Arise The Elephant

You may remember the old Elephant & Castle shopping centre, an ugly 1960s warren filled with lowly businesses that served the community. Pound stores when a pound actually bought you something, food from Poland and Latin America, inexpensive homewares, market stalls selling trinkets and stockings, tiny units selling hair fashions (aka wigs and straighteners), the formica tables of Jenny's Burgers, a daily 'Food Market', somewhere to get your photocopying done, DIY from Pricebusters, Stella's sequin emporium, £1.50 espressos, an Aladdin's cave of phonecases, authentic empanadas, halal tandoori, every kind of hat, and up the escalator Palace Bingo and Bowling, an affordable night out, a true melting pot, somewhere to shop and hang out, a retail village under striplights at the very heart of the Elephant. I can't say there were no big chains because there was a Tesco Metro and a Co-op, also a Peacocks, the very barometer of affordable fashion, also a Clarks factory shop for those who…

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