Cactus Opinion: London (by Chris Moore)

Cactus is one of the world's leading language training companies, providing courses in over 25 languages, in 45 countries and 150 destinations worldwide. It specialises in all forms of trainer-based language training for enterprises and individuals, from evening courses and language learning holidays, to tailor-made packages and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). Cactus also uses blended learning approaches, included self-study and online & distance learning under the banner "learn a language your way". Read more about Cactus

5th
MAY

Posted by Sarah under Cactus Languages Abroad, Cactus Staff Opinion, English, Language Courses UK

Chris Moore, Head of Cactus Language Training, remembers London when growing up

Life. Change and growth. Relapse and despair. Escape and return. My experience of London parallels the delights and traumas of adolescence, the drunken drift of my 20s, and the discovery of a more centred self thereafter. It’s always been a city to visit, never to live. Something to do with the sheer size of the place, the pressure of the crowds, the white noise that assaults you when you get off the train.

For a wide-eyed 16 year old, London held a sleazy glamour, a place to misbehave in the evenings, away from parental gaze. Walking to Hove station for a weekend in the smoke, a French novel stuffed inside my jacket, always sent the heart bumping a little harder against the ribs. I dreamt of girls with bleached hair and scarlet lips, smoking silk cut and swearing dangerously, but never met any. Instead, evenings consisted of necking special brew on a bench with a couple of fellow school boy romantics, before stumbling into the Hammersmith Palais flashing fake id to catch the likes of Primal Scream and the Smiths. Then waking up hungover, killing time in Camden record stores and starting again.

And that’s kind of how it stayed. I got older, the drinking became more savage, the nights longer and darker. Always an escape, from essay deadlines, failing relationships, crap jobs, and the tyranny of self. The train rides always punctuating the experiences. The journeys up tremoring with expectation and those back down with relief, sometimes guilt, sometimes loss, sometimes a memory to hold, a pub anecdote to take back home.

Things changed, however. Inexorably. The years piled on, friends settled, moved apart. A post-graduate diaspora fragmenting away from the shambling chaos of shared houses; a student existence replaced by long-term relationships, growing incomes, the weight of responsibility. Stumbling through rain-drenched streets, standing in chemically-charged queues, yelling at strangers over fierce beats somehow no longer seemed so exciting. London had lost its point. I stopped going.

At least for a while. A few years even. I go back now, though. Still slouching on the train, still buried behind a pretentious novel, but the sense of escape gone. More meetings than greetings these days, more double espressos than double jacks, more firm handshakes than drunken snogs. I still look back with a sense of horror and delight at London – and at my life so far. And that’s good, that’s how it should be. Now is a heavier place, firmer ground beneath my feet, but I feel there’s more the come, and I feel that London will continue to be that mirror, and look forward with much anticipation to seeing what it will throw at me in years to come.