Any Preppers in London?

[diamond lil]

Great posts all, very interesting

[Jamesey1981]

Most of my young life was on the rural (then!) edge of London, near to the end of the tube lines, so went in often.

Which line if you don't mind me asking? I grew up right at the eastern end of the district line, and if you were referred to as a cockney bastard then we might have been neighbours!

Mostly got rid of my accent, I pick up and lose accents really easily, which was somewhat interesting after I'd lived in Newcastle for a year, (east London with a twang of geordie isn't pleasant, people were actually sick...) but the east London still comes out when I've had a beer or two.

[shocker]

I dont mind at all mate ! Central line, Essex/N.E London boy, me. And get a sherbet inside me, its "Cor blimey! Knees up muvva bra-aahn! Cor blimey traah-zahs" til the cows waddle back to their drum ...it can be most unbecoming. Especially when I was working as a river/game keeper, mixing with the landed gentry. I talked myself out of a few jobs there ! Best left forgotten. Ahem...

You would have been around the north circular a bit from me, I reckon, me old china

PS- at the height of my London-ness I had a geordie girlfriend, from Peterlee. I couldnt understand a word for the first couple of months. I just agreed with everything. Safest way.

I have picked up bits of NYC, California and West Country along the way. I sound like a sort of Carry on Cowboy, Chas'n'Dave meets Wurzel Gummidge these days

[Alloneword]

It's intresting hearing others POV of London, it's a young persons place that is for sure, I'm 50 and feel out of place sometimes, but nowadays you have to have an attitude to live here, and most of the time i have to be VERY selfish to get around, see a gap then take it, as for queuing for anything you can forget that, bus tube train it's every man for himself the only people i will let in front of me is the old or disabled everyone else can go a f**k themself, it's the only way and it's got way worse of the last 15- 20 years, i live south of the river about a 3 min walk to C Wharf as the crow flies and when the bomb went off people who faced onto the river lost their windows but i was OK as i'm behind other buildings but place rocked that is for sure.

I don't go out of London much but when i do i'm amazed how nice people are it's refreshing to see but i must admit when i go out of london (normally Birmingham or South or East coast) i tend to switch off to some degree which i guess is not great but it seems a different world outside of the smoke.

All1

[shocker]

Driving hasnt changed much in Town then !

I learned to drive in London, which stood me in good stead for Squaddie Driving (yes, it deserves the capitals, its a style of its own!), then when I moved to NY later on, they reckoned me a bit aggressive in my car-jockey-ing

Seems to me, that driving in London hasnt changed. I grew up sitting on the floor of the cab of dads lorry, as he drove flowers into old Covent Garden and the Drury Lane theatres, from nurseries in Essex. He could be pretty full-on with that old BMC - no acceleration to speak of but it was solid when it came to carving up the traffic. I learned to shoot into the smallest gap with no mercy and to park in any space that had 6 inches room either end. No matter how many takes it took...if you follow me

But as I have implied, I havnt driven in London per se for many years. I went as far as Hammersmith, right on the edge of the Pay Zone in the middle 2000s...once.

[Jamesey1981]

Not too far from me then shocker, at least you were the right side of the river.

Driving in London is pretty hairy these days, it's not too bad getting from where I am into Chiswick, but anywhere else needs fairly aggressive driving if you want to get anywhere, (not much different where I am now, but at least out of the town centre people will sometimes drive considerately) it helps having a big vehicle as well, I drive a double cab pick up so it has a bit of presence, back when I had my little Suzuki Jimny I used to get cut up a lot, now people see a couple of tons of truck heading towards them and think twice about going for the tiny gap in front of me!

I'm allowed in the Low Emission Zone with it, but not the Ultra Low Emission Zone, but then if I was going anywhere in there I'd use the train anyway, finding a space big enough to park my truck in can be tricky, and even then I can see very little out of the back so it'll go in but it takes a while.
You could say that's down to my parking skills, but I had to learn how to parallel park a bendy bus when I was learning to drive them so I'm not that bad!

[ClericalError]

I didn't plan my life as a social experiment, but I grew up in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, could not see other houses, one grocer/sub post office a mile away, etc., and moved via small town to university towns to London in the 1980s. I've been there ever since except one 3-year stint in a small city.

All sorts of random observations:

The start in life might sound idyllic, but I was trapped in that cottage with one adult who was hate-filled and violent, so the lack of nearby escape other than the fields was not good. I got out as soon as I could and happened to be interested in the kind of work that then required living in cities, also enjoyed the cultural opportunities. I think the abusive family and lack of help from outside agencies made me think others were not necessarily to be trusted, so I was always wary in the street, didn't wear headphones in public, always had a city map and planned where I was going. A bad commuter route made sure I always carried water and something to read, and seeing someone else get mugged once (too fast to even think of helping the victim) meant I always took shoes I could walk in if I had to wear something more formal for my destination. After a lot of physical illness I was finally able to work out in my twenties and took martial arts as well as a lot of general fitness stuff.

On 9/11 I was working in the London branch of a company that had people killed in NY, nobody I knew, but there were many people missing for a few days until they called in to say they were OK. On 7/7 I was taking a training course in a building very close to where one of the bombs went off and had to walk in a great arc for miles around the problem area to get any kind of train out of there. Those events made me more wary but didn't change my lifestyle much.

Out of town I had a fairly steady bunch of colleagues and companions for the three years and it was noticeable how the Londoners were more careful of locking doors, watching their bags in public places, and so on, than the people from most other places. This was a small city with lots of students and tourists so very easy for thieves to blend in in crowded areas and swipe things, though not much violent crime. (I'm NOT calling non-Londoners naive bumpkins here, I wish it was not necessary to be so careful.)

Since coming back to London I have been living in suburbia rather than inner London for the first time. I can walk to most of my work commitments and I notice I love being somewhere greener. I have hardly been going into the centre of town for fun, unlike when I was younger and constantly out - partly age and enjoying other things and partly pressure of work. I have definitely noticed worse traffic behaviour and more rudeness, particularly in certain areas, since I first moved in.

[Jamesey1981]

9/11 was a bad one for me too, I worked at a large fund management firm in London at the time and we had offices in the twin towers, I was actually on the phone to a colleague that worked there when there was an almighty bang and he slammed the phone down, then the news of the attack flashed up on all our Bloomberg terminals, our offices were in the tower that hit hit second so most of our staff made it out, (including the guy I was talking to thankfully, he had twins under a year old) but I did find out that some people I knew in the other tower were killed.

When the news came up on the terminals the office went silent, even our traders (who had phones surgically attached to their heads) were quiet. We all watched it for a while then a few of us decided that if we were going to die then we were going to do it in the pub.

[ukpreppergrrl]

Have lived in London for 30 years, through the later IRA bombs and the current terrorist attacks. I definitely don't react whenever sirens zoom past otherwise I'd be in a permanent PTSD state! My philosophy has always been that London is a big, big place and it would take a very big bomb (like a cold war megaton bomb) or a LOT of simultaneous explosions (like 100s) to affect all of it, so it's basically luck about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sounds trite but that's how I deal with it. "There but by the grace of God" is true whether it was 7/7 in 2005, or the Kings Cross fire in 1987, or the Clapham Junction railway crash in 1988, or last week's drive-by attack at Westminster, or any other major life-taking catastrophe.

That said one can swing the odds in your favour! I've never worked anywhere that might be a specific target for an attack, be it a political/military establishment or a very large corporate establishment (not by design, I just haven't!). I also don't live anywhere near anything that might be attacked. But you also have to remember that any building can suffer a gas explosion or some such. Also I do live in a very cheap part of London and it was one of the riot areas in 2011.

Has it made me more vigilant? Not really, but then I grew up as an army brat at a time when being a soldier not only made you and yours a terrorist target, but was also not regarded as a...worthy...profession: people that used to spit at my family now hug my father by the knees and thank him for serving. Strange how life changes... I'm an introvert by nature and don't like crowds so I'm rarely in the throng of shoppers, clubbers etc. which might also be a target. Personally I'm more worried about drunken yobs than terrorists. Vehicles can mount pavements at any time by accident - a sad but true event that happened to a colleague of mine which ended with a pedestrian being killed. As I say, there but by the grace of God.

One annoying side-effect of the attacks are that bag searches, including x-rays, are now common-place outside of airports. I've been stopped going into the British Museum because I was carrying a perfectly legal, but not in a museum, swiss army knife That said, I do have the distinct advantage of being a well-dressed, white, blonde, middle-aged woman so usually I rarely get more than a perfunctory glance into my handbag...which is just as well...

I have changed my EDC as a result of the attacks though: for example seeing people walking out of the underground tunnels after 7/7 with blackened faces from all the dirt down there means I now always carry an FFP3 mask. And I always carry a small A-Z so I can find my way home from anywhere on Shanks' Pony should the need arise, as on 7/7 not even the buses were running, though they were fine the following day. Don't rely on maps on your phone as the mobile network is always down during such events, it's virtually unusable at New Year too!! (If you've not lived in a big city I should point out that people rarely drive to work as the roads are too crowded and there's no parking, so most people use public transport to travel the 5-15 miles to work, which is a problem if it all suddenly stops!). Basically my EDC comprises: stuff to help me get out of a building/vehicle/tunnel quickly, safely and cleanly (e.g. the FFP3 mask, torch, pry bar etc.); basic first aid (e.g. plasters, bandage, wipes, gloves, mylar blanket etc.); snack food and stuff to purify water. I also carry fire-making things because, well, everyone does, but I'm not actually sure it'd ever be needed - if I needed shelter there are plenty of buildings but I wouldn't be able to light a fire in them, ditto if I were trapped in a tunnel!

[diamond lil]

Very interesting reading, thanks. My home ground is open hills & moors with plover, curlews and sheep. Baltic screaming winds and driving snow in winter - but pure heaven in summer. And always empty! I would panic and smother in a city and I do admire you all very much