My love letter to London
Two weeks after I handed in my notice at my newspaper job, I attended an audio storytelling workshop at the Barbican. I spent an entire weekend learning about the history of pirate radio, the work of the beautiful people behind Arcca magazine and the personal stories of the attendees’ first concerts. They told me about Public Enemy, and I tried to explain what Cairokee meant to me.
We each had to tell our own story by the end of the weekend. I kept mine simple, mostly because I spent most of my time getting to know a lovely girl who I wanted to meet again by the Brighton shore but time escaped us both. My final audio file is a narration of a script I wrote in thirty minutes, with Ratatat’s Nostrand playing in the background. The guy who kindly helped me edit my file said he liked the small pauses where I stopped to take a breath, so I kept them.
I don’t have the audio file published anywhere online and I’m not sure I’m allowed to post it since it features a (probably-copyrighted) song, so I’ll just share the transcript here. I’ve made a minor tweak to anonymise a personal detail. I think it is important and worthwhile to make a public record of your work, even if it not fully realised, so here is my love letter to London:
The first time I heard of London was through an anecdote my grandfather used to tell. During the British Mandate in Palestine, a man was kicking his donkey because it wouldn’t move. An English officer came over and scolded him for mistreating the animal. The man turned to the donkey and asked: “Why didn’t you tell me you have cousins in London?”
I came to London to study journalism. I wasn’t good enough for Oxbridge but I didn’t care. I was in London, so I was lucky enough. There was so much to take in, the Tube and the pubs and the big red bus.
I didn’t leave the British Library in my first summer. I was transfixed by the building and the ages of some of its archived items. Having spent my whole life in a country that’s only existed for fifty years, I didn’t know that the old could have such an air of reverence, a beauty that could be shown off. I liked that things were allowed to rot here.
I came from a dry and humid city, so the rain was a gift. I couldn’t believe it when it snowed for the first time. I ran out in my slippers and jumped on a video call with my family. I had never seen snow before.
You could pick things up quickly here too. A chippy was a fish and chip shop, and a loo was a toilet, and a jägerbomb was always a bad idea. I loved how busy it got on Oxford Street, even if people got mad at me for walking around so leisurely. Everybody had somewhere to go. Soon enough, I had places to go too.
The first time London felt like it could be home was when I knew how to get to my flat without needing to look at a map once. It grew over the years, this feeling that I could be a real Londoner if I just put in the time. I liked the canals and the foxes and the EuroStar, even though I’ve still never been on it. I liked meal deals and the improv scene and the first hint of Spring. I started to avoid Oxford Street as much as physically possible and grew to love the Bakerloo line.
I developed strong opinions about the city. Herne Hill had the best Sunday market and Harlesdon had the best Lebanese food and Beckenham Park had the best walking trails. The British Library remained my favourite library. In many ways, London was my first love.
I look back on the seven years I’ve spent in London and realise that this city saw me grow into womanhood. It was where I earned my degree, where I landed my first job in the City, where I fell in love for the first time. And in the end, it saw me choose to walk away from it all.
In his book My Friends, Hisham Matar wrote, “London was where Arab writers came to die”. He was talking about those who ended up here through self-exile. I guess, in a way, I hoped to die that way too. Maybe I still will.