Certainly the Borribles occupy the same sort of harsh unsentimental London that those skinheads did. If that sounds a bit twee and Peter Pan-like, their foul language and tendency to take on and kill their enemies, including the police, with steel catapults marks them down as more like characters out of a Richard Allen book such as Skinhead or Suedehead. Over time the kids sprout pointed ears – the key characteristic of a Borrible – and whilst their ears are pointed they never grow up. So they exist in the margins of life, squatting in the derelict buildings that were still plentiful in the 1970’s, stealing from street markets to feed themsleves and living in tribal and fiercely territorial gangs. They start out as normal children but turn into Borribles after a “bad start” in life leads to them becoming “unmanageable” in normal society. The Borribles are strange feral youths that exist in and are loyal to the old working class neighbourhoods of central(ish) London including Battersea, Wandsworth, Hoxton and Hackney in which they live. And….well, I simply can’t work out why this series of books is not huge. I tracked the book down on the internet (of course) and ordered myself a copy. The very nice local librarian had neither heard of the books nor could find them anywhere in the library records. Similarly my local library’s children’s section drew a blank. I asked at my local bookshop but the shop assistant had not heard of the books and couldn’t find them in their ordering system. It turned out that they were partly set in my South London neighbourhood. A first quick look on the web and I could see they were books aimed at early to mid teenagers, written in the 1970’s and reasonably well reviewed.
I made a mental note to investigate further.
It turned out that a bunch of Borribalista’s had rigged the vote and coerced the book to the top of the Londonist chart.
The author, Michael de Larrabeiti, was also unknown to me. I’d heard of most of the top ten and had even read a few of them, but I was taken by surprise by the winner.
Some time ago Londonist website ran a poll to choose the best London novel of all time.
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