been living in Battersea, in the houses now long since demolished or the flats put up in her lifetime, she’d no need for a wheelchair. Moving out to New Addington, the housing estate on the edge of Croydon, would have felt utterly strange for my family. It was around that time – at the start of the seventies, when I was born, when they moved – that she began to use a chair more often. She got an Invacar, one of those small blue three wheeled fibreglass motors designed for wheelchair users. Where everything was packed tightly together in Battersea, the old familiar landscape rapidly evolving into something unrecognisable before her, out here in New Addington it was all low-rise sprawl and greens, verges and fields and semi-detached council houses as for as the eye could see. The Invacar, the wheelchair, she needed them now more than she ever would have in Battersea, because everything here felt so distant. I don’t know if her physical situation helped inspire the move, but I suspect it did.
The maisonette we lived in was on the ground floor, she could move about easily and it was quickly adapted for her chair. Suddenly there was a whole world of upstairs she couldn’t access. When we eventually moved down the road to a house we managed to get a stair lift installed, and that made life a bit easier, but life was forever split into places that were accessible, and the vast majority that were not. It meant that life presented itself as an edit. There were places we couldn’t go, that didn’t work for us. Large Victorian and Edwardian buildings were invariably useless. More modern ones had lifts and ramps, and now I think of it, perhaps this influenced my preferences in design taste more than I ever acknowledged. These modern places were our places. And so I meet them with love, because when we needed them, that was how they met us.
As I am writing this a female sparrow flew in and fluttered around above my desk, banging into the window and then finding its way out again, indignantly cheeping from the forsythia. Her experince of this space and mine are also vastly different – although she may have wings, I have the ability to open windows.
Bridgerton without the sex?
I recently wrote a piece for the Telegraph about Kier Starmer’s recent evocation of Georgian architecture when talking about his house building plans for Britain – and the legacy of pseudo-Georgian housing we have from developers. I was lucky enough to interview David Knight, Professor Elizabeth McKellar and Tom Dyckhoff for the article.
Map Bit
I’m also currently researching interesting maps for A Thing, and have been combing through lots of open source data for good leads. Any good suggestions for places to look for curious data drop me a line!
Events
Next month I’m going to be doing a couple of Croydon walks as part of Open House weekend – see my events page for more details. I’m also helping tutor a writing week at Arvon in Devon in late September with Jude Rogers and a special guest slot from Simon Garfield, which should be a great week.