Urban Diary

A walk around my old neighbourhood in the times of Coronavirus

The grey glass, like a telly that has been switched off, returns my reflection. The shop’s dark interior cries out emptiness and oblivion. My hands are shoved deep in my pockets. Perhaps it is the only logical place for them as I stand in silent contemplation of this landscape of urban desolation. The sign inviting would-be entrepreneurs to rent does not reveal the ugly truth: you are the next victim, not the next Bill Gates. Look around you, every two shops it is a similar scenario and we can’t even blame Covid-19. Vacant lots waiting to swallow their unsuspecting and ever-so-optimistic prey.

Edmonton Green, in north London, never pretended to be anything else. No fancy gentrification here, no, working-class to the core. But the small-business-friendly mindset I saw growing roots here more than fifteen years ago has halted somewhat in the last decade. Ten years is a long time in the life of, say, a child. From crying your lungs out because your nappy is soiled to running in the local park, to forming your first friendships, everything looks up. Ten years can, however, be life-changing for a shop-keeper. And so they proved to be for a particular shoe shop when the shopping centre was refurbished. The shop closed down. I bought my children’s first shoes there. I even still wear a pair of boots I purchased at this shop in 2003. Yes, seventeen years ago and they are still with me and I still wear them. The shoe shop was run by an Asian couple (Indian, Bangladeshi, Pakistani? I never asked them but they were always so friendly to their loyal customers).

Now that shop is gone. And others. The in-shops went long ago and in their place yet another branch of another impersonal, big bank stands. The walk around what used to be my manor feels these days like a walk through a tunnel of mirrors. Grey mirror-like shop windows that return my reflection as their empty interiors keep crying out their oblivion.