I don’t know whether it’s nature or nurture but somewhere
deep within me there’s a Romany spirit. Not in a Big Fat Gypsy Wedding kind of
way, I’m not likely to buy a caravan or aggressively manhandle women in a car
park; it’s more wanderlust.
One thing I’ve learnt about myself over the past few months
is how easily I settle into a routine, and that makes the flighty part of my
brain quite cross, and so I always have that urge to up sticks and see another
part of the world.
I suppose I could have gone backpacking when I was a younger
chap but it didn’t appeal. At the tender age of 17 I’d discovered beer and
girls and the thought of holing up in a bivouac in a desert didn’t seem as
appealing as the new world I was exploring in my own back yard. It’s also not
about just visiting somewhere, but moving lock, stock and barrel somewhere for
a year or two, and to really live somewhere, warts and all.
I can only guess this may have something to do with the fact
that I lived in three places before the age of 12. To a young and expanding
mind this sets out the stall for how you live your life, constantly on the
move. That need for a change of surroundings becomes the routine.
I never really moved that far, but there was always a change
of school involved, and so that created challenges in maintaining friendships
and having a sense of place, but I don’t think it harmed me. If anything it
made me less clingy to one location because my childhood memories were
scattered around.
So, for no good reason I’ve compiled a quick assessment of
Hayward Homes past and present. All the places I lived and the ups and downs.
Or the downs and ups, we’ll see how it pans out.
Calbourne, Isle of Wight
Technically I didn’t live in Calbourne, I lived at a place
called, according to the map, Five Houses, but Calbourne was the nearest
village. There weren’t actually five houses there. There were two and one of
those as I’ve mentioned before was haunted. Also, the place was overrun with
spiders, woodlice and other creepy crawlies, it was a good bike ride to get to
my friends’ houses and there was an Alsatian who used to come and shout at me.
On the plus side however there were fields, and countryside, and so many places
for a young lad to play. Farmers’ fields were just massive play areas and I have
very fond memories of the place. Had I reached my teenage years there it would
have probably driven me insane as there was nothing much to do, unless I was
going to become a farmer, but that didn’t happen, which is a relief as I can’t
milk a cow and the smell of manure turns my stomach, so all to the good.
Nursling, Hampshire
Technically I didn’t live in Nursling either, but again it
was the nearest village. I lived on Foxes Lane. It’s not there anymore; it’s
now a B&Q car park. When I did live there though it was like Calbourne but
with added fun. A motorway had split Nursling in half and we were on the
abandoned side. Next to our house was a steep embankment. This could only mean
one thing; a length of blue string tied to a tree meant that I had a makeshift
abseil rope.
Behind our house there was a patch of what we called ‘the wasteland’
where I used to play with friends. It was a fairly uneven patch of land but the
tour de force was what appeared to be a large crater. Many hours were spent
speculating what may have caused it, a crashed spaceship being our favourite
option, and we’d go searching for the aliens that were obviously now hidden out
in the nearby Industrial Estate.
There was plenty of countryside on our doorstep, and a
railway track, amazing for someone who came from the Isle of Wight. I accept
that there’s a railway line on the Island but not like this one. These were
exciting trains that went to exotic destinations, like ‘that there London’. There
were some horses in a field opposite the house who I used to feed cow parsley
to (not sure if I was supposed to), and there was an abandoned road we
discovered where we could cycle up and down with abandon. Also, when I got older
and braver (about 10) and my parents were out, I could cycle to Redbridge
station and catch a train to Southampton on my own. My parents never knew, and
that’s what made it all the more exciting.
Totton, Hampshire
Totton felt amazing when I arrived there as a tender 11 year
old. It was only a normal town with houses, and streets and shops but I’d never
lived in one before. When I finally left, in my twenties, I realised I’d been
there too long as I’d grown to hate it. Everything about it just seemed to
annoy me, the miserable, ageing shopping precinct, the large Asda dominating
the town centre with the same faces behind the tills that were there when I was
a kid, and the lack of a decent public house, one that wasn’t filled with
aggressive track-suited chavs, all meant that I still to this day slightly resent
visiting it.
It did, however, have its plus points. All my friends were a
stone’s throw away, it’s close to Southampton and public transport links were,
in my day, good. Having a big Asda was actually quite handy, and I was always slightly
impressed by Eling Quay. There’s Totton looking a bit run down and sad, but
walk a couple of streets and there’s Eling with it’s boats and church, and tide
mill, and pubs. It was an incongruous sight, but a very welcome one.
Leicester, Leicestershire
I loved Leicester. On the surface it’s a fairly standard
East Midlands city but it became my home when I chose to go to university there
in the 90s, to the point that my visits home during the holidays became less
and less frequent.
I can’t pinpoint what I loved exactly, maybe it was the convenience
of a city, the freedom to be away from my folks, the many wonderful pubs, the
many friends I made, a lot of whom were residents of that fine city rather than
my fellow students. The only reason I left was because I ended up living on my
own in a grim studio flat after my degree course, flitting between temp jobs,
and I realised I needed to save some money, but it was a wrench and I remained
a very frequent visitor for the next couple of years.
After years of pining for Leicester I recently realised that
the flame has dimmed and it’s been consigned to the back of my mind as being
‘that place I used to live’. Leicester has changed, the pubs I drank in have
closed and, in some cases, bulldozed to make way for the future, and with it my
memories and fondness have faded, just a little.
Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Sheffield was the city I cheated on Leicester with. I made
new friends, drank in new pubs, and rode on the tram system, even once going as
far as Halfway just to see what was there. Not much, as it turned out.
I’m fond of Sheffield and for some reason it felt like a
thrill to live there but I’m a sucker for dramatic views, and my bedroom window
in the attic of an old stone house on a hill meant I could see all across the
city below and all the way up the hill on the other side. It was magnificent.
The atmosphere of the city was always great and of course
Meadowhall is on your doorstep for all your retail opportunities. Myself and
the present Mrs Hayward were tempted to move here after I finished my course,
but she got offered a job near her home in Peterborough and so fate played a
hand in my next move.
Stamford, Lincolnshire
When the (at the time) future Mrs Hayward and I first moved in together it
was in a little house by Stamford railway station. In the brief 18 months or so
we lived there we got married so I have a lot of fond memories of that time. I
also have a memory of streaking naked around the little court of houses we
lived in, so ecstatic was I that Rowetta had been voted out of The X Factor. I
may have had a little bit of alcohol before venturing on this scheme and the
amount of heart attacks I caused to our elderly neighbours is unrecorded.
I still love Stamford, it’s a beautiful looking town and I
would move back there in a heartbeat. The only down side is the cost of houses.
For the same price as our barely two bedroomed house by the station, you could
buy a good sized family house in, somewhere, er, well, like…..
Bourne, Lincolnshire
Ah yes, the hometown of the present Mrs Hayward. Say what
you like about it, and I often do, it’s a nice little town with a couple of
decent pubs and a motor racing heritage that was celebrated the other weekend
with a cavalcade of old cars being driven by the likes of Damon Hill and Sir
Jackie Stewart.
There’s also nothing nicer than driving back home after a
day in ‘that there London’ to the tranquillity of the countryside. I don’t have
to lie in bed at night listening to lorries rumbling past or police sirens or
goods trains loaded up with gravel, the most you hear in the dead of night is
the occasional Owl hooting in the distance. OK, so one night a Fox was outside
screeching and it scared the be’jesus out of me but that’s about it.
The slight downside is the travel. If you want to go
anywhere you have to drive for half an hour before you come to a decent road,
and if you want to catch a train you have to travel back in time to the 1950s
as the line has now long since gone. If you want to catch a bus you can, but
only on every second Tuesday, and then only if the moon is on the wane. Bourne.
You’ll never leave.
So that’s it. That’s where I am. In deepest darkest rural
Lincolnshire. Those itchy feet though, they’re getting itchier, and no amount
of athlete’s foot spray is going to cure that. The Romany in me wants to hitch
up his caravan and move on. Time to stick a pin in a map and see where I end up?
Perhaps, but I suspect that if I suggest leaving Bourne to the present Mrs
Hayward she might just stick a pin in me. Ouch!!
