The Two Sides of London

‘Every truth has two sides; it is as well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either.’ – Aesop.

There are two sides to London. Its public face, the one that the tourists come here to see, and its private face, the one that the folk who live here experience.

For various reasons, I’ve ended up sitting on the steps outside the National Portrait Gallery at Trafalgar Square twice this past weekend. It isn’t a hardship – I love people watching and it’s a really good spot for that particular activity. Most of them are tourists – selfie sticks abound, people haul themselves up onto the base of Nelson’s Column for photo opportunities, kids run about squealing between the fountains and crowds gather to watch the street
performers who juggle, joke and dance for loose change.

This part of London is dominated by attractions – Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Hyde Park, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Oxford Street, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, countless theatres, Starbucks and more
Prets than you can shake a stick at. The prices are sky-high as businesses capitalise on tourists’ hard-earned cash. Outside Buckingham Palace, throngs of people converge to take photos of what is actually quite an ugly building and
the world-famous guards, bedecked in red tunics and topped off with their bearskins.

Away from this central area of tourist activity, there are pockets of attractions – around London Bridge where the Shard dominates the skyline and in its shadow, Borough Market and Tower Bridge. Across the Thames, The Tower of
London and, a way down the river, Greenwich Park, the Cutty Sark and the Meridian Line.

These things are the life-blood of London’s tourism industry – the huge attractions that are on the covers of colourful brochures and bring in the punters. These are the things that people pose in front of, two fingers held up to their faces in the universal peace sign or with massive cheesy grins firmly in place. This is the public face of London – photographed endlessly, putting on a show. It is what the world sees, what people imagine when someone mentions
London to them.

I don’t feel like I live in this London. I visit this London along with all the other tourists, strolling down the streets, enjoying various culinary treats from Borough Market, taking the DLR to Greenwich to experience that ‘village feel’ and to wander through the park. I take photos of Tower Bridge, get excited when I see it lifting to let a boat pass underneath. I stare up at the Shard, longing to go up, unsure why I’ve not yet been. I visit the museums and the galleries, join the ranks of tourists to take a photo of a soldier in a bearskin and go to see the Serpentine Pavilion. I eat in Covent Garden, am blinded by the screens at Piccadilly Circus and I gaze back at Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament as I cross Westminster Bridge, heading for the South Bank.

The London I live in is private. It keeps secrets and isn’t loud or brash like the public London I visit. It shies away from the limelight and you must spend time seeking out its delights, as they’re not instantly obvious. You have
to go further afield to find the hidden gems.

Coffee off the beaten track, only five minutes from Oxford Street, in a little café that was once an underground toilet. Strolling along North Bank, the quieter counterpart to the bustling South Bank, steeped in history, so close you can feel it, touch it, almost smell it. The quiet neighbourhoods with excellent bars, the back streets where the pub on the corner feels like your local and you can get a good pint. The hidden spots that are so close to the main areas, but stow away down narrow, uninviting alleys that simply don’t lure the tourists away from the bright lights and wide boulevards.

It’s harder to spot these places. Harder to find them. I’ve barely scratched the surface so far in my three months of living here. It takes time. It takes a wrong turn. It takes getting lost in a maze of back streets. It takes walking rather
than catching a bus or the tube. It takes intimacy with the city, a level of comfort. It takes a quick internet search for more unusual finds. It takes local knowledge. It takes an interest in going further in, a desire to see the real city, stripped back, behind the glitz. London, bare faced, so to speak. The morning after the night before. You have to want to know the secrets.

The tourists don’t come here. They don’t see the side of London that is showing its face to me more and more often. The mornings when I walk to catch my train, sidestepping gaggles of children being herded along by harassed parents towards the school gates. The evenings when my local Sainsbury’s bursts at the seams, people barging past one another with baskets in hand, eager to get in and get back out again as soon as possible. The every day rituals of life, the cram on the train home, the stroll through my local park with the view over the City and Canary Wharf. On Sundays when I meander home, it’s so quiet and peaceful in this neighbourhood that I could be somewhere else entirely.

I love both the two sides of London. I love being a tourist in my new home city, but I love trying to get off the beaten track as well. I love the brash, the bright lights, the glamour and the bits that are in my face. But I love the quiet,
hidden parts just as much. When I find those places, I feel like London has given up another piece of itself to me, surrendered a new secret. My connection to the city becomes a tiny bit more intimate. The city becomes a step closer to feeling like my home.