Walking back time

In 1966, I was 15. I couldn't wait to leave school in Colchester (Britain’s first Roman city, with a 2000 year heritage. And which Pliny the Elder immortalised as Camulodunum), which had plagued me for four years, and where the only thing that I had truthfully learned was how to smoke. I went to college. College was better. There I met the 15 year old who would remain my friend until today, some 56 years later. The North East Essex Technical College and School of Arts Annex (1965 - 1990, in Lexden) which we had attended has long since changed its purpose to private flats.

Yesterday was bright. The sky was blue and encouraging, so I embarked upon two journeys simultaneously, one physical and one through my past within this old Roman city. It was a curious jaunt which had me meandering through timelines like a broken Tardis, from my early 20s back to being 15, then to my 30s etc etc etc. All this in 5.5 miles (8.96 km).

Firstly there was the road (Goojerat Road named for British involvement in India) that I had cycled to and from my workplace when I was in my very early twenties. The care home building is still there, but the name and ownership has changed. Then I walked into Prettygate, where my oldest friend lived back when we were 15. The area became so named because of the literally attractive gate to a farm (previously called Cooper's Farm from 1655) long since vanished and remembered only by the name and The Prettygate public house.

Down the road and down the hill I trod, recalling the cannabis smoking days and the first hashish high at 17, which turned out to be self delusion brought on unwittingly by part of an Oxo cube, rolled and innocently smoked. Then back to 15 again and the college annex grounds now a small parkland (Lexden Park is an 8.1 hectare Local Nature Reserve in Lexden, a suburb of Colchester in Essex, Wikipedia).

I crossed over to Spring Lane, obviously named due to the spring which still seeps water down the road in a small rivulet, and walked into Lexden Springs Nature Reserve which borders the now dilapidated ‘Old Rectory’ (1814) which has signs warning of wandering dogs used by Police. The Lexden Road end of Spring Lane contains many interesting houses including one which dates from 1671 but, in reality, is a mixture of well maintained and poorly maintained ‘listed’ buildings like the Old Rectory.

The beauty of the blue sky, and the amazing shining sun more, indicated Spring rather than the Winter we are supposed to be having in March, croci and daffodils along the way supported this thesis.

The damp and slightly muddy footpath (into the nature reserve) skirted the backs of houses for a while until it finally opened up to what could only be described as fields, with a hint of woodland at the Colchester town end (which I had always thought of as The Hilly Fields….more on this later). The shorn fields presented a haven for dog walkers, but little else. It was more like a walk through an older fallow farm than a ramble in nature, but it was nice to be out into (pretend) countryside.

Heading towards Colchester proper I weaved in and out to what barren woodlands I could, before eventually having to find my way back onto that original footpath which lead into pastures entirely familiar (ie the fields which in my school youthful, non-athletic, self was presented with cross-country running (which for me and my three friends was more like an amble than, and nothing at all like, an actual run). The path led, in one direction, down to that torturous school, in another to my old art school and yet another into town. I moved in the town direction and was glad that I remembered the direction well enough. From there I did a mini-shop, actually bought ‘Skate’ to make a fish curry, today, and wander back to this abode after 8.96 kilometres of walking. Not the longest I have done recently, but a good distance nevertheless.