20181201 Lea Valley

This was originally published in EYESORE issue #4 in December 2018.

It was 7am and January, and though the puddles in Hackney were frozen, Colm the night baker of Church Street was awake too.

“You’re what? A walk? Like a hike?”

He eyed me warily, before handing me a bun from the bulging blue carrier bag he brought with him everywhere.

“What’re ye doing that for?”

Walking has many benefits over the car or train, even the bicycle. What it lacks in pace it makes up for in many small things you might never have noticed. In walking aimlessly away from home I wanted to challenge cosy assumptions and bring the truth to light. Good natured Colm had spotted the self-indulgence of it all instantly, but if he disapproved it never showed for a second.

The day started with Cazenove Road, a quintessentially Victorian residency lined from top to bottom with mature and knobbly sycamores. The houses here are all Homes, proud old cabinets brimming with character, and just enough damp and actual poverty to keep the Considerate Constructors at bay. In more salubrious neighborhoods these are generally mined for the rich seams below them, but such boujee basements have not yet arrived on Stamford Hill.

What you do see however are precarious studio conversions, huddled for warmth like the pigeons above eye-level, and a prime example floats past on the left as I march towards Clapton. For years plywood hoarding has clung to the base of 2ND’S STREET FURNITURE, a timewarped purveyor of hand-me-down armchairs, and been guarded around the clock by gatekeepers in high viz smoking jackets. Only rumour and hearsay allude to the noises within, and the rusty skeleton of a sacrificial mountain bike has lain chained by the site entrance for months. The answer of what’s inside, as we know now, can be yours for just £1,600pcm (bills not included, NO DSS), and has little to do with the occult.

The wave crests at Springfield Park, and looking down at the river Lea are the first suggestions of Walthamstow. The rumble of great diesel beetles, which even at this hour are busy ferrying the Charedim around Hackney’s more conservative north-eastern wards – a hysteria of burnt rubber and wheel spin – give way to the silence of the park.

“Nice and dry! Keep those legs up!”

Down on the river dawn boaters are harried by their master, a hoary pensioner on an ancient bicycle hurtling down the towpath. This is also where the Goose Man holds court most mornings, and I pass him on his way home covered in breadcrumbs. Stoic, he remains rooted to the spot – elbow deep in a Hovis bag – until every beast in the park has been sated.

“Nothing’s coming, nothing’s coming! Let the boat run out, just move it on!”

Upstream, past the sand-coloured newbuilds and the houseboats, until eventually Markfield Park. Less windswept than Springfield, Markfield is prettier and somehow still leafy in the frost. It is home to huge concrete soakaways that channel towards the river, and deep graffitied bowls. The 27-foot engine that powered the park’s previous occupant, a Victorian sewage works, is well preserved and has predictably been turned into a café. The stone remnants of the settlement tanks, like ancient walls of some forgotten civilization, have been plastered with colourful characters and tags. Gin-clear puddles crunch underfoot.

Beyond the perimeter of the park are the ruins of something else; the ageing light industry that has, with varying degrees of success, persisted in the Lea Valley. Mountains of trash just outside the gates wink suggestively behind chained fences, a warning to the obscure businesses still in operation around Tottenham Hale that the scrap dealers won’t hesitate before moving in.

All along Markfield Road there is also a dusting of something organic, spores that are just getting settled – but with a sense that they could blow off without warning. Side by side are craft breweries and button makers, café-cum-bars besides caffs and yards. Kelly’s International Trading Ltd (Est. 1982) stands derelict, nestled between Five Miles and Mirrorball Pauls. There are winners and there are losers here; how long before the old boys in the Mannions Prince Arthur substitute their Fosters for Punk IPA?

“Fellas”

“Morning”

“What’s this then?”

“We’re doing the bird survey.”

I’d emerged the other side of Tottenham Hale on to the Lea Valley Nature Reserve, which at the time consisted of crisp wrappers and cans. The dead summer perennials revealed a bed of plastic and aluminium, and also the Friends of Tottenham Marsh out on their rounds.

“What you hoping to see today?”

“Anything,” in glum unison.

We walked to the Waterside Cafe on Stonebridge Lock, were I sat beside boat-people eating brunch and listened.

“Was it violent?”

“He didn’t get like beaten up or anything. Someone jumped out the bush though, pushed him off his bike.

“How many is that now?”

“Like six times, three times since we’ve been together.”

This conversation continues dejectedly for some time. The log smoke and the chuckle of old motors, the laughter and the dog walkers – they come at a price. Life on the river is hard in the cold, and I see fewer people from here onwards, following the canal route further north.

A toothless pensioner fishing for pike, yards from the A406 tells me he has had no luck all morning. Everywhere the pollution bears down heavier and heavier. Someone has scrawled DEFINITELY NOT IN HACKNEY NOW on a concrete pillar in the underpass, and another has painstakingly copied out: EARTH IS NOT A GLOBE. FLAT EARTH FACT #28 WATER IS ALWAYS LEVEL – EARTH IS 71% WATER. RESEARCH OUR FLAT EARTH. A few feet away from this is a broken whisky bottle and a half-emptied suitcase of office wear, a flattened box of NOS canisters. The vibes of the North Circular impinge on your aura: there’s a real madness down there.

Surfacing for air brings no relief. Heavy traffic separates me from the sandy expanse that I had just crossed, which from the vantage point of a ten-lane flyover I can now identify as the 10,000 home Meridian Water development, empty but for a few porta cabins. Angel Road Rail Station is here too, similarly empty (it is the least used station in London by official metrics) and looking more and more like a tired old vein. Sadly, oozing out to the suburbs with an ever-weakening urgency is luxury we just can’t afford anymore; like everything else in this part of London, the 2030 agenda demands showcase investments in people and place, and arterial infrastructure projects like Crossrail2.

I pass by the towering chimney of the London EcoPark – the largest waste to energy incinerator in the UK. For miles I’d stared up at it, and as it silently passes behind me there is a hint of sadness. For forty years its furnaces have been stained with the resins of old sofas and fish heads, the fumes of which coated the lungs of the young and infirm, and for forty years it brought warmth and comfort to the 24,000 homes in Edmonton it provided for. By 2025 it will be gone, decommissioned, and reimagined as a newer, shinier facility.

I carried on north for another hour before I realised that the sound of things had changed. The whirr of rubber on asphalt was gone, the birds were louder, the hacking cough of the narrowboats fewer and farther between. I thought of Colm earlier that morning, and his last words as we parted (“Aye I’m alright. Been up most of the night – just going Sainsbury’s now to pick up some bits.”), and how, on the corner, I had glanced back over my shoulder in the direction of him and the supermarket. The high street was gearing up for Saturday; Booths Corner and the Иопос delicatessen already open, and beyond that Dalston, Hoxton and Shoreditch steaming peacefully. I was a long way from home now, but could still just about make out the dull blue City on the horizon. I trudged down the stairs to the platform at Ponders End and punched the blue plastic biscuit on the wall.

“Please give us more information regarding the incident you want to report.”

“No, just train times. The board isn’t working.”

“I do apologise.”

“I just want to get a train back to London.”

“Thank you for this complaint. We’ll be sure to file it appropriately.”

“When is the next train from Ponders End, please?”

“There are no trains from Ponders End today.”

“Are there any trains tomorrow?”

“There are no trains from Ponders End.”