Australians in Cricklewood

Many people have recently been asking the Cricklewood Herald to address the issue of the number of Australians in Cricklewood. Throughout the borough, people are crying out “We are being overrun” and looking to the Herald to save them. Women are weeping and small children are increasingly being locked in for their own protection. One shopkeeper took particular time out to write to the Herald and express his concern that, unless something was done, his entire shop would need to be given over to the exclusive provision of Vegemite and Fosters. Today, therefore, we tackle the issue.

When fear such as this overruns a community, it is generally important to approach the issue from a scientific perspective. As the Met is so fond of pointing out, it is people’s perception of their safety on which police are judged, not just the facts relating to it. In acceding to the popular call, we therefore decided to commence with an examination of the facts – specifically, is Cricklewood being overrun by Australians? Perhaps… or perhaps the unfortunate plight of our largely antipodean neighbours in Willesden Green and Kilburn is colouring people’s perceptions.

Fear is an extraordinary thing. Footsteps behind us on a busy street mean very little to us, but on a dark evening in a lonely street when the full moon is sheltered behind stormy clouds and we hear those same footsteps behind us quicken somewhat, our minds can conjure up terrible images. So too, one or two people from other cultures in our cosy community will barely warrant attention – but when those people wear “thongs” on their feet, sport “eskies” full of impossible quantities of beer and loudly proclaim the wettest, coldest and most dismal of weather to be a “good day”, this can understandably disconcert the most unflappable of individuals. So to bring some perspective to the debate, we decided to commence with a survey to discover exactly how many Australians are currently living in Cricklewood.

Initially, we had thought to survey people walking down the Broadway. You can imagine how appealing this idea was to the journalists involved, the prospect of combining a pleasant walk along that famed avenue with the opportunity again to converse with our fellow Cricklewoodians. However, with Cricklewood’s now overwhelming popularity as a tourist destination, we realised that the sample would be likely to be largely comprised of tourists rather than residents. This left us with doorknocking.

Doorknocking can be a tricky business. While the traditional Cricklewood resident is a warm friendly fellow willing to open his door to all the world and having no secrets, we were not sure that this would be true for Australians. Those recently arrived may not yet have developed this open and warm outlook. We were particularly concerned that they might worry that we were seeking money from them. We are aware that very few Australians have funds of their own and would be wary of collectors.

[As an aside, we intend to address, in a separate article, how the residents of Cricklewood might assist to repair the damage to the plummeting Australian dollar which is now so low that most Australians are no longer able to come to the UK with any personal belongings, instead needing to fill their baggage with bundles of that unfortunately lairy plastic Australian currency for conversion on arrival into a tube fare from Heathrow to South Kensington where they set to work in the first pub they can find in order to pay for the evening’s lodgings.]

In order to show that we were not after money, we realised that it would be important to dress well, perhaps in a suit. This of course led to the next problem, being that on opening the door and seeing a suit in front of them, many of them might run away. To explain this, it is necessary to understand that we have been told that many Australians in London overstay their two year working holiday visas, understandably frightened about returning to the forbidding streets of Melbourne and the oppressive heat of Brisbane. Such people might well conclude that the two journalists in a suit on their doorstep were not in fact conducting a survey but representatives from immigration. It would be difficult to get reliable results if the survey’s respondents kept doing a runner.

Since we were reluctant to drop the idea of the suit – partly because one of the journalists (Cricklewood Crispin) felt he looked quite commanding in one and was excited to show the rest of us – we decided instead that it would be necessary to make it non-threatening. This is not easy in a suit. Almost any occupation you can imagine which regularly wears a suit could be threatening to an Australian – Government officials, Auditors, Lawyers, Undertakers… That’s when I came up with the solution which had been staring us in the face from the start – mormons. Mormons were wonderful warm people, never wanted money and wore absolutely wonderful suits. When I reflected on the lovely conversations that I had had with mormons in the front room of my ground floor Georgian conversion, it seemed too obvious not to have seen from the start.

We met the next day at the Corner of Cricklewood Lane and Lichfield Road and made our way to the first doorbell we could find. We had some namebadges on and it seemed to work since the door was immediately opened by a young man in his mid-twenties wearing a t-shirt, flip flops and shorts.

“My name is Cricklewood Chris from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” I smiled, to put him at ease and continued, “We are looking to speak with any Australians you might have on the property. Are you Australian?”

“Nah, mate. There are no ’strayans ‘ere. Just us blokes.”

We moved on to the next property. Here we were answered by an Asian looking gentleman holding a large foam box and who appeared to have an unfortunate skin condition since he had applied heavy quantities of cream in a line across his nose.

“G’day” he said

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Sir, but we are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and we were hoping to talk to any Australians that might be living here. You aren’t Australian are you?”

“Jeez no.” I realised then that his accent was Punjabi: “What was being saying was ‘Good day’ which I am understanding to be a perfectly acceptable English greeting. You must be forgiving me Sir. Goodness gracious me, no. I am not Australian, My wife Ashanti and I are only being arrived in your wonderful country yesterday from our native India. We are still adjusting to your customs.”

We skipped the next house. It had a group of four ‘X’s on the front door which we took to mean that they did not wish to be disturbed.

The day continued much in this vein for the remaining forty seven residences surveyed. If there were Australians in Cricklewood, we found precious little evidence of it. As we had feared, the plight of Kilburn and Willesden Green seems to have caused a general panic in the Cricklewood community which is not borne out by the evidence on the ground.

The most likely explanation is that one of the groups of Australian tourists who are regularly drawn to the area were probably confused by the language, causing a misunderstanding which led residents to believe that this group was staying permanently rather than merely extending their visit through to dinner at “The Prince”. From there, no doubt, the rumours spread.

To those with concerns, the Herald’s advice is to relax. You may safely release your children and unlatch your shutters. Our community is safe.