ECHO 14/1/06

Leaving Bishampton – tears, so many tears. When I left my flat in London after 8 years I barely cared, a quick goodbye and that was that; here after only 2 months and the wrench is difficult and heartfelt. For me it was the peace I found in that garden, that little paradise, some connection there close to nature. The tight cosiness in the house itself. We leave it for the family to sort out now.

In Redditch we witness two confrontations close to brawls in one Saturday afternoon in the Kingfisher shopping centre. First, two lads (one black, one white) start pushing each other around outside the coffee shop in full view, cursing and swearing at each other; one has a face full of hatred at the other and for a moment it looks like it will erupt into a fight but the bolshy one eventually gives up and returns to his group of mates laughing and looking proud, like he has just achieved something. His gang is mixed girls and boys, and mixed races too. Later, in the bus station behind the centre a group of Asians (boys and girls) are accosting a bus company worker in a fluorescent vest, they have him surrounded and are effectively mobbing him, jeering at him as he tried to apprehend someone who hasn’t paid a fare. There is something medieval about the scene, a witch-hunt, and people look on some with laughter others with concern. The whole is teetering on the edge of becoming nasty but this hubbub doesn’t have the same opportunity for violence as the previous incident, instead it is just mass bullying of an individual, sheep following blindly one person’s misguided cause. Elsewhere in the town boys in their late teens walk in packs being as loud as they can, scaring girls waiting on their own for buses. We find strange mis-spelt graffiti on the car-park walls, talking of someone being owed ‘dews’.

Out in Holt Fleet we are safer. The moon rises over the low crest toward Droitwich and the quintessential winter mix of Redwing and Fieldfare take to the trees ahead of us. The River Severn is placid here, a calm reflector of the banks dotted with small wooden houses and weekend haunts; nooks, shacks, holiday huts and places of escape amid the trees, with sheep roaming and feeding where they will among them.