Neasden, Also known as “London’s loneliest village” located in the heart of north west London between Brent Park and St. Raphael’s Estate. There is no community here, nobody in London is bragging about being from Neasden. The most action this area has gotten was when N-dubz filmed his video on the Staples Corner overpass. Even that could be described as being more of a Brent Cross event.
If you’re lucky enough to have ever even passed Neasden on the Jubilee line, you know that all you see is a massive rusty warehouse as soon as you get off the tube. Young and broke I got kicked out of my shared house in Dagenham East London, and thought “F*ck it, I already live in Dagenham It can’t get much worse than that”, Oh sweet summer child I was wrong, very wrong.
My first day in Neasden starts by getting lost on the North Circular trying to find my flat. The more lost I got, the more the realization of the fact that I would be living in an industrial estate for at least 1 year started hitting me. Once settling down, I decide to do what any person in a new area would do, go to the main part of Neasden with the shops.
Getting to Neasden shopping centre, I can feel the sadness of the other residents around me, I do not feel unsafe, I just feel communal sadness going on. I go into a local “pound store” to buy a kitchen knife and other essentials. The guy at the counter quickly takes my cash and since I look quite young, I ask “Don’t you need ID or something?” he just replied with “Trust me you don’t look under 18”.
I blame the Neasden air for prematurely aging me, all that north circular car fart infused air cannot be good for anyone.
A few weeks go by and I start warming up to my new location, I quickly find out that living in Neasden is awesome! As long as you completely avoid Neasden and go to Brent Cross, Hendon, Cricklewood or literally any other nearby place.
This is until a misunderstanding with Brent Council happens about my address (fair enough I bet they’re not trained to deal with people living in flats in industrial estates), I spend the next 2 weeks calling them every day, waiting on hold for 2 hours until getting on the phone with an agent and explaining my situation over and over again until one day, they finally understood what I needed and I was able to move on with my life.
Fast forward to present day today, these are now my final weeks in Neasden as I’m no longer bound to live here by my lease. Leaving this place will be bittersweet (mostly just sweet), but hey, at least I’ll have easy access to my new place via the A406.
Long story short, If you like highway overpasses, the smell of piss and absolutely nothing to do other than count all the new pieces of graffiti on your building, come to Neasden where the grass isn’t greener because there is no grass, it’s all one giant motorway.
