BIFF’S HILL VALLEY

I had to walk from the station to the bus stop in town the other night. It was because I’d been late back from London (team dinner, vegan restaurant, really interesting chat, but also one for another time)…

Anyway, I ambled out through the barriers, rucksack on back, hands in coat pockets, and I stepped into the cool, fresh night air.

It’s so odd how much our town centre has changed. Not just since I was a boy, I mean even in the last few years! Shops I knew that were once smartly trimmed and neatly arranged, boarded up. One had even gone altogether, turned into rubble behind grubby blue hoardings. Litter blew between the taxis, fast-food cardboard and rolling cans dribbling with horrible lager.

“Scuse me mate,”

“Hey could you spare us a little change?”

“I just need it for a cup of tea.”

“Hey, you got coins?”

I never know what you’re supposed to do.

It had been raining too, so grimy puddles were reflecting from all the potholes and the kerbs. And lights everywhere! The white glare of a dozen chicken shops, the headlamps of buses, the street lamps and safety lighting, the neon glow of Nando’s and Nero and Burger King and Zorba’s fish bar. I found myself wondering what on Earth someone from the long distant past would make of their quiet market town made luminous! It was enough to give me a headache.

I felt sad about all this. I felt terribly sad. It reminded me a bit of Marty McFly in 1985a.

At the bus stop, with the smell of rotting waste in the air, I found myself looking hopefully at the church behind the graveyard.

How long had it been there? What had changed around it? What had changed within it? What had those 900-year-old stones seen?

Trees whispered, litter blew. Rain spattered and the 33 bus drove into view - past the new Italian and the old dive where I’d once gotten furious at a pub quiz. That seems a lifetime ago. Bright lights aboard the 33 too.

Are we supposed to wait for the bus to take us home? You know, in the midst of all the sadness and the decay? Is that life? Or are we meant to do something about all this litter and homelessness and despair?

There was the church - the Minster - quietly stuck in the middle of Biff’s Hill Valley; ancient, silent, almost prayerful - in an incongruous world that used to be so different. It remains. The church remains. There was I, standing over the low wall, boarding the 33 for home.

I’d ignored those homeless people asking for money. I really don’t ever know what the right thing is to do, but I had blanked them. Sigh.

The bus rumbled into gear as I sat down. Homeward bound then. Rain streaked down the dark windows.