Woke up early so went for a walk round Loughborough to see if I could see anything I remembered. I headed up Leicester Road, but not much was coming back to me. From memory I thought Loughborough college was on my road and some way away from the house, but if that was the case, it's not true any more. There's a school there now, but the main building was familiar (though much closer to our old house than I thought- opposite in fact). I could see the petrol station as I got to the higher numbers in the road and was anticipating the worst, but in fact number 160 was still there and it was faintly familiar (but not strikingly so). 158 where Clare and Esther had lived looked like a new build. I couldn't see the back garden or whether the fence was still there, or if anyone had repaired the gap in the last four decades. The drive was full of cars and I could see someone in the living room inside (MY living room, the one where I had entertained my mum and my Nannan with a finger puppet show) and whilst I wanted to get a photo I didn't want to freak them out, so I quickly snapped the house and moved on.
Not much of the street matched my memory at all. There had been a temporary bus stop outside our house in the old days and I remember once when I had badgered my mum into getting the bus up the shortish road rather than walk it, because I was tired and then the driver had failed to recognise the temporary stop and taken us up the road to the next one, so we had to walk back anyway. I cried at the terrible Captain Scott ordeal I had been put through. On another occasion when waiting for a bus further into town I remember a lorry stopping and asking my mum if she wanted a lift. My mum gave a prim and sharp "No" to the suggestion and even though I was too young to understand what was going on, I remember noticing the oddness of the situation. My mum clearly felt a bit threatened by the lascivious men. I can't imagine that ever worked as a tactic or what kind of a mother would actually have accepted the lift. But it has stuck in my mind and came back to me today.
I also recalled the day that, aged 5, I announced that I was running away from home. I might have packed a little hanky of possessions on the end of a stick, like Dick Whittington, but probably not. I remember thinking that was the thing that was expected of me, but it seems like an inefficient way to transport stuff now I think of it.
I felt like I had gone quite some way from the house, but in reality I think I was only feet away. I looked back expecting my mum to be coming after me to stop me leaving. But she wasn't there. I was scared and my mum had correctly concluded that I would come back under my own volition. It had been an empty threat. I couldn't possibly have fitted enough into a hanky to keep me going.
But although it was slightly eerie to be back outside the house that was once my home it didn't bring a flood of memories. I had passed a park on the way there and vaguely remember running around on an overgrown mound of earth with bushes and high grass on it. There was a mound there, but it was now no longer a good hiding place. The world is more conscious of paedophiles now and maybe didn't want to give them somewhere to lurk.
Just before we left the town I had had an early 9th birthday party with a few of my school friends and we had played cricket in that park. My dad was the umpire. The birthday boy had just got into bat and lobbed a shot high over his schoolmates, but not over his dad, who reached up and caught the ball, declaring me out. I protested that he was the umpire and couldn't do that, but he insisted that of course he could. I didn't think it was very fair. I still don't thinking about it. He was the umpire. It was my birthday. I suspect more tears fell, but maybe my dad was teaching me a lesson about how he was the boss, or deliberately giving me an incident to resent so that in the future I could base a comedy show around it.
I also remembered getting bought some of those Cadbury chocolate biscuits from the corner shop and in my mind that shop was half a mile from my house, but it was only a matter of yards. But I was smaller back then (marginally) and so distances would have seemed further. Was there a petrol station on the opposite corner back then? I don't rememeber.
I do recall that the Ladybird book factory was just behind our house, and I found that exciting that the first books I read were printed so close to my home - a bit like a more swotty, goody-goody Charlie Bucket's excitement about living by a chocolate factory. I went to see the factory - I don't think it makes Ladybird books any more. But I took a photo anyway.
I spent a little time in the town and then headed over to Leicester to kill some time, drinking coffee and going to see the film Bridesmaids. My gig went well and then I headed home, confident I'd be be back with my girlfriend by 1am. We planned to have some champagne to celebrate the almost completion of my script and I was hungry and looking forward to eating a bagel. But just as midnight approached I hit a terrible traffic jam, which is not what you expect this late and night. But as that technically mainly happened after midnight, that's perhaps a story for tomorrow. Unless I decide it's a bit boring. Which I probably will. In which case I didn't get home to my bagel until after 3.
