Hatch End

Abstract

This paper is concerned with what is now the north-east London suburb of Hatch End and the feelings thoughts and memories it had for the author during his formative years. It deals with the quotidian and the reflections it can arouse. There is no attempt to produce a formal local history of Hatch End but rather there is employment of the author’s autobiographical memory to record how temporal change influenced (and to a degree formed) him as an individual. The mix of perspectives to perform this task involves, in the main, considerations of physical and symbolic space from (a) solid and identifiable features of Hatch End (housing, public buildings, transport links, recreational spaces, etc) to (b) the meanings of countryside, family life, social class and modernity. For the author Hatch End does not carry with it the freight of being a place with deep historical roots or of having a high public profile. In general critiques of suburbia Hatch End could be classified as dull and uninteresting. In fact, the author ventures that Hatch End could be regarded as “no particular place”. This is not however how the author personally regards Hatch End. For him there was in Hatch End plenty of exciting material for the construction of a self in a real place. As he says, “no particular place” can be, autobiographically speaking, a rather special place.