Letter from London by Alexia Saoulli
Summer is officially over. It literally happened overnight. One minute it was roasting and the next it was pouring down with rain. We’ve even had to put the heat on at home at night and the winter coats are back out again.
The girls at work are back wearing black tights and the boys come in wearing their scarves and clutching umbrellas.
Mind you, it’s not as cold here as it is up North. We were visiting family last weekend and there was a marked difference in temperature.
About five degrees. I know this because I was watching the temperature reading in our car drop from about 15 degrees to 10 degrees. I’m always fascinated the difference just a few hundred miles up the M6 makes.
In fact, it isn’t uncommon to hear that the sun is splitting the skies in London but that the heavens have opened and there’s a downpour in Manchester. A lot of people don’t believe that it really does rain an incredible amount in Manchester.
It just seems to attract the rain. It’s also much greyer up there and the clouds seem to be lower in the sky. They literally feel as if they are sitting on top of your head, squashing you.
I find it depressing and I’m not really cut out for that kind of weather. People up there are definitely hardier than we are down here. Down here we’re positively wimpy and start moaning about the weather well before freezing point.
People up north are friendlier. I didn’t used to think so, but having lived here almost a year now, I can safely say that they are definitely friendlier than Londoners. They actually say hello to each other in the street and when you’re standing in a queue it’s quite okay to strike up a conversation without looking like you’re off your meds. Not so here.
Not too long ago, my partner and I were walking in Hampstead and I got so carried away with the village feel to the place – albeit rich village – that I actually started saying hello to people in the street.
I wasn’t even in the main bit of Hampstead but more on the outskirts, Frognal way, where it is very residential. It felt like a real neighbourhood and I thought that it would be polite to say hello to people walking past me, particularly as there weren’t many people about.
One man doing his gardening gave me a nervous look and quickly turned away and carried on trimming his bushes. At first I thought he was really rude. Then I realised he’d likely thought I was odd and at best looking for a cleaning job and at worst staking out his house to rob him.
As I said before, Frognal is a very affluent area, and the houses there are easily in the £10 million region. Still, it was perturbing to discover not a single person I’d greeted in the street said hello back to me.
I wonder how they would have reacted had they been one of the two ladies sitting in Newcastle’s Marks & Spencer having afternoon tea last Saturday when I openly gawped at their gorgeous fruit scones lathered in clotted cream and raspberry jam, before explaining that I was trying to lose weight and so off treats.
The two ladies nodded in sympathy and told me indeed their weekend feast was “to die for”.
I’ve also realised that people up North don’t look as miserable as Londoners.
Maybe it’s all that country air and open space. Or maybe I’m misconstruing a grimace for a smile, due to the bracing cold wind that seems to whip through your bones and leaves you clenching your teeth. Either way, they don’t look as unhappy or harassed; especially during rush hour Monday to Friday.
During those times, people here look positively miserable, myself included. We’re like little robots on autopilot in our own worlds. I’m particularly bad in the morning. I hardly notice anyone or anything around me. I just totally zone out and I’m sure I look like I’ve got the woe of the world on my shoulders.
The same goes for everyone else in the carriage. We all wear these blank expressions, void of any emotion or life. When we get off the train we march like ants to the exit, pausing only if someone literally blocks our path, and even then we quickly side step them and soldier on, a look of steely determination now in place of the lifeless one before it. We are Londoners and time is money.
We don’t have time to say hello to the Transport for London staff chatting to one another at the exit as we swarm past on our way out. We don’t have time to stop and chat to the people handing out City AM newspapers or Time Out magazines.
We don’t have time to smile at the familiar faces of other commuters on the same daily journey. Heck we don’t even have time to recognise any familiar faces.
If we do, we keep it to ourselves. Oh, and it goes without saying that we push to get on the tube. We don’t give up our seats for pregnant ladies or the elderly.
And we certainly don’t say bless you when someone sneezes. Why? Because we are Londoners of course, privileged citizens of one of the most amazing cities in the world.
And although those Northerners might be so much hardier, friendlier, warmer and welcoming than us, that’s okay because we live in London and not in the backend of beyond where it’s always wet and cold and the people have funny accents.
I mean, seriously, does it really matter that we seem to have lost a bit of our souls along the way?
