Sometimes you feel like a stranger in your own land.

Londoners eh? Me, me, me fucking me.

Fucking hole.

I'm a Londoner, born and bred, and I see nothing in this article worthy of celebration.

Gentrifiers are only wandering into Peckham because the bloody bus stops don't make any sense. Some of them have been going around in a loop around Tescos for months, where they can hop off to get duvets and other items for bus-living. On double deckers they tend to live upstairs. Costs a lot to live that way on a pay and go oyster.

The coolest bizarre thing about Peckham is it has a shop called 'Meat Divine'

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This PC-ness is really forced.

Peter, you say this-

Walworth, just down the road, was white, glum, working class

Followed by this-

Walworth today is black, not white: a bustle and buzz of hairdressing salons and curried-goat houses open all hours

If hypothetically, white and black were reversed, can you imagine the outrage on here? You'd be described rightfully as a racist because you've, directly or indirectly, linked white with glum and working class and linked black with bustle and buzz.

But no, as it's the whites that are glum, it'll be lapped up by the majority on here. The hypocrisy on the left, led by people like you Peter, is disgraceful.

We must remember the most fundamental of British values which is to exploit labour irrespective of race, creed or sexual orientation. Yes, and the tool most effectively used, as Diane Abott said is divide and rule.

Diversity = cheap labour.

These areas buzz with life and shops that are open till late. I would rather live in these places than those dull places where you don't see anyone out on the street.
It's also an education to have the world at your doorstep with all those strange sights and smells.
Personally I love it.

An odd article.

Those of us who know Eltham - I live 5 mins away - would not link it to the phrase "melting pot". It's curiously white, for this part of London. After the August riots a group of burly white residents gathered together in Eltham to "defend" the streets. They were of similar ilk to the Lawrence murderers. It was the only place where this happened, so far as I know.

We're well into double figures on the Stephen Lawrence articles now.

A few years ago the fear was that city centres would be left to the immigrant poor while whites headed out. Not in Peckham, where the gentrifiers are tiptoeing in, nor in Brixton.

Middle class people may live in inner London but they don't really live in the same inner London that the rest of us do.

Tim Butler, professor of geography at King's College London and co-author of London Calling: The Middle Classes and the Re-making of Inner London, has studied such matters closely. "People like the idea and frisson of living in a socially mixed area," he says, "but actually, these groups move past each other in separate worlds which rarely impinge on each other. I refer to this as 'social tectonics'.

"Gentrification," he adds, "is on the one hand about managing social diversity, but on the other hand flocking together – people like us. These are very strong instincts and I guess the question you have to ask is to what extent that diversity becomes more of a social wallpaper."

Liberals: The secret elitists

can somebody please pass the sick bag.............

Well I suppose after the murder of Peter Mathewson a lot of those "Glum Whites" didn't fancy hanging around. Kenneth Erskine persuaded a few more away.

Incidentally where does the Damilola Murder come into this?

I know 2 whites were originally arrested (Dubbed "The New Krays in The Maii) but those eventually found guilty were the same colour as Damilola.

Right, Peter, that's your bit to keep the Lawrence pot simmering.
Who's up next? Your bit on Cameron's responsibility for the murder ready yet, Polly?

Speaking as someone from North Yorkshire, now living in Cornwall, with a flat in Greenwich for business reasons, I'd like to say here and now that South London is generally revolting.
I couldn't care less what the colour the skin is of my neighbours, black, white, yellow, brown; it's the crap transport, the crap streets, the crap buildings and the crap take- ways with their garish shop fronts and the horrible shopping centres, etc. etc.

What also pisses me off are the berks living in posh places like Blackheath that call their localities 'villages'.

Lets be honest; London is north of the river, south of the river is a shit-hole.

you are spot on. but its not just hypocrisy. its outright racism.

I agree about Eltham. It's not at all like Peckham. It's different again.

And I'm sure Professor Butler, in his way, is right as well: people who are tired of analysing London are tired of life.

No thanks Peter. You make it sound all very multi-cultural and exciting. I wouldn't want to live there and as poor and impoverished as my town is, I still wouldn't want to live there.

Only folk with comfortable lifesyles and secure incomes use the phrase 'melting pot'.

For everyone else it's a battle to keep the wolf from the door.

Walworth was white, glum & working class; that is where I was brought up, bloody miserable it was too!

Peter, I know I'll be in a minority, but thanks for this article. I think you've caught the spirit of the area well something that I, as somebody who has lived in South London most of his life, can recognise & identify with. I suspect the people who will come on here to flame you article and (most likely) this comment will be doing so from a position of ignorance!!

Cairncross
8 January 2012 10:26PM
An odd article.

Those of us who know Eltham - I live 5 mins away - would not link it to the phrase "melting pot". It's curiously white, for this part of London. After the August riots a group of burly white residents gathered together in Eltham to "defend" the streets. They were of similar ilk to the Lawrence murderers. It was the only place where this happened, so far as I know.

Funny, when Muslims or Sikhs did this they were "Defending their communities".

When I started writing regular columns for the Guardian four decades ago – scribbling on my kitchen table – Walworth, just down the road, was white, glum, working class.

Walworth today is black, not white: a bustle and buzz of hairdressing salons and curried-goat houses open all hours.

For goodness' sake, what's so special about black people that their displacement of whites should be a self-evidently positive thing?

Yes that's all lovely Peter, but how many immigrants live in your street? How much has your salary been undercut by them? How many of them are competing for the sort of accommodation you live in? Do you ever socialise with any of them yourself, or do you just pontificate from your armchair on how the lowly 'ordinary man' should interact with them?

...was white, glum, working class...

Racist

I have lived in Eltham my whole life and i'm talking about the real Eltham, not the Kidbrooke estate, which the press keep identifying as Eltham. The Corbett estate is a peaceful neighbourbood with a great sense of community, good state schools and a Labour MP. With all the bad press Eltham gets is it really any wonder it isn't a multicultural area?

Just how many racial stereotypes can you fit into one article?

Oh those blacks up currying their goats until all hours. Oh the vibrancy, the excitement. Not like those glum whites being all glum and depressed and working class and eating their stale pies and mouldy veg.

They are so colourful and exciting aren't they Peter, not like us at all. Aww, bless em.

Walworth today is black, not white: a bustle and buzz of hairdressing salons and curried-goat houses open all hours. The Elephant they're digging up again has become little South America, stretching down the Old Kent Road in polyglot variety. Vauxhall welcomes Portuguese. Camberwell mixes Greeks, Turks, Chinese and more. Welcome to Norbury, and the subcontinent. And Peckham, the high street where geezers grizzle to camera, is one of London's great amazements: West Africa, its tropical fish, its rainbow of vegetable stalls and smiles, plonked down where only eels and pies flourished. And its array of brand new churches, mosques, temples: fervent belief marching on as the C of E makes an excuse and slinks away.

Fetishistic middle-class bollocks.

And its array of brand new churches, mosques, temples: fervent belief marching on as the C of E makes an excuse and slinks away.

Sorry, but this is an appalling article. Presumably you're an atheist? So you're happy for all these people to waste their lives as long as they do it 'fervently'. And you're happy for the world's most benign form of religion (the C of E), and the national religion of your country, to give ground to them.

Typical ivory tower moral masturbation.

Yes that's all lovely Peter, but how many immigrants live in your street? How much has your salary been undercut by them? How many of them are competing for the sort of accommodation you live in? Do you ever socialise with any of them yourself, or do you just pontificate from your armchair on how the lowly 'ordinary man' should interact with them?

...was white, glum, working class...

Racist

Peter is clearly white - so I'm not sure how you can call him a racist for describing an predominately white area as glum.

Peter, you've just admitted that for the Guardian and associated circles mass immigration cashes out as exciting new restaurants and hairdressing salons. You don't see wages depressed, jobs taken, the increase in crime or the loss of community.

So, according to your rather varnished world view, is it racist of me to admit that, other things being equal, I'd much rather live in a "glum" but recognisably English neighbourhood than in a "vibrant" multi-cultural melting pot, even with all the fancy restaurants?

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I intensly dislike the implication that racism will disappear if only whitey would not get in the way trying to preserve his community.

And i say that as someone with an indian mrs.

I am london born and bred. Indoctrinated with marxist critical race theory multiculturalism. At least abbott exposed the truth of anti racism. Which is the first useful thing she has ever done for me as my mp.

Peter is clearly white - so I'm not sure how you can call him a racist for describing an predominately white area as glum.

To be fair he's probably talking about the white working class, the demographic which is for him a mere plaything, not a collection of individuals with desires and ideals of their own (let alone a culture of any value, God forbid) but a malleable and ignorant rump which should stand in line where he tells them so that his vision of society looks the way he likes it. For Peter Preston, making the perfect society is rather like flower arranging.

I Imagine south London is a nice place to live if you're a wealthy man like Peter Preston. It's kind of like a multicultural theme park to him, something nice he can drive past and say "ooh, isn't that nice, a choice of 20 different ethnic restaurants to choose from".

For people who actually have to work normal jobs and live normal lives, it isn't such a nice place for them, is it?

Does anyone know anyone that finds Lee Nelson's Well Good Show funny as a matter of curiosity?

I'm not sure of whether people like Peter Preston really know of what a load of crap they are writing, whether they genuinely have such a lack of self-awareness, or whether articles like this are just trolling to get page hits. I suspect it's the latter but sometimes I am really not sure.

@Cairncross

After the August riots a group of burly white residents gathered together in Eltham to "defend" the streets. They were of similar ilk to the Lawrence murderers

I see, so being white and burly (racial profiling anybody?) and stepping out in the street to prevent the possible ransacking of your neighbourhood by an out of control mob of arsonists and looters makes you similar to a brutal gang of murderous racist thugs does it?
Jesus wept!

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To be honest, I don't see anything wrong with the article. It sounds like he is celebrating diversity and as others have said (I wouldn't know as have never been there and live in North London) it was previously a bit glum.

I didn't get from the article that he was vilifying the white working class.

Does anyone know anyone that finds Lee Nelson's Well Good Show funny as a matter of curiosity?

Sorry, I'm too middle class. My cleaner probably likes it. I'll ask her when she recovers from the rickets.

I didn't get from the article that he was vilifying the white working class.

How else can you take it when he says South London was "glum" when it was populated mainly by WWC people and now it is "vibrant" now it is populated mainly by ethnic minorities?

South London isn't a carnival for the lefty middle-classes to look at and patronise, It's a place for people to work and attempt to succesfully raise families. It is far harder to do that in 2012 then it was in 1972.

I am a Yardie from Kingston, Upon Thames.

PaganSpirit

Sorry, I'm too middle class. My cleaner probably likes it. I'll ask her when she recovers from the rickets.

I was advised that one had to be from South London to "appreciate" the show. Where is your cleaner from as a matter of curiosity?

Complete rubbish. So do you consider Richmond a shithole then? Dulwich? Wimbledon Village? Or how about Greenwich where you have a flat for 'business reasons'? If you bothered to explain this part of London better, then you would know that South London has districts with good transport, good high streets, nice buildings and excellent restaurants just as North London. Then of course you have cultural areas like the South Bank which any real Londoner will tell you is fantastic. Those who actually live on this side of the river, like myself, will know just how ignorant and offensive your post is.

Ah yes, those cheerful, grinning Africans with their crazy happy-clappy religion and their shiny fruit stalls. If only those boring white folks with families and jobs and aspirations to grind them down could take a leaf out of their book and live life as one long, carefree carnival.

I mean, this is Tintin in the Congo stuff. I think I sort of understand what Mr Preston was going for - a dreary, clapped-out borough rejuvenated by fresh blood. Which is fine, if only he could have left out all that awful, patronising 'black people=vibrant' tone. If I were black, I think I would be inventing some new synonyms for vibrant that overwhelmed journos could breathlessly spout when describing my community.

Wow, so much anger at someone simply expressing a positive view on diversity.

Is he racist for talking about 'glum white working class'? Are black journalists racists when they criticise black culture (which they frequently do)?

And how many of you lot are members of the poor white working class who are being oppressed by the scary ethnics of South London?

Get a fucking grip...

Are you 'aving a larf ?

Is he 'aving a larf ?

My head is spinning.....

'nuff said.

Style of thing

Just shut up with this bollocks multicultural propaganda all the time

It seemed that in a nutshell he was saying things have changed over the last 40 years and even more since Stephen Lawrence's death in a positive way and that people are tolerant of each other's differences.

And that multiculturalism is not a bad thing and generally people from many different cultures rub along together very well in South London.

That's how I interpreted it anyway.....

Wow, so much anger at someone simply expressing a positive view
on diversity.

It is very easy to express a positive view on diversity when you are a multi-millionaire former newspaper editor. Much harder when you are one of the "glum white working class" people who the "diversity" has been inflicted on against their wishes.