As part of Spread the Word’s Lewisham, Borough of Literature campaign, four local writers were commissioned to create new work under the theme, ‘To All The Places I have Read’. The commissions were for writers of poetry or short stories, are aged 18+, currently living in Lewisham and from underrepresented backgrounds.

The Borough of Literature Commissions were printed, alongside Emerging Writer and Deaf and Disabled Writer commissions, in the Deptford Literature Fesitval Anthology.

Sauce, Sprinkles and A Flake Please Boss by Tutku Barbaros

Summer has been hiding. But we’re British, so the bikini remained, tangled, on the close-to-collapsing drying rack. And the sliders waited eager on the ‘welcome’ mat. Just as puffer coats slumped from overuse and light denim jackets started to panic. Just as boredom truly started to grip the kids. It arrived. This wave of heat. A sigh of relief. A catalyst. An alchemy.

So now the tarmac is hot, really hot, and it’s the first week of August so the air is luscious with antics. The word ‘independence’ bounces wall to wall. Scotch bonnet kisses baharat on the breeze to a rhythm of voice notes… low… quick… tantalisingly brief:

‘weather’s beautiful – what you sayin today?’

Six words and a question mark which really mean day times merging into night times, memories that will last lifetimes.

Across the 13.4 square miles of Lewisham, motives are motioned:
A DJ refines remixes.
A wooden spoon is purchased for a soon-to-be fresher.
A florist arranges sunflowers,
looks at the yellow, fancies a patty and pops out for an early lunch.
The cars bend corners, windows open, bass everywhere, in me, in you, in us. 

The low walls of this island of Lewisham are sat on, gathered round, congregated at.
The gentle brows of gentle boys are grazed by bucket hats
The word ‘galavant’ hangs on the breeze, the word ‘adventure’ sings through the trees.

A girl,12, Tatlı (as in sweetness) climbs into her grandad’s yellow, blue, pink (she chose the colours) ice cream van. She passes him the bright red apron he wears over his crisp white tee and they drive out of his hilltop garage and embark on a journey. Past cobbled streets only locals know of and reggae legends everyone knows of.

Skyscrapers glow blue in the cloudless sky.
‘Did you know!?’ Tatlı asks her grandad.
He loves her ‘Did You Knows’, claims they’re from his side of the family because her mum is like that too.
‘Did you know, from most of Lewisham you can see six of the ten tallest buildings in the UK?’
‘I did not know.’
She always comments, ‘the one called canary should be painted yellow’ and he often thinks about that.

Before they’ve fully approached the dance school, a gaggle of girls are already twirling into queue, chased by mums worried about strawberry sauce on tutus. If Tatlıs mum was here she’d remind them that’s the least of their worries, ‘when raising baby girls in a brutal world.’

The girls go back to class, but the mums stay flocked outside to order screwballs (delighting in the bubblegum their daughters aren’t allowed to even know about yet). The mums blow bubbles like they used to, when the dance school was on a different street, and they also shifted their feet… first position, second position, third. As they wave the ice cream van off they chirp ‘Tatlı don’t forget to say hello to your mum from us.’

At the sports ground a boy runs over and asks, ‘what can I get for 50p?’ as if he doesn’t already know the answer. But there’s always the joy in asking and there’s always the joy in banter and sometimes, on a day like today, the ice cream man says:

‘goooo onnnn have it free, but don’t tell your friends,  this is a business you know.’

The boy skips off happy, scores a goal like the men he roots for on the telly.

And then it’s past the walrus.
Or that place that used to be a factory.

At the wishing well, where the ladies had stories to tell, a florist hopes the young man before her is buying flowers to romance a lover and not to relive a loss. She wants to ask, but language is slapped, like a rock, between them, so instead he walks around gesturing towards the ones he likes, making a globe motion with his hands and mumbling the word ‘big.’ 

He looks at her in that way grown men sometimes do, that look where you see their boyhood shining back at you, and asks,  ‘…good?’ When it comes to flowers context is key, so our florist extends the box of cards and watches as he chooses one picturing a diamond ring surrounded by hearts, with her pen he draws a question mark. ‘Good!’ she confirms with newfound ease, because the flowers are gorgeous and the flowers aren’t for grief. He grins a grin so big she grins too. 

Triumphant, he potters out to the ice cream van and points to a sticker of what he wants. He turns back to her. Two successes, proud as a lover, growing in confidence now and calls out, ‘Thank you!’  ‘No, thank you’ she replies. 

An over-60s walking group arrives and they order so many lemon sorbets Tatlı has to stick a ‘sold out’ sticker across the photo of the yellow-crowned cone. The van moves on, on, on.

Marquees are being erected outside barbershops.
And flags are waving on balconies.
Rum and raisin.
Next street.
Cherry.
Next street.
Apple lolly.
Next street.
Soft whippy.
Traffic for a moment, so the ducks can cross the road, and no one makes a sound, because Lewisham is their home too.
Next street.
Hundreds and thousands.
Next street.
The plaques telling of the men and women who made history, who changed the world, for a day, a week, forever.
Tatlı asks herself,  ‘What would have been their favourite flavour?’
Maybe the answer will come full circle on the South Circular.

Yes, boss.
Wagwan.
Selam.
Napan beh?
Bom dia.
Geiá sou!
Afiyet olsun.
Hola.
Ciao.
Cheers!
Have a good day, mate!

As they park at the park Tatlı asks, ‘Did you know there’s 46 parks in Lewisham?’ 

She looks out at the birthday party blooming in this one, eyes bright as she watches foil trays carried in from every entrance.

A fold-out table and fold-out chairs and everyone brought a dish. A speaker is strapped to an auntie trolley. On those plastic chairs the conversations that define us for generations are taking root: a woman in her 30s natters with a cousin about a man she can’t forget, a love growing, a heart ripe for breaking, but hopefully not – just as the details get juicy, Tatlı is prompted to duty.

Her mum’s friends tell Tatlı about childhoods spent hearing the ice cream vans tune chug from afar, calculating if you’d make it in time, racing towards it, book bag flailing. She longs to play the music fully but she knows the rules:

A woman from somewhere called shire not sham, having recently purchased a house no one else’s wages can, with two cars on her drive, counts how long the interruption lasts in the hope she can lodge a sound pollution complaint. But Tatlı only held on for 1, 2, 3 seconds. And then stopped. Not enough. The ice cream man sees the woman watching, listening, and mutters under his breath, in a mother and father tongue the woman can’t comprehend, ‘Hasn’t she got work to do?’ He wonders why, of all the things, this is what she chooses to be angry about.

For the moment, everyone’s focus is on lunch rather than dessert, so Tatlı and her grandad take a breather.

Smoky sweet charcoal,
cinamon,
bubbles in plastic cups,
water balloons hurtling,
a couple kissing. 

The ice cream man contemplates the young man who relied on the stickers earlier. Four decades ago the ice cream man arrived fresh, no language in his luggage, from Cyprus and has driven these streets since, learning these maps. Each road, each estate, each park sharing a type of language with all the people here, and all their different mother tongues. 

Ice cream, a universal sweetness. Strawberry is pink in every dictionary. Lemon is yellow in every dialect. The blue one? A tricky to describe mystery taste which leaves its mark on every tongue and, I guess, that’s why it’s fun.

From the fold-out table a man calls out warmly:
‘Yes, bossman! And young bosslady! You two hungry?’
‘He was a boy when I came here and now he’s carrying his own son,’ says bossman/ice cream man/grandad to himself. 

The man strides over with two paper plates:

Dollop of coleslaw.
Hill of humus.
Rice and peas.
Slice of pizza.
Two spring rolls.
Red pea stew.
Mountain of jollof.
Pasta salad.
Three dolma. 

A plate licked clean is a plate licked clean in every language: delicious. 

The man looks over again: ‘You ready for us, yeah!?’
They all gesture a thumbs up.

As everyone is served the sun sets blue and yellow over Lewisham.

Happy birthday sung at the top of everyone’s voices.

What beautiful timing:
to celebrate in an August heatwave,
to be proposed to with a bunch of flowers,
to be a 12-year-old girl in Lewisham:

summer in the palm of one hand and a chocolate vanilla oyster in the other. 

About Tutku Barbaros

Tutku is a writer and workshop creator of Turkish Cypriot heritage, born, raised and living in Lewisham. Her debut book “All The Women She Knows – Stories Of Growth, Change & Sisterhood” was published in February. Darling Zine called it “the perfect women’s history month read”. She’s an alumna of the Royal Court Writers Programme – her debut play “LAYLA & YOUSSEF”, has been longlisted for the Bruntwood and Paines Plough Women’s Prize.  

Her workshops embrace the joy of writing and are designed to help adults playfully and mindfully explore their imaginations in safe settings. She also teaches creative writing at Bell House, Dulwich.