So I suppose my hometown is Fleetwood. A fishing port situated about seven miles north of Blackpool on the Fylde coast in Lancashire. I recently returned to my hometown for the first time in 18 months. Incidentally, I now live in the north east of England just outside Newcastle-upon-Tyne and moved away from Fleetwood in 1997. Fleetwood, I'm afraid, is the end of the road. It isn't even on the way to anywhere more interesting, unless of course you are mentally ill and consider jumping on a ferry to Knott-End a good idea. Fleetwood used to smell of fish. It doesn't today, and I don't think it does very often any more, (it now smells of shit, due to a massive new sewage farm ~ ed). Like other, once thriving fishing ports it was decimated by the cod wars of the 1970's and of course the infliction of European Union fish quota's contributed to its decline. Fleetwood is unwell. If it were a patient in hospital the consultant would be humanly recommending that it should immediately take a trip to Switzerland and be admitted to the nearest Euthanasia clinic.
I'm not the only one fortunate enough to have the enviable opportunity to have called Fleetwood my home. It's other more notable residents are Jane Couch, the female boxing champion and Sid Little who lives on the outskirts of town (I bet he tells people he lives in Rossall) who is one half of the comedy duo Little and Large (a.k.a 'Fat and Useless' ~ ed.) Comedy? Ha! You must be having larff! Undoubtedly and inaccurate description, but it's how the TV Times used to describe them. I know where he lives. I also know that he's currently appearing in a 'Seaside Special' for the summer in Great Yarmouth. I take this as an open invitation to burgle his house. There is some good news for Sid today. I can't be bothered, maybe some other time. I suppose I can count not breaking in Sid Little's house as my good deed for the day.
Spurred on by my own sense of generosity I decide that's it's time for a long-awaited reunion with the streets of Fleetwood. As I walk past the gloomy terraced housing I realise that I no longer belong here and to my surprise my heart sinks a little. I'm sure there was a time when I did belong. Maybe, I never really did. I turn into Hatfield avenue and plod disconsolately towards the roundabout at West View, half hoping to bump into someone I know, even just a familiar face would do. I don't see either. I hope my friends that have chosen to stay here are happy in their marriages, employment and children and are busily enjoying living their lives. I know that we didn't say we would be friends forever. Suddenly at this moment I wished we had. I have a thousand memories growing up here and I think I'm laughing in nearly everyone of them. You know what they say don't you? If you didn't have a wasted you, you wasted your youth. I can easily admit that I enjoyed wasting my youth here and with the people I wasted it with. As I approach the roundabout more memories of the past come flooding back and I remember the 1990 world cup finals where hundreds of football fans flocked here to celebrate after every English victory, dancing and singing in a good natured fashion around the roundabout. The police promptly arrived every time and began pushing people and before you could say 'heavy handed police tactics' trouble erupted and the police got the arrests they wanted. This memory fades and is quickly replaced by one that makes me laugh out loud. This of course is acceptable whilst in company but never really looks that good when your by yourself. Two girls walking toward me look at me oddly, quickly glancing at each other and move, as one, across the road to safety. It was a Thursday night in the summer of 1988, I was returning home in a taxi after a night at the Palace Discotheque in Blackpool. As we approached Westview I could just make out a solitary figure moving in the distance on the roundabout. I was my mate Jonesy, attempting, to drunkenly recreate the dance moves to 'Y.M.C.A.'
I turn right into Broadway and walk past my old school. Oops no I don't, its been replaced with a pile of rubble. They'll probably be building the usually uninspired houses and black of flats all in the name of progress. Change and decay is all around me. It's not that I have any particular affection for my old school. Perhaps I'm just turning into a grumpy old fucker. I soon arrive at 'Toms Joint' my parents Butchers shop where I lived from 1978 to 1997. my dad still lives there, although the shop is now closed and the exterior has seen much better days, I still have a soft spot for the place. Another memory that makes me smile; my dad (Tom, obviously) once made some fried chicken and displayed it proudly in the shop window accompanied with the advertising slogan - "Tomtucky - better than Ken's". it wasn't long before a representative from Kentucky Fried Chicken turned up threatening legal action and he was forced to remove his sign.
Christ, I'm thirsty. I was on an all day drinking session in Blackpool yesterday and I'm starting to experience waves of nausea again. In need of liquid I enter the newsagents on Poulton Road in search of Lucozade. I momentarily consider dishonestly appropriating the refreshing energy drink. I decide against committing theft and purchase the item. As I'm leaving the shop I hold the door open for a middle-aged woman who is smoking a wearing a pair of pink, fluffy slippers. I give her my best smile, usually reserved only for people I really like. She doesn't smile back, never mind thanking me for holding the door open for her. My heart sinks again and I wander off towards Manor Road and head for the beach, muttering to myself.
I've been dreaming of this moment recently. This is my favourite part of Fleetwood, the boating lake and the impressive ornate hump-back bridge that crosses it. I've been coming here all my life and it's still the same. Maybe that's why I like it here so much. I fantasize that if I still lived here I would walk up here every day and stand on this wonderful bridge. My heart lifted in a buoyant mood I set off for a stroll along the beach. I find a bench to sit on and look out across Morecambe Bay.
Minutes later a man walks past with his dog. "Hello", he says brightly, "Lovely day isn't it ?" I glance up at the battleship grey sky, whilst the wind streams in off the Irish Sea numbing my hands and face and I begin to feel the first splashed of rain. "Ooh yes it's a lovely day", I reply. I know my attempts at sarcasm will be wasted. I consider murdering him. I know I could do it in a split second and I'm sure he knows it too. I generously spare his life and he moves off. I know I have a criminal mind but I lack the essential qualities it requires to commit any of my dastardly ideas. A life of crime is obviously not for me. Pity, so many unfulfilled ambitions…..
A flood of memories engulfs me. It's 1975 and I'm 4 years old and my mum is dropping my sister and I at my cousins house on Macbeth Road. We're watching Tiswas and drinking Vimto. We called it Vimpto for some reason. I still do. It's now 1979, I have a skinhead and a green flight jacket with orange lining. I am also wearing cherry red Dr Marten boots. I know what your thinking; a very cool 8 year old. Unfortunately I'm going to Cub Scouts where it is mandatory to wear shorts so I just look like Forest Gump in his calliper wearing years. 1982 and I've just purchased a grey and burgundy Y-cardigan which I'm going to wear proudly at my first Halloween disco. 1986 playing and watching football all summer. 1989 being sick outside the Steamer pub after three pints of Theakstons Old Peculiar before heading off to Planters. Fast forward to 1997 and I'm leaving Fleetwood , maybe forever. These thoughts of the past drift idly away and are replaced with the image I had 18 months ago when I was last here. I'm in the Conservative Club with my dad. It's mostly full of old men sucking of rolly's and drinking pints of mild, playing snooker, darts and dominoes. Some one opens a door and Club Tropicana by Wham emanates through from the function next door. The Conservative Club is a place where two very different worlds collide. I also notice that slip on shoes with white socks are still not considered a fashion faux par in here. I eventually decide to rise from my comfortable bench to leave Fleetwood. I don't look back as I head for Blackpool to catch my train back to the North east and home.
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