The joy of Essex

So why on earth should there be this divide?

Maybe it’s because we are closer to the East End, where many British Jews landed in the 1880s and 90s to start their London lives. Hence, we haven’t “moved up in the world” in the same way the North Londoners have. Our use of Yiddish is more shtetl (we say “Shobbos” and “kuppel” they say “Shabbat” and “kippah”). Then there’s the whole TOWIE (The Only Way Is Essex: a reality TV show) hideousness of lips, tits, and vacuous conversations about acrylic nails.

Personally, I blame Lesley Joseph. My personal Essex-squirming started because of another TV series. The sitcom Birds of a Feather, which started in 1989, was set in Chigwell. I was then at university in central London. By the time Birds had flown the nest in 1998, I was firmly ensconced in the garden flat of a beautiful Edwardian house in Highgate, moving to East Finchley four years later to start a family. I wasn’t alone: none of my local friends had come back to Essex after college, settling in West Hampstead, Belsize Park and even New Jersey and Los Angeles. Then, in summer 2016, life circumstances brought me back here.

For a while, I didn’t get out much. But around a year ago, I started to investigate more of the area in which I had grown up. And you know what? It’s pretty terrific around here.

For starters, there’s the greenery and the fresh air (not just in Chigwell, but in Loughton, Epping and beyond). There are fields five minutes from my house: ponies, too, at the top of the road. At High Beech or Hainault Forest — where you can see a stunning Manhattan-esque skyline of the City — you’d never know you were only 14 miles away from the financial centre. The big houses (not entirely my style) are nevertheless nice to look at. And I adore the King’s Head —nestled in pretty Chigwell Village —built in 1547 and mentioned in Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge. It’s now owned by Lord Alan Sugar and has been turned into the fancy Sheesh restaurant, which I’m too poor/scared/middle-aged/ not sufficiently facially-filled to frequent, but the Tudor façade is delightful.

Travel a few minutes and East London becomes Hipster London with areas like newly trendy Leytonstone and Wanstead (recently named as one of the ten best places to live in the capital). A short hop down the Central Line takes you to achingly fashionable Mile End, Bethnal Green, and Shoreditch. And, yes, the Central Line is an asset, fast, efficient and with none of that mucking around you get on the Northern Line, all that rushing to change between branches at Camden and waiting hours for the High Barnet train which never arrives.

For a long while I missed quintessential north London high streets full of second-hand book shops, cosmopolitan grocers and cosy cafés (the Village Deli does its best with great coffee and bagel-beigels, but the staff are grumpy and the aluminium chairs uncomfortable. Queens’ Road In Buckhurst Hill has some decent places, though.) And inEast Finchley, it was a short hop to the Phoenix cinema, Highgate Cemetery and Keats’ house. Here, we have the Romford Brewery. So why is it such a cultural desert on this side?

The answer is: it’s not. Danny Rosenberg, 57, is a partner in a City law firm and a proud North-eastener. He chairs the Essex Jewish Community Council, which represents local leaders. “There’s a lot going on here that would change people’s minds if they knew about it,” he says. “In fact, it’s a lazy cliché to say that there hasn’t always been.” In July 2019, the Council helped relaunch the local Jewish Historical Society. On this year’s agenda come talks about historic Christian antisemitism and “the Irish Schindler”.

“The last three meetings averaged over 100 people,’ says Rosenberg. He is also the local coordinator of the UK Jewish Film Festival, which holds screenings in South Woodford and is “often the first venue to sell out.”

For a secular arts graduate like me, these cultural events are a revelation. However, it’s often claimed it’s easier to live a Jewish life in north (particularly north west) London, and perhaps rightly so, with its plethora of kosher restaurants and the north west London eruv, which was established in 2003.

Rosenberg agrees but points out the flourishing of religious life this side of the border. ‘There are four branches of Chabad in Essex, including Buckhurst Hill and Epping,’ he says. ‘And we have our own eruv here at Chigwell and Hainault Synagogue, described by former Chief Rabbi Jakobovits as “the jewel in the crown of the United Synagogue.”

Danny has always resisted any urges to move north west. “We like the way we live here,” he says. “It’s not like living in a goldfish bowl, where everyone is interested in each other’s affairs. It’s more laid-back, more laissez-faire. There is more space, in every sense. You can breathe out here.”

And for the forseeable future, I will be staying in Essex, too.

But remember, denizens of Stanmore, Mill Hill and Edgware. The journey is just as short for you to come East as it is for us to venture North.

All together now: Beigel!