Running London (A Marathon Endeavour): Leg 17 - Knightsbridge to Herne Hill

What is the top end of Sloane Street for? Why are there no sensible shops? Why is it so hard to buy a nice cheese sandwich at lunchtime? A sausage roll? A cup of tea? Where is the local branch of Greggs ? Of course, we all know why. Round here, it's Nob City. Not till I stumbled across a backstreet Waitrose could I get my hands on so much as a bottle of water. I gulped it and then legged it. Past Cadogan Place . Across Sloane Square . How many Sloane Rangers does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to mix the Pimm's , the other to call an electrician. Into Lower Sloane Street which becomes Chelsea Bridge Road , passing Chelsea Barracks , scene of a right royal architectural tussle , on my left. Then, the river. I turned onto Grosvenor Road towards Westminster. To my left stood Pimlico , which was briefly a part of Burgundy after the war - in the cinematic sense at any rate - and where a young Quentin Crisp once paraded (his word). To my right, the Thames began its short curve to the north. I passed Westminster Millennium Pier , one of the five created for 2000. I wanted to drop down to the Thames Path , but when I tried to at Vauxhall Bridge discovered that there it is blocked (although it isn't at the southern end ). I jogged on the spot at the traffic lights, enjoying the incongruity of Sir Terry Farrell's MI6 HQ making no secret of itself on the opposite bank , before pressing on to Millbank, barely seeing Tate Britain as I slalomed through sundry fellow runners - it's a popular spot for it and I was there at a popular time of day - before striking out across the Grade II-listed Lambeth Bridge . My plan was to push as far into South London as I could, hoping to enter the Borough of Croydon by the end of the day. I kept running. And because by my standards I was running quite fast I failed to appreciate the streets of Lambeth as fully as I'd have liked. My route was uncomplicated and went like this: Lambeth Road; right into Kennington Road; right into Kennington Park Road; left en route to Camberwell New Road; right on to Denmark Hill. Reader, what did I miss that deserves a sentence or two added to this account? I know I almost grazed The Oval , where my late father took me to watch Bill Lawry's Aussies versus England in 1968 . The visiting captain compiled an interminable century. A West Indian man in front of us stood and cheered Basil D'Oliveira 's every move. It might have been the first time I set foot in London. I know that Camberwell Green matters. I know that the Maudsley Hospital matters too. What I mostly noticed, though, in my head-down way was that some of the pavements were very wide and that Denmark Hill is steep, especially as you near the top. How thrilled I was that my one hour of running - OK, 55 minutes - ended at its summit and a junction with the perfectly-named Champion Hill . An omen? Please, marathon gods, let it be so. I preferred the other side of Denmark Hill - it went downwards. I jogging a bit and walked a bit, warming down. The further down the hill I went, the more upmarket the properties seemed to be. By the time I reached Herne Hill - the incline, not the place - terraced dwellings were standing handsomely back off the road and I could tell that I was entering one of those parts of town - the place, not the incline - that estate agents claim has a "village atmosphere." I don't believe I'd ever actually entered Herne Hill before, although I knew about its Half Moon theatre . That's one of its "village" ingredients, of course, as are several of its shops and cafes. It's not so gentrified, though, that it lacks a place where you can buy a nice cheese sandwich and a cup of tea. I bought both at the masterly Kindred Bakery and consumed them as I walked towards Brockwell Park where I have been before, though not since a big Rock Against Racism show in 1979 . How fitting, then, that as I walked under the railway bridge, a man with a narrow beard wearing a trilby-type hat walked past me in the opposite direction. If it wasn't Linton Kwesi Johnson , dub poet and veteran of London's anti-racist struggles, I'll eat my hat and his hat too. LKJ won't remember but he and I have met before. It was I believe - and quite coincidentally - the day in 1981 when the outcome of the first New Cross Fire inquest became known. The venue was the office of the Race Today collective . He was, come to think of it, one the first notable people - the first politician, if we define the word broadly - I interviewed as a journalist. Nice seeing him again after all this time. What a long way I'd travelled from Sloane Square. This leg of Running London was a continuation of Leg 16 . The series - archived here - documents part of my training for this year's London Marathon . I'm raising money for Shelter . You can sponsor me online at my Virgin moneygiving page . All contributions gratefully received.