The end of last week, I went back to my ‘roots’ and made a trip (driven by the son, for which — many thanks) to Shropshire. First stop on Thursday night was Cleobury Mortimer, where I spoke about Romans in Britain in the local church (a familiar place from way back as my Dad used to be the architect, by which I don’t mean he designed it, but ‘looked after it’). We had great fun, or at least I did (there’s something always a bit exciting looking down a nave). And I think we made quite a bit of cash on ticket sales for the local ‘St Mary’s Youth Project‘.
Then it was overnighting in Much Wenlock, in the now agreeably poshed-up pub which had been one of my father’s drinking holes, the Raven. It was, I have to say, almost unrecognisable,apart I think for the car park, where I spent many a lonely hour waiting in the car with a coke and crisps, while he propped up the bar (the kind of child-minding which we took for granted then, but I strongly suspect doesn’t happen much any longer, without a knock on the door from Social Services).
I was born in Wenlock Hospital and lived there between the ages of about 5 and 12, in other words through much of the 60s — but to be honest I didn’t get much of a chance to become reacquainted with the town, apart from a quick drive round in the morning. Most of it seemed, like the Raven, to have moved a bit up-market, or at least residential. The bakery we had got the bread from is now a rather smart house, and the Police Station is now called the ‘Old Police Station’ and is a similarly desirable residence. The one big exception to this is my own old house (it’s what I am walking past in the picture at the top of this post). I hope I am not doing an injustice to the current residents of ‘Rose Cottage’ (it wasn’t called that when we lived in it: just plain ’25 Shineton St’), but it actually all looked quite a lot more run down than I remember it.
The reason we didn’t linger in Wenlock, was that we were making for Church Preen School, where my Mum had been head and where I had attended as an infant.
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