Acton Town

[hmg]

First place I lived in London. Highlights:

Khat on sale in the Somali-run shops down Churchfield Road
Religious iconography/replica gun shop down the same street
Bums playing basketball equipped only with empty cans and a council skip
Derelict buildings held up by rusting scaffolding poles, housing families of pigeons
The Russian Restaurant on the high street - no customers, ever.
The 1940 Town Hall - can't have been much civic building going on then. Weird.
The pool "1980, no one died. 1981, no one died. 1982, someone died. 1983, no one died..."
Compton-style housing projects to the south
Loaves of bread, all covered in scabies

Acton, the Hackney of the West.

 

[Rachel Verinder]

Best known these days for middle-aged businessmen standing outside the Hippodrome of a Wednesday evening asking ladies if they'd like to come back to "my luxury flat in Acting Town."

Also, Lionel Bart lived there during his declining years, and the Nelson Mandela Estate in Only Fools And Horses was really Harlech Tower innit.