Let's move to .... Peckham

[malumbu]

Great article in the Grauniad today. Think it really should have been entitled let's move of Bellenden Road, the Rye or East Dulwich. One of the thing that makes Peckham is the great diversity, that also makes that the shops are far more interesting than most high streets. Yes I know that this has both good and down sides. Yet who did they find to talk about Peckham? Locals with such exotic names as Susie, Rosie and Sarah.

[PS I am being ironic/sarcastic]

[edhistory]

Thanks for the laugh.

Did you sport who wrote the article?

There's a very funny reader comment too.

John K

[tommy]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/sep/23/lets-move-to-peckham-south-london

[malumbu]

I dunno what this preoccupation with Only Fools and Horses. Yes a very amusing sitcom, but nothing to do with Peckham.

Desmonds however was brilliant and I cycle past barbers that appear just like this.

[camberwell70]

Only Fools and Horses was set in Peckham and the writer, John Sullivan, did much of his research in Peckham.

Are you sure you're not tripping?

[Salsaboy]

Most of Only Fools was filmed in Bristol.

[camberwell70]

That's not the point.

[camberwell70]

Full Metal Jacket was filmed in North Woolwich but is a movie about the Vietnam war.

Only Fools and Horses may have been filmed in Bristol but it is a sit-com about Peckham

[malumbu]

What on earth has OFAH got to do with Peckham? Delboy has a vague SE English Accent. The only black bloke in there has a Scouse accent. Peckham in the 1980s and 90s would have had people from West Indian, West African, North African, Irish, the Indian Sub-continent extraction and no doubt a myriad of other ethnicicities living there. Now Eastern European as well. Desmonds reflected some of this very well. OFAH didn't. To make things even more amusing, the prequel thingy even managed to have an underground station in Peckham as well.

Enjoy the sitcom by all means, talk about artistic licence, but do me a favour and please don't suggest that this reflects the people of Peckham over the last three decades.

I would personall prefer to live in Walford, where you know you can go into the local/pub/cleaners and find a partner, job or local gangster, no one works in town, no one shops in Tescos, that apart from the occasional ethnic stereotype everyone is all knees up mother brown.

[Damian H]

Saving Private Ryan was filmed largely in Ireland

[camberwell70]

Only Fools and Horses was about a wide-boy, a street trader, a ducker and diver, from Peckham. There were and still are people like that. It was about an aspect of society at that time, a micro culture. Today it might be referred to as an underclass. I agree it didnt really reflect Peckham as a whole and the accents were a bit dodgy, particularly Rodney and Trigger, but some of the writing was very astute and reflected reasonably well a world I was familiar with while growing up.

[Moos]

What a silly article. Practically cut and pasted from a similar Let's All Move To Bellenden ("surprisingly leafy" or some such chirpy bollokcs) not long ago. Peckham is not a secret.

[PeckhamRose]

And the tower block in the series was not Whitcombe Point in Peckham but was a tower block in Shepherds Bush.

[edhistory]

The article was written by a journalist.

John K

[Huguenot]

Somebody's going to claim Star Wars was filmed in Shepperton Studios next, and doesn't accurately reflect the racial make up of Mos Eisley.

The Cantina reflected the myriad of ethnicities really well - they should have based the whole film there. You can landspeed past cantinas that are just like this.

Do me a favour and please don't pretend Uncle Owen accrately reflected the people of Tatooine over the past three decades.

[bon3yard]

[pre]

Somebody's going to claim Star Wars was filmed in Shepperton Studios next, and doesn't accurately reflect the racial make up of Mos Eisley.

The Cantina reflected the myriad of ethnicities really well - they should have based the whole film there. You can landspeed past cantinas that are just like this.

Do me a favour and please don't pretend Uncle Owen accrately reflected the people of Tatooine over the past three decades.

[/pre]

Are you suggesting that Only Fools & Horses used artistic licence in its portrayal of Peckham and its environs, and that instead of being a cutting edge documentary looking at the grittier side of life in inner London it was in fact a harmless piece of humorous fluff designed to entertain and titilate? Some claim.

[bon3yard]

...wow, thats never happened before. Must be out of practice.

[titch juicy]

bon3yard- well said

hard to believe people see OFAH as a serious social commentary

[camberwell70]

John Sullivan researched Only Fools and Horses in Peckham and Nunhead and based some of his characters on people he met and observed in pubs and markets.

Of course its not a serious social commentary but he did stay true to the vernacular.

[Rose21]

the most random bit of the article is that my name is attached to one of the comments yet I've never been to the place described. I must have a double in the Peckham rye area