Food shops / restaurants / Gastro Pub / Deli / Kitchenware / Off-License

[Tom]

Oh come on - does anyone seriously think that there is still a real working class level in society? Particularly in London.

If so, I challenge you to show me some. There is certainly a massive discrepancy in affluence, but this is not guided by social background. We are very simply - all middle class now.

Is the builder who winter holidays in the carribean and quotes Proust consider himself working class? (He did my bathroom last year...)

How about my office cleaner, who has just got back from Brazil?

How about my mate who is an Oxbridge blue and can't get a job and can't even afford loo roll..?

What about the humble black cabbies? I hear they are clearing ?100k these days... Almost as much as plumbers!

Or - Louisa, are you simply bemoaning people who strive for better for themselves?!

[Guest]

The 'Yellow Pages' has a lot to answer for.

[Tom]

did he really?

cheeky sod. he is a philandering f*ckwit though.

[Keef]

This is becoming a bit of a gang up on Louisa thing!!!

If she preferred the area before, that's up to her, she's not alone (ask ibo and snorky). This forum is becoming dull, as every thread is ending up on this same topic!

[Guest]

It's not a gang-up.. it just means more people disagree than agree.

Every thread end-up on the same topic because sooner or later someone plays the 'class card' and off we go again!

[dulwichmum]

Yes, come back Louisa! We can appreciate your point of view too.

[Tom]

Maybe we should ban anyone who has lived in ED for more than 10 yrs or considers themselves less upwardly mobile(tu).

Then we can get brag about holidays and spending money, how the little precious' are getting on and slag off the miserable old gits next door (whilst trying to buy them out and turn their houses into flats for DINKIES).:)-D

[Keef]

Er, can I stay, I returned to Dulwich 5 years ago, after 5 years away, so I technically fit the rules :-S

Not that I actually live in ED at the moment ;-)

[Guest]

Where did you 'go away' to 'come back' from, Keef?

[Guest]

Unless you meant that you, er, had to 'go away' for a while..

[Keef]

No, went up to Liverpool for uni, and stayed a couple of years after.

Actually I came back down in 2001 to train for my job, and really intended to go back up there ASAP, but SE London is home, and I couldn't deny it, so been back ever since.

You can take a boy out of London...........

[dulwichmum]

Er, what are DINKIES?

[Guest]

DINKIES = Double Income No Kids

[Guest]

Always interesting to see where people go.. and why they come back.

My hometown is Walsall in the West Midlands - hence the move to London.

[spadetownboy]

yeh leave louisa alone,i certainly remember manys a singsong in the likes of the forresters and the lord p,and before it came over all pretentious the edt used to host trad irish sessions on sunday afternoons.certainly wasnt all knee up muvver brown and the likes but it was good old craic when it happened.and then came karaoke

[Guest]

I thought all that part of "Herne Hill" this side of the railway was *really* "Dulwich Borders", if one is to believe the eatate agents....Some of those shacks cost ?1.2 million which frankly astonishes me...You can buy a sizeable and picturesque chunk of North Yorkshire for that kind of money.

When I moved to ED just over 30 years ago there were 5 butchers' shops (2 on Northcross Road), mostly of the bulk-buy cellephane-wrapped chicken pieces variety, 4 bakers (all owned by Mr Place) amd about 4 curry houses. two brand new. I think only "The Curry Cabin" and Pretty's greengrocery on Northcross Road has survived since then. With hindsight I suspect the key transforming event for the revival/desecration of the leafy enclave/dump was the opening of Sainsbury's on Dog Kennel Hill, a development fought tooth and nail by lovers of the Co-op "supermarket". Now I see Sainsbury's is being "upsized" once more and wonder what ED will be like in 10 years or so...

[Tom]

Clapham. or maybe Balham.

[Guest]

Sorry everyone, I didnt go away because I felt anyone was attacking my point of view, i've been away for a few days to see relatives!

Anyhow, I hold my view, and I hold it simply because I no longer feel the area has the same grit or character to it, but this is just my opinion and I cannot stop or hold back progress, it's driven by all sorts of factors which I dont have the slightest control over. I just hope that we can allow for some of the old traditional community ways to perhaps be kept or revived in a minor way, so that we dont completely forget the strong working class ties with these inner London suburbs which have experienced so much since their creation, including the horrifying blitzkrieg and the more positive aspect of multicultural society spreading into the area. All of these things have helped create ED and make it into what it is, I just dont want the people who have always lived here being left out in the cold in the new look ED, every social class, ethnic group, whatever, deserves to live in an area and not feel isolated completely!