London Made Us by Robert Elms

5 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

My parents are both from London, my father was born next to a pub in Fulham and my mother was born in the Royal Borough of Kensington. Her mother was a Cockney and all my grandparents lived in London in Putney and the Wandsworth Bridge Road. London has always had a special place in my heart.

I have always loved the names of some of the areas in London, Ladbrook Grove, Perivale, Cricklewood, Cockfosters and of course Burnt Oak.

The Elms family are Londoners through to their very core. He can trace his family back to Fredrick Elms, son of Eliza and father unknown and who was delivered in the Uxbridge Union Workhouse in 1862. Further digging into the roots of his family tree would lead back to Wiltshire. It adds fuel to his theory that as people migrate into London, they settle in the part of the city that faces the part of the country they come from.

His family is a blend of this London Mix along with dashes of Romany and Yiddish. For their sins, they are all almost supporters of QPR…

It just goes to show that all that cockney bollocks about Bow Bells is just that: Londoners are Londoners; choose the streets and they will shape you.

This is a book about memories, and he remembers the significant buildings from his childhood. They have been torn down, and London constantly reinvents itself. Cinemas are now evangelical churches. He almost never went to the theatre. Re recalls those who would do card tricks on the public and would always win. He mentions those dodgy shops that looked like they were selling quality goods, until you opened the plastic bag that they had sold you and realise that it was just crap inside.

London used to be full of secrets. If you lived there, you knew them almost by osmosis. There are less secrets now everything can be found on a search engine, but some can still be found if you know where to look.

He witnessed things that were eye-opening in different parts of the capital and is scared for life after a football exhibition that he went to. I thought that the chapter on travelling around London is great. It also shows just how effective a properly thought-out and subsidised transport system is. It is the lifeblood of this city.

His chapter about food in London is excellent. It brought back so many memories of my childhood food. I even ate in the Won Kei restaurant in Chinatown in my late teens. I remember the waiters being brusk and abrupt, but thankfully don’t remember them waving cleavers at us!

The swirl of different cultures in the city meant that life wasn’t always rosy. He documents some of the wilder moments of city life, including football matches where violence would erupt around him. This was a time where a single moment could become a trigger point and recounts a memory watching a battle between miners and the police; they both paused and separated to let a family pass, before carrying on scrapping again.

London will definitely exhaust you, but you can never exhaust London.

Elms particularly likes London at night. The darkness hides the grime, and the neon lights brighten the place up. He knew, though, that it could be deadly, even though most of the time the nights out were dark and anarchic and feral and fun. AS he reached his teenage years, he discovered music and the sexual awakening that came along with it. The evenings out now are much more expensive and he missed the fug that hung around in the rooms. These places had a lot of character and not a lot of decorum…

Some people never leave London. His aunt Nell died in the same house where she was born 90 years earlier. Those who do find a reason to leave often end up at the coast to gaze at the waves.

Elms thinks that London is the greatest city in the world. He is certain of this as he has lived in Spain for a period and always returned to his home city. Where you live in London is important to Londoners; small distances make for big differences. But where to live when he leaves home, so many options and ironically so few choices. He ends up living with Sade (!!) for a while until fame pulls her away from him.

But what is most evident throughout this book is that London is his home, and it is as much a part of him and his family as they are a part of London.

As much as I love Dorset, London still has a special place in my heart. This book is a love letter to his favourite city, his home city. It is a wonderful book, I loved it. It is full of details of London that only someone who spends 24 hours a day there and has lived their life in this city. I would urge you to get a copy and read this as soon as you can.

I know I am now chasing shadows, know that this wonderous warren is not the shameful, disgraceful, lustrous, lustful place it once was, but then nor am I.
This is my home town. My home, my town.