Away to the Small Island

The Tower Bridge, not to be confused with London Bridge...


In the summer of 2003 we ‘uped sticks’ and moved to London, where Heidi had been accepted in the University of London to pursue a Master’s degree at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
This was the beginning of a nomadic existence for us which, until the present, has disallowed us the possibility of residing in any one place for more than several months together. Helped by a retired Captain of the Royal Navy and Whitehall, we found temporary shelter in Croydon whilst seeking out a reasonably priced accommodation in London (little knowing there was none to be had). We eventually lighted upon an office on Commercial Road, Tower Hamlets, in East London. This office had been converted into a flat (apartment) of sorts, with a shower in the bedroom and no central heating.
In the end, even this proved beyond our means which, considering the situation, was mildly depressing.
The area around our flat, Watney Market, was a curious community, comprised largely of recent immigrants from Sylhet, in northern Bangladesh. As with many inner city areas overpopulated with new immigrants, there were both wonderful and special things, but also those things which are bred from masses of despondent people who had imagined a better life than they had discovered in this sprawling city. The older people struggled to understand their new society, and the younger people grew up in alienation, both from their host culture and their parents. There was a book written about this area of town, called ‘Brick Lane’ (a street which ran perpendicular to Commercial Road, and was the site of white supremacist bombings some years ago).
Commercial Road was, as the name suggests, largely a business area which became silent and deserted after hours. Necessity had carved domiciles into various offices and shops to house the many immigrants which had come in the hopes of employment or, in our case, education.
For Micah, this area also provided an unexpected opportunity to maintain contact with Bengalis, the people amongst whom he had worked the year before when in Bangladesh. Our flat was situated above a newsagent, named Mahmoud, whose shop was robbed at knife point twice during our few months with him. We shared common landladies, the Misses Murgroff and Taft, aged pensioners who recalled to mind more feminine versions of Statler and Waldorf.