Nothing better to do

A few months ago I was walking down towards the park with my pram – it was a weekday, when previously I would have got on a bus and left the borough to earn money. You see a different Hackney during the day – mums with prams, and people without jobs, mostly. Sometimes the gangs gather in London Fields, and you avoid ‘their bench’ as you do a lap with a friend. It’s quiet, subdued, a little depressing. And then around five people return from work and the energy picks up again. Anyway, I walked past a group of boys hanging around in a front garden – I didn’t get a good look at them – and one of them referred to me as ‘the white woman who took all the money’.

Of course I didn’t argue. I was pushing a pram, for a start, which makes me a sitting duck, and there were a lot more of them. But there was something unsettling about being seen not just as rich, but as someone who ‘took all the money’ – as if there’s a finite amount, and by being here at all I am taking from them. There’s no doubt that the gentrification of this area has not benefited everyone. And as benefits are cut and job opportunities fail to materialise and the cost of everything goes up, I can see how boredom and frustration can turn into rioting. Because at times it must seem that there is nothing else to do. Of course, I’m not condoning it. But in retrospect, it’s not surprising.