Poignant

I passed the Eastney Community Centre, named after someone called Frank Sorrell, just now.

It's where I saw Peter Doherty in a gorgeously small gathering in 2022. I think there were about 110 there which was great when he sells out tours of much bigger venues in an instant.

One might have thought they'd have put a preservation order and a blue plaque on it as the place where I saw Pete but, no, I expect it will be a block of flats there by next summer.

I've lifted these pictures from Facebook but will hope to replace them with a photo of my own so that it can continue the very occasional series of photos that brought to mind  poems, the poem in this case being Peter's great Far from the Madding Crowd from his lockdown album where he lamented the temporary closure of his performing spaces,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They closed down all the bars
...
Where am I 'posed to sing my song
Where the only place that I belong...

 

except they've knocked down that one for good now. 

It's probably very sentimental of me because I hardly knew the place was there before Pete's gig in it and I've not been in it again since but it does feel as if a tiny little piece of me and pop history went with it. Nowhere near as much as the devastating decision to let some dealers have all my pop vinyl for £120. That was idiotic. But gradually the past disappears behind you.

I'd better get myself to Nottingham as soon as I can before anything more I remember from the 1960's is removed or defaced but after sixty years maybe it's the difference I'm going back to see rather than the exact places and people as they were there in 1967.