TEDDINGTON- HELLOOOO?

Well, it’s happening. We’re here in Teddington. Been living in our new home for one whole week. It’s not quite back to my roots as I was brought up in Fulham, schooled in Battersea, and after living in Birmingham and several years abroad, lived back in Battersea before spending 37 years in the Taff Valley, South Wales. Well, that is with the exception of a year spent in Shetland.  It seems unbelievable that given my restless personality I could have sustained a life and been happy in the one place for so long.

     ‘Most people do it the other way-leave London for the country in retirement,’ ‘That must be very expensive,’ ‘You don’t sound Welsh,’ (to me)’You’ve only been here just a week and you’re coming to Pilates/Country Dancing/Welsh Choir, ‘ You want to shake up your life, eh?’ are a few of the  reactive comments we’ve had to our coming to live here. 

      People nod sweetly when we mention a daughter and a grandchild but we know that they are also wondering how we can afford to move into the wealthiest borough of London-Richmond-Upon Thames (RUT), where 69.8% of the population between 16 and 74 are in paid work. Unemployment is just 3%.   You’d have to be well off to survive here, life is expensive-no local Aldi or Lidl and until we get our Freedom passes for London transport, travelling by train up to Waterloo costs us each around £9 return.  Our intention is to have a year to 18 months out from our old life while we try and sell our house back in Taffs Well. To those of you wondering, we’re financing this year from our illicit earnings.

    According to an article, ‘Getting to know your Borough’ in TW11, an independent magazine for Teddington, inhabitants in RUT live a long and healthy life, nationally rated amongst the highest. ‘Affluence is cited as a major contributor, with wealthy inhabitants being less likely to smoke, drink and be overweight.’  

    In Rhondda Cynon Taff (RCT), one of the most deprived areas in the UK, people die young for the opposite reasons-inhabitants are more likely to smoke, drink and be overweight. I don’t know what the employment/unemployment figures are for RCT but they are probably one of polar opposites to RUT.  I guess it’s going to take a bit of time to adjust to this new identity and environment. Perhaps by the end of our time here I’ll have lose weight, given up drinking, and Rhys’ various ailments including plantar fasciitis, a painful foot condition may have gone away.

  

    We learnt from our year in Shetland that if you want to get to know people the first place to start is with the neighbours. But this isn’t Shetland, when on our first Saturday morning we knocked on  doors people did open them and say ‘Hello’. Some said ‘Welcome’ and two neighbours even said,      ‘Come on in, let me tell you where to get the bus and by the way here’s my life story while we’re at it.’  

    When we knocked on the doors of the five other flats in this block nobody opened their door. We’ve tried several times now. We know there are people living here cos we can here the front door slam and we’ve spied people going out from our front window.  The guy opposite leaves his trainers outside his door to fool us.  When I told my oldest school friend, who lives in Hackney,’ she said that knocking on people’s doors in London is a no-no.

     Last Friday we heard voices down below our sitting room and twitched the curtain to see two young men drinking large glasses of red wine and smoking at the edge of the communal garden. One of the young men had his shirt off to show off his angel and snake tattoos.  He turned to look up and I saw a tattooed gun on his upper arm. I quickly untwitched the curtain and got Rhys up from his chair to look at the loose wires hanging from below our flat. We’ve decided not to pursue door knocking as our main way to meet the neighbours.  Instead we’re going to try hanging out in the garbage room the night before the recycling is collected. 

     The next lesson from Shetland if you want to meet people when you don’t work is to join clubs or do courses. As we’re on a budget we’re looking for cheap/free clubs and courses, so I did research into The University of the Third Age and Age UK and came up with a variety of activities that might interest us. 

     When I called the class leaders, they all answered with,’Hellooo???’ as if nobody ever phoned them. The lady leading country dancing asked me how I’d got her number. When I told her it was on-line, she said,’ Oh, am I on-line? I didn’t know that.’ She then asked me if I’d done any folk dancing since school and I was thrown back to Miss Fournier, my PE teacher who was always reminding me to point my toes gracefully when I galloped down the line of my friends urging me on to mess up the dance. The lady had never heard of Circle Dancing.  Shirley, my circle dancing teacher would be quite hurt. She’s spent a lifetime getting people to dance in circles.

      In another phone call, the line went silent, and I said,’Hellooo???’  ‘Sorry,’ the chap said.’ I put the phone down while I was thinking what play we’re reading next session.’  ‘Who wrote Laburnham Grove?’ As if I knew. I’m sure he’ll remember by next month. When I enquired if I need to read the play beforehand, he assured me that the members like the surprise of reading the play afresh. Anyway, I’m sure he’ll remember the author by next month or the librarian will remind him. He’s ordered several copies from the local library for us.

     Rhys was somewhat disappointed by his visit to the London Welsh Centre.  We’d met by chance and the charms of our grandson a member on a birthday cruise up the Thames, and he suggested Rhys come along to join the choir. When he went into the lounge full of older people and greeted them in Welsh, they looked blank, and then one man said that he didn’t speak Welsh. Just like Taffs Well.  He was advised to go to the bar and there he found a lovely young Welsh speaker who he chatted up. Then he met the choir master who made it clear that Rhys’s inability to read music would be held against him and membership was by audition.

   ’ I never wanted to wear a red blazer anyway,’ he said arriving back home late and £15 poorer (cost of overland and tube). He’s trying ‘Singing for Pleasure,’ with a U3A group in Kew on Thursday where he won’t need to read music or wear a red blazer. He hopes.