by A London diary on the closed door, the guiding light, and the workers who keep the city running
London is a city where there is famously no room, no room in the flats, no room on the trains, no room in the budget, which is why the founding festive story reads to me like a documentary about the London housing market with better weather and worse sandals. I am Vivienne, and I know the closed door of this city intimately.
No room, the London condition
The founding story opens with a housing crisis, and London has never left one. The account of there being no room at the inn is the London condition exactly: a couple arriving somewhere, exhausted, and being told there is no room, no space, no place for them. Every Londoner knows this story because every Londoner lives it, arriving at a city that is full, priced out, with no room to spare. The inns of Bethlehem were the London rental market with sandals: full, expensive, and closed to the people who most needed them. And the resolution is deeply London too: you end up somewhere humble, somewhere improvised, somewhere that was not meant for you but takes you in when the proper places will not.
I have lived the no-room story in this city more times than I can count, arriving somewhere full, priced out of the proper places, ending up somewhere humble and improvised that took me in when the grand inns would not. The founding story is the London housing market, two thousand years early: no room at the good places, shelter only in the humble improvised one.
My genuinely frantic personal week
Let me report on the state of me. I helped a friend flat-hunt this week, which is the modern London version of the search for room at the inn: door after door, all of them full, expensive, or closed, until finally a humble improvised place took her in. We celebrated the humble place like it was a palace, because in this no-room city, any room at all is a small miracle. The founding story ends in a stable, gratefully; my friend’s search ended in a converted box room, gratefully; and the gratitude for the humble place that finally takes you in is the most London emotion there is.
According to the broadcasters, London’s housing shortage leaves many searching long and hard for any room at all, which is the founding story’s opening scene playing out across the whole city, no room at the inn, shelter only in the humble improvised place.
The guiding light over the city
What the travellers had, that Londoners often lack, was a guiding light, and the account of the star of Bethlehem is the light that led them through the dark to the humble shelter. London can feel like navigating without a star, lost in the dark maze of the no-room city, searching for shelter with no light to guide you. The star led the travellers true, through the dark, to the humble place that took them in. Londoners could use such a star, a guiding light through the dark maze of the city, leading us to the humble shelter that will finally take us in. The guiding light over the city is what the no-room search most needs and most lacks: a star to lead us through the dark to the room that waits.
The travellers had a star to guide them through the dark to their shelter. Londoners search the dark no-room city without one, lost in the maze, hunting for the humble place that will take us in. The guiding light is what the founding story had and the London search lacks, a star to lead us true through the dark to the room that waits at the end.
The workers who keep the city running
Who keeps the no-room city running are the working people, whom the account of the shepherds in the fields keeps central. The shepherds are the working people, the ordinary labourers, exactly like the workers who keep London running while being priced out of it, the ordinary Londoners who do the actual work and cannot afford the city they sustain. The founding story centres the working shepherds, and London runs on the working people it prices out, the ordinary labourers who keep the no-room city functioning while finding no room in it themselves. The workers keep the city running, and the city, like the inn, has no room for them, which is the founding story’s injustice playing out across modern London.
According to the Royal Parks people, London’s shared spaces belong to all its workers and residents, which is the closest the city comes to admitting that the working people who keep it running deserve room in it, exactly as the founding story centred the working shepherds.
Where the Londoner lands
So I will keep living the no-room story in this full, expensive, closed-door city, keep searching for the humble place that will take me in, and keep noticing that the founding story is the London housing market with sandals. No room at the inn is the London condition. The guiding light is what the search most needs and most lacks. And the working people keep the city running while finding no room in it themselves. The founding story opens with a housing crisis and ends in a humble shelter, gratefully, which is the most London arc there is. I love this no-room city, and I know its closed doors intimately, and I keep hoping for a guiding star to lead me through the dark to the humble room that finally, gratefully, takes me in.
For festive London mischief, The Poke minds the closed door.
