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Leamington Letters #42: My kind of town

22/3/2013

16 Comments

 
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I live in a town which has recently been named as the 46th best place to live in the country. And even though the nomination emanated from the dreaded Murdoch press, I still feel a sense of pride that my adopted town has  been recognized for “all the benefits of a large town, and none of the disadvantages”.

Leamington Spa (I never use the Royal prefix and I know no-one who does) has certainly changed significantly since I arrived in 1970. Then, it still bore a passing resemblance to the town portrayed by John Betjeman in his poem Death in Leamington Spa:

Oh! Chintzy, chintzy cheeriness,
Half dead and half alive.

Do you know that the stucco is peeling?
Do you know that the heart will stop?
From those yellow Italianate arches
Do you hear the plaster drop?

The stucco is still peeling and the plaster is still dropping in many of the Regency townhouses and Victorian villas, and there remains an air of chintziness if not cheeriness in certain parts. But, and this is the element to which The Sunday Times is doubtless referring, there is an increasing vibrancy in the town, and it stems not so much from the council as from the residents themselves. The music scene, the literariness, the intellectual life, the bars and restaurants – all have grown from within over the last forty or so years.

Back in 1970, when I arrived, there was a small hippie underground, the development of which which has provided the initiative for projects such as the reclaiming of the Dell, struggles such as the fight to save the Pump Rooms and the local football club, and events such as the Peace Festival, which was started way back in 1978 and is now the longest-running free festival of its kind in the UK.

This underground was hidden from the casual visitor and, indeed, from the majority of inhabitants who were at the time voting in droves for Dudley Smith just as they had voted for Anthony Eden. But down in the Old Town, south of the river, in the CV31 postcode, there were record shops and second-hand book stores; there were good pubs and folk clubs; there were even Black and Asian people.

It was in this part of town, the other side of the railway tracks, that I chose to live initially, venturing north to work, shop and, from 1976, to drink in a newly-opened, funky wine bar called Wilde’s.

The Peace Festival is still going strong. The Dell hosts an annual community party which attracts more people each year. The Pump Rooms is not a private care clinic as the council planned but a library and art gallery. The music scene is flourishing. And Wilde’s, now in its 38th year, currently hosts the grandchildren of its first customers.

But around these, much has changed and is changing. The bourgeoisification of the town is pretty much complete with the closure of  the manufacturing companies AP and Ford. The chain stores and the restaurant chains have moved into town. The famous Regent Hotel, in which the young Princess Victoria stayed, is now a Travelodge and a Wagamama. Independent shops, for which the town was famous, have closed and a new Mall built in the centre, with another major development still threatened despite the Planning Committee’s refusal and the plethora of empty premises in the Parade and adjoining streets.

So is Leamington the 46th best place to live in the UK? I have no idea. But I do know that’s it’s been a great town in which to enjoy life and bring up kids.

And I know that we can only keep it so with vigilance.

Today’s listening: Heard some great sets recently, especially from the Bob Phillips Band and Clayton Denwood in the Mondays Unplugged season in Wilde’s. And it was Clayton’s rendering of Friend of the Devil that sent me back to the early ‘70s Dead shows. Not that I need a lot of prompting!

16 Comments
CJ
22/3/2013 10:09:10

Don't listen to albums as you know. And Friend of the Devil, or its absence, was a long, strange trip. Of the ones I saw, may 1970 at MIT stands out. I know you'll hape a tape of it ...

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max
23/3/2013 03:57:54

I have an AUD of the 7th, but not the Kent State rally free gig the day before. If you have this, would love a copy. Trade for Harpur College on the 2nd?

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max
23/3/2013 04:01:18

Not the Dick's Picks SBD, but a really good AUD which includes the New Riders and Jerry set!

Shaun
22/3/2013 12:09:04

A very good write up Max. Coincidentally, you arrived in 'Royal' Leamington Spa in the year that I did. The only difference, is I was in nappies, and you were in flares...x

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max
23/3/2013 04:06:21

LOL. Now you've embarrassed me! xx

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Anne
23/3/2013 03:29:57

I so remember my first trip to Leamington back in 1975 - as a new student immigrant from that there Kensington W8 I thought I'd found the Land of Middle-Class-England and Middle-Agedom combined and I ran away not to return for quite a few years - til I discovered Wildes Leamington Spa and also maybe started coming to terms with middle-agedom:-))

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Max
23/3/2013 04:08:33

It's coming to terms with the end of middle age that's currently the issue for me! As a pensioner next year, I'm looking to Don as my role model. x

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Martin
25/3/2013 11:47:42

Hi Max, I saw your blog and it took me back to those book (and related goods, particularly a new type of dangerous post card) shops off Bath Street in the late 1970s, with their selections on politics, poetry, philosophy, religion, mysticism and healthy practice. They were a heady mix of incense and living possibilities, and seemed to be populated mostly by wizards, mystics and elves. What wonderful places they were

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Max
25/3/2013 11:53:11

They were. I suspect your categorisation is more acute than mine. I think I just thought we were all kinda 'alternative'. There's a good piece from James of the Swaps on his website about growing up with the record shop down there, and how the music influenced him and his peers (20 years behind us). www.theswaps.co.uk. Commended.

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Martin
25/3/2013 11:59:29

The Girton Girls and Hampden Dairy seem as though from another age; and a survivor of that age (in addition to Wilde's, for which thank you): F. Hazel Smith on Regent Street (purveyors of fine wide-brimmed fur-felt trilbies, among the other things that a gentleman's quality wardrobe should contain).

We shall not see their like again when they are gone. May they prosper.

Max
25/3/2013 12:05:18

Ah yes, F Hazel Smith is still with us I am delighted to say. But the Girton Girls are long gone. For non Leamington readers, the Girton Girls ran an excellent independent bookshop in which a few of us spent more time and money than we should, but to no avail.

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Sean
26/3/2013 05:01:20

46th? I'd have had it higher. Miss Leamington still. a rather wonderful place to have been lucky enough to grow up near, and live in. Strange how I now live equidistant from the 'most dangerous road in Britain' (Stapleton Road, Easton) and one of the loveliest yet snobbiest areas (Clifton). Did Bristol make the list?

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Max
27/3/2013 06:07:03

Interesting. To be honest, it was the Sunday Times and I was just skimming through it before settling into the Observer. Not sure if Bristol figured, although remember that Stamford was #1. Maybe it was just towns rather than cities. But hey, season starts on Monday ....

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Sean
27/3/2013 09:56:22

Can't wait. Incidentally, I've recently read Hhhh by Laurent Binet about Operation Anthropoid in WWII and just discovered that the men who carried out the assassination were stationed and trained in Leamington Spa, based in Newbold Terrace and trained in Moreton Paddox. There is a commemorative fountain to them in Jephson Gardens. You learn something new every day!

myers
30/3/2013 03:08:21

I must be one of only a few people left who have had the pleasure of staggering up the Parade (apart from every Friday!) from underneath the pavement!( Happy days in the Fire Service?) Apart from that dubious fact, my mum , born in the Republic of Cubbington, first ventured to Leamington when she was 14! No money to spend and nothing to excite was her verdict. That was then, there have been many improvements but there are still too many churches and not enough bars!

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Max
30/3/2013 04:08:21

Love your mum's verdict: nothing to excite. And the vision of you below the pavement rather than crawling along it will stay with me for a long time. Not enough bars? You sure about this, John?

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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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