Blog: A Trip Down Memory A-Road

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I had a lengthy, varied, and slightly MIND BLOWING day on Friday, which began with a MEETING. This was my usual Friday Lunchtime Meeting with Mr John Dredge (whose podcast series is, by the way, GRATE!) where, as usual, we came up with IDEAS and also LARFS. I then popped to the comic shop before HIKING back across town to St Pancras, where I was due to head to LEICESTER.

The main reason for going back there so soon was to attend the 40th Birthday celebrations of Mr T "The Tiger" McClure, but as I was going to be arriving with about six hours to spare I had a chance to meander through that fair city and do some other stuff. The first thing I did was go and have a pint of Everards Tiger in The Globe, which was lovely. I sat drinking this delicious beer and thought back to 1989, which must be at LEAST four or five years ago by now, when I first went in there for a TUTORIAL with a college lecturer and Mr Brian Tagg. I felt TERRIBLY grown-up, sat there with Brian talking about ESSAYS, it was one of the few times that the actual COURSE bit of being at Leicester Poly lived up to my expectations of Academia!

Next I went to the PICTURES to see "Noah". I chose it mostly because it was the only film showing that fitted with my timescale which I had any interest at all in seeing, which was lucky because I LOVED it. The basic idea is that it's a post-apocalyptic sci-fi/Lord Of The Rings style re-telling of the Noah story where they take the whole thing a) literally b) VERY SERIOUSLY, and it was TOTALLY NUTS. I sat enjoying it IMMENSELY thinking "this is bonkers, also ace!" There wasn't a HUGE amount of JEOPARDY about it because, well, we all know how it works out, but it was FUN and also INTERESTING - I did quite a lot of Looking Up on Wikipedia afterwards to see where all the different bits had come from!

With a spare hour or so still left I decided to go for a WANDER, and found myself stomping up King Richards Road towards my old flat. I had done this route many times back in my Leicester days, often profoundly DRUNKENED after having gone DANCING, so my feet knew the way, leaving my BRANE free to marvel at what had changed and what hadn't. I was delighted to see the sign on the bridge, saying "King Richard's bones were buried near here" was still in place, with a new sign next to it gently saying they weren't. I was surprised by all the HUGE new buildings along the way, but MORE shocked by how much there was still there that I'd never bothered to go and look at. These days I'm forever nipping down side-streets to see what's there, but in all the years I lived in my flat on Kirby Road i NEVER went and had a look down ANY of the side-streets that seemed now to be so interesting.

I DID however go into Sam's Newsagents nearly every day, and was overjoyed to find that it was exactly the same, right down to Sam himself, who STILL seemed terrified of customers. I also popped up and had a look at the flat, which seemed the SAME except that the Church next door was closed. It was Quite Emotional, and Weird, especially when I walked back past where the Pump & Tap had been and found a HUGE Tesco nearby and a GINORMOUS Leisure Centre plonked RIGHT where the pub had been. They looked like CGI extras that had been done on the cheap and stuck there hoping that nobody would notice.

My mind was REELING from all that when, a couple of minutes later, I heard a voice say "I know that face!" and LO! it was Jakki from my BA course, who I don't think I'd seen since we graduated. It was BRILLIANT to see her - she mentioned seeing a couple of other people, including Brian who I'd just been thinking of in the Globe, and we had a DELIGHTFUL natter. I walked away, STAGGERING, only to bump into Mr G Gilchrist for another quick catch-up.

After all that i definitely needed a BEER, and ended up having SEVERAL in the company of Tom and a group of his various PALS, many of which I had heard about over the years and was glad to finally meet in person. It was thus a slightly shell-shocked, slightly boozy, but very happy Hibbett who finally tottered off and onto the last train home. It had been a LOT of Leicester!

posted 12/5/2014 by MJ Hibbett

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