June 10: London - Kinky Reggae

I am sitting outside a Morrocan restaurant on the Goldborne Road, Notting Hill, W10. The afternoon sunshine has made the tarmac hot and thick. I haven't visited this part of town (page 59 in your London A-Z books) for almost a decade. Despite the absence I feel so at home again. Everything is just how I remembered it - must be 'The Knowledge'. Summertime in west London makes everything come alive. The mood is different. The streets are filled with music. Colours are bright and vibrant, people blend and mix, buy and sell, the misery of a London winter is a memory that never really was. Everywhere you walk - around Ladbroke Grove, the Portobello Road markets, North Kensington - nods and smiles greet you as love and harmony ride the streets. When the sun goes down late, late in the evening, there's a lipstick coloured hue thrown into the air that coats everything with a lilac shade. But it's the punky reggae music in these west London streets at summertime which makes this part of the world so, so special.


Vereker Road, W14 will never be on anyone's London visit itinery - there are a million and one better things for a tourist to do and see in London. Vereker Road will mean nothing to the vast majority of people who live in London. But when I first left home, a week after turning 19, this was my first port of call, and here I lived for my first London summer. I have such fond memories of spending long summer nights hanging out of my fourth-storey window watching people walk in the street, hearing reggae music and making love to an Italian girl I loved very much. Outside my old front door there's no blue plaque saying I lived there, but I did. And the front door hasn't changed at all. Still the same. There was a Jamaican family who lived next door at the time and they were very kind to a very homesick boy during the winter that followed. I give in to the temptation to ring their bell, and find to my great delight they still live there. Big smiles all round.



What is so unique about west London is that despite being one of the biggest cities on Earth there is always a sense of community about the place. West London was always highly populated with immigrants from the Carribean, from Ireland, from travelling Australians - all of whom brought their own sense of belonging and identity. In a new place when you first begin to experience what it is to live away from 'home', it's nice to have support from others who have been down that path and can offer support. The locals of west London, who had survived the Blitz bombings of World War II, knew what it was to struggle and so everyone seemed to be in 'it' together. No matter what the going, everyone still has time to say hello. This is the great thing about London; it may be slow to reveal itself but it's worth the wait - it doesn't come running to you, instead you have to go and discover its underground soul.


Night time. I'm with friends in their garden and we've just finished eating a long, lazy evening meal. We all kick back and relax, waiting for darkness and stillness to come. We sit and try to enjoy the silence as the first star is pinpricked into the night sky. A fox passes through the garden, rustling the shadows hiding in the bushes. In the kitchen of 'Twice as Nice' - a Carribean Takeaway that backs out onto my friend's garden - we can hear the voice of the pot-washer begin to sing. It's a loud, clear voice in a heavy Kingston patois. Sounds as if he's got woman trouble. Poor guy. She loves him, he says, but she won't tell him. He knows she loves him, he says, but she still won't tell him. Why is she so foolish, he asks. Why does she keep that love hiding away from him, he asks. So he tells Jah that he knows she loves him. And he tells Jah, that he knows that He knows she loves him. Nothing worse than woman trouble, he tells Jah. He asks Jah to make the woman see sense. Salvation comes when an unseen house begins to play Sophie George's reggae anthem Girlie Girlie at immense volume. Summer nights in London just go on and on.