A few days in Colchester

Apr 03, 2009 22:33

I spent the day today in and around Colchester, the town where I was born and where I grew up. My mum still lives here, and I've been visiting her too. Parts of the town are unchanged from how I remember it in the 1970s, while other parts are unrecognisable.

I made my usual pilgrimage to Jack's Famous Supplies, a place where my father and I went to buy cheap tools and hardware for as long as I can remember. They have changed, though; they now know how to spell "pliers" after decades of advertising "plyers" in the shop window. I saw the new block of flats built on the site of the house where my mum grew up, and found that the name stone of the house, Diamond Place, was displayed in the wall of the new bulding. I made a trip to Hythe Hill and saw the demolished remains of Paxman Diesels where my dad worked for his entire career. On East Hill I found the house where my great-grandfather had his watch and clock-making business, a house that I had passed by hundreds of times during my childhood without knowing its connection to my mum's family. If only I had enough time to make a proper search of the old trade directories in Colchester library, and maybe find a reference to that business or to my grandfather's fish shop on Crouch Street. And I just couldn't resist calling in at the Oxfam bookshop, where I found "Adventures With Electronics", a 1978 book of build-it-yourself circuits with not an IC or LED in sight.

This evening I had a sweet and sour chicken from the same Chinese take-away that I used to go to in the late 1980s when I still lived in Colchester. Tomorrow or Sunday I hope to meet up with a cousin who I haven't seen since I was about eight years old, and who appears in my christening photo as a little girl. I may also have time to find my grandparents' graves in the cemetery, although that will depend on locating their names in the index.

colchester

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