Sean Mallen's Blog
December 7, 2018
Falling for London
On the first full day working at my dream job there was a minor complication. I could not find the office.
It was April 2011. Out of the blue and against all odds, I had finally landed the position I had yearned for my entire adult life—London-based correspondent for Canada’s Global News Network. I was a Foreign Correspondent, official title: Europe Bureau Chief. My first assignment was to be the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
Bleary-eyed and groggy from the transatlantic flight, I determined that my first task should be to check in to the Europe Bureau. It was located in a building called The Interchange Building, smack in the middle of the teeming, rocking, rollicking Camden Market.
The address seemed simple enough: 32 Oval Road. I rode the tube to the Camden Town station on the Northern Line and made my way through the winding streets to what should have been the place. Except I could find no number 32. The street numbers went up to 30 and then stopped. I doubled back, crossed the street, peered into every building in search of a clue. No luck.
Not a promising start when the Europe Bureau Chief cannot find the Europe Bureau. I admitted failure, called my colleague in the office and he came down to the street to lead me to my new home. It seemed that in one of those charming and maddening quirks of London geography, 32 Oval Road was not actually on Oval Road. It is on the adjacent Gilbey’s Yard.
Gilbey’s, as in the gin company. The Interchange was once one of their biggest warehouses, a giant repository of London’s favourite booze. Now it is owned by the Associated Press, which in turn rents office space to news media organizations from around the world. Russia Today was next door, the Japanese just opposite, the Chinese around the corner and across the hall was Brazil’s Globo TV (much larger than Canada’s Global, although we often got their mail). I noted the elegant, illuminated sign outside the Globo office. Our home was a converted storage closet, with a torn sticker on the door identifying us.
It didn’t matter. I was there. I was in a cool building with an international flavour in the midst of a funky neighbourhood in the world’s greatest city. I would soon be signing off stories “Sean Mallen, Global News LONDON”!
The journey that brought me to that moment was marked by unexpected obstacles, not least of which was the reluctance of my wife and daughter to join me. That is to say, they really REALLY did not want to come. You might ask: “what’s not to like? You get a chance to live in a spectacular city?” But spare a thought for them. I was asking them to set aside everything they knew: family, friends, my wife’s terrific job, my daughter’s school and asking them to move to a city they’d never seen and build a new life from scratch—all because I happened to land a big promotion.
Luckily for me, after several days of intense negotiations and soul searching, they finally agreed to come a few months later.
But first, and in spite of it all, my wife made a remarkably wise and generous gesture. It was the day I was to fly to London to take up my new position. The taxi was waiting out front. In saying our goodbyes, Isabella handed me a present, a journal with a green cover.
“If you’re going to put us through this, you’d better write a book,” she said.
Best gift, best advice ever.
That journal formed the basis of my book Falling for London-A Cautionary Tale.
It is a memoir, with a few laughs I hope, of how we learned how to live in and love an extraordinary and challenging city, despite crumbling flats, ruinous rents and the complexities of acclimatization. A story of the extraordinary community of expatriate “trailing spouses” in London, who banded together with us in an impromptu mutual support society to help each other adapt and prosper.
There are tales of our family travels around Europe, including an unfortunate and fragrant meal of grouse in the Cotswolds, skiing in the Austrian alps and surfing with a Celtic dude off the west coast of Ireland.
And yes, there was the work: covering the Royal Wedding of William and Catherine, the Arab Spring, Putin’s election and the wreck of the Costa Concordia.
It is a story of how dreams can come true in the most unexpected ways.
And how I managed to find my office.
It was April 2011. Out of the blue and against all odds, I had finally landed the position I had yearned for my entire adult life—London-based correspondent for Canada’s Global News Network. I was a Foreign Correspondent, official title: Europe Bureau Chief. My first assignment was to be the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
Bleary-eyed and groggy from the transatlantic flight, I determined that my first task should be to check in to the Europe Bureau. It was located in a building called The Interchange Building, smack in the middle of the teeming, rocking, rollicking Camden Market.
The address seemed simple enough: 32 Oval Road. I rode the tube to the Camden Town station on the Northern Line and made my way through the winding streets to what should have been the place. Except I could find no number 32. The street numbers went up to 30 and then stopped. I doubled back, crossed the street, peered into every building in search of a clue. No luck.
Not a promising start when the Europe Bureau Chief cannot find the Europe Bureau. I admitted failure, called my colleague in the office and he came down to the street to lead me to my new home. It seemed that in one of those charming and maddening quirks of London geography, 32 Oval Road was not actually on Oval Road. It is on the adjacent Gilbey’s Yard.
Gilbey’s, as in the gin company. The Interchange was once one of their biggest warehouses, a giant repository of London’s favourite booze. Now it is owned by the Associated Press, which in turn rents office space to news media organizations from around the world. Russia Today was next door, the Japanese just opposite, the Chinese around the corner and across the hall was Brazil’s Globo TV (much larger than Canada’s Global, although we often got their mail). I noted the elegant, illuminated sign outside the Globo office. Our home was a converted storage closet, with a torn sticker on the door identifying us.
It didn’t matter. I was there. I was in a cool building with an international flavour in the midst of a funky neighbourhood in the world’s greatest city. I would soon be signing off stories “Sean Mallen, Global News LONDON”!
The journey that brought me to that moment was marked by unexpected obstacles, not least of which was the reluctance of my wife and daughter to join me. That is to say, they really REALLY did not want to come. You might ask: “what’s not to like? You get a chance to live in a spectacular city?” But spare a thought for them. I was asking them to set aside everything they knew: family, friends, my wife’s terrific job, my daughter’s school and asking them to move to a city they’d never seen and build a new life from scratch—all because I happened to land a big promotion.
Luckily for me, after several days of intense negotiations and soul searching, they finally agreed to come a few months later.
But first, and in spite of it all, my wife made a remarkably wise and generous gesture. It was the day I was to fly to London to take up my new position. The taxi was waiting out front. In saying our goodbyes, Isabella handed me a present, a journal with a green cover.
“If you’re going to put us through this, you’d better write a book,” she said.
Best gift, best advice ever.
That journal formed the basis of my book Falling for London-A Cautionary Tale.
It is a memoir, with a few laughs I hope, of how we learned how to live in and love an extraordinary and challenging city, despite crumbling flats, ruinous rents and the complexities of acclimatization. A story of the extraordinary community of expatriate “trailing spouses” in London, who banded together with us in an impromptu mutual support society to help each other adapt and prosper.
There are tales of our family travels around Europe, including an unfortunate and fragrant meal of grouse in the Cotswolds, skiing in the Austrian alps and surfing with a Celtic dude off the west coast of Ireland.
And yes, there was the work: covering the Royal Wedding of William and Catherine, the Arab Spring, Putin’s election and the wreck of the Costa Concordia.
It is a story of how dreams can come true in the most unexpected ways.
And how I managed to find my office.
