Tuesday 12 July 2011

Dortown thoughts

12 July 2011 

Dorktown on Tuesday is pretty much like any other day – dire, that is.  I was born here and I really do hate it here.  You might ask why I stay here then?  The simply answer is that I can’t afford to move anywhere else ... at the moment that is!  We are living in my mother’s house at the moment and once it does become mine we WILL be moving out back to Lancashire.  Why don’t I like it then?

In 1977 I was stationed in Cyprus and my parents used to send me the local paper so I could keep up with the local news I suppose.  At that time the town’s real name wasn’t all that well known and when you said you came from ... you would hear, “Never heard of it.  Where’s is it?”  Then the usual response was “About 10 miles north of Coventry.”  I got of fed up of saying it.  

Do you remember what happened in 1977?  Well, it was the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.  Now then, every year on the second Saturday of June the town holds its carnival day.  But in 1977 it clashed with the Jubilee so the council decided that they should delay it for a week.  That didn’t go down well with the then editor of the Evening Tribune.  He wrote a scathing editorial calling the council a bunch of second raters.   And he didn’t stop there.  He claimed that the council was actually what the town deserved seeing it was a second rate town full of second rate people who didn’t know any better.  It was the decision to move the carnival that caused to outburst.  He claimed that what should have happened was that the carnival should have gone ahead as planned but themed to link in the with Jubilee celebrations.  Instead they had moved it yet again playing second fiddle to someone else.  

The whole thing seemed to hit me quite hard at the time and I started to think that maybe he had something.  What surprised me then and still does is that there was so little or no reaction from the people of the town.  But the whole thing was to start me off on a real journey that has ended up with me not wishing to remain here for the rest of my life – however long that will be. 

When I got back from Cyprus I started to take much more note of what I saw and heard within the town and that continued when I left the army in October 1979.  What I saw really surprised me.  I saw men who looked down-trodden and talked with such negativity.  OK, Mad Maggie Thatcher was causing mayhem within the local jobs market.  But even that woman can’t be blamed for all of what I saw and heard.  There was so much sadness about.  Still, having got married and now living in a council house in the town, I had little choice but to remain here.   
                                  
Eventually we were able to do a mutual exchange with a couple living in Atherton in Greater Manchester.  Atherton is termed as being deprived, whatever that means.  The only sour note we had up there was we made the wrong choice of GP and we ended up with a pretty poor choice.  But the people themselves are so happy, so friendly, so open and welcoming.  We found the same all over Lancashire and Manchester area yet they too have suffered the same job losses and Dorktown has.  Yet they have dealt with it n a much more positive way.   

We moved up there in May 2008 and we had 9 months of pure happiness.  Then my brother died in January 2009 and we had to move back here to look after my mother ... and here we still are.  We will get back there soon I’m sure.

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