Outsider

I rejoice in the sense of my own sure-footedness, and the comfort of a buttoned cardigan†, on a chilly August day, walking through a stubble-field in a slow insistent drizzle. My path takes me behind a row of sturdy houses. Their backyards look untidy from the rear, with canvas chairs left outside to get wet, children’s toys left strewn for another day.

This fresh-cut stubble is more golden than the dull ochre of uncut barley. It gleams metallic, even on a damp overcast day. To be “sound in in wind and limb” gives me an overall sense of gratitude; to feel in my pride, like a young man. I wander with no dog as companion. just this voice  recorder, to share immediate impressions. Since a stubble-field has already been harvested, you are no longer obliged to keep to the footpath. Wandering unimpeded, I go to the top of the ridge for a long-range view on all sides. Here I catch a sharp wind.

Amongst other detritus, I find an unopened bag of potato crisps. I open and eat. Is it angel-sent, Manna from heaven?

Ugh! I think not, but I finish it anyway, so that I can screw up the empty bag and put in my pocket, rather than drop litter in a sacred place, though it was already litter when I found it. Compared to the blessing of home-cooked food each day, such factory-fare seem as ashes in my mouth.

From this place, Gore Hill, I gaze down on roof-tops and survey the world of work. Over there is a hospital car park, whose attendant, in a yellow reflective vest, checks the authorisation of each arrival. Fortunately, as a pedestrian, I can go there without being stopped! I shall wander lonely as a cloud. through concrete mazes of the built world. O glory! O wonder! This is so great. I am uplifted, cleansed by the wind. My spirit swells, as if to express “This is my home. It welcomes me.”

It’s true that I’ve only been able to walk like this for the past year. Before this, a mysterious illness made it impossible, except in imagination. even in dreams, I’d roam like this amongst the hills, anxious that i’d run out of energy and be stranded.

Now is the time of  thanking God, an invented God if necessary, in order to have someone to thank. I descend the hill to  Whielden Street, under the Cornes Bridge, where the bypass goes overhead. Pigeon families roost here. Dried guano is crunchy underfoot, and the sound of vehicles overhead echoes dully.

Turn left and I’m at the Hospital, passing first the Haleacre Unit, where brisk nurses guard the insane. I look down a slope to their exercise yard, protected by a high wire fence, like a POW camp. A man stands, reading his newspaper and smoking. Two other patients are engaged in deep conversation. I certainly look madder than they, my cardigan bedewed in drizzle, and a floppy canvas hat low over my eyes.

I reach the car park attendant and greet him politely in passing. He’s startled as if caught out, but stammers a reply: “Good morning, Sir.” It’s the senior staff car park, where pecking order rules. Poor man, he must think I’m an off-duty Professor of Psychiatry whose face he has unaccountably forgotten.

I stride towards the interesting building I’d spotted from the hill. Its plate says “Day Nursery”. I discover that it’s a dead-end, even for pedestrians. A couple of women eye me suspiciously, as if I were an ogre seeking infant flesh for breakfast.  I look back at the golden hill of barley stubble, where I was standing just a few minutes before.

Gazing from a distance, or being there, Which is better? I’ve been on both sides now

* The building in front was originally the Workhouse: built in 1838 following an amendment to the Poor Law, & designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott.

It was still a workhouse in 1930, when it was converted to a hospital. More recently it has been reconverted to flats.

† Cardigan: I bought it in 1991 at a pavement stall near the Vatican. It went ragged at the elbows and is slowly disintegrating around the leather patches I sewed on at some point. I don’t display it outdoors any more except in the front or backyard. I’ve given up trying to find a replacement with those loose sleeves & sloppy fit. It finally fell apart after 27 years.