We recently met up with Ben and Vicky who were stars of the BBCs Grease is the Word. here they talk about life since then and living in Royal Arsenal and Greenwich.
1. Ben and Vicky, most people probably know you two from the ITV talent show “Grease is the word”. At the time of the show you were both living in Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire. When did you move to London? We moved to Greenwich firstly on the 29th August 2008, we rented there for a year whilst we waited for our apartment to be built at the Royal Arsenal.
2. You are now the proud owners of a flat in the Royal Arsenal, the historic riverside development in SE18. What attracted you to the Royal Arsenal? Firstly the actual development gave out good signals, felt comfortable, safe homely also we felt the development had very good transport links which will obviously improve as time goes on. We feel the development will be a very good investment for the future as it continues to grow and facilities and transport links are always improving.
3. There are a lot of facilities on offer such as 24 hour concierge, landscaped communal parks, a resident’s gym and various restaurants – do you use any of these? Yes we use all these facilities; these are the type of things that also attracted us to the development in the first place.As I do professional Thai boxing I feel that the gym is very useful & local for me to unwind and keep in shape between fights. I also use the Street Car to get to Training which I feel is a very good idea to have on Site.
4. Young & Co's Brewery are opening a new gastro pub in the listed Dial Arch building early this summer. Are you looking forward to the opening night?Yes very much so, I feel having a Public House on site will be good for the development and will give residents to interact as I feel the Development is still needs that village ambiance, Opening a gastro pub in my eyes will insatiate potential social events in the future.
5. The commute from Woolwich into central London has been greatly improved in the last few years. There is an array of possibilities including ferry, bus, DLR and mainline train. What is your preferred mean and why?Our preferred mean is by Main Line which takes us straight into Charing Cross or Canon Street we then pick up the interlinks & Underground in London, but at weekends it is a nice treat to go into London on the Thames Clipper.
6. Vicky, you have recently graduated from the London School of Musical Theatre. You were Princess Jasmine in the pantomime Aladdin at Christmas. What is next in store for you?
Yes, I did Panto in Yorkshire, I had a Brilliant time, I am now back in London and my agent has put me in for many Auditions in the West End so fingers crossed hopefully in the next few months I may have some success with this, In the mean time I will continue to work in the Couture Cafe which is on the Royal Arsenal Site.
