MY DEAD ENDS
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1
God help anyone who chooses to drive up River road, they'd find it was more pothole than asphalt. It took years for any improvements to be made. Did the trucks cause all that damage? The huge ones that would and still use it everyday? Or was it just good ol' fashion neglect? Who knows... One thing I do know, is that if you are driving on River road, you are sharing it with a truck.
Whenever friends came over, my siblings and I would secretly hope they’d get the joyous experience of the road. Getting thrown about in the back of my mum’s honda CR-V was a very significant part of the visit. I’m almost certain she played into it. She chose bumpier paths that would send us crashing into each other, laughing hysterically as our little bodies rattled with excitement.
Eventually, the road would smooth out. Getting less and less bumpy as we approached home. I used to look ahead, past the dashboard to trucks we shared the road with. It always seemed like they had no issues with the gaping holes in the tarmac.
I could see the drivers knew exactly where they all were. The trucks would swerve, the cargo would lean and the tyres would skimm past with only centimeters spare.
I imagined they knew the road so well that they could glide between the pot holes, eyes closed, moving with a level of grace that would make you think the road was perfect if you were their passenger. I loved watching the mammoth vehicle’s swan their way into the distance.
Strangely, even though memories of the road stick in my mind as genuine golden moments, I couldn't shake the feeling that these roads were not meant for us. Families in corsas, minivans and 4by4’s, juddering along, planning strongly worded emails in our heads.
In the years since, things have improved a lot for River road. There are far fewer potholes, the ones that appear are dealt with quickly. I know for sure that the residents appreciate this change and ultimately I’m glad the council has finally woken up to this area's needs. But the truth is, I do miss the jerky road from my childhood and as I prepare to move away from my family home. I feel it would be a joy to capture the essense of it. At least before all the gaps, cracks and potholes get smoothed over.
2
I have a friend about two generations older than me, Charles aka the last communist in Barking. He knows the area better than anyone I’ve ever met and takes particular pleasure in telling me stories about his days in the factory. He once told me a story about four boys who used to play together on the creek every Saturday after lunch.
Two were brothers, one the shift commander's son and the last was “a little lame”. Charles was keen to point out that back then most children had an impeccable sense of time, they were deeply attuned to the shifting hues of afternoon turning to evening.
They all understood the peach of a summer evening sky was a signal to head home. According to Charles, these boys all knew to return home in time for tea. Which in the shift commander’s house, would be served no later than six thirty in the evening.
One Saturday, only three of the four boys returned to the shift commanders house. The lame child was nowhere to be found and all three were caked in beige muddy silt.
The shift commander’s wife was so enraged by the state of them, that she only noticed a child was missing after she had taken her son’s shoes off. She asked about the lame boy and all three stood silent, eyes glued to the floor fiddling with the hardened clay on their clothes.
He calmly told his wife to go to the missing boy’s house and check if the boy had returned. Once she'd left, he took the muddy clothes off the boys, washed their hands and moved them to a space where they were comfortable. He gave each of them a toy and waited for the inevitable to happen.
Eventually, they began to play. The brothers lead the charge, starting a round of ‘giffy’, an invention of their own. It didn't take long for the shift commander's to son join in.
Despite peering over the corner of his saturday paper for at least 3 games, the shift commander was unable to figure out how any part of the game worked. But there they sat, peacefully competing within a logic that made complete sense to themselves.
With the boys settled the shift commander figured it was time to ask them what had happened. He asked the question in the way that most parents speak to their children, occupied by something else. The paper was a prop, his eyes never parted from the broadsheet but his attention was solely focused on the boys. The shift commander’s son reset the pieces for another round of 'giffy' as he explained what happened that afternoon on the creek.
Supposedly, their friend, the lame child, always wanted to see where the water lived. He told his father that when they would arrive at the creek, the water was near. But by home-time it would always go away. On this day, the lame boy decided enough was enough. He needed to know where the water lived. So they all plodded out onto the muddy beach chasing after the water. It didn't take long for the brothers to decide to turn back, the shift commander son followed shortly after.
But their lame friend just kept going, marching out towards the river, determined to find out where the shoreline rests its head.
Charles has this habit of rushing to the end of a story, he always slows down in the middle, I think it’s because he’s giving himself time to remember how it ends. He assured me that the boy did come home eventually; his clothes were muddier and his mother madder, but in the end he was fine.
I told Charles I thought the story would end in some kind of tragedy, he laughed at me and said plainly "There's enough of that around here, plus my mum kicked the living shit out of me once I got in".
3
The area used to host one of the largest open air markets in London. Hundreds of people made their way here every Sunday since 2002, a year before we got here.
The market was especially close to our house, at most a 15 minute walk. My Grandma used to go when she would visit from Nigeria, I never went with her, but looking back I wish I did.
Imagine the most cockney man you could ever meet, full time butcher, part time comedian. Equipped with a wireless headset blaring out his jokes on the loudspeaker. You can’t see him but that’s Tony Mallet. We didn’t speak but he was the meat auctioneer that day.
He had this great joke about his wife buying him a penis enlarger. He had brought it with him and was just about to take it out but the punchline was ruined by the drama of an elderly woman crashing her mobility scooter into a condiments table next to a hotdog stand.
She was fine, had just lost control for a moment. The penis enlarger was a magnifying glass that he pulled out of his back pocket.
Shipping containers surrounded the market, Stalls selling everything from scented wax candles to car insurance. Every time I visited I was always astonished by the sheer scale.
It was one of the first areas I photographed for this project, one of the first photos I took was of a woman carrying a giant pink rose. She gave me a look as if what I was doing was strange.
