Chavtowns

I must have done something pretty ghastly in a previous life because, having survived three years working in the chav-ridden cesspit that is Croydon I am now commuting 90 minutes each way every fucking day to the chav-ridden cesspit that is Redhill.

Set in otherwise passable countryside, Redhill is a festering sewer of a town. Its architecture is like the slime the devil wiped off his bellend after taking the rancid corpse of a wildebeeste up the jacksie. It is without a single redeeming quality except possibly that the road and rail links are OK and you can get the fuck out of it quite quickly. And you will want to, believe me.

As soon as you get out of the station, the prevailing chavviness hits you in the face. Take your life in your hands as you dodge Kev and Trace veering in and out as they try to work out how to get off the ring road and into town.

(Did I mention Redhill has a ring road? It’s a rather tortuous one, of the kind town planners loved in the 60s. I believe that it was set down not so much to keep traffic moving as to keep the chavs in. Unable to work out how to get out, they lounge around the centre of town inbreeding. Realising the damage that was being done to the gene pool, the council recently legalised sexual relations between unrelated people in Redhill, but it will take several generations to reverse it.)

If you survive the ring road, the first thing you see is either a) McDonald’s, besieged at all hours by 12-year old proto-slappers with miniskirts fractionally above their fallopian tubes or b) the Abbot AKA the Stabbot, recently and pointlessly refurbished, mecca of Surrey chavs (see the spot-on review in www.beerintheevening.com) and yet still far from being the worst pub in Redhill. That would be the Sun, cheapy Wetherspoon haunt of every local psycho and nutter. Or the Dog & Duck. Or plastic paddy hellhole O’Neills. Or – oh take your pick, they’re all fucking terrible. Lidl and Iceland are the main stores, bien sur.

Get past all this and the rancid chip shops and you’re bang in the centre of town. Here, amid the paaahhhnd shops and general tat hangs out the biggest collection of Harry Ramps, Care in the Community victims and dopey looking ten-year old chavs in the making. I swear they all have EXACTLY the same jug ears and vacant stares.
One of the highlights of Redhill is a doorway behind the shops in which the sexual doings of the chavs are documented. Sadly ‘Paula Rice masturbates with carrots and broccoli’ and ‘Kayleigh Andrews is a fat slag and a horse that eats grass’ were erased some time ago, but the fact that Terry Hall sucks himself off cos he can’t get any is still live. Terry mate, you live in Redhill, you should get your kicks however you can.

Thursday is the pinnacle. Not only is it market day, it’s giro day and pension day and thousands of chavs come out of their ponds to gaze at mobile phaaaaaaaaaan covers and two for a fiver CDs of pan pipes and fuck knows what else. I have never seen a chavvier spectacle in all my life.

The weirdest thing is that Redhill runs into Reigate, the archetypal posh Surrey town, complete with Georgian market hall, nicey-nicey craft shops. To all intents and purposes they are the same place. It’s as if Reigate went out on the pull, woke up with a sore head and was too polite/scared to get rid of the rough-looking bird lying next to him in bed in the outsize burbery knickers.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 17th, 2004 at 12:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.