Wolverhampton was my home for the first thirty-five years of my life, its streets are deeply familiar. Yet there have been changes too - the town feels more prosperous, more at ease with itself, more positive. Of course, these are hastily-formed impressions and they may be wrong. Or perhaps I'm remembering things as being worse than they really were.
Yet I still have a hunch that the town I left, which became a city not long after, has gained more confidence in itself.
After leaving Rob and Emma, I walked through steady rain up to the City of Wolverhampton College. When Jennifer and I were seventeen, it was the Wulfrun College. We took an evening class in Computer Studies with some schoolfriends and once a week we walked home together, about three miles. It was on these long evening walks, buying a bag of chips on the way, that our friendship grew and became romance.
It was only a short walk from the college to Avondale Road, to the house in which my grandparents lived. Every Saturday morning as a small child, my mother would take my brother and me to town, then to meet my grandad at the Eye Infirmary where he worked, then to Avondale Road. It was a Victorian house, slightly overfilled with furniture, heated by strong-smelling paraffin heaters and with a long garden for our adventures.
The rain continued steadily as I walked up Newhampton Road to the Molineux, home of Wolverhampton Wanderers. Here again was a place where I'd began many walks home.
(Note, it's "the Molineux", not "Molineux", just as Wulfrunians talk about "going to the Asda.")
Wolves secured their place in top-flight football a few weeks ago by winning promotion as champions. Hopes are high for next season and given the link between the fortunes of football teams and the morale of a town's citizens, I wonder how much of the buoyant mood that I sensed was due to the success of Mick McCarthy's men.
As I walked up Waterloo Road I first heard, then saw, a tiny marching band. Through the teeming rain they marched, with scarcely anyone watching. Behind the band was a procession of steam traction engines, chugging up the incline with brown smoke swirling through the rain. Following up the rear, three or four fire engines completed the brave parade.
They worked their way through the town, where I discovered the procession was part of a steam fair at West Park. After twenty-four hours of rain, I could imagine what state the grass was going to be in after the traction engines got there.
(continues in Part Two)
No comments:
Post a Comment
I'd love to read your comments, so go ahead and tell me what you think...