When I lived in north London as a postgraduate student, my flatmates amused themselves by shouting abusive names at the then member for Henley as he cycled past on his way to the Commons from his house in Islington. But judging by the reaction from my old neighbours in Herne Hill, Boris Johnson is likely to receive an even less affable greeting there.
The erstwhile prime minister and his wife have reportedly bought a five-bedroom home in Herne Hill, the leafy liberal, left-leaning pocket of south-east London where I lived for almost 20 years before moving to Norfolk last summer. Since news of their move to SE24 became public, the neighbourhood WhatsApp groups that I haven’t got round to deleting have been pinging with a fury and insistency not seen since Lambeth Council used lockdown to push through Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
My phone buzzes with messages to the effect: ‘You moved out in the nick of time.’ Some consist of rows of vomiting emojis alternating with Munch’s ‘The Scream’. ‘Vile scum in the hood’ reads another – this from a friend with whom I regularly, when taking our children to school, had to side-step the paranoid, aggressive man who frequented the crack house on Railton Road.
Another neighbour shares a picture of ‘The Boris repellent’ wine case, on sale from local shop Wild and Lees. ‘If you’re hoping to make it abundantly clear that he’s not invited round for dinner, these wines might help,’ the blurb says. ‘Two of the wines are from predominantly Muslim countries, guaranteeing he won’t darken your door, or letterbox. The other four are from countries he likes to patronisingly refer to as “our friends and partners in the EU”.’
‘Vile scum in the hood’ writes a friend with whom I regularly, when taking our children to school, had to side-step the paranoid, aggressive man who frequented the crack house on Railton Road
In Lark, the gift shop by the railway station, you can buy a mug that says: ‘Herne Hill: the posh bit of Brixton.’ The Johnsons have reportedly bought in the posh bit of Herne Hill, on a road where suburban Edwardian semis go for more than £3 million. It’s virtually in Dulwich Village, which itself is basically Chalfont St Giles but in south-east London.
Even so, it’s an odd place for Boris and Carrie to choose. Margaret and Denis Thatcher lived briefly in Dulwich after leaving Downing Street. But as Elaine, The Flower Lady of Herne Hill (and bellwether of local opinion) points out, that was in a private road, a gated community. As for the Johnsons: ‘Ideally,’ she says, ‘they should be in the middle of nowhere – or the Isle of Wight!’
In the 2019 ‘Brexit election’ landslide, the local Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, Helen Hayes, was returned with 66 per cent of the vote. The Tories were beaten into third by the Greens. The only red wall around these parts is the one with the David Bowie mural opposite Brixton Tube station.
In the EU referendum, Herne Hill recorded, apparently, the sixth highest Remain vote in the country – 83 per cent. Frankly I’m amazed it wasn’t higher, given that the only two households I know for sure voted ‘Leave’ were the garrulous greengrocer’s and (somewhat improbably) the Turkish family who run the mini-supermarket. In Poets’ Corner, the enclave where I lived, blue EU flags fluttered from every other window.
Our neighbours were an arty, liberal bunch; among their number were Hilary Mantel’s publisher and the greatest Shakespearean actor of his generation. There were activists, artists and left-wing journalists, the sort of people who were putting up refugees in their spare rooms long before the Ukraine crisis. At the height of the Black Lives Matter protests, there was a family-friendly march in Brockwell Park and one of the residents of Dulwich Road clipped his hedge into a topiary BLM logo in solidarity. Tales on Moon Lane, the children’s book shop, is currently promoting My Magic Family, a rhyming picture book celebrating LGBTQIA+ parenting. It doesn’t strike me as the natural stamping ground of a couple of Tories.
Before Downing Street, the Johnsons lived in a flat in neighbouring Camberwell. Now, with two-year-old Wilf and eight-month-old Romy in tow (plus Dilyn the dog), perhaps it’s the undulating 126 acres of Brockwell Park that drew them to Herne Hill. But wait – ‘Trip him up as he jogs around the park’ urges a commentator on the Brixton-based Urban75 forum.
Where will little Wilf go to school? The area is spoilt for outstanding – if overstretched – state schools. There’s my sons’ alma mater, Corpus Christi Catholic School, though the priest there is rather fiercer on marital history than those at Westminster Cathedral. The German-speaking Judith Kerr Primary School, a stone’s throw from the Johnsons’ new house, is popular. But as they’re struggling to recruit language assistants from German universities due to Brexit, one can’t imagine the Johnsons being welcomed there, either. The overheated Dulwich prep schools may be a better bet, feeding into Dulwich College (notable alumni include one Farage, N.).
Later there’s another flurry of texting, prompted by reports that the same removal vans seen outside Downing Street have been spotted unloading in Herne Hill. ‘Thoughts and prayers,’ I reply, feeling slightly smug that we moved out of London when we did. But what’s this? We have a new Prime Minister and a friend messages to commiserate – with a photo of Liz Truss wearing a Norwich scarf.
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