In Defence of Streatham: Why Jo Brand Is Wrong....

By Lindsay Johns for the Daily Mail

Published: 10:09 GMT, 26 April 2012 | Updated: 09:27 GMT, 30 April 2012

I have to admit to a certain fondness for the comedienne Jo Brand. Brash, potty-mouth persona and trenchant jokes aside, I intensely admire her selfless, unsung work for the homeless charity Crisis. I've seen her give up her time to perform at homeless shelters on Christmas Day and the guests thoroughly enjoyed her routine.

But I most emphatically draw the line at her recent outburst on last Sunday’s BBC panel show Have I Got News For You, in which she brazenly declared my beloved Streatham - the South London neighbourhood that is my home - to be a “****hole” and urged viewers not to go there.

As a long-time, proud Streatham resident whose very existence is owed to my parents meeting here in the Sixties, I am not amused. As an ardent proselytizer of the many joys of this delightful corner of South West London, I feel compelled to speak out and say that Streatham is by no means the toxic urban blight that wilful detractors and spiteful naysayers like to make out.

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Comments: Jo Brand's remarks about Streatham sparked outrage

With its salacious reputation derived from the arrest of infamous brothel madam Cynthia Payne in 1978 and being voted Worst High Street in Britain in a R4 Today programme survey in 2002, it has admittedly got some bad press. With its unfortunately enduring reputation for ladies of the night and tawdry takeaways, Streatham is often seen as the malodorous armpit of South London, an insalubrious wasteland where few come by choice, unless heading to the (now defunct) ice rink or along the A23 to Gatwick airport. When I tell people I live in Streatham, they smile politely, nod sympathetically and then edge away slowly, as if I'd said Beirut or the South Bronx. Yet, just like Brand, how wrong could those people possibly be!

The much-maligned and unfairly stigmatised St. Reatham (as we locals like to call it) has constantly been pilloried as the archetype of urban decay. As such, it is seen as an easy laugh and a cheap shot, so I am glad that following Brand’s wholly undeserved verbal attack, Angelina Purcell, Streatham’s Town Centre Manager, wrote to Brand to take her to task.

Admittedly, we might not have a Tube station, we might lack Notting Hill's elegant stuccoed façades, Chelsea’s patrician mores, Primrose Hill's yummy mummies or Dalston’s wannabe creative edge, but Streatham certainly does not merit its pariah status as Brixton's poorer, more dissolute cousin.

For one thing, it thankfully lacks the feral, in-ya-face edginess of Brixton, not to mention the plethora of annoyingly persistent ambulant pharmaceutical vendors forever plying their wares, or the legion of basket cases who shuffle up and ask you for 20p before stumbling off in a belligerent, drunken stupor. Plus, for the most part, we are not overwhelmed by the surly hoodie menace, which is always a positive!

If anything, Streatham is a merry Babel. With its enormous Victorian terraces nestling off the High Road, three train stations, excellent charity shops and a superb library, it is a place where West and East Africans happily rub shoulders with Caribbeans and Indians, not to mention Poles and white English people. Our denizens are for the most part both friendly and hard-working.

My own emotional attachments to the place aside, parts of Streatham are aesthetically stunning. I’ll happily wager that there is no spot more glorious in Christendom than the view from the top of Streatham Common's Rookery on a sunny summer's day.

Reversing the economic decline: Purcell said Brand did not understand the serious damage her flippant comment had on the town's collective efforts to transform the image of Streatham (pictured)

Amongst its famous current and former residents are counted actor David Harewood (now starring in C4’s gripping terrorist drama Homeland), supermodel Naomi Campbell, former James Bond actor Roger Moore and dapper, metrosexual Labour MP Chuka Umunna.

Streatham is sufficiently real that it could never be pretentious, but it's by no means straight up ghetto either. It successfully manages to strike a happy balance between character, charm and utility. In short, for me anyway, it’s a very nice place to live. There are, of course, far better and far worse places, both in the capital and in the country. But Streatham is my home. I love it here and as long as I am in London I would not move anywhere else, even if I had the money to afford a flat in Hampstead or Hackney.

I actually think it's about time Streatham finally got the kudos and the cultural cachet it rightfully deserves and which it has been denied for so long. St. Reatham is, for my money at least, quite clearly the new black. All we need now is a jazz festival, a Starbucks and a Waterstone’s and we'll be officially on the up.

Jo Brand, from the sanitized climes of her affluent, leafy Dulwich postcode, may be sadly immune to the manifold charms of Streatham. But that doesn’t mean others have to be. Come down to SW16. Explore it for yourself and make up your own mind. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

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