The People of Providence: A Housing Estate and Some of Its Inhabitants by Tony Parker (Picador 1983)

A fair-haired young woman in a gaberdine mackintosh crossing the pedestrian shopping precinct in Robins Walk stopped with a polite smile.

— Sorry love but if it’s insurance we’ve got more than enough thanks.

A book? About Providence Estate? Go on, you’re joking! Really? Blimey, that’ll be a job! I must read it, when’s it coming out? Oh I’ll not be here by then I shouldn’t think. Mm? Well, if I could think of one word to tell someone what a place is like. ..

‘Mixed’? Well yes, that’s one word for it, I think that’s about right that is, ‘mixed’. ‘Mixed’ — how do I think he meant? Well you know . . . I mean, there’s all sorts of people here all together, isn't there? I should think that’s what he meant. You’ve got people who do what you might call hard physical sort of jobs, those that work in the docks or on the building sites — the what do you call them, ‘manual workers’ is it? Then you’ve got the people who work in offices and banks and shops and that. Then there’s those who're the sort of posh ones, posh jobs like lawyers, there’s quite a few of that sort lives around here, it's surprising. And teachers — and old people — and families — people living on their own — and kids, a big lot of kids. Happy people and sad people and odd people and peculiar people — a big sort of mixture, so that’s absolutely the right word for it that is, yes . . . ‘mixed’.

An elderly man with the collar of his overcoat turned up, coming out of the library, two books by Hammond Innes under his arm.

— It would be extraordinarily difficult for me to try and summarize a place such as Providence Estate in a hundred or a thousand words, so it would be totally impossible to do it in one.

Certainly if somebody has already said to you ‘mixed’ I would say that was an appropriate word, certainly. I couldn’t say precisely what they might have meant, but I should have thought a moment’s glance round would have made it clear because it is instantly visible, isn’t it, how mixed it is?

You have the group of tower blocks over there, then those long six-storey things, I think they call them linear’ blocks over there; then in that direction there are those small maisonette-type low buildings of flats. And if you go through that way you come to the old houses that have been refurbished; and beyond those, ones that aren’t going to be done up and are scheduled for demolition, though heaven knows when they’re going to get on with it. And the prefabs of course, scattered around here and there. . . . So I’d say yes, high-rise towers, long blocks, modern small flats, old places done up, others dilapidated . . . a large ’mixed’ area very obviously, no one could quarrel with the word. And not at all unpleasing to the eye; all in all, not at all.

You’re welcome sir, good afternoon.

Twelve perhaps thirteen years old, the small boy in a royal blue blazer and grey flannels with a too-small cap on his head and a satchel over his shoulder looked thoughtfully into the distance.

— ‘Mixed’? What did they mean, ‘mixed’ how, what sort of way? Did they mean the people or the buildings or what? Funny word to use about the estate isn’t it, really; could mean all sorts of things couldn’t it, to different people? ‘Mixed’. Mm, yeh. . . .

He went on staring into the distance. After a while he began slowly nodding his head.

— Yeh, well, if you come to think of it, that’s quite a good word. I mean like where we are now, standing on the footpath in the middle of the grass . . . you see over there’s the towers, back that way there’s the flats, then there’s the shops and Robins Walk. So you could say if you wanted to that over there where the buildings are, that’s like town, and here where we are, with the grass and the trees, this is like country isn’t it? I mean if you don’t look that way you can’t see buildings and if you don’t listen too hard you can’t hear traffic. So it’s all like a mixture between town and country, right? Not built over everywhere, but not like out in a wood or something either. ‘Mixed' is a very good word, I’d say that was about right yeh.