Teddington - a Dreary, Overpriced Suburb?

FOREWORD - This blog post ruffled a few feathers. Regular readers know that my writing is usually tongue-in-cheek, so please take this piece with a large pinch of salt.

In the 19th century, a rural Thameside village called Teddington underwent a huge transformation into a suburb of London, as the city's population increased sixfold. Fields and meadows were swallowed up by street after street of semi-detached villas, artisans' cottages and parades of shops.

It was part of a process that was happening all over the outskirts of London, as the gaps between villages were filled with parallel roads of redbrick semis. In this new suburbia there were no longer any boundaries. Teddington suddenly turned into Twickenham or Hampton, depending on which direction you walked in.

I was born in Teddington in the 1960s and spent the first 25 years of my life there. Then, one day, I realised that it was time to pack my bags and go somewhere a little more exciting.

I moved to Twickenham.

This is where I caught the bus to my new life, a mile away:

I wonder how many hundreds of hours I have spent at this bus stop in Teddington's Waldegrave Road (the slightly improbable birthplace of Noel Coward) waiting for a glimpse of red in the far distance. I dread to think.

Sometimes I'd wait for over half an hour, before two or three 270s appeared at the same time. The drivers had probably decided to ignore the timetable and have breakfast together at Fulwell bus depot.

Nobody ever complained.

In some ways, the bus stop photo sums up Teddington for me. The sense of waiting for something to happen; that life is elsewhere.

I've been thinking a lot about Teddington recently after I had an amicable difference of opinion with @TLTeddington on Twitter, who had objected to my description of it in the latest Crap Towns book. I'd described the town as a "very dreary, overpriced suburb", which had prompted the following comments:

"The cheeky 'bar stewards'. We know how lovely it is and what a great place it is to live!"

"Clearly have never set foot in the town. we should invite them for lunch at Retro or any of the other great places. Idiot."

"We have are fortunate to have a thriving town centre filled with lovely independent shops, not a cloned town."

@TLTeddington also posted an image of this manifesto:

It all looked very inspring, but was this the same Teddington that I grew up in?

In some ways it was - we certainly shopped locally. Up until the mid-70s, when Bruce Forsyth opened a new Tesco supermarket, all of our food shopping took place in corner shops where everyone knew me by name.

It was like being in a Ladybird book.

My mother and I walked everywhere, as we couldn't afford the bus. In Stanley Road there was the Chinese butcher, who sadly died of a heart attack in his early 40s, a hairdresser's where my mother had her 'perm' and the Friend Shop, where a man would cut slices of processed ham with egg in the middle for us.

Vegetables were either bought from a greengrocer run by two brothers in Waldegrave Road, or a shop in Broad Street where a mynah bird called Bobby would greet me with a loud "'Allo!".

Sometimes, as a special treat, we would walk up to Teddington Model Shop, where there was a coin-operated miniature railway in the window. The slot for the large, pre-decimal pennies remained long after the model shop had been replaced by a video rental business.

It seemed a quiet and benign world, where the pace of change was reassuringly slow and many people had lived in their homes for decades. We knew most of the people in our part of the road, either by their surnames or by some distinguishing feature: The German lady, The Irish family, The Lady with the son that makes the noises, The Woman with the beard and The Man with no thumbs.

One woman had lived in her house since 1899:

Mrs Plutheroe, aged 103, in 2002

Our immediate neighbours included two German Jewish sisters, neither of whom hinted at their tragic past, a retired couple I knew as Auntie and Uncle Fuller, and a gentleman in his 70s called Mr Gifford, who took his 1930s Austin Seven out for a spin once a year.

There was very little traffic, so in the summer I would play in the street with the local kids, only returning when it was too dark to see.

In hindsight, it seems strange to think that the centre of London was just over ten miles away, because Teddington felt very different, like a sleepy, provincial town.

I've tried to find some photos that capture the essence of Teddington as I remember it, but only came across a few snapshots. I suppose it wouldn't have occured to me to take photos of that ordinary, everyday world that has now disappeared.

Bushy Park. Much nicer than Richmond Park.

Teddington Woolworths, where my mother sold Pick 'n' Mix (known by the local schoolchildren as "Pick 'n' Nick") to the stars.

Outside my house in Church Road (I'm the poncey-looking one on the left)

Looking at the 'Live Totally, Shop Locally' manifesto, it is simply a description of how we used to live. We knew the name of the person behind the till. We smelled the fruit and chatted to strangers. We even ate food grown within walking distance, as my parents had an allotment next to the cemetery:

So why have I been so critical of modern-day Teddington? Does it really deserve to be branded a 'Crap Town'? Well, yes and no.

There's nothing uniquely terrible about Teddington. In many ways it is a pleasant suburb that offers a more relaxed pace of life than some of the more 'vibrant' London suburbs. I'd far rather raise my children there than Peckham or Perivale. But in its journey from being the poor relation of Richmond and Twickenham to becoming a property hotspot, Teddington has lost something.

Perhaps the first sign of danger was when Brucie opened Tescos. One by one, the corner shops began to close. Some were converted into residential properties, while others became takeaways. The familiar, friendly faces behind the tills disappeared.

Then, in the mid-1980s, the London property market began its gradual ascent into the stratosphere and Teddington, once seen as a bit drab and slightly too far away from London, became increasingly desirable, as Richmond, Sheen and Kew became unaffordable.

People needed to be near London for work, but they didn't want to live somewhere where they had to worry about being mugged. They also wanted something that wasn't London, but wasn't the sticks either. Enter Teddington.

What happened next is what's happened in most parts of London and many towns within commuting distance. Demand exceeded supply and house prices reached a point where people who had grown up in the area couldn't afford to get on the property ladder. They moved out and were gradually replaced by those who had the money.

The sentence in the manifesto "Show Your Kids Their Future" is particularly poignant, because unless they have a considerable sum of money or can afford a mortage for properties that cost, on average, over 30 times the average salary, these children won't have a future in Teddington.

Like me, they'll have to move somewhere else. That is the 'crapness' of modern Teddington. This blog post could have easily been about another London suburb - they're nearly all unaffordable now - but I know Teddington better than anywhere else.

Teddington used to be a socially mixed town. It had its rough parts - in York Road the policemen always went in pairs - but most of the town was a blend of lower middle and working class and, most importantly of all, it felt like a real community.

Perhaps Teddington still feels like that, with its smart resturants, pleasant cafes and artisan bakeries, but I suspect that the town's population is far more transient than it used to be, if the estate agent signs are anything to go by.

Maybe I'm just a grumpy middle-aged man, resenting the inevitable process of change, but I'd like to feel that if my children grow up in an area, they can choose to stay if they wish and not be priced out of their home town.

Of course, by that same logic I shouldn't have moved to Lewes, as I've probably helped to price Lewesians out of their local property market. It's all very complicated, isn't it.

I think I'll go and have a lie down.

One final thought. Although Teddington may not always have been at the forefront of the avant garde, my mother may have been an inspiration to at least one contemporary artist: Grayson Perry:

That's a point in Teddington's favour, surely.

P.S - On reflection, one positive thing I must mention is that my mother spent her last few years there surrounded by very caring neighbours. She probably wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for one particular neighbour. They were all families with young children who'd managed to move to Teddington just before the house prices went into meltdown. I saw an encouraging resurgence of the community spirit I remembered from the 1970s and 80s. But will any of those children be able to remain in Teddington when they grow up? That's the question.

Moving

Most of us have items of clothing that we only wear indoors. I have an Andrew Marr t-shirt which always cheers me up, but I wouldn't wear it in public. I'm always suspicious of people who sport attention-seeking 'comedy' t-shirts.

I also have old Waterstone's t-shirts that I use for doing the decorating. One of them is a very unflattering bright red XL top that says "Can I help you find the perfect present?". We had to wear them one Christmas - the idea was that they would make the staff easy to identify and seem more approachable.

I wasn't convinced. When I go into shops, I identify staff as the people standing behind the till or the ones who aren't wearing coats.

And since when did retail companies have the right to regard their staff as advertising space?

The t-shirts were very annoying. When I popped out to buy sandwiches at M&S, I'd forget I had the t-shirt on and wonder why strangers kept accosting me with questions about books.

Yesterday, I had to paint a flat and found an old t-shirt that said "Ask me about the Waterstone's card". After putting on the first coat of emulsion, I drove home and popped into the corner shop to buy some wine. Raj, the owner, looked at my chest and said "Just back from work then?"

Outside the shop, a neighbour looked me up and down and said "You're early today". I suddenly realised that, as far as my neighbours were concerned, I still work at Waterstone's. Perhaps I should talk to people more.

I had been decorating the flat for my mother. On Friday, she will leave the Teddington house that she has lived in for 48 years and move into a block of sheltered accommodation flats for the elderly, less than a mile from where I live. It will be a huge wrench, I know, but at 81 my mother is finding living alone in a three-bedroom house increasingly hard.

I've been trying to persuade her to sell the house for years. Aside from the fact that it has no central heating and needs a huge amount of work done, my mother's house is also too far from the shops or local doctor, so every outing requires a bus journey. Until recently this wasn't a problem, but a near-brush with death last October made my mother realise how vulnerable she is.

On Sunday I went to say goodbye to the house that I called home for more than half of my life.

It is part of a long road of Victorian, semi-detached redbrick houses, in a sleepy, dull London suburb that is now incredibly popular with house buyers. Teddington may not be very exciting, but the combination of the River Thames, a wealth of parks and some good transport links to central London have made it desirable for those people who find other parts of the metropolis a little too 'urban'.

In spite of the popularity of Teddington, I thought that my mother would struggle to sell the house, as in 1981 my parents decided to rip out the period sash windows and pebbledash the walls (I think I once pompously accused them of "architectural vandalism"). To my surprise, she found a buyer within 10 days. If ever anyone needed proof that selling houses was all about location, here was a prime example.

My mother has left her electric fire for the new owners, as she won't need it in her flat. I had to bite my tongue. I know that the new owners will completely gut the house, extend it and add period touches that were probably never there in the first place. They certainly won't want a naff electric fire.

Somehow I don't think they'll want this carpet either:

My parents bought it in 1963. The carpet is still in good condition after nearly half a century. Apparently the firm that made it went into receivership, as their products were too well made and retailers didn't want to sell carpets that never wore out. The top left-hand corner used to be covered by a rug.

During my final visit I decided to take photos of mundane objects, like the carpet, that hadn't changed since I was a child. The items included a barometer that never worked, some candlelabra light fittings, two 1970s lampshades and this clock, which chimes every quarter of an hour:

When I was sent away to a sanitorium as a child, I was only allowed to see my parents once a month, so telephone calls were very important. I remember the almost unbearable feeling of homesickness that swept over me when I heard this clock chime in the background.

(Later, I became less fond of the clock. When I brought girlfriends home after the pubs had closed, I realised what a passion killer the Westminster chimes were).

After taking the photos, we had our last lunch in the house: fillet steak with new potatoes and peas. As a special concession to my middle-class sensibilities, my mother didn't call it dinner and only boiled the peas for three minutes instead of the usual ten. Otherwise, everything was the same as it had always been: the table, the chairs and the cutlery, which had been bought with petrol-station coupons some time in the 1970s.

In two days time it would all be gone.

There was one thing left to do. My mother picked up her stick and put her other arm in mine. Together, we slowly walked to the local cemetery where my father is buried. "I don't think he's really here" my mother said, meaning "This might be the last time I visit my husband's grave".

We stood in front of the grave and I suppose it should have been a very emotional moment, but in the distance someone was holding an outdoor event and all we could hear was a man delivering a very bad performance of David Bowie's 'Rebel Rebel'.

I looked at the words on the gravestone: "He was a good man and did good things" - inspired by the final sentence of 'The Woodlanders'. I hope that Dad would have approved.

I have finished painting the flat, but tomorrow is going to be a day of flatpack hell, where I will have to work out whether Part A is the short screw or the slightly longer one, followed by the realisation that Part C is in fact Part E. I'm dreading it.

But hopefully, when my mother walks through the door on Friday afternoon and sees a warm, welcoming, comfortable home, she will feel relief rather than regret.