A City at Second Hand

The town where you attend university will be forever significant to you. 

That street corner is the place where Somebody first held your hand, that bridge is where you and your friends whistled the Ride of the Valkyries  so loudly one night that you woke the neighbourhood.  That second-hand book shop is where you bought the little calf-bound copy of Thackeray.  

The town is a map of your youth.

But I also expected to have some sort of a relationship with the cities where my children were at university. When Pascoe went to Norwich I looked forward to getting to know the city.  I would have a confident grasp of its layout, know good places to eat, be familiar with its heritage. 

When he gained his degree and moved on (all of five minutes later), I felt like shouting “Wait! I’ve barely scratched the surface of Norwich.”

And now, as Perran comes to the close of his studies, we are facing the end of our romance with Bristol.  When we visited last month, it was important to take our leave of old haunts – Pero’s Bridge, the murals of Stokes Croft, Banksys, vintage shops on Park Street.

But vibrant Bristol just wouldn’t lie down.  Instead, it presented us with a whole new area to explore – the heritage area of the docks where we went aboard the replica of Cabot’s ship and Brunel’s SS Great Britain. We had a great time, and I suspect that Bristol will never become a city of memories for us – we shall go on visiting.