Hatfield.
It seems my life has been lived in shite towns.

I think I'm destined to venture from one to the next, desperate to move on, but compelled to remain hopelessly trapped for too long in too awful a place.

To begin with, let's have a look at Hatfield.

I've since lived in Peckham, Lewisham, Deptford & a few other equally stabby corners of South East London. I've worked in Hounslow for well over seven years; a town that seems overrun by youths with a sharp, pointy look in their eye and the ever present threat of "Gunny" hiding about their person; yet no town has left me feeling less safe than Hatfield.

In pursuit of the then love of my life, blended almost too perfectly with the heady promise of a Music degree, I packed up my room in Spalding (a truly unique town that I'll come onto later) and set fair for the promise of Hatfield Poly, or "The Univershity of Hertfordshite" as it is so easily misspelled. My first days were spent living in a glorious stoned haze, my sweetheart crushed alongside me in an over-soft single bed as we smoked & humped our way through lazy afternoons while the summer slid carelessly into a warm and colourful autumn.

Its one of those places where the very mention causes anyone who knows of it to draw air through their teeth and shake their head like a builder who's about to shaft you. At first I didn't get why... maybe my brain was clouded by a fog of smoke and wrapped in a sexy haze, but it seemed idyllic to my mind and I couldn't have been happier.

Until, that is, the first time I was awoken by a stolen car. Some towns have a reputation for car thievery that stretches way beyond its boundaries; Hatfield truly deserved such acclaim, and I was to discover this on an almost nightly basis once the clocks had rolled back and the nights long drawn in. The first instance came with an horrific bang that shook me from my stoned slumber in the shivery hours of the morning. Outside my window was a road that seemed popular with the local Car Liberation Front and the halls opposite me were a regular dumping ground for their unwanted booty. The occupants of this particular motor had neglected to use the roundabout in a conventional "round-a-bout" fashion, instead opting for a daredevil leap over it. By the time I'd got myself downstairs to investigate (including a short wait to see if anyone else would get there first), only the driver was still hanging around. A short exchange left us in the knowledge that he was "fucking alright, ok?", that we could "cunt off if we intend to call the rozzers." (yes really, rozzers) and that we were a bunch of "cunty student twats, fucking stupid, cunting fuc... [here follows a long, unhinged bout of incomprehensible ranting and raving accompanied by a fair selection of drool and a far away look].". He swiftly staggered away talking about the "fucking hospital", none of us had the inclination to point him in the opposite direction, that of the actual hospital.

I soon grew accustomed to these instances and the screeching twin tones of a police siren swiftly began to produce a Pavlovian effect that would see me leap to the window in the knowledge that I'd be treated to yet another wildly entertaining display of ridiculously poor driving (I wasn't the most diligent of students, by any means). I'm sure it'd remain true to this day, but the years spent in the South East of London gave that familiar two tone tune a very different meaning...
( Moey, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 16:39, Reply)