This article was not planned, and neither was the experience that prompted me to write it. I have lots of feelings… what better way to navigate them than through writing?

Richmond Park, Roehampton Gate, North

As I approached Richmond Park yesterday – for the first time by bus rather than by bike – I noticed that there is a cluster of council estates east of Roehampton gate, south of Clarence Lane. This shocked me, as I had known for some time by cycling through Richmond, and hearing about it, that it is a super posh area.

Note that I had seen council estates in “old money” boroughs before, but perhaps for the stupid reason that Richmond feels like it is not a part of London, I didn’t expect there to be any council estates around it.

Within 50 meters of walking along Clarence Lane, fragmented memories kicked my sense of survival into a high gear:

• “Roehampton is a dodgy area” I remembered a colleague remark… not helpful as I was walking towards Roehampton Gate
• The myriad of horrors I’d heard emanating from council estates in rap music made the tattered blocks look even more harrowing
• I remembered my heart pounding harder than a post-crash adrenaline rush when I stopped a fight between two youths on the overground

I continued walking on the other side of Clarence Lane, away from the council flats.

Richmond Park, Roehampton Gate, East

After an afternoon of serious fun riding a tandem bike for my first time (even managing to climb the brutal Broomfield Hill!), my route back took me through the south side of the estate cluster, along Danebury Avenue.

Halfway through, I saw a bunch of families hitting a tree with sticks.

My curiosity took the better of my heightened awareness, and I approached them to see what was going on…

They were collecting plums!

And immediately as they noticed my presence, the young man doing the bulk of the collecting tossed me a plum and said “Try it brother”

I hesitated… and immediately recognising this he said “Don’t worry about it being unwashed, just rip the plum in half and suck the inside”

I obliged, and was pleasantly surprised with sweetness when I was expecting it to be sour.

I decided to repay his kindness by joining him in collecting plums. However, as he was truly a generous person, he prevented me from climbing the tree. He collected all the plums from the highest reachable branches and gave a good chunk of them to me. In shame, I protested that I won’t be taking any of these with me as I didn’t do any work for them, but he wouldn’t budge.

In the end I transferred all the plums he had helped me collect to the other families nearby, only keeping ones that I collected myself from the ground.

Bruised Sweetness

I guess I’m writing this post because I am ashamed of the assumptions that I make about people. I may think that I’m open minded, and I may be open minded relative to the average person that I know, but in the end thinking that I am open minded is in itself a sign that I am close minded. No amount of reading and education, no matter how deep, balanced and thorough, equates to a moment like the one I had: spending time with people. In the end, knowledge is only useful in so far as it prompts you to take an action, or helps you further understand an action that you took. But reading without action is no different than letting books sit on a bookshelf.

Had I not approached these people, I would have continued life blind to the fact that, at the end of the day, we’re no different from the guy who offered me plums – and the kid playing with knives on the council block is no different from us.

I’m so lucky that I was in the right place at the right time: this is the feeling of community that everyone tells me doesn’t exist in London. Perhaps they are simply looking in the wrong places. It was a great ending to an enriching weekend¹, and I’m immensely grateful to have experienced it.

Since last night I’ve been thinking about a plum metaphor to title this story. I wanted an equivalent of “bittersweet” for “sour” and “sweet”, but I found “tart” to be too positive, and “sour” too negative. I recalled Kendrick’s “Stale Plum” and Dave’s “Black has a fucking sour flavour“, but neither captured how I felt. In the end I chose “Bruised Sweetness” because I could tell from the eyes of the guy who offered me the plum that he’s an angel, and I hope that he doesn’t fall from the top.

1. But taking away the Hollywood storytelling for a bit: I took the wrong bus home AND missed my train stop… ↩︎