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acquaintance once said to me that it must have been
'incredible' to have spent all of your childhood in one place. I had been
envious of his globetrotting tales of an upbringing with parents always
on the move because of his father's work for the United Nations; he was
envious of the sense of identity and connection with Stamford that
came across in my conversation.
I'll always be a Stamfordian, even though I no longer live there and have made my life elsewhere now: I feel a powerful connection with the town - the Lincolnshire Limestone, the Colleyweston Slate roofs, The River Welland, - in fact all of it: the good and the bad, the new and the ancient. Maybe I can be accused of living in the past and being sentimental etc, but I don't care: Stamford is special.
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I encountered a lot of middle-class values that I didn't understand. But
after a while it dawned on me that we were all a mixture of good and bad
regardless of background.
Ian Drury sings of 'What a Waste' and that is what a lot of teachers told me I was going to make of myself - perhaps I did - perhaps I might have got a better job and loads more money - but most of the time I am happy with the end product. Back to what the teachers told me: I got in with a rebellious crowd and showed a lot of interest in the cultural upheavals of the late 60's early 70's - the hair got longer and the time spent in lessons shorter. I didn't get many O'Levels and I didn't get asked back. We can spend too much time in parallel worlds dreaming of what might have been. Better to go back and call up the realities, thinking of time spent drinking home brew in a fellow pupil's house at lunch-time: sunshine through a crack in the curtains, laughter and cigarette smoke and later in the afternoon the booming voice of one of the masters, 'What is wrong with you boy? You look like you are sleeping!' Those days of Oil Crisis, The Stones and the chances to meet the High School girls at the Uffington Village Hall. |
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 Perhaps time plays tricks, I always imagine that the wild flowers were more numerous than they are today and that the sun was brighter and the sky bluer - perhaps it all is when your memories are forming and you are imploring your mother and aunt and cousins to take you all the way to the third meadows. And
so you return with the eyes of a grown-up but the present day lacks
the colours of your childhood and you walk the river disappointed until,
suddenly you see the briefest flash of a beautiful blue and you have seen
a Kingfisher for the first time - there is still much to discover and maybe
you have to look backwards to see the present day in a new light.
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The roofs of some of Stamford's
earlier council houses blend in rather well with the town's older buildings:
by today's standards the gardens are remarkably generous, there are a lot
of mature trees [although sadly a few have recently been felled]
and grassy spaces. On one side the cemetery separates the Avenue from Lambeth
Walk, at times of trouble this was a no-man's land that separated warring
factions: we invariably lost because the opposition had more teenage youths
and a willingness to take the battles to higher dimensions of violence.
The Cemetery has its share of fine trees too and to our shame we utilised
it as an additional playground. Behind us were fields and allotments separating
us from the Essex Road area: we were very lucky, we had a hugh green arc
to play with that extended behind the cemetery into open countryside until
houses were built up in the Cambridge road area. We
were lucky to have all this on the doorstep: this exposure to green space
and flora and fauna subconsciously nurtured a great respect in me for the
environment - It is appalling to see that so much of the space that we
enjoyed is now covered with houses - houses of the small garden variety.
People breed and have to live somewhere - a shame that you find people living on top of your memories though: where the corrugated tin dens stood and the bacon fried; where No6 and No10 were smoked: where the fortunes of war ebbed and flowed, where parents came to round up their young. Northumberland Avenue was almost a car-free zone thirty years ago: the odd man out was the one with the car. The road belonged to children just as much as the green, bikes, balls and even bows and arrows knew no boundaries. We were badly behaved at times - by the standards of the day extremely badly behaved and we must have caused some people a fair amount of stress and discomfort. The Avenue was seen as a bad place and we were conscious that quite a lot of people in the town were prejudiced against us, the only crumb of comfort was that Lambeth Walk was thought by many to be even worse. At times I was embarrassed by the fact that I lived there. Now in 1998 the Avenue is full of cars and the bad reputation has all but vanished and 'NO BALL GAMES' is the mantra displayed on the greens. |
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| Stamford -Pictures index. | |
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Many of the houses in Stamford
have interesting curves
and shapes - easy on the eyes and mind: a precious heritage that has sadly
vanished from so many places. It can only be good to grow up with this
as a backdrop. Just up the hill from here is Stamford School: I have
good and bad memories but I am grateful: they had more influence on me
than I thought at the time. I got there courtesy of the much maligned 11-Plus
and and then mixed with kids from all sorts of backgrounds. I encountered
Latin and French and played strange sports like Hockey and Cricket.
Initialy I got on quite well but later on I was sometimes a bit silly
and was perhaps rightly be accused of 'throwing away my chances'.