Matt Mundy hovers between London and the Essex Riviera.
‘Reid ‘ad a mare today.’
‘Corr, not ‘alf.’
‘The boy don’t cut it for me. Why ain’t the lad Tomkins playing?’
‘Yeah. Mustard he is. An Hammer through and through!’
You’d be forgiven for thinking you were in The Boleyn on the corner of Barking Road. Touching distance from The Academy of Football, Upton Park. Home to the mighty West Ham United, pride of the East End.
Alas, it is The Elms. A pub in Essex. Saafend, to be precise, home of a lowly League Two side.
But during the past 20 years, thousands of Londoners have settled for this lowly League Two town, attracted by reduced house prices and the chance to exchange London’s grime for the sweet taste of seaside suburbia.
Also the train (on a good day) will get you back in the Smoke in less than 50 minutes.
So has the influx of Londoners now reached the point where Southend has become part of the Great Wen? Sorry to cop out but I think it’s too early to tell.
On a Saturday night the town is full of blokes who are clearly new immigrants to the Essex Riviera (well, you wouldn’t be drawn to West Ham on account of their success, would you?); but to the trained ear the locals’ accent is still not quite the same as the incomers’.
Just because there’s the same river running through them both, it doesn’t mean they are one and the same place – yet.
But Southend can’t escape London. The name of the new airport has it about right: ‘London Southend Airport’.
Sounds like local residents are left to decide which side of the sign they want to identify with.
And that suits us fine.