August 20th – I had to pop into Walsall for some bits and pieces on my way home, and so I rode up Church Hill and down the marketplace.
Walsall may have changed beyond recognition in many ways, but that view of the yellow sandstone church at the top of the steps is gorgeous, iconic and unique.
Some things are timeless.
August 14th – I found myself back in Walsall at dusk, having been on a mad dash to Sutton. Finally relaxed and happy, I enjoyed the evening light and a peaceful ride home with the wind assisting me.
Some days are just frantic from start to finish. But it’s nice to feel a very hectic period come to an end. Oh for a few days off and a bit of blessed normalcy.
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.
April 4th – I broke free after lunch and had time to kill in Walsall. It wasn’t a particularly bright afternoon, but I headed up to the church and memorial gardens as I hadn’t been up there in a long while. The Memorial Gardens were as I remembered them; quiet, peaceful, solitary and beautiful. Slightly down-at-heel, but no less beautiful for it, the flowers there are just kicking off. I have great memories of this little-known spot, but while I was here, it occurred to me that somewhere in the intervening years between my discovery of this wonderful place and the present here and now, that either Walsall had lost me, or I had lost Walsall.
These places, these streets, used to feel like mine. I used to haunt them. I knew them well, the shops, pubs, cafes. Today, although I pass through regularly, I don’t know any of it anymore. I still get the geography. But I’ve lost the sense of belonging.
The horizon I could see from here today over the dull, overcast town was the same horizon, but changed, I saw three decades ago. But somewhere, inbetween that place and this, I exchanged that whole wide world for other horizons.
I wept a bit. But you can’t go back; I can no longer class this place as mine. But there are other places, and this will always, always be a part of me.
For better, or for worse.
December 10th – If I’ve got time, when cycling to Darlaston, I like to hop onto the canal. It’s a quieter, more interesting and contemplative route, and depending how much time I have dictates where I join the towpath. Today, I was running a bit tight for time so I left it until Bridgman Street, in the industrial centre of Walsall. This is an area of small units, some old, some very new. About ten years ago, it seemed the industry here was threatened with encroaching apartments and gentrification, but the credit crunch saw to that.It’s generally a thriving, humming area with frantic commerce of the daytime being replaced by an eerie desolateness at night.
The view from the canal bridge is quite good, if not beautiful, showing many of the architectural and development phases of Walsall. Interesting to note that you can now see St. Matthew’s Church from here, a sight impossible until the BOAK building burnt down last year.
July 4th – I returned to Walsall during a glorious golden hour. The town was largely deserted, and I cycled through an empty marketplace. St. Matthews, up on the hill, looked as imperious as ever, but despite the demolition of the hated Overstrand, the view of the grand old lady of Walsall is still wrecked by far inferior architecture. But get close, and she still beguiles…
June 30th – Up on Barr Beacon for the Bands on the Beacon gig, it was a bit grey when I left. The view from up there is still remarkable, tough, and presents a great panorama not just of Walsall, but most of the Black Country. great to see St. Matthews still so prominent in a landscape of modern high-rise buildings, and also pleasing to note the greenery in a formerly very urban environment.
May 10th – Later on, back in Walsall thanks to the Sultan’s Magic Carpet that is London Midland, I cycled up Church Hill and over into Chuckery. St. Matthews was looking fine in the evening light, but the top of the market looks shabby and unloved. I still can’t get used to the architectural insensitivity of the Asda shed built nearby. A complete contrast to the fine building I passed on the corner of Bernard Street and Sutton Road. It’s one of those I’ve been passing on and off for years, but never really stopped to study. What a remarkable building, of which I know absolutely nothing. Do any readers have any information? I just love the ‘tower’…
August 28th – Afternoon saw me again investigating national cycle route five, cycling into Walsall to see what the marketplace looked like without the Overstrand, then down through the Sandwell Valley and onto the canals through Brum. For a lark, thought I’d try my hand cycling up the treacherous cobbles of Church Hill to St. Matthews. Hardly Paris – Roubaix, but I was fairly pleased with myself…
August 12th – Walsall has many surprising corners and features that surprise the unwary. Like Wednesbury, it’s central focus is a considerable hill, in Walsall’s case topped by a single, handsome church with a dramatic, imposing approach from the street below. St. Matthews itself is a gorgeous building, to which I will return, but it’s a dramatic symbol of Walsall. Soon, it’s view from the town below will be restored following the demolition of the despised Overstrand Restaurant.
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