Tag: sad

April 4th – Riding a bike is a cyclic antidepressant, and riding one once a day keeps the black dog at bay. I was sad, really sad, but something on the way home cheered me right up. A young heron, fishing by Clayhanger Bridge on the canal. I can’t ever recall seeing one here before, but I love these comical, dishevelled fishers. He was hungry, and young enough not to be skittish. He tolerated me taking photos for ages. He made me remember what I was doing, and what I was about. 

I adore herons. Such complex, fascinating birds.

It’s taken me all weekend to pluck up the balls to write this sequence.

April 4th – I’ve been struggling with my relationship with Walsall, and my memories of it, for a very long time now. I think seeing some of the places I loved burnt down, and others displaced by progress started it. I felt it was time I acknowledged it for once and for all.

I still love this surprising green, but ugly town. I love it’s unexpected beauty, I love its corners, twists and turns. I love the people, the frankness. I love the mixed cultures and the frontier mentality of a place thats both within and outside the Black Country.

I hate what time and my memory have done to it. But change is what happens to everyone, and I what I suspect I mourn isn’t Walsall, but the times I spent here.

St. Matthews is a handsome church in a commanding location, atop a hill that I’m convinced was once probably a fortification. A very large, ambitiously designed church, it’s almost too good for the place yet completely appropriate. Resplendent in yellow sandstone, it watches over the town below. For two centuries or more, it was surrounded by a sprawling slum; it’s now sitting in proud isolation with greenery and open space around. Time has been kinder to St. Matthews than one might think.

I used to come up here to think, and dream and wrestle with things that troubled me. I found the benchmark on the side of the church before I knew what it was for, and its image was persistent and perplexing. In those days, someone had written above it in neat chalked script, ‘I can’t come here anymore.’ I never knew what they meant. I do now, but the writing has long since washed away.

As I wandered around, remembering good times and bad, trying to make sense of what I felt. I looked to the skyline, to the towerblocks of Paddock, and at the flowers growing so beautifully wild in the churchyard. 

I remembered the words of the great, tortured and lost songwriter Doug Hopkins:

The last horizons I can see are filled with bars and factories 
And in them all we fight to stay awake… 
Drink enough of anything to make this world look new again 
Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves 

…

The last horizons I could see are now resigned to memories 
I never thought I’d still be here today… 

It dawned, gradually, that it’s about going away, and returning. Spiritually, I left this place a long, long time ago. I let Walsall go. It’s right, and natural, and what happens to us all. But I never thought I’d still be here.

And once you’ve left, although you can come back, you can’t go there anymore.

Relieved, but hurting, I got back on my bike, and rode home.

March 30th – The vehicle entrance to Shire Oak Park – which was formerly the main access to the quarry, and the route used by rangers to get into the lower are of the reserve – had the gate damaged and/or stolen about 12 months ago. It was never replaced by Waslall Council’s Greenspaces team, instead being haphazardly blocked with three light planks nailed between the gateposts.

A couple of weeks ago, the one remaining plank was smashed by a truck reversing through it, which then proceeded to flytip a large quantity of refuse.

This is the state of the ‘repair’, one good tug and those planks will be off. The previous, broken one still lies cast asunder in the ditch by the fence.

I support the Greenspaces team and have fought their corner many times. But come on, this is piss-poor.

This really needs sorting properly. If it had been fixed properly previously, the council probably wouldn’t have had to pay for the rubbish removal of the previous week, either.

February 16th – As I passed from Elford to Harlaston, I stopped as I usually do, to check out the state of Harlaston ROC post. What I saw saddened me, as it continues to deteriorate.

These odd green surface structures are the visible evidence of a small, 3-man nuclear fallout shelter. Intended to be staffed by a group of volunteers from the local Royal Observer Corps, they were a state secret. Should nuclear conflict have begun, the crew would man this subterranean bunker equipped with basic recording equipment, water and rations, and take measurements of radiation, weather, fallout, bomb damage and soforth. This information would be relayed – if possible – through telegraphy equipment installed within. Posts were sited all over the country, and worked in groups of 3. Others existed locally at Polesworth, Rugeley and Shenstone.

In essence, should the Cold War have begun, three people would have entered this hole in the ground, and if they didn’t perish, they would have carried out their orders whilst waiting to die of radiation sickness. It’s a sobering thought.

The posts – and the Royal Observer Corps – were stood down at the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, and the posts mostly left to rot. Some were preserved by enthusiasts, some bought by cellphone companies – they make great basetation mounts – but the majority were abandoned, and later discovered in the internet age by urban explorers and cold war enthusiasts.

Sadly, the bunkers were left filled with all their equipment – bedding, instruments, lockers, chemical toilets and whatnot – and have mostly now be broken into, stripped and vandalised. Harlaston has been systematically destroyed. The current owner has repeatedly welded the access shaft shut, only to have it continually cut open. When I visited, there we signs of fresh cutting and the hatch was unlocked.

This is a crying shame. This is part of our collective history, destroyed and desecrated by animals with no sense of the historic and social significance.

High on a hill overlooking this northeast outpost of Staffordshire, good folk would have entered this once immaculate shelter to serve us in our time of greatest darkness. Today, it’s trashed.

Scum.

October 2nd – I know I keep banging on about this, but it’s on my mind and I’m seething about it.

This is the original Oak Park in Walsall Wood, on the south east side of the 1970s leisure centre bearing the same name. This park was for decades – and in my living memory – a neat little park with flowerbeds, tennis courts, public bowling green and paved paths. I think there was even a putting green. It stands on land held in charitable trust to be used for the enjoyment of the local residents, created to give miners and their families a lovely open space to take the air and enjoy the greenery.

On this basis, the popular and well-used leisure centre overlooking it was built, and the faithful flock to nearby Walsall Wood FC on match days. Sadly, Walsall Council who are charged with the upkeep of the park have let it slide into decay and ruin.

The flowerbeds are overgrown, the public bowling green floods every winter. Tennis courts locked out of use, the surfaces being reclaimed by weeds. The one manicured trees are overgrown. Walsall Council doesn’t care for this once lovely amenity and would rather we all forget it exists.

To me, this is sticking two fingers up to the memory of those for whom it was created. 

Shame on these who would neglect our civic heritage.

July 7th – Passing through Polesworth I noticed this fine, but decaying building. Not a handsome edifice by any stretch, but impressive, foursquare and imposing all the same. The chimneys alone are gorgeous, never mind the finials, cupola and that incredible door. I had no idea what it was, other than a school, and made a note to find out when I got home.

It turns out it’s the former Nethersoles School, latterly a community centre, and now derelict, awaiting planning to turn it into apartments. The latin above the door – to my broken understanding – says ‘School for paupers and girls’ or similar.

It’s a remarkable thing, and so sad to see i falling to ruin. I hope something can be done with it soon.

April 5th – Oh man, Friday was grim. It had not been a great week, and this day just crowned it. Coming home weary of the wind, exhausted from work and flat from life’s battle, I took solace in leaving Shenstone with the wind behind me. It was getting warmer, and there was just a hint of spring in the air. Pouring myself liquid down the backlanes, I passed Keeper’s Cottage, at Footherley. Gently collapsing into it’s own space, the barn will soon be gone, and I suspect the house will follow. Vadalised, unloved and decaying, this house has been empty for as long as I remember.

It shouldn’t be so. This would make a fine, welcoming family home. It’s a crime to let it just slip away.

October 25th – The Night Market was much better than I expected. There were a good few stalls, decent live music and good street food (if a little pricey). The atmosphere was lovely and it was nice to see Walsall relaxed. The only dark spot was that I could see no shops open, which I find remarkable. Walsall was brimming with punters, looking for other stuff to do once they’d been around. Outside of the immediate market area, the town was lonely and shuttered. A missed opportunity by local shops, the money of these visitors was going out of town to the large companies that had nearby stores open – Asda, Tesco, Macdonalds. Really sad.