Kensington is a fashionable, upmarket neighbourhood. It is also situated on a steep gradient. So I’ve been amused, since moving in earlier this year, to find the local children huffing and puffing their way to school on a mode transport which fell out of fashion back home, in Dublin, years ago.
Almost ten years ago when I was studying business for the Leaving, I remember my teacher using the collapsible, stainless steel scooter then popular in the primary school, as an example of a product at the end of its product life. In Kensington, however, such predictions are still being defied. And if you leave the house before nine in the morning, you need to watch your step or you risk having your toes crushed as convoys of children gleefully scoot by.
Despite their parents’ commitment to the latest trends, the old-fashioned scooter has caught the imagination of a generation of younger Kensington residents. While older children scoot independently, their younger siblings -often too small to see over the handlebars- insist on being towed by their parents on specially adapted three- and four-wheel models.
Competiton
Pumping their way to school in the morning, the fitness and energy of the children at such an early hour is enviable. As I trudge up Kensington Church Street to the Tube, I often find myself in competition with families of children whose school is also at the top of the hill. I have the advantage over my under-12 competitors of not having to wait for my mother before I can cross each intersecting road. I cross smugly, leaving the kids in my tracks. But by the time I reach the end of the next block, they have inevitably passed me out and are waiting equally smugly for me to catch up so that we can repeat the humiliating exercise. By the time we part company at the top of the hill, I am often left wondering why I bothered to have a shower at all that morning.
Of course, the children don’t always play fair: younger siblings can be used as obstacles to slow pedestrians’ progress and there are often minor collisions.
Even if the children do manage to avoid bumping into you –or, more likely, you avoid them- they are often responsible for secondary accidents, as unaccustomed pedestrians like myself are distracted by the spectacle of a neighbourhood of children gliding past and forget to pay attention to where they are going.
Yummy Mummies
Those fortunate enough not to leave home until after nine, may catch the even the more amusing sight of the return journey, when yummy mummies briefly forget their inhibitions and ride their children’s scooters home. The more athletic lead the charge in their gym clothes, rushing to make to it to Pilates classes on time; while the couture fanatics bring up the rear, balancing awkwardly in heeled boots.
The Mayor, Boris Johnson, is a keen cyclist, who often makes a point of arriving at public functions on his bike. He is investing millions in cycle safety and cycle lanes, in order to make London a world-class ‘cycling city’ in time for the 2012 Olympics. If he is to win the support of the next generation of voters in the Tory stronghold of Kensington, however, perhaps it is time he broadens his transport strategy to also include the scooter.
