bromley, I hardly knew you.
produced as part of map of fun for Leefest 2014
Walking in the South London suburbs, Iain Sinclair, poet and chronicler of urban oddities, is approached by a group of French tourists: ‘Is this London?’ they demand, very politely’. Sinclair doesn’t think so; ‘not in my book’, he replies. He then points northwest and offers simple directions; ‘Keep going. Find a bridge and cross it’
This reaction points to the inherent tension in what counts as london: the city’s limits – both in the sense of geographic space, and in the sense of: what does it take to fit within London’s cultural frame? Bromley is not in Sinclair’s “book” of London – it is illegitimate, inauthentic. But why? There can be little doubt that Bromley is a place tangled with contradictions, created ad hoc, – perhaps, even, slap-dash – unsure of what it is or what it wishes to be. It is a London Borough; it elects members to the London assembly; has London buses and trains; is in the London A-Z (well, some of it). And yet, Bromley also contains scores of farms, is designated Kent by Royal Mail, doesn’t appear on tourist maps of London, indeed didn’t appear on any maps of london until the late eighteenth century. So it’s not in Sinclair’s” book.” Is it in ours? And if its not London then what is it?
We can date much of the area of Bromley back to the Saxon period; some of it even further (for instance Crofton Roman Villa dating to the late Roman period). For much of its history it remained farmland and small separate communities. This all changed in the nineteenth century with the Industrial Revolution, the advent of the railways and the invention of the “suburb”. Designed to be a place where people who were used to the crowded streets of central London could move to once they achieved a certain level of wealth. Trains would take them into the urban centre to work while they could live in a larger house, with a garden, and access to open space at the edge of the city. The commute was born. This new lifestyle was an appealing prospect to many and the population of the outer suburbs of London grew at astonishing rates throughout the late nineteenth and early 20th centuries.
What we today think of as Bromley, the London borough, was created in 1965 from an amalgamation of urban districts and smaller London boroughs. Though under one administrative roof, there are as many as 19 distinct “towns” which make up the London Borough of Bromley. From Penge in the North to Chelsfield and Biggin Hill in the South, West Wickham in the West (!) and St Marys Cray in the East. Each town – though many bleed into each other – retains its own distinct character and indeed it is, perhaps, these individual characters, rather than the borough as a whole, that people identify with. Individual, self contained towns.
The history of the development of Bromley speaks clearly to its role as the archetypal suburb in popular imagination. At a seemingly sharper variance than any other London borough – including those far further outlying – there exists a palpable tension between country and city, and Bromley arguably straddles these opposing landscapes uncomfortably. Increasingly, as house prices rise and people are forced further and further out, the relation to london intensifies with “20 minutes from London” being a common estate agents sales pitch. But what of the place itself? To be able to do more than simply exist, sleep, pause, in Bromley we need things to do, a public life, a culture. What we need to inculcate is a lifestyle and manner of living that is tied, at least in part, to our environment, and to the people, ideas, and space of our borough, rather than a reflex of London.
Bromley, and indeed the suburbs in general, rarely gets mentioned in arts and literature, and when they are it’s seldom in a positive light. In his book Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi describes Bromley as “a leaving place”, a place notable only as a pausing point from which to swiftly exit. While only being 20 miles from the centre of London, Kureishi’s Bromley is another world entirely. London is “bottomless in its temptations”, while Bromley is stagnant, philistine, and dull. It represents only a place that the lead character can not wait to grow-up and be free from. Things happen elsewhere; nothing of note can happen, exist, and stay, in the suburbs.
Likewise in the preface to Norman Collin’s great London novel, “London Belongs to Me” he describes the difference between people who live in the suburbs and people who live in “London.” Referring to the suburbs, Collin’s says, “There they sleep these demi-Londoners, in their little Tudor dolls houses until next morning when they emerge, refreshed ready to play at being real Londoners again.” Elsewhere, he alludes to the mass commuting complexion of its inhabitants, the “half-urban hordes”. In this sense, suburbia is more than the material, it’s also a lifestyle – or, following Collin’s theme, a half-life-style. It affects the way we live, think, and imagine ourselves and our world. Not only that, suburban houses, in descriptions such as these, also gain a character of their own. Suburbia’s bricks and mortar are complicit in the phoney, mock-up, and half life that suburban dwellers are living.
As we have seen, the suburbs are thought to have sprung fully formed, as a response to a demand for out-of-town housing from the economic phenomenon of London. The rapidity and objectivity of their growth has created a scenario in which memory and the past doesn’t echo in a meaningful sense. Despite the age of the settlements upon which the area flourished, suburbia appears superficial, surface-level. It is any place; it is no place. It is too close and too far away. In fiction the suburbs are ignored, mocked, despised, scapegoated and stereotyped. They are remote, unknowable, standardised and insignificant. The authenticity and identification of the spaces in which we live are partly formed by their representations in literature and media – the grammars through which we learn of a place. This has long been a problem for suburbs, and perhaps none more so that suburbia’s favourite son – Bromley – since it is underrepresented. Doubly so, literally from the urban core, and again in the literature.
But there is more to say. Perhaps it is the seeming anonymity and uniformity of Bromley, that lends itself to being an incubator of culturally significant, yet often strange and radical people. David Bowies connection with the borough is well document. Bowie lived, wrote and performed in Bromley for many years and was a co-founder of the Beckenham Art Labs, based at what is now Zizzi’s on Beckenham High Street. The punk singer Siouxsie Sioux was also a Bromley native, with her “Bromley contingent” famous in late 70s punk London. These two musical icons are seen as being from Bromley but are archetypal in their journey out. They follow the pattern described by Karishi, London drew them up. There are however a number of other interesting figures who made the journey the other way. The cult poet Nicholas Moore (1918-86) moved to St Marys Cray in his middle age and wrote many of his “pomenvylopes” poems there, with themes of suburban life and love. Ewan Maccoll and Peggy Segar, folk singers and political activists spent many years in Shortlands, where a Blue plaque now commemorates their time there. Ira Aldridge, who was the first black actor to play the part of Othello in the nineteenth century, settled in Beckenham from which he ran his parodist minstrel shows, skewering the racist attitudes of the time. Finally, the Russian anarchist and philosopher Peter Kropotkin lived in Bromley North where he hosted many of the early twentieth centuries most important intellectuals. Maybe it is these and others like them we can think of when we think of Bromley, these people who saw Bromley as more than a “sleeping ground for semi-people.”
If we concede that Bromley is primarily a place to raise a family, a place to go to school and then to commute from, there is a period of life that it perhaps doesn’t cater that well for: the youth. It is during this period that the lure of London looms the largest and that the lack of “things to do” in Bromley is at its most acute. Bromley now has 2 cinemas, and 2 theatres, and small number of museums and heritage centres (Crofton Roman Villa, Downe House, Bethlem Hospital and archive). There is an active amateur societies scene, coordinated by Bromley Art Council at Ripley Arts Centre and of course a lot of parks and open space, to run, ride and play in. But is this enough, and do young people feel involved or catered for by these options? Do they feel ownership, agency – even – over their lives in Bromley? Do they feel like they have stake in moulding and shaping its development? Bromley Youth Council, made up of representatives from schools throughout the borough, have consistently called for more attention to be paid to youth opportunities. Their yearly manifestos detail a lack of youth activities and services and call for much more to be done. As someone who is not only a product of Bromley, but also someone who has recently returned to the borough after a spell in “Real London”, I, for one, agree. Though Bromley has housed and nurtured many incredible people (as detailed above)it would be hard to argue that it has a vibrant public life.
So are the disparagers right? Bromley itself literally means “the open field.” This is apt. It creates an image of space and potential, waiting to be filled, to be used. It is this potential Leefest attempts to capture, to fill the open field with things to do and see. So let’s not accept suburbia, let’s not accept its image of superficiality and replication. Let’s create a community we love to be in. Here’s to more of the spirit of Leefest!
Further Reading:
Hanif Kureishi – Buddha of Suburbia
Norman Collins – London Belongs to me.
Iain Sinclair – London Orbital, DownRiver
Nicolas Moore – The Orange Bed
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