The Knights in White Denim Tour -AKA The White Trash Tour…
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Ok…..so beginning my tour of my home town. I'm going to take you on a walk from my front door, into the centre of the place I lovingly refer to as "the biggest shit hole in England", my home town of Mansfield.
This is Casa Del Tron, also known as Tron Towers, otherwise known as a modest Semi Detached house, on a modest street, in a modest part of town. Our street is far from posh, but it is quiet, our neighbours are pleasant, and we are close to the Police station (handy in this town). Our house was built in 1939, and is a pretty solid construction, like most buildings in Mansfield it is built on a Sandstone foundation.
This is a view from the end of the street, looking up towards our house. What I like about this is that the end of the street onto the main road is quite scruffy, which tends to put off the criminals. The street gets much nicer the further up you go, and thankfully we live at the "nice" end.
This flag flies above a local builders merchants, on main road near to where we live. I just thought it was a nice image, and proof that we are actually in England, unlike most other countries you won't find many Union Jack flags flying in England, patriotism is a dirty word to some of my countymen and has been tinged by the right wing political parties.
This is closest "pub" to my house, and I have never set foot in it. Apparently it is a little rough, but is notable for two things, firstly the building itself is full of character and like most of the older buildings in Mansfield it is build from the sandstone which the town sits on, sandstone quarries were one of the major industries of the town in times gone by, along with coal mining and textiles. Secondly, it is the favoured drinking establishment of one of the richest men in England, Mike Ashley, owner of the Sports Direct chain of shops and of my favourite football team Newcastle United. The head office of Sports Direct is a couple of miles away in Shirebrook, and Mr Ashley is a personal friend of the local
gangsterbusinessman who owns and operates this and many other local pubs.
This innocuous little shop is where Pam and I acquire all the tools and materials we require to make our home made wine, which as Giles, Paula and Beatle can attest is quite good really. The man who owns the shop we nick name "snaggle tooth", as he only has one tooth at the front, and I am sure that he is permanently drunk, especially as he offers a "try before you buy" policy on all his home brewed spirits kits.
Further along the main road we have our local Indian Restaurant, this is fairly unremarkable apart from it leads me to this odd bit of Mansfield trivia. For such a backwards, cesspit, provincial, nothing town we have quite a large collection of really good restaurants. We have a Thai restaurant, which makes the best Thai food I have ever eaten, earlier in the year we took Beatle there when she came to visit, and she agreed. I think this is mainly due to the unusually high population of Thai's and Indians in Mansfield, and I have no idea why that is.
This next building is of particular interest for me, because I want to buy it. This building is the Town Mill, it was built in the 1800's, and was a fully working Mill, which then was converted into a pub, and one of the best live venues in the Midlands, right until the fuckwit who ran it managed to run it into the ground.
It was where I spent most of teen years drunk out of my head, and listening to some great live bands, such as Jamie T, INME, Wheatus, The Levellers, The Bluetones, B-Movie, Dr Feelgood, The Futureheads, The Wildhearts, UK Subs, The Damned, Does It Offend You, Yeah?, Hadouken! The Wombats, The Species, RockMelon and Battlecat!
It is situated right on the edge of the town centre, and is becoming increasingly run down the longer it is closed. I dream of being able to reopen it, and bring a great live venue back to Mansfield/ the East Midlands. I would love to rename it "The Iron Heart"
This is the view facing back up the main road, and towards the turn off to my street from outside the Town Mill. Not particularly inspiring.
This is the site of my very first job. Part of my family used to own this shop when it was "Mansfield Gas and Electrical Supplies", I worked here as a teenager cleaning down second hand gas cookers, and helping with deliveries. Carrying a large stove up 12 flights of stairs to a top floor flat is quite a work out. My family sold the business, and some of them moved to Spain for a better life, the people who bought the business didn't do quite as well.
Along the same road are two other buildings made from our local Sandstone. The first is a Methodist Church, the second is a local solicitors.
This is our local "alternative" shop, where the local emo kids can feel cool that they bought some Vans and a Foo Fighters tee shirt. They also sell bongs and smoke pipes for those who participate in the areas real "growth" industry.
As part of a regeneration project a few years ago, the local council took all our tax money, and spent it on various staues and art projects around the town, this was like reading Chaucer to Badgers….absolutely pointless. This particular art/ statue is meant to represent the "typical" Mansfield man, no-one here looks like this or ever has.
Another of our local drinking establishments, the front is quite pleasant, the inside is neon, with loud chart music and people in their 60's trying to look like people in their 20's. A man died in here of a heart attack on the dancefloor just last night, and I'm surprised that anyone noticed.
A view back down the street from outside the above drinking establishment, and facing the statue.
Another of my former jobs was as a barman in this local pub. At the time that I worked here it was an Irish bar known as O'neills, and it was here that I first met my darling wife. She was my replacement here after I had been fired for smoking in the disabled toilet instead of working. My first words to her, after her being introduced as my relplacement were "you're too short, and you're a woman, you'll never replace me"…in my defence I was really, really drunk. The rest is a love story
The view back down the street, from being stood outside our local main Post Office. For anyone who has ever bought anything from me, this is where your packages journey began….good to see the magic isn't it?
The following pictures are of our engineering masterpiece, the local viaduct, which carries the train line through town, and onto Nottingham. I think it is actually quite nice, but please note that our council (eager to spend their budget to justify an increase for next year) has put up the Christmas lights already :-\
The old Town Hall, now only used ceremonially, such as when we have Rebecca Adlingtons (olympic swimming medalist) welcome home party etc… It has been replaced by an "out of town" modern monstrosity built to resemble a Chinese pagoda, but in fact resembling a fine example of British bureaucratic architecture from the early 90's.
And finally we arrive, I will let the pictures do most of the talking. Mansfield is marketed to tourists as a "charming market town", apart from the fact that the local council killed the market by charging the stall holders to death, they then raised the rents on all the town centre shops in an effort to "decentralise" the town. We are now swarmed by American style "strip malls", all carrying the same shops and brands, such is life in middle England.
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Mega I think that is my favorite start to a tour leg of all time. Great job!
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Thanks Guys, tomorrow I will continue in a similar vein with more local sights of personal and broad interest.
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Thanks Guys, tomorrow I will continue in a similar vein with more local sights of personal and broad interest.
Looking forward to it. Excellent post mega!
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Ok, so part 2 of me avoiding death by beating for the crime of walking around Mansfield in White Jeans.
This morning Pam took Tom to the cinema, which gave me ideal opportunity to have a walk around my local area, and retrace some steps to my younger days.
Here's me about to set off on the walking tour of yesteryear….
This time I walked the other way, away from the town centre, and back towards the area I grew up in. From where I live now this is approximately a 30 minute walk.
This is a road known as Littleworth, so called because the land here was basically a swamp, or Peat Bog, and was therefor declared of "Little Worth". The piece of waste land/ pile of rubble you can see here used to be a pub called "Ye Olde Ram Inne", and was rubish and rightly demolished.
Opposite is the street which leads to King Edwards Primary School, this is where my Grandfather went to school in the 20's, my father in the 50's, me in the 80's, and now Tommy goes here too. It was built in 1839, and is a fine example of what a typical old English school looks like.
Across the road from Toms school is a fairly unremarkable house, only notable as the place in which I lost my virginity
The girl's name was Kelly, she went on to play rugby for Cambridge University, and is now a Veterinary surgeon in Africa. To complete this extremely personal confession, the deed was done in my friends, mothers wardrobe.
And after those lurid details, more pictures of Tommys school
[img width=640 height=640]http://i591.photobucket.com/albums/ss360/emporergav01/IMG_1921-1.jpg
This is the site of the former Mansfield Brewery, this used to be the towns major employer and Mansfield Bitter was an award winning beer sold up and down the county. At its peak of fame in the 80's it was advertised nationally on television by Jeremy Clarkson (of Top Gear fame) using the slogan "Not much matches Mansfield". The brewery was sold to a competitor around 11 years ago, who moved production of Mansfield Bitter out of the town, and then discontinued its production.
This is a section of the river Maun, which flows through the centre of town, and gave Mansfield its former name, and the name by which it is know in the Domesday book census of 1086, Maunsfield. The river used to run strong, and power local mills, now it is nothing more than a stream really.
This is the Army barracks of the local TA (Territorial Army), which is similar to the American National Guard I guess.
Here we come onto a park where I spent a fair portion of my childhood, Titchfield Park. This is one of the nicer parks in Mansfield, and host open air concerts in the summer months. When I was a child it was much scruffier, but we loved it anyway, there used to be an old WWII tank in the middle of the park for kids to climb all over.
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This is St Marks church, it is where my mother and father were married, it is where Pam and I were married, and it is where both my parents funeral services, and Tommys Christening were held. I am far from a religious man, but this building has a long history with my family, both good and bad.
Next we come to the "One Call Stadium", formerly known simply as Field Mill, and home to our local football (soccer) team, Mansfield Town FC, also known as "The Stags". Mansfield Towns sporting history has wavered between awful, and utterly hopeless, currently they occupy the latter as they have fallen out of the professional football league, and into the part time obscurity of the Blue Square Premier League. I have been to watch the Stags on a few occasions, but would not call myself a fan in the least, life has enough hopeless causes without adding to them.
This is the view down the main road to Nottingham, imaginatively called "Nottingham Road". This is the area which I grew up in, and now looks completely different to how it did when I was a child.
The Talbot Inn used to be my local watering hole, and I used to occupy this place most nights of the week in my late teens/ early 20's. My next confession involves my secret escape route out of the back of this pub, and through a hole in the fence in the car park, I used this escape route twice in my younger days when a date I was on was not going well, not something I'm proud of, but cowardice from an angry female is something most guys can relate to at some point in their life.
This is Gedling Street, the street on which I lived my entire childhood. My father and mother had quite a comfortable living in a larger house, but when my grandfather died my father bought the house directly at the side of his mother, though much smaller, to make sure she was looked after for the rest of her days. I have so many good memories of this street.
The grey house was ours (my fathers), and the cream coloured house was my grandmothers. My father had six brothers and sisters, I grew up with no brothers and sisters, but with around 40 cousins (including my mothers side too). Every weekend most of my aunts and uncles and cousins would come to visit my grandmother, which would then spill over into our house. As you can see from the size of the property, it got pretty damn crowded, but it built an extremely strong family bond.
Finally, I arrived at my oldest and best friends house, my cousin Dan. We look very similar, and people seem to think we are brothers, Dan is a very strange man, and reminds me of Seul (in a good way). When I arrived today he had cut his head shaving, and was covered in blood.
Dan doesn't know yet, but as he always asks me about Iron Heart I am going to give him my 634's for Christmas, great way to get him started I think.
I hope you have enjoyed the second look around a provincial English town, and an insight into what makes me as strange as I am
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Exactly
I'll be back later to correct all spelling and grammar errors, already amended 5 mistakes on the first post
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Thanks Twin, looking forward to meeting you buddy
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Oh no, there's plenty more…..none of it pleasant.
Next weekend we're going to try and get into Sherwood Forest for some Robin Hood action, and maybe meet some friends and family. Then off to New York to take the jeans back across the Atlantic.
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