Saturday, July 30, 2011

summer's here





Finally a weekend off, so we've come up to north London, where we lived when we were first married.
We used to live in Stoke Newington, which, at the time was quite a poor area with a big hassidic Jewish community. When we moved here in 1981 there was a great deal of tension between the police and the black community just south of here in Dalston. I remember picking up the police communications on short wave radio. Cars were burnt and shops were bombed.

It's peaceful now. Quite gentrified in fact. The various communities seem to be living together comfortably.




It's nice to be back. And there's even a Banksy!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

5 comments:

Brian Miller said...

hey there stranger...have fun in london...would love to visit london some time...

Betty said...

Hey Brian! I've missed blogging. Real life has been over-intrusive for the past couple of months. It's good to be back :)

mouse (aka kimy) said...

i am so impressed that you posted this from your phone!

great banksy find!

Betty said...

Hi Kim, Sally and I found this 4 years ago and didn't know it was a banksy at the time (he seldom uses colour or cartoon characters)

The local council then painted over it in black paint (nice!) even though it's on a private building. See link.

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1601629

Am liking my iphone :)

Steve Reed said...

A shame about that Banksy! I wouldn't have even identified it as his -- the style is so different from what he usually does.