A 14-year-old boy outside Peckham Library looks around furtively, checking to see if he is being watched. "It's the gangs man," he says in reply to my question about whether he has to be careful on the streets. Is he scared of being spotted or just nervous talking to a journalist? He doesn't hang around to explain.
Herein lies the difficulty of trying to draw conclusions about growing up in Peckham a decade after the death of Damilola Taylor. The 10-year-old schoolboy tragically lost his life on 27 November after being stabbed in the thigh with a broken bottle by a group of teenagers. Whether the area has improved depends largely on the individuals you speak to.
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