The North East of England

[Lat-Literal]

Sadly I have only been to Scotland once - in 1973. But in a lesson to self about what can be achieved in three nights away, I have just returned having completed everything I set out to do which included getting to within two miles of the border. Several long term ambitions fulfilled in something of a mad whirl. This, it has to be said, is needing some serious processing.

[french frank]

For a moment there, Lat, I thought you were referring to Scotland as the North-East of England !

Sadly I have only been to Scotland once - in 1973. But in a lesson to self about what can be achieved in three nights away, I have just returned having completed everything I set out to do which included getting to within two miles of the border. Several long term ambitions fulfilled in something of a mad whirl. This, it has to be said, is needing some serious processing.

[antongould]

Did you get to Tynemouth Lat .... ????

[Lat-Literal]

Did you get to Tynemouth Lat .... ????

Yes, yes, yes, and St James's Park and Durham and inside Bootham Crescent and onto Lindisfarne and around the entire campus of the University of York.

It's been wild - and I'm very happy right now.

More shortly.

For a moment there, Lat, I thought you were referring to Scotland as the North-East of England !

[Lat-Literal]

Day 1 - Friday - Part 1 - Old Coulsdon to the River Ouse, York

I'm so tired this is probably going to be very badly written. Previous efforts, while reasonable enough, could have done with some tuning especially around past and present tenses. So be it. Now is now. The cold feet began early. On Thursday night, I was only 60-40 in favour of going. A late decision, fortunately at minimal cost and I don't feel great about this from the hotel's point of view, was to cancel the Whitley Bay booking. It was just too much to present to my parents and to some extent me given my own medical considerations that I was aiming to spend three nights so far north. Consequently, I settled on York as the base and managed to get a room at Travelodge Micklegate although it is the start of term time and so most places there were fully booked. Then I did that thing which indicates a not wholly believing one is going through with it all by thinking that the train ticket for out of Kings Cross was at around 1.30pm when it was around 11.30am. Luckily I had already packed and got up early so I was able to get out of the house quickly. The error concentrated the mind.

A taxi to Purley then onto Thameslink, not totally sure trains cross London even these days quite that easily. But they do and I was at St Pancras in plenty of time, gobsmacked that it is a tiny walk across to Kings Cross via a pedestrianised coffee drinking area. The train to York left on time and it arrived on time. As I walked through York station, I had the same positive feeling about its atmosphere that I first had in 1982. Then I went direct to the part of the city I naturally orientate towards which is the riverbank. The city as much as I had seen of it in the first quarter of an hour looked tremendous and the sunshine was extraordinary. I sat there for a while just taking it all in while arranging with others an "I'm here" call to home.

Checking in time wasn't until 3pm or afterwards and I was sitting there long before 2pm. Unusually not being in any hurry, I wandered up to a garden of a house on the waterfront, with a number of assorted thoughts in my mind. One, that crossing London had not actually involved encountering a car, let alone using the underground. Two, there had been an uncanny number of Chinese and other people of far eastern appearance at the station but at this time I thought of it as coincidence. Three, Micklegate while being a necessary base for closeness to the station was known even many years ago to be lively on weekends for want of a better word. And four, I had just walked past that bit off Lendal Bridge where my life could easily have ended very early while climbing scaffolding over the water as egged on by so called friends who were requiring some daft proof of masculinity while we all carried traffic cones.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. The garden of the house in question was beautiful. Two women were chatting and one was clearly the owner. I congratulated them for it to which one replied that the other lived next door and look at the state of hers. This was the time of talking about the floods. How when in the Bay Horse a registration plate had been read out to advise the owner his vehicle was floating down the road. We had had to walk on the garden walls on that night in the dark for which my belated apologies in order to get back to Sycamore Terrace just behind. We had noted the worries on the faces of people with their sandbags. There was even a tide mark on the cupboard in my bedroom to show that in the past it had been much worse. The others weren't bothered. All of their bedrooms were upstairs. But anyhow had the flood improvement scheme improved? Yes and no. More needs to be done. It did get bad again, circa 2000, and the concerns have not been alleviated so we garden. "Enjoy your reminiscences", said in a way which was almost "but please don't mention flooding again."

[Lat-Literal]

Part 2 - River Ouse to Bootham Crescent, York

Next to 37 Sycamore Terrace, the first of several moments of just gazing and the beginnings of a theme "we were so lucky". We were so lucky. Obviously we had grants. We were so lucky to have had that house for £17 per - well, I don't know the period exactly - in that location. I think we saw it as slightly downmarket then and I am not so sure why we thought of it in that way. A "student house" perhaps and, yes, my grandparents had also had a back to back terrace but that was more like the houses many others got closer to the university. No, this had a yard and it was quiet and it is now in a sought after location. I could live there today. But my bedroom isn't there. It is a living room. And money wise it would be out of my league. I half hoped that someone would appear and ask me why I was there. Then with luck I could have a good look inside it. Another part of me really didn't want that to happen.

It didn't happen so I made my way slowly along the road to the houses numbered 20-something until I reached a place where another two women were talking, the elderly one standing at her door. I launched into some sort of spiel about memories. The one who was perhaps five years older than me wasn't having any of it but she was happy to leave me to the one who was living in the house because as she said she had been there "for centuries". Trust here. A man on his own. Leaving on old lady of 80s something with him. She was just great. A typical York woman who had been there since 1962. The year of my birth. We were neighbours although we hadn't known it. A lot of talk about the way things had been poshed up or simply disappeared. I enjoyed it. I'm pretty sure she did too. Next up The Minster Inn. For all of its name, it's in that same quiet locality just behind Museum Gardens which I also walked around quickly, taking in its peacefulness even though it was really quite crowded, hence bordering on the outskirts or at least that is how it seems to me atmospherically.

These days it is run, I think, by a Scandinavian who was nice enough but who felt I should be in the business of university reunions. A customer, older than me and not overly effusive, assumed that my memories were of Dave and the corkscrew contraption where every local placed his name. Actually, no. We never went into the main bar as we had respects for the locals and I go further back to miserable looking Ron as Star Trekkin' blasted out incongruously from a jukebox. Dave was also miserable, it transpires but he updated the outside loos. "You won't recognise them". Well, yes, there is no ugly yard there now and it's all a bit tropical and roofed if small for the smokers and the toilets alongside are decent though unisex. Other than this, Dave kept the character of the place with its individual homely rooms. Today's customer, though, wasn't for talking much to strangers who had been students. He'd had to remortgage his house to see his two kids though that escapade and what good did it do them? As soon as another local walked in, he was full of conversation, transformed though the bags round his eyes were heavier. Next, then, onto Bootham and a few older couples avoiding me for asking after all this time for directions to Bootham Crescent. How ridiculous that I should have slightly forgotten. Later, especially on Saturday night, I was to see what creates the wariness. It is the ways of many folk who come in from other places to spend pounds.

It was quiet on those streets. Nicely quiet. After all, it wasn't a match day. When I got there I assumed I would just stand outside with a "yes". But the shop happened to be open. No customers. It's a glorified shed really. A mixture of merchandise and administration on the modest scale of a side that has sadly fallen to what is effectively Division 6. Two blokes in there. The junior, 20-something, is all for the demolition. "Just look at it. It's falling apart. The rain is coming through the roof. The rugby club has been promoted. We'll save money with a lease on the new ground in the out of town shopping centre." The 40-something senior who may manage the ground prefers the current set-up. He would have been a kid when I was a teenager. "It is", I said, "my second club, and with so many memories, although I have also wanted to be at Newcastle FC at least once in my life and that is likely to be tomorrow". "That's fine", he said, "but let's have a chat. The best place is in the ground. I'll get my key.". This was absolutely bloody marvellous. The angels had come down. I'm not hard bitten but maybe I should have been a journalist. So then it was just the two of us alone by the pitch chatting. It was a real story and I had not yet been in York two hours.

[LMcD]

How's Coulsdon these days? We used to live near the South station. (I see that Smitham station is now called Coulsdon Town). As a family, we used to enjoy walking on Farthing Down into Happy Valley and on to Devilsden Wood.

[Lat-Literal]

How's Coulsdon these days? We used to live near the South station. (I see that Smitham station is now called Coulsdon Town). As a family, we used to enjoy walking on Farthing Down into Happy Valley and on to Devilsden Wood.

Sorry, I got cut off temporarily - the powers that be didn't like how easily I was welcomed into a dear old ground. Yep, it's ok - and better than - but we hold on to our ground while we can in light of the relaxation of the planning laws which is supported by every political group you can imagine and more - it's the individual whose voice is going rapidly down the pan.

[Lat-Literal]

Part 3 - Bootham Crescent across to Fawcett Street via York City Centre

So anyhow, we're in the ground for a quarter of an hour and he's talking about how they held the cup up there and now it's gone and I'm mentioning Byrne and Houchen about which he seems vague but he would have been very young. He was so good to do that for me. I mention the year of QPR and Arsenal in the cup. We clarify that it was 101 points rather than 100 to win the division when it was early on for three points for a win and it only fades slightly when I ask about Archbishop Sentamus's attendance. This, he says, is sporadic although I say unconvincingly that it least it probably raises the club's profile, what with the scarf and all. Next it was a slow walk down to the city centre and, you have to try ae Camra guide place for pint number two. The Last Drop Inn. I don't know why I had to choose there. In the back yard there was a heavily tattooed couple who the woman says are on their very first date.

She was wearing Doctor Martens and on a day trip from Newcastle. She just loved his "arse" and couldn't believe her luck. Facially, I thought he looked like that cocky bloke in Men Behaving Badly. There was just one other bloke who was about 63 and had been divorced many times. He was bitter. I thought it was their dog who forlornly chased scraps of leaf around my ruck sack but it was his dog. All three of them were getting on well. I was the weirdo with interests to whom they merely gave a nod. "One more pint somewhere else and then it's anal" Clunes says. ""I shouldn't say this but I do love anal" she says and then they are all off as I am alone with the gloom that sort of disappointment in people triggers. In hindsight, the man in Ipswich with rubber under his clothing was not merely mild. He was indicating a trend in pub talk in Britain. Next I checked in and walked towards the university.

Well, that's not quite true. I'm really fed up with cheapo cameras being too advanced for me so I headed to the camera shop on Coney Street and asked them simply to find me one that I could operate so as to enable me to take photos for my Dad who has dementia who responds best now to pictures. There were two nice guys during this short period. Both were young Geordies and both had attended Newcastle University. The first was the one who had greeted me at Travelodge, one of the few upbeat, happy, smiley and on-the-ball people I met.

He told me that I had a super-room at the back of the place which would be less noisy. While we both knew that the super-room concept was a nonsense the back of the hotel was welcome news to me. The second was the camera shop guy who was brilliant. He knew the technical side, wasn't condescending, said that what I was aiming to do was a good thing and he really hoped that I would love his home town. While northern and young enough to have been my sons, I identified with these people. I saw them as lower middle class men like me who would not get into, say, a York University now and rather than ever being admitted into the Civil Service would for ever be at the frontline of retail and/or related minor management, often having to put up with the grim. I was open, without bs, civil and self-deprecating. I think from their demeanour each appreciated that as they in essence had it too.

I had only had two pints and am not averse to having too many but I am mature enough these days to know how to do things right. This may involve long periods without the need to celebrate achievement or dull down nerves with refreshment along with undertaking long walks, taking in coffees and food, and avoiding public transport if I sense the potential for difficulty. I like quite long walks anyway as I go about my investigating. I walked across the city to get to the Seahorse Hotel which was the Shire Horses in my day and the university pub as much as anything might have been. Many memories. It has been totally refurbished so as almost to obliterate them and I had read on the internet the landlord is difficult.

No, he isn't. He won't cope with verbiage but he respected what I had to say, including thoughts of 52p pints and the fact that he had done the place up nicely to make it into a hotel, albeit in the modern way . Of a similar age to me, I suspect, he is a serious man who has probably put up with too much but he seemed to have an empathy that he couldn't quite express. In my few minutes there, he said genuinely, "it's all gone but thank you very much for your custom sir". We knew what each of us were about while being different. Nostalgia.

[Lat-Literal]

Part 4 - Fawcett Street to "Campus West", York and Heslington Village via Heslington Road

It was then a walk via streets and fields - bigger than they seemed when they had what we used to call "paisley" cows - beyond Fairfax House to what is now Campus West. On reaching Goodricke College, as was, where there were breeze blocks on the walls and we shared bathrooms and toilets although no doubt it is all now ensuite, as demanded, I discovered what I already knew. The old buildings have gone. It is now James College. The hubs have electronic signs with more than a little "we have meeting rooms here for use by big business" dimension. I expected this too although it was also disorientating. I had walked via Wentworth which is not so different but by this point people were asking if they could help me. I have a natural, confused, look on my face and that was clearly becoming more acute at this point. The answer was that I was ok. I was a graduate and just taking it all in again along with the changes but I did go into the reception at James. A guy - one of the nicest I encountered all weekend and who was the spitting image of the later Pete Postlethwaite - engaged. Yes, he was there in my time. A young man then. It is still Derwent for Politics and Vanbrugh for History. "Do try to get to the new site - East - where Goodricke is now", he advised. It's all, quote, "shiny and new" there by which he meant it was not necessarily for him. I might have added "and built on the Green Belt" though I didn't. I said I would make my way there.

But the light was fading. Bathed in sunlight, the lake and the woodland looked so wonderful I couldn't believe how the old place had seemed so basic in concrete then. Now it was truly beautiful, whatever the changes. There was a bit of me there and us and of our youth, oblivious, but I reckon that the planting had just had more time to grow. the site is simply greener now. When my mate Mark went off to Exeter, having almost but not quite risen to the standard of Oxbridge, his family had very much bigged it up, not that it was ever required. On delaying a year, and opting for York, they all joked what appeared to be warmly "but isn't that in the north?" I'm not so sure now about the warmth. I think inadvertently I unusually played an ace card. It might not quite have been up to Exeter's standard academically but it had a cache especially in terms of the city and there may have been an element of jealousy. Durham aside, which is a northern Oxbridge, Lat-Literal was not expected to be at what was becoming arguably another Oxbridge of the north, albeit in a modern way. It didn't matter hugely to me - the reputation - nor does it now, but I do have pride in the association that I never could have with my school. It is hard to believe it happened. I walked on to Heslington Village, when on occasion Laurie Taylor would be holding forth, but mostly I spent this time by the lake , taking photos with my cheap camera until it was so dark I couldn't find my way out. A Chinese guy gave me directions in the undergrowth, with the few words of English he could find, astonished that I wasn't taking the bus back but walking.

[Lat-Literal]

I have to laugh actually.

I haven't even finished day one or got out of York yet,.

It's not the norm but it's not exactly not the norm either.

Very aware of that.

But I'm very, very content with it all at this moment.

[Lat-Literal]

Part 5 - Campus West to Travelodge, Micklegate via Lawrence Street, Walmgate and Pavement, York

Just outside the walls, I thought I was going into Jenny's Fish Bar - what used to be Jimmy's Fish Bar from where we would carry fish chips and a meat and potato pie on the way back from the Shires - but I was so tired I went through the door next to it and ended up with burgers and chips. I was also worried about the city's reputation on a weekend night. Hen and stag parties. The Blue Bell aside - it won't take groups - the beautiful city at 8pm seemed to have become full of pretentious so-called up market bars with bouncers on the door and rather intimidating clubby groups were emerging. People were shouting their heads off, drunk, and walking directly at others to create an effect, My intention was to get back to the hotel unscathed. I was a bit frightened. A bit more than frightened actually. But right in the centre of York was the loudest sound of all and it wasn't intimidating. This was the marquee that had been set up for the week long free music, food and beer festival in aid of the charity, Mind. This was an absolute oasis of humanity - folk and rock leaning ish - away from the over-the-top, with people from the age of 25 to 75 enjoying original material and covers of Bob Dylan etc. The people in there were all friendly. I stayed there for an hour and a half.

The Jon Palmer Acoustic Band :

Another Friday Night In A Northern Town - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uW_Yw9dLB0

Meet Me At The Station - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISsrzGVrm1Y

Keep On...……......Rocking in the Free World - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t0Mxi9zuEs

[cloughie]

For a moment there, Lat, I thought you were referring to Scotland as the North-East of England !

You may smile but stranger things are thought to be true. Cornwall was once known as West Wales. In the Sixth century or thenabouts, Wales or Wealas were foreigners, and because of its location was known as West Wealas. The anglo-saxon invaders into the Celtic regions in the west also referred to inhabitants to the horn-shaped peninsular which is Cornwall as the cornu wealas!

[cloughie]

Part 5


Just outside the walls, I thought I was going into Jenny's Fish Bar - what used to be Jimmy's Fish Bar where we used to carry fish chips and a meat and potato pie on the way back from the Shires - but I was so tired I went through the door next to it and ended up with burgers and chips. I was also worried about the city's reputation on a weekend night. Hen and stag parties. The Blue Bell aside - it won't take groups - the beautiful city at 8pm seemed to have become full of pretentious so-called up market bars with bouncers on the door and rather intimidating clubby groups were emerging. People were shouting their heads off, drunk, and walking directly at others to create an effect, My intention was to go straight back to the hotel unscathed. I was a bit frightened. A bit more than frightened actually. But right in the centre of York was the loudest sound of all and it wasn't intimidating. This was the marquee that had been set up for the week long free music, food and beer festival in aid of the charity, Mind. This was an absolute oasis of humanity - folk and rock leaning ish - away from the over-the-top with people from the age of 25 to 75 enjoying original material and covers of Bob Dylan etc. The people in there were all friendly. I stayed there for an hour and a half.

The Jon Palmer Acoustic Band :

Another Friday Night In A Northern Town - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uW_Yw9dLB0

Meet Me At The Station - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISsrzGVrm1Y

Keep On...……......Rocking in the Free World - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t0Mxi9zuEs

I hope they sang ‘Girl from the North Country’!

[Lat-Literal]

I hope they sang ‘Girl from the North Country’!

Sadly not - you have just reminded that the second band I saw played a Dylan cover I didn't recognise - I must see if I can locate it.