The Rusty Wire Service

Deptford High Street. Is there anywhere like it? Well, no but it would be disingenuous not to mention that each of the many real gems of the city will try to lay boastful claim to quintessential London authenticity and good luck to them. I’ve worked in suits and workclothes all over the length and breadth of this fine city and nowhere I’ve lived; from Hammersmith to Hackney nor Finsbury Park to Forest Hill, has that London particularity of Deptford.   Now I could tell you all about the birthplace of the Royal Navy or Tsar Peter the Great learning to be a shipwright there or even the murder of the poet Marlowe. I could happily point out the architectural niceties of baroque St Paul's or the Laban Centre. I might even recommend a pint in the Dog and Bell or the Bird’s Nest, and maybe, for those of more robust constitution, I might even prescribe some boxing training in the gym above the Lord Clyde . But I don’t work for the Deptford tourist board. Hell, I’m not ev...