Saturday's have a basic pattern in this house. Sleep as late as the kids will allow. Breakfast and shower in no particular order. Walk over to the shops in the local square. Drop off dry cleaning and chat with the owners Gary and Gail. Pop next door to the newsagent for the Saturday newspaper. Back home for some fresh coffee and read the paper whilst planning the rest of the weekend.
Not this morning.
I walked over to the shops on the square - a mere 30 yards - to find POLICE tape everywhere and little clusters of local folk gossiping in muted voices. One didn't need to be Sherlock Homes or Andy Sipowicz to work it out. A friend, standing in her front garden in her dressing gown, beckons me over and says the word we are hearing more and more each day:
"Murder"
I'll spare you the numerous versions but each I heard contained words like knife, shots, kids and, almost inevitably, drugs. In recent weeks, Londoners, like so many in inner cities around the world, have woken up to an 83 year old being beaten and burned, a man knifed cleaning his windscreen in a petrol station and the biggest ever crime reconstruction in the UK to find the killer of an American woman killed whilst jogging in a park. Whilst London has always had it's share of violent crime, our area has seen a marked increase over recent years and each incident makes me pause and question if this is still a place I want my family to grow up in.
At home, we have discussed moving out of town for a long time and, with my recent job relocation to the other side of town and redundancy possible, these discussions have become more frequency and relevant. The original motivation was to get to find a house and smallholding where we could be a little more self sufficient, growing organic and eating better. Of late and try as I might, I can't stop feeling that we should be making just such a move as soon as possible - not so much for self sufficiency as self preservation.
Posted by bignoseduglyguy at March 8, 2003 05:00 PMhi all! thanx for this topic - it's quitely indeed..
Posted by: michel at May 8, 2004 10:15 PM