Re: When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life: Samuel Johnson

The last time i was anywhere NEAR London was March 28th. of THIS year, when i arrived at Heathrow after coaching it up from the southwestern counties, to catch my international flight home.
It was then that i decided that, for the average person, London, as a place to comfortably live in, just isn`t economically viable. There are no plans to return at a later date.

Re: When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life: Samuel Johnson

I used to commute daily to London, but gave that up many, many years ago.

Re: When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life: Samuel Johnson

It's a 'Welcome Back' from me too!

Re: When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life: Samuel Johnson

I used to love our day trips to London, always found it interesting seeing the sights. The last two trips were tours of Buckingham Palace and the Queen's Gallery and the Houses of Parliament and London Eye. We also had a London weekend stay to see the Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre as a wedding anniversay treat from our children.

I love London but wouldn't like to live there.

Unfortunately we no longer go due to health reasons.

Re: When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life: Samuel Johnson

Its got to be at least 7 years ago when I had to come back to Gatwick from Jersey instead of London Southend Airport. It was hell for a disabled person to cross London to get on the Fenchurch Street Line from Victoria, Never again!

Re: When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life: Samuel Johnson

When my dear older brother was alive I used to go there at least twice a year but have only been there once since he died in 2002. I used to love the place but like Dublin it has changed so much over the past years I hardly knew the old haunts,
I don't think I'll ever be going there again, barring some close relative dies, then only to pay my respects and back home again.

Re: When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life: Samuel Johnson

I was born in London. Not in the city itself, but in a suburb.

I grew up there for the first 18 years of my life, but then we moved up to the Midlands where I am now.
My parents and my brother moved up here too eventually, so only my grandparents stayed behind.

I used to go and visit them and was quite shocked at how quickly everything was changing with each visit.
I have no relatives left there any more, so would never go back.

From the day I moved here, I loved all the greenery, the air smelled better, and strangers said good morning.
I could cross the road without fearing for my life.

I never wanted to go back to the noise, smell, traffic, crowds and hardly anybody where I used to live spoke English any more. Most of the shops had been taken over and only sold foreign foods.

Everything had changed, and that was quite a few years ago now, so I can't imagine what it is like now.

No, sadly, not for me at all.

Re: When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life: Samuel Johnson

I lived on the outskirts of London too until I was 23, then moved to Slough, even worse. I worked in London & the suburbs for many years, before marrying at 23. I disliked it intensely. The commuting by train, the crowds etc, though in those days it wasn't as bad as it is now.
Slough wasn't much better but by then I was a housewife.
I was so very pleased & relieved when we moved here in 1973. I would never go back to live in that area.

Re: When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life: Samuel Johnson

I ticked the box "used to go but don't now" because I go perhaps once every five years or so.
I do like some areas of London. The museums, exhibitions, going to see a band and so on.
What I hate is the shopping, the Underground and people who are the selfish and greedy money grabbing folk who work in the city, who would just step over someone if they had a fall. Time is money to them and I can't stand people who are driven by money. That's the main thing I hate about London.

Re: When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life: Samuel Johnson

I was born in Slough and lived there until I was 19. There can't be many places which have changed so drastically as Slough in such a short time. My class in Junior School (Montem County Primary) was the first class in Slough to have an Indian immigrant pupil - a girl called (if I remember rightly) Sutish Sharma. Until then, the only "foreigners" around were a handful of Welsh families who had come up from the Valleys during the 30's and a small enclave of Polish people who had come here to fight the Nazis during WW2 and decided to stay.

Believe it or not, when I was growing up, Slough was (despite the burgeoning Trading Estate) still pretty rural and I could walk from my house to the River at Eton for a days fishing, across the fields, crossing only one road. Today there are no fields but several huge housing estates, the M4, The Windsor & Eton Relief Road and various other man-made barriers.

The massive growth in immigration has changed the demographics of Slough totally and it is now one of the few towns in the UK with a majority Asian-born population.