Another slice of cultural heritage for the chop?

Another week, another apparently botched sell-off of a national treasure that shouldn’t even be on the list, given that it still has a role to play in our national life. This time it’s Smithfield Market, the oldest meat market in London, which has been in operation since the 10th century.

The Times reports that the governing body of the City of London Corporation chose in a private vote to close that and Billingsgate fish market. They had previously planned to move both markets to a new site further east in Dagenham, then turn the Smithfield site into a mixed-use cultural development and redevelop Billingsgate as housing.

That £1 billion scheme was scrapped due to cost overruns, despite the Corporation having already spent £308 million it, and instead of updating the market for the modern age, at estimated budget of £600 million, they have opted to get rid of it, and pay the traders who use it a total of £300 million in compensation.

As seems typical in matters such as these, the vote has been described as unlawful by three King’s Counsel barristers who sit on the hundred-strong court that oversees the Corporation, as a required study into the importance of the markets to London’s food supply has not yet been produced.

“Understanding the social and economic importance of the existing markets is vital to any decision by the court to abolish them, as is the social and economic implications of doing so,” The Times says the letter reads.

I would be very sad if Smithfield Market were to disappear, not simply because it would mean the loss of yet another piece of our cultural heritage (not to mention a key part of the meat trade) but also because it once played an important part of my life.

When I first came to London in the 1990s, I lived in a sub-let room in the student halls of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry behind Charterhouse Square, a stone’s throw from the Market.

Although I hadn’t known the area before, my sister had undergone some of her medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital (on the other side of the Market from where I was staying) and so I had a sense of connection to the place. Moreover, I adored being able to immerse myself in one of the more ancient areas of the capital, especially having only recently come down from an equally historic city: Cambridge.

At first I didn’t think too much of Smithfield Market itself, despite its functional yet impressive architecture, as it always seemed shut when I explored the nooks and crannies my new neighbourhood on my daily walks. But it was when I started to go out on the tiles, so to speak, and return to my bed in the small hours that I realised that it wasn’t merely a relic of a bygone era, but a living, breathing entity at the heart of the capital’s life.

At that bewitching hour when the night turns slowly to dawn and the birds begin to their morning song, it teemed with life. To a syncopated clatter and shouts drifting up into the lightning sky, people in white overalls marched about unloading and loading trucks and pushing trolleys into the belly of the great brick beast, where untold things would happen to the carcasses of animals no longer of this world.

For the lonely traveller into the dark hours of what was then still a seedy and beguiling London, it was an eye-opening and highly sensory experience. But the best part was that all those caffs that were mystifyingly shut during the daytime were happily open, with their warm and beckoning light spilling out onto the pavement and into the night.

Slightly the worse for wear and somewhat slow and delicate, I would shuffle over to a vacant table by the wall and drink in the animated conversations all around me and study the faces and mannerisms of the men and women from what I saw of as true London. For the seeker of a grasp on that thread of the capital’s life that stretches back into the Middle Ages and beyond, there could be no better place. (Not to mention that they served the best English breakfasts that I had ever tasted.)

Whiling away the hours before I dragged myself off to bed among the workers of Smithfield Market and the people who fed them after their shifts in the local greasy spoons allowed me to establish a connection with London at a time when I was lost and somewhat lonely, having come to the capital in something of a rush and with no job in sight.

The area quickly felt like home, and I always imagined since that, if I could move back to the city in the manner of my choosing, the place I would live would be Charterhouse Square, with the dream that I could revisit my old haunts and find those same face arguing and laughing at the same tables, and not simply the ghosts of my imagination.

I was sad to read last week of the death, at 86 years of age, of that political bruiser of 1990s New Labour John Prescott from complications arising from Alzheimer’s disease.

The impact of Tony Blair’s government, particularly his first term as Prime Minister, is something I have written about a couple of times (here and here), but with Prescott dying I sense the passing of an era, when the politics of that era begin to move into the past.

Although I could never say that I was a supporter of his, Prescott came across as a genuinely passionate individual who believed that politics could be used to achieve his goals for people and society. It was easy to write him off as a rough buffoon who was manipulated and used by Blair and Gordon Brown, but it was clear even at the time that the truth was much more complex than that.

Maybe it could be said that he too easily stepped into the role of mediator and scapegoat but I believe he was more of an old fashioned negotiator and pragmatist, in which the ends justified the means and the political machine was simply a tool to be wielded for the achievement of his aims.

I certainly believe he should be remembered for more than having two Jags, and for that punch.

Finally, I added a new photo collection to the site, one that appears in my upcoming collection Pushing the Wave 2017–2022, and recalls a magical trip to a far-off land, in both the literal and metaphorical sense.

When I attended a conference in Buenos Aires in 2011, I took the opportunity to immerse myself in a city that instantly captivated me, and I discovered wonderful people there alongside intense experiences that have stayed with me ever since.

I hope you enjoy it.