I can’t believe Basildon and Southend have gotten such lengthy mentions yet the worst place of them all, Canvey Island, has slipped through unnoticed.
The only redeeming features of Canvey are;
a) It’s an island, therefore we know if the chavs get too rowdy we can just cut them off from civilised society by taking out two bridges and
b) It’s below sea level and sinking fairly rapidly, so in 30 years they’ll need to start investing in Burberry water-wings.
Seriously, there is no better place in Britain for Nike-clad, ‘LA Lakers’ outsize jersey-wearing, outsize-baseball cap-sporting chav population to ‘hang out’ with members of their own kind. Vauxhall Novas and Ford Fiestas with ‘bling-bling’ bodykits race up and down the straighter roads while on every street corner gangs of friendly neighbourhood youths will kindly relieve you of that heavy wallet and phone you’ve been carrying around all day, along with a kidney or two should you see fit to protest. Buses coming off of Canvey are inevitably filled with screaming teenage mums in thermonuclear-dayglo sports gear and shellsuits yelling at baby Britney or Romeo to stop chucking up into their fake Burberry pram while adjusting a ‘Croydon Facelift’ ponytail so tight you honestly suspect their skin of their face has been stretched to breaking point and one over-zealous yell would cause it to split and splatter the bus into something out of a Tarantino movie.
Other seats are taken up by gaggles of 13-year-old chav schoolgirls talking about how many 25-year-olds with Ford Focuses they’ve managed to ‘bang’ that week, taking the occasional break from this deeply enthralling intellectual discussion to mock anyone (seemingly at random) who isn’t part of their group – occasionally their victim will be a member of a rival group of 13-year-old chav girls and a screeching fight will break out in the broadest Essex English you have ever heard in your life, much to the amusement of any normal passengers.
Being sandwiched between Southend and Basildon, it’s easy to see how Canvey Island can be forgotten by the amateur Chavologist, what with there being broader areas of Chavdom to admire in such close proximity, but close observance reveals that while the total population of Canvey might be lower than those of Southend or Basildon, the total number of chavs from each is around equal, meaning that, possibly, Canvey is, in ratio, the most Chavvish place in Essex. Also, being an island, Canvey has developed many things seperately from the mainland. Just when you think you’ve learned enough of the latest Chav lingo to survive a night out without getting ‘popped’ for ‘dissing’ someone’s ‘kru’, a trip to Canvey (and the resulting trip back again in the back of an ambulance) will remind you that Chavvish, like most other languages, can have many different dialects, all of which you need to be familiar with to ensure safe passage through certain out-of-the-way centres of Chavdom in Essex.
There are many more things I could say about Canvey, including the shopping centre in the middle of town, now all but deserted, that draws gangs of roaming chavs like moths to a flame, the fetid bars that draw the older chav groups in and have the typically huge car-parks on which a dozen or so ‘modded’ Novas and old Escorts race in the Canvey Grand Prix, much to the terror of genuine punters and their vehicles – those who are stupid enough to leave their car without an armed guard in Canvey anyway). There is a genuine air of depression and dinginess on Canvey, which I can only say must contribute an awful lot to the state of the people there – it is a vicious cycle, as further chav violence only escalates the feeling, and the feeling escalates the chav violence. As I said earlier, the only redeeming feature is that it’s sinking, and if we took the bridges away, the only escape route they’d have would be the concrete boat(!? – has to be a chav idea, that) to be found down on the ‘beach’ (or, for those not in the know, about 4ft of stones and shells, with no sand to be seen, behind which is a 50ft concrete sea wall, and in front is the brown, stinking sea filled with shopping trolleys, used condoms, needles, sewage and all manner of nasty things lurking just beneath the surface. A great place to take your kids – if you hate them.
Merkaba mentions the Concrete Barge as the only escape route – Unfortunately due to it being a meeting place for chavs to urinate, take drugs & vomit over each other the adjacent Yacht club decided to demolish it! – see ConcreteBarge.co.uk – Oh well they can still hang out at one of the Band Stands that were thoughtfully erected for the local community – here they can plan their latest attack on the Library windows – as long as its before 9pm when the kurfew is supposted to clean the streets of the youger chav & chavettes.
Appologies to anyone from Canvey who is actually nice and all – but we have been discussing bombing the bridges for a few years now. Myself and other self respecting citizens from the shire of Benfleet are going to get together after the bridges are gone and push Canvey out into the estuary with big sticks. Hopefully it will float out into the channel and dissapear into obscurity, only surviving in our memories as a legend, rather like Atlantis but crappier.
Canvey is a shit hole, nobody that lives in Essex actually likes Canvey. Full of chav wannabees with their immatation burberry caps and cheap gold. The clickiness makes for interbreeding!! Sad gits!!
1st of all, comin from canvey and reading the article, I hav 1 or 2 fings 2 say abt it.
ur chattin complete and utta bollox!!!! U’s peeps shudnt b so fuckin stereotypical, u aint got a fuckin clu wot ur chattin bout.
All I can say is u r sad sad bastards 4 writin tht vast amount of writin in the 1st place, hav u not got nefing betta 2 do??
Not evry1 is the same and u shudnt b dissin ppl 4 bein different 2 wot u r, thas pure prejudice and discrimination, u shud hav ya balls twisted and ripped out and shuvd down ya fuckin throat til ya sick innit.
And as 4 all the places us chavs ‘hang’ if u luk around canvey proply yea ud realise there aint ne uva places 2 go, it’s a small place.
And teenage mums, u fuckin fick or wot?? There r teenage mums everywhere!! Yes even where ur from, thas y Britain has the highest rate of underage pregnancies in europe, I dnt fink a few girls on canvey will effect the numbaz tht much, so dnt chat shit.
And like the most important bit, canvey dnt even hav tht many chavs, they’r wot ya call rudeboiz innit. Yea canvey is ghetto but not in the way ur sayin it is, ur chattin bare shit, do ya research propa next time u decide 2 waste ya time.
I was thinking about shooting my film at canvey island but all of these comments are putting me off. I been down there a few times on a sunday and it seems like a nice place.
I need to do a scene on the beach, the seafront and also at the amusment arcades and a cafe. When would you recommend going down there, I need it to be dead quiet with only a few people around?
you go girl!!
init, fackin wot!
Please learn to speak and write English properly. This will make you seem less stupid to ordinary people, you tracksuit wearing, make-up smearing, white-lightening drinking chavette.
Right !!!
your a FUCKING CUNT… "LaydeeJoka" is a mate ( she is sitting nxt 2 me ) and what the fuck u chatting bout ?!!!!!!!
only her mates can slag off her, and where she cums from….
your probably a 40 year old man, who watches porn, has no job nor friends wearing a flea bitten holey vest, wanks in socks and smokes a pipe ( thinking about this, why the hell am i replying to this, i have better things to do )
right i have been to canvey once… over my xmas hols, and yes it is a shit hole, BUT my mate aint no shit holer, she aint no chav, shes herself, and thats why im mates with her !!!! i aint no chav either am also my slef, hav u actulli been to canvey ?! i doubt it ! your just a sad loser, with to much time on your hands, and your dick cant fit into your hands, u have to use tweezers instead when u try 2 wank hahahaha
your a buggary kinda man, but no1 wants 2 do it with you, where are you from ? coz its more likely a shit hole then canvey !!!!! your a toss pot !!! hahahaha
yes i dont care that i sound like im 4, coz i sound older then u, u fucking faggot from hell ! do you even no what faggot and buggary mean ?!
i doubt it, coz your small mind cant cope with to much info, you have two brain cells, which if they get to close thier cause static !
im from Southend, where the goths hang out, but hey i cant help it, i was born here ~!!! u twat !! u guna hav ago at where i live ?
your scum of the earth, no jokes….
your a scumbag to, do u actualli know what that means, i doubt it very much
that is my rant over no, i have a life 2 get to, u CUNT i have college, ie a life to get bk 2, i have wasted enough of my time on here !!
Good bye twat features
Wow LaydeeJoka, you have proven yourself to be a fucking idiot. At least we’re vaguely literate, you shoplifting, Kappa-wearing, Teenage-pregnant Chavette. Go back to the whorehouse from which you came.
@ LaydeeJoka + Friend.
Congratulations for reinforcing the stereotype. You’ve totally managed to highlight everything thats wrong with Canvey Island, and the United Kingdom as a whole.
It is people like you (if indeed your particular sub-species of the human race can be referred to as “people”) that help to highlight the need for mandatory sterilization for anyone who displays the IQ of house brick, the fashion sense of an acid-crazed hippy, and the inability to present an argument without using curse words and mindless one-word insults.
The article is funny but completely untrue. I moved to Canvey from London last year and am very happy here. It has one of the lowest crime rates in the country (in fact crime levels were 3 fold in my old area). People are very friendly, roads are safe enough for my kids to cycle on and away from the council areas the houses are nice. Yes the town center doesnt have much left, but it has all you need and yes there are a few chavs, but no more than you get in any town. I have looked at the other areas around such as Basildon and Southend and they are far worse (I drove through Vange in Basilson and that is what you call BLEAK!) Canvey does not deserve its reputation.
Well LaydeeJoka, if you are in College, I doubt you’re doing very well with writing and spelling like that, you little chav.
At least we’re literate, and can come up with arguments which don’t consist entirely of Swears and Chav Dialect-
“u gona have go awher i liv? you startin fucka?”
I rest my case.
I grew up on Canvey, my parents still live there. I can appreciate what ‘CanveysOk’ says – some of the residential streets seem as safe for dozens of small kids to play out on as they were when I did, 30 years ago. It always seemed to be struggling to be a ‘great place to live’ when I was a kid, but I can see why people think it’s not working, or has even completely given up trying. I wonder if the ’smart money’ read the Environment Agency’s suggestion that some parts of the South East are going to have to be given up to the sea and decided it wasn’t a good long term bet to own property there.
I would thoroughly recommend scouring the articles for fashion advice before visiting Canvey. I stopped on a Friday night at the KFC in the High Street on the way to my mum and dad’s a few years ago after driving non-stop from Lancashire, where I was lecturing at the time. Some examplar Canvey Islanders, who’d just popped in to smash up the toilets shouted “Oi fackin look – it’s fackin Albert Einstein. Oi! Albert u fackin kan”. The manager, on her way to the toilets to throw them out, said “sorry!”, as though she was somehow responsible for them – it was a nice touch. I don’t think I look like Albert Einstein. Maybe it was the lack of a baseball cap. I do have a forehead. Maybe she thought I was on Canvey by accident. It’s a shame I was sober, one drink is usually enough to make me forget the 20-odd years since I left Canvey and start “Geez u fackin wot?”
The article did make me laugh and yes there certainly are some of this type on Canvey but it is unfair to Canvey and its residents to tar us all with the same brush.
The crime rate is low, it is safe for children to play on the streets and lots of the local parks have been improved. There are also new traffic calming measures in place to prevent ‘cruising’ on the Island. The majority of Canvey residents are young families, elderly or commuters.
Yes there are teenagers on street corners drinking white lightning on a Friday night, but unfortunately they have nowhere to go and nothing else to do on such a small Island. They aren’t hurting anyone or causing damage (I should know I live right by a local ‘hang out’) I think a lot of people are being unfair to the youth of Canvey.
It’s rather small minded to claim that everyone on Canvey is a pregnant teenager, chav or an uneducated idiot. I come from Canvey and have a first class honors degree; I’m studying for a masters and have a full time job. I’m not the exception either; there are lots of positive teenage role models on the Island. I was brought up on Canvey and have never in my 23 years felt unsafe or unhappy here.
Sometimes you have to look past the obvious to find the natural beauty of a place, have you taken the time to watch the sun set over the lake? Or gone into your local post office to be called by name and asked (by someone who genuinely cares) how your family are? It’s that old fashioned community spirit that you just don’t see anymore, this doesn’t make Canvey ‘clicky’ or inbred its just a small friendly community.
Please don’t get me wrong I know we have dirty industrial estates and dilapidated council flats but there is also a lot of good on the Island and a lot of that comes from the people.
You are all judging a book by its cover.
And a note to nrmetson – Canvey is fine! I did a photography project on the Island although I do recommend early morning Sunday as it should be most quiet then.
i have got to say, i have lived on vcanvey my whole life, i am now 20, and whoever wrote this article really needs to grow u, get out of their own arse and grow a pair of bollocks and a brain, canvey has its shit places, just like everywhere, there are some places on canvey where u would be lucky to see anyone under 45, yes, it has got worse for muggings and stabbings, but so has most places, its people like you lot who would bad mouth this place then keep your mouths shut when on it. your all a bunch of nobodys that, really need a life, and for the knob who wrote im from benfleet and we have though about blowing up the bridges, well go blow on ur nan, before blowing on bridges u sad tits
I think you all arse holessss i moved here a few years agoo fromm dagenhamm (witch is a shithole) i thinkk yourr all nobss canveyy is nothingg likee all you nobs are saying it is. there are chavs everywhere but bcoz canveys small it looks like there aree moreee heree andd everythingg iss seen more bcozz we aree soo small. i thinkk yourr all fuckingg stupid little fuckingg noob jocks who need to actually spendd a week in canveyy to see howw it issssssss gett your facts rightt youu fuckingg canvey diissing arseholes andd thatt blokee whoo thinkss hess summinkk speshh bcozz hee thoughtt aboputt blowingg up the brigess fuck off yeahh bcozz basildonn is more of a fuckingg chav town thann canveyy soo suckk a horseeee youu dickheadss
I have lived on the lsland most of my life, and i agree, it is a shithole, but with some nice areas.
Reading this article, the thing that makes it even worse is these thick chav cunts who stick up for the island saying ‘ye its da bess place innnit brav i moved frm dogenham its much beta than tha shithol ma mum got rapd and had me so we moved ere init’!
If your going to try to make the island look more respectable, at least learn to write properly and not look like an invalid, to prove others wrong.
all i have to say is that im 15 allmost 16 why the fuck are all off you slagging off people on the island you properly dont even live near here and u properly never ever took a step near here yeah i agree theres some proper shit wholes round her i.e the avenues but there are some nice places around this town and its an allright place but fuckk me why start talking abought there fucking parents for like i.e “sadsadtimes” why the fuck are u goin on abought someones mum got raped u wouldnt fucking like it if i started chatting loads of shit abought your mum ha thts even if shes around anymore u sad piece of pethetic scummy cunts why dont u just get along with ure life you twat!! canvey is an allright place to live there are some nice areas like the seafront and waterside ramps there are some very nice houses and parts of the island that are far more expensive than you cunts can ever afford and why the fuck u on abought bombing some fucking bridges down you lil perthetic peadophile geeky foureyed cunts who actually spend there time on here go get a life and find a fucking gurl not ure “inflatible rubber friend” u cunt now please fuck off and let us live our fucking lives u sad sad bunch of cunts and oh yeah u dont even no the history behind this island read into from time to time instead of jacking off with your computer buddies u FUCKING CUNT !!1
I lived on Canvey most of my life, and unfortunately moved to Southend, either place I can’t stand anymore, I’m ashamed to say I come from either place really. Saying that, I never had a fight on Canvey or got mugged, sometimes I had the odd nasty remarks, but in general I always felt safe walking around there when I really had to. Southend is so much worse, just 5 minutes down the road to where I live I got mugged by two chavs, ever since then I can’t walk around on my own at night without feeling fearful. More than anything, it’s not the places I hate, I love Canvey’s history, it’s the people. Seems most towns have been taken over by chavs these days, I’m doing everything I can to move to a town/city that has culture and surrounded by education. Chavs have no idea how awful they really are, and they really don’t see themselves as a chav, I have a friend who dressed alternatively, and some chavs drove past and called him a chav. They are completely oblivious, hence the downright moronic replies by said chavs on this post. Humanity doesn’t stand a chance.