A London Particular

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 even going to say; if it’s good enough for the New York Times, then it’s damn well good enough for me.

Instead I’d like to recount a wee vignette.

An Irishman walks into a shop. Inside, there’s a Muslim and Jew discussing religion. (And the Irishman says, What is this? Some kind of joke? No, not really.)

I was taking a dander on the High Street, as you do, and wandered into one of the many discount shops that serve that busy thoroughfare.

The owner, an older man of indeterminate Mediterranean appearance was deep in animated conversation with a young black Muslim. As I approached, nodded politely and waited to be served, the younger man addressed me with a broad smile. ‘Take a good look at this my man,’ he said. ‘How often will you find a Muslim and a Jew talking like this?’

Well, now you’ve got a lapsed Irish Catholic in the mix, we’ve practically got the whole set now.’

The shopkeeper smiled and the young man laughed. And for a few minutes, we all talked about the sheer foolishness of the differences fostered between the religions of the books and the deep ties that bind. We talked about Irish monks, Jewish merchants and Arab traders keeping learning alive in Europe in the so-called Dark Ages (not for us they weren’t).

We talked about the parallels drawn by people like Paddy Joe Hill and Gerry Conlon about Muslims being the 'new Irish'. We even talked about the Battle of Cable Street.

And just as quickly as it had begun, this animated exchange ran its course. Purchase made, I shook hands warmly with both my interlocutors and exited to the jubilant farewell of the younger man.

I made my way back down the High Street, through the thrifty shopping throng, past the gimlet eyes of the bookie shop losers, accompanied all the while by the plaintive cries of hawkers, echoing a song as old as Deptford itself.