Last week I wrote a piece about Penge/Anerley that caused a lot of offence, which I have been called up for by my friends (my extended family, really) living there.
In the writing/ editing process, the piece got chopped and changed and ended up being read as snider than I had originally intended.
I had wanted to write a piece, using some photos I took on a recent trip to visit those friends in Penge. It was supposed to be along the same lines as the joke postcards of places like Leeds and Hackney, showing closed down shops, things in skips and crap shop fronts.
If I’d taken similar photos of my own back yard (itself full of old cars, ginsters pasty wrappers and the odd stray bit of plumbing and dog shit) then I would have written it about where I live, instead of Penge.
Stupidly, I did not give due consideration to the community living in the place I was joking about.
My friends were right to point it out to me, and to them I apologise.
Nell Frizzell
Post a Comment