ROAD CLOSED

Light My Fire...

The first I knew of the fire on the Harrow Road was when I tried to drive to the crematorium last Friday afternoon; I met a "Road Closed" just after Chippenham Road and realised that other cars were turning round. I was able to zigzag through back streets and find my way to Kilburn Lane, which joins the Harrow Road at the eastern end of Kensal Green Cemetery. When I met the undertaker he told me what had happened; that there was a big fire, still going on. He, being a Co-op funeral director, located the fire as "opposite the Co-op food store", which turned out not to be quite true; it was further west than that, on the corner of Fermoy Road. Apparently it started in the Alawiya Restaurant, but reliable information is hard to come by. Certainly it was fortunate that it happened in mid-morning, as several flats seem to have been burnt out, as well as the restaurant and two or three shops.

I walked past yesterday (three days after the fire) and the smell of burning was still clear. The building is shored up with a scaffold that occupies half the road outside, and yesterday the remainder of the road was occupied by scaffolders' and other contractors' lorries. It doesn't look as though the road will reopen soon, which means we have to get used to the current traffic madness outside St.Peter's. The problem is all the extra buses and lorries trying to get past each other and execute unlikely turns, added to which drivers get anxious and try to do things hurriedly because they've been delayed. Mostly we are just being poisoned by vastly increased levels of diesel fumes, but it can get hairy. Today on my bicycle I had a narrow escape when a heavy lorry simply ignored me and turned right in front of me at the Prince of Wales; I was coming out of the closed road, and so clearly did not exist!


Double Yellow

The traffic chaos caused by closed roads is compounded by bad parking, and round here there is plenty of that. Single yellow lines are taken as advisory, and (as I have observed before) gradually ceasing to be valid as the afternoon wears on. I was delighted that a stretch of single yellow lines were recently converted to double on the bridge where the Harrow Road crosses the Canal, as that makes crossing or coming out on a bicycle from Westbourne Green much safer. However, many vehicles are still parked there. Drivers seem not to have noticed the change, and Westminster's traffic wardens (I know they're not called that, but they seem to be wearing jackets bearing the legend "Marshal" now) seem to take no interest in yellow lines. They only seem interested in policing residents' and paid parking bays, which is hugely frustrating, when the double yellow lines are about safety!


Return Visit

I was stopped on my bike today by a small woman who said, "Do you remember I asked you to write to Manchester Police for me several years ago?". I confess this was a challenge to my memory, but I nodded, expecting the accusation that I'd obviously been neglectful. But no, I was told that she knew I had written, and she was grateful, and told me some more of the lurid story, and assured me that there was terrible child abuse going on in Manchester back in the 1970s. Her faith enables her to cope with some ghastly stories from her past. I have no way of knowing whether what she tells me is true, but I'm pleased to have done something to help.