Memories of Shoreditch

Not a place I like to go really. I always felt Shoreditch was not my home. I always felt that somehow I didn't belong. When something awful is about to happen, I always dream I am in my mother's flat on the day of her funeral. The family are all waiting for the hearse to arrive, her brother Patrick, his son Paul, us, her three daughters with our boyfriends/husbands. Aunts Flossie, Gwen, Barbara, the flat is always dark and there is a hushed conversation going on.

I wake up sweating knowing that something awful will happen soon. 

It usually does. 

When I wrote 1955 I revisited Shoreditch in my memories. I remember being chased through the streets one evening after working for pocket money at the canteen of the town hall for a function. I remember running up the urine soaked stairs of Peabody building and hiding in the chute cupboard. I waited for a long while until the man who had followed me clattered back down the stairs.

I have a memory of sitting playing on my own in the flat, it was sunny and warm. Mum was making blazer sleeves on her Singer sewing machine, and she asked me to cut them apart  as she ran them all together with one long thread. I asked her.
"Why am I here?"
"God, Jezus, what kind of question is that for a four year old?" She stared at me.
"Because I wasn't here before was I? I was on a balcony, wasn't I?" I cut another thread.
"The flat balcony, yes, I opened the door it was hot." Mum carried on sewing.
I closed my eyes and the balcony I saw was not the balcony of our flats. It was at the base of a Pyramid and I was a woman, holding my young daughter's hand. I felt scared, my husband was galloping off into the hot sandy distance to get help.
"No, before, you know, when I used to tell the story of Pegasus to my little girl."
She stared at me, "I don't know who Pegasus is."
Suddenly it was all gone again.The buzz of the sewing machine, the shouts from Hoxton Market, a dog barked, I was back in Shoreditch again.

I saw the Krays "the sporting brothers" when they came with an actress called Yootha Joyce to open St Monica's youth club.  Apparently now it's a trendy cocktail bar. Then, it was a half empty church hall with a tennis table, and a frightened little priest.

There were parts of Shoreditch you just didn't go. My English Nan used to tell me where policemen were murdered and what manhole covers they were shoved down to get rid of the bodies.

My father knew all the tunnels of the tube system, as a teenager during the war they used to explore the underground system and he showed me how to walk from Old Street to Baker Street without getting on a train. He even knew where the old crate lifts were to enable you to get back to street level and whereabouts they came out. 

I haven't been to Shoreditch for over ten years now, the last time was to deliver my entry to the Tate Portrait competition, strangely the collection point was my old comprehensive which became an art academy.

Why am I thinking about that now? 

I don't know, but while we were away I saw my young life flashing before my eyes one night in bed. I had been feeling quite ill, and I thought I must be dying. My dear husband just told me it was tiredness. Yes I'd walked for 5 hours and I was still getting over a flu-like virus.

Today. Today I feel sick. My legs ache, but apparently I'm getting better according to the Doctor, I am using this time for writing practice. Spewing whatever thoughts I have onto the blog. Verbal vomit. 

Apologies, but I feel a lot better for that.