Learning to love Croydon
This is where I confess that I have not always loved living in this town. I first moved here in the late 1990s, with my family. I've made several attempts to move away but ended up moving back. As a teenager, I found central Croydon soulless and ugly. Grey buildings under a grey sky, punctuated by grey, windswept, traffic-choked dual carriageways. The only way to get across the dual carriageways was through dingy, smelly underpasses. The shopping centres were filled with generic chain stores. The only thing I liked was the fast trains taking me to more interesting places, like central London and Brighton. Whitgift Centre c. 2001 Looking back, the real reason I hated living in Croydon was that I didn't have friends here and I lacked the confidence to put myself into situations where I might make new friends. I didn't have much appreciation for nature or for history. I took the bustling town centre for granted. I enjoyed browsing HMV and Virgin Megastores for CDs but had litt...