Ilford Revisited, June 2008

After about 24 years, I was in Ilford again for a few hours. Some changes noticed are as follows: 1) The main street in now pedestrian walk, 2) there's a new shopping mall called EXCHANGE at the centre of town where WHSmith used to be, WHSmith and many other shops - Debenhams, M&S, Woolworths, etc - are now inside the mall, 3) There are 2 halal fast-food joints near the train station, 4) I thought I saw more asians than whites on the high street (quite a few girls wearing the headscarves), 5) There's a big construction project going on in Ilford Lane (but I did not venture further down the road), 6) the Midland Bank in the High Street was no more seen instead I saw a HSBC bank branch.
The cheap day-return train fare from Liverpool Street was BP4.30 and it took 15 minutes to reach Ilford.