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October – November 2024 : Change READ ONLINE

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Change is constant

October 01 2024

They say that things changing is life’s only constant. Words on what change looks like and whether it is a good thing. By André Rostant

They demolished Mecca!

Don’t take my word for it. If the weather stays fine, go for an evening stroll through King Edward Memorial Park, nestled by the Thames in Shadwell, London. A beautiful garden enjoying, as one commentator observed during the 1922 opening – attended by the King and Queen – “an excellent promenade... provided with many bench seats and popular with senior citizens”.

What is to be seen, strolling through this park at twilight? Well, be discrete, don’t gawp and mind your own business, but you will note that the bench seats remain popular, albeit the age demographic has somewhat shifted. The park is busy with, shall we say, courting couples. At this juncture I must reassure you that I do not habitually spend my evenings lurking nefariously.

This Thames path was merely part of my walk to and from work for some 11 years.

Nearly all of these couples involve a young person in a hijab, and my parents were Roman Catholic migrants to Britain. Which brings us to the Huguenots.

Around 50,000 French Huguenots – protestants – came to England in the late 1600s, escaping persecution. When they arrived, they continued to speak French, continued to work at the trades they were skilled in and built and assiduously attended French churches. They were our first ‘refugees’ – modern use of the word originates from their flight. Where are they now?

The Irish population of Liverpool was once such that, by 1842, a petition was sent to the Vatican asking for more Gaelic speaking priests, to hear confession. There was a substantial Irish Protestant community, too, some of whom spoke no English at all. Where are they now?

Universally, when we are displaced or migrate – for whatever reason – en masse, we cling to the familiar, seek protection among our own. This holds for lots of people: it was true of the Jewish East End and the Huguenots, of the Irish in Liverpool. It is evident today in Southall, Brick Lane and elsewhere. Yet now, many of these communities can only be detected from historic traces, in old buildings: a Soup Kitchen for the Jewish Poor, a French Hospital in Soho, churches. Those churches, and the synagogues, once burst at the seams with ardent worshipers.

Now, some stand empty, some are luxury flats, some are offices or pubs. Change.

My mother came from Ireland and happened to meet my Trinidadian father in London – he was a sailor, between ships. They stayed in London. They habitually went to church, as did the vast majority of their contemporaries. But of my generation, fewer than half attend Mass, many only doing so to ensure children and grandchildren get into what are considered good schools. The most significant boost to church attendance in recent years was an influx of Polish migrants.

The first generation. Always, the first generation. And always the first significant wave of hostility is directed at them – with their strange ways, alien culture, seeming unwillingness to integrate – bringing change. Because the idea of change scares a large number of people. Change from what, though? You would be hard pressed to find anyone under 20 who even knows what a bingo hall is – yet only 50 years ago there were more than 600 of these temples. The Mecca bingo hall in York – for example – demolished, the ducks, the two fat ladies gone for a Burton, along with ballrooms, rhyming slang and flat caps. And… (you can join in this chorus): Now some stand empty, some are luxury flats, some are offices or pubs. Change.

Luxury flats? Well, it goes around and comes around, doesn’t it? Marlin Apartments on Angel Lane in Stratford were built as deluxe serviced flats in anticipation of Stratford International station being used as such. No international train will ever stop there. The buildings have been converted into a rat and cockroach-infested slum, ‘containing’ homeless families, many crowded five to a room. Again, don’t take my word for it – go look. There is no need for the state of the place – it is deliberate disinvestment, just like the deliberate disinvestment in social housing which laid the groundwork for right to buy. Change.

Right to buy, that’s left us with over a million fewer council homes than in 1979. In 2022-23 alone 11,700 social homes were lost. Meanwhile, as of March 2024, over 200,000 potential homes are not being lived in. There’s your ‘no room!’ there.

What will happen in a few years, when the young lovers of King Edward Memorial Park are grown and married – or not? I don’t know, but I can tell you what will eventually become of all the shiny new, crowded mosques in 30 or 40 years:

Some will stand empty, some will be luxury flats, some will be offices or pubs. Change.

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October – November 2024 : Change

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