Welcome to East London, Em!

If you are looking for a thriller, then look no further than my lowly little blog. For while I knew my adventures would be many, I did not expect the events that unfolded yesterday afternoon.

I attended class in the morning, only slightly different from my routine because we went on a field trip to the Imperial War Museum. As many of you probably know, war is not my specialty, nor do I find it thrilling in the least. However, I appreciate relearning everything I’ve been learning since primary school about the different wars. There was a Holocaust exhibit, which I had just had quite my fill of considering I’d spent Christmas in Germany. So by the end of the visit, I was thoroughly ill to my stomach and ready for something happy…. Like MUSIC! My first voice lesson was yesterday and I left right from the museum to meet my teacher. I allotted about an hour and a half for the commute, and while it was a long one, I arrived a half an hour early to my lesson. Bugger. I walked up to her door at 1:30 and heard the piano singing from her front room, and remembered that she had a lesson before mine and told me she wouldn’t be able to answer her mobile if I called. So, I figured it would be distasteful to interrupt her lesson by knocking a full half hour early.

I decided I would walk back up the street to a little café I had seen on the corner and sit there and write while I waited. I ordered an orange juice and was finished with my writing in 20 minutes, making the time just shortly before 1:50. I packed up and walked back down the street, completely misjudging time and realizing I was still standing there 10 minutes early and the piano was still singing beautiful melodies out the window to me. This time, I figured I would walk a few minutes down the road and then back up to arrive just on time. As I turn around to walk back down the street, I hear this whistle coming from the direction I was just facing. Directly next to my voice teacher’s house was a house under construction. The construction men had been up on the roof working, and thinking that maybe one of them needed my attention and not really thinking in terms of “I am a young girl I need to be on my guard”, I looked over my shoulder. Standing between My voice teacher’s house and the house under construction was a man staring at me.

Now, I am going to take a short detour to explain where I was, and also for suspense purposes. My voice teacher lives in Southeast London. I mentioned in an earlier post that East London has traditionally always been the bad area of town. Well, being the wise old bird that I am, I didn’t really examine the directions I had been given to fully understand that I would be in East London until I arrived doe-eyed on the train platform. But, it was midday, a busy area, and many people were around. I felt completely and naively safe as I trudged the 10 minute walk from the train station to my final destination. The houses on the quieter residential street were nice enough, looking as if they belonged to middle class citizens. There were people walking along this street and there were construction men acting as eagle eyes, looking down on the whole area from a rooftop. So naturally all these factors gave me a false sense of safety.

The man staring at me was doing something strange with his hand, and when he looked down, I began to walk in the opposite direction, my instincts telling me something was wrong before my brain caught up and told me WHAT was wrong. Was he exposing himself?... I paused 50 meters down the road and deliberated. On the one hand, if this man WAS exposing himself to me, then there was no way I could walk back to my voice teacher’s house, because he was feet away from her front door. On the other hand, maybe he was a construction worker from the house next door and I was being paranoid and maybe he wasn’t doing anything suspicious at all. Plus, I couldn’t just stand there AND I couldn’t just leave because I had a voice lesson in 10 minutes. So I decided I would turn around and walk back cautiously and hope that he was gone.

When I came within visual range, I could see the man had not left, and that I should have listened to my instincts because he was indeed exposing himself, and he saw me. “Sweet heeeeeart, where are you goinggggggg” he called and whistled as I did another 180 and walked much more quickly away this time, my heart racing. “Come back!” I heard him command.

I didn’t have to think twice before I had my cell phone out dialing 999. My voice broke as I spoke to the operator, telling her I needed the police and giving her the details of my whereabouts. I knew the street address, but had no idea what town I was in. Thankfully a woman was walking into her house and I asked her the post code. The police were on their way and I was shaking in my boots.

One of the construction workers had been watching me as I stood bewildered in the sidewalk. He probably thought I was a nutter, just standing there staring in his direction. “What time is it?” he yelled. “TWO!” I snapped back, feeling not at all friendly toward any man. Soon, I heard the police sirens and relief spread through me. The police pulled up and as I walked over to them, I noticed that the man was gone. I told them where he had been and they went searching. The shocked construction worker followed and began asking what was happening and telling that they had witnessed nothing.

My voice teacher then came to her door and smiling broadly, invited me in. Pale-faced, I told her to police were here and I wanted to make sure they knew where I was. When I told her what had happened she became distraught and sent me inside while she went to talk to the police.

I was safe. No one would hurt me inside, and the police were here. They came in followed by my teacher and took down my details (I couldn’t remember my birthday) and asked for a suspect description. I was informed that the police were searching for this man and several units were already on the prowl. A crime report would be filed and I would be notified via post.

On their way out, my polite teacher asked if they would like some tea. “No, thank you. But you better make her one,” the thinner officer said while he pointed to me. “She looks like she needs one.”

And tea she made me, along with giving me some caramel biscuits to lift my spirits.

So many things could have gone differently to have made the situation much worse than it was. I was not physically harmed in any way, and I now know how to go about handling such a situation. Next time, I will not be so slow on the uptake. I will laugh at the silly pervo and say “Is that all you’ve got?”

Needless to say, I had a great voice lesson, even if I was a bit distracted throughout.