AL Kennedy: ‘Being out of London is the new being in London’

AL Kennedy: ‘Being out of London is the new being in London’

The Scottish writer on the polluted capital, her lifelong love of the stage and finding serendipity in Wivenhoe              

‘City pollution is kind of killing me’ … AL Kennedy. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

Sarah Crown

Friday 3 June 2016  The Guardian

 

AL Kennedy is moving again. Back in 2012, sick of spending half her life schlepping up and down the country on a train, she succumbed to the capital’s gravitational pull and made the journey south from Glasgow to London. With no fixed idea about where she wanted to end up, she drew a ring around the city’s “hysterically expensive” centre and began to explore the areas at its edges.

Eventually, she discovered Lewisham’s Telegraph Hill: an unshowy, bedded-in neighbourhood of solidly handsome houses, set foursquare around a small, steep park stocked with trees that are mature and beautiful. “It’s lovely,” Kennedy says. “It’s the best place to live in London.” We meet in a pub at the bottom of the Hill. “Beautiful streets, nice folk, proper community,” she says, between cautious sips of tea. “People smile at each other and have conversations.” But even so, she is packing up; leaving for the picturesque estuary town of Wivenhoe, in Essex. The city has proved too much for her. “The pollution is kind of killing me,” she admits, with a sigh that segues into a raw cough. “I’m on triple-dose antihistamines just so I can breathe. It didn’t used to be this extreme: before I moved I’d stay here for weeks at a time and be able to see and everything. It’s got really bad since I arrived, basically. I’m trying not to take it personally.”  MORE