please empty your brain below
Fantastic stuff, Diamond. The stream-of-consciousness style works well. One quibble (in a "I'm so glad I don't live there any more" way) : "proper pubs"> between Fair Cross and the un-fair Heath?

Not one, mate. Partly because when the LCC built Becontree they were on something of a temperance drive. Partly because the massive pubs-cum-tea-rooms-cum-winter gardens they insisted on proved wildly unprofitable and have been slowly closed and demolished one-by-one subsequently.

dg writes: Just shows I wasn't paying attenting properly. Post now updated.

Ah - that photo of B Heath with the flats (but not the extraordinarily ugly swimming pool next door - supposedly subject of a gypsy curse) brings back memories. I can almost smell the chlorine in the air and all the salty over-vinegared bags of chips being brandished by the loutish schoolchildren from the various large schools nearby...

venichka | 03.12.05 - 10:12 a.m. | #

Sort of related - last night we were, once again, stuck in a long traffic jam due to a broken down bus.

Could you research the mechanicial reliability of the new buses please?

I have seen more broken down buses with 53, 04, 54, 05 and 55 plates (ie in the last 2 years) than I have seen in the rest of my life. Is it a plan by Evil Ken to supplement the negative effects of the congestion charge?

Blue Witch | Homepage | 03.12.05 - 10:49 a.m. | #

I wonder if it's partly that new buses are mechanically less reliable, but more that there are just so many more buses than there used to be so far more of them break down.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 03.12.05 - 12:17 p.m. | #

Is it only a pair of towers at Becontree Heath? Last time I actaully alighted there (c.1985!) there were a few - maybe they're starting to come down (a trio in Edmonton is now a pair, for instance) and it's always a red-letter day for the former inhabitants who get to watch them being demolished.

Matt | Homepage | 03.12.05 - 6:55 p.m. | #

<checks other photos>

OK, there are only two blocks right next to the bus station, but there are at least two more in the distance.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 03.12.05 - 7:43 p.m. | #

i THINK there 3 high-rises bang in BH, including those 2 immeditely at the bus stop, and a few single blocks further way in various directions. think there has been some talk of one of these more distant blocks (parkside house, near bell farm ave i think?) coming down eventually. but i'm reasonably certain that there've been no demolitions there yet. problem is that the low rise flats at bh are no nicer...

venichka | 03.12.05 - 7:50 p.m. | #

If I'd known...or thought, I'd have invited you around for a cup of tea. I live in Becontree Heath now.

dg writes: If I'd known... or thought, I might not have been so disparaging about the place

Oh, and our 'public' nuclear bunker is under the B&D Civic centre. Always an interesting fact to know.

Tom Reynolds | Homepage | 04.12.05 - 7:13 p.m. | #

...oh and I spent 4 hours a day, every bloody day swimming in that bloody pool as a youngster.

And am I fit for it? Am I buggery...

Tom Reynolds | Homepage | 04.12.05 - 7:15 p.m. | #

And finally (look, I'm tired alright? If I was thinking straight I'd have put it all in one comment. I \\_know\\_) It's interesting, and I've never noticed it before, that the number 5 bus goes from where I live (Becontree Heath) to where I work (Canning town/Plaistow/Upton Park/East Ham). Still it's good to know if my car breaks down that I can still get to work without wheeling the pushbike out the house.

Pretty much right about the colour of the faces, although there are a lot more non-white faces in Becontree than there were a year or two ago. Not a bad thing in my point of view.

And the artwork on the Barking roundabout is called 'The fishnets' (or something like that and is supposed to represent the multiculturalism of Barking).

Used to live in the big lego looking tower block in Barking. It's being pulled down soon. the LAS are \\_very\\_ happy about this.

OK, rambling over now.

Tom Reynolds | Homepage | 04.12.05 - 7:22 p.m. | #

Something tells me that Becontree Heath deserves its own blog...

...or maybe between us we've just covered everything there is to say.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 04.12.05 - 7:28 p.m. | #

"dreary, depressing, miserable, unlovely, intimidating, grey, windswept, bleak, bland, decaying, unloved and thoroughly nasty".

... And this is why I pissed off to the southern tip of Africa.... is the sun shining? Quick peek: natty neon blue sky... oh yes.

Andrew | 06.12.05 - 9:22 a.m. | #











TridentScan v2.10.0 | Privacy Policy