Council estate glam.

Wonderful documentary on Channel 4 last night called Britain’s Weirdest Council Houses featuring some properly eccentric, creative oddballs who’ve turned their humble abodes into something quite extraordinary. It reminded me how much I miss the council estate glamour of my childhood. The neat streets of bricks and mortar – as opposed to the grim forbidding concrete towers – were great places to grow up. My brother-in-law, describing the estate where most of my family lived, said it was a very working class neighbourhood where “working” was the operative word. Unencumbered by heavy mortgages, its denizens had cash to splash on fashion, football and Ford Cortinas. But once those little houses were sold off, a very distinct sub-culture was sold off too. The latest youth trends always seemed to start on London council estates and when I think of platform shoes clomping down Clitterhouse Road, I will always hear this record.