I haven’t lived here long in Crawley, but from what I hear it is ‘rough’. I have so far yet to witness this, but that’s due to the fact I used to live in both Croydon and Sutton so my idea of rough is a bit different. For example, I hardly ever hear sirens in Broadfield be it police, fire or ambulance (do people not get ill round here?) where I used to live you couldn’t blink more than twice without hearing a siren that would most likely be the police.
Next, people: far more polite and I really mean that, I had to re-programme myself to say thank you to the bus driver because everyone else does even the school kids, now, you’d never get that on any London bus. I’ve noticed school kids wear their uniforms correctly with the tie knot in the right place and not some huge knot that takes up all the space in the chest area, amazed me!
The kids that hang around the shops really are not menacing at all, yes ok, I did see one group of around 6 or 7 kids with a dog, a spaniel not the Croydon/Sutton must have accessory Staffie cross breed and I almost laughed, especially as the only annoying thing they were doing was listening to Gangnam Style. In contrast to this, your average ‘gangsta’ in Croydon or Sutton would hang around the shops with the said Staffie cross breed but only to rob you on your way in or out or to kick the windows in, whichever they feel like doing at the time.
Round here I know my neighbours which is quite nice, where I used to live I couldn’t even even tell you what the neighbours looked like let alone speak to them! That said, I could hear them, usually along the lines of: **slap** “you made me do that you *****”. I got off the train at East Croydon one night around 8pm and the one of the resident beggars saw me with a cigarette and asked for one, I said it was my last one and he had the cheek to tell me to give it to him and go and buy some more!! Sorry but some of these so called homeless sorts (some are and some aren’t) earn more than me by begging and I told him to go away but not as politely.
In Broadfield people ask you if you have a lighter so they can light their own bought and paid for cigarette. As for all this **** business it doesn’t matter how affluent or deprived the area you live in is, they’re everywhere and there’s just no getting away from it, we just have to put up with it.
I know where I’d rather be and its not in a CR or SM postcode area! And just out of curiosity, has anybody mentioned Mitcham on here because let’s face it, you can’t want to live there out of choice surely? I could mention more but you’d get bored of reading.
