Croydon is just over nine miles south of Charing Cross, London. Saffron was produced locally in Roman times in the area. It was referred to in the Domesday book as a hamlet of 365 people. Over recent decades, Croydon has tried to achieve city status but can’t as it's in the borough of London.

My first experience of Croydon was thirty plus years ago when we opened a "mid-market “  shirt shop called "Shirt Factor" in the then quite prestigious Whitgift Shopping Centre. It opened onto the main up end pedestrian high street. The mall was one of the greatest malls in Greater London till 2008.  Reminds me a bit of Liberty Plaza and Majesty City in Sri Lanka. Today they are full of shops selling the same electrical items or tat. In Croydon, there are more empty shops than occupied. 

Charity shops take some space alongside niche retailers. This is the fate of the city centre and most shopping malls and traditional high streets in England. In the last two decades, I’ve visited Croydon about thirty-six times, as Jezzabel's brother and family live there. Chain stores, eg British Home Stores, where I worked for ten years,  and big department stores have come and gone over the years.

Out of town shopping centres have grown, and now the level of home delivery from fruit, furniture, food and fashion means many people don’t visit high streets or malls at all. I met my 14-year-old nephew last week from the UK. He shops online for upper-end used branded clothes, reselling them when he gets bored with them, or more so, in his case, grows out of them. He is already six feet tall.

A big factor for the success of Croydon is the commuting time to London, and that the suburb of Croydon has a population of about for hundred thousand. Plus, many commuters and people who take lodgings from Monday to Friday. There are over 150 hotels in Croydon, plus lower-level temporary accommodation establishments.

Like any place, if you take the trouble to walk about, you can find the historic gems, the old almshouses, and churches. Croydon Minster has a history going back to 809, but the current church is at least the fourth on the site. The smallish cemetery is interesting until I find some old tents with dubious people philandering there in the cemetery. Walking into town on my many visits, I pass the old part of the town hall and doff my hat at the Statue of Queen Victoria. The newly renovated  Fairfield Hall theatre has seen bands like the Beatles, The Monkeys, to BB King play over the decades it has been open.

This visit we are doing is the Rocky Horror Show. There are a lot of suburbs and old terraced streets. An array of Ethnic groups makes Croydon quite cosmopolitan and colourful. Jezzabel's Sri Lankan relative stayed in the Croydon YMCA when he was young and fell asleep, dropped a cigarette, left the building and the place burnt down.

Suburbs of Victorian properties have, in many cases, gone through a new development process after the WW2 bombings. This created space for apartment blocks and other development. You don’t feel as though you are in an old city. There are multiple restaurant choices. Some of my regulars are Spanish tapas, Galicia, Bagatti and Little Bay, Mediterranean. We do a Coombe Park visit annually, lovely gardens, lots of history and a village-style coffee shop. Croydon and our family are always the start and end of our annual European trip.