Speeding along, the National Express meets the tangle of the spaghetti junction across the river Tame.

 

Connecting me to London.  Birmingham to London. London to Birmingham. Connecting me to my Birmingham

 

Past the Aston Reservoir and the cement tomb of the Salford cycle track and then looming into view.....and dominating the grey, brown, blue.... Fort Dunlop. Gatekeeper of our second city.

 

Past the long, low engine sheds.

‘What are they for dad?’

‘It’s where they make string’

And I believed him for years.

 

Queensway, ring way, underpass and subway.       All point Rotunda way. Memories of walkway through the dark belly of the Midland Red Bus Station, dodging pools of diesel and squashed chips and....up the escalator to The Bullring Shopping Centre.

 

An air conditioned crypt of broken light bulbs, hanging neon shop signs (dead and dulled by the 90s), no longer a template but stark, drab and dingy, serving only to typify a decaying city

 

The sand-stone city ridge declines steeply into Digbeth and it’s lurkish coach station. Waiting, in all of it’s dark brick dank and smelly glory, for me, to come home.

 

It's what you knew and know, rather than the new, that makes you love.

 

 

On to the suburbs. Handsworth to the North. ‘Walking along just kicking stones' to the South.

My side of town. Sparkbrook,  Moseley, Balsall Heath.

The Irish, the Jamaican, joining the workforce and bringing the ‘craic’ and the reggae beat.

‘On the threshold of a dream of a promised land, people of all nations walking hand in hand' down the Ladypool Road, once with a pub on every corner, to refuel those that worked to rebuild a Birmingham that town planners constantly pull down

 

‘Four bunches a pound’

‘Four fer a pound’

‘Four fer a pound, two fer fifty’

 

Now, the Balti Triangle rings to the Bhangra beat and sounds of the Punjabi diaspora.

To the Grind Core. To the Hard Core. To the irony tinged Futurism. Goldie. God Flesh. Heavy Rock and the Birmingham sound.

All coming back to.....the sound.....

 

Of Metal!

 

All resonating to the industrial pulse of the city. Echoing to the noise of anvils To the sound of the Factories

 

Whilst birds sing an empty whistle in all those that have closed

Red brick greenhouses for the wild to wander in and grow.

Some bright and redeveloped, some desolate and bleak. Stoic and still standing windows broke like jagged teeth.

Weather beat and crumbling as nature takes a hold. Bradford Street, Digbeth, canals and Coventry Road.

Council estates, tower blocks, launderettes and Spars. Tangled swings and roundabouts stand still in empty parks

 

Waiting.....waiting....waiting.......For the new!