I’ve had enough of city living. London has been my home on and off since I came to university in 1986. I’m tired of it. But there’s one bit I still love. That’s when I find myself right bang in the middle of town early in the morning. I feel the same way about all the other cities in which I ply my trade: Birmingham, Cardiff and Manchester, mainly. At about 6am, all cities have a similar character.
I write this in a cafe on Old Compton Street in Soho, in central London, at 6.30am. Here more than anywhere, it feels as though you’re in the eye of a storm. There aren’t many people about because the people, millions of them, are all jammed up on the roads and crammed on to public transport, getting in each other’s way, trying to get here. So for another hour or so we have it to ourselves. “We” being the early starters and a few late finishers.
Most of us are bleary of eye. Some are already hard at it, mainly working with their hands, building things, cleaning things, getting ready to sell things. Then there are the thrusters, besuited, full of a different purpose. And distressingly there are always the desperate too, wandering – or still sleeping on – the streets. The hopeful and the hopeless, respectively, move quickly and slowly.
It’s a bit of a club, which feels more exclusive the earlier you’re here before the lightweights turn up. In the meantime we all exchange looks that, even if they say nothing more profound than “God, early, isn’t it?”, still communicate a togetherness.
I have favourite early-morning memories from each city I work in. In Manchester it’s the dozen or so builders I saw next to a site near Piccadilly Gardens, standing in a circle, in hi-vis and hard hats, doing some warmup stretches. In Cardiff it’s going to use the toilet in a massive, deserted Marks & Spencer. There wasn’t a soul on the shopfloor but Rose Royce were playing, singing the saddest pop song ever: “You abandoned me; love don’t live here anymore.” I imagined a newly heartbroken employee had put it on. And in Birmingham, there’s The Friendliest Man In The World, who runs the breakfast cafe next to New Street station. Always a joy, the earlier the better. It’s always special everywhere.
Until everyone else turns up and, in the nicest possible way, rather spoils it all.
