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hack(ney) watch
By Anne Beech
Hackney’s been used to a bad press for years. This is the first in an occasional
round-up of media Hackney-bashing – and the occasional exceptional gem of more
favourable comment, whenever we can track it down.
First up, as always – the Evening Standard, inexplicably burying the news that
Hackney was one of only two London boroughs to gain the full five-star rating as
London’s coolest place to live. Given the Standard’s tendency to borough-bash
Hackney at any and every opportunity, it’s no surprise that the accolade merited only
a passing mention in a 22 October piece on the survey’s findings (commissioned,
unfortunately for the paper, by the Standard itself).
Most papers (including the Standard, natch) picked up on Hackney’s dubious
distinction of being ranked tenth in an unashamedly unscientific reverse Michelin guide to
Britain’s worst places to live (in the book Crap Towns, published by Idler magazine
with Boxtree). Well, at least Basingstoke scored higher... (Hull was the overall
‘winner’, should you care.)
On a more rigorous and also far more serious front, an academic study, East Enders (Policy
Press) found families in Hackney (and Newham, to be fair) to be highly committed to their
borough and their community, despite facing numerous problems – and even (listen up,
Hackney Council) positively impressed by the improvements in education and housing
achieved through local regeneration programmes. Some better news, for a change.
your letters
N16 Magazine, PO box 44624, London N16 5WN, email: info@n16mag.com
Dear N16
I was intrigued by your article ‘no room at the inn’ and the plight of a number
of residents who have upped sticks and moved out of London to either escape their lot or
move for a better education. I have to say ashamedly that we meet the last category.
Having lived in Stoke Newington for over 8 years we took the plunge to move to York this
year following the birth of our first child. It was not without much heart ache and soul
searching.
We have deep roots in the area, memories and lots of friends. However, despite all that in
4 years or so the youngster would have to be schooled and without steeply expensive
private fees this meant dealing with the local state provision. We looked around and asked
serious questions about what we wanted from an area and finally settled on the NE with a
primary school that has a 100% rating at key stage 2 and a fraction of the crime level. It
has not been an easy transition. I still miss a lot about the area and there is
parochialism with the NE that I still have to come to terms with but our new house,
something of a trade up, is in an excellent area. I fancy we might return, but the space
and quality of life are persuasive and it’s not as if we can come back on the same
terms property wise. However, there is life after London and it’s notable that all
our new friends are NE incomers.
Yours ashamedly
Geoff Brooks
Dear N16
Though largely accurate, Ms Taylor’s article (Stoke Newington’s famous feminist,
last issue) left out the main reason that her subject’s name lives on is really as
the mother who whored out her teenage daughter to a couple of known opium addicts. A fan
of Byron as I am, knowing the help he gave Coleridge and Ms Wollstonecraft’s son
in-law one has to wonder what her daughter exactly had to do to get the draft of
‘Frankenstein’ out of her husband and Byron.
David Brassington
davidbrassington@activemail.co.uk
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