Enfield

It is a place with an east-west divide. The east, alongside the Lee River Navigation, is primarily working class and industrial. The west is middle class and suburban. The A10, or Great Cambridge Road, effectively forms a dividing line between the two. My school, Bishop Stopford's, had a real mix of ppl as a result of this dichotomy.

I paid a visit a few years ago. Went for a walk around the grounds of Forty Hall. The town centre seemed pleasant enough.

did my original post to this thread get through?

it was something along the lines of: Enfield is where disgruntled Spurs fans (0-3 at home to Middlesbrough, ha ha ha) live.

that's all that really comes to mind, though I believe the short-distance suburban railway line from Enfield to Liverpool Street was steam-operated right up to 1960. This is quite a culture shock to realise if, like me, you spent your time in the south-east over the other side of the Thames, on the Southern Electric system where the entire suburban network had been electrified before WW2. Thinking of *tank engines* operating suburban services to Enfield in 1960 makes it seem really backward to someone from Kent.

Quite by coincidence I’ve just been reading the relevant page of The Oxford Literary Guide to the British Isles, and Enfield, whatever its failings, ain’t short of literary associations. Keats and Captain Marryat went to school there, and Charles and Mary Lamb lived there 1827-33, attracting a better class of visitor: Hazlitt, Landor, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Hood, Crabb Robinson.

In our own day it was the childhood home of Dr Roger Highfield, multi-award-winning Science Editor of the Daily Telegraph and author of Can Reindeer Fly?, Einstein Was A Bastard!, The Modern Theory of Time, Gentlemen, Please, etc., etc. A very sound bloke when I knew him.

Hazlitt was from Wem, which is a bazillion times bettah than Enfield.

Went for a walk around the grounds of Forty Hall
ah yes, Forty Hall. Our school had an annual cross-country run through the grounds. And I remember we also did some geography field work there at A level which involved digging huge holes in the turf to look at the soil horizons. I'm sure we weren't supposed to do this. In the same area is Theobald's Park which has a farm which we visited several times when we were at primary school and Capel Manor which hosted agricultural fairs. I remember one of these had a roped off area whose sole purpose was to show us city types how big an acre was!!

AGricultural fairs??? Yes, as well as the east-west divide already mentioned, Enfield can be divided north-south. The northern part borders Middlesex and is quite rural-looking in places. In fact, postally it is still Middlesex, owing to the bizarre decision to retain Middx as a postal district when the actual county was swallowed up by London (apart from Potters Bar, which went into Herts) in 1965.

The train line to Liverpool St. Robin mentions has a poem written about it. It begins "Here's to the line that wanders down, from Liverpool Street to Enfield Town". My Dad could recite the poem in its entirety. And frequently did.

according to Richard Littlejohn (yes, I know, I know) there is a foxhunt in Enfield. hasn't helped the Tories get back there though ...

I was nearly born there. However, I know no more about the place than that it didn't have enough incubators 22 years ago, so I'm intrigued by this thread. (This will probably now be the last post; oops.)

(MH, yes, I am doing your tape but the sound quality sounds dodgy and I'm trying to work out whether this is my fault or not and whether it's worth redoing it)

A quick run through with the head cleaner cassette usually works. Don't want it sounding dodgy (or Dodgy, come to that).

Random fact: the first cash-dispensing machine in the UK was installed in the Enfield Town branch of Barclays.

Also born and raised in Enfield: Bob Cobbing, “Britain’s most significant sound and visual poet.”

And another: the admired travel author and novelist Norman Lewis, who has just died aged 95, was born and educated there.

Sorry the Bob Cobbing link is defunct (except for those willing to pay); try this one.

In all seriousness rex, d'you know Rob Sheppard at all?