Mind the Gap. Next Stop, London

Tales from my travels in my twenties... no plan, no backup, just blind trust and a Tube map.

We’re currently in Bali on what was supposed to be a short Easter break. It’s now turned into something a little longer (more on that another day). Maybe it’s the heat, the slower mornings, or the way travel gives you just enough space to remember who you used to be.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my travels as I share glimpses of my previous experiences with my kids. When I was 26, I arrived in London with no plan, no proper place to live, and no idea what was ahead. It was one of those chapters that felt chaotic, but also filled with plenty of blind faith at the time. Looking back, I can see how much it shaped me.

This story isn’t about midlife or hormones. I’ve noticed something lately. You seem to really connect with the reflective ones — the stories that look back to make sense of now. So here’s one of those. A little window into a younger me, still figuring things out..

It’s about the version of me who showed up in a new city and figured things out as she went. The one who took detours, made friends, got it wrong, and kept going.

And I suppose that’s what most of life is anyway. A mix of not knowing, figuring it out, and realising later that the messier parts were where the best bits were hiding.

When I first arrived in London in 2006, I had no solid plans and no permanent place to live. I’d visited briefly on a long weekend from where I had been living in Scotland, before making the move, crashing with friends who lived in North London.

That’s where I felt most at home, so when I found a temporary room not far from my close friend in Willesden Green, the same one who’d let me sleep on her couch a few days while I did a recce and attended job interviews, it seemed like a logical choice.

One of those interviews landed me a role as a recruitment team leader for one of the Big Four financial firms near London Bridge.

The room I found was cheap, and the area was vaguely familiar after my earlier visit. But "room" was a generous term; it was more like a glorified cupboard. A single bed, and a door that couldn’t fully open because it would hit the tiny wardrobe.

Each bedroom in the flat was individually locked, and tenants I never saw rented by the room with shared access to the communal kitchen and bathroom, which, as I soon discovered, no one else seemed inclined to clean.

Classic UK rental setup: a shower over a bath with a hose attachment that you had to hold if you wanted to wash properly. If I fancied a bath, I first had to scrub out everyone else’s filth 🤮

As soon as I settled into my job, I started looking for a better place through the office’s internal noticeboards. That’s how I found a flat share in Brixton. The other side of London, but closer to work, the right price, and, crucially, clean.

I met the other flatmate, who happened to be the owner. He was half British, with an Aussie mother, and we hit it off immediately. But before that, he casually mentioned that he was from a public school background.

Hmmm. Odd thing to declare straight off the bat, I thought. I wasn’t sure what that meant at that point.

And thus began my introduction to the ever-present British class system.

In Australia, there are private schools, yes, but outside of certain circles, it’s not something people bring up in casual conversation. But in the UK? Class was everywhere, woven into accents, postcodes, and even the pubs people frequent.

The fact that my new flatmate felt the need to tell me about his public school background (which, confusingly, is what the British call their elite private schools) was something I later realised wasn’t unusual. It was a quiet way of saying, I come from privilege.

I also loved that he and his friends would invite me out to the discotheque. Haha, what era were we in anyway?

He was posh, no doubt, very well-spoken, very polite, and not someone I’d ever picture living in Brixton. But it worked for me.

Bonus points for the fact that he spent most of his time at his girlfriend’s place in Knightsbridge, which meant I essentially got my own flat for the price of a share house.

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Settling In

The first day I moved in, I went for a walk to get to know the neighbourhood. The local Tesco was just the street over, which was perfect, and I wandered down what I later discovered was a main road that would eventually take you all the way to Clapham, a bustling area full of restaurants, bars, and plenty of Aussies.

I hadn’t set out to live where all the Aussies were congregating; I wanted a different kind of experience than where I’d come from. But Brixton felt oddly quiet that afternoon, especially for a Saturday.

I started noticing odd looks from people in cars and the few pedestrians I passed. Something felt off.

I popped into what I thought was a corner store, but it turned out to be a liquor shop. I was surprised to see thick perspex separating the cashier from the customers, with all the goods behind the barrier. Something I wasn't used to seeing. Interesting…

I began to feel a little uneasy, probably less than I should have, but headed back to Tesco, grabbed some basics within my meagre budget, and made my way home before it got dark.

The next few weeks were mostly quiet. I focused on work, spent my evenings and weekends at home watching TV, and chatted with friends and family on MSN Messenger from my clunky old laptop, while I worked out my cost of living expenses vs my wage.

The apartment was on the middle floor of a three-flat Victorian terrace. Below me lived a woman I’d only met in passing. She had exclusive access to the back garden and did early-morning yoga on a mat, visible from my kitchen window. Above me was a travel writer who was much friendlier and had a live-out boyfriend. We got along well.

The downstairs neighbour, however, was less welcoming. She’d email my flatmate (the owner) to complain that I was making too much noise in the kitchen, and could I please refrain from walking in there after 8pm. It wasn’t my fault that the floorboards weren’t acoustically rated. She’d occasionally take to banging on the ceiling with a broom, which I simply ignored.

I had a couple of Aussie friends pass through and stay for a night or two, but most of the time it was just me, working, watching TV, or exploring London.

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Welcome to Brixton

Brixton has a rich history, a vibrant Afro-Caribbean community, and, at the time, a reputation for being a bit rough around the edges. It was the heart of London’s reggae scene, home to the legendary Brixton Academy, where The Prodigy had played more times than any other act (earning them a commemorative plaque).

Looking back, I now realise how naive and trusting I was as a young woman travelling solo. I don’t know if I’d be as comfortable with my own kids being quite so adventurous as the same age.

But come to think of it, I was 26.

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A Brixton Saturday Morning

One Saturday morning, I was woken not by my usual alarm but by the deep, rolling bass of reggae music vibrating through my apartment. Curious, I peered out the window and saw a funeral procession moving slowly down the street. But this wasn’t the kind of funeral I’d grown up with in Australia; this was something else entirely.

A crowd of mourners, dressed in a mix of traditional black and vibrant colours, followed a horse-drawn hearse. Some people danced, others clapped, and a few walked solemnly behind. A sound system somewhere blasted said music, celebrating the life of the deceased rather than just mourning their passing.

This was my first experience of a Jamaican-Brixton funeral procession, something deeply embedded in Brixton’s culture. The blend of grief and celebration, of music and movement, felt entirely different from the quiet, restrained services I was used to. It was powerful, raw emotion mixed with community spirit.

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A Different Kind of Normal

One morning, on my way to the bus stop at the end of my street, I noticed that the main road was blocked off, halting the usual bustling traffic, including the famous red buses. Commuters who would typically wait for the bus were instead heading to the tune.

Curious and a bit confused, I asked someone what was happening. They informed me there had been a stabbing a few hours earlier near Brixton Academy, possibly gang-related. Police were everywhere, and the area was buzzing with tension.

Another day, while walking home from the bus stop after work, a friendly man approached me. He asked for some change, explaining that he had just been released from the local prison.

"Prison? What prison?" I thought, taken aback.

Even though my house was nice, and I never truly felt unsafe, it was clear that Brixton had its own rules, its own rhythm, and its own reality. It was vibrant, full of life, but a stark contrast to the suburban Aussie life I had come from.

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Top Boy and South London’s Reality

Last year, I found myself binge-watching Netflix’s Top Boy and suddenly, I was back in that version of London, the one I had walked through every day, read about in the papers, and heard in whispered conversations on buses.

If you haven’t seen it, Top Boy is a gritty British drama that explores the lives of young Black and migrant communities in East and South London, caught in the cycle of poverty, crime, and survival. Though fictional, it’s based on real struggles, gang violence, drug networks, social housing issues, and the systemic barriers that many face.

For me, it wasn’t just a show. It felt nostalgic, like a documentary of the world I had once lived alongside. The tension, the resilience, the ever-present police sirens in the background, it was all so familiar.

I remembered the stabbing at Brixton Academy that shut down my street one morning. The former prisoner who asked me for change outside my bus stop. The funeral procession I had unknowingly witnessed, where music and mourning intertwined on a Brixton street.

Back then, I didn’t fully understand the depth of those experiences. Watching Top Boy made me realise just how much of it I had absorbed without even knowing.

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Time for a Change

I genuinely enjoyed my job. I was supervising a team of temporary recruiters and had been given the very important task of managing partner recruitment, as well as running weekly national inductions from our head office, right on the Thames.

I loved grabbing a chicken burger at Borough Market for lunch and squeezing in a pre-work Body Pump class at the subsidised gym next door. We were often taken out mid-week by recruitment agencies for drinks and fun. When I was first hired, I was asked to boost morale in the team, which was mostly made up of temporary staff.

For several months, it felt like I was living the London dream, especially during the summer months. London in summer is something else. Enigmatic. It has a way of charming even the most reluctant newcomer.

I was making new friends beyond my Aussie circle, and London was starting to feel like home.

But after six months of 50- to 60-hour workweeks, the shine of corporate life began to wear off. The endless overtime and the corporate rat race weren’t why I came to London.

After a performance review where I was told, rather bizarrely, that I had successfully lifted team morale a little too much (despite strong performance across the board), I got the distinct feeling that we were being too productive and too happy for comfort. That tall poppy sting left a bitter taste.

So when QANTAS came knocking, offering me a role with their London base, it felt perfectly timed.

It was time for a new adventure, time to dust back off the wings.

To be continued…

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