This Time Next Year

I started this project after moving to Peckham in my final year of university. It was definitely different to the other places I'd lived and grown up in. It had a sense of community, one very different of my own and made up from various different diaspores from around the globe. I chose the title 'This Time Next Year' from the quintessential program set in Peckham, 'Only Fools and Horses' whereby the phrase originates from Del explaining his future plans to Rodney. In it, he believes that "this time next year we'll be millionaires" symbolic of his often morally dubious plans to be relieved of the financial burdens that plague the working classes. This phrase represented to me not only the aspirations of all of us, but also the fast rate at which London is changing.

From the time I have lived here I can already see things changing, the old traditional shops which are characteristic of its inhabitants are being replaced with the ones that are more representative of the new population, often selling products and providing services far higher than what many can afford. While I believe that changes like these cannot be stopped, they can at least be fought so that they might be more inclusive and give a say to the people whose families have lived here for decades, cultures often brought halfway across the globe and who have helped to build Peckham into what it is today. For it to be lost due to monetary greed would be a tremendous loss to our nation's heritage and culture.

Through the work of Peckham Vision and many other groups, it's one of the few places that has shown that the people have some fight left in them and if London's large scale re-development has taught us anything, it is that if it isn't fought hard for then it will disappear into the oblivion, perhaps seen again in some local history post on Instagram.