This piece comes a little late. I was waiting until I had made a day trip to Birmingham to meet old student friends. We met regularly before Covid and, in those far off days before 2020, there might have been between four and eight of us getting together. Last Wednesday I was to catch up with just two of the friends I had shared accommodation with [ and a very skanky student house it was too] over the three years I spent in the city from 1967 to 1970. How smart New Street Station had become. I sat by the huge mechanical bull, looking at it through the glass of a Prêt à Manger and watched the bustle.
Then I saw my two friends meeting up in the concourse and joined them. We embraced, held each other as if we were holding onto a promise of life and vigour.
Finding a café we had coffee and we talked. We talked of those who were not there. We talked of those who were not still in the world. We talked about families, music and gigs. We reconnected over the 57 years or so since we met. It was funny, moving and affectionate. It was a lot. When we got up to go about four hours later the hugs were longer and even more heartfelt… I may have used the words ‘love’ whispered into an ear..
Only today while pondering this experience I remembered a poem from ‘A Bench for Billie Holiday’, written in about 2017 about meeting up with one of my two friends and walking around the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery together [an old haunt and full of gorgeous Pre-Raphaelite painting; you should go].
It reflects on some of the feelings I had just this week.
Stained Glass – return to Brum
When we were last here many decades since
We were unbroken glass chipped but clear
As we walk I’m looking for clues some hints
To our boyhood spent in this city here.
And it slowly returns history revealed
A carved Victorian building, your voice and its tone
Hidden memories that callouses concealed
As we talk of the time we’ve lived in between.
Occasionally I look round with a trawling gaze
Refocus on time past and present now
This art gallery café is in many ways
A link to us then. I find you somehow
Both boys are gone, all innocence must pass
Broken. remade a window of stained glass.From ‘A Bench for Billie Holiday’ [Valley Press 2018]
