Slade Green
Sandy wasteland with estate on top
The smell hits you when you get off the train, and never goes away because it keeps changing. It's a kind of burnt-chocolate-airfreshener odour, a sort of sickly-sweet-foul aroma with no obvious cause; most of the heavy industry is closer to the river. Slade Green is a station in the middle of a slew of haphazard 1970's council semi-detached houses and precious little else.
Disturbing Christmas decorations on houses in Slade Green
- Snowman with spade
- Santa and snowman on seesaw
- Santa on ladder
- Santa on toilet
- Colour-changing Santa holding a disembodied reindeer head in each hand
A small but agreeable row of shops, including a Londis and two Chinese takeaways exist outside the westerly side of the station, along with several bus stops and a long shack of an unnamed men's club. Looking in, it appears to feature delights such as playing pool, propping up the bar and lying on the ground muttering.
There really isn't very much here apart from brown-brick, identikit houses. Some of them have interesting security features, such as security lights that plunge you into darkness when you approach; a good idea, as surely switching the lights on only helps burglars see where they're going? People here have caravans, boats and pickup trucks parked in their driveways, which rather suggests they like to spend time away from the area. Not too far away, though. According to a report in the Guardian, in 2001 one in four people here voted for the BNP.
Residents of Zone 6, #15 – Slade Green
Key:
1. Novel combination of hood and baseball cap keeps wearer warm while keeping eyes out of sun. Only possible drawback is that wearing it back to front may result in loss of vision.
2. Eyebrows main method of expressing feelings.
3. Strong, masculine, healthy virile beard.
4. Estimated location of waist.
5. If you like the manufacturer that makes the outfits in which you do all of your sports (table tennis, squash, jogging, cycling), why not give something back and advertise them? As the fine example of human fitness you surely are, you can only do their brand good.
6. Magic belt that feels no need to have a buckle.
7. Estimated location of hands.
8. Large open vents in trousers enable circulation of oxygen for optimum production of gametes at fig 7.
9. Tupac Shakur, greatest rapper known to man and a worthy companion to one's left leg.
After you get out of sight from the station, the area starts to smell like rotten apricots. A mini-roundabout is the main feature of the area, with an enormous blocky crap building that rather suggests the residents of Slade Green may have to work through some of their problems:
Howden Centre
Social Services Area
Fostering and Adoption
Mental Health Services Team
There is a light industrial estate just off this roundabout. It wouldn't pose anything special, containing similar blocky crap buildings that seem to generate clones of themselves, but for an impressively huge and beautifully kept abbey, St Augustine's. A huge queue is outside the church, and the bells chime merrily away. There's probably a fascinating story as to why it's so nice compared to the rest of Slade Green.
The bridge over the railway track is about as tall as the Centre Point building at Tottenham Court Road, and the road layout makes even less sense. At least up here you get a clearer sort of smell. Here it's more like a glue factory being burnt down by Triffids.
It's not clear where the green is in Slade Green, although there is an enormous unused piece of occasionally green wasteland on the easterly side of the station. Trains into central London come in on this side, and it takes about 25 minutes to walk from one side to the other if you don't or can't use the footbridge; this mainly due to the hugeness of the 'green' and the tallness of the bridge. Some train sheds are here too, which may account for the smell.
Possible identity of large, tacky white blob on platform at Slade Green station
- A gob of undryable paint
- An ultra-large piece of chewing gum, fresh
- A patch of wet, molten chalk
- Poo from some cosmically large river-dwelling bird monster
- God's tears
Statistics
Time to Zone 1 38mins on South Eastern (London Bridge)
Last trains to Zone 1 Mon-Sat 2338, Sun 2227
What to do if you get stuck in Slade Green after the last train to Zone 1
Get the first bus out from the little row of stops as there's no fun in sticking round here. If it's an N89 back to the city, so much the better.
