So on Saturday, I hinted that I had an adventure coming up on Monday. I had to take pop bottles back and everything to scrape the bus fare together to go meet Charlie Chalk over Wednesbury.
SInce January, we've been planning to go to the art gallery in Wednesbury to go see a science fiction exhibition which has some real Daleks.
I'm not sure if I have ever seen a real one, though I do have a very faint recollection I may have seen one at the boys and girls exhibition at Bingley Hall in BIrmingham in the early sixties.
I more clearly remember being trussed up in some sort of harness by some sailors and dragged across the span of a wide pool, terrified at such a young age and possibly why I have nothing to do with sailors in adult life !.
My dad was a bugger for things like that, he'd see something and would never ask if I wanted ot try it, I'd just be thrown into the fray. I remember on the same day he was about to throw me into the clutches of the army about thirty foot up a scaffold, to be trussed up once more and thrown off in a simulated parachute jump. Fortunately for me, you had to be about eight to be subjected to such torture and I was only six, so the army rejected me. I have plenty of nightmare memories of similar experiences of days out with dad in New Brighton circa 1963.
Anyhow, we got to the art gallery and all was deserted. Found an unlocked door and a deserted reception desk and no further access. Perhaps the Daleks extrminated everyone, I suggested.
We went back outside and then Mr. Chalk found a phone number and called to see if indeed the Daleks had got loose. The less fantastic truth was that the art gallery only opens on Thursdays and Fridays now (due to the cuts) and then only at certain times of the day, so my nervous encounter with real Daleks was cancelled.
Mr. Chalk tried to cheer me up with the offer of an ice cream, but my disappointment wasn't to be swept away quite so easily and we went to the pub instead.
I've mentioned Wetherspoons before. Despite all their efforts otherwise, this is looked upon as a downmarket chain because the beer is sold cheap. No reason to dub them downmarket for their prices except cheap beer and town centre locations attracts all the piss head duffers especially as they open early in the morning too.
The one in Walsall located in an old cinema is like most of the town centre pubs, a dismal place. As well as the aformentioned piss head trash, you stick to the carpet and the atmosphere is unpleasant and menacing.
The Wednesbury one is a lot better, possibly because you get a better class of piss head over there, who knows.
Where the big surprise came was in the food served here.
Wetherspoons try very hard to present themselves as major players in the market. They have a lot of outlets and apparently are doing well (considering the price of beer has devastated the hobby of social drinking).
For pub food, they try to present slightly different to the usual deep freeze to deep fat fryer crap served in most chain pubs, but pub food is pub food and I wasn't expecting anything more than ornery vittals when I ordered the penne carbonara.
Did I get a shock, as in a dish that was better than any pasta or carbonara had in any Italian restaurant.
Usually, a carbonara sauce has these little bits of ham in that's been dried. It tastes of nothing, is chewy and tends to stick in your throat. Yesterday's lunch contained large pieces of smoked bacon which was delicious and combined nicely with the light garlic falvour of the sauce. The pasta was cooked to perfection and the garlic ciabatta on the side was very welcome as I love garlic.
All I can say is top marks Wetherspoons (and a pity the Bellweather pub isn't here in Walsall).
As we walked back to the bus station, we passed through the old high street. My first job interview was here, at Pawsons photographers as photogaphers assistant back in 1974 or might have been 75. I didn't take the job as it only paid six pounds a week and the job I took the next week at Wessons Steel Mill paid £ 11.
Considering my interest in photography then and now, I wonder how life would have turned out had I become Arthur Pawson's assistant. Notice I said didn't take the job. Yes, back then, you could choose your career direction.
I didn't regret my choice to join Wesson's (which closed down last year). I had an excellent boss in Phil Holder who taught me a lot about the steel industry and sent me on visits to other steelmakers, such as Round Oak which is now where Merry Hill shopping centre is. Yes, I know all about Bessemer converters, hot rolled, cold rolled and bright drawn mild steel...
So despite not going there very often, I have a lot of affection for Wednesbury and have to say it is still a nice and busy little retail town.
This shop caught my eye.
It amazed me to see that there are still old shops around like this outfitters. The thing that caught my eye, was the fifties stlye livery, though on examining the picture this is later than that, because the signage is vinyl on glass and original fifties would have been hand painted (like Woolworths shops used to be).
Also, with supermarkets selling absolutely everything these days including cheap clothes, the fact a shop like this survives is frankly a mystery to me, but they have my admiration. Cheap toggies from Tesco are all very nice, but the bedrocks of our townlife have been dug up. Walsall isn't much of a town (lots of empty shops etc). Darlaston almost died when Asda fell out with the council, closed their supermarket and didn't come back for years. Jowetts (fishmongerers and fruiterers) Kingstons (an excellent butchers which only went to the wall about 2 years ago but was there when I was a kid), Bedworths (greengrocery) all in tiny little once bustling Darlo (the town not the girl I wrote about on here).
The Chalk found a picture of the very same shop taken in 1966, not much changed has it ?
And to think, that sprog in the unattended push chair, if not adbucted by now, will be all grown up with spawn of its own.
I mentioned to Charlie Chalk a fishmonger with an open double front shop that used to be in the high street in Wednesbury, which is no longer there. He told me that was his uncle. All I had to say was in 1980 I bought two pairs of kippers there, one which we stuffed down the knickers of our receptionist who was leaving to get married, the other I ate for my tea (as I am a fiend for kippers, yet never have them as the upset my stomach).
And you know, I sometimes wonder if Darlo (the girl) is Black Country after all. Firstly because she told me she was having asparagus wrapped in Parma ham the other day (we don't get that sort of stuff down here in the BIrchills). Then, I texted her this morning asking if she wanted to come * rottin and er day know what I was on about.
Asparagus and Parma ham... I ask you, what is the world coming to?
* And in case you were were wondering, rotting is hunting for rats, usually down by the cut and after yo kill em, they'm jed rots.
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