THE other week, the front page of the News & Mail declared “Fears that huge debts could ‘overwhelm’ council stability”. In the winter issue of The Woking Magazine, a message from the leader of Woking Borough Council was headed “Supporting you through the cost-of-living crisis”.

It would seem that residents of the borough should be considering that they are helping WBC through a cost of living crisis.

This is not a political column, but I am reminded of something the late Queen said when visiting the City at the time of a major and disastrous downturn. Her words were to the effect of “Why did no one see this coming?” 

Perhaps debt is similar to putting on weight: It creeps up slowly over time and unless someone comments that, yes, your behind does look big in that, you continue in your state of self denial, deciding it is an optical illusion, a trick of the light.

However, people still want to live in Woking. And I shall not cease to do so until they carry me out feet first!

I have been told that Woking may have overtaken Guildford in the battle of commuter towns. Despite Guildford’s two railway stations, I would think that, rail strikes allowing, Woking has the better rail connection to London and the rest of the country. 

It is also convenient for Heathrow and Gatwick airports, even if connecting roads are potholed. It is well placed for access to major motorways, even if hardly a day goes by without our being informed of serious hold-ups on those motorways.

Publicity for Woking mentions its shopping centres and suggests that in the coming years there will be more choice, with Guildford not wanting to develop its town any further. So, more shopping outlets – but not just yet, although a new Aldi is forecast for the near future.

When people discover that I have lived in the same place all my life, their first comment is usually “Wow! You must have seen some changes!” 

Yes, of course. The bomb site near Wetherspoons in Chertsey Road is no longer visible, for instance. And the road layout of Woking town centre has become unrecognisable. The old town centre is no longer the centre.

Some changes have been for the good: I like what has been done to and around Jubilee Square, for instance. I do not care for Victoria Place. I do not care for tower blocks. 

I do bewail the short-sightedness of the councillors over the years who have made some appalling errors, including knocking down perfectly good old buildings which would have given the town some character – most of it now lost to the boring tower blocks. 

But it is all in the eye of the beholder. And those eyes belong to an increasingly cosmopolitan population. In an article about Italy, in the Daily Telegraph magazine in October 2021, an Italian reckoned that in the 1950s and 1960s half the young men in his area left Italy looking for work.

“The bulk of the emigres obscurely wound up in Woking, which is now the heart of a Surrey-based community that numbers 15,000 sons and daughters of Mussomeli [in Sicily]– 4,000 more than in the town’s own current population,” he said.

I remember that it once seemed as though every garden in the borough was professionally tended by an Italian. They came and stayed – even some who had originally come as prisoners of war. 

The same goes for the mosque and how it attracted Muslims who came, worshipped, and stayed. There were the Chinese – they came, opened restaurants, and stayed. Currently we have an influx of Central Europeans – all here for a variety of reasons and apparently happy to make Woking their home. 

They didn’t have to stay, they must have seen something good in Woking. They helped the town to become top of the UK Vitality Index of 2021 for the country’s best prospects across a range of indicators including economy, business, health and the environment.

And what of our environment? We have the large, beautiful Horsell Common – all 880 aces of it, including the Heather Farm wetlands and the sandpit near which those pesky Martians landed, according to HG Wells. 

We have the Basingstoke Canal, more than 30 miles of it, running through so many different areas that its surrounds change by the mile and a very beautiful part runs through our town.

I don’t want to sound like an advertisement for the place. To do so I would have to add comments about the theatres, cinemas, golf clubs, etc, etc and so forth. But, as I said above, I am content to live here to the end!

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