Almost back to normal, in a good way. Lots of healthy young men about with their sturdy legs. The shop was too busy yesterday, too many volunteers, I don’t want to do it any more, not on Saturday. I felt awkward. Christopher with the amazing sculpted hair did too. He reminds me of Harry, child-like innocence. He seems intelligent. Young people seem to be much more intelligent than my generation give them credit for. Or is it that the ones I come into contact with are more intelligent and self motivated than average?
I’m at the pub/backpackers’ hostel beside Greenwich station. Australians are positive in outlook, and very physical too. Alternative without trying too hard. Could I live there? The racism isn’t good, but the weather is. Nimax are reopening their theatres from the end of October, with distancing and limited capacity. For a moment I thought there might be jobs to apply for, although they presumably have their own people, either redundant or otherwise. My next thought was that the same will happen with us, but the last communique was not so optimistic. It would be a bit sad for this suspended state to just end abruptly and for it all to revert to what it used to be. That thought is making me nervous. If we revert to the same as before, what has been the point in this?
I’m sitting outside, looking down the road towards Lewisham, a late summer evening, sun low in the sky, a mosaic of buildings lays flat against the sky, a small inter-wars pub nestles between modernish square brick generic structures, although from this distance their details don’t matter especially. The sunlight is diffuse, a slight haze in the air, a fringe of trees. There are still pauses in traffic, but plenty of cyclists about, we could think we were in August 1939 for a brief moment, or 1929. All past decades are “nostalgic”, especially those before television was commonplace. A past time is always somehow more attractive, because we know it is unattainable, forever out of reach, but documented, certain, reliable. We only really ever know what we have been told about those past eras though. History is full of facts, yes, but is compartmentalised, sifted, curated by those who tell the stories. There are far right extremist “nostalgia” groups on the social media, where people post silly pictures of (for example) glass milk bottles, claiming that life was great when milk was delivered by the likes of Norman Wisdom and his horse, yet they don’t mention that most people had scurvy, TB or polio.
I like the permanence of the old London streets though, solid Victorian or earlier buildings, grandieur, proportions. Neighbourhoods, lives, costermongers. They feel alive. Anywhere is better than the grey concrete.
New students from Greenwich university are here. Thanet gay, giggly girls. Trying to impress, giggling. They are the future, not Norman Wisdom.
Andrew Stevenson 