Londoners, different, but mixed
Drive, cycle or travel by train to Stamford Hill, north London and you’ll come face to face with one of the city’s oldest communities.
The Haredi (as they are also known) live by a strict code of conduct: the men wear traditional black coats and grow beards and sidelocks. The women wear long, mainly dark clothes. This is a close-knit ultra-Orthodox, Jewish community, the largest of its type in Europe, which has managed to keep many of its traditions in the face of modernity and cultural changes. Piety still lies at the heart of the Hasidic way of life and this is reflected in the many men seen on their way to or from worshipping.
It is only when I see areas of London like Stamford Hill from the saddle of my bicycle that the feeling that we all create and contribute to our own version of London hits home. Watching the Haredis going into local shops (many run by non-Jews) and stopping on the street to give directions to strangers leaves me with a pleasant sensation and remembering the lines by the poet Clifford Dyment: O faces, faces, hurrying on /Seen, unrecognised, and gone/I carry with me from this street/The tangled prints of London’s feet.
We are all different indeed, yes, but, also, mixed.
...
Cuban, Immigrant, and Londoner, on sale now.