What brought you here?

[Mikecg]

I have never been to the El Presidente in Depford anyone know where it is?

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Don't be silly, the Juan Evelyn is well known.

[Sue]

PeckhamRose Wrote:

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> Anyone been to

> Dennis Severs House yet? It's great fun.

xxxxxxx

Went in the early eighties (I think), took my ex for a birthday surprise, we were was shown around by Dennis, RIP, was amazing, don't know if the experience has changed since then.

[mockney piers]

top prize goes to PGC :)

[JetSetWilly]

me, on the run from the law, had to lie low till the heat died down, unfortunately during that time i knocked up a local girl and did the honourable thing. in the mean time my co-accused did the honourable thing and coughed, did his time and all is now hunky-dory.

[candj]

Came to London because my husband was here (he being Irish and leaving Ireland when he was 18). Have lived in the Far East (on 2 occasions in my life, once with my current family, once when I was a child), all over the States and Europe. London is by far my favourite city, I love the people, the culture, the weather if you believe (so much more interesting than LA where I'm basically from), the diversity, the fact that you can nip to another country (Scotland included) immediately if need be, and the fact that my children were born here. It is their home and it is the place I call home.

btw, I'm not just posting at psychotically early hours, I'm not in the UK now.

[Michael Palaeologus]

I was born and bred in Cannock in the 60s and 70s. At that time it was a rather down trodden place with little to do. I went to college in Brighton, afterwards I went back home and worked in Wolverhampton as a Civil Servant.

I was frustrated at work and home. Met a girl on holiday in Morocco, she lived in London. I transfered down to London. That relationship ended, another started so I moved from Harlesden to Brixton Hill. That relationship ended and I moved from Brixton Hill to Camberwell. I finally made it over the border to SE22 a few years ago.

I expected to be in London for 5 years, 20 years later ...

[Keef]

I'm from London, ED born & bred. However, at 18 I couldn't wait to fly the nest, and went up to Liverpool for uni. Ended up staying there for a good 5 years, not comin home for summers like all my old mates did, and getting a job up there after uni.

When I came back down to train for my job in 2001, I fully intended to head straight back to the pool when I was done. However, I ended up getting a placement in Greenwich, and by the time I'd finished that, I was wondering why I'd ever left London, and decided home was home, and here I'd stay.

I may well go off and live elsewhere for a year or 2 at some stage, but at the end of the day, I love London, and think I'll spend most of my days here...

ED has gone to sh!t though ;-)

[Mikecg]

So you mest know Runcorn then Keef where the power station is? you know where every other house is a pile of rubble.

[Keef]

Indeed I do.

Worst place up near there is Skelmersdale, known as "Skem" (in a harsh almost spat out scouse accent). My ex's dad moved there for some reason... What an absolute fecking dump!

[Mikecg]

I worked in Liverpool a few years back and I really liked the place.

[Keef]

It's a great city, and the people are genuinely friendly. Only thing that grates a bit is the fact they all hink they're born with some kind of natural cheeky scouse wit, and that they're somehow different from everyone else (they even cook up "a pan of scouse", which as far as I could tell, was exactly the same as a pan of stew anywhere else in the world). But they're a good lot really, and it's a cool place to live.

[Annasfield]

Mikecg Wrote:

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> So you mest know Runcorn then Keef where the power

> station is? you know where every other house is a

> pile of rubble.

Funny that - my Aunt lives there now and here house isn't a pile of rubble. Nor the one next door......

Powerstation is technically between Warrington and Widnes too. ;-)

[Xena Worried prince]

My Mummy told me the Stork brought me ::o

[bigbadwolf]

Really? I thought you were forged in the heat of battle.

[Xena Worried prince]

Nah - that's me mate Achilles the Chiropodist

[bob]

Had no choice was born in St Giles went to school hear lived in and around all my live last 27 years same place.

Bob S

[Floating Onion]

I was born in Bermuda. I moved here for the weather.

[bob]

LOL

Bob S

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Interesting Thread.

[jaybee82]

Well there was this big apocalyptic explosion and there I was crouching on the ground outside Jojo Maman Bebe with nothing on. I think my first words were 'give me your clothes' to some bloke having a drink outside the EDT...

Sorry, saw Terminator Salvation last night and had a pretty random dream to that effect.

[louisiana]

Got a place at University College London, back in the day. I have kept bouncing back ever since, though was absent for a few years in the 90s.

[PinkyB]

Excellent thread, really interesting.

Me: born and brought up in Sussex, went to college in Leicester, left with rubbish degree in useless subject, spent 9 months back in Brighton on the dole and living with my dad, that was a joy. He was on long-term sick benefit at the time, so it was a house of misery all round, really. I had ?5 a fortnight spending money after paying for food, rent, travel, stamps and paper for job application forms, etc, which I used to spend on buying as many second hand novels as I could. I thought of it as sanity money. You can't join the job scheme until you've been unemployed for six months, at which point they paid for my travel, I had access to a free typewriter to write letters, free stamps and envelopes. Subsequently sent 200 spec letters to companies I might vaguely be qualified to work for. From the 200 letters I got 2 job interviews and from that, 1 job offer. Starting 2 days later, in London. It might just as easily have been in Norfolk or Birmingham, since I'd applied to companies all over the country.

Anyway, moved up here for the job, living in Tooting originally because I had family there, then all over the place: Willesden, Bethnal Green, Hackney, Forest Gate, Holloway, Seven Sisters, Honor Oak, East Dulwich and Honor Oak again. Wouldn't live anywhere else now.

Although I keep planning to leave London, pretty much every year since I arrived (12 years ago), there are so many advantages to living here that they outweigh the disadvantages by a long margin. I can get anywhere else in the country easily, if I don't fancy the West End I can go to Islington or the King's Road, or the South Bank, or Hampstead Heath, or Kew Gardens, there are a million places to go so you need never be bored. There are cinemas showing films I want to see and not just the latest blockbuster, there are fantastic parks and museums and galleries, and rather more prosaically, there are jobs. Which is probably the reason quite a large proportion of people live here and not, say, Wiltshire.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I was truly wafted here from Paradise.

[Brendan]

I stole my way in through the waters of the Tigris.