Category: History

They always say never go back. There can be many reasons for that. There are memories, some bad that bring up feelings long buried. Some are golden, having a glow all around them. Things will have changed. Buildings will have been demolished, and new ones will have sprung up in their place. Others will be abandoned and empty. Some will have been repurposed. Those special places of your memories aren’t that pub anymore, they are a restaurant, or a shop, or, as one particularly bad experience showed me, they turn your spiritual home into a damn Sainsbury’s café.

They also say that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Well going back to Leicester had both of these, and on a lot of occasions, both at the same time.

On arrival to the city, the carnage of the roads around the motorway junction and Fosse Park haven’t changed a bit. It’s still a lunatic free for all. Yet further down Narborough Road you get the noticeable changes. The Post House is now a Premier Inn. Jesters, the first nightclub I ever went to is a health centre. That’s the most immediately noticeable thing, the pubs have gone. There has been a vast cull. Outside of the city centre it appears that more than half have gone.

My old house, the only place I have ever owned, is still there. The window lintels still painted in that dark blue that I used to paint them more than twenty years ago. The house is double glazed now. The factory that used to be next door but one is gone, it’s now a three story block of flats instead. The view from the back of the house has changed as well. I used to be able to see the back of the old City ground, the Carling Stand as it used to be. Now I can see a few struts of the new ground. Most of the open land that used to separate the back of my house from the ground has been built on. The space has been filled by numerous multi story blocks of flats. A whole estate has popped up in between.

My grandparents’ house doesn’t look the same. It doesn’t seem as big. The corner shop is gone. Yet that old scruffiness of the few streets around it has stayed the same. They lead down to the river on two sides, and are hemmed in on a third by the old gas works. Nothing looks new here. Close by, the former national velodrome has gone. It is more houses. Unneeded now that newer, indoor locations in Manchester and London have been built for the Commonwealth and Olympic games respectively.

It’s strange to see the new City ground, a stone’s throw from where the old one was. Separated by the old car parks. A few new builds have appeared, but most of the old ground in boarded up wasteland. Though I bet to the residents of Burnmoor Street, it must look like a paradise. They actually have daylight to their rear windows instead of the back of the east stand blocking everything out.

We walk into town, going along Eastern Boulevard to Mill Lane and then through the main campus of De Montfort University. It’s all changed apart from the old admin block and the Hawthorn building, everything else is new. The Fletcher building and the old student union, and the James Went building, along with their paternosters have gone. Brand new buildings in place, and De Montfort University seem to own all of the Newarkes now.

I knew that the spire to St Mary de Castro had been taken down, but turning to look through and over Rupert’s Gate to see a low tower is still a bitter disappointment. Through the castle yard and out the other side to where the townhouses I always wanted to live in are still there. Still a pipedream. Roger Wyggston’s house is now a restaurant and bar, the costume museum is gone. The Guildhall still looks the same, inside as well as we find out a couple of days later, and the Cathedral sits next to it. Risen in importance since they found Richard III’s body and reinterred it here, but it pales into insignificance compared with the multiple grandiose Cathedral buildings we will visit later on the trip. There really is no comparison between a medieval parish church raised to cathedral status, and one built as such.

The Globe is still the same, and O’Neill’s is as I remember. We can’t get into Bruxelles to relive memories of the Dome, due to bladder man being in shorts and boat shoes. Tony and Chris haven’t changed much apart from hair colour. Friendships picked up again after such a break. Bouncing around pubs is good and we part after arranging to meet up to watch England on the Monday night.

A day walking the river and canal follows. They’ve let nature take over a lot. Trees are bigger, foliage is denser. Buildings have gone, and not all have been replaced. The council have finally realised what a historic city they have, and information boards and signs have sprung up all over the place. Still no explanation for the brick wall with the big hole that sits by West Bridge though.

Abbey Park is the same, but it seems smaller somehow, as if I have grown. In fact most of the walk from Raw Dykes to Watermead seems shorter now. New builds appear on Wolsey Island; only the chimney survives from the building that used to be there. The little wharf that we hired a mini barge for my twenty-first birthday is now trees and reeds. New ugly houses and flats stand back from the road. The National Space Centre is now here, next to the old Museum of Technology in the Abbey Pumping House.

And then the school is gone. Where Ellis stood, running down to the river, it is now meadows. It is the learning establishments that seem to have changed the most. De Montfort University is unrecognisable from the Leicester Polytechnic it was when I went to it. Ellis is gone completely, Rushey Mead and Soar Valley are completely rebuilt and re-sited, and sturdy, high metal fences protect them from casual passers-by. They no longer merge with the Rushey Fields. They are now their own enclaves. English Martyrs looks different up on its hill and Babington seems to have moved and expanded.

The church still remains on the corner of Peebles Way and Gleneagles Avenue. It has lost the ‘Of Good Counsel’ and is ‘Our Lady’ only now, but it looks exactly the same as it did for all the years I was an altar boy there, and as it did when I was married there.

The next day we do the New Walk, this seems shorter than my memory suggested as well. It is as if a section is missing, but there is no missing the monstrosities the council allowed in the post war years until the seventies. The market has shrunk and looks less vibrant, but Walker’s is still there, still doing amazing pies, and a proper crusty soft cob. Why can’t anywhere else in the country manage to make them like this?

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We leave Leicester via an indirect route, making our way around the city until we hit the A6 north, sticking to the old road, not the new bypass, so we can go through all the villages on the way up to Loughborough. Then past Kegworth and the data centre I used to work at for eighteen months. Eighteen months of a torturous minibus journey to commute there, only for me to pass my driving test two days after moving to an office back in Leicester that was a ten minute walk from my house.

Then it was on to Sheffield. A part of the journey I didn’t mention on social media. You never know who is watching and monitoring it. I spent a lot of time there fearful of a hand on the shoulder, or a shout of ‘oi you, Kev’ and a confrontation with the ex-wife’s family. I played snooker for the first time in years, and we did our first ever stay at an Air B’n’B. It wasn’t bad, but a weird sensation of sleeping in a stranger’s house.

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We carried on up to mums, over Snake Pass and a relaxing evening. Heysham village for dinner and a recharge before a day trip to Carlisle. It was nicer than I had expected. The castle was good, more complete than the typical English Heritage ruin. The Cathedral dwarfed Leicester’s, and there were plenty of nice buildings in the city, and the people were so friendly. The journey to and from Carlisle ran between the edge of the Lake District to the West and the Pennines to the east. It was a windy drive, but spectacular views, although the motorway is light on traffic, it’s a difficult drive.

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It’s funny how your eyes and mind play tricks on you, making you see things that aren’t there, because of connections they make. The toiletries in the hotel were all branded. A brand I hadn’t heard of before, Acca Kappa. Now if that doesn’t sound Greek, I don’t know what does. So when I looked at the name of the soap it seemed quite reasonable to me that the name of it would be Greek Mandarin. That triggered thoughts of indecipherable conversations. Not only would it be all Greek to me, but with an added layer of Chinese translation. Then I thought it must be a particular species of Mandarin, one that came from Greece, not that orange growing sprang to mind when thinking of Greece, even if they do have the climate for it. It was only the fifth or sixth time of reading the packet that I saw it was actually Green Mandarin. Was that a newbie studying Chinese for the first time? No, the smell of the soap was definitely orange. Of course, green oranges made as much sense as anything else that had popped into my mind. Not that any of that stopped me from going through the same thought processes when I looked at the box the next morning.

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It was a large bed with two long large fluffy pillows each. They seemed great at first, when they were being used to prop you up for lounging around watching the telly. Personally I think that between that lounging in the afternoon and going to bed at night someone had switched them. Trying to sleep on them was horrendous. They then acted as if they had turned into bean bags that had had seventy percent of the beans removed. Trying to find a comfortable position on them was nigh on impossible. On my side at the edge of the pillows meant all the stuffing disappeared and my head was flat on the bed with my head at a funny angle like some kind of deformed goblin. Lying on my back wasn’t an improvement. When my head hit the pillows it sank through and both ends curled over inwards and tried to suffocate me. After a while of frustrated tossing and turning, one of them ended up on the floor and the other got folded in half before I could finally get to sleep.

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How to cause chaos in one easy motion? It’s a piece of cake, just wave a twenty pound note as payment in a pub. They obviously must be used to everyone using cards to pay, as they had to go and get a cash drawer to put in to the till. And then go and find some cash to put in to the cash drawer. Ten minutes that took them, we’d had quite a bit of our drinks before we got round to actually paying.

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Some people just can’t be happy. There we were, walking along a picturesque street in Ripon, one that didn’t allow motor vehicles down it. We had arrived in Ripon as the second stop of the day, having left Durham after breakfast. We had stopped at Richmond Castle in glorious sunshine. I was melting due to the gloriousness of the sunny day, and since getting of the car in Ripon’s market square I had been staying in the shadows, keeping the fiery glare of the sun off of me and relishing the slight breeze than ran down the ancient cobbled streets. We were approaching the cathedral, the reason for our stop here. The street was flying bunting across the road. It made a lovely foreground to the imposing entrance to the cathedral beyond. I had stopped to take a photo. As I did so an older man, with grey hair and a tidy grey beard, wearing glasses, passed us by muttering. As he continued on his way on the sunny side of the street with a frown on his face, the light breeze carried his muttered words to us. ‘Fucking tourists’. And off he went muttering at anyone else he didn’t consider to be a local. The fact that England were leading 5-0 at half time couldn’t even put a spring in his step. At least everyone else we met was friendly, and the cathedral was great, and it was nice and cool inside. The obligatory guide book, fridge magnet and pen were obtained, and we even got an ice cream before heading to Harrogate and our next overnight stay.

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Harrogate is an old Victorian spa town, full of old Victorian stone and red brick buildings of all shapes and sizes, with large green spaces in the middle. It is the model of what a sedate Victorian town should be. Only no one appears to have told the local residents of today that fact. Having got there late on a Sunday afternoon, we weren’t expecting it to be the liveliest of places. Especially after most of Ripon had started closing at three. Most of the towns restaurants were closing at nine, and by the time we had ventured out they were full of drunken England fans trying to cram some food in before they all closed.

We found a place on the edge of the town centre, where we were served by what appeared to be a twelve year old boy. As we sat outside enjoying the warm evening air another twelve year old boy strutted over in his best pimp impression flicking the collars of his Fila tracksuit top as he did so. But his pimp walk came to a halt as his mother screeched at him to wait at the car and then he had to cram himself into the rear seats. A man with a Salvador Dali moustache sat playing gooseberry on the table in front of us, spouting shite as he tried to ruin the couple’s conversation.

We moved on, admiring the buildings and to find the next drinking location, stepping past the ambulance and police car amongst the broken glass to end up facing a choice of an identikit Pitcher & Piano or a local opposite. Hundreds of drunken England fans or two men and a dog? No choice really. After a quick drink we strolled across one of the green spaces towards some seventies monstrosities sat amongst the other buildings, outside one sat a brand new Bentley. However its owner must have had more money than sense as it was a dreadful pea green colour. The next pub choice was similar to the one before, identikit Slug & Lettuce with drunken England fans, or the Montpelier.

As we sat outside the Montpelier having our drink, one of the England fans wanders down the road past us carrying two something and cokes. He ducks into a shop doorway as if to use the facilities, only to come back out with one arm down his shorts as if he was still trying to find it. The look on the face of the old woman who passed him at the time would have turned him to stone in mythical days. Meanwhile a threesome pulled up and abandoned their car nearby and ran frantically from bar to bar trying to find food before diving back into the car to carry on their search. Just before we were leaving an old man in what appeared to be Ugg wellingtons took his dog across the road, shouted at it to pee and then brought it back into the pub.

We headed off in the almost dark night, drawn towards the largest and most spectacular looking building, only to find it was the Wetherspoons. After a five minute walk to get out the other end we magically found ourselves back on the road to our hotel where we finished off with night caps.

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After being unable to check in because we are too early, we nip into a pie and pasty shop for a spot of lunch as there are two tables available out in the sunlit pedestrianised street. By the time we had got food and outside, some old bids had taken one table, but snaffled all the chairs but one for people who hadn’t arrived yet, and they hadn’t been in to buy anything. Despite the fact we said we’d be quick and that we were there before them and had hot food on plates waiting to be eaten, they were stubbornly reluctant to release one of their snaffled chairs. We took one anyway and were finished before the final member of their party turned up. They were just left with a parting shot ringing in their ears.

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So, after climbing Steep Hill, not really a street name, more a description, we find that the Cathedral is closed for the first day since 2006 (as the helpful tourist information office guide told us). It was because there was filming taking place there for some Netflix random historical drama series about one of the Henry’s that was being produced and directed by Brad Pitt. We weren’t having much luck in getting into historical monuments at the top of hills this week, after Durham Castle was closed to tours due to the RAF centenary celebrations there on the Saturday.

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Norwich Castle Mall. Where no one knows where the hell they are. You go into the car park, well you do when you find it in the signpost free centre. One way systems that only appear when you find out the lane you travelled down the night before on the bus happens to be for buses and taxis only. Then none of the junctions tell you anything. Inside the car park there is no indication of how to get from the car to pedestrian exits. After a lap of the car park we find a door with stairs and a lift up to the mall behind it. Once in the mall, the plan doesn’t show exits to the outside world, and we have to guess the level and direction of our escape. Then once outside there are no maps to the castle and the tourist map picked up from the hotel shows none of the street names that we can see around us.

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Bury St Edmunds, lovely place, but almost impossible to escape from. Why? Because they put random locations on their traffic signs at each roundabout, and then a totally different set of details on the next roundabout. One had signs for Newmarket and the A14, and the next had no mention of either. In any fucking direction. All three ways indicated places that we had already come from. It took ages to escape.

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Google maps. You are without a shadow of a doubt the biggest crock of fucking shit known to man. Where you indicate that there is a junction, roads should actually meet there. It shouldn’t mean that the road we need to get onto actually passes over the road we are on via a fucking flyover. You occasionally put direction arrows on roads to indicate they are one way streets. How about the novel idea of putting arrows on all one way streets instead of just randomly selecting ones that might have? And whilst you are at it, trying getting the arrows to point the right fucking way you utter fuckwits.

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If you can drive and need money, then get yourself to Cambridge and get a taxi driver’s job. You’ll have enough to buy a house and a gold plated Rolls-Royce within months. They start their late night tariff at 7PM, they charge idling time whilst at traffic lights, and the start of the journey only covers 90 yards instead of the standard 170 for increments. All laid out by the council to make them the biggest trip-off merchants in the city. And there is fierce competition for that let me tell you.

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An obviously homeless man is chuntering aggressively to himself and the world in general before he approaches us to ask for money for a cup of tea (whilst carrying and drinking from a can of super strength lager). When told no he starts going off on one and I say ‘fuck off’. He gets louder as he walks away and even Helen has enough and turns to scream at him to shut the fuck up.

Moments later an arrogant tosser looking at his phone nearly walks into her and then stands there refusing to get out of the way, as if he owns the pavement, and it isn’t him that wasn’t looking where he was going. Fuckwit.

But then the journey back to the hotel on the bus showed that not all Cambridge residents are total scum. After confusion over which Sainsbury’s we needed to bus to get to, the driver lets us stay on the extra stops, and a lovely old West Indian woman helps us to get off at the right stop to get the other bus that drops us off near the hotel.

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The hotel itself is infested. They are everywhere. They appear in little groups. They appear to come out of every orifice in the building. They all congregate in the dining area hoping to get some crumbs of the pizzas that have been brought out. They have scurried past us sat in the bar area, glaring at us with their beady little eyes, chattering away amongst themselves in undecipherable sounds. We ask at reception if they will be there at breakfast and if so from what time. We are told that the bus load of Spanish schoolchildren are due to be down for breakfast at nine. Best get up early to avoid the rush though.

Not that it did us much good, they started appearing from half eight, running around with plates that contained croissants and Nutella, or bowls full of Coco-pops, before running off to the grounds to arm themselves with sticks. We went and hid in our room until their coach had gone away before heading out for our final day of the tour.

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It had been a marvellous twelve days. We managed to get to look around at least part of thirteen towns and cities. We saw or visited eleven cathedrals, seven castles, and hundreds of other historic, medieval or ancient buildings. We had Italian, American, East African, English, Turkish, French, Indian, and Mexican food. We drove over a thousand miles through twenty six counties and saw and did things that we hadn’t before. Back in Crawley it was a trip to the tip and a supermarket. Talk about coming back down to earth with a bump.