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Status Anxiety

Toby Young

Wednesday, 26th March 2008

I was wrong about Acton. It is by far the most affluent place I have ever lived

Six months ago I wrote an article in this magazine in which I complained that rising property prices in Shepherd’s Bush had forced me and my wife to move to Acton. I pointed out that the only decent café within walking distance of our new house had closed down, citing this as evidence that there weren’t enough middle-class people in the area to sustain a single decent coffee shop. Acton, I concluded, was the cesspool of west London.

This turned out to be a colossal error of judgment — and not just because the editor of the local newsletter reprinted the article in full and sent it to all our new neighbours. Far from being an urban wasteland teeming with knife-wielding hoodies, Acton is a suburban Shangri-La — the Monte Carlo of Metroland.

Take the Husseins, who live next door but one. The other day I counted six cars in their driveway, including a Rolls-Royce, a Bentley and a Porsche. They all belonged to them, too, a fact that was revealed by the cars’ consecutive vanity plates: HUSS 1, HUSS 2, etc. They don’t even live in the grandest house in the street. That honour belongs to Jana Bennett, the BBC’s ‘Director of Vision’. (According to the BBC website, ‘She has overall creative and leadership responsibility for BBC One, BBC Two, the digital channels BBC Three and BBC Four, as well as overseeing content on the UKTV channels and BBC America.’)

My wife and I foolishly imagined that we would be big fish in a small pond in Acton and entertained fantasies of inviting the locals round to the back door for a glass of cider at Christmas. In fact, we are probably the poorest people on our road. We are certainly the only ones who don’t send their children to private school. As we’re cramming Sasha and Ludo into the Vauxhall Zafira on a Monday morning, pinning their clothes together with safety pins, our neighbours pull out of the adjoining driveways in Range Rovers and Grand Voyagers with their immaculately uniformed children sitting in the back. We feel like the Beverly Hillbillies.

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Herbert Thornton

March 27th, 2008 9:59pm

If any of my neighbours worked for the BBC I certainly wouldn't go round telling people about it, let alone publicise the fact in the media.

Strawsonian

March 28th, 2008 4:27pm

Why's that, Herbert? Are the BBC bods simply too ghastly for words - or are you concerned for their security?

Ian

March 29th, 2008 1:10am

I used to live at a ground floor flat in Acacia Road (1972). I can tell you, it wasn't posh then! We had two bedrooms, a living room, dining room/kitchen and bathroom. That is to say, the whole ground floor.

Times have changed.

Hugh was a Northern Irish Protestant, ex-SAS, salesman. Jeff was a self-loathing, acid-head, Zen Buddhist Jew. Mervin was a long-haired, dope-smoking, thieving hippy and Jock was a racist, creatively foul-mouthed, Scots thug - or so he would have you believe.There was also a Southern Irish, donkey jacketed, labourer whose name escapes me. He didn't stay long. I was a Northern English, working class, public schoolboy who fled the Smoke a.s.a.p. It's true, I promise you, it's all true.

We certainly didn't pay the equivalent of whatever it's costing you idiots in London now. I did some perfunctory research online and use the term 'idiots' advisedly. I have a four bedroom house, with ensuite, bathroom, cloakroom, garage, garden and off-road parking for less than a one-bedroom flat in Acton. No mortgage.

Who needs posh? Drucker's in Birmingham do good coffee and better cakes. I know several restaurants in Bearwood that will give a wide variety of cuisine and don't cost the earth.

Who needs London?

Ann

April 1st, 2008 3:49pm

Ian - I couldn't agree more. Why is it the media are unable to see further than the metropolis boundaries? I love to visit London, more precisely the museums and art galleries - but I breathe a positive sigh of relief as I get off the train on the Oxon/Bucks border. I expect we have some BBC bods living here somewhere but it's not important round here Toby!

Imran

April 1st, 2008 4:29pm

I fully agree with you Toby. Acton is great! We've lived here for many years now and found it to be ideally situated for our lives...15 minutes to the West End and 15 minutes to Heathrow In my opinion, much nicer than Shepherds Bush but of course its what ever you get use too!