“I can’t believe you snogged Scott” says a squeaky-voiced Romfordian to her mate. “Well, Dave was throwing up” shrugs the Scott snogger. I’m in one of three identical pubs along the main street. It is towns like Romford where the stigma of Essex as a place of tackiness and stilettos began.
The girls wear tiny skirts and mascara, holding cigarettes and alcopops. The boys hunt in packs, fuelled on lager, their conversations undercut with aggression. The pub bouncers are sculpted from gigantic blocks of muscle and everyone is frisked for weapons on the door. The police hover outside in a thankless attempt to maintain order and discourage the use of shop doorways as urinals.
The behaviour of people is almost tribal and the estuary accent and bad grammar suggest dimmed intelligence, which is probably unfair or at least mirrored in Kent or Herts or Surrey, but in Essex the stereotype sticks hard.
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