Things you’ll only know if you grew up in Twickenham

Twickenham is the epitome of a bang average South West London suburb. Sure, it’s a nice place to live, but for the most part it’s a boring and tedious place to grow up. Not close enough to London to be ‘in London’, not far enough out to escape the pollution and London prices, Twickenham is caught in between. The cultural highlights are few and far between, the nuances of the place irrelevant and dull, but it’s ours. Just be thankful we don’t live in Surrey.

Everyone assumes you want to talk about rugby

The rugby stadium is the only reason anyone has ever heard of Twickenham. People then assume that you live and breath rugby. Why else would you live there right? In general, no-one really cares about rugby but if you’re from Twickenham you grow to loathe it.

Match days are hell on Earth

You always put in to get tickets from the local ballot but no-one you know ever seems to actually get any. This means that whenever there is a match on, 80,000 drunk rugby fans descend on your local area and make a mess of it. There’s no point making plans as all the roads are shut and public transport grinds to a halt. If you try to venture outside you are confronted with legions of rat-arsed city working public school men-children, blowing off steam on their by drinking 15 pints and throwing litter around.

It actually takes so long to get into London

When telling people where you live you say you lived in London, but if that was true it wouldn’t take so long to get to London Waterloo. Even if you manage to catch the fast train which misses out irrelevant places such as St. Margarets and North Sheen, it still takes ages. Twickenham doesn’t even have a tube stop so it’s just not really in London.

Everyone is so middle class

I’m surprised we’ve only got one Waitrose to be honest.

William Webb Ellis Wetherspoons is the only place to go for a pint

The option for pubs in Twickenham is spread between gastro-wanky establishments where the bluey-grey decor is the same as your mum’s living room, or places where the drinks are just as expensive but there are too many flea-bitten Twickers-old-timers that enjoying your pint is difficult.

Everyone thinks Richmond College is really scary

If you were wearing your college ID around your neck people would cross the street from you assuming that you were going to happy-slap them. Most of us aren’t bad eggs but simply traded in a better education for the fact that College was five minutes away from where we lived.

People who lived nearby hated us. When there were police dogs at the gates in the morning, baggies would be strewn across the surrounding residential roads, ruining the suburban aesthetic. How bloody awful.

Heatham House was the holy grail of teenage nightlife

At least that’s what I heard. My mum never let me go as one time one of her friend’s sons was offered drugs at a disco there. The horror. Cheers Mum.

People from Whitton say they live in Twickenham but they just don’t

I’m going to level with you, I’m one of these people. Guilty. The problem is that Whitton isn’t actually a real place, the train station is rubbish and our high street is only just starting to show the signs of gentrification to push up our property prices to the obscene levels of you guys on the other side of the A316. Twickenham stadium is actually in Whitton though, so don’t talk to us about identity crises.

The realisation that you’re never going to be able to live here when you’re older

The option of living where you grew up doesn’t exist if you live in Twickenham. You wont even inherit your parents house as if they’ve got any sense they will eventually sell your ridiculously overpriced family home and buy half of Albania or a string of Caribbean islands.

Eel pie island seemed sketchy as fuck

The ominous bridge that led from the riverside over to a collection of houses. Rumour was that ancient and decrepit celebrities and dodgy types lived over there, only adding to the mystery. When you were old enough to be out on your own and venture over to have a look round, you didn’t stay long. The quietness was unsettling and there was the underlying feeling that you were about to get kidnapped.

Living underneath the Heathrow flight path is the best thing ever…

…said no-one ever. Having the airport so close isn’t even useful as the flights are so much more expensive.

The N22 pilgrimage home is horrific

If you’re on a night out in central London, the N22 is the only way to get home. It takes SO long and you always fall asleep and wake up in Fulwell bus garage which is miles away from anywhere.

It was crazy when Vince Cable started appearing on TV

Our former local MP was the nicest guy ever. Everyone knew where he lived (just on the roundabout by the rugby stadium) and the modesty of his house signalled that this was a politician you could trust. But then everyone started hating Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems and you couldn’t believe this was happening to lovely Vince. Such a shame.