cramlington
My school's badge was the outline of a red phoenix - the school explained this saying that the town itself, Cramlington, my hometown, had been born a mining town that had taken a hit when the country's mines started closing in the 1980s. The town's main source of income gone. But Cramlington had rebuilt itself, they said, becoming a prosperous little town "Like a phoenix rising from the ashes" my head teacher described it. It's where I grew up.
Said school was named Cramlington Learning Village. The name alone reveals what this place was: an ordinary school trying to be something it wasn't. It had buildings with names like Investigate and Imagine and Innovate, and subjects with names like Create and Secure and Learn2Learn. The school's bell was the song Respect by Aretha Franklin, blasted to my ears every morning, home time, break time, end of every lesson. (A fine song I'm sure, but one that has a Clockwork Orange style Ludovico technique effect on me when I hear it now). My school year was the first to attend the Junior Learning Village, the fancy new building of the high school. 'Great, so you guys are just guinea pigs for the school' my mum sarcastically quipped about me and my friends. Not long after I started there the school was upgraded to an Academy, on the basis it had scored an "outstanding" in every Ofsted category. The school made the news; the teachers gloated endlessly. And by the time I was leaving the school had been downgraded back to high school status, Ofsted deciding the institution was barely adequate.
It's obvious to me my feelings towards the town are mixed with my memory of school and adolescence. How couldn't it be? When I see the word Cramlington written down the same part of my brain lights up that lights up when I see my own name written down. It's a familiarity etched into me as if known to me from the womb. I lived in the same house for nearly 19 years until I packed bags and moved down country to university near Liverpool - it took a long time to sever the umbilical cord the town left attached to me. Surely such a connection is never entirely severed. Returning now, though some fog might have lifted, it's still hard to see the place with fresh, unbiased eyes.
Economists might call it a "spill over" location - just outside, and clearly somewhat indebted to, a nearby city: Newcastle. At university, when asked where I was from I'd say Newcastle. Everyone at university are from their nearest city. This made me a Geordie, despite this closeness to Newcastle having never been a part of my identity before. The only question people had for me was "have you seen Geordie Shore?". And yeah I had. A show about a load of pissheads going out on the lash every night to pick up girls and flex their muscles. What a strange thing to be associated with. Growing up my dad told me the comedian Ross Noble was in the year above him in school. And in my local pub a large poster of Sting adorned one of the walls. Neither men much impressed me and, as a young boy with stars in his eyes, that these were the only two people of my town to gain any sort of fame filled me with an existential dread.
It's mainly, if not entirely, inhabited by people of the "working class", but the concept of class never entered my mind until after leaving. Maybe this was simply a privilege of being an only child in a family that, if not well off, never had to worry about money. It was a place I couldn't imagine the media ever visiting. And so to me living there was as good as living on an alien planet. It didn't make me a part of anything: not part of the rest of the world's view of Britain, which meant London; not part of the Kitchen Sink working class of the media, which meant Liverpool and Manchester; not part of the rural countryside or the suburbs. We had fields and hills but no farmers. We had a shopping centre but only chav kids to shop in it. We had druggies but no hippies. No music scene. An artless place - a nowhere place with nowhere people.
In high school I had a problem with day dreaming. I'd miss friend's conversation and teacher's guidance wishing myself away. Thinking of the great things I'd do and see if only I could leave. And then I did leave. And when I'd come back and visit I'd return with a smug resentment. Friends still working the same jobs, having nights out in the same bars, chasing after the same girls. The boredom I experienced upon coming back only reinforced the excitement I felt being away.
And later, when the responsibility-less life of living on a university campus faded away, and the stresses of the real world settled into me, Cramlington changed again. The stagnant setting, the empty streets, the people content with a life that I wasn't content with. The boringness provided a nice reprieve. Boredom eventually - quite quickly, actually - becomes a cage. But the world can sometimes be cold and a cage can, on occasion, provide a warm shelter. The best shelter available.
Like a friendship, your relation to a place is in a constant state of flux. Cramlington will continue to change for me as I change. I can only take the place in small doses, but, for now at least, it has a warmth to it that it lacked for me growing up.
Said school was named Cramlington Learning Village. The name alone reveals what this place was: an ordinary school trying to be something it wasn't. It had buildings with names like Investigate and Imagine and Innovate, and subjects with names like Create and Secure and Learn2Learn. The school's bell was the song Respect by Aretha Franklin, blasted to my ears every morning, home time, break time, end of every lesson. (A fine song I'm sure, but one that has a Clockwork Orange style Ludovico technique effect on me when I hear it now). My school year was the first to attend the Junior Learning Village, the fancy new building of the high school. 'Great, so you guys are just guinea pigs for the school' my mum sarcastically quipped about me and my friends. Not long after I started there the school was upgraded to an Academy, on the basis it had scored an "outstanding" in every Ofsted category. The school made the news; the teachers gloated endlessly. And by the time I was leaving the school had been downgraded back to high school status, Ofsted deciding the institution was barely adequate.
It's obvious to me my feelings towards the town are mixed with my memory of school and adolescence. How couldn't it be? When I see the word Cramlington written down the same part of my brain lights up that lights up when I see my own name written down. It's a familiarity etched into me as if known to me from the womb. I lived in the same house for nearly 19 years until I packed bags and moved down country to university near Liverpool - it took a long time to sever the umbilical cord the town left attached to me. Surely such a connection is never entirely severed. Returning now, though some fog might have lifted, it's still hard to see the place with fresh, unbiased eyes.
Economists might call it a "spill over" location - just outside, and clearly somewhat indebted to, a nearby city: Newcastle. At university, when asked where I was from I'd say Newcastle. Everyone at university are from their nearest city. This made me a Geordie, despite this closeness to Newcastle having never been a part of my identity before. The only question people had for me was "have you seen Geordie Shore?". And yeah I had. A show about a load of pissheads going out on the lash every night to pick up girls and flex their muscles. What a strange thing to be associated with. Growing up my dad told me the comedian Ross Noble was in the year above him in school. And in my local pub a large poster of Sting adorned one of the walls. Neither men much impressed me and, as a young boy with stars in his eyes, that these were the only two people of my town to gain any sort of fame filled me with an existential dread.
It's mainly, if not entirely, inhabited by people of the "working class", but the concept of class never entered my mind until after leaving. Maybe this was simply a privilege of being an only child in a family that, if not well off, never had to worry about money. It was a place I couldn't imagine the media ever visiting. And so to me living there was as good as living on an alien planet. It didn't make me a part of anything: not part of the rest of the world's view of Britain, which meant London; not part of the Kitchen Sink working class of the media, which meant Liverpool and Manchester; not part of the rural countryside or the suburbs. We had fields and hills but no farmers. We had a shopping centre but only chav kids to shop in it. We had druggies but no hippies. No music scene. An artless place - a nowhere place with nowhere people.
In high school I had a problem with day dreaming. I'd miss friend's conversation and teacher's guidance wishing myself away. Thinking of the great things I'd do and see if only I could leave. And then I did leave. And when I'd come back and visit I'd return with a smug resentment. Friends still working the same jobs, having nights out in the same bars, chasing after the same girls. The boredom I experienced upon coming back only reinforced the excitement I felt being away.
And later, when the responsibility-less life of living on a university campus faded away, and the stresses of the real world settled into me, Cramlington changed again. The stagnant setting, the empty streets, the people content with a life that I wasn't content with. The boringness provided a nice reprieve. Boredom eventually - quite quickly, actually - becomes a cage. But the world can sometimes be cold and a cage can, on occasion, provide a warm shelter. The best shelter available.
Like a friendship, your relation to a place is in a constant state of flux. Cramlington will continue to change for me as I change. I can only take the place in small doses, but, for now at least, it has a warmth to it that it lacked for me growing up.
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