Yesterday, waking at the crack of dawn and with Mrs F-C away, I decided to go on a road trip.So leaving the house at 8am I bombed down to my old stomping ground, Southampton. I spent my uni days there, three years from 1984 to 1987. I haven't been back for at least 15 years and I was looking forward to revisiting all those old haunts, seeing those student digs and taking a look around the town as my specially prepared CD containing songs from the period transported me back to a time where there was nothing to concern you but where your album was coming from.
I was excited and as I entered the city - and yes I did have Barracuda, the fast theme from Howards' Way playing at full pelt - it all came flooding back. Or rather it didn't. Everything had changed. Oh dear.
*needle scratches across record which comes to an abrupt end*
If I'm honest I was shocked. What a bleedin' dump. I'm all for progress but it's like someone's being playing with Lego and just built wherever. As I zigzagged the city in search of memories there was hardly a thing the same. It's a jumble of Jurys Inns, flats where favourite watering holes once stood and discount superstores - and they've moved the entire city centre out of town.
So much of it has been knocked down and built over it was a miracle I managed to find my way around. What really struck me was how garish everything seemed. All shop fronts had ghastly in-your-facias wherever you looked. It all looked horribly cheap.
And as for those student houses - what once seemed rather roomy, almost elegant Victorian houses were now complete hovels. And the grafitti! I don't even think it had been invented back then.
I suppose in those days you made your home where you were, and having been a boarder I had no problem with just making the best of things. Standards and lifestyles have changed of course, and what you would have put up with back then is unimaginable now. But I don't remember it being THAT bad.
Despite all that, it was interesting and it was nostalgic - evocative street names and routes to friends' houses and pubs, etc all came flooding back. It was all rather Proustian. But it's sad to see so many memories flattened. Best not to think to hard about it. You can never go back.
