 |
 |
|
|
|||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||
|
||
A spider's web | photography/text: pablo luis gonzález |
Click on images to enlarge |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
© Pablo Luis González 2004 Photographs can be used at no charge for non-commercial purposes, ie, community groups, students, schools, etc. To request an image or images email me with a description and location of the photograph(s), stating your proposed use of them. A JPEG file(s) at 300 dpi will be emailed back as soon as possible. No further copies can be made without the permission of the copyright holder. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
4. 69 Argyle Street. That was the house. I approached it with some trepidation, having walked through what seemed to be still a Edwardian street lined with small shops of all kinds: groceries, a small bakery, a bric-a-brac store, a barber, the front room of a terraced house that had become a newsagent, all of which were to be gone within a few months. But I did not know that when I knocked on the door, after trying to figure out where was a door bell that did not exist. "Flatmate wanted to share house" - the card on the pin board at the School of Architecture had said, my mind boring into the recesses of times bygone. The rent was quite low, the paint on the door was peeling away, the gas cooker was filthy as I was soon to discover; however, it was an opportunity to get out of the hole that passed for a bed-sitter, with a gas fire that had tried unsuccessfully to assassinate me, and conveniently facing the cemetery on Spring Bank West - no more guarding the coin operated electricity meter early in the mornings to make sure I would have hot water later for a shower! Dreams could continue to unfold for a few minutes more. Whatever I was to expect from the person who would open the door, I could already hear the steps as a shadow approached the door, I knew that it was likely that I would be living in the house for the next few years. And that was what I did for the following four years, sharing it with a Greek architectural student from the island of Mykonos and several other transient, and not-so-transient, figures; including Girl, a young female grey and white cat who started a feline dynasty that lasted for over twenty years. A silent young petite Irish girl coyly stood every week in the hallway as we went to get the rent money for her until, one day, she stopped coming for never to return. The yellow crosses painted onto bright blue diamond shaped panels on an even brighter orange wall refused to leave the room, in spite of having been politely asked after repeated coats of white emulsion paint were laid over to shut them up, at least. The caring and sociable young woman who lived in a bed-sitter in a tall house opposite ours, with a tower shouting its presence to the passing street, whom I suspected worked the streets, soon moved away. Boards replaced the shy net curtains on the windows. One morning there was no more bread as the bakery on the corner stayed inscrutably closed, plastic sliced bread being the only option for a while as we researched for an alternative source of good tasteful loaves. The headlines on the newspapers stopped dancing in a riot of news for us every morning as the newsagents stand was no longer one, being replaced by the damp smell of an empty property. The mugs chatting happily in the kitchen became progressively more desolate as they were not able to gossip any more during the slow hours of the afternoon with fellow crockery as their parent pottery shop was also closed. Corrugated zinc sheeting became fashionable as the new net curtains as the street was emptied of its humanity by the invading hordes of the market forces. Thatcher's era was not far away, waiting just further up the road, ready to jump and trap all of us for ever and ever, at its still seems to be the case. One evening the whole block was no longer there, having thoroughly vanished throughout the day, a pile of pitiful rubble having replaced it, just detritus of a time that was inexorably receding more and more deeply into forgotten nooks of history. Pablo Luis González / Hull January 2004 Part 5 | Printer friendly | Don't Miss the Sun » Comment »
Do you want to receive news? | Subscribe » Report a broken link | Report » SEARCH | INDEX | UPDATE | EMAIL Page updated: 30 November 2004 |
|
|
|
