Clapham South Shelter (And Disused Bogs)

As described in Wikipedia, this deep level shelter was built in WW2 to accomodate those seeking cover from the Blitz. It's very near to Clapham South Tube Station and is, of course, on Clapham Common itself.



Nearby are these striking if rather eery looking public toilets, abandoned and left to rot like most bogs in London. A sour sight indeed if you need to spend a penny.

A Day Out In Clapham.

On the train into London, two kids sat behind me. A girl and a boy, aged 15 or 16, Asian, eating snacks. Like most young people, they talked, talked, talked and talked without actually saying anything. Silence or anything too remotely serious is torture for the young and they know it. All those sullen, silent, erious adult faces on the train: it's better to go yak-yak-yak-yak-yak than that, and gorge on junk to drown out the howl of the speeding train.

Their accents were mostly Bengali but, this being East London, there was cockney, Essex and Jafaican here and there too, a wild car crash of accents. It was Babel with crisps and chocolate.

Later I found myself by the Long Pond on Clapham Common. The Sun was shining brightly on the water so I shielded my eyes as I took pictures. The ducks bobbled about aimlessly or chased each other off in mini tidal waves of fury.

Then I saw the fox. At first I thought it was asleep. But then I noticed its rictus grin, the dried, blackened bloodstains. and the leg that had almost entirely been ripped off. A big dog must have got it a night or so before, yet it looked so peaceful.

I felt I had to take a picture of it. Odd though this sounds, I felt like I was at a crime scene of a place where a great tragedy had taken place. If I didn't take a picture, who'd believe the fox had lived or died? As I did this, a short schoolgirl - maybe 14 - in grownups' makeup walked past and looked at me with a mix of alarm and disgust. There was no room in her life for death and the unusual. Her sweater was deep red - the colour of blood.

I then met up with a friend at a McDonald's in Liverpool Street. Some young men behind us got into a fight over next to nothing. An off duty policemen intervened though and herded them outside to calm down. As we walked past, he was still doing this, all the while drinking his milkshake.