There is a Children’s Zoo at Battersea Park. I had visited this zoo as a child, as a moody teenager and as a young parent. I hadn’t been back for 20 years until this week. As I walked around with my grandson, I was aware that something was missing: the staff in green wellies were still there; the ugly, scary monkeys were still there and the donkeys were still grazing (or whatever it is that donkeys do) but as I looked around at all parents – I noticed that there was not one of my own socio-economic group to be seen: not one working class family in sight.
As a child, I was used to sharing the area with the “gentry” as my mother called them. I was always aware that Battersea was split into two groups: the left hand side of Battersea Park Road, for instance, housed “us” and the right hand side of the road housed “them”. We didn’t begrudge them, indeed we were very grateful that they were there: they made the shops up their game and there was always cleaning jobs to be had in the Mansions in Prince of Wales Drive (even Princess Diana was a Nanny there) and we grew used to seeing famous people at the 137 Bus Stop.
However, the park was always the leveller – us scruffy kids, with hair cut short to reduce the Nit potential , played alongside the posh kids with long hair (it always puzzled me that….). The Zoo too was full of squeals that carried no accent – my squeal of delight at the talking Myna bird was the same as the child from the Mansions. But, it seems, no more – perhaps the exhorbitant entrance fee is to blame (apparently there is also a charge of £2.50 to use the swings in the playground but I can’t bear to check the story out in case its true).
I am not blaming the middle-class mothers who can afford to take their child to the Zoo – I am just sad that so many kids from the towering blocks on the Charlotte Despard estate will not be joining them. Its not only on the education front that working class children are bereft of opportunities – seeing nature up close and petting an animal should at least be an experience that isn’t curtailed by socio-economic circumstances.
Eileen Murphy
www.brief-therapy-uk.com
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